Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my.
Speaker 3: Name is Noel.
Speaker 4: They called me Ben. We are joined as always with
Speaker 4: our super producer Andrew the try Force Howard. Most importantly,
Speaker 4: you are you are here. That makes this the stuff
Speaker 4: they don't want you to know. Hold the phone, call
Speaker 4: the Wise Man. This is part two in a special
Speaker 4: two part series. And please, please please, if you haven't
Speaker 4: listened to part one before you listen to the rest
Speaker 4: of this, get thee to thy podcast platform of choice
Speaker 4: and check out the first part of When was Jesus
Speaker 4: Actually Born?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yes, this episode all magi. That's all we're doing.
Speaker 2: I'm just playing the wise men. Magi are They hold
Speaker 2: a special place in my heart. I don't know about you, guys.
Speaker 4: Great get it super big and the murr the gum Resin,
Speaker 4: which was a huge, huge deal that it was sort
Speaker 4: of the crypto of its day.
Speaker 2: M frankincense. It's the only reason I know that word.
Speaker 4: You don't know, Franken said he's a guy. It's his
Speaker 4: street name.
Speaker 2: I don't know much.
Speaker 5: This is part two, so uh, maybe maybe we can
Speaker 5: talk a little bit though about this.
Speaker 4: The the idea of a natural bookend to a heroic journey.
Speaker 4: One is born on a specific, perhaps auspicious date, and
Speaker 4: then later, when you leave the mortal veil, you die
Speaker 4: on that same day, just later in time. Kind of
Speaker 4: like a good modern analogue would be Mark Twain in
Speaker 4: Haley's comment.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, absolutely, this idea of a predetermined amount of
Speaker 2: time that this deity will visit with humanity, right, or
Speaker 2: that this god will It sounds bad when I say it,
Speaker 2: but when this God will grace humanity with its presence
Speaker 2: to impart whatever wisdom, knowledge and miracles are you know,
Speaker 2: needed for humanity at the time.
Speaker 6: A Ladda.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well, I mean I know it feel it
Speaker 2: feels weird, but it is.
Speaker 4: I'm joking.
Speaker 6: It's it's it's of course, it's a It's a God.
Speaker 3: Doesn't get much more grand and and all and self
Speaker 3: important than.
Speaker 2: That, right, Going back to theology versus chronology, it is
Speaker 2: about the story, the the myth that that story becomes,
Speaker 2: rather than exactly when it happened.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Yeah, exactly. That's he nailed it because we see
Speaker 4: also the yeah, idea of predestination. That's a huge part
Speaker 4: of it, right, not just faith, but fate, and this
Speaker 4: spoils things too, or it makes things more complicated for
Speaker 4: later researchers because honestly, it sounds like they're producers in
Speaker 4: the mix. There are people talking about story structures, you
Speaker 4: know what I mean.
Speaker 3: Or it's like that three chord pop song that has
Speaker 3: fifteen writers and twenty five producers on the credit.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, very very much so. And that's not a dean.
Speaker 4: We just think it's a fascinating comparison and it's not
Speaker 4: too off the mark.
Speaker 3: So just a too many cooks kind of situation, which
Speaker 3: is why it's a little hard to always take everything
Speaker 3: at face value.
Speaker 4: Right right, because a lot of people who were perhaps
Speaker 4: closer to those historical events actual facts, as our pal
Speaker 4: Lauren would call them, they died and they couldn't stop
Speaker 4: someone else from coming in with their own agenda or
Speaker 4: acts to grind.
Speaker 2: Council of nice and Ben.
Speaker 3: You mentioned earlier awkward conversation with somebody about the King
Speaker 3: James Bible being the only correct one quote unquote because
Speaker 3: of its you know use of the English language. But
Speaker 3: I mean we know that there were some liberties taken
Speaker 3: in that translation that we're political. No, do we have
Speaker 3: like a list of those or is it just kind
Speaker 3: of lost to history?
Speaker 4: Uh? We have. We have some guesses why King James
Speaker 4: made up Bible. That's a great idea for ridiculous history. Uh,
Speaker 4: we could, we could spoil some of it.
Speaker 2: Quick question about that, guys, have you done a Ridiculous
Speaker 2: History episode specifically on the golden sickle, white cloth and mistletoe?
Speaker 4: No Ah, I know what you're talking about. We have not,
Speaker 4: but we will if you come on air with you.
Speaker 3: Please, Matt, this is your baby already. You did it,
Speaker 3: You spoke it into existence. But why are you scared
Speaker 3: of Matt? We do podcasts together.
Speaker 6: All the time.
Speaker 2: I will do yeah, I will do that. Actually, the
Speaker 2: golden sickle is the thing you gotta or at least
Speaker 2: that if you're a druid and you got your robes on,
Speaker 2: you climb up the oak tree, lop off the missiletoe.
Speaker 2: But it can't touch the ground. It has to hit
Speaker 2: the white cloth.
Speaker 3: So it's like elf on the shelf kind of rules,
Speaker 3: kind of like if you touch the elf on the shelf,
Speaker 3: the magic goes away, similar because.
Speaker 2: The missletoe is the thing that is protecting the oak tree,
Speaker 2: which is mighty and very kingly and actually a symbol
Speaker 2: of a king. And then you can't you can't fell
Speaker 2: the massive oak tree unless you've saved its protective missiletoe
Speaker 2: in honor of the king that you're about to fell
Speaker 2: and then make into burning stuff.
Speaker 4: The emphasis being that there is a right way to
Speaker 4: do things, Yeah, in favor of the gods and all
Speaker 4: the orderly proceedings of the cosmos.
Speaker 3: Well, and as much as Christianity would like to raise
Speaker 3: itself up as being better or more evolved than some
Speaker 3: of those pagan ritualistic who or ancient religions, there's just
Speaker 3: as much ritual involved in Christianity as there were in
Speaker 3: those other you know, belief systems.
Speaker 4: Shout out transubstantiation, shout out the idea of the the
Speaker 4: cauldron God and the vegetable God. Oh Man Fraser is
Speaker 4: just so cool. The show and the author Doctor Folklore
Speaker 4: thing Yeah, both both toss salad scram so working back
Speaker 4: from the life of John the Baptist based on the
Speaker 4: stuff mentioned in Luke and a few other few other
Speaker 4: tidbits there. There are experts, there are theologians who believe
Speaker 4: they've gotten closer to the actual answer. What is the
Speaker 4: birthday of Jesus Christ. We're going to pause for a
Speaker 4: word from our sponsors, and then we're going to get
Speaker 4: into it. Folks. We'll see what you think.
Speaker 2: And we're back, and we've discovered that it is. Wait,
Speaker 2: he's a leo, right, Jesus was a leo. He's got leo.
Speaker 4: Come on, I don't know, come on, I wonder what
Speaker 4: the astrology of the day was. We got to find
Speaker 4: the history of astrology. You know, a lot of good
Speaker 4: ideas in this.
Speaker 2: But no, no, it's not that though. But it's pretty close,
Speaker 2: isn't it.
Speaker 4: Uh. I You know, I'm glad you point that out, Ma,
Speaker 4: because based on those calculations, which get spoiler cartoonishly complex
Speaker 4: related to the birth of not Jesus but John the Baptist,
Speaker 4: and where John the Baptist would have been when Jesus was,
Speaker 4: you know, messing around and getting baptized and so on. Uh.
Speaker 4: Some folks like Ian Paul that we mentioned earlier, speculate
Speaker 4: the true birth of Jesus Christ was sometime in September
Speaker 4: comma maybe comma asterisk. It's it's so weird because the
Speaker 4: main thing we agree on we being modern civilization. All
Speaker 4: the theologians, the vast majority of read up about this.
Speaker 4: They may not agree on the actual birth date, but
Speaker 4: they pretty much all agree the celebration of Christmas on
Speaker 4: December twenty fifth is not determined by the historical facts.
Speaker 4: It's the idea that counts.
Speaker 3: That's right, yeah, which has trickled down into gift giving
Speaker 3: during Christmas.
Speaker 6: It's the thought that counts.
Speaker 4: So just shut out Saturnalia.
Speaker 2: In a super snitchy elf that my son named Tyrone
Speaker 2: for some reason.
Speaker 3: That's incredible. I think Ella Choice is my family ELF's name.
Speaker 4: I always rejected the Elf on the shelf. It's beat
Speaker 4: me here, triforce, it's Norwellian. I don't don't like how
Speaker 4: it's normalized.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know, it's all and it all benefits one
Speaker 3: company who sells these packages with the elf and the book,
Speaker 3: and they created the lore, and it's just it is
Speaker 3: kind of amazing though, that nobody before this product figured
Speaker 3: out how to WEAPONI that same kind of big lie
Speaker 3: about Santa Claus and create.
Speaker 6: A new thing, a new version of it.
Speaker 4: On that and it did though, right do you? No?
Speaker 6: It just occurred to me.
Speaker 2: Have you heard about the two new iterations. I just
Speaker 2: learned about them a few hours ago. I'm serious.
Speaker 4: No, I'm kind of a grinch Scrooge character. I'm not
Speaker 4: read up on this.
Speaker 2: Martha on the Mantle and Snoop on the stoop they're real.
Speaker 6: What about mensh on the bench?
Speaker 3: I've heard about that one for Jewish families looking to
Speaker 3: integrate a big lie around the holiday season.
Speaker 4: Oh gosh, so just the surveillance state is going to
Speaker 4: keep doing merch spinoffs.
Speaker 2: Yes, watch how Snoop might see you.
Speaker 4: This is a true story. This has not I was
Speaker 4: thinking of this for our strange news segment later. But
Speaker 4: did you hear that air frars might be spying on you?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yes, I did hear about that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it just came up a few that's the new ELFLA.
Speaker 4: At least the air frar does something.
Speaker 3: Else you're talking, of course about, maybe like Wi Fi
Speaker 3: connected airfriers.
Speaker 6: Surely my dumb airfryer isn't spying on me. Can I
Speaker 6: just say that?
Speaker 3: Guys? I didn't make up mench on the bench. It
Speaker 3: was apparently, as seen on shark tank.
Speaker 4: Ah, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't think you
Speaker 4: were making it up. I'm not that cloud. You are
Speaker 4: way more clear for that. You would have come up
Speaker 4: with a better no offense to the bench.
Speaker 2: Oh hey, and last thing, it might not just be
Speaker 2: your air frier. We've mentioned this before on the show,
Speaker 2: but it's the Wi Fi signal that now, through the
Speaker 2: magic of AI, has been trained not yours necessarily, but
Speaker 2: has been trained to be able to identify where people
Speaker 2: are due to basically holes in the Wi Fi signal, yes,
Speaker 2: human shaped holes, and then it can analyze how that
Speaker 2: human shape hole is moving. So literally, if you want
Speaker 2: something to be spying on you, it could just be
Speaker 2: your Wi Fi signal.
Speaker 4: Somebody's watching me, So okay. This leads us all to
Speaker 4: the next big question. If everybody already kind of agrees
Speaker 4: the official date is wrong for several compelling reasons, the
Speaker 4: next question is how did we end up with December
Speaker 4: twenty fifth. This is a great thing to ask. Depending
Speaker 4: upon whom you approach with this question, you may be
Speaker 4: told there is a conspiracy afoot. Britannica sums it up
Speaker 4: pretty nicely. They point out the origins of Christmas and
Speaker 4: its December date can be found in the ancient Greco
Speaker 4: Roman world, because commemorations probably began again around second century.
Speaker 4: They say there are three possible origins for the December date. First,
Speaker 4: a guy named Sextus Julius Africanus. He looked back at
Speaker 4: this is kind of what we're talking about, a little
Speaker 4: off air. He looked back at the expected conception date
Speaker 4: of Jesus Christ, and he said, that's March twenty fifth.
Speaker 4: So count forward nine months and then Jesus is logically
Speaker 4: bored on December twenty fifth. It sounds solid until we
Speaker 4: realize that our buddy Sextus also said the entire world
Speaker 4: was created on March twenty fifth. So I think you
Speaker 4: was just putting a lot of stuff in the bucket
Speaker 4: on that one.
Speaker 2: That'd be cool, that'd be cool back, you know, when
Speaker 2: there were absolutely no calendars or and time was arguably
Speaker 2: different as the earth was forming from what I know.
Speaker 4: You know, if you've ever edited a manuscript, you kind
Speaker 4: of have to respect him, yeah, for just getting a
Speaker 4: lot done in one day, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: Not to continue to poke holes in this, but you know,
Speaker 2: babies aren't born exactly nine months after conception.
Speaker 4: No one tells sextus it's close.
Speaker 2: But anyway, it's just very.
Speaker 4: There's a lot of wiggle room, you know what I mean. Yeah,
Speaker 4: sometimes not enough wiggle room exactly. So there's this other
Speaker 4: belief that we talked about a little bit, the idea
Speaker 4: that the date of the twenty fifth of December was
Speaker 4: chosen to sort of gentrify religious celebration, to displace competing
Speaker 4: spiritual belief systems like Mythris, Soul and Victis celebrations, or
Speaker 4: push out other non Christian celebrations like a Roman festival Saturnalia,
Speaker 4: which had you know, some traditions that might sound a
Speaker 4: little familiar to Christmas enthusiasts. You give gifts, ye at
Speaker 4: big parties with friends and families. We feaced like we're
Speaker 4: at medieval times, which is very much not a thing
Speaker 4: pack then.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, well yeah, and you know, in certain parts
Speaker 2: of the world when you have Yule and things like that,
Speaker 2: that end up getting put into the same festivals because
Speaker 2: it's just I remember we did that video way in
Speaker 2: the day talking about the origins of Christmas and just
Speaker 2: how baffled I know, I was, at least at the
Speaker 2: things we were finding about all of these celebrations and
Speaker 2: where they really do come from, and how it is
Speaker 2: in amalgamation of pretty much the world going through crisis.
Speaker 2: These are celebrations of stuff is really bad and cold
Speaker 2: and dark. Right now, let's do some things to get together.
Speaker 2: Warm up a bit, celebrate, and eat a bunch of
Speaker 2: food because we need to get food in our bellies.
Speaker 4: Spring is on the way. Right from the darkness comes
Speaker 4: to the light. Yeah, this is okay. We do know
Speaker 4: a lot of the hubbub around December twenty fifth comes from,
Speaker 4: weirdly enough, geopolitics, which were still the thing back then.
Speaker 4: This is where we introduce our second or our third
Speaker 4: technically Flavious of the story for accounting my gerbil. Flavious
Speaker 4: was just way more common name back then. This is
Speaker 4: a guy that we've talked about before. Flavius Valerius Constantinus,
Speaker 4: also known as Constantine the First or in a burst
Speaker 4: of humility and modesty, Constantine.
Speaker 3: The Great, not to be confused with Flava, Flavius Valarius, Constantaneous,
Speaker 3: Constantine the First, or.
Speaker 2: Flavius Flava.
Speaker 4: Or walk a flack of Flavius.
Speaker 6: Thanks for playing guys.
Speaker 4: Also first of his name. Yeah, so we we also
Speaker 4: those are all good, all right, thank you for playing fun.
Speaker 4: We know that Constantine ruled over Rome from about three
Speaker 4: oh six to three thirty seven. He is perhaps best
Speaker 4: known for the purposes of this exploration as the first
Speaker 4: Roman emperor to convert to Christianity, and because emperors are
Speaker 4: super humble, he expected everybody else to do exactly what
Speaker 4: he did.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 4: It's like it's like, how, oh gosh, that dictator out
Speaker 4: in the stands. I think it's Turkmenistan. He quit smoking
Speaker 4: cigarettes and then banned cigarettes for the whole country, and
Speaker 4: like whenever he made a decision, he put in a
Speaker 4: law that said everybody else in that country had to
Speaker 4: do the same thing.
Speaker 6: It takes a type to ascend to that level of influence.
Speaker 4: I guess. But it's like it's like if I, you know,
Speaker 4: imagine we go back and forth on political corruption here
Speaker 4: in the United States. But I will say this, the
Speaker 4: US public would absolutely revolt if any given president, you know,
Speaker 4: but like just a terrible vehicle, like a Honda Odyssey,
Speaker 4: and they said from now on, everybody has to drive
Speaker 4: a Honda Odyssey. It would be blood in the streets.
Speaker 6: I would just argue that in American politics.
Speaker 3: They just wouldn't come right out and say that was why.
Speaker 2: What was the last American president that would be like
Speaker 2: caught outside on the White House lawns smoking a cigarette?
Speaker 4: Barack Obama?
Speaker 2: Obama, he was chief.
Speaker 6: Aren't there photos of him?
Speaker 2: I don't. I don't have that image in my head.
Speaker 2: That's interesting, Okay.
Speaker 4: I think the PR game was a little bit h well.
Speaker 4: I think they deployed some PR to tamp down the
Speaker 4: occasional coffin nail on the part of that administer.
Speaker 6: Clinton smoke, no thinks, so he does say cheeseburgers and playing.
Speaker 2: The cigars, cigars something.
Speaker 4: A very specific type of cigar.
Speaker 6: Yeah, very specific.
Speaker 4: Indeed, let's say he customized it. So all right, we'll
Speaker 4: keep that it. So, part of this Christianization of the
Speaker 4: Roman Empire included finding a official date for the birthday
Speaker 4: of Jesus Christ. I'm trying to convince you friends, Romans
Speaker 4: countrymen to follow my lead on this new idea. I
Speaker 4: you know you have your own spiritual beliefs, but let
Speaker 4: me convince you of this this school of thoughts bona fides.
Speaker 4: So they need more of these celebrations, they need these
Speaker 4: things that are official rules. The rollout doesn't go perfectly
Speaker 4: because the eastern area of the Empire still says, we
Speaker 4: think it's January sixth, and it took fifty years to
Speaker 4: get them kind of on board, and they're still kind.
Speaker 3: Of not so I guess it's time to get to
Speaker 3: the conspiracy theory at play here that Constantine's administration was
Speaker 3: hoping to put the kaibosh on some competing religions and
Speaker 3: other year in celebrations. Hence the whole discussion around religious syncretism.
Speaker 3: It happens all the time. You've got a new game
Speaker 3: in town, the new king in town that's trying to
Speaker 3: push forth a new way of doing things. Therefore, you
Speaker 3: have to tamp down the competition by in some ways
Speaker 3: co opting their pre existing traditions. And while this might
Speaker 3: not have and overnight, generationally speaking, it does tend to work.
Speaker 2: Well. Who has time for yaalda if we need to
Speaker 2: celebrate this new thing now and we're being told we
Speaker 2: need to celebrate it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And then to that point we see syncretism also
Speaker 4: becomes its own enemy with the rise of heretical christian sects,
Speaker 4: because still Christianity, especially in the early days, it can't
Speaker 4: agree on what it is you know, and it can't
Speaker 4: agree on the true nature of God, you know, the
Speaker 4: three and one Spirit. It can't agree on when I
Speaker 4: mean forget a specific date. These people are killing each
Speaker 4: other over doctrinal stuff that would seem even smaller to
Speaker 4: us today, the conspiracy of ham shrinking competing belief systems.
Speaker 4: It's a great story, you know. Put on our producer hats.
Speaker 4: It's just like EPs. We would love this story. It
Speaker 4: ticks all the boxes we need for heroes and villain Notice, however,
Speaker 4: we called it a conspiracy theory and not a conspiracy actual.
Speaker 4: That's because the whole thing might be a convenient myth.
Speaker 4: We did not know this going into it. But the
Speaker 4: whole idea of this Constantinian conspiracy right to advance Christianity
Speaker 4: over all other pre existing religions. It doesn't come from
Speaker 4: hard evidence. It comes from people looking at timelines and
Speaker 4: making educated guesses. And the closest thing to a smoking
Speaker 4: gun is literal scribbling in margins of a book or
Speaker 4: a manuscript by an unnamed anonymous Syrian monk sometime in
Speaker 4: the twelfth century sore than more than a millennia after
Speaker 4: the fact, people read about this and they just dug
Speaker 4: the vibe. Whoever this guy was, he wasn't originally out
Speaker 4: to make a hit piece. He was trying to figure
Speaker 4: out why Western churches moved Christianity from January to December
Speaker 4: and why Eastern churches didn't get with the program. And
Speaker 4: he was like, hey, they moved it closer to the solstice.
Speaker 4: That's weird. And then people who did not like Christianity
Speaker 4: found out about this and they said, perfect, you know
Speaker 4: what I mean. It's like if you already don't like,
Speaker 4: you know, a specific creed or ethnicity, and you read
Speaker 4: something that you think makes them sound bad and then
Speaker 4: you repost it on Twitter.
Speaker 2: Dude, but I have to The winter solstice thing is
Speaker 2: so interesting to me when it comes to the storytelling
Speaker 2: that was happening, happening in like ancient Persia at the time.
Speaker 2: About this concept, the very concept that evil forces, darkness
Speaker 2: worth it's the strongest right around this time of year
Speaker 2: when when you when you're at the winter solstice, when
Speaker 2: the days are the shortest, when the night is the longest,
Speaker 2: when it's very cold, that is when the evil forces
Speaker 2: are at its strongest. So if you have a savior
Speaker 2: figure that emerges right in that moment when it is,
Speaker 2: you know, the darkest night of the soul for all
Speaker 2: of humanity. Right, you have a savior figure arise in
Speaker 2: that moment literally with a star, you know, in this
Speaker 2: symbology and all that stuff. It is the type of
Speaker 2: storytelling that could be. You could see it cutting through
Speaker 2: cultural different cultural and religious beliefs.
Speaker 6: It takes the same boxes, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean this is where we get to studies
Speaker 4: of comparative religion. Again, George Fraser, The Golden Bough is nuts.
Speaker 4: It was first published in eighteen ninety and it's talking
Speaker 4: about a lot of the same things, and it still
Speaker 4: holds up because Fraser was largely correct. We're fun at parties.
Speaker 4: This is a great point that we're making here because
Speaker 4: we see commonality of experience. Right, it doesn't matter what
Speaker 4: you believe. Winter Solstice is still the longest night of
Speaker 4: the year. Doesn't matter to whom you pray. It still
Speaker 4: gets cold, yeah, at predictable times of the year and
Speaker 4: warmer at other times.
Speaker 2: Well, and it goes across every culture. You look at Stonehenge,
Speaker 2: Machu Pichu, you all over the planet, there are monuments
Speaker 2: built to both celebrate and venerate the solstices, right, and
Speaker 2: that's there are slits within stone work that will only
Speaker 2: send light into one part of a massive dome thing
Speaker 2: that was built, you know, well before allegedly Jesus was
Speaker 2: born that are celebrating that moment of the sunrise the
Speaker 2: dawn on that day.
Speaker 4: So if you want, if you want your hero in
Speaker 4: your story to be the most heroic and most auspicious,
Speaker 4: then you push them or associate them with something that
Speaker 4: people already understand as auspicious and important. That doesn't make
Speaker 4: Now we're not denigrating any belief system. That doesn't make
Speaker 4: it untrue. Right, And that's not us poo pooing or
Speaker 4: anything that is pointing out how this sort of stuff
Speaker 4: historically works, not just in the case of Christianity, but
Speaker 4: in the case of pretty much every successful religious school
Speaker 4: of thoughts. Successful being defined as something that a mimetic
Speaker 4: evolution that propagates across generations.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 4: Still, the conspiracy theory about Constantine saying, you know, screw Saturnalia,
Speaker 4: I'm tired of this Mythris guy that probably came to
Speaker 4: be way after his death. And we got to give
Speaker 4: a shout out to a professor at Yale Andrew McGowan,
Speaker 4: who totally agrees with this and makes a really compelling
Speaker 4: case that this was anti Christian and anti Christmas propaganda
Speaker 4: in the twelfth century. What we're saying is, that's right,
Speaker 4: fellow conspiracy realist. It sounds silly when you hear it
Speaker 4: on your news networks every year, but back in the day,
Speaker 4: there really was a war on Christmas. There really was
Speaker 4: war on Christmas. It's also strange because birthdays were not
Speaker 4: as big of a deal back then. You know, if
Speaker 4: you like think about it, you are an adherent of Christianity.
Speaker 4: Jesus Christ is the Messiah. His birthday is great, good
Speaker 4: that he's here, but the real emphasis is on when
Speaker 4: he dies and rises again. Sure, that's what makes him
Speaker 4: Jesus Christ. Definitely, it's definitely the more impressive trick. Everybody
Speaker 4: has a birthday, not everybody has an Easter.
Speaker 2: It's true, exactly, but it's a lot like it's a
Speaker 2: lot like the Sun, guys, the Sun. I'm just you know,
Speaker 2: just saying absolutely, because I can't get over this. I did, wait,
Speaker 2: I dove way too deep into the Midsummer Thing. I
Speaker 2: think I watched that movie not that long ago, and
Speaker 2: I was just thinking more and more about it about
Speaker 2: ancient practices. But like New Grange, this tomb mound built
Speaker 2: in Ireland, like thirty two hundred BC, is all about
Speaker 2: the rising of the sun on that you know, right
Speaker 2: around that time. Like I don't know exactly what the
Speaker 2: date was, December, what what it would be calculated to
Speaker 2: in thirty two hundred BC when it was built, but
Speaker 2: it would be it would be right around that time
Speaker 2: when the sun rises and defeats evil, right, defeats the cold,
Speaker 2: the winter, all that stuff. Go back to karnak out
Speaker 2: in lux or all these places, same thing four thousand
Speaker 2: years ago. That story is just so potent.
Speaker 4: It makes me wonder what maritime life forms worship, right,
Speaker 4: should they have the capacity for worship, which they probably do,
Speaker 4: especially to take Do.
Speaker 2: You think it would be sun based or it would
Speaker 2: be more based on current Maybe.
Speaker 4: I think it would be current. Yeah, I think it
Speaker 4: would have to be current. Right, Let us know what
Speaker 4: your local pods and citations worship, you know, because yeah,
Speaker 4: the humans in the early days obviously they're gonna they're
Speaker 4: they're gonna worship the sun and they're gonna fear the night, yes, right,
Speaker 4: and then they'll worship the things they fear. Because you
Speaker 4: worship what you adore, you also worship what you fear.
Speaker 2: Just crazy, Yeah, you sacrifice stuff to it to be like,
Speaker 2: please don't hurt.
Speaker 4: Us ancestor worship animism. Yeah, those are cool, man, They're
Speaker 4: still continued practices.
Speaker 2: Did you guys see the trailer for The Witcher.
Speaker 4: For I did? I did? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm excited.
Speaker 2: Deals exactly with that concept of sacrificing to the bad thing.
Speaker 3: Guys, sorry to do for five seconds. Speaking of trailers,
Speaker 3: have you seen the trailer for the New twenty the
Speaker 3: twenty eight years later, the Zion film. It has this
Speaker 3: poem in it that is is like a like a
Speaker 3: vintage recording of this poem called I think it's called.
Speaker 6: Boots, Boots Boots. It's by rudyerd Kipling. But it doesn't
Speaker 6: say that.
Speaker 3: It's just this insane, arresting spoken word that like just
Speaker 3: kind of syncs up with the bill and the tension
Speaker 3: of the music and the images and the trailer.
Speaker 6: I had to look it up and it's freaking wild.
Speaker 3: I mean, I know, Ben, you're a big fan of
Speaker 3: his poetry. Despite him, you know, we all know he's
Speaker 3: got problematic figure.
Speaker 4: I'm a big fan of some of his There you goes.
Speaker 6: So this one, man, it blew me away.
Speaker 3: It's just all about war, and it's like it has
Speaker 3: this cadence to it. It's almost Death March kind of
Speaker 3: cadence to it. Really powerful. If you look up on YouTube,
Speaker 3: you can hear recording on its own, it's this very
Speaker 3: like famous recording with somebody reading this poem.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it's also used. I think it'll be very
Speaker 4: familiar with a lot of our marine conspiracy realist in
Speaker 4: the crowd. Not maritime animals, but like actual marines, because yeah,
Speaker 4: tell us what you think. We also know that eventually,
Speaker 4: through this great game of heavenly and Earthly telephone, more
Speaker 4: and more people began to accept the idea of December
Speaker 4: twenty fifth as the date of the Messiah's birth, and
Speaker 4: that created a feedback loop because the more people that
Speaker 4: accept it, the more people that accept it.
Speaker 2: And now you're weird for not accepting it.
Speaker 4: Right, not like having a cell phone used to be weird,
Speaker 4: and now it's weird to not have one. So we
Speaker 4: will never know the actual real birthday of Jesus, at
Speaker 4: least not here on earth. But we can say conclusively,
Speaker 4: probably wasn't what we call Christmas today, Probably was not
Speaker 4: in December. This shouldn't be a bummer, though, because it's
Speaker 4: the thought that matters more than a specific date and time.
Speaker 4: Matthew and Luke were probably onto something with that that
Speaker 4: was actually kind of smarter them. Yeah.
Speaker 3: But speaking of the thought that matters, or the thought
Speaker 3: that counts, that is no excuse to give Amazon gift
Speaker 3: cards for Christmas.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's just lazy.
Speaker 4: What happened?
Speaker 7: Man?
Speaker 6: I just I will die on this. Hell be thoughtful?
Speaker 4: Okay? Does someone hurt your feelings?
Speaker 3: I know, maybe irrelevant. It's just an opinion that I
Speaker 3: wanted to express in this moment.
Speaker 4: And I assume that we apply to all gift cards.
Speaker 3: I think gift cards are a little weak sauce that's awful,
Speaker 3: even if.
Speaker 4: It's like a gift card to a specific thing.
Speaker 7: Applebee's maybe as I yeah, as yeah, sure, absolutely that
Speaker 7: would be a fun, thoughtful gift card because he really
Speaker 7: loves Applebee's.
Speaker 3: But to give this just open ended, you figure it
Speaker 3: out thing to somebody as.
Speaker 6: A gift, I would say, just don't don't, don't get
Speaker 6: them anything.
Speaker 4: What do you think about hard currency.
Speaker 3: Yes, the gift of grandparents and absolutely acceptable from them
Speaker 3: in a card with.
Speaker 2: Handwritten okay, okay okay.
Speaker 4: Or hands signs. I used to give my uh the
Speaker 4: cards I would send people for like Hanukah or Christmas
Speaker 4: or whatever they would they would usually I would usually
Speaker 4: have somewhere in there dictated but not read. Here you go,
Speaker 4: which yeah, I got I had. Uh. This has nothing
Speaker 4: to do with anything. When you get Eagle Scout, you
Speaker 4: used to get a lot of notable politicians and celebrities
Speaker 4: and astronauts and stuff that would send you like a
Speaker 4: congratulatory letter or they would send you a picture that
Speaker 4: they had signed. And got one from Bob Hope with
Speaker 4: this pretty nice letter was a super long it was
Speaker 4: about a page and it ended with dictated but not
Speaker 4: read and his secretary and I thought it was the
Speaker 4: classiest thing. I figure he was. I just imagine the
Speaker 4: guy strolling around the room. Well he just just extolling
Speaker 4: these ideas. He's like put something in about uh America.
Speaker 6: He was mister a s O.
Speaker 3: Like the big the big touring productions for the troops,
Speaker 3: you know, the road shows and stuff.
Speaker 6: Wasn't that a big thing that Bob Hope was into
Speaker 6: it makes it yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. But this this also gives us
Speaker 4: the idea of people spitballing, right the gospel dictated but
Speaker 4: not red yea and read later. So this is where
Speaker 4: we see calendars change. You know, this is another trip,
Speaker 4: he thought, you guys, I know we're going along, but
Speaker 4: calendars seem permanent, yet are somewhat changeable over time, you know,
Speaker 4: like the what happens when humans continue to reach toward
Speaker 4: the stars? Are we? I suggest the calendars will have
Speaker 4: to evolve in step? You know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, once all these aliens finally make themselves known
Speaker 2: that are hanging out in New Jersey right now, I mean, yeah,
Speaker 2: you stop it. I'm okay, I will.
Speaker 4: Or the aliens land and they say, they say something like,
Speaker 4: oh yeah, Jesus is absolutely real. We hang out with
Speaker 4: him all the time. Yeah, like we see him all
Speaker 4: the time, don't you guys? He was what did you
Speaker 4: do to him? Hey? What happened?
Speaker 2: That's uh? That was Oh who did that? Somebody went
Speaker 2: on stage and did that as a as their bit? Yes,
Speaker 2: and it was it was so good. It was Oh
Speaker 2: what the I just I just heard it recounted it
Speaker 2: hold on I got at no.
Speaker 4: Bob Hope, no Carpenter.
Speaker 2: Sorry, I just uh, I've got a.
Speaker 4: Can you describe the person?
Speaker 2: It was Richard Pryor, And it was a retelling of
Speaker 2: a time that Richard Pryor went on stage and he
Speaker 2: embodied God, like God himself. He went out on stage
Speaker 2: as God, and I was talking about his son and like,
Speaker 2: I mean, my son is so awesome, just talking about
Speaker 2: his son, and he's like, so, where have you seen him?
Speaker 2: Like where is he? Wait? What? And then the audio
Speaker 2: proceeds to explain to God what happened to Jesus?
Speaker 6: I see?
Speaker 2: And then he does the same thing with Martin Luther King,
Speaker 2: with Malcolm X, with JFK and all this stuff. It
Speaker 2: was just and it was apparently really somber and sad
Speaker 2: the entire time he's on set and they just left
Speaker 2: and he's just like, all right, well, they basically just said, well,
Speaker 2: this is I'm leaving. Yeah, this is the bottomy of
Speaker 2: Now God is no longer with us.
Speaker 4: Sorry, yeah, no, I feel you. Richard Pryor is one
Speaker 4: of the great orators of Western society. I would often
Speaker 4: people confused with the comedian, just like George Carling, but
Speaker 4: I would say the alien thing would be interesting. They
Speaker 4: we don't know if that's going to happen yet, but
Speaker 4: we know the calendar will probably transform as humanity becomes
Speaker 4: a multi terrestrial species, right, and well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what if it's based on the rather than the
Speaker 2: Solar system, right solar? What if it's on the galaxy
Speaker 2: itself at least for every time?
Speaker 4: That'd be cool. I miss the Zoom meeting, guys, I
Speaker 4: thought this was in galactic time.
Speaker 2: Crap, crap.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's a question for another day. But we
Speaker 4: do have we do have an answer. You know, whether
Speaker 4: you're Christian, whether you're non Christian, atheist, whatever your belief
Speaker 4: system may be, you don't have to be Christian to
Speaker 4: agree with the overall message of this guy. Just be
Speaker 4: good to other people. Help when you can, how you
Speaker 4: can when you can. You know, that's the real stuff
Speaker 4: they don't want you to know. To shout out to
Speaker 4: Frank Cross and Scrooge, no one ever needed a specific
Speaker 4: day to be a good person. It can just be
Speaker 4: a Tuesday and you can still do amazing noble things.
Speaker 4: It's awesome to be kind in March September tomorrow, the
Speaker 4: next week, the next day, it's just as crucial to
Speaker 4: do that as it is on Christmas at least, that's
Speaker 4: we think. So what do you think. We can't wait
Speaker 4: to hear from you, folks, so we try to be
Speaker 4: easy to find online. You can send us an email
Speaker 4: if you want to get on our naughty list.
Speaker 6: Or our nice list.
Speaker 3: And you can also find this all over the internet
Speaker 3: on your social media platforms a choice where we are
Speaker 3: conspiracy stuff. On x FKA, Twitter, on YouTube where we
Speaker 3: have video content glor for you to enjoy, as well
Speaker 3: as on Facebook where we have our Facebook group.
Speaker 6: Here's where it gets crazy. On Instagram and TikTok, we're
Speaker 6: conspiracy stuff.
Speaker 2: Show you better call us you naughty a little so
Speaker 2: and so. Our number is one eight three three st
Speaker 2: d WYTK. That story, by the way, about Richard Pryor
Speaker 2: was told by Howie Mandel. That's if you want to
Speaker 2: search it up Howi Mandel, Richard Pryor. God check that out.
Speaker 2: When you call in. Give us a cool nickname for yourself.
Speaker 2: Whatever it is, we don't care. We're excited to hear it.
Speaker 2: You've got three minutes. Say whatever you'd like. At some
Speaker 2: point in the message, let us know if we can
Speaker 2: use your name and message on the air. If you've
Speaker 2: got more to say than can fit in a three
Speaker 2: minute voicemail, why not instead send us a good old
Speaker 2: fashioned email.
Speaker 4: We are the entities that read every piece of correspondence
Speaker 4: we receive twenty four to seven as long as this
Speaker 4: calendar continues. Spoiler. Getting on the Knotty list is a
Speaker 4: very very cool thing, and we want to take a
Speaker 4: second and thank everybody who wrote in with amazing stories
Speaker 4: about the third Man factor, as well as dropping us
Speaker 4: some phone calls. So many stories, we were betting this
Speaker 4: one would speak to a lot of us in the audience.
Speaker 4: We've received so many accounts that it may be time
Speaker 4: for us to do a themed listener mail program on
Speaker 4: these third Man stories in the meantime, If you'd like
Speaker 4: to be part of that, or give us any of
Speaker 4: your thoughts at all, hit us up out here in
Speaker 4: the dark Conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2: Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production
Speaker 2: of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.