- 8 months ago
Stefan Molyneux explores Universally Preferable Behavior (UPB) and how it fits into moral philosophy, drawing contrasts between atheistic and theistic views. He responds to a listener's criticism about depending on UPB rather than divine commands for morality, maintaining that ethics need to be rational and consistent. He points to historical figures who were atheists and led stable lives to counter the idea that existence without God results in disorder. Molyneux breaks down moral rules, showing how contradictions weaken their standing. He critiques certain aspects of current Christian ethics, especially government-run welfare programs, and considers what that means for voluntary giving and ethical consistency. In the end, he supports UPB as a logical base for ethics that matches human thought and the world around us.
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LearningTranscript
00:00All right. Welcome to freedom.com slash donate to help out the show.
00:05We'd appreciate that. There's a fellow who sends me messages and lately his messages have been
00:11regarding UPB, universally preferable behavior, irrational proof of secular ethics, my proof of
00:17morality. And he says, UPB doesn't prove why things are immoral. Hume's guillotine God-based
00:23morality does. When people abandon God, they fail. Literally all these people got effed up in life,
00:29highly successful people exist across the entire belief spectrum, history, and the present are
00:33filled with extraordinary accomplished atheists, agnostics, non-believers, scientists like Marie
00:37Curie, Stephen Hawking, and Richard Feynman, philosophers and writers like Nietzsche,
00:41Sartre, and Camus, business and tech leaders like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, entertainers and
00:45thinkers like Ricky Gervais, Seth MacFarlane, and many more. All these people got effed up in life
00:49according to this guy. Morality is definitely God-based, not matter-based, and Christianity
00:53is the best of that philosophy. So, look, of course, I get it's a teeny tiny bit of an incoherent
01:00rant, but I appreciate the passion, like I really do. I really, really appreciate the passion that
01:07this gentleman has for these, you know, very, very important issues. And I'm going to do my best to
01:16sort of respond to this as a whole. Personally, I like to think, myself, that God would not make
01:25morality anti-rational. God gives us reason, and reason is an instinct and a very powerful instinct
01:33that we have. So, God gives us reason, and it would be kind of cruel for God to give us a rational
01:40universe, minds that are intensely tuned towards rationality, and then say that morality has nothing
01:48to do with rationality, right? That would be, because, you know, the purpose of life is to be
01:54good, to be moral, and at least the purpose of life in a Christian universe is to be moral,
02:00and it would make, it would be kind of cruel to give a rational universe and to give human beings
02:07a great instinct and automatic processing of rationality, right? Kids know when things don't
02:16make any sense, and they kind of give you that cockeyed funny look, a cockeyed funny, funny look
02:21and so on, right? And so, that would be kind of mean, right? And I think that certain sort of
02:31pathological elements of religion, where, you know, human beings have a sexual instinct, and then
02:37you say, well, sexual matters or behaviors are really bad and immoral, and all that comes from
02:44the body is bad, because, but to the girdle, to the gods, inherit below is all the fiends, that Satan
02:50runs the body and the world, and all of that, like that, that's just, I think that's kind of pathological,
02:56right? So, if God says, to be moral is the greatest thing, I'm going to put you in a rational universe,
03:01and give you a great instincts and automatic processing of rationality, and have that instinct and
03:06automatic process of rationality develop in a fairly autonomous way through your interaction
03:11with rational reality, oh, but the entire purpose of your life is the exact opposite of the universe
03:17that I've created, which is rational and objective, your instinct for reasoning, which I've placed
03:21within you, and that the entire purpose, that would be really crippling people, right? That would be
03:26really crippling people, and that would be like saying that the purpose of life is to hit a ball
03:35and then giving people epilepsy and blindness, right? That that would be kind of cruel, right? So,
03:40it has been my belief that God did not create a purpose for humanity that goes to the complete
03:48opposite of the universe that God created and the rational and cognitive faculties that God
03:55placed within us. So, to me, the only fulfillment of God as a moral creature, as a moral being,
04:04sorry, creatures, that's not the right word, it's not like you've got tentacles or something, right?
04:08And I, but the only way that, to me, God could be fulfilled as a moral entity would be to say that
04:19morality is as rational as the universe I created and as objective and rational as the logical faculties
04:29I gave you in your mind, right? The processing of rationality is automatic in humanity, right? So,
04:38if you say to a two-year-old, come here and go away at the same time, the two-year-old will be like,
04:44huh? It can't, right? That doesn't make any sense, right? If you say to a kid, I've given you an iPad
04:51and you give them only a box with an empty, like with emptiness in there and they would say,
04:56that's not an iPad. I'd say, no, the picture's right there, but that's not an iPad, that's just an
04:59image, that's not the thing itself, right? So, we're born and grow up into instinctive, instinctual
05:06rationality in a rational universe. So, of course, morality would have to be rational, otherwise it would
05:11just be a setup, like it would just be a way of tricking you to go to hell or something like that.
05:16So, that's sort of number one. So, when he says that UPB cannot prove that things are immoral,
05:24yes, it absolutely can. Not only can it, but it does. So, if you say, thou shalt steal, right? If you say,
05:35theft is a universally preferable behavior, then you are incorrect. And you are incorrect because
05:42if you say that theft is a universally preferable behavior, then theft ceases to exist as a category.
05:48If you say, everyone must want to steal and be stolen from, but if you want to be stolen from
05:55is not theft, then if you say, thou shalt steal, theft is universally preferable behavior,
06:00then theft ceases to exist as a category that is achievable, and therefore you have a logical
06:06contradiction. It is wrong. It is an anti-rational, impossible formulation to say, thou shalt steal.
06:15Thou shalt not steal is fine. If you say, thou shalt not steal, there is no logical contradiction
06:22in thou shalt not steal. There is an immediate. You don't need any empiricism, right? You simply need
06:29to look at the formulation of the argument to realize that it is immediately self-contradictory,
06:35like a square circle, like go north and south at the same time, like gases both expand and contract
06:40when heated, right? So, thou shalt steal is impossible to achieve. It is self-contradictory.
06:50It is wrong. A self-contradictory statement cannot be true or valid, right? If you say, all men are mortal,
06:57well, Socrates is a man, but Socrates is immortal, then you have a rational mismatch. You have a logical
07:03mismatch. It cannot possibly be true that all men are mortal, and Socrates is a man, and Socrates is
07:11immortal, right? It's the outer circle and the inner circle, right? Sort of the Venn diagram, right?
07:17The outer circle, so the outer circle is all men are mortal. The inner circle is that Socrates is a
07:24man, so Socrates is a small circle within the larger circle of all men are mortal, and then you say Socrates
07:28is immortal, then Socrates is both in the circle and out of the circle at the same time, when the two are
07:37oppositional. So, it's not, you can't be in two places at the same time, and you can't be both in the
07:42category of mortal and immortal at the same time. Anymore, if I were to say to you, I need you to
07:48deliver the iPad to Newark, New Jersey, and also keep it right here, you would say, no, I can't both
07:55deliver it to Newark, New Jersey, and keep it right here, assuming here is not, of course, Newark, New
08:00Jersey. So, yeah, you can't, you can't, you can't achieve it. I need you to go on a business trip
08:06to Vegas, and also be here at the same time. I need you to be in Vegas tomorrow, and here in Toronto
08:13tomorrow at the same time, you'd say, well, I can't be in Vegas and here, right? And Socrates
08:18cannot be both mortal and immortal at the same time, right? So, so it's not possible. Theft can
08:25never be universally preferable behavior, because it immediately cancels out its own category.
08:30Everybody needs to steal and be stolen from, everybody needs, everybody should want to steal and be
08:35stolen from. Well, you can't want to be stolen from, and therefore theft is destroyed as a category
08:42the moment you universalize it, so theft can never be universally preferable behavior, like it can
08:46never be. And it's not a matter of empiricism, it's not a matter of time, it's not a matter of
08:52preference, it is an immediate self-contradictory statement to say theft is universally preferable
08:59behavior, aka, thou shalt steal. Impossible can never ever be consistent or rational, right? It is a
09:08logical self-contradiction, it is absolutely impossible, it will never be achieved, it can
09:13never be achieved, there's no possibility zero percent whatsoever. It is as possible as getting
09:19into a cab in the suburbs and say, take me to the airport outside the city and take me downtown to the
09:27heart of the city at the same time, the cab driver will tell you that's impossible. And it's not just
09:32impossible now, or this afternoon, or tomorrow, or in Timbuktu, or in the Seychelles, it is impossible
09:41to go two opposite directions at the same time. Like having a theory that says matter attracts and repels
09:49us at the same time. It's not possible. So yes, that which is impossible cannot be the good or the goal, right? This is
10:00foundational as well. If the good has to be achievable, and not impossible. If I were to say, the good, the moral
10:09good, the only possibility for moral good is to live for three days without breathing or taking an oxygen in any way,
10:16then that would be impossible. Something cannot be the good, the goal, the ideal, and impossible as
10:25well. And so the good must be the possible. The good cannot be the impossible. To saying that the ideal or what
10:36people should do is that which it is impossible for them to do would be a logical contradiction. I'm sure we can
10:44agree with that, right? If you were to say to an employee or to, let's say, to a business manager
10:52that the only way he would be considered as successful in running the business is if he both
11:01won and lost, like he had a profit and a loss of a million dollars by the end of the quarter
11:08in the business. That he made a million dollars and lost a million dollars in the same context,
11:16in the same time frame. He would say, well, it's not possible. If I've made a million dollars,
11:21I have not lost a million dollars. If I have lost a million dollars, I have not made a million dollars.
11:26Therefore, it cannot be a good business practice or an ideal business practice or best business practice
11:32to both lose and gain money. And I'm just talking about simple math. I'm not talking about EBITDA or
11:39funky accounting things or money laundering. I'm just talking about the straight numbers. If you've
11:43made a million dollars, you haven't lost a million dollars. Net, right? If you've lost a million dollars,
11:49you haven't made a million dollars. So if you were to say to someone, good business practice,
11:53best business practice is to make and lose money in the same context. Or if you were to say to an employee
11:58that I wish you to both succeed and fail in this project, I need you to both complete this assignment
12:08and do the opposite of completing this assignment, right? If you were to say your success is to build
12:17this bridge and also to do the opposite of building this bridge, then you would be giving them an
12:24impossible task, right? Cannot be achieved. You cannot both build the bridge and do the opposite
12:29of building the bridge as well. Or if the goal is to repair, I'm sorry to labor at this point,
12:35but it's really, really important because this is just continual. It's been coming at me for almost
12:3820 years, right? So I'm just going to hammer this point until there's no nails sticking up. So I hope
12:43you'll forgive me for the repetition. Let's say there's a bridge that's falling apart.
12:47And you say to the engineer, your goal is to both repair the bridge and remove the bridge.
12:55I need you to repair it to full functioning order and also remove the bridge completely and destroy
13:02it completely. The engineer would say, I cannot both repair the bridge and return it to its proper
13:10functioning order and also destroy and remove the bridge. Because in one of those situations,
13:15the bridge is repaired and there, in another one of those situations, the bridge is removed and gone.
13:20The bridge cannot be both there and not there at the end of this project. You're going to have to
13:26choose one. Do you see what I mean? And if you were to say, I will give you $10 million in a bonus,
13:34if the bridge is both repaired and gone, right? The bridge is both there and repaired and also
13:39removed and destroyed. I will give you $10 million. That would be a way of saying to someone,
13:46I'm never giving you $10 million because to achieve that is impossible. So yes, absolutely UPB can tell
13:55you what is immoral. What is immoral is having it as an ideal, self-contradictory moral standards like
14:03thou shalt rape, thou shalt steal, thou shalt assault, thou shalt murder. That would be immoral to have those
14:08as an ideal. To have respect for persons and property, to refrain from initiating the use of
14:15force, is logically consistent. Thou shalt not steal is logically consistent. Thou shalt steal is
14:23logically self-contradictory. Therefore, it is wrong. Now, as far as people who are atheists,
14:29who are failures, well, that's funny in a way, because that's saying that the truth of falsehood
14:40of a belief system is driven by empirical evidence. So let's say, it's a bit cherry-picking,
14:48I get all of that, but let's say everyone who's an atheist or an agnostic, their life gets screwed up
14:54in some way. Let's just say that. I have no problem conceding everything, and then looking
15:00for a logical consistency. So the argument would be that everybody who's an atheist or an agnostic,
15:08their life gets screwed up, and therefore we will judge atheism and agnosticism by empirical evidence.
15:15Fine. Okay. So the truth or falsehood of a proposition, atheism, agnosticism, the truth
15:24or falsehood of a proposition is driven by empirical evidence. Fine. Where's the empirical evidence for
15:31God? Right? We're judging the truth or falsehood of an idea by empirical evidence. Let's say every
15:39single person who's an atheist or an agnostic is screwed up. Life gets effed up or whatever he said,
15:45right? Okay. I mean, okay. Obviously, it's cherry-picking. There are lots of people who
15:49are religious whose lives get screwed up. There are lots of people who are atheists whose lives
15:52don't get screwed up. But let's concede the entire point. I don't want to haggle over percentages.
15:57Concede the entire point and say, atheism is judged by empirical evidence. Okay? Great.
16:05Where's your empirical evidence for God? Because remember, empirical evidence is how you judge things.
16:10Fine. Then show me the empirical evidence for God. And if you cannot show me the empirical evidence
16:16for God, then don't tell me that a belief is judged by empirical evidence. I won't have it.
16:22It's bullshit. And it's embarrassing bullshit. It's partisan bullshit. And I really hate that
16:28partisan bullshit. I'll be honest with you. I hate it on the left. I hate it on the right.
16:30I hate it among atheists. I hate it among religious people. I hate that partisan stuff.
16:36So, if you want to put forward a principle that says, a belief is judged solely by empirical evidence,
16:41and you make up the standard wherein everyone who's religious has a great life and everybody
16:46who's an atheist has a terrible life or effed up or whatever you want to say, right? Fine.
16:51Okay. So, then what you need to do is say, okay, so I've got a standard which says beliefs are judged
16:55by empirical evidence. And in the absence of empirical evidence, the belief is falsified.
17:00In the absence of empirical evidence that atheists have good lives, the belief is falsified. Okay.
17:05So, you're saying, in the absence of empirical evidence, the belief is falsified. Okay.
17:09Where's your empirical evidence for God? Everyone thinks that they have this sharpshooter rifle
17:13that only goes off on other people. It's amazing, right? They think that this nuclear strike
17:22they bring in on the city that they live in is only going to take out their enemies, right?
17:27No. If you want to say empirical evidence is how you judge the truth or falsity of a belief,
17:33then you've got to provide empirical evidence for the existence of God or atheism is proved.
17:38So, you're trying to disprove atheism when you're, in fact, reinforcing atheism because atheism says,
17:42where is the empirical evidence for the existence of God?
17:46Well, atheism says two things. That for something to be true, for something to be valid,
17:50for something to exist, right? Because people say God exists. God is real. God is true. God is valid.
17:56God exists. Okay. So, then we have a category called existence. Excellent. So, we have a category
18:03called existence. And that category is communicated. God exists. That category of existence is communicated
18:11by people who exist. People who don't exist cannot communicate about existence because they don't exist,
18:17right? Someone who is aborted, a fetus that is aborted, can never be an adult who can tell you
18:26about existence or non-existence. Sound waves, which is what you're listening to at the moment,
18:32rely on the presence and absence of sound. Sound is there and not there. The closer the frequency,
18:40the higher the pitch, blah, blah, blah. So, the presence and absence of sound waves is what sound is.
18:45You cannot communicate anything, for instance, with a continuous tone, right? If you try to
18:53communicate anything using a continuous tone, you communicate nothing. In terms of intellectual
18:59content or conceptual content, it doesn't communicate anything. Silence communicates nothing
19:04in terms of intellectual content. I guess you could say, well, if this is true, don't say anything,
19:10but that's in response, right? The initiation of silence. If I just stare at you, I'm not communicating
19:17anything. So, light. Reading. Reading requires the presence and absence of light, right? If everything
19:25is redacted and it's one giant wall of blackness or it's one giant wall of whiteness because there's no
19:31text or everything's blacked out, then no text is communicated. So, reading requires the presence
19:38and absence of light, right? It requires light and dark or some contrast of some kind, right? Or
19:45changing colors or whatever it is, right? So, the presence and absence of something. Braille requires
19:51the presence and absence of raised dots on a piece of paper. So, there is no communication
19:58without people who are present and there is no communication, even if people were present,
20:04they've left, like somebody could be dead, of course, and they leave behind their writing or
20:08their recordings or whatever it is, right? So, there is no communication without the presence
20:13and absence of things. Sound, light, touch, and so on. I mean, sound, light, and touch are the major
20:22ways of doing it. So, if we're going to say God exists, then we have a category called existence.
20:30Since the person who is saying God exists, exists, the person who is saying God exists to another
20:34person is saying that other person exists, and how do we know that they exist? Well, because their
20:39existence is not self-contradictory and they are validating their existence through empirical
20:46evidence, right? If I look at someone and I can see them, I assume they exist. If I have doubt, I can go
20:51up and, I don't know, give them a Me Too moment and touch their face and check that, right? So, the person who
20:59says God exists is a person who exists, and we know that he exists because of rational consistency
21:05and empirical evidence. Their existence is not self-contradictory, neither is it contradictory
21:10with their argument, because if a person who exists uses the existence and absence of sound waves to
21:18communicate verbally that God exists, they're saying that their existence is self-contradictory,
21:23there's a category, sorry, their existence is not self-contradictory, and there's a category called
21:28existence that is not self-contradictory and requires the presence of something, the empirical
21:36presence of something, sound waves, light, touch, for audio, visual, and braille. So, there's a category
21:44called existence which is required to communicate that God exists, and that category called existence
21:51has to be logically consistent and require the empirical evidence for the presence of something,
21:59sound, light, touch. So, God exists creates a category of existence which requires logical
22:06consistency and empirical evidence. I mean, can you imagine how strange it would be? You're supposed
22:13to meet your friend at the street corner of Yonge and Dundas in Toronto at 6 p.m. on Tuesday.
22:18Okay. 6 p.m. on Tuesday. You show up, but he's not there. And you call him, and he picks up right
22:24away, and he says, I'm right here. And you look around, and you're like, which corner? Right? And
22:31he says, I'm on the southwest corner. And you say, I'm on the southwest corner. What do you mean you're
22:34here? I don't understand. And then he sends you a selfie, and you get goosebumps, right? Because he's
22:42standing right where you're standing, sending you a selfie. And you turn around, and behind you,
22:47there's a woman in the red coat. And you look at the selfie your friend sent you, and behind him,
22:51there's a woman in a red coat. And he's standing right where you're standing, but he's not there.
22:58And you send him a selfie, and he says, well, that's weird. I just saw this woman in the red
23:03coat, too. I'm standing here. It's the right southwest corner of Yonge and Dundas in Toronto.
23:07It's Tuesday at 6 p.m. We're both here at the same time. Where are each other? That would be like a
23:14supernatural horror movie, right? That he's sending you a picture that he's standing right
23:21where you are standing. But he's not there. That would be beyond eerie. That would be impossible,
23:30that you would both be in the same place. And maybe you stand, okay, go stand right on that
23:34little subway grate. And you both go stand right on that little subway grate. And you send selfies of
23:38yourself standing on that little subway grate. Then you would have to be in some alternate dimension.
23:42Because you could not both occupy the same space at the same time. And you're both standing on a
23:48tiny little dot, tiny little subway grate. And you're both standing there sending each other
23:53selfies, videos even. And you're waving around, and everyone's passing behind. Like you, he does a
23:59video call with you, right? He does a video call with you. He's standing right where you're standing.
24:03The same, you turn around, the same people are walking around you. But you're, he's not there. But
24:09you're not there for him. And he's not there for you. That would be impossible, right?
24:12So, people who say God exists, they have a category called existence, which is logical consistency
24:27and empirical evidence. And they're using presence and absence to communicate that God exists.
24:36Logical consistency and presence and absence. Empirical evidence. So, then they say God exists.
24:43Existence is a category called logical consistency and empirical evidence. But God is neither logically
24:49consistent. In fact, God is logically self-contradictory. And God, there is no empirical evidence.
24:56And, of course, there cannot possibly be empirical evidence for an entity that is self-contradictory.
25:02You cannot have empirical evidence, for instance, of, of course, a square circle. You cannot have
25:10empirical evidence of a square circle because a square circle is a self-contradictory entity
25:14which cannot exist. So, of course, if people say God exists, they are creating a self-contradictory
25:22statement. And they're saying that which does not exist, exists, because existence is logical
25:27consistency and empirical evidence. And they're saying that which is logically self-contradictory
25:33and for which there is not only is not but cannot be any empirical evidence, that that, the opposite
25:39of existence is in the category called existence. In other words, logical self-contradiction
25:44combined with the complete absence or opposite of empirical evidence that existence equals non-existence.
25:54And that is not possible. Now, let's take another example of morality. So, Christianity,
26:05thou shalt not steal, and Jesus' exhortations for charity and kindness are always voluntary.
26:15Jesus did not say you need to convince the government to steal from the unborn in order to give people
26:22money in the here and now in return for votes, right? Jesus and Christianity are transmitted through
26:30the strength and resilience of the family. So, when women got the right to vote, and immediately you
26:38start, well, very quickly you started to see a large number of income, coercive income transfer
26:45programs. Old age pensions, unemployment insurance, disability, socialized medicine, and the welfare
26:54state, and then very quickly, you know, alimony and child support and things like that. Which, I mean,
27:00obviously, men need to be responsible for the children that they have, but it's through the government,
27:06not through private contracts. So, when women got the right to vote, which drove the social programs,
27:13which then drove the attractiveness of Western countries or European-based countries to a lot of
27:22immigrants who were looking more for free stuff than freedom, how well did the church do with
27:30violations of thou shalt not steal and the forcible transfer or the forced transfer of wealth from
27:39generally the more competent and more responsible to the less competent and less responsible?
27:43The welfare state, from a Christian standpoint, is almost purely devilish. It is almost purely
27:51demonic. It violates thou shalt not steal. It violates thou shalt not bear false witness,
27:56because people can't even be honest about the coercive nature of it. It certainly violates
28:01commandments against envy. It promotes many of the seven vices, sloth, envy, greed, of course,
28:09and lust, because the products of sex are children, and this allows sex addicts to remain largely not
28:18responsible for the children that they produce. So, of course, Christians are taught to be suspicious
28:25of women's lack of principles right through the Eve story and other things. And look, I'm not saying I
28:33agree with all of this, but I'm talking about from the standpoint of Christianity. From the standpoint
28:38of Christianity, the state is very dangerous, and women tend to be less conscious of and adhering to
28:48moral rules. Right? We all understand this. So, the welfare state, and by that I don't just mean
28:58welfare as a singular institution, but the welfare state as an entire cluster or series of programs
29:03designed largely to take money from men and give it to, to take money from responsible men and women
29:08and give it to irresponsible men and women. Or to be even more specific, the welfare state in general
29:15takes money from responsible men and gives it to irresponsible women. And the welfare state was the
29:21beginning and the end, the beginning of the end of the West. So, Christianity has, right at its heart and
29:32soul, the foundational absolute of thou shalt not steal, and charity must be voluntary. And women are to be
29:41viewed skeptically as a whole with regards to their moral virtues. So, how did Christianity do
29:50with the great test of demonic anti-morality known as, from, again, from the Christian perspective,
29:59but I mean also from a libertarian perspective, but from the Christian perspective, how did Christianity
30:04do in the great demonic temptation of the welfare state, driven largely by the votes of women that
30:11a lot of Christians are taught to be suspicious of? Female moral autonomy in Christianity has not led to
30:18too many good things. I mean, God has all kicked out, well, I got Adam and Eve kicked out of, of
30:23paradise, right? I think a fairly substantial negative, wouldn't you say, according to the
30:28theology? So, how did Christianity do when this great temptation of violently obtained free stuff
30:37was handed out to often, often, not always, but often, the least moral in society? Women who had
30:46children out of wedlock, irresponsible men who fathered children and then left them, abandoned
30:51them and so on, right? And men and women who were drunks and drug users and, you know, just irresponsible
30:57people as a whole. How did Christianity do with regards to many, many violations of Christian, absolute
31:08Christian morality? How did Christianity do as a whole with this issue? Well, it failed completely
31:16and totally and utterly, and in fact, decided with the devilish impulse to use violence and debt and
31:22enslavement to get things for free, which goes against almost all of the seven deadly sins, goes against
31:29at least half of the Ten Commandments, and goes against the explicit warning about the dangers
31:35of women plus the state, women plus Satan. That is the foundation of Genesis. Now, how did Christians
31:46do in the past with this temptation? And we can say, well, okay, that's kind of abstract, and they really
31:53didn't know all the outcomes, and even though it was clear that it was coercive, right?
31:59And charity, according to Jesus, charity must be voluntary, and here it's neither voluntary nor
32:09charity, and in fact, the people who want it aren't even paying for it, because if they were paying for
32:13it, there wouldn't be a giant-ass national debt. So, we could say, well, in the 1920s, the 1930s,
32:211950s, 60s, 70s, you know, it was pretty abstract, and, you know, you'd have to really be down on your
32:29theology. I don't really think so, because thou shalt not steal, and charity must be voluntary, is, you know,
32:35if I put a gun to someone's head and make them give 20 bucks to a homeless guy, nobody thinks that that
32:39person has done a moral thing. I've done an immoral thing, and they've just tried to survive. It has to be
32:45chosen in order to be moral, and you force, like, it has to be consensual. It has to, everyone's into
32:51consent until it comes to the welfare state. So, how did Christians do with this? And, of course,
32:59I'm not just picking on Christians, other religions as well, but this person is saying that Christianity
33:04is the best. Okay, so if Christianity is the best, how did Christians do with the great demonic
33:11temptation of the welfare state? Well, they largely cheered it on and celebrated it, and continued to
33:17defend it as if it is God's greatest gift to the known universe. In other words, if you were to go to
33:22a bunch of Christians and say, the welfare state is immoral, and corrupt, and decadent, and harms
33:30virtue, and rewards vice, therefore, the only moral thing to do is to abolish it and return to a system of
33:38private church-based charity, or private voluntary charity, what would happen? And you were to make
33:46the theological arguments, what would happen? Would the Christians say, ooh, you know what, that's a
33:52really good point. It is coercive, it does rely on the power of the state, which is a secular institution,
33:58and that is populated by a lot of non-Christians, and it takes away voluntary charity, it rewards vice,
34:04it feeds the seven deadly sins, and it punishes virtue, and productivity, and hard work, and
34:11responsibility, and therefore, it is kind of demonic, and of course, it doesn't even pay for
34:16itself, so it enslaves the children, right? And Christianity, whatever you do to the least among
34:21you, whatever you do to children, thus also do you do to me, well, enslaving children through endless
34:27debt is not exactly virtuous, and so on, right? So, would the Christians say, ooh, that's a great point,
34:33you know what, we have to really advocate for the end of the welfare state, and a return to private
34:38charity, and virtue, and voluntarism, and so on, right? Would they say that? Well, no. I mean, look,
34:44of course, you could find individual Christians who would, but they would not. They would not.
34:50So, when something is unambiguously, clearly evil, according to essential, basic Christian theology,
35:02one would expect Christians to oppose it, and you could say, well, they didn't know at the time,
35:09but now the welfare state, in many instances, has been in for 80 plus years, in some circumstances,
35:15and situations, right? I mean, the 1930s, where a lot of old age pension stuff came in, and so on,
35:21right? So, the evidence is in, the facts are clear, the result of this catastrophic failure
35:30to maintain basic Christian ethics. This isn't, you know, some sort of complicated just war theory.
35:38This is, thou shalt not steal, and for something to be virtuous, it must, in fact, be voluntary. This is
35:44not complicated stuff. Well, how have they done? How has this gone, as a whole? Oh, I mean,
35:53it's not, not super complicated. It has gone, uh, completely disastrously and catastrophically.
35:59Hi, good afternoon. Hi. Could I get a, um, Jesus, the one, one of the few times that Jesus showed
36:07extremely volatile anger and violence was with the money changers, the financial manipulators,
36:16and those who were usuriously ripping off the general population based upon their faith,
36:24on their desire to provide donations or to pay for the support of religion. So, based upon people's
36:33desire to be virtuous, they were being ripped off financially, and he took a whip to the money
36:40changers at the temple. So, people's desire to be virtuous is to provide charity. However, if they
36:48are putting the next generation into bottomless debt in order to pretend to pursue, pursue their
36:54virtues, then they are worse than the money changers in the temple. So, national debt is worse than the
37:01money changers in the temple. Because the people who are getting their money changed at bad rates or
37:08bad, uh, interest, they are doing so voluntarily. It is their choice. It is based upon their faith,
37:15and they're not inflicting it on others. But national debts, of course, are inflicted on,
37:19uh, on the unborn, right? The national debts are inflicted on those who aren't even around and have no
37:24choice or preferences or options, right? And to enslave the young for the sake of the greed,
37:34for virtue of the elders, is not good, right? It's not charity if you enslave other people
37:41in order to achieve your supposed good, right? So, uh, how are Christians doing with regards to the
37:50question of, uh, national debts, of the national debt? Are they saying, well, the one thing we
37:56absolutely have to do is to pay off the national debt? Whatever burden we have to bear, we must do
38:05it because, uh, Jesus said that financial enslavement for the pursuit of virtue, trapping
38:13people into usurious or, uh, unjust financial arrangements is, is evil to the point where it's
38:21one of the few things that Jesus gets, I mean, almost murderously angry about. Whipping people
38:25is, is pretty destructive. So, how are Christians doing with regards to the national debt? Well,
38:32they're doing terribly. They are demanding more and more, and the Christians refuse to even talk
38:41about the national debt. Like in, for my memory, other than maybe, uh, H. Ross Perot, sort of back
38:49in the day, Ross Perot was talking about the national debt because I remember there was an exchange where
38:55they said, uh, you know, you, you don't have any experience. He's like, yeah, it's true. I don't
38:59have experience running a multi-trillion dollar debt up or whatever it was. It could have been even
39:03hundreds of billions of dollars back in the day. But Ross Perot was the last guy and he was an
39:09independent, of course, right? And he was, he was the last guy to talk about all of this, right? And
39:14they just made fun of him with his charts and his short stature and his sort of nasally voice and so
39:19on. So, uh, they just, they just made fun of him, right? And so, uh, and a lot of Christians got very
39:26angry at him because he took votes away from the Republican side, right? And Donald Trump is a Christian
39:32and a lot of the people who are support Donald Trump are, uh, Christians. And, uh, I, I've never
39:40outside of Ross Perot decades and decades and decades ago, I've not seen any one try to deal
39:49with the national debt or even talk about it. It's not certainly over the last couple of election
39:53cycles. It's not even a thing like you can't even talk about it. So there's that. How have
39:58Christians been doing with regards to the world wars? I mean, Christian leaders, uh, a lot of them,
40:05uh, mostly Christians, if not all Christians, um, started World War I and World War II. And of
40:11course, people prayed to God to find out whether World War I or World War II were going to be good
40:17or bad things. And I suppose God said, they're going to be good things because 60, 70 million people,
40:24uh, died or were killed and murdered, uh, for the sake of these wars that were a sort of one-two punch
40:31in many ways, destroying the West. How has that been as a whole? I mean, I, it's not to, to pick
40:40on, on people, uh, of course. It is simply that from an outside standpoint, a lot of the great evils
40:50in the world are enthusiastically supported by Christians, even when those great evils go
40:56directly against the most foundational Christian ethics that exist. This is not a challenge that
41:05can be overcome. This is not a reality that can be ignored. And this is after 2,000 years plus.
41:14This is after 2,000 years plus. Now, now, if Christians had woken up and said, okay, this
41:22is all terrible stuff, we drifted from the faith, blah, blah, blah, you know, clearly, you
41:26know, the, the church that advocates for all of these things is, is kind of on the demonic
41:31side or satanic side or devilish side or whatever, right? But they haven't. So, by what standard
41:38are Christians saying, oh, we have the answers? Now, this is Christianity where to get things
41:50wrong will send you to hell. So, if you are pro-welfare state or not moving heaven and earth
41:58to end it or pay off the national debt or, or anything like that, then you are taking the
42:05side of evil. If you're taking the side of evil, then you go to hell. So, how many Christians
42:12are saying, well, gee, this is very clearly against virtue, against morality, it goes against
42:19Jesus' teachings, it is of the devil, and therefore, unless we oppose it with everything we've got,
42:25you know, peacefully and, and, and with, with prayer and with sermons and, and then, then
42:32we are going to hell, doesn't matter. So, if you have a belief system that is reinforced
42:38by the direct threat of eternal torture, torment, and hell, or if failing that, the promise of
42:45paradise and heaven versus non-existence or, or some sort of limbo or whatever it is, right?
42:51So, if you have the ultimate reward and punishment system and you still can't get anyone to follow
42:56your rules, then excuse me for thinking there has to be a better answer. Because to me, this is like
43:05a bunch of people praying for health, as opposed to developing market-based modern medicine, right?
43:13These are people saying, well, no, you, you, you can't have your scientific medicine, bro,
43:18because we're just going to pray for people's health, which doesn't work. So, you're saying, well,
43:23you, you, you, you can't have your philosophical rational virtues, because we've got our Christian
43:28virtues. For what? For what? For compliance with evil? Even with the threat of heaven? The threat
43:35of hell and the promise of heaven? Nah, come on. That's not the answer. It's not the answer. It's
43:40not an answer that works. Not an answer that's real. As I said before, Christians can't even decide on
43:45whether people have to earn forgiveness or not after 2,000 years. So, yeah, it's not, not a real
43:52thing. It's not even close to a real thing. We need a better answer. Freedomain.com slash donate. Thank you.
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