Neo Values

Every part of life can feel like it comes with a forced choice: left or right, religious or secular, your people or their people. We sit down as a progressive Christian and a conservative atheist who are also close friends, and we ask a risky question right up front: if we met today, would we still choose each other in a culture built to split us apart? 

From Holy Week and Palm Sunday to a viral clip claiming “true Christianity” will sound socialist to conservatives and fascist to liberals, we dig into why faith and politics get misheard so easily. We talk about how labels like “neo,” “neocon,” “neoliberal,” and even “red pill” can hide more than they reveal, and how the words we pick often betray the positions we think we’re neutrally analyzing. If you care about depolarization, civil discourse, and building common ground, this is a candid look at what actually derails conversation. 

Then we go deeper: the historical Jesus as a Jewish apocalypticist, the problem of exclusion in theology, and the uncomfortable truth that many of us love religion most when it agrees with our instincts. We wrestle with moral intuition using slavery texts as an example, debate whether history has any arc toward justice, and connect the whole thing to Stoicism, the logos, and “transcendental values” like truth, beauty, courage, love, mercy, and inclusion. Even when we disagree about whether meaning is objective, we still ask how to live like our values matter. 

If you’ve ever felt exhausted by culture war scripts but still want honesty, listen, share it with a friend who disagrees with you, and subscribe so you don’t miss what’s next. After you listen, what value feels most real to you right now, and why?

©NoahHeldmanMusic

https://livingoncommonground.buzzsprout.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Does it feel like every part of your life is divided? Every scenario, every environment, your church, your school, your work, your friends, left, right, conservative, liberal, religious, secular. It seems you always have to take a side. This is a conversation between a progressive Christian and a conservative atheist who happen to be great friends. Welcome to Living on Common Ground.

SPEAKER_06 0:28

Do you think if we met today, we would still be friends? I don't know. But we're friends now.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

A mom is known as a mom because they are living in a dog. Man, so well, we want a few games. Y'all fools think that's something? Man, that ain't nothing, y'all. And you know what else? We ain't nothing either. Yeah, we came together in camp. Cool. But then we're right back here and the world tells us that they don't want us to be together. We fall apart like we ain't a damn bit of nothing, man.

Marker 7

SPEAKER_04 1:17

How you doing? I'm good. Yeah? Yeah. Good. Yeah, there. Good.

Marker 9

Marker 10

SPEAKER_05 1:23

I uh I'm ecstatic. As long as I've got coffee. Yeah. Caffeine.

SPEAKER_04 1:28

It's Holy Week. Oh yeah. Yeah. And it will be Holy Week when this one airs because we're closing that gap a little bit.

SPEAKER_05 1:36

Yeah, I like um I wasn't in the service on Sunday because uh I've noticed you started volunteering in the children's wing a lot.

SPEAKER_04 1:44

I assume it's because that way you don't have to listen to the sermons. That's exactly why.

SPEAKER_05 1:47

Uh-huh. Um and uh but I I the the thing that I love about Palm Sunday that um that occurred to me, you know, a few years ago is that um uh that it it's a literal triumph. That's what Palm Sunday is. Palm Sunday is the Jesus version of a triumph. Interesting. That's I mean, it's the same thing as, you know, um uh uh Cato uh entering Rome and having uh the service it's the reason Memento Mori was was invented as a as a um as a statement. It was for the slave whispering in the ear of the of the general. Yeah. That's what that's what Palm Sunday is.

SPEAKER_04 2:47

So that that's an interesting take on Palm Sunday, and it uh and explains the existence of the story in the Gospels. It would have seemed very understandable to everyone. It makes it it be it definitely makes a statement about the identity of of Jesus. It's believers.

SPEAKER_05 3:06

The claim was King of the Jews, it's the new king. Yeah. Um it's uh so is that what you taught in Sunday school? Yeah. Actually, to the to the two-year-olds? Yeah. I wasn't even with the kids, I was with um uh I was in the nursery this time. Which was great.

SPEAKER_03 3:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 3:27

It was awesome. I got to feed a baby. I got to pretend to get knocked over by a two-year-old as she ran into me over and over again. It was a great Sunday, man. It sounds good.

SPEAKER_04 3:40

Um Well, good. The uh what was I gonna say though? I don't remember now. Anyway. Uh next week I'm gone. I'm leaving on a sabbatical. And I'm gonna be in the woods for two weeks. Your favorite place on earth. It's it's a toss-up, but it's one of them for sure. Yeah, I like um I like being out there. So looking forward to it. But today we're gonna talk a little bit about this um this reel that you sent me.

SPEAKER_03 4:11

And uh so let me play the reel and then we'll uh we'll talk about it. Um and uh all right, that's enough.

SPEAKER_06 4:22

I think an underrated take about Christianity that goes unspoken a lot is that true Christianity will seem socialist to neoconservatives, it will seem fascist to neoliberals, it will seem feminist to red pill guys, it will seem misogynistic to feminists. Um, all in all, the balance and perfect law and order of Christ is something that will be interpreted as too much by those who are in disharmony with existence.

SPEAKER_05 4:55

Okay, can I just point out one thing real quick? Yeah, about this.

SPEAKER_03 4:58

Yep.

SPEAKER_05 5:00

Because it just bugs me, but it's fine. We'll just get it out of the way in case I'm probably nobody else is um calling somebody a neo-something is an I think sometimes, sometimes, an easy way to try to sound a little more educated. Neo can neocons are former socialists. They're leftists.

SPEAKER_04 5:24

Neocon.

SPEAKER_05 5:25

Neoconservatives. Okay, neo-libs, neoliberals are generally speaking, um, on the economic side, they're economic conservatives. Um so it's exactly the opposite of what she's saying. But we understand what she's trying. The point she's making, what she the point she's making is it will seem socialist to conservatives. It'll seem uh to use. It'll seem fascist to liberals. Yeah, but the Yeah.

unknown 5:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 5:52

I mean, the ne the neocons were they were all former Trotsky socialists who got us in.

SPEAKER_04 6:02

I mean, all all new conservatives were yesterday's liberals or progressives.

SPEAKER_05 6:06

But that's not that's true, but that's not what I mean. What I mean is that they retained their socialist economic um ideas, revolutionary ideas, and just moved it into um worlds that looked right-leaning.

SPEAKER_04 6:24

So that they were the rebranding?

SPEAKER_05 6:26

Yeah, they were the ones behind the whole um uh nation-building ideal of like we're gonna go out and create democracy in the world. They're they're the reason we got into the Middle East in uh in the early 2000s. They are the they are the bedrock of the entire war global war on terror.

SPEAKER_04 6:48

I want you to put a pin in that one because I want to talk more about that at some point because I mean I need to be educated. So that's fine. And then neolibs. Hold on, hold on, hold on.

SPEAKER_05 6:56

Oh, go ahead.

SPEAKER_04 6:56

Neocon. Right? Yeah. Neocon. Okay, and neo lib. Yeah. Okay. All right. So let's just I wanna because I want to dedicate a whole the discussion to that. Um, because I got all kinds of questions that are coming up. Okay. But we're veering away from her point. Fair enough. I think. Right? Yeah. So when you when you hear her, by the way, one other thing though about Neo before we move on. I do talk about um uh because I the only place I ever I think think the only place that I have ever added the uh the prefix neo to something is um uh neostoicism. That there's nothing wrong with using the prefix. Well, and I'll explain. The prefix has a has a Sure. And because what I definitely what I would argue is that neo Stoicism has removed much of the spiritual aspect of original Stoicism. Sure. Sure. So that's the reason I that's the reason I use Neo in that particular instance is to delineate the two. I do. Because like when you talk about Ryan Hollitt, like when Ryan Holiday talks about stoicism, it could almost fall under the category of self-help or something like that. And uh and he'll talk about aligning yourself with nature, but I don't think it's to the extent that the original Stoics were talking about.

SPEAKER_05 8:12

I don't know that it could be because the Roman mind and culture was really so foreign to us. Even though there's a lot of similarities. Which we have to agree.

SPEAKER_04 8:24

Which, okay, then that gets back to this conversation about Christianity because I think that the actual uh original so the Roman mind is so foreign to us, so is the actual Christian mind.

SPEAKER_05 8:33

The original Christian mind, yeah. Completely agree.

SPEAKER_04 8:37

Yeah, completely agree. Right. And and I that's why I think over the last year plus, um, my mind has just sort of gone boom. Um when I began to connect the stoicism stuff with the Christianity stuff. Yeah, sure. So and I think this will connect to the what this particular individual on the reel was saying. All right. So when you heard her, what did you hear? What was she saying?

SPEAKER_05 9:06

Yeah, what I what I heard her saying um was that um well that the end of it being like that if you're not in balance which is really difficult to define, but if you're not in balance, then with what? In balance with what? In balance with I think what she's saying is in balance with the universe, in balance in balance with truth, in balance with Okay.

SPEAKER_04 9:36

Yeah, I heard I I'll I'll I'll let's just let's land on universe.

SPEAKER_05 9:41

If you're not if you're not in in alignment with whatever that because Christianity holds the ultimate, this is this her words, I think, because Christianity holds the ultimate in balanced truth and justice and whatever, um then wherever you find yourself imbalanced, it will seem like it's too far on the other side. So if you're if if you're a feminist, it will seem misogynistic. Yeah. If you're um if you're misogynistic, I don't like the she's red pill guys, but whatever.

SPEAKER_04 10:24

Yeah, uh that's okay. I was thinking like uh sort of the patristic to me. I think that that fits better within the Christian. It's fine.

SPEAKER_05 10:32

I knew what I know what she means.

SPEAKER_04 10:33

What does she even mean, red pill guys? Well, you know what the red pill is. Help me.

SPEAKER_05 10:38

Oh. Well, that's taken a lot of different uh because my mind goes to the matrix. That's where it started. Okay. So the it's it's evolved. This is how language works. I have not evolved. But this no, no, no, but this it's evolved on social media. So this is how language works. And I will, I I won't know every iteration of it either. But it started, yes, with the idea that of the matrix, you take the red pill and you see things for how they really are, right? Mm-hmm. And then it kind of so it was like, oh, you got kind of some of the information that that the mainstream media, the whatever doesn't report on that you didn't learn in in history class, in high school, whatever. And now you kind of know what's going on because it's red, and because we've decided that red is uh right-leaning and blue is left-leaning in our country, it started to become associated with um, and because I mean, I I mean, I feel very comfortable saying the mainstream media is primarily left.

SPEAKER_04 11:42

So would you say like so it's so if someone wanted to accuse me of being too progressive, they would would they say that you took the blue pill?

SPEAKER_05 11:50

Nobody's ever gonna say you took the blue pill. That's not really a thing.

SPEAKER_02 11:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 11:54

But they would say that you're not red pills.

SPEAKER_04 11:56

So if you're too conservative, quote unquote, you get too conservative, then you're then you're a red pill.

SPEAKER_05 12:02

So the first iteration was uh people like Brett Weinstein, Heather Hyene, um uh Claire Lehman, um I I could go down the list of people who were um public intellectuals and on the left and started to Joe Rogan is a perfect example, and started to espouse views where they were like, well, wait, that doesn't make sense or whatever. And then they landed what we would consider on the right. People started saying they got red pilled, right? But also it gets associated with this term that used to be a good thing. I hate, which is called the manosphere, which I freaking hate because I think that it's being it doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_04 12:46

The point is there's so much I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 12:49

The point is that there's I mean, I can I can extrapolate the meaning. Yeah. So there's it's all when she says red pill guys, what she means is what she's talking about are guys who feel in her mind who feel comfortable in their misogyny. That's what she's saying. I would have a lot of quibbles, but who cares? That's what she's saying because she's because she's juxtaposing it with feminism, right? So that's what she's talking about.

SPEAKER_03 13:23

Okay. All right.

SPEAKER_05 13:24

So you could get like black pilled, you know, black pilled. Black pilled means like you just think there's no hope, kind of you white pills.

SPEAKER_04 13:32

What's wrong with the word nihilism?

SPEAKER_05 13:34

That well, there's people throw that around also. But I'm just saying, like, there's the the pill statement. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:43

It's I'm just learning about I'm just learning about this, and I cannot wait for it to go away.

unknown 13:48

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 13:49

It's it, you know, it is what it is.

SPEAKER_04 13:51

I used I uh in the presentation that I gave, the the talk I gave at uh University of Cincinnati last week, I talked about virtue signaling.

SPEAKER_02 14:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 14:00

And after and like a couple people that I know better than the other ones there.

SPEAKER_02 14:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 14:05

Because some I didn't I had never met before, and some of them I've met in the past, yeah, doing other things up there. But um, they were like, Oh my god, you know what virtue signaling is? I was like, How old do you think I am? It's an old phrase, yeah, term. The other thing that I use at least 10 years old. The other thing that I used that they were surprised that I knew was rage baiting.

SPEAKER_05 14:24

Yeah. That's old too.

SPEAKER_04 14:26

Right? Yeah. And they were I was like, guys, I'm I'm only 54.

SPEAKER_05 14:30

That's funny.

SPEAKER_04 14:30

But I guess when you're 20, 21, might as well be 18, 19, 20, 21 years old. Yeah, I'm I'm old.

SPEAKER_05 14:37

Um, but anyway, okay. Yeah, you you did this, we should talk about that. You did this uh this talk in Cincinnati um at a university. So this was like the secular version of your talk, right?

SPEAKER_04 14:49

Yeah, so I have I I give so I have a theme, right? Which is basically the theme of this podcast, which is helping people try to find ways to find common ground so that I believe uh one of my, I guess the one of the basis of my thesis, if I'm gonna put it that way, is that the only way to actually truly solve issues is to be able to do have conversations and work together with people who um you appear to disagree with. Right. Because our our our disagreements often are the result of our what I would call intellectual toolkits. Our intellectual toolkits are the result of your upbringing, your exposure, your experiences, all kinds of things, right? Your education, your level of um uh affluence, just like all of that goes into how you see the world. And so a lot of times what causes us to have conflict personal culture. Yeah. Um and and what causes us to have conflict is when our cultures clash.

SPEAKER_03 15:59

Don't try to talk and breathe and swallow.

SPEAKER_04 16:04

This makes for good air.

SPEAKER_05 16:06

You uh you made yourself speechless here. You just you I did.

SPEAKER_04 16:09

I was so emotionally moved by what I was saying. No. So anyway, so I had the opportunity, so yeah, I have the I have two primary ways of presenting it. And one is within the Christian community, and I talk about the disagreement between um Paul and James, and then I use Peter as sort of an example of how to navigate such extreme difference of opinions. Sure. All right. But if you're gonna talk to a secular community, you don't want to if you're gonna talk, if you really want to be able to convince a Christian community, it it helps to be able to base it in scripture. Right? Because everyone is always like, oh, I want to be scriptural. All right, which that's a whole nother topic, too. So, but if I'm gonna present it at a university or like uh in May, I'm gonna have an opportunity to talk at um uh Tailgate Brewery in Nashville. Okay. Um being uh uh it's being hosted by um Secular Rising. That's cool. And it's gonna be, yeah. And um, and so I'll be there May 11th. And um, it's the one on Charlottesville Pike, I think is what it's called. Charlotte's Pike. Charlotteville, yeah, Charlotte's Pike. Charlotte, I don't know. Look it up. So um anyway, yeah, that'll be May 11th. I'll be there talking. And so this was the same one. And if you're gonna talk to people outside of the church, there there's there's better ways to communicate it than by trying to go scriptural.

unknown 17:35

Right.

SPEAKER_04 17:35

Because if it's funny, you go to the Bible with somebody who doesn't that doesn't hold any authority for them, then that's a waste of your time. But you can talk about different things like the environmentalist movement, which I saw by the way, I don't know, I just whatever. But that uh um this this the recent thing of the the No Kings rallies is second only to the uh environmentalist rallies that were taking place in the 70s. But I'd rather talk about the environmentalist things that are going on in the 70s because there's there's a whole little thing that is missed when we talk about that. But so that's what I did. I gave that talk and it went really well. And uh there's a chance that I could be um going back in the fall to do it again. And then there's also a chance that that in the fall, um, it might actually uh I I may be requested to turn the the presentation into workshops or into a workshop, and then uh they may be making it mandatory for learning groups. So those are freshmen that come in, they get put in these learning groups, they get credit for it. It's a requirement.

SPEAKER_05 18:42

I like it when it's mandatory to listen to me.

SPEAKER_04 18:43

Yep. And um, and so then I uh they would be required to participate in the workshop that I led because it helps you like how can you get along with a roommate who has a different personal, what did you call it? A personal culture? Individual culture. Yeah, their individual culture, right? And all of a sudden you take two individual cultures and you put them into a room together and you ask them to live together. What or four? And how does that so the talk that I whoever's the biggest wins?

SPEAKER_05 19:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:10

Uh yeah. Well, we can talk about that sometime too. But um or you're in you're in a learning environment with people who ha are different than you, and and how do you navigate that space, which is what the talk is all about. All right. That's good. So back to this. Yes. Um a couple things. One is and I know I do it too, so this is not an accusation uh or me trying to um tear her apart, because I actually enjoyed a lot of what she had to say. Um and I it actually resonated with me, and I think it connects to what I'm talking about, um, especially when I talk about it within the the church, but um the way that she spoke betrays her own positions, which it always happens to us, right? Sure. Yeah. Um so like when I and um what I mean by that for anybody that's like, what is what do you mean? When I like if I use the word um undocumented rather than illegal, it shows you where I kind of land on that particular topic. Right. And so you pointed out red pill or what what were the other ones you yeah. So um that being said, I do I do appreciate her willingness and her ability to try to say, but anytime that you go to one extreme or the other, it's going to be offensive to you, Christianity. And I think that's true. Because of the way I understand what the Christ is. You're you when before we before we started, you said that you're not sure what you think about that, about what she had to say.

SPEAKER_05 20:51

Yeah, I was kind of I was kind of neutral on it. I thought that it um it was relevant to things that you've said in the past, so I thought you'd be interested in it. When I hear it, the thing that is that jumps out to me is um that my understanding at this point, um the argument that is most compelling to me about the historical Jesus and his positions, his kind of ideology um is that he was um a Jewish apocalypticist. And um that that's Bart Arman's argument, and it's the most compelling that I have personally.

SPEAKER_04 21:31

Um you unpack that just for a second.

SPEAKER_05 21:34

Uh it was a sect of um of uh Jews that um that lived at the time that uh had this idea that um let's see, what's the best way to put this that there was a there was a separate world than the world that we occupy and that That the forces of good ruled over that separate world, the forces of evil currently ruled over our current world, and that in the apocalypse there would be an inversion of everything so that the new the other world would take over, this world would be swept away, and you could tell uh where the forces of evil were because the forces of evil ruled this world. Therefore, if there was something that was in power, had advantage, um, whatever, that inherently meant that it was evil. And the thing to do was always to do the inverse of everything that seems right in this world. And that in the in the coming world, in the apocalypse, in the coming world, um, so it's not apocalypse like like left behind type apocalypse. It's more like um it's it's a little bit like the Celts, there were certain tribes of Celts that at least Caesar said, believed that um when you die in this world, you go, that there's two worlds. When you die in this world, you're born into the other world. You live a life. When you die in that world, you're born back into this world and you just go back and forth. And he said because of that, their um their warriors had very little fear of death. They're much more difficult because of that to fight against. And so it's similar to that idea that there's this other world and that we would flip into it. So my point being, it makes sense to me then, if I take that framework, it makes sense to me then that all of the teachings would, whatever that that it's inevitable that all people will find themselves on one side or the other of everything. And that the words of the historical Jesus would seem to be on the other side, no matter where you are, because he's he's like flipping the tables, you know, metaphorically.

SPEAKER_04 24:20

That's that was my well, that's interesting. Um my thinking was anytime that you um the the further you get into any uh ideology I don't want to put this.

SPEAKER_03 24:47

Let me let me re let me let me step back. Any anything I'm having a hard time. Um if if your theology requires that some people are left out based on what they believe, then I think you've gone too far one way or the other. Um and so when I hear her talking, that's kind of where I land.

SPEAKER_04 25:31

Um anytime that I'm convinced that the that the correct people are the ones that are just like me, I've I've missed the point. So I didn't have a problem with it. Uh to be honest with you, the the the the hardest part for me was listening to that reel uh was the way she spoke. Um yeah, but it was short. It was. And and again, um so all right. What did we miss on there? Did we miss anything from hers? I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 26:11

I I wonder what other people think of that if if that rings true. That um that no matter what um that the message of Christianity will feel like it's on the other side. I don't know if that is how most people would be struck by the Christian message. I'm my experience is that most people um are astounded and delighted to discover that it turns out that the their uh that the faith message they belong to, Christianity or whatever it is, happens to align with their intuitions, right? If they feel like there's nothing wrong with being gay, they're delighted to find out actually Christianity thinks that too. If they think that there is something wrong with being gay, if that's an intuition they have, they're delighted and astounded to find out that that's what their faith teaches. If they think that um ambition and um wealth accumulation is is a um uh an aspect of you know um good character and solid, you know, being a solid member of your community and therefore a good thing, they are it's wonderful for them to find out that God thinks that too. And if they think that it's that the quote unquote rich have probably gotten there by some sort of um uh you know underhanded means and that they don't deserve it and there's something wrong with being wealthy, well, they are delighted and astounded sometimes to find out that that's what Jesus thought, also. Right. Right. So no matter what, I think that we we I think generally speaking, we have our intuitions about existence, the world, human interactions. And um, and and it's always it's it's always wonderful to discover that it turns out the original message, now it's been corrupted over the time over time, right? It's been corrupted by people who did not have the best interests at heart. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But it turns out the original message is the one that I knew was right all along.

SPEAKER_04 29:06

Right. A little too cynical? Uh you know what? Actually, as you're talking, I've had some thoughts, and I was trying to scroll through something I wrote. Um, so I I I uh is a little too cynical. I think it might be okay, is it cynical or is it um I just view it as a tautology that God cannot want something that I don't always already want.

SPEAKER_05 29:37

Now I know somebody's gonna say, no, I want to uh pick something. I don't know. I I want to do drugs, I want to cheat on my wife, and I don't. Something, whatever, right? Well, what I would say is no, if you actually wanted to in the moment, you would do it. You think that it's wrong and you want to do right, therefore, you do right, you know?

unknown 30:11

Anyway.

SPEAKER_04 30:11

No, okay, so I've I don't think you're wrong in that that's the the what what happens, right? Um and now that I'm thinking about it, I'm thinking about I'm I'm applying it to myself because I always want to um think about I'm always checking myself and seeing, do I do that? Is that what I do? And it's interesting because um my God wants us all to get along because I do. And so even even and so I would say hers, uh her, you know, she's describing her her vision of Christianity. It's you hear what she wants.

SPEAKER_03 30:56

Um how do you decide if that's wrong?

SPEAKER_05 31:05

I I just I I just can never escape what seems to be obvious to me, which is we always decide what's wrong based on our intuitions. So always.

SPEAKER_04 31:19

Oh man, I got all kinds of thoughts on this.

SPEAKER_05 31:21

And maybe one of our intuitions is I do what it seems like this scripture tells me to. Why? I think probably your intuition at heart had something to do with what grandma told me to or something that you can't even know anymore, but there's some intuition, right? But there's no person, there's no person who thinks that slavery is wrong who's going to read slaves obey your masters, and is gonna go. Well, it's very clear to me slavery is wrong. So the Bible said it, so I gotta do, I'm I gotta change my head. How would you even change your heart? How would you do that? You can't do you can't consciously do that.

SPEAKER_04 32:20

But hearts change. So then the question becomes right. And then you get into the idea of um significant emotional events having an impact. People don't change unless there's been a significant emotional event that has caused the um process to begin.

SPEAKER_05 32:35

I just I think it's all unconscious. But uh my point is like nobody, nobody ever went, nobody's ever gonna go. Uh obviously, God likes slavery. Every single person who comes across that, that phrase or that that part in the and there's other, there's plenty, there's they used to, though. There's time when. When did people say that God liked slavery? Yeah, when. Tell me when. I think that okay, like slavery is probably this is not a true question because they did. Because they did say that. When was it? When when were they saying that? Back when they owned slaves. When their intuition told them that obviously this is the way the world is works. Yes. That's my point. Right. Okay. That's my point.

SPEAKER_04 33:23

Does that make it Okay? So I think there's a trajectory, though, and I think this might be part of the conversation too. The reason that we don't believe that slavery is the thing that God wants anymore, is it possible that that's because that there is a trajectory to the way that the the because she talks about being aligned with the universe. Yeah. Is it possible that the universe does have us moving in a trajectory that you can trace in scripture if you want, towards love, justice, mercy, and inclusion?

SPEAKER_05 33:54

That's possible, but man, that's an enormous claim that would need an enormous amount of evidence as far as I'm concerned.

SPEAKER_04 34:02

And that's my claim.

SPEAKER_05 34:03

Yeah, I know. Right.

SPEAKER_04 34:04

And that's what I've been working on. So I do think that if you look at in my mind, uh just okay, so just because you described as cynicism, right? I don't want to go through the whole thing again, but this idea that God seems to, isn't it, isn't it so wonderful when I realize that God's wanted what I've wanted all along anyway? Um, or if I do change my mind, man, I'm finally have opened myself up to what God's been talking to me about. Yep. Right? Okay. But is it possible that one of the ways to measure is this, is this right? Is it moving you towards love, justice, mercy, mercy, and inclusion? Because it seems to me, and again, I am not um I'm not an evolutionary biologist, right? Like I'm getting ready in the Jordan Peterson um Academy. Yeah, I'm getting ready. Like one of the things that I do have on my uh on my list is um evolutionary inference, which is uh Heather Weinstein. Yeah, and his wife's Haying.

SPEAKER_05 35:11

Heather Hying. I think flying.

SPEAKER_04 35:14

Okay. So Heather Hying, Dr. Heather High Hying, and Dr. Brett Weinstein. Okay.

SPEAKER_05 35:21

Brett Weinstein is fine. Okay. And his wife is flying hying. Yeah. And um Oh shoot. Who's the guy who went to jail? The producer. Right now, name them. Um, Weinstein. Weinstein. Weinstein is mean. Weinstein is fine. Weinstein is fine. That's the only way I remember it. Okay. Well, there you go. Brett Weinstein.

SPEAKER_04 35:43

Well, good. Now somebody has something that they can take away from this discussion. Um, what was I saying now? Darn it. Oh, okay. So I'm not an evolutionary biologist, but the little bit that I seem to be able to wrap my mind around at this point as I'm diving into it, is that the the trajectory, okay. So let's just say that tribalism is built into like you can you can track the development of tribalism through evolutionary biology.

SPEAKER_05 36:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 36:12

Okay. I because I think you can. I think that there's social aspects that come through the process of evolutionary biology that determine it's best for you as an individual to be part of a tribe. And it and it becomes a survival interest. Yeah, right. Um, but what I am saying is that as the world continues to get smaller, the the concept of who's in your tribe continues to expand. So the world seems to be getting smaller, but who's in our tribe? And we see pushback against that and all that kind of stuff. But I do feel like um the world as a whole seems to me to be pushing towards love, justice, mercy, and inclusion. And so I would say that if you're trying to think about like God, and I'm thinking about my ideologies, or as my friend says, ideology, I'm not sure which one's right. Um, but if if what you claim to be the pure form of Christianity seems to be blocking that, that movement, that trajectory, I would say that it needs to, it needs to seriously be questioned and reflected upon. And so that's what I hear her talking about, too, is this idea that if, you know, whatever, whatever ism she wanted to say that you hold dear, and is it possible? Well, I don't, I don't know what to make that claim either. Maybe, maybe you're actually more uh committed to your ism than you are to Christianity. However, I mentioned Stoicism earlier, and I mentioned how neo-stoicism, connecting back to your whole thing about neo that she uses, and and um without getting into uh neocon and neo-libs and all that kind of stuff, because we're gonna talk about that some other time because I need to be educated in that. However, one of the things is this idea of aligning yourself with the nature of the universe. That's and the nature of the universe is the logos, the logos, right? That there is this divine consciousness that has created and has ordered and is sustaining all things. That's that's built within Stoicism. And that what Stoics taught was that the best way to live is to constantly be challenging yourself, reflecting on your your, like using the three disciplines, focusing on the four virtues that you can develop, right? And the development of those four virtues aligns you better with the universe, with with the actual way that the universe is intended to work. And so when I heard her talking about this idea of aligning yourself with the universe, that's what I heard, which then jumps me over to the idea of, well, when I talk about that, that there seems to be a movement towards love, justice, mercy, and inclusion, it brings to mind the idea of uh transcendental values. And why would they be transcendental values? Because they seem to transcend all of our different little tribes, all of our different cultures, which means to me that there's a truth to those things, right? So so uh Jordan Peterson narrows it down to three, and he talks about beauty and he talks about truth and he talks about justice. And so there seems to be this idea that we as humans are drawn to or that we're we're moving towards, we're pulled towards those three things: justice, truth, and beauty. And beauty uh is another way of talking about love, because what causes love is whatever we see, whatever we're drawn to, beauty. So, all that to say, I think that if what you are doing, if the ism that you hold somehow is fighting against those uh those transcendental values, which the transcendental values are the values that are instilled in us be as a result of evolutionary biology and the way that the universe is working and moving us towards the reason that we're not experiencing um uh entropy, but but we can witness neg entropy, which is this continued forming and refining and polling and developing and and making us more and more um complex.

SPEAKER_03 40:16

I think that there's some truth to that. How's that? Okay.

SPEAKER_04 40:24

Does that sound like a bunch of word salad?

SPEAKER_05 40:26

No, I mean I've heard you talk about this enough that I know what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_04 40:29

Okay. I mean, it's um but it's one thing to know what I'm talking about. And and then you can say, I know exactly about the bullshit you're talking about, or yeah, I know about what you're talking about, and I find some of that convincing. Um Is there anything in there that you like there there actually might be some value to that?

SPEAKER_05 40:50

Yeah, there's I think there's a lot of value to a lot of it.

SPEAKER_04 40:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 40:53

Even if I wouldn't necessarily agree, I think there's a lot of value to it. A lot of it.

SPEAKER_03 40:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 40:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 41:00

I mean, I I um I think that um that was that was the cliff notes of what I've been working on for over a year now.

SPEAKER_05 41:10

When it comes to universal values, you call them transcendental values. Um while I don't have any reason I don't find any compelling reason to believe in universal values.

SPEAKER_03 41:27

Um I I want to live as if I do. Right? Like it's the same, it's it's the same thing that I say over and over again.

SPEAKER_05 41:39

I I um I don't you get me into a philosophy class, you get me into a conversation like this, we're talking about a objectively is there any meaning in this in this universe? And I come down on the Joseph Campbell, no, of course not. I can't I I can't understand the idea of objective meaning, purpose, universal values, blah, blah, blah. And also there's nothing that's going to strike me deeper emotionally than someone being courageous in some way. There's there's this there's this uh theme that will show up in um movies every once in a while, or at least it used to, I'm sure it will again in stories and stuff, where someone thinks they're stupid. They kind of know they're stupid, and there's a character that like sees that in them and shows them that they're not in some way. I can't ever get through those scenes. Um, you know, there are things that touch me deeply. The idea of pick up the heaviest thing that you can lift and walk with it right now. Right now, do it. What's the heaviest thing? And don't worry about the fact that it's so small it feels embarrassing that that's the heaviest thing. That's the reason you're not picking it up, is because you're embarrassed. Maybe being embarrassed is part of the heaviness. Pick up the heaviest thing. And as soon as you do, all of the anxieties, all of the acid in your stomach, all of the worry, it all starts to melt when you're driving toward a purpose, towards something, you know? So these things I experience, I don't have any way to make them, in my mind, compelling objective realities. They just are for me. So I'm going with it. Right. Um so there's a lot of what you're talking about that I think I'm just repeating a lot of the stuff that you're talking about there. And so um, yeah, I think there's a lot that's that's has a ton that's worthwhile. Right. Uh I am not compelled by the idea that there is an arc that history is moving toward at all. Okay. I really think in my study of history, human history, human history, and also universal history. Okay. So like pre-human history. Sure. That things just change. That's my that's my intuition. They just change. They don't arc toward anything good or bad. They just change. And when you take small time periods, then you can see narratives, but not on the greater course. That's my intuition. Um and also I desperately want a sanctuary for my people, right? That has walls built up around it, those walls being uh we we will be safe in here. And like what we've talked about before, like not in the way that California talks about being having safe spaces. We you will be allowed in here and we will not harm you because you're not the right type of person.

SPEAKER_04 45:34

Yep. Yeah. And when I hear you say the the idea about the California type safe spaces, I don't have your experience, but what I do hear is that uh when you go to an extreme of trying to create a safe space, you actually inadvertently create an unsafe space.

SPEAKER_05 45:49

Absolutely. Yeah. There's there's easy examples to look at that. And that's not what you've been wanting to do. That's not what we want to do.

SPEAKER_04 45:57

I have written on a whiteboard in one of the rooms in this building that the moment that you think that the safe that this intentionally created safe space happened organically or as the result of all of uh uh shared affinities, uh it's no longer a safe space.

SPEAKER_02 46:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 46:14

Right. So what I do hear you saying, and I could be completely wrong in this, is that while you don't you you don't feel that you it uh you can uh with any s with any level of conviction, claim that that the values that um the I I I stated three and there's different ways of articulating those. Like within within stoicism, the four virtues are uh wisdom, temperance, courage, and um wisdom, temperance, courage, and huh justice. Um okay. And so you you hear these repeated in different things, right? So you what what I hear you saying, and this and they may not be actually what you're saying. This is why, so this is why I'm saying this is what I'm hearing, is that uh you can't you don't feel like you can actually make a claim that these are uh tr transcendent, that they that they exist in all cultures or all persons, because there's no way of actually measuring or looking at whether or not that statement is true. However, when you say that you want them to be, what I hear you saying is that you value those values.

SPEAKER_03 47:32

Yeah, absolutely. Sure. Right. Yeah. Which would make that your values.

SPEAKER_05 47:38

Yeah. I mean, I I clearly have values.

SPEAKER_04 47:40

I clearly And I would say that they fall within the categories of the transcendental values.

SPEAKER_05 47:45

Yeah, probably. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 47:46

Okay. So did we find any common ground or did we just actually identify places that we disagree?

SPEAKER_05 47:51

No, I think that the end ending there.

SPEAKER_04 47:53

Yeah. That we actually do value the transcendental values. And that while I claim them to be transcendental, you feel like that might just be a little bit too far in a claim.

SPEAKER_05 48:04

I think that's fair.

SPEAKER_04 48:05

Fair? Yep. Okay. I don't want to put words in your mouth.

SPEAKER_05 48:08

I'm telling you what I heard. I am I am uh unconcerned. I am good. I'm good. Okay. All right. All right. Excellent. Thanks. See you next week.

SPEAKER_00 48:22

Thank you for listening to Living on Common Ground. Please follow wherever you listen to your podcasts and share it with your friends. You can also find a link to our social in the description. The more people we have living on common ground, the better the world will be.