Latest / Bro-ing Pains / What Do You Actually Believe? | God, Religion & the Unknown

Transcript

What Do You Actually Believe? | God, Religion & the Unknown · Bro-ing Pains

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_03: What's up world?
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome to Browing Pains, where we have the conversations that live somewhere between your therapist's office and the group chat.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Chad, a licensed marriage and family therapist, but my friends like to call me Papa Chad.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm Carlos, theater kid turned self-proclaimed corporate puppy.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: And a quick reminder: this podcast is not a substitute for professional mental health care.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: If you're struggling or know someone who is, please reach out to a licensed mental health professional in your area.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_03: What's up, world?
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_03: Alright, sorry.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_03: I wanted to start with give me the first thing that comes to your mind.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_03: Do you believe in God?
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh no.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's not that I don't believe, it's that I'm more comfortable saying I don't know.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_03: A lot to unpack there, which we will.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: What about you, King?
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_03: Not King.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_03: It's complicated, like my relationship status.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: Toggle that to it's complicated.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: I like that.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot to unpack there, too.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_03: I I will say that yes and no.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: Way to way to hedge your bets there, huh?
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_03: So Chad and I started in similar places.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_03: We were both influenced by a framework for understanding God, morality, and what happens after we die.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_03: All before we could decide for ourselves.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_03: And now, neither one of us identifies with a religion, but we also didn't end up in exactly the same place.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: And that's really what we want to talk about today.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: Not just whether religion is good or bad, or whether God is real or not, because I don't think either of us are gonna solve that shit on this podcast.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: But what we're more interested in is what happens to your identity when the beliefs you inherited stop fitting you.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: Religion can tell you what to believe, what makes a good person, what you're supposed to value, why you're here, and when you start questioning those answers, you might have to start questioning parts of yourself too.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_03: So maybe the question isn't just what do you believe?
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe it's who do you become when the beliefs that helped make you who you are no longer fit.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_03: And with that, we present to you vignette number 13, borrowed beliefs.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: His family went to church every Sunday, his parents prayed before dinner, he went to youth group, attended church camps, and knew most of the stories from the Bible.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody ever really asked him what he believed.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: It was just part of who he was.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: Then he went to college.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: He stopped going to church pretty quickly.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: At first it was because he was busy, then it was because his friends didn't go.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: Eventually he realized it had been years since he thought much about God at all.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: And honestly, he wasn't sure he missed it.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: He also wasn't sure he'd actually stopped believing.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: At twenty nine, Michael had a wife, a young daughter, and a pretty comfortable life.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: Then his wife suggested they start looking for a church to attend as a family.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: Something about the idea bothered him.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: Not because he didn't want his daughter to have faith, he just didn't know what he would be teaching her.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: He started thinking about the things he'd been taught growing up.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: Did he actually believe them?
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: Did he disagree with some of them?
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: Were there parts of his faith that still mattered deeply to him?
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: And how much of what he believed was actually his?
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: One Sunday he found himself sitting in the back of a church while his daughter sat beside him.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: The pastor was talking about faith, doubt, and the questions people carry with them.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: Michael looked down at his daughter and realized something.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: For most of his life, he'd either been practicing the faith he'd inherited or avoiding it altogether.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: He never really stopped to ask himself what he believed, and maybe that was the part that scared him the most.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: Because figuring out what he believed meant admitting that some of the answers he'd inherited might no longer be his, and some of them might still be.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: For the first time, Michael realized that developing a spiritual identity might mean doing something he'd never really done before, choosing what to carry forward, what to question, and what to let go of.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_03: Should we get into our experiences with religion?
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_03: I want to hear when was like the first time that you had this concept of like God or or religion or whatever.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: I was told the story about what happened with me and my brother when in regards to religion, because my dad was raised heavily Catholic, you know, was kind of not really buying into the whole religion thing from the beginning.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: Definitely like the black sheep of the family when it comes to that aspect of um his identity.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, he was young, he had two young kids.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: I guess you're I guess you're supposed to baptize them.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: So the story goes we go to church and we talk to this the priest, right?
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's called a priest, right?
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: So go to the priest and at St.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: Bernard's church and Tracy, and uh yeah, they were like, Okay, yeah, we'll you know, we'll baptize your children, or are you both baptized?
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: And my mom was not.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: And they were like, Well, we can't baptize your children until the mom is.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: And the the story goes, my dad, you know, kind of flipped out a little bit and kind of walked out.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: And for a couple years, we would go to church like on Easter morning or like Christmas Eve.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: For the holidays, not like every single year, not like it wasn't a requirement, but like every once in a while, you know, my dad decided that we were gonna go do that.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: But, you know, so my experience to religion was kind of all on my own.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, my dad never pushed it, my family never pushed it, other than, you know, family obligations of going every once in a while to these church things.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: When I was in high school, you know, growing up through sports, all the friends that I thought were like the most respectable, like nice men, uh, young boys that I kind of like liked and looked up to and thought, you know, a lot of were all Christian.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, you know, what is this Christian thing?
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: And then of course they do a great job of saying that, oh, you should you should you should come to youth group, you know, and there's free food.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, oh yeah, I don't know.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh let's eat some pizza.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's great.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_03: That's how they get you.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: That's how they get you, dude.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: And uh yeah, that you had remember the youth pastors were cool, and I just was kind of exposed, and I kind of I kind of liked it, but I was like, I don't really understand.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like, this all sounds like a bunch of BS.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I also tried again in college on our campus, there was like a Christian fellowship, you know, like club, and I would go and I I think I was looking for something to like grasp onto because I had, you know, such low self-esteem and like wanting to feel like a sense of relief and like I guess peace and solace and being able to like latch on to a religion.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I could just never get over the hump.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: And for me, the hump was none of this feels real, and I don't understand why we're all pretending it's just factual because it's written in the written in this book.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there was like a final moment for me where I'm like, okay, I'm officially done with this.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: The final straw was I was sitting in the university center at my college, and this guy was really trying to do, you know, the Lord's work and was like, I will meet with you Bible study every single week.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: And this is all like, you know, for free, just out of his own time.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I remember sitting down and I remember him saying, you know, it's really simple.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: Your path to heaven, you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, and they forgive you for your sins or something.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: There's like two things or something.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, okay, so if I didn't do that, I asked this question, and there was a missile that like hit this university and we died.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, that means I'm not, I'm not going through the pearly gates.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: And he was like, unfortunately, no.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, okay, same scenario, but like a village in Africa, and they never were exposed to the Bible, never even heard of the Bible, and the their village blows up.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, never even had the chance to understand what this thing called God and Jesus Christ is.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: What happens to them?
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: And he goes, Unfortunately, they they don't they know what to go either.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_03: He said, They're fucked.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, okay, well, I'm done then.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, so basically it's just a privileged opportunity if you were able to hear the good word.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, that just that just feels so wrong in my bones.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's not even funny.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm just like that, I cannot buy into something that is only going to be beneficial for you because of your privileged location status.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: Can't do it.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: Can't do it.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: So then I was like, then that was like final straw, I'm done.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_03: Similar to you, I was always just very curious and always questioned everything.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_03: And and and like so my my parents are both Catholic.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_03: We would go to church during holidays and stuff like that.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_03: It was it just from the very beginning, I felt kind of just like for appearances, like just trying trying trying to keep up this appearance of like, oh, we're a Catholic, yeah, God-fearing family or whatever.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_03: My mom signed me up for for these first communion classes, and I went through with it or whatever.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_03: That was really like the first time that I sat down and like learned about Catholicism and like God and all these things.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_03: And I think I enjoyed it from like a um a point of like finding meaning in all of this, you know what I mean?
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_03: Like I think that like I think as humans we're always trying to find meaning in things and and and like the the pattern recognition of it all.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_03: And and so I think that like I appreciated, and also just like kind of like the the storytelling aspect of it.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_03: I found it entertaining, right?
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_03: But on the flip side of that, it's like, is any of it really real?
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_03: Is there actual truth to any of it?
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_03: And and I think that like from a very early age, there were things that just didn't add up to me.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_03: And and like I think for one, it was me not fully feeling comfortable because of my sexuality and and like feeling feeling like I was never gonna be accepted, feeling like I was always having to like hide, you know, my sexuality and and and like hide who I am.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_03: One of the biggest things was like it felt like there was a lot of hypocrisy in the church.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I'm not I'm not alone in feeling that, but I think that like that was one of the biggest things that like turned me off from religion because it's like, okay, so you say that like if you follow all of these in directions or whatever, like then you'll be saved and you'll reach the pearly gates.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_03: But this bitch over here is like breaking all of fucking rules and then still gets to like like going to confessions and like and then and you'll be absolved of your sins, at least in the Catholic, uh, Catholic religion.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_03: There's so much like criticism of the Catholic uh church, especially, right?
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_03: Like with the priests doing whatever the fuck they want to do and getting away with it, right?
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_03: Like, let's start fucking there.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to dive into it, spotlight the movie will tell you everything you need to know, okay?
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_03: It's it's it's such a fascinating movie, but also like based on true events, like it actually fucking happened and continues to happen.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_03: That is what I would say, like, it was like the breaking point for me.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_03: It was probably around the time that my cousin died.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_03: That moment, that incident made me just question everything, right?
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_03: Like religion being one of those, right?
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_03: And and I think like truthfully, my dad's infidelity.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_03: There's all of these negative things that happen, or these like these all these like negative behaviors that people do, yeah, and life still goes on, like, they're not gonna burn in hell for that, right?
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_03: Like it's honestly, I think that if hell did exist, like we're fucking living in it.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_03: I think we're already there.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_03: If if it does exist, and I don't I don't think it does.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: Hell on Earth.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: This place fucking sucks.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to jump in because I'm also reading this book right now called Sapiens.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: One of the things that the book talks about is Homo sapiens' ability to be able to create stories, to be able to survive and control people, but also to survive.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, if if we wanted to survive, we had to be able to talk to each other about well, what's you know, what's over that hill?
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know, is there, you know, a clan of lions that is gonna, you know, eat us or something and oh, stay upstream because then they won't be able to get you or whatever it is, right?
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: And that these things started to evolve over time.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: And essentially how we've been able to form societies is through this concept of a story.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what is a city?
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: A city is just like a made-up thing that we made up.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: What is God?
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's it's just like this thing that we made up.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: Was there this person named Jesus that walked this earth for 33 years?
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, he was real.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: We do know that.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so there's a part of me that like sees the good in spiritual identity and religion because for me, it's the same reason why I was attracted to in the first place.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's because of connection and my ability to feel connected to other humans.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, we do lack that a lot in our society, and that's something that like, you know, doesn't go past me.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: What's what's so difficult is to wrap my head around how much do I buy into the stories that are told to me so that I can feel good and connected.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: Another one is like um I'm looking at the the dinner table that's set up for lunch, and it's like, you know, if you know my mother-in-law, everything's everything's perfect and nice and amazing, and she's amazing cook, and the plates are set, the forks on the left, the knife's on the right, the drinks on the right, everything is set for table manners.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, why is the table set like that?
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: Who decided that this was the formality of that?
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: We have to have some form of framework.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: But I just it to me it's too constricting because then who gets to decide what framework is prevalent?
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: And historically it's been white men in power.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: And they get to decide and have decided what is correct and what is not.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: That to me is so hard to grapple with.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_03: The way that I interpret all of these like different religions and and things, the ones that were like were were were started and created by white men are the ones that are like the most fucking controlling and the more the most like abusive.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_03: So talking about like the the positives or or like what people go to religion for, right?
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_03: Which is like finding community, uh, having ritual, like having some some some sort of comfort and meaning when it comes to the universe, right, and the world.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_03: I think my mind just goes to like, can we have that without having this organized religion that is going to have negative like effects on on who you are as a person?
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_03: Just gonna try to like control you or dictate how you should be living your life.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'm on the same page as you with that.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: But the argument that I hear back is, well, we have to have some sort of order, Carlos.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: We have to have some sort of rules and expectations of how we're supposed to live.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, it'll just be anarchy.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, okay, I get that, but who gets to decide the rules?
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: But then is there too many cooks in the kitchen at the end of the day?
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: Do we just need to have someone make a decision about whether you're allowed to rob people and in this society?
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: Is that gonna be a law that's written and people are punished because of that?
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: Because someone said it was not okay.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, who who gets to decide?
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: And these are some of the things that like I find so hard just as a human to accept and to understand like where are my beliefs?
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just going through the world, you know, because I was trained with the narratives and the stories that were told to me.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, for me personally, it's been relatively flawless because a lot of the systems and institutions work really great for me.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: You don't say, I just, you know, I mean, I just kind of waltz through, you know, just kind of I'm just I'm just people bend at the knee for you.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, things just kind of work out for me, you know?
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: Must be fucking nice, baby.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm also like, you know, how can we be more accepting of other people being able to have a seat at the table?
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: But then how much does that convolute our ability to actually get shit done as a society?
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, I I don't I don't know the answers to that balance.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: And it it makes me feel like I don't even want to be a part of the conversation.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just like, I just I just bow out of the conversation at that point sometimes because I'm and I just get too overwhelmed.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: Do you feel like that too?
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: Where like Absolutely.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, the there's a there's a whole like philosophically, there's so much that we can like dive into, right?
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_03: I do want to switch gears to what is it that we believe now?
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_03: And and like, and especially for you, are you do you consider yourself agnostic, atheist?
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_03: Like, where where do you fall agnostic?
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: I think is the right term because for me, I am more comfortable.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I I do have to give a shout-out to my brother on this one.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: Shout out, Keith.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: Shout out K Dog.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: No, that wasn't his nickname, it was Big Red.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, he's you know, scientists, very smart and intelligent and willing to push the boundaries when it comes to what is right and wrong.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: Always has been like this with religion, just being very comfortable with saying we don't know.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm not gonna say that I know either way.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: And atheists are saying, no, like there is no God.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like they're saying my my understanding of an atheist is that, but agnostic people are more willing to be comfortable in the unknown.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I would say for for the longest time, and still very much so sometimes on a day-to-day basis for me, I am not comfortable with that unknown.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: I want some certainty, and but I've just given up on trying to find the certainty within this topic of life because I'm like, it's just too much, I can't do it.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, he he's always been the one that has been in my ear about hey, we just need to be more comfortable with not knowing.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I've finally come around to it.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_03: So what what is it that you believe happens to us after after we die?
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: As I've talked about on the mortality episode, right?
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's like I I really don't know.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm I'm definitely scared of that, you know, the the lack of consciousness.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if we just go into a void.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I would love to think that our our living energy gets repurposed in the world, right?
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: If you're using this theory of energy, energy can never be created nor destroyed, right?
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: But then there is no certainty in that, right?
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like if I get buried underneath a tree, do I become the tree?
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I I don't know.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: Like, um So to me it's just it's just really scary because of the the fear of the lack of consciousness.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_03: It sounds like you've gotten to a pretty good place of of like being comfortable with the unknown.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: Comfortable with the unknown on this topic, not so much.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it it's still really hard for me.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: I uh yeah, I'll be honest.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_03: I I wish I was more at peace with it, but I hear you on on like just not feeling comfortable or not feeling okay with just the unknown and the uncertainty of it all.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_03: I think that there are so many different uh religions for one and different belief systems.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_03: And so I feel like why can't we make our own?
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_03: Or like why why can't we gather all these different sort of like beliefs or value systems or whatever from different religions and just fucking follow that for ourselves?
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not saying start a cult.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: I was literally gonna say, are you it sounds like you're trying to start a cult?
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_03: If you want to call it a cult of one, then hey, why not?
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_03: A cult of one.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_03: As long as you're not trying to convert people and you're offering like free pizza.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_03: Free pizza for people to come join you, you know what I mean?
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I don't see any harm in that.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_03: I genuinely know.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: Drinking Kool-Aid for a party of one, okay?
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_03: I I definitely would say that I'm spiritual.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_03: I still do believe in God.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_03: So this is where like that yes and no from earlier comes in.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_03: I still do believe in the idea of a larger entity.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_03: I would say that I use God and universe pretty interchangeably.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_03: Um I was gonna ask you earlier, like, do you do you pray?
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_03: I think that prayer means different things for different people.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that like you can pray, you can you can find rituals for yourself that like work for you.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that that's also like that can be considered uh praying, you know what I mean, or or worshiping or whatever, and and and you know, finding your own rituals.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_03: I think I do tend to lean more on the the like woo-woo spiritual side, you know what I mean.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_03: I'm I'm also very much a believer in that we're all energy.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_03: I was also gonna bring that up too, of like from like a scientific uh standpoint and and like you know, you could.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_03: Bring in like the like quantum mechanics, you know what I mean?
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_03: Like the the double slit experiment.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: Dude, so cool.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: We need to give Keith on the podcast to explain it.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's what we need to do.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_03: So I think that like my mind is always trying to make sense and find meaning in different things.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_03: And so I think that like I'm again, I'm always gonna question everything also.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_03: So like I think finding finding some meaning or finding like uh some validity with with like science and things, but things that are that can be proven, but the fact that there are some things within science that can't be proven.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it can't be proven yet.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: There were a lot of things that we couldn't prove for a long time, and we and we did recently.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna say, like, you brought up anarchy earlier.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_03: Like, why why not?
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_03: Why not anarchy?
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_03: You know, like maybe that's what we fucking need.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: If we have anarchy, though, it's like it's about the going back to the Sapiens book, it's about the survival of the human race, right?
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like, at the end of the day, like, are we going to try to maintain our existence as a species on this earth?
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: That's where I I get hung up is like, how do we get to decide what we're supposed to and not supposed to do and who has the power to do that?
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like, anarchy sounds really good at first, but like, is it gonna sound good when it's you know, fucking walking dead and it's like fucking people are you know can do whatever the fuck they want?
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: Or that one that one movie with like that's called uh the purge.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: The purge?
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I haven't seen it, but that's fucking scary to be it.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, there there is so much post-apocalyptic type content out there.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_03: So to push back on on that a little bit, I think that like what we're experiencing right now feels a lot like anarchy.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_03: Perfect example.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, your wife uh was going down a rabbit hole with like AI and you know, and all the like that whistleblower that um that said that like anthropic, yeah.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: AI could kill the human race or whatever, and and he said by the end of the decade, and it my wife read that wrong, saying 10 years.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, no, no, no, no, no.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: By the end of this decade, yeah.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_03: Which is four years away.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_03: Or three?
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_01: Three, three and then some change.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_03: Jesus fucking Christ.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_03: I think like that's the perfect example, right?
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_03: Like, like that could very well lead to fucking anarchy.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: It totally could.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's happened before in the course of the history of our species, of like other events that have happened that has changed the course of human history.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the invention of nuclear weapons, you know, all kinds of things that have completely changed the way that we survive.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: And this is potentially yet another one.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_03: We might have talked about this, I don't know if it was on the podcast, but uh the fourth turning, the book.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_03: No, what's that?
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_03: Mm-mm.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_03: The the fourth turning, it's a book that breaks down, like if you zoom out and you look at history, at like the history of the world, it works in like four different like turnings or something, something like that.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_03: And and so like and the the then the cycle like starts over again.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_03: And and so like again, I don't know, I don't know enough about it to like explain it perfectly, but um basically what what the like proponents of the book say is that we're currently in the fourth one, and so the and so like the the world, yeah, or the cycle at least is gonna restart.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_03: And like, and and apparently like millennials are the ones that are are like the heroes, because then there's also they like they they lay out like different archetypes.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: Of course.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: Nice it's perfect perfectly said, nice that's my big like thing when it comes to this episode is I was kind of scared to even talk about it.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: And not because I don't want to talk about you know my my religious transition and stuff, but like deep down, like it's just so overwhelming to me that I don't I don't even want to talk about it.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't I want to put my head in the sand and I don't I want to pretend it doesn't exist and just come talk to me on my deathbed and hopefully everything works out.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and like to me that I mean that was very avoidant of me, you know, taking a chapter out of your book here.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_03: Um and wow, calling me out, bitch.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: But I just I don't know.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_01: It it's I think my desire for control and certainty is just uh is making it really hard for me to even have these conversations.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_03: It's fascinating that you you're feeling very avoidant about this topic when that goes against everything that you fucking believe in, I think, and like in in like talk uh communication and and talking things through, you know what I mean?
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: Among many, this is the one flaw that I have um is is with this topic, and it's been like that for a long time.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's been like that for a long time.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: I just yeah, I have to be honest.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh I have a lot of work to do in this topic for sure.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_03: The whole purpose of this episode was not to have some sort of answer or some like big takeaway, but I think it's like join us as we navigate this messiness that is organized religion and spirituality.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: We don't talk about this enough.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like, even people who are religious, right, they they don't feel like they can talk about their identity as someone who's you know very faith-driven because there are so many things like the movie spotlight and all these things that have made those kind of things taboo.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I think on both both sides, on all sides of the spectrum when it comes to people's religious and spiritual identity, it's something that people are afraid to talk about because they're worried about being shunned or called stupid, or you know, you like psychic stuff, or you're an astrology person, like you're you don't want to get made fun of, and so you're not gonna bring it up.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_03: And it's just I would say that like my broing pain when it comes to this episode is there's so much sort of hesitation and pushback against um like the the spirituality side when it comes to I feel like men especially like push back on that that I that idea of spirituality and even like astrology.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_03: Although I I don't I don't believe in it 100%.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_03: Again, I like to question everything, but I do I think it's entertaining to it's fascinating.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: I love it, yeah.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_03: To look into to it to astrology and things like that.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that there's I think it it can come from some sort of truth, and also just like helps to again find some sort of meaning in this fucking chaos.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_03: That would be my biggest growing pain of like one, as as men feel comfortable to explore different things like spirituality and and astrology and things like that, but also like being open to to talking about it, you know what I mean, and and and being curious.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, for me, it it's a part of being a healthy person, is our connection to our spiritual selves is is a very human experience.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: When I was in college, we had this uh wellness director that was part of the Health and Wellness Center, and she was trying to promote these things, like the eight dimensions of wellness, and they were like physical wellness, financial wellness, um, you know, all these different things.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: And one of them was spiritual wellness.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: And every time I saw it, I was like, nah, I don't really pay attention to that.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's not really my thing.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's a miss, there's there's a missing opportunity there, right?
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_01: Is like feeling connected as a human through your spirituality in whatever way you want to define it, is a part of health.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: And when I'm sitting here saying I'd rather put my head in the sand, and I'm hopefully not going to continue to do that, but probably will, but need to need to be challenged and pushed to do to not, um, it's a miss.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's a miss.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I don't think I'm alone in that.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so yeah, I think the boring pain for me is that if that's you, you know, and you want to put your head in the sand too and not think about these things, it's maybe there's a lot of other people in your life that are feeling the same way, and maybe you guys should talk about Chad.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_03: I think you should.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_03: I'll end that with whenever I check in with my friend, a few of them, but Camilla especially, like what will ask, like, how are you doing mentally, physically, spiritually?
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_03: We go down the list.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: Oh wow.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_03: If we are all just energy at the end of the day, that is the the core of who you are as like as a as a spiritual being, right?
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_03: Like that matters.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_03: And like how you're how you're feeling spiritually might be very different from how you're feeling physically, you know what I mean, and and emotionally or whatever, and all these things.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_03: So it matters.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_03: And I think we all need to pay a little more attention to it to that.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, for sure.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_03: All right, and so with that, we'll leave you with this closing question.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_03: If you stripped away every religious or spiritual label, how would you describe who you are and what you believe?
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for joining us again on this episode talking about spiritual and religious identity.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna continue the conversation next week where we talk about sexual identity and how you know our own experiences and I think the experiences of just being a human in this world and how you learn about what your what your relationship is to your sexual identity.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: So appreciate you joining us and looking forward to having the conversation.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks for hanging with us for another episode of Growing Pains.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_03: If this episode shifted your perspective at all, don't just keep it to yourself.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_03: Pass it on.
• 31:56
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• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: And if you got a story, question, or a hot take you want us to unpack, slide into our inbox at growing painspod at gmail.com.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_01: We'd love to hear from you.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_02: You man, bruh.