Is Academic Philosophy Dead? with Fr. Deacon Dr. Ananias

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The hell.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
All right, welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. This is doctor
David Patrick Harry with Church of the Eternal Logos, and
I am joined by father Deacon Doctor and and I
is how you doing today, sir? Your mike's muted? F y,
I it's on stream yard, forgive me.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
I muted when we're on when we're on backstage, And okay.
J J. Dyers says, I'm mute.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
I should have.

Speaker 3 (00:56):
I should have always a pleasure to be with your
dear brother.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
And no, today's gonna be fun, man. And I want
to say for all the fellas out there, this is
gonna be. This is basically a night with the boys
just talking philosophy. And so if you'd like pour yourself
a couple of fingers, sit back. We're gonna be We're
be diving. We're gonna be going from the ancient period

(01:21):
to the modern, and we're gonna be really focusing on
contemporary philosophy and kind of where the errors are. And
so the posing question that I put in the title
for today's stream is academic philosophy dead. And I put
a document together we're gonna kind of riff off of
as we go through today's stream. But before we even

(01:42):
get into the document, I think we should already just
go ahead and you know, answer the question, father, deacon, doctor,
do you feel like academic philosophy is dead? You hear me?

(02:07):
Can you hear me?

Speaker 3 (02:12):
I hear you. You're just coming a little broken. One second.
Let me see if I can close down some stuff
if you don't mind, just okay, if you can get better.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
M h. Sorry, guys, we gotta do deal with some
boomer tech issues internet.

Speaker 3 (02:35):
Yeah. R hold on, I was just waiting for my
dial up.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
Hold on a second, I thought I heard that in
the background. Is it?

Speaker 3 (02:47):
Let me guess I didn't even hear it. Let me
guess what the question is? Is it is a professor?
Do I believe that academia is dead? Did I get
that right? Hold on?

Speaker 2 (03:09):
That's essentially yeah, that's essentially what I'm going at. It
is the field of profession that you are involved in?
Is it coming to a screeching hole?

Speaker 3 (03:21):
There's an end in sight. I just don't know how close,
you know, Just like with contemporary kind of society, just
when you think you're like, well, this has got to
be the end, there's no way, you know. I thought
twenty twenty was going to be like, well, this is it.
We're all living in pods to get ready, and you're

(03:44):
always kind of surprised. Academia is kind of like that too,
you Uh, I thought, obviously, I believe the model's kind
of not sustainable in the ideologies. I'm not a very
good predictor of exactly when that's gonna end, So I

(04:06):
probably you know, I've been as a professor for what
I think. The first time I started teaching in the
university was probably two thousand and five, and then I
went back for my PhD, and then came back in
two thousand well of January twenty twelve to teach. Even

(04:38):
back that it just seems to keep going. Do you
kind of get that feeling too, like with stuff in
the world, that it's like, man, this is this is
gonna end real quick. And the kind of resilience or
durability despite the kind of problems kind of always surprised me.

(04:58):
But I think we can all agree and we'll get
into the details of why exactly this is the case
that it's not a sustainable model. It is collapsing, So
you are correct how fast and when the end is
I don't know. I can't tell you that.

Speaker 2 (05:17):
Well, and then that's kind of to clarify what my
running theory is. So to the question is academic philosophy dead,
I would say, yes, the modernist project is coming to
an end, and so am I arguing that being a
professional philosopher is ending. Absolutely not, That's not what I mean.

(05:37):
And actually what I would say in regard to this,
and this is my running thesis that I have in
my book regarding the pre modern and the modern, that
all well of Western Christianity has now adopted modern presuppositions,
and only Orthodoxy sort of offers the pre modern alternative
that allows for mystery and a focus on a holding
of traditional metaphysics and a focusing on being and therefore

(06:00):
or philosophy leading towards theosis if you want to even
use that. Even though philosophy, theology you know, different categories.
But my point is it led to an actual ontological
transformation of the individual. I mean, you find this in Plato,
and you find this in Aristotle, and this is part
of the basis of ancient philosophy. And then within the

(06:21):
Church we sort of take the rationality and the faith elements,
you know, Athens in Jerusalem. Promotion of our conference. By
the way, sign up if you haven't signed up. FDA, myself,
Metropolitan Jonah, father of Vladimir, and d J. Dyer will
be all together in California or in California in Florida,
and I will get that link and I'm gonna post

(06:41):
it in the chat. So if you guys haven't signed up,
if you're in the South, you're a.

Speaker 3 (06:47):
Go ahead. Please don't buy tickets to actual Athens and Jerusalem.
It's actually in.

Speaker 1 (06:53):
Florida, Palm Beach, Palm Coast, Yeah, forget Pump Coast at
Saint Nicholas Church and uh yeah both.

Speaker 3 (07:11):
We're all looking forward to it, so yeah, yeah, And
obviously we were just talking about this stream is kind of,
you know, dealing with this and kind of in some
way kind of preparing you for the good things to
come at the conference.

Speaker 2 (07:24):
Right and I'm going to share this link right here
for anybody who's interested in the chat. This is the
conference that we're going to be at. It's going to
be basically an Orthodox academic conference with people that you're
gonna be familiar with. And what the larger point that
I was making in regards to how the Church brought
Athens and Jerusalem together is that it brought reason and

(07:45):
faith together for a transcendent mystery. And as we were,
as we go through today and look at the trends
of the different periods and schools of philosophy, we're going
to see a movement towards sort of the separation between
faith reason, an elevation of reason, and eventually a whole
doing away with the mystical superrational and a focus on

(08:08):
individual experience. And so part of the postmodern response to
modernity is because there is no valuation for personal subjective
experience in the modernist project. Now, the postmodernists are going
way too far into the extreme where they deny, they
become nominal, and deny all universals and metatruths and all
this different stuff. But there is a legitimate critique there

(08:32):
that eventually I want to get into with you with
somebody like Christos Yanni Ross, who is highlighting that orthodoxy
is pre modern and therefore we're not postmodern in the
sense of everything that comes with that. But we do
hold individual experience, especially that which is in relation to God,
that synergy theosis, in a very high regard that modernity

(08:53):
has rejected, but we still maintain the traditional metaphysics, and
we still have transcendent meaning, and we can still partic
dissipate in science. And so he viewed the postmodern turn
as an invite and an invitation towards the Orthodox, and
he thought orthodox he was going to spread in the
West because of this. And so is academic philosophy dead?
I would say yes, in the sense of the modernist project,

(09:15):
that there's salvaging to the very best they can do
right now, because the problem with modern philosophy is that
it's undermined the foundation that it stood on, and therefore
it really has no where to go. It's a cul
de sac. It's a dead end. And if as I've
seen at some places, like I'm not a Tomist and
I don't support Tomism, but I have seen a resurgence

(09:37):
in theories regarding person and brain, person in neuros, theories
of hilomorphism, and this is really a return back to
something older, because it posits that there's actually a soul
that gives form to matter Allah Aristotle. But as Father
Deacon has spoke about on this channel, we as Orthodox
Christians have something that's hylomorphic and how we understand the

(10:00):
relationship between the soul and the body. And so the
fact that contemporary philosophy at least is trying to pull
some of these strings that have existed in previous times,
I would say that's a movement in the right direction,
and that the only resurgence of philosophy is going to
have to be a sort of return to a pre
modern worldview or pre modern foundation where we through skepticism,

(10:22):
we haven't underminded all the things that are needed to
even do philosophy. Sorry, that was long wind.

Speaker 3 (10:30):
Well, it's interesting because we you know, you look at
like different kind of movements and thoughts and stuff like that,
and there's certain goods in there, so you know, I
have to recommend. I'll probably talk about it in the conference.
One of my late mentors, doctor Tristan Engelhardt, After God

(10:55):
really kind of goes into this kind of analyzing what
the modern project is so modernity. The reason why he
calls it after God is that Modernity was a rejection
of Christianity and the Christian values, and postmodernity takes a

(11:16):
step further and goes after God. So if you contrast
the kind of two movements there's this interesting kind of
optimism of the Enlightenment and modernity, of this kind of humanism,
even kind of both secular and Christian kind of humanism,

(11:40):
and that we'll have this truly kind of Catholic in
the sense of universal kind of morality and philosophy. I mean,
you see this with Descartes, right, There'll be something that
will be binding universe and intellectually upon all man. And

(12:04):
the alignment kind of carries this kind of project out.
It'll save uh and in terms of kind of like
politics and stuff, it'll save man from the wars, it'll
bind us all together and the religions. It really is
kind of an ecumenist kind of movement. So there's it's
no coincidence that HUMSM kind of just come out of

(12:27):
this these kind of movements. And what we see with
modernity is in utter failure, right, it brought about the
twentieth century. It's like the realtiest.

Speaker 2 (12:37):
Right, and the irony is to your point, modernity is
based on a sort of utopianism, so that that acumanism
and humanism itself is built on this presupposition of utopianism
that somehow we can nullify the differences we can just
all agree on some basic tenets and everything's going to
be wonderful. Not the case, and that to to the
point you're making. The irony is this modernist project that

(12:59):
was built on rationalism, democracy, scientism, technological progress, and individualism.
That's what I call the five pillars of modernity. That
that project is going to lead towards utopia has totally failed.
I mean it failed by the mid half of the
twentieth century. And so now we live in a space

(13:21):
in which the structures and the institutions, the powers that
be are not going to change the project. And this
is deeper than just the philosophy. This is economics, this
is geopolitic, this is everything. The entire infrastructure is moving
in this direction. And so the existential ankst that people
feel due to the economy or the fiat, this is
all part of modernity. So we don't think when we're

(13:43):
talking about modernity in a philosophical sense. So you think, oh,
your guys are talking about you know, Ben Thumb and
John Stewart Millton, No, no, no, no, yes, But we're
talking about the water that we swim in, and that's
everything about our lives that is part of modernity, and
that project has undermined itself. And you can see the

(14:04):
irony and how the project is undermind itself when you
see LGBTQ supporters of Islamic immigrants, like the system is
just hitting itself and it makes no sense. It's just
total contradictions. Because even and so.

Speaker 4 (14:23):
Go ahead, well, then you you assured.

Speaker 3 (14:33):
Post modernity they're correct about certain stuff. I think that's
what you pointed out. But there is yes, they don't
have a framework so that even the kind of words
that they mean, it's like there's something true about that,
but they don't have the kind of the most the

(14:56):
whole mosaic and picture how to integrate that. And worse yet,
postmodernity even realizes that there is no mosaic. It's completely fragmented.
And so it's really kind of interesting that God leaves
kind of clues even in outside of Orthodoxy that the

(15:17):
system's broken. Right, So it's not simply like you've got
to convert to Orthodoxy to see the truth. God speaks
outside of Orthodoxy, and I really see that in postmodernity.
I think that Unerisi is kind of that's kind of
his thesis is that those things that you're seeing they're correct,

(15:39):
but you have no way to piece it back together.
You have no way to kind of make like sense
of that kind of intuition and what that word means
until you bring it back into the hole. So you
realize that it's broken and fragmented and there's kind of
a meaninglessness, right, and that's something good. It reminds me

(16:03):
a little bit about the Zoomer's generation. They're right, they
see something, they see that. I mean, they're a classic
example of like something postmodern. You see, it's all broken
good because the previous generations don't their normies. You see it,

(16:25):
but notice they don't know how to reconstruct it. They
don't have to know how to put it back together again,
and oftentimes a danger and I think you see this
in post modernity. Is it just beau comes reactionary and overreactionary.
And so your question about and the way you titled

(16:48):
is academic philosophy dead. My question to academic philosophy is
to what end? What is like? Where are you going?
Where did you come from? They can't answer those questions,
and if you can answer your question of where you
came from and where you're going, you're dead. That's a
really kind of sobering point, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (17:09):
Yeah, so you need to have no answers to your point.

Speaker 3 (17:12):
Yeah, you need to. And I realize this, you know,
I don't want to get too personal, but you know what,
I was going through the very worst of my life
in my PhD program, when my wife was suffering and
torment and we were in the most worst pain and isolation.
I went to my professors because those are the guys

(17:34):
that are supposed to have the answers, right, They're the sages,
they're the oracle. And I'm like, I want to blow
my brains out. What do you have to say about it?
Let's just get down to it, right, And Camu's question
that that really commute. Camu hit it the that's the

(17:56):
most profound question that could be asked. Should I commit suicide?
And they couldn't answer, And I'm like, and I had
a breakthrough, and I'm like, exactly, That's how I knew
philosophy was dead if you cannot reach because I was broken, right,
I was excommunicated from my own being as a human being, right,

(18:21):
who I am like, what is your stupid system and
philosophy is going to do? If you can't as the
Late Metropolitan Anthony Bloom says, if a philosophy can't reach
man in his deepest point of suffering, like it's meaningless, right,
And that was a breakthrough for me, and I think

(18:42):
for all of you that's an insight into answering the
question is academic philosophy dead? Who are you? What is
your end? And when you're suffering, what are these stupid
abstract systems going to do? My professors were in silence,
and I'm like, there it is. That. That was an

(19:05):
amazing insight for me, and I'm like, it's dead.

Speaker 2 (19:08):
And I would make the argument that Nietzsche is the
first contemporary philosopher. Yes, and his proclamation that God is
dead has led to the nihilism that plagues our society.
And to your point, I don't really know of any
modern philosophical school that you could go if you were
really suffering in life, that you could go read and

(19:29):
like really be inspired to persevere and become something better.
I mean, most of it is. It's dull, it's sometimes
filled with jargon. It's not even trying to It's like
a word game in and of itself. It's like a
Victimstinnian word game. It's really not about reaching the soul

(19:53):
of man, because it denies that there's even an ontological,
transcendent dimension to man himself. And that's why I think
that it is dead. But the only way it remerges
is to unify itself back with logos. Right, That's how
philosophy began, was moving from mythology to logos. And that's
where I would argue the reason side and then the

(20:15):
prophetic faith side of the Jewish tradition are two different
strands that God sort of used in history to move
towards the revelation of who his son is once he incarnated.
But now you have philosophy that's totally divorced from logos.
It has no you know, has no ethics, it has
no metaphysics, and epistemology is really just a power language

(20:39):
game that they're all playing. There is no unifying epistemology there.
You know, all the presuppositions are dead, and so it
really is a doggy dog world. And how can you
do like that? It's just not a landscape that even
is conducive towards true philosophical inquiry and even moving the
boundaries forward. I mean, you look at the philosophy of

(20:59):
mine always bring this up. They've been stuck on the
hard problem of consciousness since the eighties. They've made zero progress,
and they think that new scientific tools or AI is
somehow going to solve you know, their inability to define
what consciousness is. No, the problem is the system itself.
The problem is modernity.

Speaker 3 (21:22):
Yeah, I just I just shared human dry fists. Great,
go ahead. Sorry I had a lag.

Speaker 2 (21:32):
No, I didn't say anything. Go ahead.

Speaker 3 (21:36):
The closest philosophy probably deals with this is existentialism. Yeah,
but I noticed something interesting, So they talk about it,
but I want all of you to consider, are existential
people who commit to existentialist philosophy is their lives getting better? Like?
Is it making? So I know they're talking about it,

(21:58):
but it's still a modern philosophy. And I'm going to
reference another dear Caligan mind, doctor Bruce Sara from Foltz,
who's going to be one of the speakers for Montanica conference.
He's a leading Hydergarian scholar and philosopher, and he coined

(22:19):
a term abstractionism. So, ironically enough, the substantialist one to
talk about the kind of immat experience. I mean, they
speak in kind of an orthodox way, right, h But
then I started wondering, I'm like, but why doesn't it heal?

(22:39):
Why doesn't it put things together? It's still stuck in
the modernist philosophy of abstractionism. And we'll probably go through
tonight various kind of main themes and tenets of modernity.
But I thought that was an excellent kind of essential
feature of modernity, abstraction. So even if you talk about oh,

(23:02):
the individual and the person and the existential you know,
quality of at you know, and establishing meaning and that,
it's like, yeah, but what is it? That's all still
abstract talk, right if I'm not producing what you're saying, Like, again,

(23:22):
what do you have to say? Like? How do you
heal people? How do you reconstitute man once he's fragmented
and broken and wants to die and is leading And
you know, one of the closest orthodox Western philosophers, it's
not orthodox, is carecer guards sickness and the death. We're
all running. You want to talk about the academic philosophy

(23:45):
being dead? That's it. What a great phrase to summarize.

Speaker 2 (23:49):
And within his historical context, he kind of already saw
what we're talking about. He saw that this transition away
from faith is going to be essentially a dead end,
and it is a sickness unto death. And that's exactly
what the.

Speaker 3 (24:04):
We're like, spiritually, physically right.

Speaker 2 (24:07):
The people are dying overweight, like all the institution, I mean,
every institution does the opposite of what you think. And
the nations themselves are committing suicide through mass immigration because
there's nothing to stand on, there's no identity. Nationalism itself
is kind even though it is part of modernity. Nationalists
has always typically been tied with a monarchy. And after

(24:29):
World War One, that was the death of the old world,
that was the death of the pre modern European world.
And we're all thou forced to participate in democracy is
the only option. And if you're against democracy, well then
what are you? You're a Nazi, You're you know, a communist.
There's some type of pejorative to label you as. But
we don't realize how transitionary the nineteenth century was from

(24:51):
moving out of one where you know, the Industrial Revolution,
moving out of a pre modern although the foundations of
modernity already started into a full blown modernist world that
we live in now and inhabit there's so many things
that are incorporated into this. And that's why I think
Paganism and Orthodoxy and trapped Catholicism are on the rides
because they're pre modern. Now I'm not in favor of paganism,

(25:14):
but if you are an angsty right winger and you're
trying to escape modernity where you can't talk about race,
you can't talk about nationality, you can't talk about differences
between groups of peoples. Obviously from a non Christian world, Okay,
they want to venerate Odin again and some of the
Nordic gods. What are they doing. They're just trying to

(25:36):
return back to something pre modern. And I think, just
like history, just like our society, just like what we're
doing individually by becoming Orthodox, that's what philosophy has to do,
is it has to make a u turn from the
last three hundred years and move back into a pre
modern basis. Though that we can move forward.

Speaker 3 (25:55):
Remember Father Josiah's lined to tuck our Carlston recently. He's like,
people say that our contemporary modern society is pagan He's like,
that's an insult.

Speaker 2 (26:09):
Yeah, that's an insult to Paganisms.

Speaker 3 (26:13):
Were worse. They have these kind of notions. I love
that line. It's so great. It's like, oh, they were better, Like,
you know, even if they were worshiping demons, like, they
still had a notion of a hierarchical, you know, created
order of being right and gods and these kinds of

(26:37):
things that are values.

Speaker 2 (26:40):
You know, maybe we would philadelphically or theologically criticize how
those would be justified in a sort of geo geolocational
specific historical context regarding paganism in their gods. But at
least what they're doing is that, like you said, a
hierarchy of order of authority. They're not. It's not just

(27:02):
total chaos. Now, maybe there's sentiments, especially regarding supremacy ideals
around race that that is I think too too far.
And because they don't have a basis to understand how
do all of us how? How what is the foundation
of humanity and how we all united? Well, it's Christ.

Speaker 3 (27:22):
And so I was even thinking when we were talking earlier,
even when existential Secure guard CAMU gets certain stuff right.
People post modernity, the reason why it doesn't heal, it
doesn't do anything, is because it's outside of the kata

(27:42):
holos ms Church's life. They're just words. So it's like
you're correct, but they don't give life, they don't heal,
and that's why we want to bring those things in
that noticing like I think nars is saying this, bring

(28:04):
them into orthodoxy. Look like you've got it, like there's
something correct in your analysis and critique. But that's not
going to do it because it's still in the abstract.
The incarnation is to plug into the one who is
life himself, who conquered death and brought life to Otherwise,

(28:26):
they're just words, right, and I think that's really important.
So it's like they got it right, but it's not
going to do anything. So even if academic philosophy went
philosophically the right direction, what is it going to do.
It's never going to be true gnosis and true philosophy

(28:46):
because true philosophy philo sophia is philothos Yes, love of God.
Unless you're connected to the life source itself, it's death.
It will lead to death. That's it.

Speaker 2 (29:01):
No, I couldn't agree more to agree more with that,
and that's and that's really one of the opportunities we
have right now. But because modernity, and I would argue
if you're going to jump on board with modernity or say,
you know, right now, maybe you're a you know, an
American boomer who is not totally dissatisfied with the state

(29:24):
of things and things that you're going to vote your
way out of this. The logical end is that you're
eventually going to agree to transhumanism. I believe that transhumanism
is the only out for the modernist project. Now, I
think it's doomed to failure. I don't think it's possible,
but I think that's why. You know, just like Israel's
in a quarter and they're doing everything they can for

(29:44):
the Greater Israel project, I feel like the same things
with the technocratic center of modernity, and this is where
the money is. This is where the billionaires are, This
is where the promises of immortality and omniscience and again
worldly utopia. Transhuman is utopianistic, just as modernity as utopianistic,
because it really is the endpoint of individualism, rationalism, democracy, scientism,

(30:09):
and technological progress. It leads towards the singularity.

Speaker 3 (30:15):
It's interesting that AI is basically an amalgamation, amalgamation of
all these different things. Doesn't it make kind of sense
that it it leads to this kind of idea, the
singularity that it's pulling from, like all these kinds of
it's parasitic and in some sense that's why it's kind

(30:38):
of demonic. I'm not saying like nobody should ever use
AI or something like that, but you have to contextualize
it within the overall kind of movement that it's it's
not life in itself. It imitates and it only has
a life in so far as it's parasitic and vampiric

(30:59):
upon the things that actually exist in ideas. And I
actually kind of find that interesting. But like we said,
it's not life itself, so it'll never give life and
I'll end in death right socially, politically, philosophically, spiritually, and
so anyways, it just just thought just came to me

(31:22):
about that. Yeah, there's a point from all these kinds
of and.

Speaker 2 (31:27):
I would argue that what it is is essentially an
inversion of Christian eschatology. I mean the resurrection of bed,
living forever, communing with a omniscient being which will then
also be yourself, but you'll be hooked up to the
source of it. I mean, this is a technolized, materialized
form of christian eschatology, and the irony is even though

(31:49):
modernity and transhumanism, secularism, all these things try to run
away from God, what they do is just mimic itself.
It's like you you are what you hate. Like they
just like demonically mimic Christianity back to the world in
new terms.

Speaker 3 (32:04):
And Nietzsche predicted that too. If you kill God, you
can't kill God, you will simply create a new God.
That's what he was saying, is that you killed the
old God. The future generations. Then, I mean, what a

(32:27):
tremendous burden. He says, that we've killed God. Where's up
and down, where's left and right? He realizes that objectivity
and morality and all these things are gone, and he says,
that's such a tremendous, fiersome deicide and act that you
will have to make yourself gods or erect a God

(32:49):
or something like that. And so he's I mean, he's,
you know, philosophically a prophet and saying here's what's coming.
And that's exactly as you so elogent put. What the
kind of technocratic age has kind of produced is its

(33:12):
own kind of God and inverted Christianity because it's like
that's the only thing can be done.

Speaker 2 (33:21):
Right, and that's like the demonic presupposition to get you
to fall into. Why you'll augment yourself is that so
many people already worship themselves. I mean, even you could.
I mean, it could be your interpretation of the Bible,
it could be a secularist atheist, it could be a
new age hedonist. The uniting factor amongst all these groups

(33:44):
and why I think they're going to be so susceptible
towards total augmentation and transhumanism is the modernist project is
falling apart. This is my perspective. Transhumanism is the only
saving light for the people who are still supporting it
and believing that we just need to keep like we're
almost to the threshold, Like it's you know, it's just

(34:05):
turbulent right now, because it's right before the point of transcendence.
But all these people are going to adopt this augmentation
and they're going to fall for the fake god because
they already worship themselves and for true recognition. I mean,
Paul talks about this in the epistles about you know,
the wisdom of man. It's hubris, it's pride and that

(34:26):
humility is the only thing that actually sets you on
a foundation for true wisdom. But that is a recognition
of as you talked about, the hierarchy of authority, which
begins with God, and so once once your conceptual framework
for authority and the transcendent are in place, I think
now you can actually begin to perceive things as they
actually are, and that so many people have been duped.

(34:49):
They don't realize that they're consumerism, their hedonism, they're sexual fetishes.
These are all things that are part of this contemporary
period and all these factors are dulling. You're new, so
that you're moving towards the trap. Whether you right now
you're like, I'm never going to do digital current, I
guarantee you you will.

Speaker 3 (35:09):
Do you want to?

Speaker 2 (35:11):
Yeah, we want to get into that. We had a
quick question specifically for you if you want to answer,
and then we'll get into the document here. Major thank
you to David James Flood been a member of codal
crew member for nine months. As I knew academic philosophy
was cooked fifteen years ago, and my body told me.
The prompt on one of his philosophy classes was do
mountains have rights? Yeah? Pretty much? And then Tanner, she

(35:32):
had a specific question. Oh you want to say something, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (35:36):
I have an experience like that, probably twenty years ago.
So you know, I went to did my grad school
work at one of the leading schools in phenomenology, and
so I was always hearing about conference about like phenomenology,
and I kid you not. There was a conference that

(35:58):
came up called the phenomena Anology of Garbage, and I
was like, that's it, that's it. That's the end of
the world literally doing philosophy conferences on garbage. So anyways,
a similar sentiment.

Speaker 2 (36:17):
Tanner g had a specific quay, there's more of a
spiritual question, so it's kind of off topic. Then we'll
dive back into the philosophy stuff. Thank you Tanner for
the generous twenty bucks, he says for FDA. Me and
my fiance have been together for four years. We were
planning on married mid next year. How were we just However,
we just decided to begin Catechism. Would it make sense

(36:38):
for us to ask a priest for slightly faster Catechism
or wait and go through normal speed. We want to
get started on beginning a family soon. I think I
already know your answer, but go ahead.

Speaker 3 (36:49):
Well, yeah, you just I mean, you bring up your
if you don't have to be scared to talk to
your priest about what your thoughts are, like what your
plans are and planning on getting married with this girl.
I know, I'm a katakisis how does that work out?

(37:10):
And he'll guide you through, like in the best way possible,
and just you know, kind of put your faith in him.
And but you know, he can't give you a good
prescription unless you talk to him about all your kind
of concerns and where you're at. So just just talk
to your priest about it. Yep.

Speaker 2 (37:29):
And thank you so much, Maryland through in ten dollars,
no comment. God bless your sister. Okay, So now I
want to riff a little bit with you on a
broad topic, the entirety of intellectual history.

Speaker 3 (37:44):
So uncle down, everybody, we're going through the whole history
of Western civilization and philosophy.

Speaker 2 (37:51):
So I tried to make the most abbreviated document I
could for us to kind of riff off of, and
I asked FDA if you thought he'd be useful. And
so these are the most brief general bullet points on
different essentially the ways in which we demarket intellectual history.
And I want to talk about this because and we're
not going to spend too much time on it, but

(38:14):
the goal is to sort of set a foundation to
understand what is modern philosophy. You've already heard us criticize
where we think it's at, where its problems are. But
I think what so many people, just like I've talked about,
so many people don't know history. You know, you ask them, okay,
name a major event that happened in the fourteen hundreds
or the eight hundreds, they have no idea about anything.

(38:35):
But the SAME's true with intellectual history. You may know
of the names, you may have heard of Plato and
Aristotle or Aquinas, but how many people actually understand the
trajectory of thought and how we got to the present point.
So that's what our goal is today. It's kind of
a big task, but I think FDA's up for it.
We did like the most all encompassing discussion on metaphysics

(38:58):
I think I've seen online is like four hours just
talking about metaphysics. So I thought, what better way to
follow that stream up with discussion on the entirety of
Western civilization and intellectual history. So to begin I broke
down the ancient period and basically three sections, and my
goal here is to demonstrate, like what are the transitionary

(39:22):
points and thought and so the birth of philosophy. We're
not getting into Parmenides and Heraclitis and Pythagris, but in Thales,
what what is the what is going on at this
point it's a move from mythos to logos. It's a
move from mythological description of reality to a sort of
rational apprehension of reality, beginning most specifically with what is
the first principle? And what is being? And this is

(39:44):
this is what If you take any intro into metaphysics,
you begin with Parmenides, you begin with Theales, you begin
with Heraclitis, because these are the foundational questions of what
is the thing that's unchanging in physical reality? Yeah, go ahead,
always jump in if you have any common do you
just not me?

Speaker 3 (40:01):
So muthos and where we get myth from is not
simply I mean literally translates story. But you have to
understand that what that entails is that within the age
of the myth there was no individual. Everything was determined
and faded. So is it deterministic? It was there was

(40:27):
no concept of the I or the self, so you
weren't separated from the determined world. So what uh, doctor
David Patrick is saying is that that switch is a
break from the myth that one is able to perceive

(40:50):
logos and see and start asking questions. Just like Heidiger said,
the only being in whom being is a question is
the docign is the you. Right, that's and Heidegrid himself
was getting back to the kind of pre socratics like

(41:11):
what they were thinking. That is literally a break from
the men that the being in whom being is a
question is no longer determined. There is self that can
actually contemplate these kinds of first principles. That is the
beginning of philosophy. That is the beginning of self. I'm

(41:32):
not simply determined by the fates and the gods and
stuff like that. I can I'm actually distinct, and there
is a rational principle by which i can actually inquire
because I'm a real self. I'm not determined. So I
mean part of that is that knowledge is only possible
and logos is only possible if you're not determined. If

(41:56):
there's a real self. And so that's a remarkable move, right, there, yeah.

Speaker 2 (42:01):
And and too Father's point. This is a major transition
and thought from what we consider the you know, the
mythos time before rational inquiry, before abstract reasoning and contemplating
that the cosmos actually is a coherent, ordered, rational process

(42:25):
that maybe we can actually understand. So this is a
huge transition into the understanding of the self and how
we come to knowledge. And I would argue that the
second period and maybe you know, feel free if you
have any disagreements. This is just a general thought process
that I laid out. But Socrates, what makes him so
pivotal is he then transitions from cosmology to anthropology. The

(42:47):
focus moves from you know, metaphysics, what is the foundational
principle of the universe? Fire, water, air? To actually the
whole point is actually a return to soul and virtue.
And so this is where then he is contrasted with
what we refer to as the pre Socratics. The pre
Socratics are more focused on metaphysics. Socrates is more focused

(43:08):
on ethics and virtue. And this leads to the birth
what I would say is moral philosophy and dialectic as
a method. And then this leads into Plato and Aristotle
systematizing and bringing together the metaphysics and the ethics and
how these things actually function together. So I say Plato
systematizes the metaphysical idealism, and Aristotle grounds philosophy and logic,

(43:30):
natural philosophy and ethics, emphasizing teleology, causation and the purpose
of things and imminent form. The uniting of met ethics
and politics into a coherent worldview. And that is essentially
what this period is doing. So you can already see
how they're stacking onto each other and they're clarifying what
already came before.

Speaker 3 (43:49):
Yeah, and notice too, in here it's holistic. You use
the term coherent. Some of these terms are also called
the you knows and dental truth, beauty, goodness, right, uh, metaphysics, ethics, logic.

(44:09):
They saw the world as a as a whole, a
coherent whole, and that's going to be something that that
that marks that period of time. Right.

Speaker 2 (44:24):
And then the last thing I had for the ancient
period here is essentially Hellenistic and Roman philosophy, stoicism, you know, Epicureanism, skepticism, neoplatonism.
And this is the collapse of the polus. After Alexander
the Great focus turns from civic virtue to personal salvation
and inner peace. Uh Platinist re mythology mythologizes reason, portraying

(44:48):
it as the one. And this essentially is a transition
from rational cosmology to spiritual ascent. Philosophy becomes a way
of life again and sets the stage for the Christian synthesis. Right,
So what I'm about to make the claim is we
actually stop doing what we would consider philosophy for a
thousand years because faith and reason become united in Christ.
The only point of these categories is now to explicate

(45:12):
and clarify theology because there is now a transcendence. And
what now again, metaphysics, what's the unthinking chang? Okay, it's God.
Now from the Christian world, we have God, we have
the Logos, the second person of the Holy Trinity, myself
made in the image of God. Now true ethics, true wisdom,

(45:32):
becoming more like Christ unites you with Him. There's a
transcendent participation. Participation is going to be the big thing
that's lost once we move into modernity. There is no
thing you're participating with anymore. There is no transcendent purpose
towards anything. And so I don't want to belabor this
orthodox stuff because I just highlighted the Christian synthesis philosophy.

(45:54):
Now within revelation, faith and reason are harmonized, I believe
in order to understand. But I don't want to go
through all this this stuff because that's really not the
point for say, unless you want to bring it up.
But do you have any thoughts so far? Is anything
else you want to add or clarify?

Speaker 3 (46:11):
Well, it's interesting the kind of the the emergence of
neoplatonic thought. So, I mean something you get in uh Plato,
and I think why it comes back in is that
virtue epistemology and virtue ethics that do you think correctly

(46:37):
must be informed by the moral and the morals informed
by that. There's a symbiosis the morals formed by and
so you see a resurgence of this in neoplatonic thought too,
that the two spheres are not actually separated. So it's

(46:59):
a tempting to correct certain errors that kind of came in.
And what I would say is that and you'll certainly
find this in Saint Augustine, City of God. What men
intended for evil, God intents for good. So whatever errors
that happen in philosophy, God's omnipot and ominnib benevolence, he

(47:20):
still works the good and so the whole City of
God is basically a description of all of this through
the poets and all the philosophers, all the errors, all
the goods are still within the realm of divine providence
working to prepare the soil for Christianity to take seed in.

(47:42):
And and so we'll see that too. And I just
want to encourage everybody listening that God is the Lord,
and he's he has providence over this and so even
the errors and I'll eventually get into postmanternity, that it
provides an opportunity for evangelism and the growth of Orthodoxy

(48:06):
even in the failures, right, and the kind of synthesis
of all these things, So as we're going through the history,
just keep your control of this, all right.

Speaker 2 (48:24):
And so just to briefly kind of summarize this, I
talked a little bit about so Christian synthesis is bringing
philosophy now into light of revelation. I mean, I argue
that's what the Gospel of John is doing in our
ka in ho logos is taking all that all that
Greek stuff and using that jargon to describe everything that

(48:44):
the prophets were speaking about. And in that sense, if
you were living in that time and you were you know,
educated in the Hellenistic schools, when you read the Gospel
of John, you would understand what's at you know, the
layers of meaning that are actually embedded within that concept
that the logos was in the beginning it was God.

(49:05):
And how this actually then transitions philosophical thought. And I
argue that the Cappadocian the Nicene Fathers in the fourth
century transformed the Greek metaphysics of Ussia being in person,
redefined it through the Trinity. And what that did is
God is not an abstract one, but being as communion,
and essentially it solved Their move solves the ancient problem

(49:29):
of the one in the many. So we just talked
about Plato and Aristotle. Well, Plato is interested in the
ideal forms. He's saying that the concept of the chair
is more real than the chair you and I are
sitting on. Aristotle's saying no, no, no, My system begins with
the chair you're sitting on, and we can get to
some type of understanding of form or causation. But it's

(49:52):
the different approach to knowledge. It's the different approach to
philosophy itself. Plato begins with the a prioriz and deduce
it and Aristotle begins with induction itself. And so my
point here is this that is a brief little way
to frame up the one in the mini is the
one ideal true? Or are the many chairs that all

(50:12):
of us are sitting on the truth which one's more real?
And what our Capadocian fathers are doing and what the
Orthodox Church. That's why when we say we're a both
and worldview, that's not a cop out to me, that's
a celebration. That means that we've actually fixed the problems
that the inherent conflict, the dialectical conflict. And so the
ultimate principality is not abstracts unity alloted neo platonism, but

(50:35):
love shared between distinct persons. To what you were talking
about with the particularization and the concretization that modern philosophy
actually doesn't participate in. It's all abstract, and Orthodoxy is saying, okay,
we have abstract stuff, but that's only real if we
then concretize it into space and time as people's enacting
compassion mercy and love towards another person made in the

(50:57):
image of God, the same way that the try youn
God the Trinity itself relates to each other. And so
oops wrong button that leads to Maximus sat Maximus and
the sense of it. Since the synthesis of Christian theology

(51:18):
and Neoplatonism slash Aristotelianism developed the idea of the logi
in the logos that every creature has its own meaning
and destiny, and christ history and cosmology became become teleological.
From Maximus. The true philosopher is not the one who
contemplates abstract being. Oh, I, I didn't finish my thought there.

Speaker 3 (51:41):
It was.

Speaker 2 (51:43):
Let me find where I wrote that down. Uh, complex
contemplates abstract being, but the one who becomes like God
through love and verse one who becomes like God through

(52:08):
love man shooting. So we see again this participatory dimension
of our theology. And then Saint John of Damascus systematizes
theology and Aristotilian form but retains the apathetic core. Philosophy
is valuable but bounded by the mystery, the apophatic mystery

(52:29):
of God himself. And then I have hes Achism. Saint
Gregory Palamov's fourteenth century confronts Barlamb of Collabria. Everybody's probably
familiar with that Western scholastic from Italy. Palamas defends the
distinction between God's essence and energies. Philosophically, he preserves both
the vine transcendence and imminence without collapsing one into the other.

(52:50):
And this then is essentially our worldview as Orthodox Christians.
This is kind of the the endpoint of where our
paradigm has been explicated in What leads next is the
development of Western scholasticism. So, father, do you have anything
you'd like to say about all that?

Speaker 3 (53:06):
So? I mean, if you read the history of Western philosophy,
it is this dialectical tension, starting with dailies empiricism, then
moving to Anexemines and a examiner more kind of rationalistic,
and then back to democratis and puriticism. You have the

(53:33):
kind of immatization and Aristotle and the kind of abstract
transcendent idealism Plato. Right, it just keeps going back before
like between these dialectics, and the whole history of Western
philosophy is marked by these dialectics. They get certain things

(53:58):
right and the other side points that out and then
it overreacts, and it can never synthesize that. Only orthodoxy
will synthesize that. And I'm just going to read from
if you don't mind, Yes, it's so great, from Saint
Justin Popovich's have a theory of knowledge. From Saint Isaac

(54:19):
the Syrian philosophy. Man always appears, to greater or less extent,
a fragmented being. Nowhere is he seen as a whole.
Nowhere is he seen complete and integrated, but always broken
and fragmented. There is no philosophical system in which man
is not broken up at the parts. They would defeat
the attempt of anythinker to put them together into a

(54:39):
single hole. On the other hand, and so you're going
to notice his dialectic, so he's already noticing his dialectical tension.
Realism brings man down to the level of senses, and
then through the senses to things to matter, so that
man is no longer his own master, but scattered among things.
On the other hand, here's the dialect Rationalism separates man

(55:03):
and his ununderstanding, seeing the latter is the chief fount
of truth and the highest measure of all things. It
is attributing all worth to it, making it absolute and
idolizing it well at the same time beliving the other
psychic and physical powers of man. Critical thought, for its part,

(55:24):
is little more than an apologia for rationalism and senialism
that drags the understanding of man with it down to
the level of senses. What do you get next? Pantheism
is for pantheism in all such monistic systems, so you
get dualistic monism. Dualism monism for monistic systems. They regard

(55:47):
the world and man as a mass contract opposites can
never be brought into a single logical unity. All these
philosophical systems have the same result. Superficial phenomenalists understand of
both man and the world. The man and we'll get
into this is kind of preparing the way for what
we're going to talk about later of the phenomenalist philosophy.

(56:09):
A philosophy is always relativist as well as a man
without a central focal point. Where does man stand? Where
does the world stand? What is the foundation of the
intellect and knowledge? Man tries to explain himself in terms
of things, but with a total lack of success. For
by explaining himself in terms of things. Man, in the

(56:32):
end is reduced to a thing himself to matter, hover
much he may struggle to do so, the man of
the phenomenalist philosophy is in no position to testify to
the objective reality of things. Still less is he able
to show that things possess truth. By attempting to explain
man by man, philosophy achieves a bizarre result. It presents

(56:55):
a mirror image of a mirror image, perfect discretion, a
post modernity, right right, absolutely, that's at the last analysis.
Such philosophy, whatever its path, is centered on matter and
on man. And one thing falls from all this, the
impossibility of any truth knowledge of man and of the world.

(57:19):
And I could go on, but like, maybe I'll bring
up that later, but I want to point out that
even Saint Isaac the Syrian and Saint Justin Popovich realize
this dialectical tension. Man's fragmented, He's in opposites. He has
no ground of truth. Philosophy is dead outside of the
synthesis of orthodoxy that's led into us. You see, the

(57:42):
Father's there. There's no explanation, there's only death.

Speaker 2 (57:48):
Right No, I totally agree with that, and really everything
we're about to show now moving forward is the foundations
of the world that we have now and where the
West went wrong. I mean to this point essentially. Now
there's going to be some overlap here in the Scholastic synthesis,
but we were doing theology, like as Saint John Damascus

(58:11):
makes clear, philosophy is just a linguistic tool to talk
about essentially theology, and theology is the point of this all.
It isn't until the Scholastic period here the twelfth and
fourteenth centuries. And look at our timeline, remember Maximus seventh century, Damascus,
eighth century, Palamas fourteenth century, and now by the twelfth

(58:32):
and fourteenth centuries in the West because of the introduction
of Aristotle, now they're moving in a new trajectory. The
transition from Augustinian Platonic interiority to Aristotilian realism in the
West is kind of how I framed it. And so
Quinas integrates Aristotle with Christianity. Reason now perfects faith. They

(58:55):
you don't begin with faith, you begin with reason to
get you to get to your faith. You see, that's
all already flipped from the from the previous period. We
always began with faith and reason. After you have faith
can help clarify and come to understanding. But now reason
is already sort of re elevated and nature contemplates grace.
Of course, you get nominalism in that type of stuff

(59:17):
during that Western medieval period. But once from there, now
we move into essentially modern philosophy fifteenth through eighteenth centuries Bacon, Galileo, Datecarts,
you get the scientific Revolution, where confidence in the method
and mathematical description of nature epistemology replaces metaphysics, knowledge through
method and observation, not participation in being. So again that's

(59:41):
what I was talking about. This is what Janni Ross
highlights explicitly in his postmodern Metaphysics, and the schism in
philosophy is saying that it's this point where the less
no longer focused on participation as the as the as
the point of knowledge, at the point of theology, of
the point of ethics and morality. This was always from

(01:00:02):
understanding that you were participating in something. From this point forward,
it's no longer about participation. It's about the methods we
use to come to know the world.

Speaker 3 (01:00:11):
Can I point out in terms of Protestantism, so the
reformers were nominalists. Okay, So Prior to this movement was nominalism.

Speaker 2 (01:00:21):
Okay, denies universals for this, now what you get, yes.

Speaker 3 (01:00:28):
So penal substitution, atonement, the satoriology of Protestants all premised
on nominalis. In case you don't know, then the next movement,
just historically and philosophically, is this kind of Cartesian Baconian
galleyan obsession with agamization methodology. Well, think about this. What

(01:00:54):
is it that Protestants have always argued this? Protestants are
thoroughly a modern movement.

Speaker 2 (01:01:00):
Yes, they have nothing to do with the Church. They
have no connection to pre modernity.

Speaker 3 (01:01:04):
It's all about abstract propositional text in hermaneutics, right script Well,
I've got this method that we interpret scripture sharpened scripscription.
What's your hermaeneutics. Well, anybody that's studied the history of
philosophy will know. But like that's car it's totally modern

(01:01:25):
because look right there, methodology, Well, just apply this kind
of Cartesian method to reading text and propositions. It's not
about participatory and you know in the energies of God
and virtues and stuff like this. It's an abstract, rationalistic

(01:01:46):
methodological approach and I'm like, you're a Cartesian, you're.

Speaker 5 (01:01:50):
A modern, right, You're far away from the Church as
you could get, right, Father, I don't know if I
told you, but during my PhD defense, one of the
profet or she's actually a she writes and publishes papers
in basically philosophy of mind, person in neuroscience.

Speaker 2 (01:02:08):
And she's atomistic scholar, and she's a sort of expert
on Aristotle. And after reading my book, she said, well,
I see that you keep making the claim that Orthodoxy
is pre modern. Don't you think Catholicism could be included
in there? And I brought up, well, I think aspects
could be certainly seen as pre modern regarding the trad

(01:02:28):
Latin dimension of the Church, but with Vatican One, Vatican two,
and really much of the movements of the contemporary Catholic Church,
I don't think you could easily clarified as pre modern.
And she conceded, and if that's the case, wow, then
Orthodoxy is the only pre modern option.

Speaker 3 (01:02:49):
Yeah, yeah, good point, great point.

Speaker 2 (01:02:53):
So anyways, the scientific revolution, now we're privileging method right,
and this this develops two different schools which will define
the analytic and the continental tradition and philosophy. You may
have heard that continental usually understood is the European schools analytic,
usually the Anglo schools, so that'd be you know, America, England, Canada, Australia,

(01:03:17):
those areas they typically are analytic. Well, this all comes
from those distinctions. Come the pre Kantean traditions of the
rationalists and the empiricist and so on. The rationalists you
have Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, empiricist Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and the
clash is between innate ideas. Reason alone yields truth a
la Descartes sitting there in a room with his eyes closed,

(01:03:40):
coming to full knowledge and sense data. Experience alone needs trillth,
meaning actually measuring, taking the statistical average and observing nature itself.
The empiricist school and so human skepticism about causality and
self identity destabilizes the Enlightenment confidence in both of these schools,
the rationalist school and the risist school, because what they

(01:04:01):
were doing was both building off the presuppositions of the
previous reasons that are essentially rooted in Christianity, and so
taking skepticism further and further and further, they realize, oh, crap.
You know, maybe maybe we can't empirically actually define causality
and how we come to know how, you know, our

(01:04:22):
observations of the world. It could be, it could be not.
This gets into you know, Hume's famous thought experiment regarding
that if the sun's going to come up tomorrow or not.
Obviously it's most likely it's going to, but you can't
empirically prove it until it happens. And this leads to Kant,
you know, He's woken out of his his philosophical slumber

(01:04:44):
by Hume, and Kant then addresses Human addresses the problems
with the rationalists and the impirsis school with their again
critique of pure reason. That's what Const's Copernican Revolution really
is in the eighteenth century, and so it knowledge arises
from both experience and the a priori structures of mind.

(01:05:05):
So what Kant is doing is saying, Okay, yeah, maybe
there sense that out there, absolutely, but can you really
know the world that you're observing in and of itself?

Speaker 3 (01:05:14):
The question?

Speaker 2 (01:05:15):
The answer he comes to is no, and he says
the what we're then having is he adds two more
categories to Aristotle's ten metaphysical categories creates the twelve a
priori categories of the mind, and essentially you have a
synthetic happening between sense data and these categories of mind,
and that is the world you're experiencing. And so therefore

(01:05:36):
the mind, if that is true, the mind is actively
shaping reality. It's actively shaping the thing you're experiencing. And
therefore whatever you're experiencing, you're not experiencing it in and
of itself. And so philosophy becomes about the conditions of
knowledge not being itself. The turn to subjectivity. Something that
Father Deacon already mentioned about phenomenology, which is where this

(01:05:59):
is going to go, is that with CONT's critique saying
you can't you can't prove to me that you fully
know the external world, and then he uses the a
priori categories, the question then is what can we know?
And you have two centrally choices. In this fork in
the road, you have what becomes the German idealists who say, well,

(01:06:21):
I guess we just have to we have to study
personal subjective experience. We just have to study the self
because we need to focus more on the a priori categories.
Then we need to worry about the sense data that's
coming in and the opposite endo, that is the nineteenth
century British empiricists who say, okay, Kant, maybe you're right,

(01:06:41):
but if we're going to make any truth claim, the
best claim we can make is using the scientific method
and observing nature. And so these are essentially then the
two schools that split after Kant in German idealism. Their
methodology is phenomenology. The empiricist school. Their methodology is empiricism,
and this defines empiricism the analytics school, and phenomenology the

(01:07:02):
continental school. You have more you want to add to that.
That was kind of a lot, but I think that
that point Kant. We've talked about this in our stream
on metaphysics. Kant is an incredibly important and influential figure,
not that you have to agree with everything he says,
but if you're looking at intellectual history, it really is

(01:07:23):
the Copertican revolution in philosophy.

Speaker 3 (01:07:28):
I mean, David Hume wakes ab up from his dogmack slumber.

Speaker 2 (01:07:33):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:07:33):
If the previous things are true, then this follows so
a death of metaphysics, which is why Kant. Most people
don't read this. It's actually a pretty easy read prologemona
to any future metaphysics by manual kant.

Speaker 2 (01:07:49):
Yep I have it.

Speaker 3 (01:07:51):
That's the death of like. That's it. And as you'd
pointed out, philosophy then goes into two directions after that
and analys well, we can't make any metaphysical comments basically

(01:08:11):
everybody's metaphysical quietness at that point. So either you move
into language and logic. So I'm just locked in my mind.
And as you point out, I was had said the
conditions for the possibility of those I either logical conditions

(01:08:34):
or you move into the phenomenological realm of like appearances,
because why I can deal with appearances, but I can't
deal with metaphysics. And that's actually a really a really
significant move in the history of the world that like,

(01:08:55):
I'm locked outside of the world, like I know longer.
So where does academic philosophy go, Well, those are the
two directions historically that it goes.

Speaker 2 (01:09:07):
Right, and here I just have a few of the
kind of influential reactions. So in regards to German idealism,
as I said, said that includes Hegel, right, Hegel and
his his all encompassing system of the dialectic. This has
to do with as father was talking about from that

(01:09:29):
reading that you had, that phenomenology is let me let
me show you actually, I have a I have a
notebook that is all about uh philosophy where I just
write down all my different all my different notes for
all these different schools. And so I want to show
you guys that this right here is essentially the the

(01:09:50):
method of phenomenology. Right here, it's saying, this is the observer.
So you see this little triangle here, the observer, the
finite self self conscious then viewing these appearances out here,
and this is all then part of this totalizing system
of self consciousness. And that is what the dialectic is about.
It's that you are here, your self awareness is here,

(01:10:12):
and self conscious is actually perceiving the other part of self.
It's all self. And so the key to reality is
one's own self. The categories of understanding consciousness are the
categories of reality. See they're saying, okay, Kan, we'll agree
with all this a priori stuff. Let's just focus on
those categories because those are the categories of reality. Because

(01:10:33):
that's the only thing we can experience, are those categories.
And this approach towards phenomenology, this is a sort of
monistic idealism. That's what German idealism is. It's a monistic idealism.
And from Ficta and Schelling and Hegel, you know, philosophy
becomes historical and self conscious truth revealed through dialectical development.

(01:10:57):
You get somebody like a Schopenhauer where he says, okay, well,
it's actually the will, not reason as ultimate reality. This
is who Nietzsche gets his inspiration from, as Arthur Schopenhauer
krek regard saying no faith over system, individual before individual
before God. And Marxist inverts Hegel and creates a material

(01:11:20):
dialectic conditions that shape consciousness. And Nietzsche declares God is
dead and challenges all metaphysical foundations. What happens is the
collapse of metaphysical absolutes turned to life will existence in
the critique of Reason. And this essentially puts you now
dead into the nineteenth century. And this is where all
of our modern institutions in the academy begin to emerge

(01:11:42):
from all the different methods, the schools of sociology, of
religious studies, of all the humanities, all the sciences. They
begin to emerge during this period. And the way that
we perceive them in the twenty first century today, they
are a remnant of this essentially one hundred and fifty
year transitionary period.

Speaker 3 (01:12:01):
And all this goes back to Dickcartes, who what God's
even dependent on self? Me thinking the kojito. So I mean,
that's why discards called the father of modernity. Like this
self obsession self first, the whole systems built from self

(01:12:23):
yep is Cartesian and all of this is just a
logical play of Cartesianism. Right.

Speaker 2 (01:12:35):
So this brings us then to the twentieth century philosophy.
And so, like I said, I have this little notebook.
You'll see I keep all this stuff like I can
literally flip over here to you know, Hegel's philosophy. If
you're a nerd like me an FDA, maybe you'd find
this beneficial for the average person. You don't have to

(01:12:56):
spend hours putting like study guide books together. That's kind
of what I did. But I wanted to get to
I had it on my logical positivist section here, But
let me pull up the document and so we can
see here that twentieth century philosophy, the analytic tradition, this
is building upon the nineteenth century empiricists and you know

(01:13:20):
Russell Wickenstein, KWin Kripke, clarity and precision language as the
key to meaning. This is actually something that father brought up.
I believe it was backstage before we even went live,
or maybe you mentioned it while we were alive. But
talking about the problem modern philosophy, it's just all linguistic.
It's all based back in language games. And this is
part of this tradition right here, that philosophy becomes a

(01:13:43):
linguistic analysis. It's a transition from metaphysics to logic and language.
And this is where essentially logical positivism becomes undermined because
of the criticisms of verifiability. And this is why I
would argue the tag argument is so powerful for somebody
who actually knows what's going on. I just did a
video on thirty arguments for Christians. Ten of them are

(01:14:06):
for the existence of God, and I was talking about
tag is how I believe it's the best argument, But
it may not be the most beneficial for the average
person because it does take some type of philosophical foundational
understanding to actually address and most people just goes right
over their head. But if they know what they're talking about,
and then they understand the history of ideas. Logical positivism,

(01:14:28):
which was one of these last attempts to say we
can absolutely know what's true. The way we do it
is make sure that all statements are logical and empirical.
But the problem is, did you begin with that premise
through empiricism and logic And this is essentially just just
totally rex logical positivism because they didn't, so based on

(01:14:51):
their own premise of their system, they didn't begin. They
adopted some presuppositions that aren't proved throughlyrical methods and said,
now with these presuppositions, now we have a totalizing system.
And it isn't until Kwine literally brings up that, hey,

(01:15:11):
actually we're not using empiricism to actually begin with our
first premises. It kind of undermines the whole process. And
so on the other end, in Europe you have the
continental tradition phenomenology hearserl the return to things in themselves
experience as foundation existentialism, Heidiger and Sartra you could put
Heidiger in the phenomenology as well, but human existence being

(01:15:34):
toward death authenticity, and this is where you get postmodernism.
Then you have the critique of truth, power and meta narratives.
The transition is from subjects to structures of meaning in power,
skepticism towards all universals. And this is really this is
the pool of philosophy that then whatever emerges out in
the twenty first century, what it's emerging from. All these

(01:15:57):
things took place essentially by the nineteen sixties wraps up
really the last mestiges of true philosophical transition and schools.
You know, once you get into the nineteen sixties, much
of this has already happened, and now it's just like
dealing with the ramifications of all this.

Speaker 3 (01:16:12):
Stuffy, Yeah, very good, exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:16:17):
So then we get to contemporary philosophy late twentieth century,
twenty first century. So what's been going on since everything
that we just laid out? What is the state? When
FDA and I mentioned contemporary philosophy modern philosophy, what do
we mean? Do we mean modern philosophy from descartesport I
mean in a way, yes, but most specifically late twentieth
century to the twenty first century. What is it? Well,

(01:16:39):
it's defined by fragmentation and pluralism. The analytic continental divide
has softened, but philosophy loses any sort of unified project.
There is no unit, which is okay, I'm not here
to say that we need to be in two camps
of the analytic and the continent. That's not what I'm
saying at all. I'm just saying this is where it's
at those they've realized that those of them, as I'm

(01:17:01):
only an analytic, it's kind of falling to the wayside,
explosion of sub philosophy, of mind science, AI language, applied ethics,
rise of interdisciplinary cognitive science, neuroscience, information theory, and the
transition is from metaphysics to methods. Philosophy has meta discourse
rather than a worldview, and this has led to what

(01:17:22):
people have referred to and that's not just me and FDA,
this is actually like secular people have said, this is
sort of the end of philosophy or the death of philosophy.
And I have two sections here to sort of lay
out what exactly that means. Thinkers like Richard Rorty and
Leotard suggests that philosophy's foundational role is over. Academic philosophy
often becomes technical, bureaucratic, and detached from any spiritual or

(01:17:45):
existential concerns that it's from wisdom philosophia, which Father Deacon
was mentioning to a profession, a shift many critics, especially
in the Orthodox world, see as a spiritual decline. At
least that's the way I framed it. So what is
the death of philosophy? What means cultural death? Philosophy no
longer serves as civilization. Civilization's teacher, Science, economics, and technology

(01:18:07):
replaced it as sources of authority, epistemic death. The enlightenments
project of grounding knowledge failed after every attempt to find
an indubital foundation reason, language history collapses under critique. Nietzsche, Heidegger,
and later Darrata show that the grounds of philosophy are
self undermining themselves, which all leads to a spiritual death.

(01:18:28):
And Christian, especially Orthodox terms, philosophy died when it severed
reason from logos, from the divine source of truth. Without
participation in being, philosophy becomes a system of abstractions, as
FDA has already said multiple times. And this is why
modern philosophy produces information without wisdom, and so why many
people speak of it being a dead end. It's the

(01:18:49):
loss of ultimate ground after Nietzsche's God is Dead. Philosophy
can no longer appeal to transcendent truth infinite reflexivity. Philosophy
critiques its own conditions endlessly. It becomes a meta philosophy,
producing commentary on commentary, and then institutional capture. Philosophy departments
produce specialists in subvials, not stages, and technocratic domination. Science,

(01:19:10):
AI and economics define the real Philosophy reacts rather than leads,
and the moral collapse without teleology or metaphysical good. Ethics
becomes procedural, utilitarian calculus, rights discourse. Yeah, what are your
thoughts on that?

Speaker 3 (01:19:34):
Yeah, I mean those are great points.

Speaker 2 (01:19:37):
Anything you take umbrage on in my framing of it,
or I mean no, some of the perfectly.

Speaker 3 (01:19:43):
I mean, it's just amazing. I think some of these
people that I often argue with and debate trying to
establish different theories of knowledge, it's all you have to
do is look at the history of philosophy like epistemic death,
like it's over, there's no way to get it. Worse

(01:20:09):
yet is cultural death. And I think I really like
the point about institutional capture. So I mean you have
to understand that, you know the kind of human nature. Philosophers.
It's like they learned all this stuff, this philosophy. If

(01:20:31):
there's a death, they're going to be out of a job. Right,
what do you do? I mean when I go through
by with my students, like in the epistemology class, I'm
like the handwave it. So notice like the philosophers are
bringing up legitimate problems that can cannot be answered ever

(01:20:53):
from an autonomous position, and so they just kind of
handwave it. And the reason why is it like, well,
they realize it would be the death of humanity, the
death of their jobs and stuff like, Well, was just
pretend that it never came up. We still got to
go on. So if it goes on and it's not

(01:21:14):
grounded and these kind of transsented things that we're talking about,
then well, truth is replaced by power. And I think
that's why it leads in this section four here the
loss of an ultimate ground lead leads to well, can

(01:21:35):
we just talk about the mirror image of the mirror image?

Speaker 2 (01:21:38):
Right?

Speaker 3 (01:21:38):
And that's interesting enough that Rorty's book Mirror of Nature
or something what's.

Speaker 2 (01:21:44):
Worth I think it did something like that.

Speaker 3 (01:21:45):
Yeah, yeah, like so Rody got it. It's just a
commentary on a commentary on a commentary of a mirror
image of a mirror image, because let's just keep going on,
what else do we do? You either live or die
and like our live's meaningless, but will just keep comment
making a commentary on how meaningless it is. And then

(01:22:09):
power replaces truth institutional capture. And then especially when people
are like, well the death of truth, then what else
like production power? And so if AI and economics could

(01:22:31):
just produce something that keeps me distracted, then that's the
way forward. So that's why you get the textocratic domination
is that there is nothing to control anymore, there's no
transcendent grain to constrain anymore. What's like, well, that's it

(01:22:52):
institutional capture, technocratic domination, and is exactly as you said
you put on your fifth point in section four moral
collapse and the words the phrase that doctor trist Manklheart
says is the deflation of morality.

Speaker 2 (01:23:12):
Yeah, I like that, the deflation like.

Speaker 3 (01:23:15):
There's no there's no more anything, right, So ultimately it
does become a world of death because it's simply no
power struggles, right, And that's kind of what you're seeing
going on in the modern world. We're beyond dialogue, We're
beyond the open university, and all these things. They keep using.

(01:23:40):
These phrases distract you to be like, no, no, everything's okay.
They're killing each other. You can't talk to the other
side anymore. Why because all the things, how did we
get here? We just went over exactly how we got here.
Everything is manufacturing. It's manufactured. Consent, is is no chompsky,

(01:24:04):
is manufactured, descent, there's no notion of human. So interesting enough,
we've kind of returned back to the age of mythos,
where there is no individual. It is the NPC. Everything
is controlled and manufactured, but almost in a worse state.

Speaker 2 (01:24:22):
Right because it has a technically, a technocratic authority to it. Right,
it's not just you know, the mythos of the cultural
net and the cultural canopy that we once lived in.
Now it's reinforced globally. It has no singular geographic space
that it occupies. Now this is a global culture. This

(01:24:43):
is a global phenomenon. And when you mentioned the commentary
on commentary, I mean, that's one of my frustrations with
academia in general, is they really don't push you to
go just read the greats you know, you take a
course in something, and you read people's commentary on Plato,
you read people's commentary on somebody's commentary on Plato. You read.

(01:25:06):
It can be any field. It can be sociology, religious studies, philosophy,
It doesn't matter. Is that's kind of the state of academia.
It's just a constant. And that's why I think it's
so convoluted now with all the voices, is that everybody's
just speaking about commentaries. There really are, I can't you know,
there are very few great scholars that are producing just

(01:25:26):
incredibly unique original work. Now everybody's kind of in this
power struggle. And I think that the first one about
in number three, the cultural death, is that I truly
do believe that philosophy does not play a leading role
in the cultural narrative that it once did, and it
really is a sort of reactionary process. And I would

(01:25:48):
argue that is because these two limiting methodologies that they
took after Kant and really, you know, before that the
whole project, but really these limiting itself to these two
methodologies and becoming to a dead end. Well, technology is
still producing goods, the economy is still making money, and
so they're actually, you know, whether it's good or bad.
I'm not making a value claim. I'm just saying that

(01:26:10):
they're actually an engine that's still moving forward, and philosophy
has kind of like come to a screeching holt, and
so now to save itself, it's like, well, well, why
don't we do an ethical critique of AI or an
ethical discussion on They're just reacting to the things that
these other fields are actually producing now again, good or bad,
But that has lost its sort of cultural prestige. It's

(01:26:30):
lost its cultural influence. I mean, you think in the
nineteen sixties and Marsha mccluan, you know, major philosophers would
be on national television talking about things like the cultural
discourse I think was so much better. Now you turn
on the TV. You know, it's all reality television. It's
dumb down stuff. But you know, what was it firing

(01:26:51):
line with William F. Buckley. I'm not William F. Buckley fan,
but at least conversations they're having at that time are
so much higher, and you saw average people in the
audience participating in it, where now I think people are
so dumb down they can't even participate in something like that,
and so the cultural death is a reflection of the
culture we're actually consuming itself. It's dead, there's no vitality

(01:27:16):
to it.

Speaker 3 (01:27:18):
And even in terms of politic I mean, you see
the left, which has always been violent, but they're an
expression of postmodernity, right, like beyond truth, so it's power,
it's Macavelian, all these different things, and eventually they push

(01:27:39):
too far and they get a I mean, the rights
somewhat temperate, but there's always a reaction.

Speaker 6 (01:27:47):
To that right, and we have no way philosophically or
politically of solving that because precisely of this it's like.

Speaker 3 (01:28:00):
It is. Eventually it's it's a violent society. The only
political solutions to that is a reaction violently to the
other reaction of the violence, which is kind of reminiscent
of this infant reflexivity as you point out, like a

(01:28:22):
commentary on the commentary of violence being violent, commentary on
the violence of.

Speaker 2 (01:28:28):
To where you get to the point or just stating
that men and women are different now becomes violence, Like
how does the academy get to that point? To what
you just said, this hamster wheel of commentary on commentary
of commentary to where you've redefined terms to such a
degree stating basic biological facts becomes an act of violence,

(01:28:50):
and even even an act of violence that could be
justified for physical violence.

Speaker 3 (01:28:55):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:28:55):
We've seen this lately with people going on camp, and
not just to Charlie.

Speaker 3 (01:28:59):
Kirkiz Act, but people everything the power and violence.

Speaker 2 (01:29:03):
Literally just saying that men and women aren't the same.
And you see some trans person try to hit somebody
and there, and there is one video I saw and
the person justified it by saying, well, you're being violent
to me. He said, well, but what did I do?
Because I said men and women aren't the same thing.
He said, yeah, therefore physical violence is justified because you
are just as violent to me. And it's like whoa.
And you can imagine they go to their philosophy professor

(01:29:26):
and they try to try to justify it for them
and it's like, oh my god.

Speaker 3 (01:29:31):
Yeah. And if you say, well I find your violent reaction,
my like me calling you know, you're calling that violent.
I call that violence. They won't accept.

Speaker 2 (01:29:44):
That, right, right.

Speaker 3 (01:29:45):
But the thing is it's like, well, we're beyond truth
in logical consistency, so it doesn't matter if they're being
logically hypocritical because it's all but my side's right. I
think a lot of that kind of I think there's
an amalgamation of both these kind of post modern kind

(01:30:07):
of ideas of being beyond all the things that we
just talked about. There's the existentialists, right, well, what is
the real? Then? The real is what I experienced, the
subjectivity of my phenomenal experience. So there is no logic anymore.
That kind of grounds that. Then you add in there

(01:30:28):
the kind of Marxist and post Marxist critical theorists kind
of well, everything has to be interpreted through oppressed and
oppressed press, oppressed dialectics. Then you're always right, right, like
everything's justified in logic's white supremacy, and that's part of

(01:30:49):
like the stuff that we overthrew and stuff like that.
So that's why there is no dialogue anymore. It's literally
the only reaction political philosophically is is violence to if
you can't dialogue with somebody, And that's what's so unfortunate
our time, is that we can't reason with somebody that's

(01:31:10):
like that the force and violence is the only reaction
to that kind of system of thought. And so it's
just this kind of infinite spiral into death, which is unfortunate.
And that's why I always say it there is no
political philosophical solution to that, because it's it's viol for

(01:31:33):
violence to end the violence of the other violence, and
then the next violence will come up.

Speaker 2 (01:31:39):
Right like and to your point about like the radical
left is being the outgrowth of this entire thing is
just look at the four or the three points that
I made in point three. So if if culture is dead,
there's there's no unifying canopy amongst the community that an
individual lives in. If truth is dead, now there's nothing

(01:32:04):
to actually rationally justify or come to argumentation for to defend.
And if the spiritual is dying, like, it makes sense
why people are literally becoming possessed by demonic ideas and
demonic concepts that fill them with passion, and they confuse
the passion they're filled with with some type of validity
that it makes sense why they become bin It makes

(01:32:26):
sense why they're killing people. It makes sense why they
desacrilege their body and scarify themselves with all the things
that it's literally they are conditioned to believe that the true,
the good, and the beautiful are somehow oppressive to them. Yeah,
and it's not, and it's not something to aspire towards.

(01:32:47):
And you can't, I mean without that basic presupposition that
the good, then, the true, and the beautiful are things
to aspire towards, how can you have any agreement with
that person? There's no bridge that can be that you know,
you can't meet in the middle with them anywhere.

Speaker 3 (01:33:05):
Yeah, And I like that's why I said I have
no idea what the political solution is to I mean,
that's why things like authoritarianism fascism occur, which where the
historical logical consequences of kind of Talmudic Bolshevism and international

(01:33:30):
socialism that embrace these kind of ideas. It's like you're
going to produce the opposite, and like there is We're
now in a world where it's like there is nothing
politically that you can do other than a kind of
autocracy and fascist kind of authoritarian to like the most

(01:33:55):
the biggest threat, it like has to be eliminated. Right,
I want to know what you're mean, thought the only
way that we can get out of it?

Speaker 2 (01:34:05):
Yeah, Well no, I'll go ahead and finish your thought.
I don't mean to catch you off, well, the.

Speaker 3 (01:34:11):
Only way we can get out of this, and who
knows like temparately that those might be actual only solutions
that you can do. There almost might be necessary evils.
I've actually argued that. I'm like, I don't know, Like,
obviously one side's so dangerous that like maybe a necessary

(01:34:33):
evil might be kind of necessary to stop that, But
like that's not a solution. That's not where we're looking.
I mean, ultimately you're going to have to integrate people
into Orthodoxy and get a new mos to rebuild and
get away from everything that we went through. And that's

(01:34:54):
going to be I mean, it's happening, but it's gonna
be hard as well. But like that's the only way
ultimately is a solution. But like there might it might
be unfortunate temporarily, there might be some really unfortunate situations
politically that one might have to advocate for to stop

(01:35:17):
a lot of this stuff. Right, No, I totally might
make it worse too, Like that's the other thing that's
probably that might create another So it's really hard, Like
I don't really kind of have answers on that I
can identify how it happens, you know, philosophically, and historically,
but other than a prescription for Orthodoxy, I actually don't know.
I don't know what the solution is to.

Speaker 2 (01:35:41):
Well. And what I was going to say is the
only option that I see is Orthodoxy, because I do
see this as a pre moderate dealing with presuppositions. And
like I said, with the tradcat the Orthodox, the pagan
phenomenon on the wing, I think that's totally subconscious. I

(01:36:02):
do not think the average person on the right wing
is thinking, you know what, I need to escape modernity. No,
the anxiety, the existential angst you feel is that modernity
is collapsing and you're not sure what exactly it is
to put your finger on. And to your point, do
we go and attack the people that we're just describing,

(01:36:22):
I would say not, not right now at least. I
think our efforts need to be in building building Orthodoxy
so that we actually have a communal resistance against something
that we already do. I mean, we're doing it right now.
Orthodoxy is growing. But my point is we need to
bring more and more people in the church. We need
to bring build American Orthodoxy double triple in size, and

(01:36:47):
that we then as a cultural force, actually have something
tangible to defend, and we have real communities thriving all
across the United States, not in just pockets. But it
becomes we can already feel the momentum. I mean, look
at what's happening online. There's real momentum behind Orthodoxy. And
as we grow, say say God willing, in the near future,

(01:37:08):
we become ten percent of the US population. Now we
have real cultural cachet, We actually have real cultural influence,
and we can then begin to wield that in nonviolent means.
But if things were to turn violent, we actually have
communities to defend and protect. Where right now, it's so desperate,

(01:37:31):
say there was some violent offensive against radical leftists or
anybody you perceive to be the enemy, What what do
you come back to? Okay, you've killed? What are you
what are you coming back to? Now you've already done
the act. Well, now we're just left in the same problem.
We need people to adopt the frontom of the church.
We need people to change their their sentimentality towards the

(01:37:56):
American project, towards democracy, towards you know, capitalism, and not
in the sense that you become the exact opposite. No,
it takes nuance. The churches both in you can be
in favor of aspects of capitalism without being identifying as like, yeah,
I'm a staunch capitalist.

Speaker 3 (01:38:13):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:38:14):
No, there's nuance here. You can say we need social
programs for people without saying, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:38:19):
I'm a socialist.

Speaker 2 (01:38:20):
No no, no, no, there's wiggle room. The Orthodox front of
my enlightens that and highlights where exactly we can move.
And so I find optimism in the rise of Orthodoxy
and the amount of converts we're having. And I think
right now, I mean, let the culture of the Protestant culture,
warriors that want to be provocative and provoked, let them

(01:38:42):
do that. Why don't we build Why don't we build that?
In five years we are triple quadruple the size that
we are. Now what then, now we actually have real
like just like the Catholics, they have a little bit
more political cachet than we do because of the numbers
they have. We need the same thing. And now we
can actually operate as a community in America, in the

(01:39:03):
Western world. But that doesn't mean any of these things
are going to go away immediately. I just don't see
how they can. And I at the same time, to
your point with the violence I don't see how they
can be reconciled. Like I always use Peter Berger, the
Protestant sociologist of the mid twentieth century, his theories of
the sacred canopy, that every civilization, at least from his

(01:39:26):
sociological method or theory, has some type of shared sacred
canopy of cultural heroes, values, stories, music, things that unite
the people that live in totally different areas. But if
they were to meet, they have a shared canopy, a
shared a shared language, a shared semiotic that does not
exist in America. Basically, the only thing left is like this,

(01:39:47):
this remnant of Americana culture, like cowboy you know, country music,
a cowboy persona, you know the Western you know, rugged,
rugged man out in the wild West. That's kind of
which is still sort of uniquely a European white man archetype.
That's really the only thing left that is part of

(01:40:08):
this sort of sacred can Everything's been more We are
becoming more diluted culturally but also more compartmentalized as groups
and cultures. And I don't think there is a you
not unifying American culture other than the global homo culture.
That really doesn't matter what country you're in. You can
go to Germany, it's still there. That is not an

(01:40:30):
you know, that is not what it means to be American.
I would argue, it's not even fully American culture, although
we are the exporters of it in the way it
is American culture, but it's it's not it's not an
organic thing. This is you know, whether it be the
conspiracies of Hollywood and academia and in economics, the political elites.
This has all been orchestrated over time. You know, people

(01:40:52):
don't organically choose to live in a society with mass
immigration and the unable to delineate between man and woman.
Nobody chooses that. But how do you get out of
it with the people that have already adopted that to
be real, I don't see how you can without time.
It's almost like we have to outbreed them, you know,

(01:41:13):
like we became ten percent of the population, and every
Orthodox woman had three to five children and two to
three generations. Things look very different.

Speaker 3 (01:41:23):
Yeah, well, I mean the elite's plan is to the
only reason why they do. The elites are not ideologues.
They're not actually committed to liberal politics or conservative the
concern with I mean, there are ideologues in a sense.

(01:41:45):
I think they have kind of a tectocratic, kind of
gnostic vision of the future, but ultimately it's ground and power,
and so they ultimately are doing all this stuff to
collapse society to usher in a four Industrial Revolution exactly.
Like that's I don't know how they're gonna do it.
I think they're probably trying to do it in multiple ways.

Speaker 2 (01:42:08):
And I think that's why. I don't know if you
heard Alex Karp, the CEO of Palenteer, recently talked about
how worried some Christian nationalism is for him. Now he's
the Jewish CEO of Palateer. Why would Christian nationalism be
such a threat, Because of the point you're making, This
is all part of a deliberate collapse of the West
so that it can install the Fourth Industrial Revolution, it

(01:42:30):
can install the technocratic world order. But what they're worried
about is what if they collapse modernity and those nasty
little Christian nationalists take it over. Now again, he's worried
about Protestants and Catholics, you know, the general. But still
my point is there is an angst amongst them because
they know, okay, for us to fulfill the hopes of modernity,

(01:42:51):
you know, the technocratic, centralized structure, transhuman This is where
we're going. I mean Alex karp Is, he's part of Palent,
He's part of that whole Silicon Valley movement. So if
that's where they think they're going, and they've partnered, you know,
you see Nia laon Musk and Peter Thiel and and
Reason all partner with Trump, even Larry Ellison of Oracle.

(01:43:11):
They see, Okay, we've hitched our wagon here because this
is where the cultural energy is. Oh dang, what if
all these people didn't agree with us and actually he
supplanted like the infrastructure we're building. I think that's actually
an anxiety that they worry about.

Speaker 3 (01:43:31):
Let me read it super chat real quick.

Speaker 2 (01:43:33):
Yeah, go ahead, we can.

Speaker 3 (01:43:34):
Get mccolby says five bucks. One thing I've noticed is
that at the logical conclusion of a lot of different
motifs thought that seek to put the individual at the
highest point, it's probabe, it completely runs any type of
ability for true understanding and communion, which is exactly what

(01:43:57):
you mentioned about twenty minutes ago, right it right. But
I do like the point you just ended with too,
is that so we're not black piled.

Speaker 2 (01:44:12):
Yeah, you can't be black built. I've heard too many
orthodox despair over over our context. Don't don't despair, guys.

Speaker 3 (01:44:21):
The fact that the elites are worrying by collapse that
presents an opportunity for.

Speaker 2 (01:44:25):
Us exactly exactly, they're.

Speaker 3 (01:44:28):
Actually worrying that, Like, oh my gosh, Like what happens
if Orthodoxy comes in and fills the void?

Speaker 2 (01:44:35):
Right?

Speaker 3 (01:44:36):
Like that's great.

Speaker 2 (01:44:37):
Hope right in set of technocracy.

Speaker 3 (01:44:41):
Yeah, Like, I mean, look through the whole history of this,
you still see God working through that, and so that
should give you hopes too. It's like man fails. I mean,
what's the theme of all this tonight? Man is autonomous,
pretended to autonomy fails and God wins. Like so, I mean,

(01:45:05):
if if you watch the whole history of philosophy in
Western civilization, like you shouldn't be afraid, which is exactly
That's all the enemy has to do because Christ conquered death.
There's nothing left to fear. It's all done. So all

(01:45:27):
the demons can do is get you in an emotional
state to be like, yeah, but aren't you like what if?
What if? This? I call them the what if demons? Right,
what if this happened, which is what if they're literally
not even real, like they even happened. So they're getting
you their real estate agents in imaginary places that you're
investing all your time in, which is totally stupid. Which

(01:45:48):
is why the most repeated verse or sorry phrase in
scripture is not that God loves you or pent it's
if you're not.

Speaker 2 (01:46:01):
Yeah, that's it.

Speaker 3 (01:46:02):
Fear not that's the only thing that the enemy has
against us, and like we fall into is but like
if you just kind of abstract and look like what
we're talking about, like there's nothing to fear, right, God
and and providences in it all?

Speaker 2 (01:46:17):
Right, No, I think that's the Orthodox approach where if
you are a Boomer Maga supporter, like that's all you
can do is hold on to it and prevent the collapse.
Like you know, now you're a physical conservative, but you
justify Trump's spending bills, Well, we have to, we got
to make sure the projects still going. If you're Orthodox,
it's like, Okay, things may get really really bad, it

(01:46:39):
may be really difficult, Okay, but at least I have
faith in God and in a sense for us to
get out of the situation. We're in right now, we
have to make a drastic transition, maybe the collapse of
the West at least economically, or whatever this project is,
or this transitionary point, this is actually an opportunity. This
is an opportunity for me to be strong enough to

(01:47:01):
resist it, to to live through it, to withstand it,
to persevere through it, but also to build something that
maybe will supplant the thing that they're trying to build.
Maybe when when some of these elders have talked about
this golden age of Orthodoxy, what if America was majority Orthodox?
You know we we don't. And that's where some of

(01:47:21):
the people take my eschatology streams a little too far,
where they think I'm predicting like the next thing that's
going to happen, or I'm putting out some some timeline
I'm going to say a date on when. That's not
what we do that The Saints are just giving us
signposts as we move through time to keep to keep watch.
There's a golden age. Multiple saints have said this, how

(01:47:44):
does that look? Maybe maybe it's our own country and
therefore you should actually be working towards something like That's
where I've seen too many Orthodox Christians despair to such
a degree where they just give up on finding a wife,
building a business, like doing something productive like bro I
get it. I'm with you. Fiat currency, globalism, you know. Radical. Yeah,

(01:48:06):
obviously doesn't mean you don't stop working, like what, That's
not the way out. You don't just throw your hands
up and give up. I mean, if you want to
be somebody who flees into the mountains and builds a cabin,
you know, feel free, I'm not gonna say that's not
something that some people should do, But in general, I
don't think the correct response is to totally dispar and

(01:48:29):
sort of give up on life and give on give
up on hopes of becoming something better or even growing
something within the system. Maybe the system will collapse, as doesn't.
That doesn't mean you shouldn't start a business tomorrow. In
my opinion, go start your business. Maybe the economy totally
collapses by twenty twenty six, Maybe it doesn't. Maybe it doesn't,
and you already have fifty to one hundred clients. Like

(01:48:51):
I think men need to have the mentality that no
matter what's going to come, we're gonna presue persevere through it,
and I'm gonna build something to die building something. I
think that's the mentality now. It could be building your church.
You could be a priest at a perish that's a
legitimate calling. It could be building your plumbing company. It
could be building your body of knowledge, or building whatever

(01:49:12):
it is. You have to be driven to build something.
If not, you're gonna be swept up by the sentimentality
of today's world.

Speaker 3 (01:49:20):
I mean, before the end of the world is most likely,
statistically is going to be your end. You're gonna die, yeah, yeah,
we probably won't be here when your a judgment day
and judgment is ontological. It's not a statutory jurridical Who

(01:49:40):
are you? Who you're going to be known as? And
who you are the face of the Lord and all
the world the cosmos is going to be known When
things were the worst, we don't know who you. I mean,
if you had a easy life and everything economically and

(01:50:02):
socially politically was great, like that is that who you
want to be known as? Like I encourage all of
you be the person that's like it was the worst situation,
hope against hope, he had he he did everything against

(01:50:22):
all odds. That displays virtue and character and so you
have to make it pretty easy. You have two options.
You're a doomer and you'll be judged that way. That's
who you will be for eternity. Like we only have
this time. What we are now is what we're going

(01:50:42):
to be an eternity, and the best way to be
more than what we are, and the greatest is in adversity.
So I'm like this is great times Like man up,
pony up, son, quit being a feminist, especially if you're
a man. Yeah, and get to work and build something,

(01:51:04):
do something so that can last. That you're going to
take into attorney and be like, I know it was bad,
but at least I did this. I you know, I
had my last stand. I built it against all odds.
I built a family, I built you know, I invested,
I worked out, I did all the things, even when

(01:51:25):
it seemed all meaningless because I had hope against hope.
There it is. You carried it into eternity, and that's
who you're going to be judged as because that's who
you are. Or you go the other way. You're going
to be a doomer and you're going to be judged
as that. And God, God help you, and have mercy
on your soul, like but you have you have a choice,
and like, God, give us more time to make the

(01:51:47):
right choices in that, because there'll be a day when
That's why Saint Paul says, but even the time, like,
there'll be a day where we don't get we don't
have any more choices, We can't do anymore.

Speaker 2 (01:52:00):
Right, No, I I love. That was beautiful. That was beautiful,
very well said. And that's what and that's why if
we grew Orthodoxy, say in five to ten years, Orthodoxy
quadrupled or tripled, you know, building your business, maybe you
build a plumbing business, but now once Orthodoxy grows, you're

(01:52:20):
a plumber for Orthodox Christian. Maybe you live in a
great community and those are your only clients. You know,
that's a fantastic opportunity we need as Orthodox Christians to
eventually buy and deal with each other, just as other
communities in America do.

Speaker 3 (01:52:36):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:52:37):
It's just our community isn't based on racial lines, isn't.
It isn't based on the geographies that we came from.
It's based on our faith in Christ and our Orthodox
Christian faith. That's what unites us, and that truly is multicultural,
That that truly does transcend boundaries between groups, and I

(01:52:57):
think that's the hope in the future. And I mean,
to your point you want to be. Let's say, let's
say you were right about every conspiracy theory and you
are judged by Christ and you're on judgment day and
he's like, you know what, Bob, you're right about absolutely everything.
What did you do? What did you do? And you're like, well,

(01:53:17):
I didn't do anything. Is that who you really want
to be? Or say, hey, you were right about everything
and every and you did everything you could. Maybe some
were successful, some failed, but is it true failure? I
mean that's where it's like, as a man, you have
to build this mentality that the work and the journey
itself is the point. You just have to figure out

(01:53:40):
what you're passionate about.

Speaker 3 (01:53:42):
It's a utilitarian mindset that my worth only judge in
terms of what it actually produces. So if there's a
future in which I can't actually produce, then it's meaningless, right,
But we're we're virtualthesis is orthodox, right, Like, the reason

(01:54:03):
why we try to produce something, whether we accomplish it
or not, is to produce virtue and become more than
what we were right, So we're not you. I mean,
think about how captivating utilitarians is, Like, who cares? Did
you fight the good fight? Did you acquire the virtues

(01:54:26):
through trying to produce stuff? You're not measured by what
you produced and the money. You're measured by the struggle
and the struggle that produced the virtues to get there.
And that's who you are. So we got to reorientate
our mindset away from everything we're talking about. Utilitarian is
totally a modernist, full.

Speaker 2 (01:54:46):
Modern project, another modern project exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:54:48):
I'd be like, no, it's about virtue. You know, we're
talking in the class and then we're talking to church today.
Father Rest always talks about the finished concept of ceasuit.
SEASIU is basically defined as unnecessary struggle, to struggle well
through unnecessary struggle. So a finished person could drive in

(01:55:12):
on the the you know, snow plowed roads straight into
the cabin. Or they could park a mile away and
hike in three feet of snow into the cabin. They'll
take the seasue the three miles out in the sorry,
the mile out three feet of snow. Why why would
an American mindset? You're like, why would you do something

(01:55:32):
so stupid? Well, at least they have the the intelligence
and insight to be like because it produces virtue and strength.
So in the fasting period, fathers always in every confession
to be honest. Deacon, your sea suit and the lines
in the grocery store, take the take the longer line,

(01:55:56):
take the unnecessary struggle. Now, why would we do that
to make yourself stronger? Why do we lift weights and
work out and put pain right to become more than
what we were? To become stronger? And so that's the way.
Whether the physical outcome of money or like a business

(01:56:18):
works or not, is irrelevant. As long as it produces
virtue and makes me stronger. I'll take the harder way.
And we got to visit the whole world this way,
but like I'll take it. I'll take it, Lord, I'll
take the as bad as it can get. That that's
why the Lord says, if anyone wishes to be saved,

(01:56:39):
take up your cross and follow me. Take it up man, man,
become like God.

Speaker 2 (01:56:50):
And you know, one of the most memorable points that
I have the time that we were all in California
together for the baptisms of our friends, our close friends,
and then we spent that night over at your parents' house. Yeah,
and you made a comment. Everybody were standing outside on
the back porch and everybody was talking about their struggles.

(01:57:12):
There's like four or five people that were like struggling
with some pretty serious stuff. And you made a comment
as like, well, that's why we're Orthodox Christians, is that
we're just here to struggle together. And that's the point
you're making is like, embrace the struggle. Yeah, the struggle
is not something to shy away from. The struggles to
be embraced, and it's going to make you a better man, amen,
no matter what the outcome is. And and I think

(01:57:35):
that's that's part of the problem of gen Z is
you know, whatever it may be, it could be fitness.
Is you see these kids that are like sixteen, seventeen,
eighteen years old to take heterroids, and it's like, well,
the point of working out isn't to look like you know,
Ronnie Coleman when you're eighteen years old. It's for the
journey of actually developing the work ethic, working out, being consistent,

(01:57:59):
living a healthy life style. And everybody is so focused
on outcome, Like everybody's so focused on what how much
money does the video make or or you know what,
playing playing the algorithm, or you know, taking short cuts.
I'm gonna, you know, I want to look jacked for
my Instagram photos, So I'm gonna get on steroids at
eighteen years old and hammer my testosterone levels for the

(01:58:20):
rest of my life. Like why would you do that?
But if you're so focused on a product, on an outcome,
immediate reward, somehow it can be justified. But if you
take the long approach, which is what theosis is about.
But the Orthodox Church is the long middle road, It's
way worth it and it's going to make you a

(01:58:40):
better person in the process. So yeah, but that being said,
let's hit some of these super chats. We got some questions.
Cordica throws into a generous twenty thank you so much,
interesting discussion as always, dph Well, thank you to Father, Deacon,
doctor and and Ice for taking the time today and
sharing his expertise with us. Aiden Clark throws intents hey
Fellow's great Stream went to divine Liturgy for the second time,

(01:59:03):
also stayed after to watch a wedditing man. Orthodoxy is
just beautiful. It absolutely is well glory to God.

Speaker 3 (01:59:09):
Aiden. I'm glad that you are inquiring.

Speaker 2 (01:59:11):
And attending some liturgies. That's fantastic. Octavian sen and ten
over on your channel says thank you both for all
the works you do. They're very edifying. Well, thank you, Octavian,
God bless you. Brother OG two E n V became
a Codal crew member and gifted a Codal Crew membership.

(01:59:32):
Thank you very much, brother Orthodox boomer. Grandma said, I
wish I could host a philosophy quote salon here at
our place. That'd be pretty cool. Thank you, min. We
might do a discussion group of Paul Kingsnorth's new book
Most Popular Level to get Christian folks to come. Well,
thank you so much, Alexandria, God bless you and the

(01:59:54):
family really appreciate it. Pierre throws into says Karl Marx
was a piece of work. Yeah, that was a fact.
He's also did did you hear that he was incredibly
disgusting and smelt like he didn't like to take showers.
He look he looks like I know when you but
then you find out it's like no. Actually, multiple people
wrote how much he smelt because he didn't like to shower,

(02:00:15):
it's or bathe Then I don't know if they had showers,
but bathe. He didn't like to. He didn't like to bathe.
So apparently the dude was incredibly disgusting. Makes sense with
his worldview. Both Ann throws in five, says wise words
from each of you, gentlemen. Thinks, uh, Kasmir Freeman throws
in five, thank you very much. Kasimir He says, was

(02:00:38):
it wise to pug grahm Orthodox Jews and eighteen hundreds,
thus producing loss of faith and anti Talmudic Bolshevism? Was
it wise to grape and delete old believers?

Speaker 3 (02:00:57):
I don't even understand that? Was it? Whise?

Speaker 2 (02:01:06):
Is this some type of shot at Orthodoxy? I think
so he's saying, we programmed Orthodox Jews in the eighteen
is he talking about I assume he's talking about Russia?
And yeah, I don't think produced. I don't think programs
produced Bolshevism. Per se Bolshevism is built on really, you know,

(02:01:32):
the Marxian dialectic for who was reading the old believers?

Speaker 3 (02:01:36):
Like? What is that? Even?

Speaker 2 (02:01:39):
Is he talking about Orthodox Christians?

Speaker 3 (02:01:42):
Was it? Why is too grape and kill old believers?
Who are you? First of all, you're you're referring to
this as to a specific group.

Speaker 2 (02:01:56):
So like, okay, so he clarified here, let me pull
up his comment. He said, orthodoxy, but it's a shot
against the people who were decisive in both actions.

Speaker 3 (02:02:13):
Decisive, But who who graped and kids people that did this?

Speaker 2 (02:02:19):
Yeah, like, which program are you talking about? I think
the Jews have been over been through about one hundred.

Speaker 3 (02:02:28):
Is the famous phrase. They'll always tell you what happened
to him and never why?

Speaker 2 (02:02:33):
Like what what? I'm not sure I understand the question. Yeah, anyway, Sorry,
KASIMIRI I'd love to engage, and I really just did,
genuinely do not know how to respond or what what
exactly is being referenced. It sounds like he's talking it's
like an anti Russian thing. Is he claiming that the

(02:02:54):
Russian Church killed old believers? I don't get it anyway.
Next one, thank you, Kasimir, God bless you. Not sure
exactly the question. Another one, Sinen says, been watching dphs
in Jay's coverage of the New World Ordered literature. Something

(02:03:16):
that has confused me is why the elite do what
they do. I'm sure it's demonic at base, but for them,
is it just for control? Bather Deacon, you want to
take the first stab at that.

Speaker 3 (02:03:29):
I mean, I think we kind of hit. I do
think they have. I'd like to say they're not at
the kind of lower levels ideological. I think they kind
of have. A lot of them subscribe to a certain
kind of ideology, even religious mindset. But again, yeah, of

(02:03:52):
course power. So I think there's multiple elements of kind
of domination we kind of went through once truth is dead.
It's in terms of control, but there's always an ideology
that kind of justifies that, and so and it's demonic.

(02:04:14):
So all three of those.

Speaker 2 (02:04:16):
Yeah, I would I would argue that anybody who's moving
or in line with the new world order, however you
define that, technic, technocracy, global communism, whatever nomenclature you want
to use, it ultimately is demonic. And whether you know
the Rothschild family or Prince Andrews, is is openly explicitly

(02:04:40):
satanic or not. The idea from an Orthodox perspective is
that through their free will, they've chose to neglect the
uncreate energies of God and are filled with the absence
of so any decision they make is going to be
inspired by a sort of demonic movement, and so their
own pride, their own greed their own and you know,

(02:05:00):
and something to keep in mind is if if you
have hundreds of billions of dollars you can buy I mean,
if you have one billion dollars, you can basically buy
anything you want. What would motivate you then probably power
over people, like if you just don't if you're not
rooted in some type of traditional framework, let's say at

(02:05:21):
Orthodox Christianity or something, and you're a kind of modern person,
you have billions of dollars and there really is no
limit to what you're you know, pushing towards. Eventually it's
going to lead to like subjugation and control over people.
I mean, that's why so many of these really rich
people get into like sex trafficking and like buying actual people.

(02:05:43):
And so what's that driven by? Is that that they're
openly satanic? Maybe sometimes it's just that they're filled with
the passions which displaces the energies of God and in
a sense they are a vessel for a demon. Maybe
they're not, as you know, there's a spectrum here we
talk about demon possession of previous stream. There's a spectrum
in Orthodox or It's not like you do one thing
and all of a sudden you're fully you know, controlled

(02:06:05):
by a demon. There's multiple instances where you say yes
to them, and I would assume many of these people
have said yes to the devil. The low gives me
the temptuous thoughts that come in our brain. Why is
it that adultery and weird sexual fetishis is so common
amongst these people because they're constantly trying to get a
high or high eventually sometimes it's a dreamochrome, so like

(02:06:29):
there's there's definitely a spiritual basis for all this, and
I think it's all demonic, whether the person engaging is
explicitly recognizing, you know, like Maria Abramovich, you know, she's
kind of openly satanic. Not all of them are so
explicit about their Satanism, but anybody that is moving towards

(02:06:52):
that general framework is compelled by the same powers. That'd
be my response. This is a question that came in
over on your channel one of two. I think part
of the problem today is some in the Christian Coalition
wing of the Republican Party hits their wagon to Trump.
I think he's sending another one in for your channel,

(02:07:13):
but it hasn't come in yet. What do you think
about people the Christian Coalition supporting Trump. We've kind of
hit on this previously in some of our streams.

Speaker 3 (02:07:25):
It's complicated. I mean, the Christian Coalition is divided, Like
there's people that view Trump as a messianic figure that
are at a cult. That's definitely true. I think I
think generally the values of the right and conservatism line

(02:07:49):
obviously much more up with Christianity than the left US,
and so people are going to vote for those in
the know Republican Party. And then I think you have
a third group the Christian Coalition that are don't think

(02:08:10):
Trump's necessarily a good person. They're probably skeptical, don't even understand,
but they're just like, I don't want to go into
World War three, and I'm tired of my nation being
destroyed by the left. The left has gotten so out
of control and weaponized migration that they were like, this

(02:08:30):
is the only place that we had to go. So,
I mean, it's a very group among people who voted
for Trump. Right.

Speaker 2 (02:08:39):
I've seen this multiple times in the comments or the
chats of some of my streams. Is they say, voting
for the lesser of two evils is still evil, And
I would retort that actually, that's exactly what Saint Paucio
said for people to do is to vote for the
lesser of two evils. So I would say, at least
from St. Paisio's that doesn't mean you're contributing to the evil.

(02:09:03):
In fact, it means you're trying to lessen the spread
of it in whatever country or polis that you're able
to participate in politically. But yeah, Trump's very flawed. If
there was a reelection between Harris and Trump, Trump's still
the better option. But yeah, you're never going to get

(02:09:25):
I mean we're literally in a Masonic Protestant Enlightenment project
right now, Like you're not going to get you know.

Speaker 3 (02:09:31):
The guy would say, it's very Protestant to be like, well,
they're both bad, and so I opt out of politics.
I'm like, that's puritanical Puritanism. That's a Protestant crazy sect
that I don't get involved. I don't touch things that
are bad. And that's why Sam Paysio said, you know,

(02:09:57):
there's both like a combination. The principal ideological like, obviously
you can't vote for a platform that wants to mutilate
children and molest them and create an abortion Holocaust and
you know, anti natalism, pro death Malthusian death cult, and

(02:10:21):
at the same time, like among like you said, the
lesser of two evils, you have to basically say, well,
I still have to be practical. I need to be
politically involved in a way that serves Christians the best.
So I have more. I don't know if I say more.

(02:10:43):
I have disdain for the people who are like I
don't vote, and I'm like, I think they're actually just
as evil, maybe a little bit less than those who
vote for like very evil stuff. I'm like, you're part,
You're part of the problem.

Speaker 2 (02:11:00):
Okay, I see the number two now, it was just
a comment over on your channel. He says, whenever Trump
or Christian Coalition leader was told something like it's different
than in the time of Christ, we can't be christ Like.
Well again, Dave, forgive me. I don't exactly obviously, I

(02:11:20):
don't know who you are, where you're coming from. I
would say that are you criticizing the idea that the
time is different to be christ like and to vote
for Trump is to not be christ Like? Because I
would argue that we're not pacifist. And I always get
worried and I don't know your intention to day, but

(02:11:42):
when everybody says, you know, everybody starts talking about Christ
like regarding politics, it tends to come with some type
of passivism or some type of tolerance that I don't
think from my reading of Byzantine history right here, the
history of the Byzantine Empire, that wasn't what I was
seeing there. The goal was to make sure that the

(02:12:04):
culture itself reflected Christ as much as possible, and they
took extreme measures that maybe we wouldn't take today. I mean,
they kicked people out, they cut people's hands off, they
cut their tongues out based on things they said. But
the whole goal was to make sure that that social
canopy that we talked about earlier was never was never
eroded or never split, that everybody understood what the empire

(02:12:26):
stood for. I think that's actually a good thing. Maybe
the methods might be different in the twenty first century,
but I think go ahead.

Speaker 3 (02:12:36):
I think it's an error. It comes up in ethics,
and it's something called ethical monism in absolutism that like
rules are applied everywhere in the same way at the
same degree. So there are principles of what it's to
be christ Like. That might look christ like, might be

(02:13:00):
secuting somebody or blowing the brains out when they're coming
into to grape your family like that, I would argue
that's christ like that there's a general principle it's like,
well Christ never did that, but the context and the
situation differs. Right. There's there's no one rule that's applied

(02:13:26):
in the same way everywhere, at all times and all
So that's why we acquire the fron of the church.
And if you want to know what the fronting of
the church is, just like you said, you look like
there are different times it like by our standards that
you would look at you would think that's extremely harsh

(02:13:47):
and not christ like. But it's like it's literally sanctioned
by Christ and codified and Justinian law. Right like these
people people have an abortion executed. If you had an abortion,
you'd be executed. Now I'm not saying we could do
that in our culture, right, but that's part of the
principle of what it's to be christ Like is it's

(02:14:10):
not an absolute or ethical monism. It's a principle that
when applied and think about this is exactly the way
the priest works, right, he has canons, he has rules,
objective rules. So this doesn't mean it's subjective. It's objective.
How the priest applies that to the one in confession differs.

(02:14:32):
Sometimes he has to apply it harsher, he has to
ply it in different ways. Sometimes he lessens it. But
the general rule still applies and it's actually christ like.
But like, I just yeah, I'm extremely suspicious. It's typically
an effeminate Protestant modernist thing to be like Christ Like.

(02:14:54):
This isn't christ Like. You just don't see that kind
of argumentation and verbiage in the history of the church.
Like you do see it emerge out of exactly what
we talked about now that there isn't really any truth, right,
you have to weaponize words and emotionalism. But like, oh well,

(02:15:15):
that's see, Christ has got to be meek, He's got
to be this hippie person. It's it's this emotionalism that's
applied in this way everywhere at all times. But I mean,
if we think about, like I've argued to this about
the death penalty, the death penalty is love. It is
an act of love. The same way that the death

(02:15:36):
penalty was instituted upon Adam and Eve in the Garden
of Eden, that they may repent and that evil may
not become eternal. It's actually a gracious, loving thing that
somebody be given an actual sentence that you only have
this much time to live, and you've got a turnal.

(02:15:57):
Now you've got a chance to repent turner, because the
devil's distraction, the biggest distraction and temptation is you always
have more time. Why do you again going back to
why does Saint Paul says? Redeem the time? So I'm
extremely suspicious of this kind of language of Christ's life.

Speaker 2 (02:16:17):
I did clarify I'm not a passifist, but some Trump
supporters probably think Christ lived in a simpler time.

Speaker 3 (02:16:26):
I'm still like kidding.

Speaker 2 (02:16:27):
I'm just I know, I'm not sure what the simpler
time has to be. With the premise about voting for Trump,
I don't know. I would say just for the mimetic
value itself and the shift of the Overton window. Uh,
it's been well worth it, despite the dispensation lists, despite

(02:16:50):
the Zionism, despite some of the failed promises, I mean,
the cultural shift and the energy that millennials and gen
z have on the right wing. Now, I think that's
worth it in of itself because that's going to create
a reverberation for the next generation.

Speaker 3 (02:17:06):
Yeah, And I was always say to you, I'm a
pro Trump person. I'm like, take the wins.

Speaker 2 (02:17:10):
I have a lot of criticisms of Trump.

Speaker 3 (02:17:13):
I have a lot of Yeah, we have a lot
of chrisms of Trump. So like, take the wins.

Speaker 2 (02:17:18):
Exactly do you want all or some wins in the
veneer of Christianity and at least kind of maintaining something
of semblance. But no, I get all the criticisms of Trump.
I mean, but at the same time, I mean, what
are the options? And do you want like a Mike

(02:17:39):
Johnson Christian from Mississippi or do you want like a braggadocious,
megalomaniac Donald Trump that when net Yahoo went back on
his word, He's like, all right, that's the end. Turkey
is now going to be the military guard for gys
in the West Bank. Which one would you rather have?
I mean, I'd rather have the man that's kind of
an egomaniac that if he gets cross, he actually does

(02:18:00):
something different.

Speaker 3 (02:18:02):
Yeah, yeah, good point.

Speaker 2 (02:18:06):
So and last one for me over on dono Chat,
Spencer throws in five bucks. Thank you very much Spencer.
He says, I attended a perish in Dallas and my
preach announced that we have thirty two new Catechumans in
the past four weeks. Holy crap, four Sundays and you

(02:18:27):
got thirty two new catch humans. I'm still in school
and would like some of my classmates to come to
my church. What's the breast of what's the best approach
to do?

Speaker 3 (02:18:37):
So?

Speaker 2 (02:18:38):
What would be your method to get classmates if you're
an undergrad college student to go to your Orthodox church?

Speaker 3 (02:18:45):
All right, I figured this out the other day. I
think we Orthodox needed to do more social events outside
of liturgical settings.

Speaker 2 (02:18:55):
Yes, I would totally agree with that.

Speaker 3 (02:18:58):
We do know it was a lot easy ones at
southern California, especially for all you single people. We do
the Young Adult League and we would do theology on
tap bingo night, like you know, bowllying where young people
could meet appear. It's a bit harder because you know,
there's hardly any people in Montana. But I do like

(02:19:21):
Wednesday night we're having an Orthodox movie night. We do
music bingo nights sometimes at like one of the breweries.
We do obviously the Katechises and continueds education. I'm totally
thinking about events outside of liturgy as well. Why because

(02:19:43):
guess what that's much not al Is it good for
us to stay and com that we're not this kind
of like American Protestant idea of like, well, there's myself,
my religious self that I do on liturgy and then
everything in my secular life. I want the liturgic life
to spill out into everything that we do. That's one

(02:20:04):
of the reasons why I do that. But furthermore, isn't
it much easier and more inviting and be like, hey,
why don't you come to an Orthodox movie night, or Hey,
we're gonna all meet up for a music bingo night.
They meet the people and guess what they think, Hey,
these people are actually kind of cool, right.

Speaker 2 (02:20:25):
I'll tell you A perfect example is our men's group
at my little parish is we got guys that we
invited to our men's group to go shoot guns. We
went to a shooting range. They came. They saw a
bunch of normal guys like guns. I like guns. We
talk about guns, we talk about man stuff, and all
of a sudden like, man, yeah, I want to come
to liturgy. Well, and then they hang out in fellowship.

(02:20:47):
Now they're part of the church.

Speaker 3 (02:20:49):
It's just too weird. I've seen prisoners like, oh, I'm
talking to a person in my work and I invited
them my church and it's weird. Hey, come to my
weird church, right that.

Speaker 2 (02:21:02):
Yeah, you've probably never heard of it, and we're not
Orthodox Jews, but you should come and check it out.

Speaker 3 (02:21:08):
Like, it's just it's going to be really really hard.
So I think more things that we you know, we
saturate with Orthodox community outside of the liturgy and the
services where people I mean, I mean even think about
this Greek fest, serb Fest, Romania Fest, stuff like that

(02:21:30):
plays up on that, right, they have it at the church,
but they're doing what they're doing stuff that people.

Speaker 2 (02:21:36):
Can relate to the community outrage. People are really chill
and cool. Yeah, oh they're offering a tour.

Speaker 3 (02:21:43):
Maybe I'll go in.

Speaker 2 (02:21:45):
Why is great at that Greek church?

Speaker 3 (02:21:48):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (02:21:48):
What?

Speaker 3 (02:21:50):
So, I mean I think that's the way I think
that we need to start organizing more community social events.
Is kind of a transition to be like we're actually
really cool people. You'll get to kind of understand how we,
you know, we think and work, and be like that'll
get people the interest. But I mean, it's really hard

(02:22:12):
just to have a conversation, even if you've been talking
theology with somebody, to be like, hey, why don't you
come to a service?

Speaker 2 (02:22:19):
Right, they already have to be interested to come to
the services. But to the point that Spencer was making,
if your church has thirty two new categumans, I would
imagine most of them are younger. Maybe not, but if
that's the case, it sounds like you already have a
big church. When I was in southern California, actually during

(02:22:42):
the time we did those baptisms father Deacon, I went
to a youth meeting with doctor Michael Mohler.

Speaker 3 (02:22:51):
Was it St.

Speaker 2 (02:22:52):
Mark's or something that was an Orthodox church and Mark's
and yes, that's it, And they had a job. They
probably had thirty or forty people between the ages of
eighteen and thirty five forty and they just hung out.
The priest had basically a group discussion on theology. Before that,

(02:23:14):
they had a vesper service, and then they had some
alcoholic beverages, they had non alcoholic beverages, they had food,
and you just hung out for two hours with other
people your age. That would be a fantastic opportunity to
invite non Orthodox people. Yep, they get a talk to
the priest. One they find out, oh, the priest is
kind of normal. You know, he's wearing his cassic. It's
intimidating if you're not an Orthodox to see a priest

(02:23:36):
and like engage with him. I felt that way when
I first started going. And then they were able. They
can say nothing for the first hour and maybe they
can see a little bit of a vesper service, or
maybe not even go to the vespers or join afterwards,
and then they talk. They see a priest talking, they
see a community of young people talking you seriously about Christ.
But it's you know, it's very warm. It's not maybe

(02:23:57):
what they think it is. And then they have a
social community for two hours. I was blown away because
I had never been to a church that had such
a thriving group of younger people that, I mean, everybody
knew each other. Some people were at different churches, but
they always knew when that church's youth sector got together
that they would go. Legitimately forty some people younger people,

(02:24:18):
men and women. It wasn't just most. I mean it
was majority men, but I'd say at least fifteen to
twenty girls. That were there. I mean it was It's like,
that's what we need more of. So Spencer, speak to
your priest, ask if you know I would many churches
already have a men's group. We have a men's group.
See if there's a men's group. If there is, invite

(02:24:38):
a friend to the men's group. If they have a
youth sector where they get together and they do things together,
like invite a friend there. I think also we do
need more.

Speaker 3 (02:24:49):
Now.

Speaker 2 (02:24:50):
I just talked about men's group, and I do love
the men's group, and my academy logos Academy is only
for men, but we also need environments where men and
women interact. We need That's why I thought the Saint
Mark's in LA was so great because of how many
young women were there too that were Orthodox. Now, La
is obviously a much bigger city, and maybe it's because

(02:25:11):
they can pull so many people, but at least it's
a model for the future, especially with churches that are
experiencing this much growth.

Speaker 3 (02:25:18):
I thank Dallas tons of parish is too. That's one
thing I do miss about Southern California is working with
all those youth and all the parishes and stuff like
that was a lot easier to kind of like invite
people who weren't orthodox kind of matchmake and people meet
young girls, young guys. But like I would think Dallas

(02:25:40):
is an ideal city, how big it is and how
many parishes that you could definitely do something like that.

Speaker 2 (02:25:49):
Yeah, so that'd be my suggestion is talk with your
priest and get involved in, as Father Deacon said, all
these extracurricular things outside the liturgical services and invite your
friends to that. And if they are doing men's group
stuff like we do. We do we go to a
pizza place and drink beer. Like we do that every

(02:26:10):
like four months or so for the men's group, just
so it's just free flowing conversation. You sit next to
a different person each time, but it's just men. That'd
be a that's a perfect thing to invite a buddy
to and they just get to have some pizza, maybe
have a beer or two talk with other people. You
get into really deep, interesting points of conversation, like wow,
that's that's actually pretty cool. You wait, you guys, you

(02:26:32):
guys talk about this stuff after church every Sunday at fellowship.

Speaker 3 (02:26:35):
It's like, yeah, that's.

Speaker 2 (02:26:36):
Literally what we do. Oh man, Okay, Well that's that's cool.
My Protestant church, we just you know, do the rock
band and then everybody leaves. It's like, yeah, well come
out here. We have a community.

Speaker 3 (02:26:48):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (02:26:49):
So that's it all right. Uh just double checking that
looks like it's it for me. Is there any other
super chat somebody send in to you you want to
address before we hop off?

Speaker 3 (02:26:59):
Let me see. Sorry for squinting my eyes, I'm going blind.
That was it. That's too bad for all of you
guys that you have no questions. I know.

Speaker 2 (02:27:14):
We literally talked about the history of philosophy and nobody
nobody has any thoughts or comments on philosophy, like.

Speaker 4 (02:27:22):
My student's call it like we do do like a
pantatomic nobody has any question.

Speaker 3 (02:27:32):
We just finished of Evil the Otys and it was intense.
I actually got to get teary eyed and like shed
some tears and like it was a really intense lecture
and of course I forgot to record it. It was
the one lecture I always tell them, I'm like, make
sure I record these things, because we had some sports
ball players out and at the end of like, of

(02:27:53):
course it's always some of the best ones you forget
to record. But I've asked the same question. Nobody has
any like, you have no problem of evil anymore, Like
that lecture just solved it for you. I'm like, come on,
but it just I mean, I think it's pretty A
lot of this stuff's pretty heavy. Almost just kind of

(02:28:15):
watching my students and I'm like, I bet you're just
kind of soaking it in. I'm like, don't ignore it, though,
like think about it, moll over it. So even if
you guys don't have any questions, let these be logo
spermaticas in your in your mind, you know, let them grow,

(02:28:36):
Let you know, constantly think about you know. And that's
one of the things about the good aspect of philosophy
is it's reflexive and introspective. In a time and age.
When I just read I think I brought this up
to you, eighty five percent of people don't introspect at
any serious level.

Speaker 2 (02:28:58):
That's unbelievable, I asked. I could see how easily people
are distracted by technology that they just don't sit and sign.
That was one of the things I actually mentioned. Maybe
it was in fellowship at church or something. I forget
who I was talking to, but oh, it was the
logos Academy. It was during one of our meetings. Is
I've just been so busy for the last like three

(02:29:20):
or four months, and I just had a car ride
the other day where I just turned everything off. Normally
I'm always had like a YouTube video or something coming in,
you know, taking in information. I turned everything off and
I just said the Jesus Prayer over and over. About
twenty minutes later, I just had like this feeling of
like hope, confidence, stillness. I felt like I reconnected with

(02:29:43):
like my interior voice, and I almost felt like there
was so much going on in my head. I didn't
even hear myself for a while. And I highly recommend
people doing more of that.

Speaker 3 (02:29:54):
I sold.

Speaker 2 (02:29:54):
Father Josiah Trinam recommended the exact same thing as like
fine points to just sit and still and quiet, quietness
and just don't do anything like literally just sit there
for a while, like do not focus on and just
watch what emerges and maybe temptations. That usually happens for
the first five or ten minutes. You know, you get

(02:30:14):
weird thoughts, you want to go do something, you realize,
oh there's an email I need to go do, or
there's something. Just sit there, just stop for twenty thirty
minutes and just watch the interiority of yourself like become
a little bit more silent, and all of a sudden,
you feel like you're connected with yourself more.

Speaker 3 (02:30:30):
I'm I'm blessed where you know. I had this experience
a couple of years ago where I'm out in the
middle of way back on the Blackfoot River and grizzly country,
fly fishing and there's not I mean, first of all,
the city of Lincoln only has like three hundred people,

(02:30:51):
and then you're back way out and it was absolute
silence of mind. The noises that you could hear were
the ripples of the water, the squirrel running up the tree,
the wind blowing the trees. And what was amazing is

(02:31:12):
like I became in tune to every single sound, and
I could smell the odors, I could I could hear
stuff that was miles away, like a branch creaking and
stuff like that, and all at once though, so I
wasn't distracted, I wasn't fragment. I was seeing the ripples

(02:31:33):
of the water and hearing like the squirrels and the breezes,
and I just had this epiphany where I was like,
I feel human like, actually, this is what a human
being is actually supposed to feel like. And I haven't
been being human. I was just dialed in, you know

(02:31:56):
what I mean. I was thinking straight, I was clear.
I didn't have logos moy running in my head thoughts,
and I was just like And Father Georgia Kuaro talked
about and Father Hans talked about this too, that your
mind and news are created to connect to the infinite

(02:32:20):
and what we do is we distract ourselves and we
do this kind of biofeedback loop. We're just like, that's
the spiral of the because you're designed that ways. So
it's just you want to go in this infinite loop.
And people who suffer from depression, one of the things
that Father Hans would say is to get out of
nature and start dialing in and be present to look

(02:32:45):
at the color, look at the different shades, start focusing
in on the lines of the leave, the different things
of the grass and stuff like that, because what that
will do is it'll break you out of your infinite
biofeedback loop, and it'll put you into where you're actually
supposed to be connected, which is the divine energies of God.

(02:33:08):
It's silent all your thoughts then are ordered, and you
start to receive God's energies through his creation, and you
reconstitute yourself as truly human. And that was the experience
that I had. And you know, nature is really easy
to do that. It's I think it's harder. I think
it's good to even when you're in the city, to

(02:33:29):
try to find a place where you just shut everything off.
It's it's just much harder in the city to be
like I'm gonna sit in my room and be quiet.
Why because you have a computer right there, you have
your phone here. When you're out in the woods in
the desert, like there is no TV, there's no more distraction.

(02:33:53):
That makes it much easier. And that's why. I mean,
even our Lord himself does what he retreats to the desert.
The saints go to the It doesn't have to be
a literal desert. It could be the mountains or something
like that. But I mean, obviously the theological message is quiet,
like disconnect and go back into the silence of God's creation,

(02:34:18):
which is the theme of Montana. Connect here orthodox.

Speaker 2 (02:34:21):
Here you go. There you go, nice plug and to
do a few more plugs if you want to join
us again, Father Deacon and I, along with Jay Dyer,
Metropolitan Jonah and Father Vladimir, will be at the Athens
and Jerusalem conference. The link to get your tickets. Tickets
are running out. I spoke with Jay the other day.
Most spots are already filled up, but get your tickets now.

(02:34:44):
The link is in the video description. Just click the
video description here on Church the Eternal Logos. Click that
link and get your tickets. Would love to meet anybody
out there. They're in Palmcoast, Florida, so please join us
if that's something you'd be interested. Also if you like
these conversations. Obviously we don't have Father Deacon doctor all

(02:35:07):
the time, but I have an academy just for men
called the Logos Academy over on school dot com where
we do private think tanks just on topics like this, philosophy, theology,
masculine development, health and fitness. We just did a private
Q and A with doctor Mo Friday where he based.
He gave us over two hours of just answering people's
health questions, which are two hundred and thirty two hundred

(02:35:29):
and fifty to three hundred and fifty dollars consultations. We
had Father Gabriel answer theological questions. A lot of people
wanted to talk about Israel, but those are private q
and as that we do. So if you want to
be part of that community, please join us over at
school dot com, forward slash Logos Academy. And if anybody's
interested in reading my book, I'll be shipping out all
of the books that have been purchased through my website

(02:35:51):
this Monday, So anybody who's purchased your book will be
if you don't already have it, it'll be in the
mail tomorrow. And yeah, those are basically the things that
I need to shield, Father Deacon, what can you shield?

Speaker 3 (02:36:07):
Well, we it was. I was supposed to end it
last Tuesday. I did this amazing university Canvas course sale.
It's a three unit, sixteen week university course that can
actually we've had students actually transferred to colleges, so although

(02:36:32):
it's not accredited itself yet, they are transferable upon you know,
signature of the deans. We've had many students do that.
So I brought those those sixteen week courses down to
amazing prices six point fifty for a sixteen week, three
week course that includes Monday office hours that usually you're

(02:36:58):
guaranteed one hour, but it's usually to three hours. And
that's the best part of it. Free educational software, forever
access to just like the lectures, graded quizzes, exams, tutoring
for six fifty, which is an amazing deal you can get.

(02:37:20):
You can bundle those. That was the great deal. Get
two of those eight fifty courses for only nine hundred
or three for ten fifty. And we had a huge explosion.
We have the largest registration of students that I've had
for the part Faith that Canvas courses, and so that's
a benefit to you guys, because the more people that

(02:37:43):
are in the classes as far as like discussions and
things that we do, you get more out of that.
You can go at your own pace, you can you know,
once you purchase it, you could take it next year
or something like that. You have access to it forever.
And so in light of just how successful this was,

(02:38:04):
I've decided to keep that sale up. So if anybody's
interested in that, you can go to purchase to Faith
on the shop and my shopify and purchase those and
we're after a great start. We have Philosophy of Science
as a new course built out the first time i've
this for, you know, outside of in person. At Carol

(02:38:24):
College we have introduction to ethics and then all the
usual logic, intro to philosophy and what was the other
course epistemology. So that's my show. But we're really excited.
We just kicked off the semester and so we're really

(02:38:45):
excited about this great deal. Ask anybody to taking the
course they like, They continue to take more courses and
they never regretted it. So if you're interested, go check
out faith go under what is it? What did I say?

(02:39:05):
Shop gen fin there?

Speaker 2 (02:39:08):
Yeah, post that link.

Speaker 3 (02:39:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:39:10):
Last question that somebody sent is is bertrand Russell's History
of Western Philosophy good? I would argue, Ortho bro James,
I'm curious what FDA's opinion about that is. If you're
looking for books that basically if you want to read
the history of Western philosophy, I would argue you really
can't go wrong with Coppleston's eleven part series. That's what

(02:39:34):
this is right here. I would highly get it. Get this.
Do not get bertrand Russell's Western Philosophy book. It can
be a little bit expensive. So if you want to
get one at a time. But if you have the money,
this is an investment. Just by all eleven series you
have from ancient philosophy to logical positivism and existentialism. It

(02:39:55):
basically takes you to the mid twentieth century and basically
you'll be up to date on most of what we
talked about. And I think he does a great objective
overview of this stuff. It's not really his commentary. He's
really just kind of laying out what people think and
how it's developed. So if you're interested in philosophy, because
I would say one of the difficulties with philosophy is

(02:40:17):
it's it's kind of if you didn't take courses in
undergrad or you've studied it at university, it's kind of
hard to get into for the average person. And so
I would recommend get that book series if you want.
And also for me, I have I learned by taking notes.
I write things out, so I have a little notebook.

(02:40:38):
This is just for philosophy, so you can see, like
I have CON's philosophy moving forward, it's after Hagel, you
know Whitehead's philosophy. And that's just how I do it,
is I will just dive into somebody and I will
just fill out what I would consider a cheat sheet
study guide, so that just like for a stream like today,

(02:40:59):
I can just open it up, go to logical positivism
and see what I wrote down, like oh okay, oh yeah,
I remember that I forgot about that, and and so
I would argue this would be this was this was
the method that I took. I only took one philosophy
course technically at university, but because of what I was doing,

(02:41:24):
you know, obviously you're reading a lot of these people
when you read a lot of theorists. So I'm probably
Father Deacon's probably read a lot more of philosophy, and
I probably read a lot more theory of religion or
sociology or something like this. Kind of it's a little
bit different, but it's kind of in the same wheelhouse.
So read and then there's so many good lectures, like

(02:41:47):
was it Arthur Holmes from the Wheaton College is a
Wheaton college, the Protestant college that has like they have
like his literally intro to Philosophy, two semester courses, all
lectures posted. Just watch those and take notes as if
he's your professor. And then if you want to, like
for me, I think that would be do that, get

(02:42:08):
your notes down and then you can read Coppleston and
you'll actually understand everything that he's talking about.

Speaker 3 (02:42:14):
That's a good approach. Or just pull up AI and
just have.

Speaker 2 (02:42:22):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I have AI do it for you.
The problem is you will play yeah. But that's what
a lot of people are doing, and they're confusing an
AI pomp with actually knowing something, and it's like, there's again,
do what's difficult. If you take anything from today, especially
the end of today's stream, is do the difficult thing

(02:42:44):
and actually being able to rock it and articulate it.
That's huge and I think that's I know for Father Deacon,
you'd probably agree with this being a lecturer and a professor,
But me also doing all these live streams, is that
forcing yourself to articulate it to somebody else demands that
I actually have to know what I'm talking about, because

(02:43:04):
you if I do not know anything I'm talking about,
I come on here and do a livestream, you will
know immediately. And so I think that's one of the
things that so many people I've talked to that are
lecturers say one of the beauties about lecturing is that
It keeps me sharp because I have to go through it.
I have to sometimes reread primary sources, deal with people's ideas.
So yeah, if you are able to find a conversation partner,

(02:43:30):
if you're interested in this. Again, that's why the logos
Academy is beneficial, is it forces you to then articulate
the things that you think you learn, and maybe you
say something that's totally whack and somebody's like, hey, what
what are you talking about? You know, like Descartes not
an empiricist, you what are you talking about? And then
you're like, oh, oh, yeah, yeah, I misunderstood that I misphrased,

(02:43:51):
and it just sharpens you. So finding somebody that like
conversation partners, that's one of the benefits of actually being
in university, Like Father Deacon has colleagues that can be
conversation partners. But it's difficult, especially if you're dealing with philosophy,
to find a conversation partner. If you have one, that's great.
That's kind of what my community is about. It is
building a non local community for people to talk about

(02:44:13):
that type of stuff. But also if you have specific questions,
I'm sure Father Dickon you could reach out to him
or sign up for his courses, like I said, Father's courses,
finding stuff online like general intro stuff, Uh, that'd be
the best way to go. And then once you get
the foundational stuff, now you can actually read because unless
you're like really above average IQ, I found a lot

(02:44:34):
of people cannot just read. Like one guy was wanting
to get in philosophy, He's like, yeah, I picked up Kan.
I'm like, bro, like, you're you're not gonna be able
to read Kant or hegel Man. You're just not gonna
know what's going on. You're not going to know what
you're reading, so you gotta take baby steps. It's like reading,
it's like reading the Ladder of Divine a scent and

(02:44:57):
you're you're an inquirer catechumen. It's like, oh, you're not there,
you know, just just drop the philocalia all right, You're
you're not there right now, Like just read some lives
of the saints. Same thing with philosophy. So any other comment,
anything you want to say before we wrap up your father,
that's it.

Speaker 3 (02:45:16):
I mean, that's why we took that kind of historical
approach as well, is that even if you did have
the requisite IQ to read Kant most people don't or
Hegel or let alone, like, once you get into kind
of analytic philosophy and philosophy, language is extremely difficult.

Speaker 2 (02:45:38):
Yes, yeah, yeah, Wittgenstein like no, bro, yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:45:45):
Yeah, like Frega and like, it's funny because I place
this to like I actually found it one of the
best articles refuting nominalism. People like, oh, I want to
read it, and I'm like, you're not going to understand it.
I'm like, I don't even think. I don't even think
like five percent of PhDs in philosophy could understand it.

(02:46:08):
I'm like, it's actually really really difficult. So everybody's like,
of course, it just intrigued them. They were like, well,
I want to see it. I'm like I'm telling you.
You're like it's going to be gobblygook too, and I'm
like all right, And it's just like when you tell
somebody like you can't read this, of course they want
to read it more. And I sent it to people
and they were like, oh my god, I might write

(02:46:29):
I told you. It took me forever to get through it.
I'm like, I'm really good at this stuff. I'm a
PhD in this and I'm like, it's just this second
order logic stuff and symbolic logic, and I'm like, you're
not going to understand it. But the other thing too,
is suppose you could obviously CONTs not doesn't require that

(02:46:53):
kind of logic and stuff like that, but it's obviously
extremely difficult. I remember the first time I read it undergraduate,
I thought it was a retard and I found the
smartest person in their class and we read the critique
of Peris and I'm like, did you understand that? He
was like no, I'm like, okay, So it's actually it's
objectively difficult. Like if I found the guy that ends

(02:47:17):
up being a later our valve Victorian couldn't even understand
it upon the first read, I'm like, you guys are
not going to get it, let alone, if you don't
take the historical approach. So that's why we began with it.
I'm like, Kant is a response to Hume, who's a

(02:47:38):
response to his predecessors going all the way back through prestocratics.
So it's kind of why we didn't jump in. Do
not jump in that even if you have an extremely
high IQ, you're still going to misstop and not understand
it because you don't understand the historical context of So
that's one thing that's good about Copplestone and what you

(02:47:58):
were saying, and other ways to kind of grasp the
kind of history of philosophy is not all these you know,
Copplestone kind of reduced these very difficult ideas to an
app fairly approachable way. It's historical, So it's like that's
the best way to do it. Yeah, don't totally decar.

Speaker 2 (02:48:22):
Yeah, chronological approach to philosophy is by far the best.
I mean, just like the document you saw how every
little period we demarketed the Presocratics to Socrates, the Plato,
and Aristotle, they're all building on each other. Even in
the Church and basically a twelve hundred period where we're
not doing philosophy, we're doing theology. But yeah, we're using

(02:48:44):
philosophical terms to explicate to scholasticism and how what scolastic Well,
it's it's responding to the influence of Aristotle now translated
from the Arabs into Latin, and so it's like there's
a ladder here, there's a there's a mosaic, and and
I think that's where people that are like the Nietzscheans
I've talked to. It's like, okay, you've read Nietzsche, Like,

(02:49:10):
are you familiar with the history of ideas? Are you
familiar with like where he fits in the concept context
of intellectual of course not. They hear Nietzsche, they think
will of power, uberminch anti Christianity, weak, slave morality and
like bam, I got a bat to now be edgy.
And it's like, yeah, but that's really easy to shoot down,
you know. It's like being a Nietzschean in the twenty

(02:49:31):
first century, isn't actually that cool? Only if you think
only if you're not familiar with like where we're at,
do you think, oh, wow, that's really cutting edge. It's
like no, bro, been there, done that, So all right.

Speaker 3 (02:49:47):
Too? Is yeah, I mean, you don't have to study
philosophy to be Orthodox, Like no, oh, that's a great
point question that like, look, we do philosophy. I'm a
professional philosopher. Like that's where God throw me in the

(02:50:08):
trenches for whatever reason, in the fifth cesspool of academia.
It was just where I got to do my work. Okay,
I'm not complaining. I'm grateful for it, but I'm not
a philosopher. I'm a baptized Orthodox Christian and son of God.
I do philosophy on the side. So whatever our talents

(02:50:31):
or wherever God puts us like, you make the best
of it. But like, you don't have to do philosophy
to be Orthodox to understand Orthodoxy anymore than you have
to learn how to be a cook or a canter
in the church to understand Orthodoxy. God puts us where

(02:50:52):
we're at, given our talents, and you make the best
of it. So that question does come up a lot
you have to learn all this and it's like, no,
but you know, the philosopher people who do study philosophy
and philosophy religion, like yourself, then we do have a
duty to defend the faith. It's like, well, we've actually

(02:51:14):
got some tools to actually smash the heretics and push
them down. You might as well, and so you know,
it's just all different parts of the body. So I
just wanted to make that kind of clear to everybody
as we're ending, like the it's not you don't have
to become a philosopher or a philosopher of religion to be

(02:51:36):
a good Orthodox Christian.

Speaker 2 (02:51:38):
No, absolutely, I think that's a huge point because I
think because of some of the debate and the conversation,
the high level conversation that Orthodoxy has online by some
of the apologists, people think that they have to apprehend
everything that we're saying to become part of the Church.
And I would say that right there is a modern
presupposition regarding rationalism. No, no, no, no, we're pre modern. You

(02:52:02):
don't know. You don't need to watch this stream or
no anything that we're talking about to go to the
liturgy and participate with Christ. That's the point again, that's
where the pre modern worldview participations up here. Reason is
down here.

Speaker 3 (02:52:14):
And so.

Speaker 2 (02:52:16):
Do not feel overwhelmed. I mean I had a guy,
an Orthodox Christian, with doctor Michael Moler. He's going over peptides, hormones,
different compounds, different supplement you can take, and somebody's like, oh,
this is this is too much. The Saints didn't have
to do this, so we well, okay, if it feels
too much, then don't watch the stream. That's fine, But
it's not unorthodox to talk about men's hormones and like

(02:52:40):
peptides in ways that we can optimize our health either.
So just find the middle ground. You don't need to
optimize your health. To be Orthodox, you don't need to hear,
you know, doctor Mo talk about peptides or TRT. To
be orthodic, you don't have to be super you know,
macho masculine. Just go to the liturgy. But if you
are interested in these things, And just to your point,

(02:53:00):
I describe myself as an Orthodox Christian before I describe
myself as a religious studies scholar. And that's to the
exact point that you made is I'm not defined. I'm
defined by what I believe in my relationship to Christ,
not by what I do. But what I do is
tied with my purpose and my relationship with Christ. And

(02:53:21):
I think that's what every man needs to find is
how do you take your what excites you, your skill set,
and your relationship in Christ and blend those things together
and then fall in love with the journey and the
work like not the product. You know. I I some
streams I make take me two days to prepare for
and I get you know, hardly any viewers and very

(02:53:42):
low engagement. It is what it is. But some people then,
you know, I'll get an email from two or three
people that I love that stream that was, you know,
that was incredibly helpful for me. So you know what
I've been able to help some What is the point
of what I'm doing right? And anybody asked, not just me,
but ask yourself that, ask yourself. And I think a
man in a sense then is defined by what he

(02:54:04):
does and for the world. But the way we should
divine ourselves as Orthodox Christians our relationship with Christ and
then use that faith for what we do in the
world and reflect Christ back from it. So that's kind
of my two cents on that as well. I think
that's a great point is do not feel overwhelmed by
all this philosophy stuff, and do not feel because you're

(02:54:26):
you know, I've talked with so many people that immediately
want to start a YouTube channel and debate and they're
catech humans. It's like, guys, you don't need to debate
the church, like, just go to church. Just go to church.
So all right, that's going to do it for us, guys.

Speaker 3 (02:54:47):
Again, A great point to end with.

Speaker 2 (02:54:50):
I yep, if you want to join Father Deacon and
I and meet us in person and hear our speeches,
I know Father Deacon's got a great speech lined up
for Palm Cooast Florida. And just to clarify those dates,
it's November twenty first through the twenty second. That's a

(02:55:11):
Saturday and Sunday, November twenty first to the twenty second.
I'm going to share that link again. The link is
in the video description. Come be there with us in
Person's going to be a fantastic time. So many people
are going to be there. It's gonna be a lot
of fun, a lot of cool information that's going to
be presented by the various speakers. It's a great way

(02:55:31):
for us to actually have fellowship in person and do
what father Deacon Doctor advocated for, which is actually do
some extracurricular stuff outside the liturgy and be part of
an Orthodox community and do things. So maybe you have
a secular friend, bring them to the conference. That's another
great way to introduce them to Orthodoxy. So sign up

(02:55:51):
for FDA's courses. Did you share that link? Did you?

Speaker 3 (02:55:56):
Finally? Yeah? Good point.

Speaker 2 (02:56:01):
Shop If if not, you can, you could put it
as the pinned comment under your video and we can
point people to just go to your YouTube channel, Patristic Faith.
Let me tag you in the title. I don't think
I tagged you either.

Speaker 3 (02:56:19):
Computer is freezing up or something.

Speaker 2 (02:56:22):
Well, it's that Montana internet, dude, you need to up upgrade.
It's some high speed or something. They don't have fiber
optic out there. They don't have cable. Well, you're on starlink.

Speaker 3 (02:56:36):
It's probably because I'm running on like, dude, it's probably
not the Internet. It's probably like stip a computer.

Speaker 2 (02:56:46):
Uh, your your computers filled with too many memes. It's
dragging ass now.

Speaker 3 (02:56:56):
Patrictic faith, but com shop, let's see see you can
get it up. The other thing, too, is like, yeah,
I don't know what's going on, dude, don't sign up
for my courses. I don't.

Speaker 2 (02:57:14):
Okay, you heard it from the horse's mouth and whatever
you do.

Speaker 3 (02:57:21):
That what gets people don't read the articles too complicated.
You'll never get through these courses. You can't even get
the internet running up. The last time you want to
do is sign up for.

Speaker 2 (02:57:31):
Who do you have your wife on a hamster wheel
to do? Get the electricity going in the house. I
got three cats to do that know what they're doing.

Speaker 3 (02:57:43):
I can't get it to work, and like it won't
just go on to patrisfic faith. I don't know whether
to say that you can.

Speaker 2 (02:57:49):
Find Patristicfaith dot com sign up for his philosophy courses.
God bless you all, Thank you so much for being here,
and I will be back tomorrow God willing doing a
stream on the theology of no Self. Will be doing
a critique of the Buddhist auto aptman theology and then
looking at some contemporary people that are pushing that stuff

(02:58:11):
in culture and talking why it's deleterious to believe in
the lack of a soul and why it leads to
the extinction of person and personhood. So that will be tomorrow,
and then I'll be with Anthony Westgate Tuesday to record
something for his channel, and hope to be back for
another stream Thursday, because Wednesday we have a think tank

(02:58:33):
over at the Logos Academy, so if you want to
be a part of that, go sign up to the
Logos Academy. But all right, guys, that's going to do
it for us. Thank you so much, Father, Deacon, doctor
and Aias for being here. Thank you guys for all
the sleepers, and I will see you all in the
next one as always. Until then, God bless

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