• 2 weeks ago
FLASH Freedomain Livestream 7 February 2025

In this episode, I explore the contentious relationship between Christian organizations and government funding, particularly through USAID. I reflect on the ethical dilemmas that arise when faith-based groups accept substantial funds, such as the $4.6 billion received by Catholic Relief Services.

I question whether these financial relationships align with Christian values and the principle of voluntary charity, emphasizing the risks of dependency on government support. I challenge church leaders to engage in meaningful discussions about the implications of accepting state funds and advocate for transparency and moral integrity within the church community.

GET MY NEW BOOK 'PEACEFUL PARENTING', THE INTERACTIVE PEACEFUL PARENTING AI, AND AUDIOBOOK!

https://peacefulparenting.com/

Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!

Also get the Truth About the French Revolution, multiple interactive multi-lingual philosophy AIs trained on thousands of hours of my material, as well as targeted AIs for Real-Time Relationships, BitCoin, Peaceful Parenting, and Call-Ins. Don't miss the private livestreams, premium call in shows, the 22 Part History of Philosophers series and much more!

See you soon!

https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/UPB2022
Transcript
00:00I hope you're doing well. So, I come, in a sense, in a way, I come to curse.
00:09Now, this is more theology than politics. So, I guess like most people in the world,
00:17certainly in the West, have been following Doge's drilling into the USAID data about
00:25how artificial, matrix-like, cue-the-sun, astroturfed people's, quote, opinions are,
00:33based upon the billions of dollars that the US government has been bribing, I would say,
00:39bribing, I mean, not officially, I'm sure it's legal, but to me, that's the implication. Morally,
00:45I'm not talking legally. Or influencing, let's say, influencing. Whoever pays the piper calls
00:50the tune. The US government has been influencing news organizations around the world for many
00:56decades. And see, this is what, I mean, what corrupt people do is they will try and figure
01:02out what you care about and then use that as a cover for their own corruption. So,
01:07what's been going on with USAID? I mean, it's nothing that I didn't talk about almost 20 years
01:13ago. We, in fact, remastered a couple of shows from 2006, the round trip of the foreign trade
01:22dollar and the truth about foreign aid. There's a good book I read many years ago called White
01:27Man's Burden that goes into this in rather gruesome detail, just how hypocritical and
01:31manipulative this sort of so-called foreign aid stuff is. So, that's nothing new. That's nothing
01:40too shocking. Now, I think what is a little bit shocking, though, is the churches, are the
01:48churches as a whole. This stuff with the churches, look, I have my sympathies for Christianity. I
01:56really do. And most of the best people I know are Christians. So, this is nothing to do with
02:01individuals. This is to do with the institutions as a whole. So, I don't know if you've been
02:08following this. This is coming out of AI. I asked AI, how much money did Christian organizations
02:17get from USAID? It's shocking. This is the reply. The amount of funding Christian organizations
02:24receive from USAID varies year by year, based on recent reports and posts on X.
02:32Catholic Relief Services was noted as receiving $4.6 billion. Okay, just
02:45simmer in that sycophantic stew for a moment. $4.6 billion from USAID between fiscal years 2013
02:55and 2022, making it the top NGO non-governmental organization, although if you're getting $4.6
03:03billion, it's pretty hard to call you non-governmental, making it the top NGO
03:08recipient during that period. $4.6 billion. In 2024, Catholic Relief Services was reported to
03:18be the largest USAID recipient among Christian organizations, with drumroll $476 million.
03:33Other Christian organizations like World Vision, International Justice Mission,
03:37and Samaritan's Purse also received a significant funding from USAID,
03:42though specific amounts for each of these organizations in 2024 were not detailed.
03:50There are mentions of World Relief receiving about $123 million and Christianity Today,
03:54it's a magazine, receiving $1.8 million in USAID grants in 2023. These figures suggest,
04:04this again from the AI, these figures suggest that Christian organizations collectively receive
04:10hundreds of millions to billions of dollars from USAID annually, depending on the specific
04:18programs and years in question. However, exact aggregated amounts for all Christian organizations
04:25in any given year would require a comprehensive review of USAID's funding allocations.
04:34That is mind-blowing to me. I asked AI, is it good in Christianity for churches to accept money
04:42from the government? Now, it's one thing, I suppose, if the government is lockstep
04:50with Christianity. Let's say that you have a purely Catholic ministry accepting money
05:00from a purely Catholic government, voted in for by purely Catholic voters and funded by purely
05:08Catholic taxpayers. The potential for corruption there, of course, is still significant,
05:15but at least there's some alignment in values. So, I asked, I have my own thoughts on this,
05:23but I wanted to get some of the major doctrines. Is it good, I asked, is it good in Christianity
05:28for churches to accept money from the government? Remembering, of course, that there are many
05:34non-Christians and some anti-Christians in the American government. In Christianity,
05:41the question of whether it is good for churches to accept money from the government involves a
05:44complex interplay of theology, ethics, and practical considerations. Here are some perspectives.
05:51Separation of church and state. Some Christians argue that accepting government funds could
05:56compromise the church's independence, potentially leading to governmental influence over church
06:00activities or doctrine. This is often linked to interpretations of Jesus' statement,
06:05Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's,
06:10Mark 12.17, suggesting a clear demarcation between secular and spiritual realms.
06:17Others might see government funding as a means to fulfill the church's mission to serve the
06:21community, especially in social services like helping the poor, which aligns with Christian
06:26teachings on charity and stewardship. They might refer to scriptures like, For I was hungry and you
06:32gave me something to eat, as justification for accepting funds to do good works. Except,
06:39that is a complete falsehood. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. Well, you see,
06:46that more than implies, but in fact specifically states, that what you are giving to a hungry
06:53person is food you in fact own. It's yours. You gave me something to eat. You didn't steal
07:03and provide something else. You didn't shake down someone with a shiv
07:08to give him something to eat. Oh, and you know what you didn't do? You didn't sell
07:13the unborn on the altar of international banksters in order to fund your supposed
07:18charity. I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. You can't give something you do not own.
07:27National debt is unowned. Unfunded liabilities is unowned. So, the idea that Christian charity
07:36is involved with stealing from the unborn, which is how this quote charity is largely enacted,
07:45it's completely impossible to maintain from even a basic theological standpoint. I mean,
07:52it's not that complicated. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I don't know,
07:56let's throw that in a quick frappe blender with thou shalt not steal. So, you can't steal.
08:03So, whatever you give in charity, you have to first own yourself. Jesus did not say,
08:11well, the best way to help the poor, you see, is to be a counterfeiter. You know,
08:17shake up a bag of gold coins, take the gold flakes, make some new coins. Just, you know,
08:24counterfeit, fake, pretend. Inflate the currency, replace gold, silver, and bronze with tin,
08:33copper, and other garbage minerals, and then give the devalued currency to the poor
08:39so that they can't afford the price of bread. It's not complicated. For I was hungry and you
08:46gave me something to eat. Ethical considerations from the AI. Accountability and transparency.
08:52There's a concern about how funds are managed. If government money comes with strings attached
08:58or requirements for transparency, it could be seen as a positive, ensuring that the funds are
09:02used appropriately. Dependency. There's also the ethical issue of dependency on government funds,
09:09which could potentially shift the church's focus from spiritual to administrative or political
09:15concerns. Practical implications. Funding for social services. Many churches operate or support
09:21programs like food banks, shelters, or educational programs. Government grants or contracts can
09:26significantly expand these services, reaching more people in need. Legal and regulatory issues.
09:31Accepting government money can involve navigating complex legal landscapes, ensuring compliance
09:36with regulations that might not align perfectly with church practices or beliefs. I mean,
09:43is it really moral to take, as a Christian organization, a lot of money from a government
09:49that is also sending money overseas directly to people who are attacking and suppressing
09:54Christians? I mean, come on. This is not complicated. This is not complicated.
10:03Is it fantastically Christian to use government money with the express purpose and being given
10:10that money for the express purpose of settling a lot of people in supposedly Christian countries
10:16who are non-Christians or sometimes even hostile to Christianity?
10:20This is not complicated, people. So, I want to share with you Matthew 4, 1 to 11. This is from
10:30the New International Version. Let's see. Let's get the King James Version because that's the
10:35better one. That's the better one. Satan tempts Jesus. I can't even tell you how many times I
10:43read this as a kid. Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted
10:49by the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward he was hungry.
10:58Now when the tempter came to him, he said, If you are the Son of God, command that these
11:02stones become bread. But he, Jesus, answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread
11:12alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Then the devil took him up to the
11:19holy city, set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, If you are the Son of God,
11:23throw yourself down, for it is written, He shall give his angels charge over you,
11:29and in their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.
11:35And Jesus said to him, It is written again, You shall not tempt the Lord your God.
11:45Again the devil took him up on an exceedingly high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms
11:52of the world and their glory. And he said to Jesus, All these things I will give you if you
12:00will fall down and worship me. Then Jesus said to him, Away with you, Satan, for it is written,
12:10You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve. Then the devil left him,
12:17and behold, angels came and ministered to him. So the three temptations of Jesus.
12:27Feed your body. Nope, I must feed my spirit. Throw yourself off the pinnacle of a temple,
12:34because the angels will catch you. No, because virtue, God, Jesus, and miracles are not for show.
12:48And the devil shows Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and says, You can own the entire
12:55planet. You can own all human beings. You can be the recipient of all the tax money in the world,
13:07because that's what it is. I will give you all the kingdoms in the world, which means you will be
13:15the ruler of a one world government, and you will be the receiver of all the taxes
13:23forced out of the people's mouths. You will get tax money, because that's what it means.
13:32The king is the one who gets the money. So the devil offers him food. Just use your magic.
13:44Use your power. Nope. The only power is not to command matter, but to control temptation.
13:56I do not want power over the natural universe turning bread, turning stones into bread. I want
14:03power over my own temptations. And a human being is not a mere fleshly evolved carcass designed to
14:13turn bread into babies. Man shall not live by bread alone. I will not feed my body at the expense of
14:20my conscience. Then the devil says, You can jump off the top of a temple. The angels will catch you.
14:31No, integrity and virtue and allegiance to the word of God is not a parlor trick or magician's
14:38sleight of hand designed to have the angels save you if you willingly and knowingly put yourself
14:45in danger. The angels will help you if you are not the author of your own disaster.
14:53Because all of these things are about charity, right? If I am pushed off a cliff, the angels
14:59will save me. If I accidentally stumble off a cliff, the angels will save me. But if I voluntarily
15:05step off a cliff, it is not for the angels to save me. And this is what is meant by rational
15:12charity, of course, right? Rational charity is when you say, Well, if somebody is harmed,
15:22and they are an innocent victim of crime or fraud or some sort of nefarious activity,
15:28we should help them, because they are not significantly to blame for the disasters that
15:34have befallen them. What about if somebody is a gambling addict? Do we rush to cover their debts
15:43and press more and more gold into their hands? Well, no, because that person is not a passive
15:49victim of nefarious others. That person has instead authored their own poverty, right?
15:59So, if an accident befalls me, the angels will help me. But if I am the author of my own
16:07disaster, in other words, if I voluntarily step off the roof of the temple, then I am demanding
16:15charity and salvation for a disaster that I am the full and total author of.
16:21If a woman living a virtuous life is tragically raped and becomes pregnant, we owe her charity.
16:30I think it is reasonable. On the other hand, a woman who voluntarily sleeps around and gets
16:35pregnant has stepped off the roof of the temple on her own. The only power is self-control and
16:46integrity. We do not give charity to those who are the authors of their own disasters.
16:54And you do not take tax money! What would it mean to own a kingdom if you did not, in fact,
17:05take the tax money? Well, that would be a ridiculous position. Without the tax money,
17:12you have no power. So, none of this is particularly complicated. And again, I can understand the
17:19complexity of the argument. If you are a Catholic ministry in a Catholic country with a Catholic
17:28population voting in Catholic policies, then should you take money from the government?
17:35Well, I would still say that you shouldn't, because charity or moral acts must be voluntary
17:43for them to be virtuous. A man forced to do virtue is not doing virtue.
17:49If a criminal returns the money that he has stolen, that is a slightly nicer action than keeping it.
17:58However, a man who steals from another man and then returns the money only because the other man,
18:04his victim, has a gun and points a gun at him, then the thief has learned nothing about virtue.
18:10He is simply surrendering to power. For an act to be morally virtuous, it has to be freely chosen.
18:17So, again, I can understand the argument. If we're talking about a monotheistic,
18:24monocultural, but none of that exists in the West and hasn't for two generations.
18:30None of that exists in the West. So, what would it mean for Christian charities to take money
18:39from increasingly non-Christian or anti-Christian governments?
18:43Has there been a debate? I mean, I talked about this some years ago, so I won't get into
18:50any details about that, but this has been known for a long, long time.
18:57Has there been a debate? I don't think there's been much.
19:02Now, certainly, when the government gets into debt and has unfunded liabilities,
19:10that cannot be moral, because the unborn can't be pillaged for the sake of virtue
19:15signaling in the here and now, and that be considered moral at all.
19:19If a man gives to a charity, he gives a hundred thousand dollars to charity,
19:25and the charity then finds out, shortly before they're about to cash the check,
19:29they find out that he got this money by selling his child into slavery,
19:35and his child isn't even born yet. What would we say about a charity that found out that the source
19:43or the asset for the hundred thousand dollars, the check they were about to cash,
19:48what would you say about this charity if they found out that the man had gotten the money
19:54by selling his unborn child into bondage, and they just whistled,
19:58strolled down, and merrily cashed the check? No issues, no problems, no reflection.
20:05Well, that would be demonic. That would be demonic.
20:10You cannot say that government money reflects the will of the people,
20:18when massive proportions of that government money is printed, and borrowed, and promised.
20:28The unfunded liabilities in the US economy are more than 10 times the GDP, let alone the tax
20:34receipts. So, it doesn't seem to me to be that complicated. And this is the challenge that I
20:43have. I'm going to go real raw here, people, because I just want to talk about the passions
20:48I have in this area. So, let's just talk Catholicism. So, in Catholicism, there is,
21:00and you know, forgive me if I'm not up on the latest wrinkles of the Catholic faith,
21:07but in Catholicism, there are two states, well, there are three states after death.
21:14There is a purgatory, hell, and heaven. Right? Now, when you die, the inevitable accumulated
21:23sins of your life, which are inescapable due to the fallible nature of your human soul,
21:27the flesh, you are put into a limbo where you have to work off your sins
21:34for thousands of years, or tens of thousands of years, or hundreds of thousands of years,
21:39before you are purged of your iniquities, and can enter into the kingdom of heaven.
21:45Nobody, I think, other than Jesus and some of the saints, go straight to heaven. So, if you have
21:54the sins, which are mortal, mortal sins, defaming the Holy Spirit, murder a few others, then you go
22:03to hell, and there's no chance to work off your sins in purgatory, limbo. And this is one of the
22:12things that provoke Protestantism, of course, was that the Catholic clergy was selling what
22:20were called indulgences, which is, if you were going to do something immoral, you could pay a
22:25priest to have you forgiven for it ahead of time, and they were also selling reductions in the
22:31amount of time that you would end up sending in purgatory. So, if you had 10,000 years
22:38in purgatory, you could reduce that to 5,000 years by giving money to the church.
22:45So, I've really heard and listened to and deeply pondered on this question, on this issue,
22:52which is, but without the Christian morals, society turns to hell. Without Christianity,
23:02we just don't have any moral center or moral foundation. And I understand the argument,
23:10I appreciate the argument, and I think that there are good merits to the argument.
23:15However, however, and it's a big freaking however for me, which drove UPP. It's not enough.
23:26It's not enough. There should be truly robust and tortured debates within Christianity about
23:34the virtues of taking billions of dollars from a fairly corrupt government to promote policies
23:41often antithetical to Christianity. I mean, that should be a pretty robust debate. I don't think
23:51it should be a very complicated debate, but it should be a debate about virtue versus vice.
23:57I mean, it was the government who killed Jesus. So, getting in bed with the state should give
24:04Christians pause. Now, the people in charge of these Christian organizations, significantly
24:12Catholic, though certainly not exclusively so, the people in charge of these organizations have
24:20a far deeper conception and understanding of Christian theology, certainly than I do. I mean,
24:26these are people who would have studied it their whole lives, and I'm certainly far from an expert
24:32in these areas. Morals, I would say yes. Theology, I would say not so much. So, I do not have the
24:44benefit of cursing those who disagree with UPP with eternal hellfire, damnation, or purgatory.
24:55I do not have the option of saying, if you act against UPB, I will make you, or you will be,
25:04immortal, and you will be tortured in the most vile and horrendous fashions,
25:09forever and ever, by the ultimate sadists in the universe. Right? I don't have that.
25:17Exhortation guy, you know, you should live rationally, you should live virtuously,
25:22you should try to obey your conscience, there are benefits for it, and there are curses,
25:25in a sense, of the bad conscience if you don't, but I'm an exhortation guy, and I hope, you know,
25:30to some minor degree, I am an inspiration guy, in that, you know, I try to live my life
25:36according to these principles, and try and correct myself when I go astray, and I think
25:43I've shown that they work, and provide great benefits, and so on. So, I don't have the infinite
25:54fiery club of hell itself, with which to beat those who disagree with my virtues.
26:01Christianity, and more specifically, Catholicism, does. So, that is baffling, and
26:12very much leads one to despair regarding virtue, and it is a very deep hole I am about to show you
26:23in your soul, and this is not a subjective issue. This is a very big, and powerful,
26:32and horrifying issue, which, for those of us who were raised Christian, as I was,
26:38the possibility of despair in these areas is immense, immense, and I'll tell you what I mean.
26:47What I mean is that people can't be good, even with the threat of hell, infinite torment,
26:57and punishment, torture, forever and ever, without respite, without let up, with no end.
27:06People can't be good, even with the threat of infinite and eternal torture and punishment,
27:14the kind of torture that would be completely illegal in any civilized society. It's not
27:21enough. Eternal torture is not enough. Now, I dare say, I'm not speaking about any particular
27:30individual, I'm just talking in general, I dare say that the people in charge of these
27:40Christian religious institutions, they certainly claim to believe in hell and eternal punishment.
27:49They also know that being a shepherd of the flock carries within it particular
27:55additional punishments, should you go wrong, because it's one thing to succumb to temptation
28:00yourself, it's quite another thing to claim to be a spiritual leader, and to lead thousands,
28:07or hundreds of thousands, or millions, or hundreds of millions of people into sin and
28:12eternal error. Which means, of course, that the debate about saving souls and avoiding hell,
28:20regarding taking money from a corrupt institution like the state, which no longer reflects,
28:27essentially, the Christian values, it may have in the past, the idea of taking money from the state
28:35would be a massive, deep, and powerful question. And what would you do? Well, you would say,
28:45Jesus was offered the tax money of all the kingdoms in the world by Satan, because the
28:52power of the state is the power of taxation. Nothing more, nothing less than by taxation,
28:58I also include money printing and borrowing, because it's the one thing that differentiates
29:03the state from other organizations in societies, the capacity to initiate force for the transfer
29:08of property, or legal counterfeiting. So, the debate about taking money from the state would
29:18be fairly simply resolved, which is, Satan offers Jesus all the taxes in the world,
29:27except what kingdom is. Kingdom is the right to collect taxes. And Jesus says,
29:32Nope! Not even one drachma! Not one phallic! Not one penny! Get thee behind me, Satan!
29:44I don't want the fucking tax money! Now, render unto Caesar what is Caesar's,
29:50render unto God's what is God's. Well, it means pay your taxes, obey the state,
29:57but it doesn't say anything about receiving money from the government. It simply says,
30:00render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and pay your taxes, obey the state.
30:06So, that's nothing to do with receiving tax money. So, all the people in charge of the churches
30:15are not even having the debate, which means that, and this is where the pit of despair truly is,
30:21my friends, there's a way out. Let's be frank about where it is, what bottomless holes open
30:28up under us when we process this simple information, that hell itself, eternal torment,
30:37sadistic agony, forever and ever, beyond mortal lifespan, no respite, no recovery,
30:47no absolution, no end to the sentence. That is not enough to even bring about a debate
30:57on these difficult and contentious issues. You have a religion centered around the perfection
31:04and divinity of Jesus, and Jesus specifically rejects taxation. He rejects being the recipient
31:12of tax money, which is what he means when he says, no, I'm not taking the kingdoms,
31:19as the kingdoms are the tax collections. And he says, even if you're starving,
31:28it is better to live by the word of God than to eat bread. I mean, that's powerful stuff.
31:38If you're not religious, I get it. It's the Howard Rock idea. It is better to work in a quarry
31:45than to compromise your integrity. So, we have a great deep and abiding mystery,
31:51which is, why is there not even a robust and passionate debate about the propriety and
31:58morality of taking borrowed, printed and coerced funds from the government for the church? I mean,
32:08if everyone truly believed in hell, this would be an absolutely urgent and essential
32:14question to discuss. Now, if the church feels it needs more money, for whatever reason,
32:21then the church can, of course, go to its parishioners, its congregations, and say,
32:25we need more money, and here's what we're going to do with it. And here's the good that it's going
32:29to achieve, right? Here's the good that it's going to achieve. But it has not done that.
32:35I mean, I'm sure churches do ask for more money, of that I am certain. But they have not said,
32:41well, we don't want to be taking millions or hundreds of billions or billions of dollars
32:46from the state. So, we want to retain our independence, but here's all the good that
32:51we want to do. So, we're going to ask you to increase your tithe or your donations to the
32:55church. So, the simple empirical fact is that the example of Jesus, the promise of heaven,
33:05and the threat of hell is not enough to even provoke a robust debate. Oof, can you feel that
33:15hole open up in your soul and the falling and the falling and the falling? The example of Jesus,
33:24divine, perfect Jesus, the example of Jesus, the promise of heaven, and the threat of hell
33:34is not enough. Not enough, not even for people to just do the right thing, but for there to even be
33:42a debate. Now, if you take this from one angle, and it's the most common angle,
33:50and it certainly is the widest angle, this would give you nihilistic levels of complete despair.
33:58Because you'd say, well, there are billions of people around the world who believe in the
34:05perfect divinity of Jesus, and Jesus gave them very clear moral rules, and promised heaven,
34:14and not Jesus himself, but God, threatens hell, and that's not enough. It's not even close to
34:20enough. It would be one thing if the divinity of Jesus, the promise of heaven, and the threat of
34:25hell provoked a robust debate, which the quote right side just barely lost. Okay, at least there'd
34:34be a battle. At least there'd be a conversation. But it doesn't even, and I'm not saying there has
34:40been no debate, and I'm also not saying that I follow these eddies and threads and currents in
34:46any particularly great detail, but what I am saying is that I have not seen a wholesale revolt of
34:54significant portions of the Christian congregation saying, hang on a second here, slow your roll,
35:02bishops. What are you doing? You are taking billions of dollars from the government.
35:11Shouldn't we talk about this a little? Because the potential for corruption there is enormous,
35:18and this is kind of what we were warned about by the king of kings, the lord of lords,
35:23the high and most holy Jesus himself. Do you want the fruits of government power,
35:29said Satan to Jesus in the wilderness, and Jesus said, nope, not even a bit.
35:36Oh, but think of all the good things we could do with all that money. We can just, we can just,
35:41like Raskolnikov, we can just do all of these great things with that. Oh my god.
35:45Jesus explicitly and clearly said, nope. Jesus didn't say when Satan offered him all the taxes
35:53in the world, Jesus didn't say, well, you know what, I could build a pretty powerful ministry
35:57with all of that, and I could teach people a lot about virtue and God and conscience,
36:05integrity man, you name it. Nope. It was not, there was not even a bit, there wasn't even
36:12a pause when Jesus was offered all the taxes of all the kingdoms in the world.
36:19Has there been a great deal of wrestling with this issue? Have the bishops and other forms
36:28of theological leadership, have they put forth to their congregations and said, you know what,
36:35we are being offered massive amounts of money by an increasingly non-Christian or anti-Christian
36:42state. Ah, this is complicated. We think we can do good, but that's, I mean, that's the first
36:50thing that everyone says when they're offered something for nothing, is think of all the good
36:53I can do. But that's the obvious temptation. That's how people lie themselves. One, they say
37:00they're entitled, they deserve it. And two, they say they'll do all this good and they'll turn
37:06shit into a sandwich. Has there even been much of a debate? Has there been schisms and splinterings
37:12and, oh my God, no, I mean, because this imperils my very soul. This might doom hundreds of millions
37:22of people to hell. If we succumb to this temptation of money from the state, this might
37:30imperil my soul, your soul, the souls of congregations. And through the spread of this,
37:36through the priesthood, we are putting hundreds of millions or maybe billions of souls at risk
37:41of hell forever. It's one of the reasons why I couldn't stay in the theological mindset is I take
37:48this stuff extremely seriously. If I believed that Satan was stalking the world, constantly
37:57tempting people with threats and bribes to give up their integrity and virtue and condemn them
38:03to eternity in hell, well, I'd have a different kind of life. And I would stand body and soul
38:11between this flood of semi-corrupt or wholly corrupt money and the hearts, minds,
38:17consciences, and souls of Christians around the world. But that's not happening. So that's the
38:25problem. That's the problem. It is at the very best a complicated situation when churches take
38:36massive amounts, billions or millions of government dollars. And you understand that it's
38:43not directly the amount of money that matters. It is the proportion of income. So isn't that
38:53the weakness? Isn't that the weakness of theology as opposed to philosophy? Because philosophy
39:02is you and your conscience and your reason alone. Now it is through the actions of reasoning and
39:09through compliance with the conscience slash UPB that we gain contact and connection with others.
39:15Yep, that's good stuff. That's important. But it starts alone with a spark of thought in a basement
39:22or a garret or a street or a boat. Or for me, sometimes it was lying in a hammock in Mexico
39:30for six hours. But it starts with us and it's you and your conscience.
39:36So the problem is, if we look at it from a theological standpoint,
39:42when you have these kinds of leaders, then the first place that the devil would go
39:49to corrupt Christianity would be to the state and to the religious leadership.
39:55Because here's the problem. Here's the problem. This is the Achilles heel. What if you're a
40:03quote religious leader, but you only pretend to believe in hell? You don't believe in hell,
40:13but you pretend to. That's a problem. It's not a problem that philosophy suffers from.
40:20If somebody pretends to believe in UPB, but acts in a manner inconsistent or opposed to UPB,
40:30that's pretty easy to figure out. If somebody says, I promote the non-aggression principle,
40:37then goes around robbing people, I respect property rights, right? I mean, the guy who
40:42says I promote honesty and then lies through his teeth every opportunity, that's pretty obvious,
40:47right? You'd have to work pretty hard to avoid processing that basic contradiction.
40:56There's no faking UPB because the principles are open to everyone. Somebody can't pretend
41:06to be good at math. If they say the two and two make five, their pretense comes crashing down.
41:14I can't tell you what it would mean for me, and I dare say not just me, but a lot of people who
41:21were formerly of the faith. I can't tell you what it would mean to me if the various churches
41:30had engaged in incredibly contentious soul searching and said, well, we're being offered
41:37billions of dollars by a pretty corrupt government. I don't know, man. What's the catch?
41:45What's the downside? What are the problems? Nope. Scoop it up and spend it wildly.
41:53I can't tell you what it would have meant to me if Christianity had deeply wrestled with the
42:01problem of state money. But, and I'm sure there are some exceptions, of course, right?
42:08But in general, no. I mean, I did an entire course on the rise of Protestantism in graduate school.
42:18I know what a schism looks like, and I didn't see it. I didn't see it. I didn't see wrestling.
42:26I said, well, you know, if we take billions of dollars from the state,
42:31and it's the wrong thing to do, then we are putting literally countless souls, including our own,
42:39at risk of hell forever. Now, should that not be enough to promote a debate?
42:46Let's put it to you this way. Let's say a husband and wife are parking a car.
42:52Parking their car, they want to go for a nice little walk around the lake.
42:55They park their car, and then there is an ambiguous sign about whether they're supposed to
43:05pay for their parking or not. It's a little confusing, could be interpreted one of two ways.
43:11Do they need to pay for their parking or not? Now, let's say that the penalty for getting it wrong
43:21was death. It was an insane place, right? Well, there would be quite a debate with those stakes,
43:28wouldn't there be? Let's say it's ferociously expensive parking. It looks like you might not
43:34have to pay. It's not entirely sure. And the penalty for getting it wrong,
43:40for paying when you don't have to or not paying when you do have to, is death for both of them.
43:46But they got to park there for some reason. Maybe it's a really pretty lake.
43:49Now, there would be a big debate about that, right? Now, the stakes are infinitely higher
43:55in taking money from the state for the churches because it's not just death. It is everlasting
44:01torment if you get it wrong. So, where is the debate, my friends? Where is the debate?
44:09Where is the debate? I see a lot of rock and roll shows. I see a lot of lasers.
44:15I see a lot of prosperity gospel. I see a lot of women prancing around the stage saying,
44:20where I am, so is God. Where I am, so is Jesus. I make the ground holy by walking on it.
44:28Speaking in tongues. Autistic screeching. Okay. Interesting. It seems to me a little blasphemous
44:35to identify. I mean, it's one thing to propound you to say, I am saints. It's another thing
44:40for a woman to say, wherever I am is holy ground. Yeah. Okay. That's nice.
44:49But where's the debate? Were the priests going to the congregations or the priests having
44:56public debates about, oh, you know, that's a lot of money, but we're supposed to be
45:03not tempted by money. In fact, money is supposed to be considered a temptation of the devil.
45:10Nope. Ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching, baby. Cash them checks. No debate in particular.
45:17So, it's not enough. The example of Jesus, the threat of hell and the promise of heaven
45:22is not enough. And I don't know why. I don't know why. It should be if people genuinely believe it.
45:30If people genuinely believe, well, the government is offering you billions of dollars, but if you
45:35get it wrong, you go to hell. And Jesus seems to be pretty clear that you should reject tax money.
45:42It's not enough. Why is it not enough? I don't honestly know. Certainly, if I believed
45:51that eternal damnation or eternal paradise was the result of a moral choice, my God,
46:00I can't even tell you how much work I would put into that moral choice. It would be my obsession.
46:06So, why is it not happening? It is impossible to reconcile the lack of centralized debate on this
46:12issue with people actually believing in heaven and hell and actually loving and worshiping Jesus.
46:19I mean, nobody's saying that people have to go march up to Calvary and get
46:23crucified. It's just saying no to a bunch of money from the state.
46:31Now, I'll tell you this sort of close off of this. I'm happy to get your thoughts on this.
46:35I'll tell you a little story, which I'm going to keep intentionally vague
46:38for reasons which will become obvious in a moment or two that I'll just talk about one
46:46occasion. It's been more than one, but in one occasion, I was offered a lot of money and
46:51prominence by an organization. Now, I don't think of myself as some super virtuous guy. I work at
47:02it and so on, but I suppose I had done enough research and thought and practice and training
47:09that this offer, and this is many years ago, this offer, other than a vague flicker of,
47:16oh, wouldn't that be cool? Think of all of the people I could reach, right?
47:20But I didn't really find it very tempting at all. I'd rather sleep under a bridge with a good
47:26conscience than live in a palace with a bad conscience. Now, peace of mind and relative
47:34degrees of self-content and happiness in your decisions is good. I mean, it's worth everything,
47:41isn't it? Isn't it worth everything? I've known a few people over the course of my life who have
47:46really bad consciences, and I mean, that is hell. That is hell. I mean, I guess it ends with death,
47:52so it's not eternal, but it is hell. I mean, it's funny. I was going to say it's not a life I would
47:58wish on my worst enemy, but that's not really my choice. It's not really a thing. I don't have that
48:03option to wish or not wish it. It's like if somebody smokes like a chimney and then they get
48:07lung cancer, it's like, well, I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. It's like, but wishes is not
48:11what caused the lung cancer, but the smoking. So it's not something I can wish or not wish. It's
48:15just the inevitable result of corrupt actions. I mean, imagine how powerful it would be if the
48:22churches had been offered all of this money and had stood up and loudly said, no, no. And maybe
48:30some did, right? Again, it's not like I've spent a week researching this issue, so I'm not saying
48:35it never happened. I'm sure it did, but not enough for it to be a robust debate. That's what matters.
48:42It's not enough for it to be or to have become a robust debate. So, I mean, this is one of the
48:48reasons why I focused so hard on UPP is that for whatever reason, I can't speak for the people
48:58to whom the promise of heaven, the example of Jesus and the threat of hell is not enough. I
49:03cannot speak as to their motives, other than I strongly suspect that they don't really believe it,
49:09but it's not enough. If the church can't even have a debate about the ethics of government money and
49:17the potential for corruption, then the example of Jesus, the promise of heaven and the threat of hell
49:22is not enough. Now you could say, but you can't have, you can't have a bigger incentive than the
49:31example of a perfectly moral man-god, the promise of heaven and the threat of hell, you cannot have
49:38a bigger set of incentives than that. Yes, that's true. Absolutely true. That is infinitely more
49:45punishment than even the most aggressive, a bad conscience is a bad life philosophy could promote.
49:52Infinitely more punishment. Okay. But the problem is, you can just disbelieve in it.
50:02That's the problem. You can't just disbelieve in UPB. That's why it annoys so many people and
50:06encourages so many more. But the problem is, you can just pretend to believe in the example of
50:15Jesus, the promise of heaven and the threat of hell. You can use it as a mechanism by which to
50:21gain power over others. You can fake it. You can fake faith. You cannot fake reason. And it's the
50:31non-fakery element of UPB that is really mankind's only chance to escape sophistry, because a sophist
50:42can pretend to believe in the promise of heaven, the threat of hell, and the example of Jesus,
50:50and the sophist can praise Jesus, live, he claims, or she claims, in fear of God, speak in tongues,
50:58handle snakes, can do all of this kind of stuff. And how do you disprove it? How can you? Well,
51:07you can't. But somebody cannot pretend to believe in UPB because there's no speaking in tongues,
51:14there's no rituals, there's no proclamations. If somebody says, well, I accept UPB, but I also
51:21think that rape, theft, assault, murder are fine, well, that's clearly somebody who doesn't accept UPB.
51:26UPB is like math. You can't fake it. If somebody says, I'm really good at math, and then adds up a,
51:33I don't know, you're playing mini-putt, and they add up a column of single-digit numbers incorrectly, and
51:39loudly proclaim how good they are at math, and they got it perfectly right, well, then they're not
51:42good at math, and you can test that. But theology tends to be so complicated that it's easy to hide
51:49in the fog. The way that I work with these things in my mind, you know, rightly or wrongly,
51:55I should tell you, maybe it's helpful to you, is I say, well, if you genuinely believed
52:01in the example of Jesus, the threat of hell, and the promise of heaven, there would be an incredible
52:06and powerful and deep debate about the propriety of taking money from the state,
52:12because charity is supposed to be voluntary, and again, to reiterate the point I made earlier,
52:17if it was a monotheistic culture with a monotheistic population, that would be one thing,
52:22but that's not the case in the West, and hasn't been for generations. It is worthy of debate,
52:29and it is not being debated much, much. It might be now, I mean, have the Christian
52:39organizations justified their acceptance of government funds to their congregation. I mean,
52:46in America in particular, the Christians tend to be conservative, tend to be Republican.
52:54So, for the majority of the years, from 2013 to 2023, the majority of those years,
53:02it was not a Republican president, and the Republican president that was in,
53:08Trump 2016 to 2020, was attacked and undermined at virtually every turn.
53:15So, did they say, well, I know that there's a lot of Democrats who are offering us money,
53:22but we think that it's worth it, you know, but it's complicated because we know that most of
53:27you are Republicans, and it's Democratic organizations or administrations that are
53:32continuing to offer us the money. Is it good? Is it bad? I mean, these are topics worthy of debate.
53:39Yet, the debate does not really materialize, and because the debate does not really materialize,
53:46I suspect that the answer is indefensible. I mean, why was I de-platformed? I was de-platformed
53:52because people could not answer my arguments. If you have a robust answer, you don't need to
54:00censor people. So, these are just thoughts that have been bouncing around in my brain
54:06over the last couple of days. That and it's so funny watching people in the mainstream media
54:12complain about the fact that one of the young men involved in the Doge examination
54:18of the hellscape known as USAID once used the nickname Big Balls, and the more upset by the
54:25fact that a teenage boy used the nickname Big Balls, rather than the fact that massive amounts
54:30of money had been going to highly corrupt and sometimes criminal organizations. The weaponization
54:35of female contextless contempt is really a major curse in the modern world. That kindergarten
54:43lip sneer, it's like they need abusive mothers so that men get programmed to respond with
54:49compliance to female contempt. It's so gross. All right. Well, just for the record, I did ask
54:55people for comments, but I guess people are at work, so comments were not to be had, but I really
54:59do appreciate everyone's time, care, thoughts, and attention. I look forward to your feedback
55:04about this. Freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show. I don't want to be funded by the
55:10government. Yeah, like that's ever going to happen, either from a supply or demand standpoint. But yes,
55:15if you could help out the show, I'd really, really appreciate it. Have yourself a glorious day,
55:19everyone. Thank you for your time and attention today, as is the case every day. Lots of love
55:24from up here, my friends. I'll talk to you soon. Bye.