18 Sep 2026 (Q&A)

2:10 It is the eighteenth of September, 2026. I am Cory J. Mahler, and this is at any cost. This is a QA episode. It is episode 41. I have just a little bit of housekeeping before I get into the questions. All the levels look good on my end, but of course if there's any audio problem, anything like that, go ahead and let me know in the chat. For the housekeeping, I just wanted to point out, mention that I have basically finished up the study notes and the very literal translation of both the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament has a little bit of work left that I will be finishing as soon as I am done with this stream. At any rate, it will be done by this evening. You can view that work at lxx.confident.faith.

3:03 Of course, that's the abbreviation for the Septuagint in Roman numerals. So if you want a very literal translation of the books of the Old Testament or the New Testament, that is now available. I'm very slowly working through the Psalter and doing my own translation, and by slowly I mean I'm done with Psalm 1, so don't expect that to be done anytime soon. That's probably about it for the housekeeping, but before I get into the questions, I did want to mention I do have the questions about national socialism and versus individualism, basically. One about Jehovah's Witnesses and Baptism, and another about the good qualities of a mother. I mention them specifically here because I will not get to them

3:47 tonight, but I will get to them next week because I want to spend some more time with some of those. Two of them because they're longer and one because it's somewhat involved and I want to make sure I give a full answer. That being said, I will go ahead and get into the questions now. And I've been copying the comments over from chat as the music was playing for all of you, so I believe I have all of those as well. Question one for tonight. I attend a Baptist church in my small town. The pastor generally preaches well and is and in typical pastor fashion has studied a bit of Hebrew and that sort of thing. This year he has been pushing to celebrate a few of the Jewish festivals and holidays, Shavuot, uh Messianic Jewish Passover.

4:34 That one's actually more like Pentecost, but I'll get into that. Instead of just having an actual Lord's Supper, which you basically never get with Baptists. Okay, so he wants to do both of those. He wants to do Pentecost and uh Passover. I'm tempted to approach him about this, but suspect it won't be taken well, obviously, that is correct. There is a local Lutheran church I've been tempted to check out, very small congregation. Your recent comments on a lot of the confessions specifying the sixty six books, the Masoritic Text, etc have been very thought provoking here, and I'm looking at getting a book of Concord. I saw recently on X that that had context and commentary. So I'll take that sort of in turn going backwards, I guess.

5:17 Insofar as the book of Concord is concerned, even if you're not a Lutheran, if you are If you are interested in theology and you have the aptitude for it, then it is certainly worth adding to your shelves. If you are not interested in theology or do not have the aptitude for it, it's still worth adding to your shelves because you should read the small catechism and the large catechism. That is certainly something that every male Christian should read, particularly particularly if you are a father, because you have a duty to teach. And the small catechism is aimed at all Christians, in fact, Roman Catholic missionaries sometimes hand it out as part of their teaching because it's one of the best statements of the Christian faith in a

5:57 very short format. It is tiny. You can read it easily in not even in your entire afternoon. The large catechism expands on that for those who may have a position, a minor position with regard to teaching, so husband, father, something like that. So absolutely have it for those. Of course they're also available for free online. Thebookofconcord.org is the website that I created and manage. You can go there and view it there. There are several other places, so you can get it very cheaply as well on places like eBay, or sometimes churches will clear out old versions, old editions, and you can get that basically for free. So definitely worth having on your shelves. As far as the local Lutheran church is concerned, all I can

6:42 tell you is go to a service, check it out, make an assessment of the pastor, the congregation, talk to some of the elders. That's the best you can do these days. That's true for really any church tradition at this point, because there are good parishes and bad parishes. Insofar as the Jewish holidays are concerned, that is always something that should cause alarm bells to ring, and clearly it did in your case. Shavuot, which is that's Pentecost, is what that actually is. We have Pentecost on the Christian calendar, just celebration celebrate Pentecost. We don't celebrate the Old Testament festivals, not because the Old Testament festivals were evil, right? These are things that were instituted by God in most of these

7:30 cases, not all of the modern Jewish ones of course. But the ones that actually are from the Old Testament, they're not evil, they're not wrong, they were fulfilled in Christ. And so by celebrating them, you're implicitly saying that Christ didn't fulfill something or we should keep following this old system that was that was for a specific people for a specific time. If you're not Jewish, it wasn't even for you in the Old Testament, right? Job didn't follow these festivals, the ones that existed in his day. He was a Christian, but he was descended from Esau. He was an Edomite, so those festivals weren't for him. He didn't do that. The same thing with regard to many other men, some mentioned in

8:10 the Old Testament, who were Christians, but weren't Jewish. The festivals were meant for the ceremonial law, effectively, of Old Testament Israel, pointing forward to what Christ would fulfill. So there's no reason for Christians to participate in any of that. The Passover is the particularly egregious one that often pops up these days, mostly in Baptist circles, because of dispensationalists and others pushing this. They're trying to push you ultimately to be aligned with Israel, the so called Israel, the modern state, but they're trying to do it by corrupting your faith. The Passover, the Old Testament, the actual one, points forward to the perfect sacrifice of Christ. That has been completed in Christ's work.

8:54 There is no reason a Christian should ever participate in what the Jews are still doing and calling Passover, because what they're doing is explicitly saying Christ was not the Christ, or if you want to use the Hebrew derived term the Messiah, they're denying that, and so what they're doing is rejecting Christ. You do not want to participate in their rejection of Christ. So no, do not participate in a so called Seder, a Passover observance, don't do that. And whether or not you confront your pastor on it is going to be a wisdom call. I would, but that's just how I am dispositionally. I'm in a different position from most men. So you're right to recognize it probably won't go well. He'll probably ask you to leave the church.

9:41 So if you find that you are going to attend a different church and then you feel some pang of conscience, go ahead and confront him about that, point out that it's Judaizing, the Jews reject Christ, and all of those things. Make sure you're prepared before you go in there. But if you feel like you need to do it and you're already going to switch to a different church, then perhaps you go ahead and do it. But do it knowing as you clearly do, you will be asked to leave that church almost certainly. But yes, no Christians should absolutely not participate in these things, because they are designed by those pushing it to be a denial of Christ. It doesn't mean it's a denial for every single person who

10:21 does it, right? You know, you eat the disgusting fish and the bitter herbs. It doesn't mean you're going to hell. You can repent. It doesn't mean that you were even doing something with the intent to reject Christ. But you shouldn't participate in evil wittingly or unwittingly. So the bottom line is no Christians should not participate in these things. I had one other question from this questioner, but I wanted to spend a little more time on it because it asked about a couple of teachers about whom I don't know very much, but I want to take the time to look into that to answer it. So that will be for next week as well. I see some more questions coming in in the chat, I'll copy those over here in a second.

11:00 But question two for tonight. Some Lutheran friends of mine have started trying to pray the Rosary, a pre-trent version. I've heard of this in a number of cases, and I want your opinion on it, whether I should join or avoid it. My objection to this, and I'm not saying it's always wrong, but my initial objection has always been, why are you doing this? Right? Toward what end is this aimed? And it's almost always from those, sometimes in Lutheran circles, sometimes in others, who feel like they need some sort of attachment to Roman Catholicism, like they want to return to something. And the Lutheran position, and your friends should certainly be aware of this, is that the schism between Wittenberg and Rome was in fact

11:52 a schism. It was not us leaving, it was two bodies going separate directions. The Lutheran position is that we maintained the faith, and Rome is the one that is actually in schism if you want to use it in that sense. So So, you shouldn't want to align yourself with Roman practices because of that. We view them as teaching falsely. That is the Lutheran position. The Pope is called Antichrist in the Book of Concord. That is something all Lutherans are bound to believe. Now does that necessarily mean that the rosary itself is wicked? No, there are some formulations of it that don't have prayers to Mary, that don't have prayers to the saints. These are things that we do not approve of as Lutherans and

12:40 generally Protestants do not. So why use the rosary? There's no compelling reason to do that. Just use any of the daily prayer books. There's the treasury of daily prayer. There is I actually grabbed one off my shelf because I knew it would answer the question. There's Stark's prayer book. This is a very old originally German prayer book, been translated a number of times, including by of course CPH, which is the edition I have here. This has prayers for basically anything you could possibly want or not want in many cases, because it certainly has prayers for the sick and the dying, young children, things like that, right? There are I think you can find this online as well. I picked up an entire box of them.

13:27 They're very cheap at the time. Someone was doing a clearance. I've just been handing these out for a few years now. I'm down to my last six, so I think I need to buy another box. But this is an excellent option. There are others as well. You could also just devise your own daily prayers, right? As a Lutheran, certainly you would go to the small catechism, right? We have the morning and the evening prayer, and you have prayers you say before and after meals, and you pray the Lord's prayer. You already have a structured prayer life set out you set out for you within the Lutheran tradition. There's no reason to go looking for something to add to it, and it feels very much like a LARP. So I'm not going to condemn your friends because maybe they're doing

14:09 it for the right reason. Maybe they have a good intent. I find that most do not when they pursue this sort of thing, so just go with the things that are part of your own tradition. If you're Presbyterian, they have prayer books as well, go that route. If you're Anglican, the Anglicans have some great prayer books. The Book of Common Prayer is one of the sort of models that the Lutherans used when producing some of the English materials in the American context, because they were going from German to English and so they looked at existing English materials. They used some of the Anglican materials for that. So there are plenty of great options that you can use without having to go into what is a sec effectively a foreign tradition.

14:56 Let me look at the chat here before I proceed so I don't miss some of these questions I see scrolling past, because the scrolling functionality. Oh, it's working now. It wasn't working before. No, good. Let me copy these over. Clearly I need what is effectively an office manager to do this for me, but for now this will have to do.

15:57 Okay, I pulled out some of those questions, so I think I'll go on to question three now. So, question three. I recently saw a woman online who is one of those theology author influencers. Unfortunately, that is the correct parenthetical. Who posted that she believes her young child has the ability to see demons and angels? Not sure I trust anyone willing to post that openly about their child online, but despite her in particular, do you think that this is something that occurs today? I would think people that practice occultism can get visual access to demons in some form, so mainly asking about the angel side of it for Christians. So So, this isn't really something that we have any indication that

16:42 it's an ability you can just acquire. This is something God can give you if He is so inclined. And some of the clearest examples, right, would be from the prophets. We have cases where the prophets very clearly could see the fact that there were angels around them, and you have, for instance, cases where a prophet would pray that someone else's eyes would be opened to to see that fact, right? You can think of any number of the prophets in the Old Testament where that's happened. So yes, God can give you the ability to see angels and demons. Don't expect it to be something that happens and there's no ritual you're going to do or book you're going to read or whatever. When you start getting into that stuff, that is occultism and

17:26 it is going to lead you to a dangerous place every single time You're going to open yourself up to demons. You're not going to see angels. You may see something, but it's not something you're going to want to see. So definitely don't dabble in that stuff. I can't really imagine that this child is seeing angels. So if this child is indeed seeing something, and it's not just basic psychology in play, right? The mother is pushing for something and the child is desiring to satisfy the mother's desire, right? You can think of the case with the horse that could supposedly do math, but the horse was actually just responding to the trainer. Hopefully that's what's in view here. Hopefully this child is not actually seeing demons.

18:08 I don't I don't know anything about this person, so I can't make that judgment call. But definitely be leery of anyone who says that if you gain access to this secret knowledge, then this secret world will open to you. Because that's basically always the demonic is going to open to you because you're dealing with the demonic. So Christians should definitely avoid that. But obviously, God can give you that if he wants to do that. You probably don't want to be a prophet though. Generally being a prophet kinda sucks. That's not the best job in the Bible. So if God gives that to you, then he gives it to you, but it's not something that you're just going to gain on your own. Question four What is the propriety or lack thereof regarding women praying in a

19:03 group made up of both men and women? I do not mean during church, that's obviously the easy answer no. I mean in a small Bible study and fellowship group that includes topical discussions, singing hymns, and prayer requests in which various participants will take turns praying on a single request. In this setting is it improper for a woman to pray aloud with men present and Is it improper for men to listen, say amen to such a prayer? This occasionally takes place in the small home study groups hosted by members of the non denominational church I currently attend. As a former Jehovah's Witness, this practice is very foreign and unsettling to me. Jehovah's Witnesses strongly abide by a rule that women do not pray

19:44 in the presence of any believing man who is already qualified for public prayer, that is he is a believer in good standing They will only allow woman to pray in front of a man as a last resort if he is not a baptized believer or if he is under church discipline, and even then she must wear a head covering to pray. This is sort of a matter of you're correct to mention propriety. I don't think that it's always wrong for women to pray in mixed company. So I'm not going to say it's always wrong, say, if the wife prays over dinner instead of the husband. I think that's probably permissible in the home. And so as long as this is taking place in the home, obviously yes, it's not just the family. But if this is taking place in the home in a small

20:31 group, and you have women praying for concerns that are particular to them for whatever reason it happens to be, I don't think that's a bad thing. That's permissible. So So would it be better if she asked her husband to pray for it? Perhaps in some cases, but if this is a small group that meets together regularly, you're effectively family, right? You are certainly part of a Christian family, but you've become effectively family by doing this sort of thing together for so long. I don't think having a time of prayer where women pray for concerns is a bad thing. Now if instead you had a time of prayer where there was one person who stood up, led the prayer and sort of commanded the meeting, that should be a man in all cases.

21:17 But if you have this sort of prayer time where you have women praying for those particular concerns, I don't think I don't think that's a bad thing. And just to be clear, in the case of praying over dinner for the family, something like that, it should almost always be the head of the house, the man. But you know, if the woman wants to pray on her husband's birthday and give special thanks for him. I don't think God objects to that. I think that's just fine. So obviously you got the hierarchy correct there. Women should not pray in public. Women should not be the ones praying publicly in the church. Women should be silent in the church, right? Scripture's abundantly clear on that, but small home group, totally different setting,

21:56 different rules. She's not exercising headship, right? She should not be the one teaching, she should not be the one leading the meeting, but praying for these particular concerns, I think that's completely fine. Copy a few more questions here from the chat so they do not escape. As I continue to c copy and paste these questions, I realize that I am probably not getting to all of them tonight, but

22:59 that perhaps is no surprise at this point. Okay, I there are more to copy, but I will answer the next question before copying some more of those. So Question five. A class that is hosted by our church is using Ken Magnuson's book on ethics. Ethics, I'm not familiar with it, but after flipping through the book, I was deeply disturbed about the section on race. He writes We should make racism within the church a matter of church discipline. And he drones on about how the church ought to pursue diversity and appoint minorities into positions of leadership and influence. Etc. One of our leaders is leading this class, so I assume they're okay with this new world religion filth. Could you please elaborate on racism in the Old Testament?

23:58 How to dismantle racism is a sin. So obviously this person is almost certainly not a Christian, this author, right, if that's what he's writing in his book. Because that's not Christianity. That's the new world religion, that the new global religion, right? The post-war religion. It's a totally different thing, right? This is not something that would be recognized by any of our forefathers in the faith, this would be totally alien to those who are Christian in the Old Testament, including men who were called great men, men after God's own heart, or even so far as faultless or perfect in their generation, right? Job was not going around inviting all of the foreigners into his lands and giving them positions of power.

24:46 He would not have been called righteous if he had done that. So David didn't do that either. Of course, those were two of the men I was alluding to there. So the reality of this right, because we can talk about it in a number of different ways, but practically speaking, you will probably not get anywhere talking to this man. He's most likely a baby boomer. If he's going to use this sort of book to teach this kind of class in church, his religion is a different thing from yours. If you're a Christian, he has a different religion. Is this someone you could potentially rebuke and convince him that you are correct? Probably not, just being frank with you. If you have that sort of relationship with him where he will

25:27 listen to you, then maybe you have some hope. But again, if he's a baby boomer, the reality is that he will not listen to you. That is just how that generation is. There are precious few exceptions to that, I highly doubt you found one. So what is the best path forward for you? Well if this is something that your church is going to begin pushing, and you obviously disagree with it, then there Then they're probably going to continue to make you more and more uncomfortable and eventually drive you out of this church. So you may want to start looking for a new church. There are a lot of churches right now that are doubling down on this because the memo went out, and this is being pushed all over the place.

26:10 All of the media outlets to which the baby boomers watch, listen, etc., are pushing this narrative. And so insofar as they are still in positions of leadership in these churches, they are going to be pushing this harder and harder. They are going to run inquisitions. They are going to persecute people. They're going to kick you out of the church and try to ruin your life if they can. So as always with these sorts of questions, act with wisdom. Part of this is just biding our time, right? In many cases, the boomers are getting too old to do this sort of stuff. They're not going to do the classes, they're not going to be the head pastor, they're not going to be in charge of the boards. And by the way, those of us who are millennials and

26:52 younger should be stepping into these positions of power. And yes, Gen X, you know what I think about you guys. You're split, and you guys know it. Younger ones are old millennials, older ones are young boomers. So pick your battle line on that one. Get into the positions of power in these churches so you can actually influence things and push them in the correct direction. But specifically here, the best advice that I can give you for how to prepare yourself to deal with this is exactly what we did in Stone Choir. We did an entire series of episodes on race. We went over the basics of race, we went over race and scripture, and we went over racism. So go listen to those episodes. If you still have questions after reviewing those episodes, by all means,

27:36 just reply again to this thread on the forum and ask me some specifics, I'll follow up gladly. But we went over pretty much everything that you will need in those episodes. But the reality again is that this is a man who will probably not listen to you. Because he's probably very set in his ways, and his religion is that post-war order. It is not what Scripture says because Scripture is abundantly clear on these issues, right? Scripture says that those who preference the alien above those in their own household are worse than unbelievers. What is he doing? He's doing that. So non-zero chance his conscience is seared and he's not going to listen to you. This is a fact specific analysis, right?

28:24 It depends on your congregation, how things are set up, how things are trending. If you have the possibility of taking over this congregation and pushing it in the correct direction, by all means save those who are perishing, right? But if not, find a better church. If you can't do that, start a home church. It is better to be around faithful Christians than to just constantly fight this kind of losing battle against those who don't care what scripture says, who don't care what Christians have always believed, who don't care about any of these things. They only care about what they've heard on talk radio and on various TV news programs. And it shows in everything they do. So the best advice I can give you is act with wisdom

29:10 in accord with what it is actually happening in this specific situation. Obviously, I don't know all the facts. I just know the general outline of it and I know how these people act. So, like I said, he probably won't listen. If you're lucky, he won't try to destroy you. So is it worth it? Maybe. But again, it's a wisdom call. But yes, definitely revisit those episodes on race and I will actually add those into the show notes. And when I say I will add those into the show notes, just so you know, if you are listening and you are a trusted user on the forum, you are also able to do that. So if I miss something in the show notes, please feel free to go ahead and add that. If you have the ability to do so.

29:55 But again, like I said, follow-up questions welcome after you've listened to that series again. So if there's anything that we didn't cover or anything we didn't cover in a sufficient way for you or you just have more questions, by all means, please ask those. Question six. Can you give a proper explanation of 1 Samuel 16:7? People often use it to justify things like not judging a book by its cover or not judging what your eyes can clearly see. Go ahead and open up Logos so that we can read the verse. This is obviously about God choosing the king for Israel, right? But it's helpful to pick it up here. Okay

30:57 I think we probably want that in English, not Greek. Yes. And the Lord said to Samuel, do not look on his appearance or on the posture of his size, because I have rejected him, for God will not look as a mortal will see, for a mortal will see into a face, but God will see into a heart. So, on its face, right, what does this say? It says that God sees into the heart. Okay, that's true, we all know that. Does it ultimately actually say anything about humans and how we are to conduct our affairs? Maybe to some degree, right? If we can see into a man's heart, we should judge more by his heart than just his appearance. We as human beings can't always do that. So we have to judge on the basis of the things to

31:49 which we have access, right? The things that we can see. I can't see into another man like I can't see perfectly in another man's heart. I can discern a lot from the man, what I know about him, how he acts, all these things. And I think an important part of the response to people who are like you can't judge the book by its cover, right? Things like that. Well, God's also the one who gave us our senses. God's also the one who gave us the part of our psychology that is able to assess another man based on appearance. In fact, God put a part of your brain, designed built part of a brain, that responds to other people, how they are thinking. Humans have sort of a very minor form of like telepathy or,

32:34 you know, a sixth sense, extremely minor. I'm not saying you can read minds. They're called mirror neurons. And essentially how they work is they kind of fire in a mirror, hence the name, of the way the other person is thinking. We don't know exactly how this works, we don't know exactly how the modeling functions. It may just be you're picking up on very minor cues, right? Microexpressions, things like that. You're modeling the other person. And so that's judging based on appearance in some ways. That's not always bad. You may not want to get that deeply into that with everyone, but there's nothing wrong with judging based on appearance in addition to other things. If you go ahead and judge someone solely on appearance and

33:19 completely ignore what he does, what he thinks, who he is, right, the state of his heart, things like that, assuming you have access to them, you're being You're being foolish, right? You shouldn't do that, you're being foolish. But you also take appearance into account, because that's also from God, right? The way that a person looks, God's the one who designed that. And it's also a consequence of generational sin in some cases, and things like that, as went over at some length in this show, Stone Choir elsewhere. This verse does not tell you that you can't ever look at someone and know something about him, right? Even God says that there's an appearance, right? If his appearance is mentioned, then appearance is a real thing.

34:04 The question here and what God is saying is not whether or not appearance means anything, it's whether or not there is something that can be more important than appearance, and that's the heart. But you can't look into another man's heart. You can only access that to which your senses have access and the amount of intelligence and things that God has given you to interpret that data. So the people who say that are just looking for any sort of excuse, usually it c comes down to something about race, right? They're trying to say something about race, something about the post post-war consensus. It's usually that kind of person who's pushing this. And as a general rule, abstracted out from this, anyone who's trying

34:49 to point to a single verse and trying to hammer you over the head with a single verse, probably doing something nefarious. Because if there is a particular doctrine, dogma that is extremely important, it probably won't be in one place in scripture. It's probably taught throughout scripture. And this one-off verse here in 1 Samuel, obviously it's God's word, right? It's true. It says something that is true. But what it is saying is that God can do things you cannot do. God can look into this man's future and see what's going to happen. You can't do that, right? So just because God can do it doesn't mean you can, doesn't mean you should try. Like I said, one of the best examples is God can look

35:33 into the future and see exactly what a man is going to do. Does that mean that we should try to judge men by what they're going to do in forty years? We can't do that. So the bottom line is: this is not saying you can't use appearance. This is saying that God can do more than you can do, and appearance should not be the only thing you use to judge someone, right? Physiogamy is real. But it's not everything. There are ugly people with good hearts, right? We all know that. And there are tall, attractive people with black hearts. That happens as well. There is a correlation there, but it is not one hundred percent. It is not always the case. Going to copy a few more questions here from the chat before

36:17 I lose them. I think I'll go ahead and answer this one I just copied out of order as it were. Assuming it does not mess up all of my numbering of the questions in the chat here, which it might. Discourse actually fixed it for me. Great. So question seven. I just happened to notice this one and I can answer it quickly, so I'll go ahead and do that. Is it permissible for a Christian to engage in karate or similar martial arts? It appears the local dojo focuses only on physical elements.

37:18 Asking as a father of a four year old daughter, the answer is yes. This is not like yoga, right, where yoga basically always has that spiritual element attached to it. And why do yoga Pilates exist? Pilates is just a German guy's last name and it works. There's proof of it working. We actually have done studies on it, that it is effective. It's a good system. So by all means go do Pilates. And also perhaps good advice for the young guys out there who are looking for a wife, because plenty of women doing Pilates, so maybe you'll find a wife there. Don't be creepy, but maybe you'll find one. Karate basically has no spiritual elements. There are certain practices of it that historically had spiritual elements attached,

38:02 religious elements, those have basically entirely fallen away. I, you know, full disclosure, I did martial arts. I taught martial arts for a number of years. It's been quite a few years now, but I did. There was nothing religious about it. Just not at all. I even have the little book by the founder of the particular martial art that I did. And even in that, there's really not much in the way. It's basically just physical education. It is a fighting style. It's a different thing. Some funny anecdotes in that book though. At any rate, karate's fine. Go ahead. Maybe Maybe pick one that's actually useful. Taekwondo in the US is more show than actual martial arts and learning. So probably go with one that's a little more serious.

38:49 Just general advice there. See question eight on the subject of God's will and free will is God's will done through the things we do and the choices we make with our free will, or do we align our will to God, but that would mean we have no free will. Just going to ask the hard questions tonight, are we? So humans have free will, right? If we didn't have free will, God would be the author of sin. God cannot commit evil. God is not the author of sin, so sin must originate elsewhere.

39:49 So sin originates in the will of the devil and the will of men. So do we have free will? Yes, we do have free will. When is our will considered good? Well our will is considered good when it is ordered toward the good, when the taleology of it, right? The talos, the end in the proper sense of end, not in the sense of it stopped, but in the sense of it is the thing toward which it's a goal, basically. We'll use the word goal, it's easier. When the goal of your will, when your will, your decisions are aligned toward a goal that is good, or in this case the good, then what you are doing is good. Right? Well God is the good. So the only way that your will can be aligned toward the good is to be aligned toward God, is to be aligned with

40:36 God's will. So God is served when the things you do are good. But things that are good are going to be aligned toward God. So it's not a matter of this division here, because there is no division, right? God is his attributes. And so the will, the goodness, beauty, truth, unity, being, those are divided up in terms of God's attributes because that's how humans have to speak about them because we can't understand the totality of an infinite as one thing. We have to speak about parts and partialit we have to speak about it in a way that is comprehensible for human beings. We can't speak about it in a way that is 100% encompassing in what God actually is. So to align your will with God is to align your will

41:25 toward the good, which is Which is to align your will toward God, because God is the good. So yes, we have free will. The will of created beings, when it goes astray from God, that is the source of evil, not God. So it is turning away from God that is evil. It is turning toward God that is good. Question nine. Another question I have is if you could go into slight detail on why you don't like Nietzsche. Twitter posts tell me you're not a fan of him. I don't necessarily hate Nietzsche. I read most of his works in undergrad. I had a very good professor. I actually did a course on Nietzsche in philosophy. That was my cognate in undergrad was philosophy. So I don't necessarily hate Nietzsche, right?

42:18 I'm just not a particular fan of Nietzsche, and I think that the modern right has sort of latched onto Nietzsche and his philosophy in a way that is perhaps a little obsessive and not necessarily helpful. I think that Nietzsche has some good insights here and there, but I think that he takes his warrant too far and that his conclusions are not always sufficiently warranted. And I d obviously don't agree with his view of Christianity. I think that he was rebelling against his father, and I wish that he had had better Christian friends who could have defended Christianity in a competent way instead of what I see in his writing is a response to not quite a straw man, but a mischaracterization of Christianity, and I think if he had had better Christians in

43:07 his life, or at least friends to whom he was willing to listen, he could have turned out much better and been a better philosopher. But no, I do agree with some of the things that he says, and some of his insights are useful. Does that mean everyone should read him? No, of course not. But if you are interested in moral philosophy, ethics and things like that, then certainly at some point you're probably going to read some of his works or wind up engaging with those ideas, right? He's not the originator of all those ideas, they echo down through other authors in both directions, incidentally. But I don't necessarily dislike him, he's just not in my top ten for say philosophers.

44:10 Question ten. What is your take on Hawaii? On Hawaiian locals, I assume that's a typo there, and their status as Americans. Can they be pulled out of their blind hatred and find a role as Americans and Christians in the fight against our enemies? I don't have extensive experience with them. I have been to Hawaii, but I don't have extensive experience with the native Hawaiians. However, they are extremely anti-white, a lot of them. They hate the howlies, right? They do not like whites. And that does spill over into violence against whites in a number of cases. So I don't know that we can necessarily get them to stop hating whites. Maybe we can, maybe we can't. I don't know that's worth the effort.

44:59 If they want to hate us and be enemies, that's fine, they can go ahead and be enemies. The Hawaiian Islands belong to us, and if we have to move them somewhere else in the world, then so be it. That is sort of up to them if they want to behave themselves or not. I would prefer that they be Christians and not behave in the way that they do, but they've been doing that for a long time and they've been getting worse, not better. So I don't see that trending in a good direction in the near future. I think we should probably just move them somewhere else in the world and be done with the problem. And I guess that's going to be related to a question that's coming up here in a second. I'm going to take a sip of my coffee though.

45:40 And I'm sure someone in the chat will complain that my coffee is not black, but. That's just fine. You can go ahead and put milk or cream in your coffee. Question eleven. Is it possible to see God in modern day insane leftists as it seems to me that all the things they aspire to are some twisted way of what a Christian monarchy would be. Some examples being basic income, the king's duty to feed his people, animal rights, large fasting periods and farm animal treatment, instead of factory farming and so on, they seem to have a tainted heart in some way. This is actually an even more complicated question than I think you necessarily grasp there when you were asking it because there are a number of different layers to this.

46:31 On the one hand, yes, you do have certain positions, certain views among the left that are in fact good, that have at least become associated with the left, which is part of the problem here. So treating your workers well, treating your animals well, not abusing the natural world, trying to keep the environment clean, right? Not over harvesting the forests. You can go on and list tons of issues like that where they have become associated with the left In the US, and so they're seen as left-wing issues, but they're not, which is sort of the important point I want to make here. So before I get to that part of it, which is sort of the politics, I'll finish up sort of the theology part of it here. Excuse me.

47:24 So do the things they desire to do with regard to, say, workers, animal rights, things like that, align with Christianity? The answer is yes. Christians should support those things, not necessarily in the form the left wants to do, right? Because many times the way they want to do it is destructive. You get the crazy ones who say you can't eat meat, right? You have to be a vegan, and so that's how we protect animals. That's not the Christian position. They want us to live in mud huts instead of harming the environment. That's not the Christian position. And so on and so forth. There are many things like that. But yes, there is sort of a perverse connection to proper morality in the things that they are seeking to do.

48:06 And part of it is because they are just opposed to the right. And so anything the right champions, they oppose it. They don't even think about it, they just oppose it. That is sort of their operating principle is is to be defiant, is to be rebellious, is to fight against and reject something. The great irony, of course, is that they have been the cultural and political majority for a very long time, and they still are, regardless of who happens to control the federal government right now. And so they're really rebelling against nothing, but that doesn't ever stop that kind of person. Perhaps the more Not important, but the more significant in terms of why this is the case, part of the answer, is the political

48:55 portion. The reason this exists in the US, and it doesn't exist as strongly in Europe and other places, although some of the poison from US politics is starting to infect certain parts of Europe, particularly, say the British, unsurprisingly, in the case with that we speak we we speak the same language, right? So it's not just something about the British. I'm not saying, oh the British are evil, but we both speak English. It's easier for them to imbibe the poison in this case. So the political part of it is that the issues that are important have been artificially divvied up between the two major parties, the factions in the US, in order to make it more difficult to work in the US in any meaningful way outside of those party

49:40 structures and then also impossible, nearly impossible, in the US to actually have a coherent platform, right? To actually have particularly a coherently Christian platform. Because if you say the natural world is God's great gift to mankind, it is a show of his power and glory, and we should preserve and protect it, you'll be labeled an environmentalist by the right and condemned That's not a left issue. The left don't own that. If instead you say, I believe we should treat our workers properly, we should pay people a reasonable wage, right? Almost sounds like a Bible verse, right? The laborer's worth his wage? that's just from scripture. You'll get condemned as being a socialist or a leftist, right?

50:28 And then on the other hand, if you say that we should have an economy that is strong and so it can provide for people. The left will accuse you of any number of different things, right? It doesn't matter which issue you pick, they've been divvied up in such a way that you can almost not be coherent, and that is the design of the system. It is to keep the two parties sort of at each other's throats, but in a way that doesn't actually change how anything is actually done. And if you stand up and have a coherent platform and set of beliefs, you'll be condemned from both sides because they have been so indoctrinated and so propagandized that all they can do is view things through this artificial lens of, well, I'm right wing, and so

51:13 I think that animals should be beaten with a stick and used only for stake. Or I'm left wing and so I think that the environment should be protected at the cost of all of the humans on Earth and we should go extinct. Neither position is coherent or sane. But it is malicious action. It has been done intentionally in order to cause all these problems. That's why you have this in the U.S, and it's why some things from the left sound a little bit like Christianity, filtered and poisoned, but to sound a little bit like Christianity, and some things from the right certainly do not sound like Christianity. Because neither party is following a coherent platform that is aligned with Christianity or even just reason.

51:55 And that is enemy action. That's the reason it's like that. Question 12 is an easy question and it's related to the Hawaiian one as I mentioned earlier. How would you solve the gyps the gypsy question in Christendom? Very easy. They are genetically related to Indians. Just send them to India. That is where they belong. So Yes, they have some intermixture over the centuries, but they are descended from Indian populations. They should just be returned to their homelands. They don't belong in the West. Question 13. My wife and I did IVF to conceive. We have two frozen embryos left, but can't afford more kids. What should we do? This is one of those questions that has an uncomfortable answer, but

52:46 it is the reality, so I will go ahead and say it. IVF is something that Christians should not pursue. It is something that should be banned by society, and the doctors who perform it should probably be prosecuted. In your specific case, though, the answer is that you should go ahead and try to have those children. God will provide, and you will have done the right thing instead of the wrong thing. Practically speaking, the odds that two frozen embryos are going to be successful, very low. So the chances are that you will probably not have any additional children this way. That doesn't mean that you say the odds are bad and so I won't pursue it because those are children at this point. The only right thing to do is try to give them the

53:33 best life that you can, which certainly includes giving them life in the first place. So go ahead and pray that God actually blesses you with two more children and then we'll provide the resources you need to raise those children. But like I said, Christians should not do IVF and we should not support it. It should not be permissible in our society. Question fourteen Any thoughts on the AFD's presence in German politics? Yes, but we'll see what I can say about it publicly. The Of Day has potential. Now I know that there are those who are immediately going to point to the current leadership, the face of the party, and say, Oh, look at this, it's a a lesbian and blah blah blah. You're right, you're right.

54:29 You're absolutely right. The leadership is an enormous mess. But there are factions we will call them. The entire party is not ideologically monolithic, and it's going to depend which group comes out on top as to whether or not the party itself becomes useful in German and Greater European politics. That is still up in the air, as undoubtedly almost none of you noticed, because American press did not cover it, a number of off day politicians were assassinated prior to the recent election cycle. It's been a little while now, but the recent election cycle. So obviously the regime feels threatened by the party and is willing to resort to assassination to deal with those men. That is the reality, of course, for anyone who stands up and

55:24 becomes a face politically on the right wing. There's always a non-zero chance that someone is going to shoot you. So same thing here. There's a risk for anyone who does that. And that is part of the package deal. You have to recognize that, which is perhaps why it's better to be a Christian if you're going to go into politics on the right, because then you can feel secure, right? Think of the words of Jackson about that, right? That is just the reality of the matter. So will they be useful? that is still up in the air. That has not been decided. There's an internal fight going on within that party as to who will ultimately lead it going into the future. So don't pay so much attention to who is currently the supposed

56:10 head of the party. If you are interested in the actual German politics, then pay more attention to the factions, particularly at the state the equivalent of a j an American state, the state level and what's going on there. Question fifteen. I have seen that California is roughly thirty five to forty percent white, but I have also seen that there is a huge Hispanic white population. As a former Californian yourself, is it really just Mexico 2.0? So California is politically and democratically complicated, which is something that most of the rest of the country misses, because the rest of the country only sees California when something crazy makes the news, or it goes blue during the national election, right?

56:59 We have a winner take all system. If you are fifty one forty nine, the fifty one percent wins. So and that's about how close it used to be in California. Now that thirty-five forty percent figure is definitely closer, that's more accurate. Less Less certainly in some big cities like LA, which is where I used to live, which is part of why I moved. So California for a very long time sort of had like a forty-five, fifty-five split between relatively conservative Republicans and Democrats that kind of vacillated between completely insane and sorta normal. Just kinda depended on who was in charge of the faction given time. People also forget that until quite recently, the conservative, and I do mean conservative, the conservative faction in California was in

57:53 fact more conservative than a lot of parts of the country and more active. You know, homosexual marriage, so-called, was pushed. Californians overturned it. The California Supreme Court struck down the death penalty. Californians reinstated it and removed that justice from the court. That's how it used to be in California. Not that long ago. That's within my lifetime in some cases for this stuff. California is essentially the lab of what those who are our enemies are seeking to do to the rest of the country. They did it in California first. They're trying to do it to the rest of the country now. And so don't look at California, you know, thumb your nose and laugh because what they accomplished in California is what they want to

58:39 do to you, regardless of where you happen to live. That's the case for the rest of the world as well. Any white population, that's what they want to do to your homeland. What they already managed to do to California. Is it turning into Mexico 2.0? It's had a lot of Mexicans for a very long time. Uh now it's a lot of other groups too that have been moved in. You have Indians and Chinese and a bunch of others who've moved been moved in. That's a lot of the country. Mostly for you know, the Asians have been moved in. It's more the coastal areas, but in the middle of the country, right, you've got Somalis and all sorts of other things, Haitians being moved in. So California isn't necessarily worse off than a lot of the country, but

59:19 it's not better off either. So it is a worldwide conflict in which we're engaged. There are still beautiful parts of California, there are still very white parts of California, but the demographics are not good, certainly. It's the reason that California goes blue. Every single national election. That's what happens when you have democracy so called and winner take all. And an open border. And Reagan's an amnesty. Don't forget that one, if you ever want to make your boomer friends in your life very mad, start pointing out the things Reagan actually did, like destroy California with that amnesty. Question sixteen Can you address John 8, 1 through 11, where Jesus tells people they should not stone the woman?

1:00:05 This story was added to the Bible hundreds of years later. That's that one is debated. Lutherans usually hold that the That is in fact part of the Bible, right? So I'm I'm not going to say it's not part of the Bible or was added later. I'm going to say that that is certainly part of scripture. But we'll go ahead and pull it up so we can actually look at it here. If I can find logos, there we go. Okay. We'll just start with but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery and placed her in the midst. They said to him, Teacher, this woman has been caught in the

1:00:56 act of adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women, so what do you say? This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground, and as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her. And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. stood up and said to her, Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you? She said, No one, Lord, and Jesus said, Neither do I condemn

1:01:38 you. Go and from now on sin no more. There are obviously a lot of things you can pull out of this text, and I don't know that I'll get into all of them now, because this is the sort of thing that really should be probably at least a full Bible study session, right? Like this is an hour or more. However, that being said, let's pull out a few key things here. One that is easy to overlook if you're not reading carefully is that scripture specifically notes the order in which the accusers leave. Who leaves first? The older ones. The older men leave first. The men who are in theory supposed to be wiser, who are supposed to have more life experience, who are supposed to be a little more aware of themselves and those around them.

1:02:29 And they demonstrate that here. Why do they leave first? Well because what does he say? Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her. The men who are older are going to generally have a better sense of their own sinfulness, of their own lack of righteousness and the danger of self-righteousness of believing you are holier than everyone else and so you can do whatever you please and that's another key here which individual is not here who is not standing there being accused? Well, this woman was caught in the act of adultery, in flagrante delicto. Well, she needed a partner for that. Where's the man? Where's the guilty man? Because what does the law actually say?

1:03:18 The adulterer and the adulteress are to be stoned. But where's the adulterer? He's not here. So what are they trying to do? It's exactly what scripture said. They were trying to trying to entrap him. They weren't trying to do what was just, they weren't trying to obey the law, they weren't trying to serve God. They weren't trying to, you know, exact justice or anything like that. They were trying to use this woman to entrap Christ. Christ saw right through what they were trying to do and called their bluff. And they didn't follow through because they knew that they were guilty. One of the few times where they actually show they have something akin to a conscience, right? Does that mean you can't punish adultery?

1:04:00 That's not the point of the story. There are many times in scripture where you have to understand what is being done, particularly when you're dealing with how Christ is interacting with people, and he's not condemning the law here, right? He's very clear. Nothing will pass away from the law. Adultery is still something that should be punished as a capital crime. In Christian society, it should be a capital offense. Now, the reason it's not done here is because again, they're trying to entrap him and he just sees right through their trap and gets out of it. He does not condemn the woman because of this hypocrisy. And he d you know what does he tell her though? Go and sin no more. So does that mean that we never punish people for a crime

1:04:44 because God has forgiven it? The answer, of course, is no. We should still punish adultery. That's not the point of the story. That's not the point of why this is recorded in scripture. I'll probably go into this one at greater depth at some point in the future because this one comes up a lot for obvious reasons. But the woman caught on adultery is not saying you don't punish the adulterer, you don't punish the adulteress. It's saying don't be a hypocrite and probably don't try to entrap God. He'll probably get out of your trap trap. Pull up the next question here. Question 17. One other question I have is veiling. Do you think Christian women should practice this ancient tradition? The answer is yes.

1:05:32 I do think it is a good practice. At the very least, it should be practiced in church, and I think probably also practiced generally in society in It gives the right impression, it instills the right belief in women and men as well. I think it's an important part of culture that we've sort of let fall away as we've basically started dressed like slobs in almost all ways. And do remember that veiling was something that was done until, you know, the 50s and the 60s, and it was a Jewish feminist who pushed for it and got rid of it, basically convinced women to burn their veils and things like that. So when Satan has his foot soldiers pushing it, you can probably tell it's evil. But I think that's something that is we should bring that back

1:06:20 as part of our culture. I think it's a good thing for Christians, and I think that there are other traditional parts of our culture be good to bring back as well, including certain ways we dress or do not dress. But certainly at the absolute minimum it should be done in church. I don't know that I'll get to This question about the Constitution and Republicanism and Freemasonic influence this time, because the the Freemasonry part of that question adds quite a bit to the answer, so I think I will save that for next time. But I'll try to pull out some more questions from the chat before I lose them. Go ahead and move this one over so I have it for next time.

1:07:26 Can answer this one quickly, I think. Question eighteen. Should a new convert to Lutheranism, non denominational baptist background, join the LCMS, pastor is good on Jews, but is egalitarian. How does one navigate confirmation while keeping distance from the LCMS? So the good news is that the LCMS is still congregationalist technically. So So St. Louis and the vice presidents, so-called really their bishops, don't have that much power. They have some. They can bring the hammer down on a pastor and push. And if the congregation doesn't support the pastor, they can kind of force things through. But you're not joining the LCMS. You're joining the congregation. So when you join, what you will usually sign is the documents

1:08:17 that control the congregation and in theory I'll also be saying I affirm at least the Augsburg Confession, the small catechism, the large catechism, and maybe the full book of Concord, although they don't necessarily always have you do that, because technically speaking, the rest of the Book of Concord is considered a commentary on the Augsburg Confession That's kind of how they do that. But you're joining the local congregation, not the LCMS. So if it's a good congregation, go ahead and join. There is nothing wrong with doing that. Like I've said many times, there are good congregations and there are bad congregations. and all congregations are trending in one way or the other, right? Better or worse.

1:08:58 So if you can join it and steer it in the better direction, great. If you can get on the board of elders and then bring other sound men along with you on the board of elders, even better. Because then you can keep that congregation as a solid one and if necessary pull it out of the LCMS in the future, if the leadership of the LCMS continues to trend in the way that it is. That's up to God. Maybe it won't. Maybe we'll get a very good man in that office who will turn things around. That's happened in history. Maybe it'll happen again. Question nineteen If a pastor asked me if I listen to stone choir, is that a wise as serpents innocent as doves? Matthew ten sixteen scenario or ought I answer honestly, plainly, prepared for

1:10:01 the consequences? As a general rule, if the pastor is to the point of asking you if you listen to Stone Choir, he probably has a pretty good idea whether or not you do. So take that into account, right? He's asking you whether or not you listen, but probably already knows what your answer should be or what the answer is. So perhaps he's testing you in that way. Now, if you are concerned about this particular pastor, right, you think he is going to pursue you, he's going to try to harm you, kick you out of the church, whatever it happens to be, because you listen to Stone Choir, you could always go ahead and hedge your bets, right? I don't think that's wrong to do that in this case. You could say, I have listened to a few episodes.

1:10:50 And then if he asks why, or what, or anything like that, go ahead and give him the episodes to which no Christian can actually object. Particularly if this is a Lutheran, right? If he's Lutheran, hand him the episodes in the sacraments. Nothing we said in there is objectionable for a Lutheran. Right? Hand in the episode on the gospel. A Protestant, at the very least, is not going to object to the content of that one. There are episodes you can go ahead and hand any Christian, and he should not object. So So if he gets angry at you for that or whatever, then you take it from there. But I think the best course is probably to say that you have listened to Stone Choir, and then go ahead and hand him

1:11:30 the unobjectionable episodes. Then it's sort of ball in his court, right? It depends on how he responds to that as to what you do. But yes, obviously prepare for the consequences of that, as many other men have already. I have not been the only one driven out of a church for teaching and believing the things that Christians have always taught and believed. I don't know how many other questions I will get to tonight, but I will at least try to get through a few more and then copy the rest from the chat so that I have them for the future. Question 20: How do I, as someone raised atheist from birth, unlock the ability to believe in the metaphysical? Or should I just stick with a more symbolic figurative interpretation?

1:12:34 So you want to get to the actual belief, obviously, not just symbolic. And the fact of the matter is, you're probably already there, because you already do believe in the metaphysical. I guess the question would be, I don't know where you draw that line, right? So maybe the difficulty for you is believing in a god. There are plenty of arguments that build up to that. Never look for the singular argument that makes you believe in, you know, creation, the Christian God, Jesus Christ, the gospel, infallibility of scripture. Like you're not looking for one argument that does all of that. That's a crazy approach, and it's very popular in the atheist camp to try to get Christians to give that. That's insane, right?

1:13:19 An argument usually is trying to prove one point. And then over the course of maybe a couple dozen arguments, you build up the totality, and then you can use those to synthesize your ultimate argument. But with regard to the metaphysical, I would say go look into the issue of qualia. That's usually one of the best places to start philosophically, because if you can come to the conviction that qualia exist, and they certainly do, it's a very sound argument, then you've proven that something beyond the physical, beyond the material exists, which is what we call the metaphysical. And so that being the case, the question then is where are you going to draw the line about how much you believe about

1:14:01 the metaphysical? But once you've crossed that line into believing something beyond the material exists, you'll have a much easier time with the rest of it. So I would say probably start there. And insofar as other aspects of religion and things like that are concerned, you probably also believe there's a difference between good and bad, or good and evil, right? Well that's metaphysical. That's not biological or material. So I think you already have more of a belief in the metaphysical than you may think. Because a lot of times over in the atheist camp, the moral law is smuggled into the belief system. It's just denied that it's there. There's a denial that's been done. Because you know the moral law is written on the hearts of

1:14:49 men. We all recognize good and evil, right? We know that murder is evil. Well, that's not a material claim. That's a metaphysical claim. That's a moral claim. If you believe murder is wrongful, you already believe in the metaphysical. So it depends on where exactly you are, but I think looking into qualia may be a good place for you to start. By all means ask follow-up questions if you have those, and I'll answer those as well, assuming that I actually see them in chat, which I try to do. Another question about IQ, I will save that for next week. Although someone in the the chat did have a good response that one of the ways you can deal with being more intelligent, the people around you is to view yourself as a worm with regard

1:15:46 to God, right, in the light of that, which is absolutely true. No matter how intelligent, capable you are, you compared to the infinite, you are still nothing. Which should be seen as comforting, not as depressing. I think maybe two more questions. I'll try to copy these questions over so I don't lose them for the future. I have an involved question about historical religious wars. I will have to save that one because I don't have a firm opinion on that really. This one is not going to be a numbered question, just asking if I would speak with Frojax again, because they've been doing good work. Of course I'd be willing to speak with them. I'm willing to speak with almost anyone who's on the right side

1:16:48 of things trying to push in our direction. I guess I'll go ahead and a answer another question about California. It's appropriate. Speaking of California, what advice, this is question 21, what advice do you have for right wingers in LA? So that's a difficult one, right? I've met some other guys who are still in LA doing some good work, and California is admittedly a mess, right? Excuse me. So there are going to be very real challenges for those who are still in California, is there productive work to be done in California? The answer is absolutely yes. And on top of it, no matter what people think about Los Angeles and San Francisco, there is an incredible density of talent and

1:17:49 resources in those two places that can certainly benefit not just California, but the rest of the country. And California is going to have a role to play in whatever happens in the coming years, just because California is such an important state and an important geographical part of the world. So you're going to want to keep your head down a little bit. You don't necessarily want to be too loud about exactly what your politics are, because if you do that, you will very much be a target, and that is more of a concern in some parts of the country than others, right? You know, I certainly had number of death threats and things like that living in California, which is one of the advantages of no

1:18:34 longer living in California. But But my name and face are known. So that changes the calculus. It's going to depend on what sort of talents and abilities you have. If you can work behind the scenes and get a lot of stuff done without necessarily putting your face out there and making yourself a target. By all means we need a lot of guys like that. But maybe you are the kind of guy who stands up and says things publicly without a mask and with your name attached. If that's the case, then by all means do that. And there's always the possibility that you do the same thing I did and move to another state. Now in my case, like I've said many times before, I moved to a state where I've had family here

1:19:17 since the 1700s. Right? My family's been in this state a very long time. And my family wasn't in California for that long. I like California. I still kind of consider myself a Californian. I always will be. I lived there for the first thirty something years of my life. I sound like a Californian. I have certain ideas that are particular to California. Right, you can make the joke, I like avocado, whatever it happens to be. Been drinking coffee since high school, things like that. But if you need to move out of the state for what is best for your family, then by all means do that. We're not operating under normal conditions where everyone should stay where his family has been for X number of years.

1:20:01 We're operating under wartime conditions. Sometimes that means you have to seed a little bit of territory in order to strengthen yourself elsewhere and then take it back. That's going to be the case in parts of California, certainly. So maybe you stay there and keep fighting, maybe you move. Both paths are viable and I know that there are certainly men who are still fighting the good fight in California. I've spoken with a number of them, they're doing great work, so it's a wisdom call like so many things Okay, I'll answer two more questions because I see one here that I do want to get to for this stream. And I'll

1:21:02 So question twenty-two. Do you give the left credit for being consistent in being anti-white nationalism and anti-Zionist? Since you wrote an article saying if you are a Zionist, you have to be white nationalist. So that was mostly an article aimed at sort of the GOP crowd to try and point out some hypocrisy. The crowd I was targeting with that article would actually take it seriously. It's not for everyone. It is on my site, of course, people can read it. But it was an argument with regard to hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance aimed at specifically the GOPC. That aside, I don't necessarily give the left credit for being consistent, because they're not consistent. Is there a sort of mercenary consistency with regard to being anti-white

1:21:52 nationalism and anti-Zionism. I don't think there really is. I don't think that they're really anti-Zionist. I think that that's just what they have worked themselves up into a frenzy over, and so it's become popular on the left to have that view. I don't think there's anything behind it. I think it's devoid of intellection. I think it's devoid of anything other other than say emotionality and herd instinct. Their hatred for whites, however, is ingrained due to decades in some cases, propaganda and schooling, which is also propaganda. They have been trained to hate whites because whites are the only threat to the system that designed the propaganda with which those men were trained, right? So they have been taught to hate white people because that is

1:22:43 the animating principle. That is basically the only core belief of the new global religion, the post-war consensus, that is ultimately what they are. The organizing principle of every group that opposes Christianity and opposes whites and particularly white nations is hatred of whites. Because Satan hates us. we are his enemy number one. And that is the reason that all of the forces of hell and all of their children are amassed against us, and their animating principle is hatred of us. So I've gone over that at length in a number of other places and written some essays on it, but that is essentially what's going on there. So I don't give them points for consistency because the consistency is

1:23:30 incidental at best. Almost accidental. And then the final question I will go for this stream. I have saved the other questions into the future questions, but question 23. Let me scroll down to it. Why is Jesus on the cross behind me? Right? So why a crucifix? So undoubtedly the person asking this is Baptist, because of the way it's worded. The Reformed would ask it in a different way, right? Because the Reformed don't like symbols in this physical sense of symbols. So why is Jesus on the cross, right? I know that makes Baptists uncomfortable. They don't like it. And you know, Jesus isn't on the cross in everything I wear, right? I've got a A cross around my try not to rub the mic too much here and make a bunch of noise, but

1:24:18 I have a cross around my neck as well, which is not a crucifix, it's just a cross. Of course that's gonna not hit the mic, so we're good. So the crush the question then is, you know, why do I have a crucifix on my wall? And the reason for that is very simple. What is your faith? What is the Christian faith? What is it you actually believe? Christ crucified for sinners. That's the core of your belief. And yes, there are many other things to the Christian faith. There are many other parts that are important important but you have to recognize that you are a sinner and that Christ was crucified for you. And so to have that reminder is a good thing. To have Christ crucified as a reminder of the cost that He

1:25:09 paid to wash away your sins is a good thing. Is he still on the cross in reality? Of course not. That's not what the crucifix is saying. The crucifix is a reminder of what it cost God to save you, and of the core of the Christian faith, which is indeed Christ crucified for sinners. The cross alone is a good symbol, like I said. I wear this every single day, and I usually have it under my shirt, except on Sundays, but the cross alone is not the Christian faith, because it is Christ crucified for sinners. And so to have that crucifix on the wall is an important reminder, and it's a reminder for everyone who watches the stream as well. And I have a number of them in my house, and it's a good thing for Christians to have, right?

1:25:57 And on top of it, Satan hates it. So what Satan hates is usually good. That's why Lutherans do not object to the crucifix, and it's why Roman Catholics don't. And we agree with the Roman Catholics on this. They are correct that the crucifix is an important Christian symbol, and it always has been, and it always will be. So the argument, you know, Jesus isn't still on the cross doesn't resonate with me at all. Because that's not the point of the symbol. That's not what is being represented, it is instead that reminder of what it cost Christ to save you. I think that will be it for this episode. I guess I have one more piece of housekeeping as it were, just before we close out this stream, because I've had a number

1:26:43 of people ask me, including one did ask on the forum, that I add some intro and outro music to the at least the RSS feed. And yes, I have gone ahead and done that. I understand why you'd want that. It's easier to tell if you have your podcasts on shuffle or something I don't listen to mine that way, so it just didn't cross my mind. But there is now intro and outro music for the recordings that are made available after the stream. So if you want higher quality audio or you want to listen to audio only, you don't need the video. Obviously you're going to miss out on say the really mostly just Bible verses at this point, but if I have anything on video you won't get that. But if you want to listen to that, you can of course

1:27:28 find that on my website. That one's actually podcasts.coreyjmoller.com. You can also find it in any of the various podcast directories, just search for at any cost or my name. It should sh should pop up pretty quickly there. But that will be it for this week. Thank you for those of you who contributed questions and for those who participated in the stream. It's always nice to be able to get the opportunity to do this. I know I missed last week. I was very busy last week and actually this week as well. But thankfully I did get to the stream this week. I try to do this on Thursdays. Usually winds up being pushed to Fridays. That's why I do Thursdays though, because then I have that sort of buffer room there to hopefully at least get the stream done

1:28:11 during the week. At any rate, the questions can be submitted on the forum, is the best way because then I have them organized and sorted. It's easier for me and it's easier for other people to find them in the future. So that should be in the notes on whichever platform you're currently using. It's also in the show notes for the For the episodes. So if you register on the forum, you can go ahead and submit your questions in the requests category. I will find those and then answer them there. Otherwise, you can submit these obviously during the stream in the chat. I try to monitor the chat the chat during the stream. You can submit them to me on X or via my Telegram channel. Any other way you can get a hold of me is

1:28:53 fine. I try to keep those organized. However, they do not always come through because sometimes the platforms do not show me your questions or they get lost. So I have an ongoing list of future topics or questions. If you do not see your question in there, it means I did not see it, please resubmit it. I think that's all for this week, and it is of course Friday evening. If you're on the West Coast, it's still relatively early, but for the rest of you, I hope you have a good weekend. Go out and maybe enjoy God's creation tomorrow. Always good to do that. It's finally starting to cool off and go into fall. So until next week, God bless all of you, and I hope you see. Well, I hope you have a great weekend, and I hope that

1:29:40 you go to church on Sunday, and I will see all of you next week. God bless.

1:34:49 Well, we