Latest / The Speak Life Podcast / Fuel Crisis, Facebook Down, Life On The Brink || SLP376

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Fuel Crisis, Facebook Down, Life On The Brink || SLP376 · The Speak Life Podcast

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to the Speak Life podcast.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Thomas Thurrigood, Assistant Media Producer at Speak Life, and today Glence Grivener and Nate Morgan Locke are discussing the fuel crisis, the Facebook crisis, you know, when Facebook went down this week, and how we respond in general to situations when resources seem scarce and when things go wrong in the world and go wrong in our routines.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I hope you enjoy the episode.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: This went out on Monday.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: It was a live show.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: We're calling it the Speakeasy.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: And this is going to become an evening show on Monday evenings.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: So enjoy the show, and I will catch you in the middle.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_04: Hello and welcome to Speak Life.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_04: This is the Speakeasy.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_04: My name is Glenn Scrivener.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_04: And with me is Nate Morgan Luck.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_04: Hello, Glenn.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: And today, what are we going to talk about?
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_04: Well, well, technology allowing, we are going to talk about Facebook outages and WhatsApp and Instagram.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_04: So uh and we're also going to talk about the fuel crisis.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_04: The fuel crisis that has engulfed the nation.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_02: Basically, kind of running out of stuff or things not going to plan.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_04: And do these represent cracks in the thin veneer that ordinarily adorns society, but underneath there is just a seething mass of warfare and rage?
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_04: Is that is that what's going on?
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it's a very good question because, of course, the fuel crisis, in which I think we're still living in the late fuel crisis, but we are in the historians have for three ages.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, the ages.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_04: There was Friday and then there was Saturday, and we're pretty much past it now.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um but we're this is not the first time in living memory that we've run out of something.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_02: In in particularly in the UK.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_02: And so people are asking, what does this say about human nature?
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_02: That when we run out of fuel, we have panic at the pumps.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: We have knives being pulled out from I don't know who carrying a knife in their car already, but knives are being drawn at petrol stations.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_04: We have Americans in the room.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_04: They're just chuckling.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_04: Like how quaint.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_04: Knives.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_04: People are pulling knives.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_04: How sweet.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_02: And so the yeah, the question is does this illustrate the fact that there is a thin veneer of sophistication and culture?
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_02: And in reality, human beings are just bubbling under the surface.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_02: And it only takes a moment for the mass to come off, and we all start sort of knifing each other for a bag of petrol.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_02: A bag of petrol.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_02: People had bags of petrol.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_04: See-through see-through polythene bags of petrol that they just put in their boot.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_04: And I can see no bad outcomes from that particular scenario.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_04: It brings my mind back to 2020 and the toilet paper shortage.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_04: Which was hilarious because again, it was it was just basically like everyone was taking about 5% extra toilet paper.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_04: And our supply chains are such that we cannot handle that level of demand.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_04: But in the in the consciousness, in the public consciousness, it was this idea that there probably is this really greedy idiot like moron who's taking who's taking all the toilet paper.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_04: And I I've always imagined it's it's it should be a little bit like um uh in It's a Wonderful Life, you know, when when there's a run on the bank.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_04: And it's not that one person has taken all the money.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_04: I don't have your toilet paper, it's in Bill's house, in Jenny's house.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_02: This is Glenn's James Stewart impression, which is actually very good, I must say.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_02: I must say, I'll I'll listen back to it and I'll take the microphone.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_02: But yes, the the fact was that everyone was convinced that everyone else was taking way, way more, and I'm only taking what is prudent to have a couple of extra rolls because that's why I'm not panicking, but yes.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_02: They're panicked by.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_04: And everyone wanted to drive like if they were in the queue for the petrol station, they they wanted a sign outside the car to say, I I am actually running low.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, this is not me being greedy, and everyone was, you know, which goes to show how much we want to virtue signal in these in these situations.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_02: Well, not ever well, or maybe the virtue signaling is happening at one level, but of course, um there have been fights over over toilet rolls.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_02: And I think do we have a a clip?
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_02: I think we can go to one.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_04: Let's see.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_04: Nature in its raw state.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_02: This is what happens.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_04: At least it's straight when we run out.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_02: I just want one.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_04: So I just want one package.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_04: I just want one no, not one.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_04: And that is is that what humanity's really like?
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I actually find it really hard to watch those any videos of people fighting or having kind of violent interactions.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_02: I just I I get quite anxious just watching it.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_02: Hmm.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_02: Which is is slightly bizarre.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_04: Well, that's probably the that's probably the best of all reactions to that, really.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, if you really enjoy that.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_04: Come on, sell it to me.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_02: But it's so it's this we had this qu this conversation before about you know social media and and you know, is it this sort of place where people are just being mean and horrible to each other, or is it actually this opportunity and and I think I think you've convinced me that it is a con an opportunity to proclaim the gospel.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_04: It's not a pure cesspit.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_02: But there's something about it.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_02: And so when when Facebook and WhatsApp and Instagram went down for whatever it was seven or eight hours last night, um I likened it to the moment in the Shawshank Redemption when Andy Dufresne locks himself inside the warden's office and plays the marriage of Figaro over the speakers to all the prisoners.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_02: It was as though it wasn't like, oh no, Facebook's run out, and suddenly we're gonna see humanity sort of and reveal itself.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, oh thank goodness.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_02: We don't have to deal with, you know, obviously Twitter was still going, but we we don't we get a break.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_02: There is actually a break.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_02: And there's I think we'll go on to talk about this, but there is something about the nature of our Western society, which is so finely tuned that we are outraged at the slightest disruption to normal service.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes, and so how we react when things don't go according to plan.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_02: And according to plan is everything is always available.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I can always use every app I want to use.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: And and what what does that reveal of human nature when when things don't go according to plan?
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, because the supply chain is very much like our expectations for everything.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_04: Uh we we have a supply chain that is just very finely tuned, very finely balanced, on a knife edge.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_04: It's uh they they call it just-in-time delivery.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_04: Um and uh I was I was talking to a Major General Tim Cross, who um was interviewed by Sky News all about this stuff because they're bringing in lorry drivers from the army to kind of to deal with the fuel shortages.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_04: And his whole thing was the army works on just in case logistics.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_04: All of our supply chains work on just in time.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_04: And those two things are like massively different.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_04: And and I think I think more societally as well, we've shifted from just in case kind of mentality to everything needs to be just in time.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_04: And if and and the chain breaks really quickly.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, and and there is something about profit margins playing into that, and this being the sort of I know the the efficiency of a system designed to maximize profit and to reduce waste as much as possible.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_02: We are trying to make this machine which is you know just gonna just tick over it perfectly, and so it can't deal with that, it doesn't like disruption.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_02: But also, I think uh we we are now part of that, and so we're thrown by the slightest slightest inconvenience, the slightest disruption.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_02: Our plans aren't actually adaptable, we'd like to think they are, but no, no, no, we're used to things being done in a very short way.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_02: And the question uh obviously that we're asking is when it goes wrong, what what does it reveal?
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_02: Does it reveal the truth about what people are like?
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_04: And and here's where I I'm reading a book at the moment by Rutge Breegman or Bremen, um, who is Dutch, and he's written a book called Humankind.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_04: And essentially he's trying to, I think, he he's kind of very publicly um wrestling through with his Calvinist upbringing, and he's sort of moved away from that, and he's like, We don't we don't want to go with the whole total depravity thing.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_04: Um, humans are kind.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and one one interesting thing he's doing is he's shining a spotlight on veneer theory.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_04: So, veneer theory is that um there is this bubbling lava going on underneath society, and there's a thin veneer of civilization on top, and the fuel crisis is just a little crack and boom, up comes the volcano.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_04: And we are only two you know you're only two skipped meals away from civil war catastrophe.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and and he in his book points to lots of different things to say actually human beings aren't quite like that.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_04: And when the bombs started falling in 1941 and 1940 in London during the Blitz, the theory was Britain would collapse under the weight, everyone would fight one another so much that they couldn't be bothered fighting the Nazis.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that was the theory.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_04: Turns out not to be the case.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_04: Turns out that actually it brings out the best in people.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_04: So how do you how do you factor that into your view of society and your view of the human person?
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_02: And and this exact question of what is the nature of man's heart, right?
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_02: That came up when there was this kind of real life Lord of the Flies story from a couple of years ago, and it was a book series of boys, um, a group of boys from a I think a Catholic boarding school.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, in Tonga, I think.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_02: I'll let you pronounce that as the Australasian.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um but they yeah, and they stole a fishing boat on an island.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_04: They had they had a plan, maybe we'll get to New Zealand.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_04: It's like typical teenage boys, you know, they they thought that was possible.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_04: And they end up on an island that's basically a rock in the middle of the sea, totally uninhabitable, but somehow they pull it together.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_02: And rather than doing what Golding suggests in Lord of the Flies and turning completely feral and murdering each other, these boys actually looked after each other, had system, they had rotors.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, they're you know, they had a great, you know, list of people responsible for us various things.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_02: And to the extent where they were, you know, they weren't breaking each other's bones, they were resetting each other's bones as accidents happened.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_04: They managed to pull some kid, so one of them broke their legs after falling off a cliff, and they pulled him up and they managed to like get some kind of splint going.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_04: And when they x-rayed the kid like after they were rescued, it w they couldn't even see where the break was.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_04: It's like so so brilliantly they'd done it.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_04: And and fights, they they had a system for negotiating fights that if anyone had an argument, they had to go to opposite ends of the island until sunset.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_04: And at sunset they'd have to come back, they'd have to say sorry, they'd have to break bread together.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_04: You're like compare that to the Lord of the Flies, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_04: Where they're kind of like pummeling piggy, and it's a hellscape.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_02: So the then the question is which one do you choose?
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_02: Do you choose the the ladies having a violent clash over toilet roll?
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_02: As that's really what humanity's like.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_02: Or do you choose these these schoolboys on the island um and their kindness towards one another?
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_02: So it sounds as though we've got two different kinds of groups who can cherry pick whichever example they prefer.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_04: Um but I mean it's it's interesting that we do the the video of the fight in the shopping center goes viral.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_04: But like my neighbor across the road, during the first lockdown, what did they want?
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_04: They wanted some really simple thing.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_04: They were making a roast.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_04: I think they just wanted some cooking oil.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_04: And we lent them some cooking oil.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_04: And half an hour later, they rang the bell, we opened the door, they're not there, and there's just this massive um packet of toilet roll.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_04: There was like 24.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_02: Your neighbors had all the toilet roll.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_04: But in order to bless others and that kind of thing, and you know, that doesn't go viral.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_04: But the the the you know, the war wars go viral, yeah.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_04: But the the the correspondents saying, and war has continued not to break out on the streets of London, does not go viral.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and so we are we are kind of attuned to the bad news.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and certainly this this is the argument of uh Rutge Brayman.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_04: He he's like, well, you know, we we live in un times of unprecedented, you know, prosperity and lack of warfare, and all the all the graphs are going upwards and going up like a hockey stick, as Stephen Pinker will tell us.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_04: Um it's it's just that we're attuned to bad news.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_04: And he he will give it that sort of evolutionary psychology psychological explanation that you know if you if you consider there's a danger and you're right, then you've fled.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_04: If you consider that there's a danger and you're wrong, well you just got a bit anxious for a second.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah um and so that just ratchets up in the evolutionary psychological, you know, model.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_04: And so we respond to negatives, we respond to threats and think that things are worse than they are.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and and we have a media and a social media which seems to be uh approving the fact that we enjoy sharing and hearing bad news, right?
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_02: And sharing the conflict.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, if you it it seems to amplify angry voices.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, right, whereas whereas stories have you know and of course there were lots of uh ways in which people have tried to kind of forcibly correct that.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_02: So there was um what's the guy's name?
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_02: Uh John Krasinski, was it the guy from uh from the office who did his whole good news broadcast because he wanted to spread a little love and positivity?
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_02: But of course, like that doesn't take off, it's a thing, right?
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_02: And then we all go back to watching, you know, all the other news, which is doom and gloom.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_02: So, yes, I think we are predisposed to to sharing that.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_02: But I suppose the question is are we, as you say, two missed meals away from gouging each other's eyes out?
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_02: Is that the the true nature of humanity, or is the true nature of humanity Bruegeman's thing, human kindness?
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_04: And and and I think what he points to with the with the Blitz example, for instance, is that that kind of shock to the system brought out the best in people.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_04: And it's it's similar to sort of um Jonathan Heights talking about we're anti-fragile.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_04: We're not we're not fragile people, we're like bones.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_04: You know, bones kind of need to have impact on them, yeah, and it strengthens them.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_04: And the the bonds of sort of civil society are a bit like that.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_04: Kind of we need we need shocks.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_04: Maybe we need Facebook to go go out every week.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_04: That that might be a very good thing for all sorts of reasons, yeah.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_04: But it it brings out um certain things in society.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_04: But I think like the veneer theory is that like the civilization here, and then there's this boiling mass of rage underneath, yeah, is from Thomas Hobbes.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_04: So he was this 17th century Enlightenment political philosopher whose major work was Leviathan, where he said the state of nature is just a state of war, constant war.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_04: And what you need is the ruler, and he took Leviathan from Job, and he and it's a very biblical picture of the ruler bearing the sword, and only a strong ruler bearer bearing the sword can actually keep all these unruly spirits, you know, in order.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_04: Um but but it very much gives the impression that there's a thin veneer of civilization kept in check by violence, but the state has the monopoly of violence.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_04: And and you know, actually lots lots of despots take great comfort from from Hobbes because they're like, well, you need you need a firm hand, or else out out comes all the all the stuff.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_04: Now, his his kind of opposite number in political philosophy would be Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who says that actually the state of nature is the state of the noble savage, and civilization was the worst thing that ever happened to us.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_04: And man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains, said Rousseau.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_04: And the chains are the structures of society, and and and so what you get if you go with Rousseau is that man is essentially kind and good.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_04: And we just need to release that goodness and tear down the structures.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_04: And you've got Hobbes saying the exact opposite.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_04: And now Nate is going to split the difference and tell us what's the answer.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_02: What's between these two?
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_02: This false dichotomy you have to do.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_02: Having set up the false dichotomy can you transcend I'm the I think that part of the challenge is that both of these neither of these these ideas really include God at all.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_02: They are both um very closed systems in terms of right.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_02: You can only in a in a Hobbes worldview, I think you can only have violence.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_02: It's kind of the only thing.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_02: And the question is like, how do you get over the violence?
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_02: You have the the most violent one who's gonna stop people being violent.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_02: Like what's gonna stop Glenn being violent, me being more violent.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, so a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a bigger gun.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um I don't want to get into that.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_02: But the yeah, the idea that the that the violence is is the system that we we live in.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_02: And the the Rousseau system, which is that well, there's there's no real accounting for why you have this noble savage.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_02: You have a society which is ostensibly made up of people, and yet every single person who's ever joined it has been innocent.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_02: So something has clearly gone wrong, and so there's you know, it's not man, it's the man.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, that's the and so I think both of them are kind of uh are lacking something, and but both have something to to offer us if we're Christians, because there is something that rings true about each.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_02: You do not need to teach a child to be violent, and yet you can find all sorts of violence in children.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_02: There are lots of things that you will not need to teach a child in terms of sharing that a child will will naturally do.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_02: So we need a much more complex complex view of what a human being is at the root and where a human being has come from, and how these human beings fit into the sweep of history and civilization.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_02: So I think there's it's interesting that both Hobbes and Rousseau come up with their viewpoints at a particular point in human history, right?
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_02: After several hundred years of living in a kind of Christian-soaked idea.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_02: So neither of them are really kind of delving back in the abstract or in a neutral way into the facts and just these facts there.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_02: So I I do think both, but I would probably say if you were to take a sort of conservative evangelical approach, you're likely to go.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_02: It's Hobbes, really, isn't it?
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_02: It's Hobbes.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_02: And Russo is just plain wrong.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_04: And scratch beneath the very thin veneer, yeah.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_04: You you get the fight in the supermarket.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_04: And isn't this isn't this a vindication for what Augustine said about the bondage of the will or Luther or Calvin?
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_04: And um, I I think we can go that way.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_04: And and I think we can underestimate how thick is society.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_04: You know, so so yes, you've got human beings being human beings, but the interplay of human beings and what society, what culture is layered on top of that is an incredibly thick thing, and something that that's can't be just dented by a few bombs falling in nineteen forty.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_04: Because the good that that might have brought out of British society had been informed by 1900 years of the Jesus Revolution.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm interrupting this podcast to say that your device is no longer working.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: There is a problem with your device.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I know you can hear me at the moment, but your device is not working.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, I'm just kidding.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it's it is irritating when things stop working, isn't it?
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: When the services we use stop working.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: I guess it kind of shows how dependent we are on those things.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: Should we be so dependent on these things?
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: Interesting questions that I'm sure Glenn and Nate will continue to discuss.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: But perhaps you yourself or people you know are interested in creating media yourselves that engages with the current culture while viewing Jesus at the center of all these things?
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: And if so, can I really recommend the Speak Life Intensives and the Foundry Unlocked?
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: These are training programs.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there's a huge range of options available uh depending on how much time you can give, whether you can come in person or online.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, if you would like to experience training in this sort of area and learn with us about the theology of creativity and these sorts of fascinating things, then go to speaklifefoundry.com.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: Back to Glenn and Nate.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_04: And interestingly, in this book Humankind by Rucker Brayman, um, you know, he is constantly looking for kindness, for instance, as a proof of the goodness of humanity.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_04: And you're like, well, I don't think Aristotle would have thought that kindness is the virtue that we're aiming for.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_04: You go for wisdom, you go for justice, you go for courage.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_04: Who goes for kindness?
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_04: And Bremen, like he he talks about these studies that that people have done about soldiers, how how few soldiers actually shoot to kill.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_04: Um and so in in World War II, probably only um uh 85% of the kills happen from like 15% of the soldiers.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_02: Isn't that always the way though?
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_02: The 1820 rules.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_04: That's right.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_02: Look, guys, we're doing all the work.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_02: Only more people would volunteer.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_04: Only more people would shoot to kill, like we do.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_04: But you know, classically, um soldiers very, very common will shoot high, you know.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_04: Or like at the end of the the US Civil War, they they in all the muskets that they found, like the vast majority of them have shots in them, and most of them have more than one shot.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_04: They've they found even muskets that that had like a dozen like shots, and they can only fire one shot at a time.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_04: And the explanation for this is that um as the general is riding past on his horse, the thing to do, you you've either got to be shooting the enemy or you've got to be loading your gun.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_04: So what have the guns?
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_04: Is he gone and over again?
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, yeah.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_04: He's come back, better load my gun again, rather than shoot.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_04: And so Brahman is like, you see, you see how kind we all are.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_04: Do you see how good humanity is?
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_02: And how terrified of the guy in charge of all I'm not gonna not shoot.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just taking my time.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_04: True, because that that soldier will probably get you know get taken out and shot himself.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_04: But uh but Brayman's like, okay, so our index of goodness is on kindness, which is such a uh such an endemically Christian thing, you know, because you you go to Marcus Aurelius and you say, like, is it good that 85% of your soldiers uh are not trying to kill the enemy?
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_04: He's like, no, that's that's softness, that's effeminacy.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_02: That's but see, this is where Brug Brugman is the the idea that you can call the the you know repetition of loading your gun without shooting it.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_02: That would the best word to describe that is kindness.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_02: It's like it's not kindness, yeah, yeah.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_02: And this is I think what um you know to go back to to Rousseau's point about you know um man is is born free but it finds himself everywhere in chains, is that it's assuming that there's only one metric for sin.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_02: Ah, yep, yep and so if there's only one way of identifying sin, which is that it has to be violent, it has to be somehow aggressive, it has to be somehow um murderous in a in a kind of physic, like that's the thing that we're holding back.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_02: And say, no, human sin is way more complicated, and we have way more mechanisms within our sinful nature to hold all sorts of other sins in check with sin.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_02: And and it doesn't need to be kindness that's doing any of those things.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_02: It can be it can be cowardice, it can be um incompetence, right?
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_02: It can be just be being overwhelmed by the fear of life, you know.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_04: So I I was thinking about that with um the Good Samaritan.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_04: So in the Good Samaritan, there are there are multiple bad guys and there are multiple ways of being a bad guy in the story.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_04: You could be one of the robbers, beat up the guy and leave him for dead.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_04: That makes you a bad guy.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but you could be a priest or a Levite who look impeccable as they show up to the temple early on time to do their religious duty.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and yet in the telling of Jesus, like those are the guys who you really go away with thinking of the bad guys.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_04: Like we've forgotten about the muggers in that state.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_02: If everyone forgets who who's in this story?
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_04: And and in a world in which there are shocks and there are therefore needs, the only thing it takes for terrible things to happen is for good people to do nothing.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_04: And it turns out that those good people aren't so good.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_04: They're the priests and the Levite, and they walk on by.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_04: And that that has become a byword in in the morality of Jesus.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_04: That's a byword for evil.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_04: But it could look kind, and it, you know, and it could look like I didn't get more fuel this weekend.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_04: Well, well done.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_04: What have you positively done to lift up the broken and and those who are experiencing the shocks?
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_02: And and that uh issue that it's not gonna go viral.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_02: One person sitting smugly, yeah, feeling self-righteous, and looking down on other people who are squabbling over the fuel pump.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_02: That's not gonna go on a video.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_02: But the the whole the point with the the media um that we have is that it rewards things which look exciting when they're moving and there's loads of sound.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_02: And someone sitting self-righteously like a Pharisee, it doesn't it doesn't look good.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_02: We can't tell what's going on.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_02: And so that kind of sin is then underplayed, is sort of thought to be, well, that isn't couldn't couldn't be simple because it's dignified, it's responsible.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_02: And yet it could be the most, you know, toxic, you know, yes, um, attitude towards your fellow man that's possible.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_04: So the veneer is very thick, and in the West it's very Christian already, and it's not the state of nature.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_04: And and we've had some uh good comments here.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_04: Uh Amanda Kay says the veneer of polite society is kept in check by the invisible Christian morality the majority accept, even if they don't realize it.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_04: And it's fascinating in this book, Humankind, that all his examples are those who are heirs of the Christian revolution.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and it's the Christian revolution that makes kindness into a virtue in a way that it's just not.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_04: You know, the the martial virtues of Stoicism or Aristotle or Plato find kindness to be like a vice, not a virtue.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_04: The very fact that you're trying to look for kindness shows that you're you're looking for Christianity.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_04: Um and Matthew John Crittenden has said Tom Holland's Dominion book has had a profound impact on me recently.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_04: Great book, says Amanda Kay.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, indeed.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_04: Um, so show showing how the very the very lenses through which we view whether a society is good or not.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_04: You know, like how many Facebook posts say, you know, a society should be judged by the way it treats the least powerful?
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_04: You're like, okay, but like that's Jesus.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_04: Jesus taught you that.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_04: Um what seems obvious and natural and universal is is nothing of the sort.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_04: So there's that.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_04: So the the the veneer is incredibly thick and incredibly Christian.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_04: And what lies underneath is not just the seething rage of the sinner, but it's also the seething rage of the pious and the Pharisee.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_04: Um and like Matthew, Matthew 5 really got me thinking the other day.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_04: Um, you know, Jesus says, You have heard that it was said, love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but I tell you, love your I tell you, love your enemies.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_04: Now, obviously, Leviticus said, love your neighbor.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_04: The Bible didn't say hate your enemies.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_04: But it had become such a saying among a community that was incredibly devoted to the good law, love your neighbor, yeah.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_04: That had you add the good law to our rotten human flesh, and what you get is love your neighbor and hate your enemy.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_04: You know, and it cannot be otherwise.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_04: And so law says love your neighbor, flesh says hate your enemy, the gospel of Jesus says love your enemy, yeah, and that's supernatural.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_04: That's like that's where's that from?
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_04: And of course, this is what heaven does, you know, heaven loves its enemy, Christ loves us, and then brings us into this so that the state of nature is um is wicked, but it's not it's not war on war all the time because there's in a war you pull together and you love your neighbor and you hate the other guy, and you know you cooperate in order to compete.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_04: Um and so, yeah, so we've got we've got to get more Christian, not only about the veneer, we've got to get more Christian about what it is that lies under underneath it and what the problem really is.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I think.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um I'm you're talking about the um the the soaking in the Christian message in the the Christian revolution, the Jesus Revolution over the centuries has this great impact.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_02: One thing I was reading recently was I don't know if you um know, have you ever heard of C.S.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_02: Lewis?
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_02: Right, Christian writer in the middle of the 20th century.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_04: He wrote some of those Nani movies.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_04: I hope he makes another one.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they weren't great, the movies, um, but I I think there are some books as well.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_02: But anyway, so he was writing about another Christian guy named, oh, I think Catholic guy named uh J.R.R.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_02: Tolkien, who had some films as well.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_02: And um, this is what Lewis says about uh Lord of the Rings.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_02: He says, um, almost a central theme of the book, the first book, Fellowship of the Ring, is the contrast between the hobbits or the Shire and the appalling destiny to which some of them are called.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_02: The terrifying discovery that the humdrum happiness of the Shire, which they'd taken for granted as something normal, is in reality a sort of local and temporary accident, that its existence depends on being protected by powers which hobbits dare not imagine, that any hobbit may find himself forced out of the Shire and caught up into that high conflict.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_02: More strangely still, the event of that conflict between the strongest things may come to depend on him who is almost the weakest.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_02: So I think what he's saying is that the hobbit isn't the anomaly the the shire is the anomaly.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_02: If you think of all the all the areas that you can go to in Middle Earth, the shire's the weird one where they you know where smoking is a pastime and where you know you just sit around and you live this pleasant life.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_02: And there is something about Western civilization taking for granted its its compassion and its peace and its kindness and its concern for the vulnerable where we just assume oh that's the the normal.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's normal.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_02: It's like really isn't.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_02: And so anyone who's coming up with those viewpoints is not to be you know shown as wow, look at this.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_02: This is this is humanity.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_02: It's like no no no no no.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, this is a particular type of human being that has been has been soaked in a message which is transformative.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, yeah, and and it's it has to be the supernatural love your enemies kind of grace that creates the humanity that we have come to see as normal, natural, universal, and obvious.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_04: And it's none of those things, and it's always got to be the supernatural thing.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_04: You know, the natural thing is love your enemy, hate your love your neighbor, hate your enemy.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_04: The supernatural thing is is not to do tit for tat, but to go way above and beyond.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_04: And that is the generosity that's been shown to us in Christ.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and on that theme of generosity, I think another another thing that the veneer theory taps into is the idea of scarcity.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_04: The idea that at any moment this thin line of civilization will break and and we're absolutely screwed.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_04: Um what what do we say to that?
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_02: I say we don't live in that world.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_02: We don't actually live in a world of scarcity and and limited resources.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_02: The the reason we think we live in a world of limited resources is because we are desperate to live a particular kind of life which uh focuses on a particular set of things that we all want at a particular point in time.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_02: And so the I think what what a a proper view of the cosmos does, what a proper view of God's creation does, is to say this is a world bursting with abundance.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_02: It's a world full of stuff that keeps on producing over and over and over and over again.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_02: And yet we've we've convinced ourselves because we want to live it in a very particular way, yes, at the same time, that these things are all gonna run out.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_04: Which is so ironic, because never have we had more, you know, never have we had more stuff.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, moving house, you know, you you've now you you come to realize like how much stuff you've accumulated, and yet never have we had uh a more limited vision for the abundance of nature and that sort of thing.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_04: And and I think it is because we're we are so divorced from where that stuff comes from.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_04: We're so divorced from where our food comes from.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_04: Our food comes in packages, like little plastic packages.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_04: That the our food comes in tins, right?
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_04: Like, and no, I mean, harvest.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, we are we are you know in the middle of harvest festivals, and we are remembering how magical reality actually is.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_04: You know, you you you scatter these tiny little things into dirt, it rains a bit, yeah, and a few months later, lunch.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_04: It's like this is this is what a magical world we live in.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and actually our our sort of technological societies have gone done such a good job of delivering stuff to us, yeah, but they've actually shrunk our vision for the kind of world we that we live in.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_04: How how is it that we're able to live in such abundance and have such a scarcity mindset?
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_04: It's kind of weird.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_04: Sometimes I do a a thing, um I've got an analogy when I preach and I and I say, okay, you're on a cruise liner in the Mediterranean, no, let's let's let's put it the Caribbean, okay?
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_04: And the the uh the ship goes down and you've managed to find your way to uh a lifeboat, and uh on the way you manage to get into your cabin and you've got a bag, and into the rucksack you put some supplies and you've got some bottled water, some tinned meat, spam, that kind of thing, you know, biscuits.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_04: Put it into the rucksack.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_02: What do you take on a cruise in the caribbean?
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_02: Lens taking spam, just so you just can't get the spam.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_02: Spam and dry biscuits.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sure they come in there, don't they?
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_04: And so you get onto the lifeboats, and the ship goes down, you're in the lifeboat, bobbing up and down, a night and a day in the open water, and then you spot in the distance, there is um an island.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_04: You think salvation, and you start paddling towards it, and as it gets closer and closer, you realize actually it's it's more like a a rock in the sea, you know, just bare, there's nothing there.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_04: And your your neighbor next to you just starts going, gee, I'm thirsty.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_03: What do you do in that situation?
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_04: That's scenario A.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_04: Scenario B, same thing, ship goes down, you you know, get your rucksack, maybe some spam, maybe some tin, you know, tins and biscuits and and bottled water, you get into the lifeboat, ship sinks, you bob open, you know, in the open sea, a night and a day, yeah.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_04: You see an island in the distance, and you get towards it, it's this island paradise.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_04: The trees are hanging heavy with fruit, you see a uh uh gushing waterfall in the distance, and your neighbor says, gee, I'm thirsty.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_04: What do you do in scenario B?
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_04: And the interesting thing is in scenario B, is it that your moral fibre is of a higher quality at that stage?
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_04: Like it's not, you could be the most selfish, you could be Jeffrey Dahmer, you could be like the most selfish so-and-so in the whole world, and you're still busting open the spam and saying spam for everybody in scenario B.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_04: And what it's not it's gonna be.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_04: I'm on a different life, by the way.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_02: I don't uh I'd probably even turn down the spam at that point.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_04: Nate's used to a better class of uh of emergency food.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_04: But but and that and at that stage, it's nothing to do with human character at that point.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_02: No, yeah, and yeah, it what the thing that's compelling your generosity is the the knowledge that there is abundance but set before you so you can be much more general.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_04: Even if in the moment you don't yet have that abundance.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_04: And that's important to say because you don't get through the blitz by saying, uh, that there's there's probably more in the cupboard than I had imagined.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_04: Oh no, there's not more in the cupboard.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_04: Um and you might need to write out that scarcity under death and yet, even beyond that, there is an abundance beyond anything else.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_04: So, you know, you need you need that kind of vision.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_04: Um great chat going on.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_04: Um stoics are more concerned.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_04: This is from Keith Hayes, Stoics are more concerned with keeping themselves free from corruption, hence they are careful about the company they keep.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_04: I don't see an incompatibility.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_04: No, that's that's absolutely true.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_04: Um so keep yourself free from corruption will mean a kind of a love your neighbor thing, or although love doesn't play a massive part in in stoicism, but but friendship does, absolutely friendship does, and and that that kind of camaraderie is quite a quite a martial thing.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_04: Um but loving across boundaries is the is the difficult thing, the supernatural thing of of loving the unlovely.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_04: Um and this is what's interesting.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_04: So you mentioned C.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_04: S.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_04: Lewis.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_04: Um, is it in the abolition of man that he has that appendix where he goes he talks about the different religions in the world and how they all have a love your neighbor?
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_02: The Tao thing.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_02: The Tao.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_04: You know, the Tao is written into all of religion.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_04: And I think that's true, and there is a kind of a love your neighbor um aspect to every worldview and every every world philosophy.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_04: Um, it's just that take the Tao, and even if the Tao comes in Leviticus chapter 19, and even if it's the Lord God who sells you the Tao, marry the Tao with human flesh, and you end up with love your neighbor, hate your enemy.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_04: And what you still need is the Jesus thing.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_04: The Jesus thing of of supernatural love.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_04: Um Matthew John Crittenden, love your enemy is the hardest thing to accept.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_04: I can emphasize I can empathize, but love, it's a stretch.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_04: And I guess that is the point.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_02: I can't even empathize.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm really struggled with that one.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_02: But um You're not an empath?
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_02: Not really, no.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_02: We've got a one's got eight percent on an empathy test.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_02: So eight percent of Yeah, it runs out pretty quick.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_02: But no, I think but that's right, and and that that question of of actual you know, love.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_02: How do you actually put that into practice is much more, you know.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_02: I've I think it was Boston who said love is more than a feeling.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, and I think we um yeah, there's in in the in what does love do in a petrol crisis?
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, you know, um love is phoning people up, offering them lifts.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, right.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_02: And a free bag of petrol.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_02: Baggies.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_04: You know 10 grams.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_04: Amanda Kay says, not getting fuel over the weekend.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_04: Little deaths to self like that, love your enemy.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_04: And remind me of a quote from a musician, Stran Coleman, and his quote is our many deaths each day are just as much our resurrections, invoking Christ at every turn, quietly overturning the world.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I like that.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_02: That's a good uh summary of the book of Acts, isn't it?
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_02: Quietly overturning the world.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_04: Through supernatural Yeah, yeah.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_04: So like the early church grew through the supernatural.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_04: And part of that was a miracle.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_04: And part of that was opposing the way of nature.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_04: Like going above and beyond the way of nature, the way of tithat.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_04: Um you know, I mean th the flesh is absolutely survival of the fittest, and therefore sacrifice of the weakest.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_04: Um but then Christ comes as the fittest to be sacrificed so that the weakest can survive, and so he pioneers the way of the spirit.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_04: And that that's the most supernatural thing you can do.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, maybe the most supernatural thing you can do is is you know not fill up on the weekend and give your neighbor a lift instead.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_03: Who knows?
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_02: I don't quite know how this applies to Facebook being down if those um they are called servers, though, aren't they?
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_02: The servers go down.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_04: Yes before they come back up again to bring life to the world.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_02: That's it.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_02: And then everyone was getting all their messages joyfully.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I think the last word should definitely go to uh Matthew John Crittenden.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_04: What's love but a second hand emotion?
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_02: Sorry, second hand.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_04: You don't know Tina Turner.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_02: What?
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_02: No, I know the song.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_03: What's love?
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_03: I thought it's second hand emotion.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_02: Is it second hand in motion?
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_02: No, like two hands.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, we're seeing this live.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_04: That's what I love about live.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_04: Nate night is coming to see.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_02: That's always how I'd always heard the song what's love but a second hand in motion, like on a clock.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_02: A second hand.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_02: Second hand.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_04: No, you're right.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_04: Is that an always?
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_04: No, it's it's definitely so he means it's a second hand emotion.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_02: You know, Kimi Hendrix once sang a song where he said, excuse me while I kiss the sky.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_04: But Frank Zappa sang it as Kiss This Guy.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_04: Kiss this guy.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_04: But it's yeah.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_02: But I've literally never known that it was secondhand as in like you go to a charity shop and you're well a a mutual friend of ours, I need to go and re listen to T.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_02: D.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_02: Turner.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_02: That's my application.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_04: This is what's great about karaoke.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_04: Isn't karaoke brilliant because it's the first time you actually understand what the lyrics of these songs are.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_04: But um a mutual friend of ours, Leon Sim, um, used to always think that every time you go away, you take a piece of meat with you.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_04: And he couldn't understand.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_04: Must mean spam.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_04: He was taking the spam with him.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_02: Well, every time you go, you've got to take some spam and the weather with you as well.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_04: I think that's about it.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_04: Um for the speakeasy.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_04: How do you guys like the speakeasy?
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_04: Um, we are hoping to go live in the evenings um in future weeks, uh, hopefully next Monday.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_04: Um, give you more of an evening feel.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_04: Matthew, it might be a bit late for you.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_04: It's midnight uh here for you in Queensland.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_04: Sorry about that.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_04: But you can always do it on the catch-up.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_04: I hope you've uh liked the video and subscribed, tap the bell, and uh you can get more of our stuff on YouTube.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_02: And if you would like to support Speak Life, then feel free to go to the website which is speaklife.org.uk slash give.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_04: Uh lots of different ways that you can give tax efficiently and monthly one-off gifts.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, we really do uh survive on the generosity of others.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there's all sorts that you could be helping us to do, which I think we probably want to repaint these walls.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so maybe we could buy us a pot of paint.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_02: Send paint.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_02: That'd be great.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_02: Send, if not petrol, paint.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_02: We could burn it.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_02: Or the paint crisis next week.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_04: Uh Nate, it has been a pleasure as always.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_04: It's always a pleasure to chat with you.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and uh we'll see you again on the speakeasy.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_04: Bye.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_04: Take care, bye.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there we go.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_00: Really hope you enjoyed this episode of the Speakeasy, as we're now calling it.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_00: And just a reminder to stay tuned for future episodes, they will be going out live on our YouTube channel.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_00: Go to youtube.com forward slash speaklifemedia, and you'll be able to tune in and even add live comments which uh we will engage with.
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening, and I will catch you next time.