Speaker 1: I get a team. You know, sometimes when you do something,
Speaker 1: and before you do the something, you think and I
Speaker 1: don't know if I should do this something, but you
Speaker 1: do it anyway. So this is such an occasion. This
Speaker 1: is me talking about some of my background, my history,
Speaker 1: my beliefs, a big part of my life in religion
Speaker 1: and outer religion, my thoughts about God, about faith, about belief.
Speaker 1: It's a kind of an existential personal exploration that I'm
Speaker 1: sharing with you, so public exploration of my personal story,
Speaker 1: I guess, and I'm going to say it's probably not
Speaker 1: for everyone. In fact, it's definitely not for everyone. I'm
Speaker 1: also going to say up front, not starting a cult.
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to get anyone on board anything. I'm
Speaker 1: not trying to steer anyone in a particular direction or
Speaker 1: to brace particular ideology or philosophy or theology or school
Speaker 1: of thoughts. I'm not trying to get anyone to think
Speaker 1: a certain way, or to be a certain way, or
Speaker 1: to subscribe to anything. But and I don't have absolute
Speaker 1: clarity about where this is going to go. So I
Speaker 1: apologize in advance for the stumbles and bumbles and the
Speaker 1: potentially the lack of flow. But I am. I'm trying
Speaker 1: to be real and authentic and not to just wheel
Speaker 1: out some cheesy kind of cliche around this. And one
Speaker 1: of the reasons that I want to do this is
Speaker 1: because it's important for me that I be as transparent
Speaker 1: as I can be and as honest, and that I
Speaker 1: open the door on my background and my story and
Speaker 1: who I am, that I open the door as wide
Speaker 1: as I can without being overly self indulgent. And if
Speaker 1: this seems self indulgent to you, then I actually understand it.
Speaker 1: May be I'm trying not to be, but a lot
Speaker 1: a lot of people ask me about what I believe.
Speaker 1: Do I believe in a God? Do I believe in
Speaker 1: heaven and Hell? Do I believe in? You know? What
Speaker 1: are my thoughts on religion and the different religions and
Speaker 1: the different philosophies and ideologies and the different schools of thought?
Speaker 1: And you know, I'm like you. I'm like you in
Speaker 1: that I don't I don't know everything. I don't know
Speaker 1: most things, especially when it comes to, you know, the
Speaker 1: idea of there being a God or a higher power
Speaker 1: or a divine intelligence, something that lives outside of what
Speaker 1: we would call logic and reason and science, and you know,
Speaker 1: the day to day normal, you know. Having said that
Speaker 1: for many people having a life and a mindset and
Speaker 1: habits and behaviors intertwined with their God or their version
Speaker 1: of God or their beliefs, but that for them that
Speaker 1: is normal. You know. I was trying to find out
Speaker 1: before I started this, how many people in the world
Speaker 1: believe in God, a God or God's you know, a
Speaker 1: higher intelligence, divine source, whatever you want to call it.
Speaker 1: I mean, the thing with you know, the what, and
Speaker 1: this is true for language and psychology, is that you know,
Speaker 1: one word means different things for different people, you know,
Speaker 1: and so to you know, what might be what God
Speaker 1: might represent to me, the same word to someone else
Speaker 1: might represent a totally different thing. And so then when
Speaker 1: you say we both believe in God, or we both
Speaker 1: don't believe in God, whatever the case is, we're talking
Speaker 1: about different things quite often. And so, you know, I
Speaker 1: guess our thinking and our belief and our understanding of
Speaker 1: certain words in terms and concepts and ideas is really
Speaker 1: driven by our exposure to all of those things, those
Speaker 1: ideas and religions. And be that in synagogue, or be
Speaker 1: that in church, or be that in school, or be
Speaker 1: that you know, in some other environment that doesn't spring
Speaker 1: to mind right now. But our beliefs, in our thinking
Speaker 1: and our ideas, and even our philosophies and theologies get
Speaker 1: shaped and informed and fashioned very much by the environment
Speaker 1: that we grow up in, the mindset, the culture, and
Speaker 1: obviously the religion that we do or don't grow up
Speaker 1: in the conversations we have, the people around us, the
Speaker 1: experiences we have, and so you know, for me, it
Speaker 1: was pretty much not an option to grow up not
Speaker 1: thinking about or not being exposed to God in inverted commace,
Speaker 1: the God of the Bible, the God of the Christian Bible.
Speaker 1: That was the God that I grew up with. And
Speaker 1: when you grow up in a religious house with religious
Speaker 1: parents who went like over the top by the way,
Speaker 1: you know, smashing me over the head with the Bible.
Speaker 1: But you know, it's like I went to a Catholic school,
Speaker 1: I went to Mass, you know every Sunday. We had
Speaker 1: primarily like friends, and we had priests and nuns and brothers,
Speaker 1: brothers who are like, you know, religious. It almost like
Speaker 1: a boy version of a nun or a male version
Speaker 1: of a nun, right, and those people were always in
Speaker 1: and around my reality. My life, and so I grew
Speaker 1: up in that, and you don't choose what you grow
Speaker 1: up in. And I think this is something that we
Speaker 1: need to be mindful of when we're talking to anyone.
Speaker 1: You know, there's like so many things that I didn't
Speaker 1: choose that just are part of who I am or
Speaker 1: who I was, and how I think and how I
Speaker 1: see the world. And I think when we talk about
Speaker 1: consciousness and awareness as two constructs of the mind, you know,
Speaker 1: away from religion or away from the concept of God,
Speaker 1: but consciousness and awareness is where we start to become
Speaker 1: aware of or in my case, I started to become
Speaker 1: aware of my programming, the religiousness that I've been raised in,
Speaker 1: and so, you know, starting to think about, apart from
Speaker 1: what I've been taught and told and trained, what do
Speaker 1: I really think like? And it's hard to it's even
Speaker 1: hard to think truly independently when your mind is programmed,
Speaker 1: like this is the idea, and I speak about this
Speaker 1: a lot, the idea of subjective reality versus objective reality
Speaker 1: and open mindedness. Like all of us, you me, all
Speaker 1: of us have been programmed, all of us have been influenced,
Speaker 1: all of us have been in some ways probably manipulated
Speaker 1: and coerced and controlled to an extent, even by people
Speaker 1: who love us and want the best for us, and
Speaker 1: even with the best of intentions. And sometimes that programming
Speaker 1: and conditioning serves us. Sometimes that saves us. Sometimes it's
Speaker 1: helps us navigate life and relationships and make decisions and
Speaker 1: become the person that we become. And conversely, sometimes that
Speaker 1: programming and conditioning and that influence is what holds us back.
Speaker 1: And I don't know your background, I don't know your story.
Speaker 1: I just know mine. And so for me, I grew
Speaker 1: up believing in heaven and hell and a thing called purgatory,
Speaker 1: which is kind of almost like a halfway house between
Speaker 1: both you know where and this. I grew up in
Speaker 1: this concept of different kinds of sin, basically terrible sins
Speaker 1: and bad sins. You know. I don't know how it
Speaker 1: works in Catholicism these days. I'm sure it's very similar.
Speaker 1: But it's been a minute for me to be at
Speaker 1: mass or to go to confession. I grew up going
Speaker 1: to confession. I grew up going into this sounds fucking
Speaker 1: weird when I say it now, This little room, this
Speaker 1: little tiny room where I would kneel on this thing,
Speaker 1: and I would talk through a curtain to a bloke
Speaker 1: that I couldn't see, and I would tell him about
Speaker 1: the things that I had done wrong. I would according
Speaker 1: to my understanding of wrong, my understanding of sin, and
Speaker 1: then this bloke would listen to my sins, and then
Speaker 1: he would give me a prescription to wipe those sins
Speaker 1: so that I could then once again have a clean slate,
Speaker 1: so that should I die in the next hour, I'm
Speaker 1: going to heaven. Now. I know, when I say this
Speaker 1: this way, it sounds kind of fucking ridiculous, But when
Speaker 1: you don't know anything else that is not only is
Speaker 1: it not ridiculous, it's hugely influential and powerful. And when
Speaker 1: you truly believe, when you truly believe that if you
Speaker 1: die with an unconfessed sin of a certain level, a
Speaker 1: mortal sin, we call them. They're called if you die
Speaker 1: with a mortal sin on your soul, you're going to go.
Speaker 1: You're going to burn in hell forever. There's this eternal,
Speaker 1: fiery consequence of your sin, Craig. And you know, I
Speaker 1: get it. I get that because I get religion, and
Speaker 1: I think, I think this conversation about God and religion,
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's important to try to just understand,
Speaker 1: not to agree, not to join the team. Not out
Speaker 1: of this too, you know, because I heard Craig talk
Speaker 1: and now I think this or believe that, or no,
Speaker 1: not at all. But rather and this is not encouraged
Speaker 1: in religion, by the way, but rather to think for yourself.
Speaker 1: And you know, when you grow up in a religion,
Speaker 1: another word for a religion is a thought cult. That's
Speaker 1: a term, well, it's a term that I use because
Speaker 1: when you grow up in a certain religion, you are
Speaker 1: told essentially what is true and what is not true,
Speaker 1: what is good and what is bad. You are not
Speaker 1: asked for your opinion. You are programmed to see the
Speaker 1: world and religion and God or God's or whatever the
Speaker 1: particular deity of choice is for that religion. You are
Speaker 1: programmed to see things a certain way. And that is
Speaker 1: the opposite of critical thinking. That is unconscious well, that
Speaker 1: is conscious programming, that programs your subconscious mind. So people
Speaker 1: are programming you to think and be a certain way
Speaker 1: and see God an eternity and the whole kind of
Speaker 1: religious paradigm a certain way. Now, do I think everybody
Speaker 1: that's doing that is bad and evil? And has terrible intentions.
Speaker 1: Not at all, Not at all. Do I think everyone
Speaker 1: has our truet stick, pure loving intentions, Not at all.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of bullshit in there. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of bullshit in there. And for me, I always had
Speaker 1: a god curiosity in that I was curious about God.
Speaker 1: Should there be a God? I liked. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: going to say some things today that may not this
Speaker 1: may not help me, but I'm again, I'm being honest.
Speaker 1: I like the idea that there might be a benevolent,
Speaker 1: loving God that cares about me and cares about you,
Speaker 1: and you know, has some design or some purpose, perhaps
Speaker 1: greater than my understanding or you know. But then do
Speaker 1: I know that there's a God? No? I don't, you know.
Speaker 1: And this is this is where many of my like
Speaker 1: I have, you know, friends that are Buddhisty, friends that
Speaker 1: are Muslim, I have friends that are Christian. I have
Speaker 1: friends that are different versions of Christianity. Don't get me
Speaker 1: started on all the denominations will be here. It's all September.
Speaker 1: But you know, it's it's it's true to say that
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know if there's God, even
Speaker 1: if I want there to be a God, because if
Speaker 1: I had unequivocal knowledge or proof or evidence or data
Speaker 1: as we call in science, then there would be no
Speaker 1: need for faith. And it doesn't matter. You know, Believing
Speaker 1: in something is not the same as knowing in knowing something,
Speaker 1: And the idea of believing in God is believing in
Speaker 1: something someone much much greater perhaps than me, you perhaps
Speaker 1: or maybe God lives within you know, and not fully understanding.
Speaker 1: And for people who are very very religious, who have
Speaker 1: very strong faith, who truly believe in God, this is
Speaker 1: a hard concept. And the truth is that you know,
Speaker 1: my friends that I used to go to church with,
Speaker 1: and I'll talk a bit about my church, some of
Speaker 1: my church experiences if I'm going to so if you're
Speaker 1: not interested, to tune out now because it might kill you.
Speaker 1: You know, they would sit. They would not like this
Speaker 1: podcast that I'm doing, most of them. Some are a
Speaker 1: little bit more open minded because I would be. Now,
Speaker 1: let's say that I believe in God. Let's say this hypothetical,
Speaker 1: and I'll let you know what I actually think towards
Speaker 1: the end. But let's say that I believe in God,
Speaker 1: but I have questions, lots of questions, right, and I
Speaker 1: have doubt, and a lot of Christianity don't really vibe
Speaker 1: with and by Christianity, I mean how it works on
Speaker 1: a practical level in churches and among Christians. And I
Speaker 1: apologize for talking so much about Christianity, but that's my
Speaker 1: that's my journey. I can't really speak with any kind
Speaker 1: of level of competence or expertise about any other religion,
Speaker 1: which is why the title of this is God, Common
Speaker 1: Me and Religion. But I think we can extrapolate my
Speaker 1: journey and the insights from my journey into other people's
Speaker 1: journeys and experiences with religion also. But real deal Christians,
Speaker 1: and I use that term in inverted commas, would call
Speaker 1: me a backslider. They would potentially call me a heathen.
Speaker 1: I in the old days, if I questioned, or I doubted,
Speaker 1: or I share some of these thoughts and ideas, I
Speaker 1: would potentially be exiled or kicked out of the tribe.
Speaker 1: And because I understand how people think, I understand that response.
Speaker 1: I'm not mad at them, I'm not upset. I understand
Speaker 1: why even some of my Christian friends would think I've
Speaker 1: lost the plot, that I've lost my shit, that I've
Speaker 1: been you know, I've slid out of the light of
Speaker 1: God into the darkness. And I get it, and I
Speaker 1: get all that fluffy language as well. And it's if
Speaker 1: you've never been religious, and I mean like I mean,
Speaker 1: your life revolved around I'm not talking about the casual
Speaker 1: church goer, and like a person who's never read in
Speaker 1: my instance for example, or a person who's never read
Speaker 1: the Bible or never a person who's never really prayed,
Speaker 1: or a person who's never really been committed to any
Speaker 1: but rather you were just almost like an accidental cafe
Speaker 1: because that's what mum and dad did. Well, then it's
Speaker 1: probably quite a different story for you. But where my
Speaker 1: real God kind of adventure started was after I kind
Speaker 1: of stopped doing mass. So for me, growing up in
Speaker 1: a Catholic church, I went to only Catholic schools, so
Speaker 1: I never went to a state school. I went to
Speaker 1: six or seven schools. They were all Catholic. So I
Speaker 1: was incredibly indoctrinated and programmed and influenced. Not a good
Speaker 1: or bad thing, that's just what I was. And the
Speaker 1: outworking of that, the byproduct of that was, you know
Speaker 1: that I saw the world through a largely through a
Speaker 1: Catholic lens, and as I've said many times before on
Speaker 1: this show, and in reference to the way that we
Speaker 1: think and perception and the lens through which we view
Speaker 1: and understand and experience the world. The time I was
Speaker 1: ten years old, because of my program, I truly believe
Speaker 1: that if I died in a certain spiritual state, one
Speaker 1: of sin, that I or my soul or I guess
Speaker 1: I didn't really think about it. I'm like, how can
Speaker 1: you burn in a lake of fire if you don't
Speaker 1: have a body, Because anyway, I basically was terrified of
Speaker 1: this place called hell, and I'd been taught and told
Speaker 1: and trained that hell was real and Hell was where
Speaker 1: a lot of people who didn't toe the line were
Speaker 1: going to end up. And this wasn't a suggestion, and
Speaker 1: it wasn't for me anyway. It wasn't a metaphor, it
Speaker 1: wasn't an analogy. It was a literal teaching. And as
Speaker 1: a child, you know, that's fucking terrifying. As an adult,
Speaker 1: it's terrifying. But I kind of survived that. And while
Speaker 1: there was, you know, there was the terrifying, there was
Speaker 1: also a lot of good stuff that happened within that place.
Speaker 1: But or that I guess those eighteen years. You know,
Speaker 1: once I left school. In fact, my parents moved away
Speaker 1: to another state when I was in year twelve for
Speaker 1: dad's work. I decided to stay. I lived with another family,
Speaker 1: But essentially from when I was seventeen and a bit
Speaker 1: years old, I haven't lived with my parents, and I
Speaker 1: would say my Catholic ways pretty much ended about then.
Speaker 1: But what I did always love and until that point
Speaker 1: in time, And this is ironic and somewhat hilarious, despite
Speaker 1: the fact that I was a Catholic and Catholicism is
Speaker 1: based on you know, the Bible, the Old Testament and
Speaker 1: the New Testament, albeit somewhat catholically modified. Catholically is that
Speaker 1: a word, catholically modified version with a few other books
Speaker 1: that a few by books, I mean what you might
Speaker 1: think of as chapters in the Bible. But in fact
Speaker 1: the Bible, the Old Testament, New Testament is comprised of
Speaker 1: typically I think it's sixty six books starting with Genesis, Exodus,
Speaker 1: lavitkas Numbers, Deuteronomy, the first five books of the Bible
Speaker 1: that are also called I think they're called the Torah,
Speaker 1: and then the New Testament. You don't need to know
Speaker 1: all this. But the New Testament starts with the Gospels,
Speaker 1: which is basically four different accounts of Jesus's life, but
Speaker 1: anyway in that, and it ends in Revelation. But anyway,
Speaker 1: in the middle of all of that, in the Catholic
Speaker 1: version of that, there's some other stuff kind of woven
Speaker 1: in there, which isn't in most Bibles, but it is
Speaker 1: in the Catholic one. You didn't need to know any
Speaker 1: of that, but you're welcome. But what I do love
Speaker 1: about the Bible. I love the idea of in the
Speaker 1: New Testament anyway. I love the idea of love and
Speaker 1: coming from a place of love and the power of
Speaker 1: love and genuine life, of humility, kindness. And I know
Speaker 1: that sounds very cliche, but for me there was something
Speaker 1: always And again, this is not a call to action.
Speaker 1: It's not a call to action at all, because I
Speaker 1: still am not one hundred percent sure on anything, and
Speaker 1: I probably never will be, because I'm talking about something
Speaker 1: that can't be literally, seen, measured, quantified. Right, We're talking
Speaker 1: about God and eternity and all of these spiritual constructs
Speaker 1: and these ideas. But I loved I love the overwhelming
Speaker 1: message of love that comes through the New Testament. And yes,
Speaker 1: I fully acknowledge there's some dark shit in the Old Testament.
Speaker 1: You don't need to send me an email. And I
Speaker 1: also acknowledge the contradiction and the contradictions that exist between
Speaker 1: the Old and New Testament. I also acknowledge that there's
Speaker 1: no way that we can verify that it's the word
Speaker 1: of God, as Christians believe, and as lots of other
Speaker 1: religions believe, that their particular religious text, their theology is
Speaker 1: the essentially God's vision, God's word, and that their belief
Speaker 1: and all of those things are essentially the one true
Speaker 1: Church or the one true or they have the one
Speaker 1: true hotline to God. And I get it, I get it,
Speaker 1: I understand it. And then the middle of all of that,
Speaker 1: in the middle of all of that, I can't prove
Speaker 1: or disprove anything. And this is where you know it
Speaker 1: can get messy, because while religion can be a vehicle
Speaker 1: to beautiful things, it can also be a platform for
Speaker 1: horrible things. We know what happens not only within some religions,
Speaker 1: some horrible things that I won't name, but we also
Speaker 1: know that wars have been started because of religion. Now,
Speaker 1: let's say there's a God. Let's just say, well, God
Speaker 1: didn't start whoever God is, whatever God is, didn't start
Speaker 1: any religions and all of these. Let's say, let's just say,
Speaker 1: and I'm not saying it's true, but let's just go
Speaker 1: with this hypothetical that there is a God and there
Speaker 1: is and that let's just go with this hypothetical for
Speaker 1: the moment. And if you don't believe in anything, then
Speaker 1: I'm fully on board and okay with you believing that,
Speaker 1: not that you need my permission, but let's just say, okay,
Speaker 1: there's a God, and let's just say that Jesus was
Speaker 1: the son of God, and the New Testament's the real deal.
Speaker 1: Let's just say that, Well, we still don't know like
Speaker 1: we want to believe that. The New Testament and the
Speaker 1: Four Gospels Matthew, Mark, Luke John, who were written or
Speaker 1: basically written accounts of Jesus' life, and then all the
Speaker 1: subsequent books were kind of where Jesus was woven in
Speaker 1: and out of, you know, by largely written by allegedly
Speaker 1: Saint Paul the Apostle, Saint Paul's Letter to the Romans
Speaker 1: and Corinthians and Galatians, Ephesians and all of these things
Speaker 1: that you don't need to know about. But you know,
Speaker 1: we don't know. But if there is a God, then
Speaker 1: God didn't create a religion. Religion is a man made construct.
Speaker 1: It is basically, you believe that we believe this. You
Speaker 1: believe one thing, we believe another thing. Right, there's a division.
Speaker 1: Now we're going to be over here believing what you believe,
Speaker 1: and you're going to go off in that tangent. And
Speaker 1: whether or not it's different religions or denominations under the
Speaker 1: banner of Christianity or any of the other religions, completely
Speaker 1: different religions basing their theology in a different text and
Speaker 1: different values and different ideologies. We still don't know, Like
Speaker 1: we don't have hard evidence, and this will bother people
Speaker 1: maybe that God had anything to do. We might believe that,
Speaker 1: we might truly believe that a lot of people do.
Speaker 1: But if we had evidence, we wouldn't need faith. If
Speaker 1: we had proof, we wouldn't need faith. Does that mean
Speaker 1: I don't believe in God? No, it doesn't. No, it doesn't.
Speaker 1: But like growing up for me, like God was kind
Speaker 1: of an inconvenience. God was kind of like a supernatural
Speaker 1: kill joy in some ways, because a lot of the
Speaker 1: shit that I wanted to do wasn't really kosher, no
Speaker 1: pun intended to my Jewish friends, Like a lot of
Speaker 1: the shit that I wanted to do didn't really get
Speaker 1: the kind of the God tick of approval. You know,
Speaker 1: I won't list those things, but as a teenage boy,
Speaker 1: you might imagine what some of those things might be,
Speaker 1: even if it was just ruminating on certain things, not
Speaker 1: even doing things, but thinking about doing those things is
Speaker 1: a sin in inverted commerce. And one of the things
Speaker 1: that I tried to do, quite quite consistently and quite energetically,
Speaker 1: is I tried to ignore God because God just didn't
Speaker 1: fit in for me, Like God was kind of like,
Speaker 1: while I was curious about God, what was required, according
Speaker 1: to my understanding and my version of God to live
Speaker 1: the life that did not fit in with the shit
Speaker 1: that I wanted to do at all? And I won't
Speaker 1: open the door, but you can figure it out. But
Speaker 1: one of the funny things for me was as much
Speaker 1: as I and again this is I'm not trying to
Speaker 1: lead you anywhere with this, and as I'm telling my story,
Speaker 1: I don't want you to misinterpret that I'm trying to
Speaker 1: lead you to a point of anything. I just want
Speaker 1: to share my story because I get asked about it
Speaker 1: so much, and I've opened the door a tiny bit
Speaker 1: on probably fifty occasions, but in over six years and
Speaker 1: fifteen hundred episodes, I've never said the stuff I'm saying today.
Speaker 1: So I'm not leading you anywhere. I'm just telling you
Speaker 1: my story. And if I'm over emphasizing this and being
Speaker 1: kind of somewhat sounding defensive or apologetic, I don't mean to.
Speaker 1: I just understand having a public platform, I realize how
Speaker 1: people can interpret things, so do not misinterpret. I'm not
Speaker 1: pointing you in any direction. I'm just telling you about
Speaker 1: my experiences. So for whatever reason, I had a lot
Speaker 1: of what I can really only describe as God coincidences,
Speaker 1: even when I was not going to church, not thinking
Speaker 1: about God, in fact, really trying to not think about God,
Speaker 1: pretty much running in the opposite direction of anything particularly
Speaker 1: godly or Christian or biblical, even when I was trying
Speaker 1: to release the religious shackles and be my own self,
Speaker 1: which by the way, I don't think is a bad thing,
Speaker 1: depending on what that looks like. But even then, there
Speaker 1: would always be people that would pop up in my
Speaker 1: life that would say something like, you know, God has
Speaker 1: his hand on your life. I'm like, what what does
Speaker 1: that even mean? Or God has a purpose for you. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about twice. I'm talking about repeatedly, and
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about from people that I knew. I'm
Speaker 1: talking about strangers, people who would, for whatever reason, come
Speaker 1: into my path and then tell me a story that
Speaker 1: somehow had something to do with God and me. I
Speaker 1: remember one of who, a guy who turned out to
Speaker 1: be one of my best friends. His name is Rob Dixon.
Speaker 1: Rip love him, miss him. He's not with us anymore,
Speaker 1: but DICKO. He he came to my school when I
Speaker 1: think we're in year nine, as a non Catholic at
Speaker 1: a Catholic school, and he came in. He was a
Speaker 1: born again Christian. And I remember this guy on day
Speaker 1: one just cornering me and just telling me about God,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh, this is not the first time
Speaker 1: this had happened. And then and then, but interestingly, me
Speaker 1: sensing something in him that was now whether or not
Speaker 1: that was God, or whether or not that was his energy,
Speaker 1: or whether or not that was his personality, or whether
Speaker 1: or not that was the fact that he was a
Speaker 1: charismatic charming, lovable, likable alaric and I don't know what
Speaker 1: it was, but I do know that I paid attention,
Speaker 1: and he kept for one of a better term, belt
Speaker 1: me overhead with God and then and then wherever, not
Speaker 1: wherever I would go, but often I would go places
Speaker 1: where I would get a, you know, a similar kind
Speaker 1: of vibe from people. I remember when I was eighteen
Speaker 1: nearly nineteen, I moved to Western Australia and I worked
Speaker 1: on a construction site which I've spoken about here, a
Speaker 1: place called Worsley Aluminium Refiner which was being built. I
Speaker 1: remember literally been on the site. I was working as
Speaker 1: a trades assistant, which is essentially a fancy name for
Speaker 1: a shitkicker and a helper out or a laborer, whatever
Speaker 1: you want. And I'd literally been there ten minutes and
Speaker 1: it's this massive construction site as big as a town,
Speaker 1: with three thousand men and all of this heavy machinery
Speaker 1: and dirt and dust and shit and mayhem and chaos
Speaker 1: and generators and diesel fumes in the air, and like
Speaker 1: it was just like nothing I've ever been in the
Speaker 1: middle of. And I look up and there's a guy
Speaker 1: heading in all of this sea of humanity and twisted
Speaker 1: metal and generators and dirt and dust and construction and chaos.
Speaker 1: There's a guy making a beeline for me. And before
Speaker 1: he even got close, I went, oh, this is going
Speaker 1: to be another God guy. It's going to be a
Speaker 1: god guy. And he got close to me and I
Speaker 1: could see he was wearing a blue hat. The company
Speaker 1: I worked for was called Steel Mains. He had a
Speaker 1: Steel Main's blue hat on and he had Warren written
Speaker 1: on his hat, and underneath Warren he had a fish,
Speaker 1: which was the Jesus symbol. And he walks up and
Speaker 1: he goes, God sent me over to talk to you,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, of course he did, have course he did,
Speaker 1: and on and on. Then I moved back to Melbourne
Speaker 1: and I started running a gym. I was nineteen by
Speaker 1: the way. I was over there working on construction through
Speaker 1: the day and in gyms at night, so I was
Speaker 1: always working in gym's. But I started working in a
Speaker 1: small gym that was only open at that stage six
Speaker 1: hours a day in the afternoon three to nine. It
Speaker 1: was like a buff ed's gym. It was primarily just
Speaker 1: for blokes, meadheads, bodybuilders, crooks, cops, just it was it
Speaker 1: was called the Stables, and it was in mentone, and
Speaker 1: I was just this, you know, kind of out of
Speaker 1: his depth, nineteen year old that I'd been given the
Speaker 1: responsibility of running this. Let's put it in inverted commas.
Speaker 1: Gym was really an old warehouse kind of thing that
Speaker 1: had been filled with gym equipment. And to say it
Speaker 1: was a one star gym as probably an exaggeration of
Speaker 1: how good it was. But at the same time, it
Speaker 1: was fucking awesome. It was just this grungy gym where
Speaker 1: awesome people trained, and for me, it was just a
Speaker 1: pop p purrey of humanity and different like different, Like
Speaker 1: I said, mostly blokes. If you're a lady, you would
Speaker 1: not want to go there. But anyway, it was all
Speaker 1: these rough heads and and but kind of you know,
Speaker 1: lovable Alarrikans interspersed with some crooks. Anyway, these three guys
Speaker 1: came in and they started training, and they were cool,
Speaker 1: and I got on well with them. I got on
Speaker 1: well with everybody. I tried to remember everybody's name. I
Speaker 1: tried to you know, I tried to do what I could.
Speaker 1: I tried to be you know, I was shitouse at business.
Speaker 1: Let's be honest, and my understanding of you know, training
Speaker 1: and training myself and training others and anatomy and physiology
Speaker 1: and exercise prescription and running a gym and being a
Speaker 1: business person and the leadership. I was fuck and terrible,
Speaker 1: but I did my best. I did as well as
Speaker 1: I could for the age I was with the skills
Speaker 1: and understanding I had. Anyway, fast forward a couple of weeks.
Speaker 1: These three guys have been coming in and out, and
Speaker 1: then one day they go, oh, they started talking to me,
Speaker 1: and then they invited me to church. I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: my goodness. Hit there. It is like they were these
Speaker 1: young dudes. They rode motorbikes, so I kind of connected
Speaker 1: with them. Anyway. That the long story short is, after
Speaker 1: twenty seven invitations to church, I ended up going to
Speaker 1: a church with them. Their church, and my thinking was,
Speaker 1: what I'm going to do is I'm going to I'm
Speaker 1: going to go tick this box. Because these guys are good,
Speaker 1: I'm going to go. I'm gonna then they're going to
Speaker 1: stop asking me. I'm going to go to church. And
Speaker 1: so I went to this church and it was just
Speaker 1: very very different from anything i'd been I'd been to
Speaker 1: church hundreds of times, maybe thousands, but hundreds, you know,
Speaker 1: once a week for eighteen years, what's that it's probably
Speaker 1: nine hundred times, I guess you'll take. But I've been
Speaker 1: a lot. But I'd never been to anything like this
Speaker 1: where it wasn't Catholic. It was there was a band
Speaker 1: up the front, there was heaps of young people who
Speaker 1: wanted to be there. And I walked in and people
Speaker 1: said hello, and people gave me a hug, and it
Speaker 1: was just this energy, and I'm like, well, this is weird.
Speaker 1: It was kind of nice and kind of terrifying, but anyway,
Speaker 1: so I I kind of sat my ass down and
Speaker 1: this old dude, who I won't say his name because
Speaker 1: I don't want to be dis he I loved him,
Speaker 1: so there's nothing bad to say. But this old dude,
Speaker 1: I'll say his name. His name was Pastor Milton. And
Speaker 1: he stood up the front and he preached, you know,
Speaker 1: and I'd never heard anyone preach. I'd just heard, well,
Speaker 1: not like this. I'd heard priests stand up the front
Speaker 1: and deliver kind of a sermon, kind of which generally
Speaker 1: it's the same passage from the Bible for you know, well,
Speaker 1: it's the twenty sixth Sunday of the year. So we
Speaker 1: teach this bit and it's all very formulaic and the
Speaker 1: opposite of instinctive intuitive, And this old dude was up
Speaker 1: the front, Pastor Milton, just preaching his little heart out,
Speaker 1: and I'm sitting down there. I didn't really know what
Speaker 1: to make of it. But when I kind of the
Speaker 1: fear and the anxiety subsided, I just realized that what
Speaker 1: it felt to me like he was talking to me, now,
Speaker 1: is this a coincidence? Is this just where I was
Speaker 1: at in my life and he was saying things that resonated.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm not going to tell you had
Speaker 1: this big god experience. I'm going to tell you the
Speaker 1: experience that I had. And I like, there was something
Speaker 1: for me at that point in my life. There was
Speaker 1: something hypnotic, not in a literal sense, but hypnotic and
Speaker 1: magnetic about that. And while I'd been this very insecure, overthinking,
Speaker 1: ex fat kid who was now obsessed with his body
Speaker 1: and his muscles and being big and being lean and
Speaker 1: being attractive to women and you know, kind of respected
Speaker 1: by other dudes and all of this inner bullshit that
Speaker 1: I dragged around with me in this place at this time. Anyway,
Speaker 1: none of that really seemed to matter, Like nobody was
Speaker 1: into me because of my shoulders and my arms or
Speaker 1: my or not into me like it was just it
Speaker 1: was a different energy. And I can't I still can't
Speaker 1: really explain it, but my my reality at that time,
Speaker 1: I had never experienced anything like this, and so I
Speaker 1: was curious. So without giving you the whole, you know,
Speaker 1: the whole kind of conversion, I went back. I went back,
Speaker 1: and I kept going back, and I kind of immersed myself.
Speaker 1: I became part of that church for about four years,
Speaker 1: so I would say, and by part of it, I
Speaker 1: mean boots and all. So from when I was about
Speaker 1: nineteen to twenty three, and I mean, you know, it's
Speaker 1: like my life revolved around trying to live a godly life,
Speaker 1: trying to trying to be for me. I wanted to
Speaker 1: be a better version of me. I didn't love who
Speaker 1: I was. And while I didn't necessarily think like church
Speaker 1: or God is going to fix me so to speak,
Speaker 1: wrong word, wrong words, but I felt, I intuitively and
Speaker 1: innately felt that there was something, you know, some deeper understanding, insight, truth, intelligence,
Speaker 1: love to be gained, to be tapped into. And it
Speaker 1: was more you know, I guess just like it was.
Speaker 1: It was. You know, I don't know if you ever
Speaker 1: met anyone and you feel drawn to them and you
Speaker 1: can't even explain why I was kind of drawn to
Speaker 1: this place and these people. And yes, you can objectively
Speaker 1: if you weren't there, which you weren't of course, and
Speaker 1: you could go, oh, that's a culture, that's this, or
Speaker 1: that's that. And when I look back, I think, now,
Speaker 1: were there things that were kind of culty with some
Speaker 1: aspects of what I was in the middle of. Definitely,
Speaker 1: in my four years there was everything that and I'll
Speaker 1: explain why I left. Was everything good and amazing and
Speaker 1: no And for me, like when people say to me,
Speaker 1: and again these are just my thoughts, what's wrong with religion?
Speaker 1: I think the intention I think religion and religious groups
Speaker 1: can be I'm saying, can asterisk beautiful places for people
Speaker 1: to be and grow and learn and evolve. I also
Speaker 1: think religious groups of any size, shape, denomination can be
Speaker 1: toxic and destructive and borderline evil depending on what they're about.
Speaker 1: So I would just say that my four years in
Speaker 1: that place for the most part, were positive, and I
Speaker 1: had many experiences that for me were in a logical
Speaker 1: sense in it, explicable like things that I think. I've
Speaker 1: told this story once before, but I'll tell it again,
Speaker 1: and this might sound like bullshit, and I completely understand.
Speaker 1: But I think if you know me, you know that
Speaker 1: I am. Actually I'm quite skeptical of pretty much everything
Speaker 1: and everyone. Doesn't mean I don't love people. Doesn't but
Speaker 1: it takes me quite a while to trust people. Doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that I automatically think they're bad. I definitely don't
Speaker 1: give everybody the opportunity. But so the first time that
Speaker 1: I went to church in this place, I heard this
Speaker 1: lady talk about how that sometimes she just opens the Bible,
Speaker 1: remember the Bible sixty six books or thereabouts, or sixty
Speaker 1: six little books within this one big book, and that
Speaker 1: she would close her eyes and open the book without
Speaker 1: knowing where the book was opening, and she'd put her
Speaker 1: hand in the book and her finger would be on
Speaker 1: a scripture or a Bible verse for one of the
Speaker 1: better terms, and that God would give her some revelation
Speaker 1: or insight or message that she needed to get in
Speaker 1: that moment. Now I'm sitting there listening to this first
Speaker 1: time in church, and I'm thinking, well, that's that she's
Speaker 1: fucking crazy, That's what I was thinking. I'm thinking this is,
Speaker 1: by the way, all my Christian friends would hate the
Speaker 1: way I talk these days, hate hate anyway, So I
Speaker 1: was thinking, she's fucking crazy, but nonetheless interesting, and everyone
Speaker 1: seemed to be like on board and go, oh, that's
Speaker 1: great that God did that for you. I'm like, really,
Speaker 1: you all believe that? Anyway. So a week later, I
Speaker 1: was looking at my Bible. I had no They gave
Speaker 1: me a Bible, I had no idea. I didn't know
Speaker 1: it was. Also, it was written in King James, which
Speaker 1: is the older English, you know, so you know, like
Speaker 1: like Romans twelve to in King James's been not conformed
Speaker 1: to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of
Speaker 1: your mind. There's a lot of these and vows and
Speaker 1: all that stuff, and it can be really fucking confusing,
Speaker 1: to be honest. But anyway, so I was sitting there
Speaker 1: with the Bible. I didn't know the front from the back,
Speaker 1: I didn't know where anything was, and I had this
Speaker 1: weird feeling right now. Whether this was Craye created or
Speaker 1: God created or something else, I can't tell you. I
Speaker 1: don't know. But what I do know is I have
Speaker 1: this feeling that all this, yeah, I'll say feeling. I
Speaker 1: was going to say awareness, but it was to me,
Speaker 1: it felt like a knowing. And the knowing was that.
Speaker 2: I I worshiped my body too much, and I had
Speaker 2: training on a pedestal, and I got my sense of
Speaker 2: self and self worth and identity from my body, what
Speaker 2: my body looked like, what other people thought of my body,
Speaker 2: from that accolades I would get from my body, and.
Speaker 1: I felt, I felt what I thought was God saying yeah,
Speaker 1: you need to put that on hold and focus on me. Now.
Speaker 1: Whether or not that was God, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: believed it was God at the time. But here I am,
Speaker 1: all these years later talking to you, sitting in my office.
Speaker 1: So I'm trying to be as objective and aware as
Speaker 1: possible and not sound like a fucking weirdo. But that's
Speaker 1: what happened. And so I'm sitting there thinking and then
Speaker 1: about this, and then i go, well, what would that
Speaker 1: even look like? And I'm almost negotiating with God in
Speaker 1: inverted commas, and I'm going, well, but you know, my
Speaker 1: body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. I knew
Speaker 1: that much, right, and looking after my body being strong
Speaker 1: and like that's a good thing, right God. So I'm
Speaker 1: kind of in my space there just negotiating with God.
Speaker 1: And I had this this idea to do what the
Speaker 1: weird lady, the crazy lady at church did was just
Speaker 1: swing open the Bible on a page, shut my eyes,
Speaker 1: put my finger in, and so I kind of and
Speaker 1: see what God would show me. And it's like, well,
Speaker 1: if God wanted me to do something or not do something,
Speaker 1: he could just give me some divine guidance. Not on
Speaker 1: any level believing that I would get any kind of direction,
Speaker 1: but I thought that, well, what I'll do is I'll
Speaker 1: tick the box. So I'll go God, I'm giving you
Speaker 1: an opportunity. I'll open the book and bibbity bobby boo
Speaker 1: and anyway, so I closed my eyes, I swing the
Speaker 1: Bible open, I put my finger in. Now, remember I
Speaker 1: don't know where anything is, so I definitely can't try
Speaker 1: to locate any scriptures because I don't know any And
Speaker 1: I put my finger on a page and my finger
Speaker 1: is at the my index finger of my left hand
Speaker 1: I'm left handed, is is at the start of a word,
Speaker 1: and it's so it's up against the letter and the
Speaker 1: letter is P and the word is physical. And the
Speaker 1: scripture I don't have it in front of me, but
Speaker 1: I know it. The scripture reference off my heart. It's
Speaker 1: one Timothy four eight and it's and it's so there's
Speaker 1: a couple of books of Timothy, chapter four and verse eight,
Speaker 1: and it says, physical training profiteth a little, remember King James,
Speaker 1: physical training profiteth a little, but train yourself unto Godliness.
Speaker 1: And in other translations, there's lots of translations of the Bible,
Speaker 1: it essentially says, look, training your body is good, but
Speaker 1: train yourself in God. Physical training profiteth a little, but
Speaker 1: train yourself in the things of God. And I sat
Speaker 1: there and I I don't know that I went white
Speaker 1: because I didn't have a mirror in front of me,
Speaker 1: but pretty sure I went white. My heart rate went
Speaker 1: through the roof and so on, and and that might
Speaker 1: sound like garbage, and you might go, well, then, Craig,
Speaker 1: why are you not a minister? Why are you not?
Speaker 1: Lots of reasons, but that that happened to me, and
Speaker 1: whether or not that was the biggest coincidence of all time,
Speaker 1: whether or not that was God, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: I'm not going to tell you one way or the other.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I know that that happened, that
Speaker 1: really happened, and I know that what happened after that
Speaker 1: was I took that as you know, I took that
Speaker 1: as a sign I guess that, you know, that I
Speaker 1: needed to And for me, it wasn't so much that
Speaker 1: I needed to stop training or at least stop idolizing
Speaker 1: my body in that way. Now, at the time when
Speaker 1: this happened, I was over one hundred kilos and mostly muscle,
Speaker 1: and I stopped lifting weights for nearly a year, or
Speaker 1: lifting far less weights and not the way that I was,
Speaker 1: and started to run and lose muscle, which my ego
Speaker 1: didn't want, my self esteem didn't want, And over the
Speaker 1: course of the next year, I lost about twenty kilos
Speaker 1: and not in a way that I wanted to. And
Speaker 1: I went from big and strong and intimidating and muscular,
Speaker 1: which my ego and my self esteem and my shitty
Speaker 1: self worth loved, down to like this almost skinny, endurance
Speaker 1: version of me. But I in many ways I grew
Speaker 1: and I started to, you know, I started to deal
Speaker 1: with lots of my own bullshit, of which there was,
Speaker 1: of which there was much, and so you know, I
Speaker 1: won't give you the whole story, but I you know,
Speaker 1: I ended up getting engaged to a girl. I won't
Speaker 1: do her the disrespect. She was awesome, and it was
Speaker 1: very much a church that everyone was in house, and
Speaker 1: if you were going to get engaged or married, it
Speaker 1: will probably be to someone within that church. I got
Speaker 1: engaged very young, and that probably was not in hindsight,
Speaker 1: probably not the best thing. I didn't get married, obviously,
Speaker 1: I won't say it anyway. That person that I was
Speaker 1: engaged to, awesome human, now happily married, and she definitely
Speaker 1: dodged a bullet by not marrying me, because I'm a
Speaker 1: fucking nightmare. But I spent years going to that church,
Speaker 1: and then I went to another church afterwards for a while,
Speaker 1: and I kind of did the whole God Christian thing.
Speaker 1: And when I say church, i'm talking about full on Pentecostal,
Speaker 1: you know, born again Christian, fundamental, holy spirit filled like.
Speaker 1: The stuff that goes on in some of those churches
Speaker 1: is if you've never been to one, it is very
Speaker 1: interesting and you might think, well, Craig, how deep were you?
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, I'm telling you from when I was
Speaker 1: nineteen till probably nearly twenty twenty five, maybe about six years.
Speaker 1: I didn't have sex. Now at a time when a
Speaker 1: male body is that it's all time fucking high of
Speaker 1: testosterone and hormonal drives. I was. This is how committed
Speaker 1: I was, and so I didn't have sex. I didn't
Speaker 1: even with my fiance that I was engaged to, and
Speaker 1: we never had sex because it was a sin. It's
Speaker 1: considered a sin, you know, And so I was. I
Speaker 1: was in boots and all and for me, it it
Speaker 1: you know, it was a it was a complete commitment.
Speaker 1: Every day. I prayed every day. I read the Bible
Speaker 1: every day. I you know, there's a lot of other
Speaker 1: things that happened that I you know, I don't want
Speaker 1: this to be a ten hour podcast, but you know,
Speaker 1: I read and studied the Bible, and even now, I
Speaker 1: still think there's a lot of incredible wisdom in the
Speaker 1: New Testament the Old Testament too, in certain books. In
Speaker 1: certain certain books of the Old testament's kind of terrifying
Speaker 1: and taken literally, some of that very terrifying, especially for
Speaker 1: certain groups. And so I'm not not saying that I
Speaker 1: think it's all divinely inspired through God, and neither am
Speaker 1: I saying that it's not I'm saying I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I do know that whether or
Speaker 1: not the particularly the New Testament, which is what Christians
Speaker 1: tend to focus on more, whether or not that is
Speaker 1: the literal word of God translated and written down by
Speaker 1: men and then survived a couple of thousand years or
Speaker 1: depending on when when the New Testament was written somewhere
Speaker 1: between the sixteen and eighteen or nine one hundred years ago.
Speaker 1: Didn't start being written the New Testament till quite a
Speaker 1: while after Jesus died, apparently. But nonetheless, there's some incredible
Speaker 1: wisdom in that. And the stuff in the Bible that
Speaker 1: I love. What I love is as I said before,
Speaker 1: I love. I love the love stuff. I love the
Speaker 1: kindness not to be mistaken with weakness or apathy. And
Speaker 1: you know, so, so where am I at now? So
Speaker 1: now I have a I have a belief in God
Speaker 1: that doesn't really look like any particular religion. Do I
Speaker 1: think I could be wrong? Do I think I could
Speaker 1: be wrong? Yes? I do? And this is the beauty
Speaker 1: of like faith is literally believing in what you can't prove.
Speaker 1: It is just belief. Do I live a life aligned
Speaker 1: with the Bible. No, I do not do. I try
Speaker 1: to be the best person I can. Yes, I do.
Speaker 1: Am I a fan of religion and church and synagogue
Speaker 1: and temple, And I'm going to say I'm not a fan,
Speaker 1: but neither am I anti any of that. I don't
Speaker 1: think that. I don't think that church is the problem
Speaker 1: or religion is the problem. I think that people are
Speaker 1: the problem, and thinking is the problem, and thinking in
Speaker 1: its many forms, is the origin story for all the
Speaker 1: bad stuff, you know, the need to control, the need
Speaker 1: to have power, the need to manipulate, the need to
Speaker 1: look after one's self. I believe there's a lot of
Speaker 1: window dressing and pr that happens inside and outside of religion.
Speaker 1: I believe that if you really want to know someone,
Speaker 1: watch them when they don't know they're being watched. I
Speaker 1: believe that, you know, for me, words are cheap. Even
Speaker 1: on this podcast. Take what you want from it, ignore it.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like. But I hope that over my
Speaker 1: lifetime that how I live and what I do, and
Speaker 1: how I treat people, and how I take the responsibility
Speaker 1: of this podcast. I hope that over my lifetime that
Speaker 1: my body of work suggests that that I'm a person
Speaker 1: that can be trusted and may be valued and maybe
Speaker 1: relied upon. I wouldn't ask you to believe me. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't ask you to trust me. I wouldn't ask because
Speaker 1: I think it's wrong. I think asking somebody to trust
Speaker 1: you or believe you is redundant and unnecessary because trust
Speaker 1: and respect to things that need to be earned over time,
Speaker 1: and the only way that they come as through consistency
Speaker 1: of behavior and authenticity. Yeah, and then I often get
Speaker 1: asked about whether or not science and God, because I'm
Speaker 1: a scientist too, of course. And you know, so I
Speaker 1: have a degree in exercise science, and I'm you know, hopefully, hopefully, hopefully,
Speaker 1: if I can find my teeth and my walking stick,
Speaker 1: hopefully finishing my PhD in the next you know, kind
Speaker 1: of six eight months, which is another science degree this time,
Speaker 1: and you know, psychology and neuropsychology, and and of course
Speaker 1: there's a lot of there's a lot of stuff in
Speaker 1: theology and in specifically the creations story versus the evolution
Speaker 1: story that just doesn't from a logic point of view,
Speaker 1: from a scientific point of view, from a you know,
Speaker 1: it doesn't in inverted commas make sense. And there's so
Speaker 1: much of There are so many things that I believe
Speaker 1: are true or potentially true that we don't understand, and
Speaker 1: we may never understand. Could I wake up one day
Speaker 1: and realize that all of the stuff that I've thought
Speaker 1: and believed, or a large portion of it, is a
Speaker 1: construct of my mind or someone else's mind, that I'm
Speaker 1: believing these things because they kind of give me comfort.
Speaker 1: That's possible. Could I ononderut they somehow know that I
Speaker 1: was right. That's possible, But right now I don't, and
Speaker 1: I think one of the challenges. But nonetheless, I can
Speaker 1: simultaneously believe in something while not having evidence. And as
Speaker 1: I said, that's the point. That's the point. Do I
Speaker 1: think we all need to go to church? No, I
Speaker 1: don't do. I think you can have a relationship with
Speaker 1: God without that. I think it's good to have. Yes,
Speaker 1: I do. I think it's good to have some kind
Speaker 1: of guidance or framework in some way from somebody, whoever
Speaker 1: that somebody is that you're your internal sat NAV tells
Speaker 1: you you can trust I am. You know, I'm very
Speaker 1: hesitant to belong to a group, and I'm not trying
Speaker 1: to start a group either. By the way, there's no
Speaker 1: call to action coming. I'm not starting a cult, so
Speaker 1: it's all good. But one of the problems is that
Speaker 1: you know, every religion essentially thinks that it is the
Speaker 1: one true religion. If not every religion, nearly all religions
Speaker 1: think that, which is also another way of saying all
Speaker 1: of the religions that aren't us, that don't think like us,
Speaker 1: or have our theology or our philosophy or our practices
Speaker 1: rules rituals, they are wrong. And while they don't overtly
Speaker 1: say that, their behavior says that. And so to me again,
Speaker 1: this is another red flag to religion. And I'm aware
Speaker 1: that you know, this level of divulgence and vulnerability and
Speaker 1: openness may not be a good idea or from a
Speaker 1: commercial point of view, like could this could this damage?
Speaker 1: Might an inverted Commas brand? I guess do I care? Nah,
Speaker 1: It's just true. It's just true. And if people are
Speaker 1: off me because I'm sharing my experiences, I'm okay with that.
Speaker 1: And on no level am I like wow, fuck them, none,
Speaker 1: Like I truly believe that. You know, if I had to,
Speaker 1: if I had to create my own theology slash philosophy
Speaker 1: religion just for me, not for anyone else, but just
Speaker 1: for me, I go, this is my religion. It would
Speaker 1: be that I try to live every day expressing, giving,
Speaker 1: sharing love in all its manifestations, with no agenda, with
Speaker 1: no expectation, with no conditions. And I am well, well
Speaker 1: and truly aware that there's no way I could do
Speaker 1: that all day, every day, because I'm human, I'm flawed,
Speaker 1: and I've got issues and problems and an ego and bullshit.
Speaker 1: But that would be what I would aspire. I would
Speaker 1: aspire to be loving. I would aspire to be consistently
Speaker 1: kind and aware, to diminish my ego, to have a
Speaker 1: purpose while still knowing myself by the way, but to
Speaker 1: have a purpose bigger than myself, and to have clearly
Speaker 1: defined values that are basically the blueprint for my life.
Speaker 1: That would be my religion. Thanks for listening. I appreciate you,
Speaker 1: and the risk of sounding super cheesy, I love you.