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A Catholic solution to the Meaning Crisis · Mahon McCann

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: I suppose I already introduced myself, so we'll get stuck in.
• 0:17
  It starts with this guy,
• 0:18
  you probably don't recognize,
• 0:20
  you can call him John Verbanki.
• 0:21
  He's a Canadian professor of cognitive science at the
• 0:25
  University of Toronto with
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: George Peterson.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: Jordan Peterson is also on this kind of topic of the Venus crisis.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: Essentially,
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: what's happened since the scientific revolution,
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: this kind of new cosmology that came about,
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: and how that's affected the human role in the universe,
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: like how we think about ourselves,
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: how we live our lives,
• 0:45
  and the slightly confusing environment that we have in the West
• 0:48
  now has kind of
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: resulted in this historical crisis.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: So John has a 50-part lecture series on Venus crisis on YouTube.
• 0:56
  If you're into that sort of thing,
• 0:58
  it's 100 hours gone,
• 0:59
  it's very good,
• 1:00
  I love it.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's a big commitment, so I'll try it, I'll summarize.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: He also has this book,
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: Awakening Community Crisis,
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: which is also very good,
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: and kind of summarizes the main points,
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: if you want more of a deep dive into the topic.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: So this is how he describes it, essentially.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: He says,
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: we're in the midst of a mental health crisis,
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: there's increased anxiety disorders,
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: depression,
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: despair,
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: suicide,
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: North America,
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: Europe,
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: And that this crisis itself is embedded in all these other,
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: environmental crisis,
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: political crisis,
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: turn on the TV the next week,
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: there's another crisis.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of stuff seems to be kind of breaking down essentially.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: And he says this is this deeper cultural historical crisis,
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: which he calls the medium crisis,
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: okay?
• 1:43
  And basically it manifests in people's lives as this feeling of
• 1:47
  disconnection.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: Disconnection from yourself, disconnection from reality.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: Disconnection from older people,
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: alienation,
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: a lot of these existential issues like nihilism,
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: anxiety,
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: addiction,
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: alienation.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: Really, they're perennial issues in a sense.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: There's always a kind of general human being crisis.
• 2:05
  We have a particular historical one now in the West that really
• 2:09
  goes back,
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: in his opinion,
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: to the start of the scientific revolution.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: So anybody recognize this cheeky fellow?
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: You should definitely know that this is Nicholas Copernicus.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: very famous for the discovery of the heliocentric emperors.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: The Catholic church wasn't a big fan of these times.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: Some questionable stuff going on.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: But basically,
• 2:32
  a lot of people kind of charted back to this big revolution
• 2:35
  where the universe used
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: to be structured by God.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: There was the great chain of being.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: There was a hierarchy.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: There was an order to things.
• 2:42
  And then a couple of early scientists kind of poked holes in
• 2:46
  that a little bit and
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: were like,
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: OK,
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: there's this other structure.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, Copernicus was a beast himself.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: So were other thinkers like Galileo.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: They weren't.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: But they kind of laid the grounds for a kind of secular society that was
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: essentially not religious.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: Cornicus was obviously wrong about the heliocentric universe.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: The universe doesn't revolve around the sun, just so you know.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: So you can be geocentric if you want.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's allowed.
• 3:10
  But he made this argument and then a lot of evidence started
• 3:14
  coming in from people
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: like Galileo,
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: who
• 3:20
  through extending telescopes essentially could see the heavenly
• 3:23
  bodies in a way
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: that weren't seen before.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: So this undermined the kind of traditional cosmology for people that had
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: interpreted,
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: say,
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: Genesis as a physical account of the universe.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: These scientific discoveries started to be put at odds with that.
• 3:37
  Obviously the church initially wasn't very receptive to Galilee
• 3:40
  because they
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: recognized that this conflict was kind of brewing in a way.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: And Galileo,
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: despite giving evidence for the heliocentric universe,
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: sorry if I'm not coding this properly,
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: but the heliocentric universe also started what J.P.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: Marceau has called the materialist lab
• 4:01
  Yeah,
• 4:06
  so Karl Marx very famously had an account of dialectical
• 4:13
  materialism was his kind
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: of philosophy.
• 4:16
  But essentially materialism is the ontological or metaphysical
• 4:20
  position that what's
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: real is matter.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: Everything is reducible to matter.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: Something like atoms, something like electrons, it's kind of like dust.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: bottom of the universe, and that's where reality is in some sense.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: That's what's really real.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas,
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: as you've heard in the talks earlier,
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: in the Christian and the ancient cosmology,
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: God is what's really real,
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: not physical matter in some sense.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: They're kind of at odds with each other.
• 4:45
  You can look at the ancient cosmology as assuming God is the
• 4:48
  ontological primitive,
• 4:50
  and then modern science starts to assume that physical things
• 4:53
  are what's really
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: there.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: So he starts what's called reductive materialism.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: So what does he mean by reductive, essentially?
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: I like to explain it with this meme.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: So in reductive materialism, biology can be reduced to chemistry.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: Chemistry can be reduced to physics.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then physics can just be reduced to pure math.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: And you can explain everything with that, basically.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: The entire modern scientific project was a reductive materialist project.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: Galileo imagined the universe without any living things.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: and then wanted to explain it entirely physically, essentially.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: If you could map out all the relations within it,
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: and you could explain how everything works as physical objects.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: If you think about Isaac Newton,
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: who comes along with his Principia Mathematica,
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: Isaac Newton was also a theist,
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: he wrote a million words on religion and alchemy,
• 5:42
  but famously he derives this efficient causality universe where
• 5:47
  you can explain
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: motions of planets and things by mathematics.
• 5:51
  So really,
• 5:52
  these guys are all theists,
• 5:53
  but they're building a picture of reality without God.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: They're building a picture of reality that's just a clockwork universe,
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: what comes later to be known as the mechanical universe.
• 6:03
  So this is totally at odds with the medieval worldview or the
• 6:07
  ancient worldview,
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: but it's a universe really that's like a big clock,
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: essentially,
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: with what Richard Dawkins calls a blind clockmaker,
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: a blind watchmaker.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: So it comes from nothing,
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: essentially it's all physical,
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: everything's just atoms bumping off each other,
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: and then we come about through a random process of evolution,
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: pretty much.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: So the discovery of the Hebrew Central Universe starts this process,
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: undercuts Aristotene in science,
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: undercuts the cosmology in Genesis,
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: although we'll talk about that later on a little bit,
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: but this is the impression people have,
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: essentially,
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: that there's never
• 6:47
  And it explains the universe naturalistically with
• 6:50
  mind-independent laws.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: So we don't have any role within this universe.
• 6:55
  And materialism assumes that what's the fundamental ontology is
• 7:00
  the philosophy
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: subject dealing with the nature of reality.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: We assume God is the ontological primitive.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: God is what's really real.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: We're the image of God.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: God is the original.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: But in a materialist worldview, they assume matter is what's fundamental.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so this is a huge change, essentially.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of, I've enumerated these, essentially.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: But these are the basic assumptions of materialism.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: God doesn't exist.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: Everything's physical.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: Humans arose from animals by a mindless, undirected process.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: We have no intrinsic value.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: no free will or purpose.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: There's no objective morality, no afterlife.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's pretty grim way of looking at things, unfortunately.
• 7:46
  But they kind of held the high ground in the way of like,
• 7:48
  this is the intellectually elite wave.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of,
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: I think the hard signs,
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: the word hard is doing a lot of heavy lifting there in a sense of like,
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: we've got to be tough in the face of materialism,
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: just accept,
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: life is meaningless and it's pointless and,
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: we just got to truck on anyway.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: But really, it's actually a very thin philosophy.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's very weak when you test it out in some sense.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: Even just that free will doesn't exist.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: Who here has made the decision before?
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone who's ever existed.
• 8:16
  So,
• 8:16
  you know,
• 8:17
  kind of a weird idea to say that that's actually just
• 8:19
  imaginary.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: Doesn't make a lot of sense.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: But this revolution had serious existential consequences.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: I really like this poem by John Donne.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: an anatomy of the world.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: He says, new philosophy calls all into doubt.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: The element of fire is quite put out.
• 8:36
  The sun is lost and the earth,
• 8:37
  and no man's wit can well direct him where to look for it.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: And freely men confess that this world's spent,
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: when in the planets of the firmament,
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: they seek so many new,
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: they see that this has crumbled out again to his autonomies.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: Tis all in pieces, all coherence, gone.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: So it's kind of taken what's called
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: C.S.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: Lewis called it the discarded image,
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: the medieval image,
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: which is Aquinas' philosophy,
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: really,
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: kind of manifests in the poetry of Dante,
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: this beautiful picture of reality,
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: and kind of just saws through the middle of it,
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: in a sense,
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: and just says,
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: no,
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: it's all just matter,
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: that's it.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: And people were really,
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: I think they were really struggling with this,
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: in a sense,
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: not initially,
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: but it changed the way they look at themselves.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: I love this quote by Carl Jung, which is that, like,
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: how different the world was for a medieval person in some sense.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: They were the center of the universe,
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: eternally fixed,
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: surrounded by a sun that bestowed its warmth on them.
• 9:33
  They were children of God underneath,
• 9:35
  loving and most high,
• 9:37
  prepared for eternal blessedness.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: They knew exactly how to act to rise from a corrupt world to heaven.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: You knew how to act.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: It was in your politics.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: It was in your relationships.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: Everything was organized by it.
• 9:48
  And then such a life seems no longer real to us because natural
• 9:51
  science essentially
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: trying to undercut this whole way,
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: this whole brilliant philosophy of how to live and what's real.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so this is the basis of the meaning crisis, pretty much.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, if you have this materialist
• 10:07
  doing it's like people run into this in real time even the no
• 10:09
  free will thing I
• 10:10
  know so many people who have really struggled to be like well
• 10:14
  if I don't have any
• 10:14
  free will like why why do anything why get out of bed in the
• 10:17
  morning like why you
• 10:19
  know why even you know and care about my own life in some sense
• 10:23
  and people become
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: very debilitated by this because it's kind of edible that's like really
• 10:27
  sophisticated and true and which I don't think it actually is
• 10:30
  to be honest
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously,
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: this kind of mechanical universe comes to its high point,
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: really,
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: I would say,
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: in the 19th century.
• 10:36
  I think it also drove the world wars,
• 10:39
  by the way,
• 10:40
  which were wars between atheistic superpowers.
• 10:43
  Communism,
• 10:44
  as he pointed out,
• 10:45
  is a replacement for religion,
• 10:46
  a purely materialistic replacement.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: So is Nazism in its sense.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's equally as much an atheistic philosophy.
• 10:54
  And so the meeting crisis has real consequences in the real
• 10:57
  world,
• 10:58
  in our geopolitics.
• 11:00
  And Nietzsche,
• 11:01
  I mean,
• 11:01
  when he declared the death of God,
• 11:02
  he wasn't happy about it.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes he's kind of pegged as being, like, joyful.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: But this was his conclusion based on this sign,
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: which was that the mechanical universe is going to lead to nihilism,
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: which is the lack of meaning,
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: and moral confusion.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: Because he pointed out that Christianity is a system,
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: and when you remove the faith in God from Christianity,
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: you can't just keep everything else.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: Essentially, as he said, once you break that out, you lose the whole
• 11:30
  I think you can think of the Christian worldview as having
• 11:40
  these three layers.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: This is what I want to pitch to you.
• 11:43
  There's a metaphysical layer,
• 11:44
  which is the ontological,
• 11:47
  which is a great shape of hierarchy.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: And then there's a mythological or narrative
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: comes out of that.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: So,
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: how we live our lives,
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: what would be typical morality in a Christian country,
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: in a sense.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I think materialism undermined this.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: It took out the metaphysical there.
• 12:08
  And so,
• 12:09
  even within Christianity,
• 12:11
  there was an attempt to kind of demythologize.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: You see this with Protestants a lot,
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: to remove kind of the weird elements from Christianity,
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: you're not eating the flesh of God,
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: or it's a symbol,
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: or it's something,
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: to kind of de-
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: mythologize it in a way.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: A great example of this is the Jefferson Bible.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: Anybody ever heard of this?
• 12:30
  Thomas Jefferson,
• 12:31
  he was founding father,
• 12:33
  president,
• 12:34
  third president of the United States.
• 12:36
  He essentially couldn't believe in the miracles or any of the
• 12:40
  kind of more
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: mythological things in the Bible and so he chopped them out basically.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: He cut them out and he made what's called the Jefferson Bible which
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: essentially with nothing that he thought was unusual.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's really, that's gone on a lot
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: in certain strands of Christian thinking,
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: it might be promising to be fair,
• 13:00
  which is that they've attempted to kind of compete with science
• 13:02
  within this
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: materialist framework already.
• 13:05
  But unfortunately,
• 13:07
  whenever you try and do that,
• 13:08
  you kind of lose by default.
• 13:10
  There's no way to win within that paradox with science because
• 13:13
  it's so fundamentally different.
• 13:16
  The assumptions about the nature of reality within that
• 13:19
  scientific worldview are
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: completely at odds with
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: And that's interesting because science came out of religion.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: It came out of particular Western, Latin Christianity.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so there's been a divergence there in some sense.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: I think the early atheists like Galileo and Copernicus,
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: Isaac Newton,
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: they saw God in God's creation.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: They looked at the studying of creation as a way to get to God.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: And then materialist scientists essentially said,
• 13:46
  we just get rid of God and we'll just look at the creation and
• 13:49
  we'll control it and
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: we'll predict it.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: and that'll give us power over nature, essentially.
• 13:54
  And so,
• 13:55
  yeah,
• 13:55
  it's kind of gone away with those early thinkers didn't think
• 13:58
  it was gonna go.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so,
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: yeah,
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: when we lose,
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: Christian metaphysics,
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: our account of reality,
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: when we still try and hold on to Christian morality,
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: you'll see this a lot in the West,
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: which is secular humanism,
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: essentially,
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: it's like,
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: people wanna be,
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: they wanna care about the oppressed,
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: they wanna care about people who are suffering,
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: they think love is important,
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: but they can't embrace Christ,
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: they can't embrace the gospel,
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: they can't embrace the kind of reality.
• 14:25
  And so you end up with this quite confused version of Christian
• 14:30
  humanism,
• 14:30
  pretty much.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: And Charles Taylor calls this the supernova,
• 14:34
  which is that you get all these different interpretations based
• 14:37
  of what Christian
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: morality is in the West,
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: and all these different positions of things,
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: including things like,
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: yeah,
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: communism,
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: Nazism,
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: essentially,
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: mercy and love without Christianity in some sense it's just an attempt to
• 14:53
  politicize in a utopian vision and the stuff that's promised in
• 14:58
  heaven and the
• 14:59
  Nazis just rejected entirely in some sense there go back to the
• 15:02
  Roman Empire
• 15:03
  everything but the Nazis wanted a Third Reich do anybody know
• 15:07
  what the first two
• 15:08
  rights were the Roman Empire and the Holy Roman Empire they saw
• 15:11
  themselves as the
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: heirs of the Roman Empire
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: So they tried to go back to pre-Christianity in some sense,
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: to have this like,
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: might is right world view essentially,
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: that's like,
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: we're gonna be the most powerful and strong,
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: so we can just take over everything.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: And obviously that didn't last very long, so we were wrong.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, here we are in the 21st century.
• 15:30
  I'm sorry about how brim all of that is,
• 15:32
  but that's unfortunately an account of
• 15:36
  where we got into this slightly confusing situation where there
• 15:39
  even is a secular world.
• 15:40
  I mean,
• 15:40
  in the medieval time,
• 15:42
  secular was a religious world to describe an ordinary time.
• 15:45
  There wasn't this huge political,
• 15:47
  economic thing that was separate from religious life.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: It structured everything we did.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so we're in a very unusual position, I think, historically.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: But I want to point out this 21st century quiet revival that's happening,
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: I suppose,
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: that I was personally,
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: I was raised as an atheist.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: in opposition to religion, really in some sense.
• 16:08
  And so I couldn't be reached by those normal means like the
• 16:12
  gospel and a lot of evangelism.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: But really through some of these kind of changes online,
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: it managed to get through to me in a way that was very powerful.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think something is changing in some sense.
• 16:24
  If I didn't come back to the Catholic Church,
• 16:26
  pretty much anybody can,
• 16:27
  to be honest with you.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's like the review.
• 16:31
  So something that started changing is why I'm calling them re
• 16:34
  mythologization.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: So guys like Jordan Peterson,
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: Jonathan Pagiot,
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: Tom Holland,
• 16:39
  who were with Dominion and basically they're looking at
• 16:42
  Christian Morale and
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: they're done.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's actually comes from somewhere.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: This is actually rooted in,
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 16:47
  a very specific account of this guy called Jesus Christ who
• 16:51
  lived and died and was
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: resurrected and left us a pattern of being and
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: that wasn't in the ancient Greeks.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't in the Romans.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: It didn't exist in the world before he came along.
• 17:02
  And so they start connecting the morality again to the stories
• 17:06
  and to the mythology.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: Peterson's biblical series was a good example of this,
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: where he kind of psychologizes it a little bit,
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: like the tropological meaning.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: But in doing so,
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: he opened it up to people that otherwise might have been opposed to it,
• 17:18
  like that wouldn't actually listen to the Bible or to anybody
• 17:21
  talk about it.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: Because he did it in this specific way of like,
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: you have these moral values,
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: they come from this specific thing,
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: you should understand what this is.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: In some sense, you already are a Christian.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: Tom Holland, his book, Dominion, does this historically.
• 17:36
  He tells the story of the West and where it comes from and
• 17:39
  where our values come from.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: If you look at the Roman Empire, it was barbarous.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: It was really a murderous tyranny, essentially.
• 17:48
  And so our own values and presuppositions and liberal
• 17:50
  democracies are really Christian.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: There's kind of no way to get out of it.
• 17:56
  And it's a way of reaching people that are otherwise opposed to
• 18:00
  the gospel.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the re-mythologization from morality to mythology.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: And what about the metaphysics?
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: What's been happening?
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody likes to start talking about metaphysics.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's okay, I understand.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: But in metaphysics,
• 18:17
  Within physics itself,
• 18:19
  physicists are now going,
• 18:20
  we need to stop being materialists.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's got us nowhere for 100 years.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I mean, they haven't made progress since Einstein.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of physicists now online,
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_01: hardcore physicists,
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: that aren't like just,
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: kind of half-ass in it,
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: like they're real physicists,
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: they're going,
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: we need to ditch materialism.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: Materialism is holding us back.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: Same thing has happened in neuroscience,
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: which has,
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: for the last 75 years,
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: failed to solve the mind-body problem,
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: failed to give an account of how consciousness
• 18:47
  processes many though I mean neuroscience itself is a
• 18:50
  materialistic field but
• 18:51
  within cognitive science there's all types of new frameworks
• 18:54
  coming in new
• 18:55
  frameworks that are returning to classical metaphysics
• 18:58
  classical metaphysics which
• 19:00
  is Aristotle which is Plato which is Augustine which is Aquinas
• 19:04
  which is the stuff
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: that Christianity is built on
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: This is really interesting.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm a nerd, so like, oh, this is very impressive to me.
• 19:11
  But there is a change happening here that hasn't been happening
• 19:15
  for a very long time.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: Even within biology,
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: in a sense,
• 19:18
  they're turning to Aristotelian biology again in order to
• 19:22
  explain different kinds
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: of causality,
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: OK?
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's like,
• 19:24
  it turns out it's hard to explain living things if they're just
• 19:27
  vineyard balls kind
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: of rolling down the hill.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, no, we have goals.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: We pursue things.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: We're alive.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: Things are meaningful to us.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: Things are important to us.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: We care about some things, we don't care about others.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: So these things are happening independently of each other.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to read all this,
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: this book,
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: Post-Reductionist Christianity,
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: The Way Out of the Meaning Crisis,
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: is very good.
• 19:47
  It is difficult to read,
• 19:48
  but it summarizes essentially these changes across these
• 19:52
  fields.
• 19:53
  So essentially what I'm proposing to you is that for the first
• 19:55
  time in 500 years,
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: these three layers are coming back together in the West.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: The moral layer, the mythological layer, the metaphysical layer.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: And when these three are put together,
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: a lot of the obstacles that have stopped people,
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: scientific people,
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: these kind of questions,
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: these skepticisms,
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: these cynicisms,
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: are going to be reduced,
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: basically.
• 20:15
  And I think this is why you see people converting a lot because
• 20:18
  of the internet.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: Because these conversations are happening online.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: People are hearing them.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: They're becoming cataclyzed by them in some sense.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: And then they're going, okay, this actually makes a lot more sense.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: In France,
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: the recent conversions,
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: they had a record number in 20 years or something,
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: 78% of the people baptized cited social media.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: They said that was the reason why.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of these conversations have been happening online.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: This stuff is changing.
• 20:44
  And so there's now an opportunity for a mission,
• 20:46
  which is what this whole conference is about.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: Now is the time to do it.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: Now is the time to reach people.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: Through the internet,
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: And through these new technologies,
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: if you can understand some of this stuff,
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: some of this story,
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: you can grasp it yourself,
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: you can become kind of more normal,
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: essentially.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: I don't really like the word normalizing,
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: but if more people grasp this stuff,
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: they can appeal to people that are outside of it.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, people that are in the sector, the so-called nuns.
• 21:17
  So like,
• 21:18
  whenever I was born,
• 21:19
  atheists or non-religious people were 2% of the population.
• 21:26
  So all of those people that have been leaving church are
• 21:30
  falling into this kind of
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: in-between space,
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: essentially.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I think now through the internet,
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: through these changes that are happening,
• 21:37
  there's an opportunity to reach those people that there hasn't
• 21:40
  been before,
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: in a sense.
• 21:42
  And I don't,
• 21:43
  I mean,
• 21:44
  for the church,
• 21:44
  I think the real challenge is going to be
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: How do you get these people off the internet?
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: People come on the internet,
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: they get cataclyzed in some sense,
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: they listen,
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: they go,
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: okay,
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: this makes sense.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: How do I now get into a practice?
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: They need other people that they trust in clergy, in relationships.
• 22:02
  I think there's a whole challenge here of utilizing the
• 22:05
  internet for mission and
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: then in turn getting people into real practices,
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: real communities,
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: real relationships.
• 22:12
  I was at the Jubilee in Rome now for the Digital Missionaries
• 22:16
  Jubilee and Poglio
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: gave us an audience and spoke to us at it and said that this challenge,
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: he gave us a challenge to mend the net,
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: he said.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: Essentially that through this work online,
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: we can start networks of love,
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: networks of saving,
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: networks of relationship.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: We can offer people meaning in their lives again.
• 22:35
  And he really put forward that challenge that as evangelists
• 22:38
  now,
• 22:39
  we need to,
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: be in these spaces that people are in,
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: and in turn,
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: bring them offline so they can participate in actual religion.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: The internet is to the point, but it's a great way of reaching people.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to learn more about this,
• 22:54
  I'm doing a course in Dublin on the 23rd of September until the
• 23:00
  28th of August for
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: six weeks.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's a free course.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's in Rathbarnam Parish.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna go through in a bit more detail,
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: I mean kind of a philosophy life course essentially,
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: so people can understand these things,
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: like these three layers,
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: how they work,
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: how they're coming back together,
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: why they fell apart in the first place.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think armed with this knowledge,
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: we're talking about like faith as a gift,
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: I think for me anyway,
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: I came to the faith through learning,
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: like through,
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: faith is seeking understanding,
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: but I think understanding can lead to faith.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: And through a greater understanding, you get a solid faith.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: Because there's going to be people with questions.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: There's going to be people like me when I was an atheist going,
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: well,
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: what the hell is up with this?
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: And why are you eating this guy?
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: And what's going on with this?
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: You need to be solid.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the more solid we become in that, that will just radiate out.
• 23:48
  And you have a good chance of what Bishop Barron said,
• 23:50
  of re-evangelizing Ireland.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: Because Ireland right now is a secular country.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't think it's going the right way.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: That, if you're interested, just go and talk to me after.
• 24:03
  And maybe if anybody has any questions,
• 24:06
  any thoughts,
• 24:08
  feelings,
• 24:08
  reflections.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody looks very worried.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_03: OK, please, the course equation, is it an online?
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's in person.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: But the second one will be recorded.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: You can find out my YouTube, it's just Matt McCann.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: YouTube as well,
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: I spend a lot of time talking to people that are working on this stuff,
• 24:33
  that are kind of at the forefront of a lot of the sciences and
• 24:36
  philosophy like
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_01: cognitive science,
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: neuroscience,
• 24:39
  people that are changing this kind of narrative around
• 24:42
  reductive materials and
• 24:43
  that's just been so dominant for so long and it is changing in
• 24:47
  those fields.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, trying to bring those people together
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_02: We have a few questions,
• 24:57
  but maybe to talk just a little bit about Peterson and the fact
• 25:01
  that he's so
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_02: hesitant to say anything about his own faith.
• 25:12
  I think Peterson was almost like a bridge like he was like in between
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: and the non-religious world.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: In some sense,
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: he's deep appreciation for religious ideas,
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: like spend his whole life studying and trying to understand them.
• 25:46
  But at the same time,
• 25:47
  as I said,
• 25:48
  kind of hesitant to not necessarily practice in Christian.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so he was a bridge, really, that could lie down.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: And literally millions of people have walked over him.
• 25:55
  Like,
• 25:56
  millions of people have gone back to the faith that doesn't
• 25:58
  have him.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of people,
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: like Bishop Byron did a lot of work with him where he realized,
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: this guy's really doing something.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: He's really reaching people that were unreachable otherwise.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that was because of his kind of liminal
• 26:08
  figure in a way like he wasn't you know a fully churched person
• 26:12
  in a way but he
• 26:12
  wasn't fully unchurched I don't know and so he yeah he had that
• 26:16
  appeal but now I
• 26:18
  think that's also kind of being his undoing a little bit like
• 26:20
  because I think
• 26:21
  that's already that time has passed in some sense and he kind
• 26:24
  of needs to pick you
• 26:25
  know is he in or is he out but I think he really does try and
• 26:28
  live it to be fair to
• 26:29
  Peterson like I think he really does he's a sincere person in
• 26:32
  every way and I think
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: he's scared of himself a Christian because he knows what that means like
• 26:36
  I think he knows how actually significant a title that is to
• 26:42
  put on yourself in some sense.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, my family.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: So interestingly,
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: my dad was,
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: both of my parents were Catholics,
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: and they lapsed out essentially both for kind of different reasons,
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: like quite opposed to it,
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: very like,
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 26:58
  that it was essentially just like an old fairy tale or
• 27:01
  something made up to control
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: people and it's all nonsense.
• 27:04
  And so we'll get out of that and you become kind of enlightened
• 27:07
  and rational wise or whatever.
• 27:10
  But my dad has since now returned to the place and he was
• 27:12
  actually my godfather.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: for my baptism.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: So that was really special.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: And similarly through Peterson and through kind of his own,
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: I suppose,
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: journey with faith and coming back to it in that way.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: Haven't got my mother yet.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: Try Converter, maybe weekly.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'm working on it.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: Like, she's a tough cookie.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: She's good.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of people,
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: the initial reactions of people thought I'd lost my mind,
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: essentially,
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: probably.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, you've kind of got nuts.
• 27:40
  But whenever I talk to people about it,
• 27:41
  they're like,
• 27:42
  oh,
• 27:42
  yeah,
• 27:42
  that's actually nice.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: Tons of sense, this is great.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: you're appealing to me in a way that I didn't think,
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: they just kind of,
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: which to be fair for me is like,
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: you almost put Catholicism in a box or something like that.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: You build a gate around it and you go, well, that's not true.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: I know for a fact that there's nothing there.
• 27:58
  So you'll go and be a Buddhist or you'll go and do yoga or
• 28:01
  you'll do anything
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: basically,
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: but look at that.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: But that means you break down that gate,
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: you're like,
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: wow,
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: this is the greatest tradition that ever lived.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: And like, it's got all the gold, all of the stuff
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's called the greatest tradition for a reason.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: But it's just a prejudice.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's it.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: In your work at DCU,
• 28:21
  are you able to define people who are approaching you to engage
• 28:25
  in an honest
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_02: discussion about religion or how that fits into their worldview?
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_02: Do you feel pushback from the school itself?
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't found any from the school yet, to be honest.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: No,
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: but I'm in the School of Theology and Philosophy as well,
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: so a lot of people would be in religious traditions there anyway.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of the two schools are connected.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: But out in general,
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: on the internet as well,
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_01: you get a lot of people that are very,
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 28:54
  somebody the other week wished my whole family would get
• 28:55
  pancreatic cancer because
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: of my evangelizing online.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I mean, you get people that are negative to it.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: But it usually seems like
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_01: it's a, it's a them thing, you know, they've got something going on.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_01: But no, mostly I find people are more interested than I thought.
• 29:12
  People message me a lot on social media platforms and stuff and
• 29:15
  I put up my
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_01: testimony saying like I'm going to pray and I've been going to mass,
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: like I'm kind of exploring it.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'm starting to believe in God again,
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: and then I come and go,
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: all right,
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: well,
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: that's from the Mass.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I get into the actual practices and doing it.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I noticed a real need there, a real interest.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_02: How important one Peter 315 is, right?
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_02: To give a reason for why we believe in him.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly, yeah.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_02: To be able to equip ourselves to do that.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: Totally.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I think some of you scientists,
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_01: like Richard Dawkins and stuff like that,
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: have just gotten away with murder,
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_01: man,
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_01: for just the worst arguments of all time.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like, there's no evidence for God here.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like, God is reality itself.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what evidence are we going to give for existence?
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like, the fact that anything exists is evidence for existence.
• 29:54
  Like,
• 29:55
  they're just,
• 29:55
  you know,
• 29:56
  he thinks it's the Loch Ness Monster or something like that.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like, yeah.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: But they just got way further than they should have, to be honest.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like, the New Age is very, you know, simplistic stuff.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, sorry.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I did with the Catholic News Network.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: I did some stuff with them.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: on the baptism they were interested in,
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: because there was record numbers that was baptized in Ireland this year,
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: essentially.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: It was the most they'd ever had, and they were interested in that.
• 30:39
  And yeah,
• 30:39
  I've done another couple of radio interviews and things like
• 30:42
  that.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: I was on a Newstalk breakfast show.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: I was supposed to go on the live line, but they doubled up.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: I would have loved to go on there, and I would have done it perfectly.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, okay, we're done.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: All right, thank you very much.