An Honest Discussion about Christianity w. Joshua Nelson (September 4, 2026)

0:00Hello? Anybody home? Today, I want you to open your mind. I've almost come to the conclusion that the story is a subbending of the massive people who can't deal with it. We are in process of developing a whole series of techniques to get people actually to love their attitude. We face a hostile ideology, global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose and insidious in method. We are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covet means for expanding its sphere of influence. To change the minds and the attitudes and the beliefs of the people to bring about one world's socialist totalitarian government. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists. It is patterned itself after every dictator who has ever planted the ripping and print of a boot on the pages of history since the beginning of time.

1:00If you can get people to consent to the state of affairs in which they are living, then you have a much more easily controllable society than you would if you were relying only on clubs and fairing squads and concentration camps. Tools and conquests do not necessarily come with bounds and explosions and fog. There are weapons that are simply fights, credit, and prejudices. As you connect the dots between different people, organizations, religions, history, suddenly the picture starts to form. The Kingdom of God is within man, not one man, not a group of men. Someone born in the United States is not more special than someone born in Mexico. They're just vehicles for the consciousness to experience. They do not want your children to be educated. They do not want you to think too much. It was learned that the aliens had men and were then manipulating masses of people through secret societies, witchcraft, magic, the occult, and religion. They're reaching to our children, music, television, books.

2:02Pray on children's innocence. How can I disprove lies that are stamped without efficiency? So if you have the opportunity to stand next to one of these machines, it feels like an altar to an alien god. Genetic power is the most awesome force the planet has ever seen, but you wield it like a kid that's found his dad's gun. The Army Air Force has announced that applying this is now in the possession of the Army. Too many others know what's happening out there, and no one, no government agency, has jurisdiction over the truth. Any state, any entity, any ideology that fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of man, that state is obsolete, a case to be filed under M for mankind in the Twilight Zone. The outside of some of you got appointed with the real hard truth. He doesn't connect the dots, just a mass of what's all this about. You are listening to the Secret Teachings Radio. I'm your host, Ryan Gabel. Thank you so much for tuning into another episode of TST. The website TSTradio.info has the archive, my books,

3:04links to limited social media. The email, rdgabled1991 at gmail.com if you'd like to get in touch with the show. For any reason, you'd like to share information if you'd like to comment on the show, criticize the show. Maybe you think you'd be a good guest for the show. rdgabled1991 at gmail.com A couple of days ago, I reached out on social media, again limited social media, Facebook and X, banned from everything else, and I asked a very genuine and honest question. Can somebody come on to the Secret Teachings and explain to me, what exactly is Christianity? For people that don't know who I am, don't know what the show is, some of the responses I received were just read the Bible. If you just read the Bible, it'll tell you what Christianity is.

4:07And I told that person, I've read the Bible, that's not the point. The point is I need someone to explain to me what they think Christianity is. Maybe that's the better way to word it. What do you think Christianity is? Because honestly, I'm not really sure what any of the Abrahamic faiths are. I know what Buddhism is. Buddhism usually gets left out of the equation. It's one of the world's largest religions. It's a growing religion. I see it every single day living in East Asia. I see people living like Buddhists. It's a way of life. It's a cultural thing. It's a social thing. It's a way of interacting with nature and the environment and interacting with people in society. In a many ways, it's not really religion. It's more of like a philosophy of self-reflection, which is what the Buddha represents. The Buddha is to use Orthodox Christian terms and icon, not an idol.

5:07But I see it every day. I see Buddhists being Buddhists. I've been to plenty of Buddhist temples. I fill up peace. I understand what Buddhism is. Yes, there are some radical Buddhists, but for the most part, I can see it. I honestly don't know what Christianity is, though. And I say that ironically, because if I were to sit here and explain to you my background and what I believe and what I think for those of you who don't know, and if you didn't have any context, you probably think I was a Christian. Simply because of my diet, the way that I eat, when we talk about nutrition on this show, people think I'm a seventh-day Adventist, which I... That's not really a bad thing, because I agree with the way that they eat, but I'm not part of that movement in that group either. But I don't really know what it is. And it's almost... It's almost strange to me, because I have no contact with Islam whatsoever, except for reading the Hadiths and reading the Quran.

6:10And yet, for some reason, I do know more about what Islam is than Christianity. Maybe that's because there's only a handful of denominations of Islam. Maybe that's because I don't let the Judeo-Christian, for like a better term, propaganda, brainwash, and manipulate me. I go to the source and find that many of the claims against Islam are just simply false, not correct, or their projections of Jewish or Christian guilt in some cases, not to say that they're art radical Muslims, like radical Buddhists. Like, I can actually describe what Islam is. And it's really confusing me, and I'm struggling with the term in the definition. How can I spend so much time around Christian people be from a country that's 60% or so Christian? Grab a Christian quote-unquote, and still not really understand what it is. So last night, we looked into Orthodox Christianity. Many of the people I reached out to talk about it blocked me or asked for money.

7:15Somebody asked me for $150 to come on and talk about how great Orthodox he is, which told me a lot about Orthodoxy or at least about that person. And that is also confusing because if you're very excited about your religion, you have a lot of faith. I mean, you should be willing to talk about it unless I just have such a terrible reputation, which maybe I do, that people don't want to be associated with me. But then again, I don't know if it's kind of fun to think that way, but I don't know if I really do have that bad of reputation. I don't think these people knew who I, well, one person did, but I don't know if the other people knew who I was. So I don't know what that is. So if you're not going to talk to me about it, if you want to charge me forward, I'll just do it myself. I'll go find the tenets of Orthodoxy. And we looked at them last night, and many of the things that are the tenets of Orthodox Christianity, one God in three personalities or three persons, Jesus is the full actual physical son of God, or he is God incarnate, the resurrection, the Bible, the Scripture,

8:15the church is ancient, the seven sacraments, you know, the Eucharist, Mary is the bearer of God, the theotokos, the saints are honored, icons are important, and there's life after death. And we went through and objectively analyzed each one of these claims, and I think a lot of the time, I know a lot of the time, if you are an Orthodox Christian, for example, you say things like, well, we believe Jesus is the actual like full incarnate, you know, not just the son, but like the actual Godhead. And they say that within the echo chamber, but they also say that to competitors and to non-believers, if you will, and they say it in a very, at least this is my interpretation, they say it in a very authoritative way, almost like an I got you. You know, I got you, ours is the real one. And it's very similar to a lot of the other claims of orthodoxy or any denomination of Christianity.

9:18But I try to provide a different perspective on this show because that's how my brain works. And my reaction to hearing that is, I know that you think that is a very got you moment, that's in I got you point, that's your blue guy. But I kind of think it's the opposite. I kind of think, not only do I think it's blasphemous, generally speaking, I actually think it is a point that undermines the credibility of what you believe in the same way. And we don't have to go through the entire list again tonight. We did that last night. But in the same way that if you looked at the Eucharist or if you looked at Mary as the Theotokos or if you looked at icons or life after death, salvation, resurrection, these are all themes that predate not just orthodox Christianity, not just Buddhism or Zerostrianism. These things predate civilization as we know it. They predate the Samarians, they predate probably the Ice Age.

10:21These are like the core fundamental, if you read an Achaealipsis for example, in an Achaealipsis there's a great description of all of this. How humans developed by looking at the sun, the moon, the grass, the trees, the plants, etc., the ground, the water, how we developed, how we evolved our understanding of these things. You know, Mary, the woman gives birth, that child is a piece of the whole, that child is given life, but also through birth given death, and that child is a container for the soul, which is that fragment, which is the son of the father, source, the Godhead. You know, the idea of the Trinity, which is a very important part of Orthodox Christianity, the way that they get around this is by saying, the predating of it, they get around it by saying, well, the father, son, and Holy Spirit, that's three in one.

11:25The other ones are just three separate components. No, actually they're not. Brahmavish, New, and Shiva are not three separate components. They are three components of a singular source, just like the different aspects of moisture and dryness and energy in Egypt. It's actually a very scientific, but anthropomorphized way of describing how things evolve in form. If you see that as some sort of contemporary polytheistic belief, then yeah, you can write it all off and claim that you have exclusivity to it, but it's all the same. And I feel like I'm a, I hope that I'm coming off as a very objective person, because I don't say all of that to condemn Orthodox Christianity. I'm arguing this to, really, I'm actually arguing not just to, I'm arguing the point that prehistory confirms the importance of such tenets. Even if it also proves that they're not unique, nor are they the only answer, or the only potential answer to the question of theosis,

12:35and that is unification with God, which is Nirvana. If you've looked at the Indian tradition, we looked at this pretty extensively last night. The Indian concept of, or the Hindu concept of Moksha. It's Nirvana. I mean, these things predate Orthodoxy. It's theosis. They predate Orthodoxy by centuries or thousands of years. So why is it hard to acknowledge that? You'd think that that means that your points are invalid. I, what, wouldn't that just invalidate them if everybody else kind of thinks and believes the same thing? At least that's my argument. And obviously the only conclusion you can come to is that it's not really about those beliefs. They're not really sincerely held beliefs. I don't believe. I'd make that argument. I do make that argument. I did make that argument. I think it's by definition occult, not occult, but acult. And through the occult, you can understand the cults, even when those cults are not necessarily bad cults.

13:40So I don't really, I don't want to be only the guy that discusses, quote, religion, because people listen and they tune in and out when things resonate with them. But we got here on the secret teachings because my background is theology and anthropology and history, mythology, things, stuff like that. And then I, I use those things to try to understand current events, like looking at the history of, say, Jewish holidays and how they correlate with war. And ultimately, I'm not coming to conclusions based on biases about any of the Abrahamic faiths. I just don't want to be lied to about any of them. I don't want to be lied to about Islam. I don't want to be lied to about Judaism. I don't want to be lied to about Christianity. I don't want to, I don't want to be told something that is untrue and just allow it to be untrue, just not, not combat it.

14:43I think it's important to combat these things, but also to, again, provide the context of, look, I'm not saying that it's necessarily wrong. I'm just saying that the prehistory confirms the importance of the tenet. But if you want to claim exclusivity to everything, like the Jews do and like the Christians do, and I don't know as much about if the Muslims do, because they've never really heard Muslims say it or do it. But I guess in terms of claiming that the Quran and Islam is a continuation of Christianity and Judaism. Beyond that, I don't, I don't, I don't really heard Islam or Muslims argue anything otherwise. But if you want to argue exclusivity, that's when it becomes a cult. And that's, that's when we have a lot of problems. So you know how I feel. You know what I think? If you missed last night's show, please check it out. It's at tstradio.info. the links for the free archive. And then of course the ad free archive. If you haven't signed up, please consider doing so. You can also click the links below to become a supporter of the show via by me a coffee or you can get one of my books like a cult arcana, which would be a fantastic read for this subject.

15:51Although I don't really talk much about Orthodox Christian entity in particular. Tonight on the show, we have a guest with us. We have Joshua Nelson, who is an author, a researcher, and he is an analyst for the paranormal. And the parapolitical, which is right up our alley and everything in between. He also, I don't know if I could say I can spit. I don't know if I say I spent a lot of my life within Christianity, but I grew up Christian by some definition. And he spent a lot of his life in and around various denominations of Christianity. Denominations that were foreign and in some ways still are foreign to me, but he eventually decided to take his own his own beliefs or his own spiritual journey into his hands and sort of separated himself from organized religion. And so he's been one person. There are many. He's one of the people that have been speaking out against the harms of these cult like behaviors and religion and politics and other things like that.

16:57For those of you listening on ground zero plus you might know Joshua Nelson. He's been on ground zero before. And he's also a listener of the secret teachings and he was kind enough to come on to the show tonight. Joshua, thank you for joining me on the secret teachings. Ryan, it's such an honor to talk to you and up and waiting so long to say this, but long time listener first time caller. I'm going to say 15 minutes of an introduction. You've been waiting a long time, but it's been it's been years. I've no sir. It's been years before we really talked and got you on the show. I think we talked before a couple of times about some other stuff, but I'm glad that you're here. I'm happy that you're here. I mean, I gave you my my preface. I shared your bio. What would you like people to know about you and where would you like to start? Well, I from listening to the previous show last night and taking some notes from that and just off of what you've been saying so far.

17:57You're really off to a great start. I guess the background of myself is I dig rope in a very religious household. We work, you know, Christian by all definitions, which we'll get into that here in a little bit. My first experience in, you know, in the church was in a church of Christ, which was a very strict denomination of Christianity. Once my mom remarried, we started going to enter denominational church, which was very to the opposite extreme of the church of Christ. And that that shook my early foundations that I had at the time. And so it really set me on a path of really wanting to learn more and understand it for myself, if you will. I did, you know, once I got out of high school in the late 90s, I, you know, I had enough of the church. I had enough of satanic panic. I had enough of it.

18:59I just, you know, like all young adults, I wanted to go out and do my own thing. And, you know, it wasn't too long. And I did go back to start going back to church and it was a church of God at this time. And because of my background, getting into music and being involved in the music programs of various churches, I really started to see behind the curtain more than what I wanted to. You know, I'm a very simple person. I love going to plays and performances ever now. And then I do love watching movies still. But I don't want to know. I don't want to know about the actor's personal lives. I don't want to see behind the scenes. You know, if I'm going to see a show, I want to be entertained and see the show. But when it's something serious, like spirituality, religion, a relationship with God, whatever God that might be, that you worship. I don't need a spectacle. I don't need a show. I don't need, I don't need to hear somebody else's interpretation.

20:03One of the points you made was, you know, I call ours as a real one. You know, and that's such a good point to make just on Christianity because a few years ago, I was in the process of writing a book, kind of dispelling a lot of the beliefs held by a lot of churchgoers nowadays. And at the time, statistics were there was 187 different denominations that claim Christianity. And that tells me there's 187 different interpretations of the same book. And everybody is saying that we are the ones telling you the truth. We're right. Everybody else is wrong. And in my experience, just doing cursory research on any topic, any group or organized sect of people, whether it's religious, political or other, that it's their way or the highway.

21:03You're not allowed to question them. And they always have another to point out as a bad guy that is trying to bring them down. That is a pretty good layman's definition of a cult. It is a definition more than one definition of a cult. And I used an example last night because I did not know and I use say 187. There might be more. There may be less. I think there's more denominations of Christianity. I use the example last night. Just saying, okay, let's say there's 20. And you have one and you believe that's the one. Okay, first of all, I don't understand how you can jump back and forth between different denominations because if you're one of those 20, that implies the 19 of them are wrong. But then when you jump from one of those 20 to another one that you said was wrong before, the one that you believe was right suddenly becomes wrong. So when you have 187, that means there's 186 that are wrong by the perspective of any one of the individual 187.

22:03So to me, that alone is very confusing. And I want to make it clear that it's first of all, it sounds like you, you saw behind the scenes in these various denominations, ones that I don't have any connection or affiliation with I grew up Baptist. I'm not even sure what that means. But you kind of were disenfranchised by what you saw. For me, I was never in nor am I today disenfranchised. I've just stepped away from all of that because I started to notice that there's more to learn. And there's more comparisons and there's a vast world of interpretations. And I just want to learn about that. But for you, it sounds like you're more disenfranchised, if you will. That's definitely a good way to state it. And I'm perfectly okay with that. I just, if my faith and my beliefs are to be a good person and they are lined up with God, I don't, I don't feel the need to make a spectacle of it.

23:07I don't need to, I don't feel the need to make a platform and to shout down other people in their beliefs. And real quick, just the word belief in itself. You know, you and I and others in our circles, we research, we delve into topics. We want to find the truth. Whether that's ugly, whether it's good, whether it confirms our, you know, what our normalcy bias may be, even if it causes that cognitive dissonance. Because it goes against what we've always believed, but we research to find the deeper meanings were not just held down to a particular belief system. So you and I can accept any, any possible theory, we can accept a rapture. We can accept that the church of Christ on second street there and, you know, Mississippi is 100% right on and everybody else is wrong. We can accept that, but that doesn't mean we have to be held down to believing in it.

24:07And that's a, that's such a huge contention that I have because even on my normal day to day, I don't walk around. I'll bless you and I'll be praying for you. I don't do that to me. It just becomes as meaningless as the whole thoughts and prayers you see on social media. You know, if I'm able to have that direct contact with God that if I say God, please heal that person and they're healed, I don't need to make a spectacle. And I don't need to make a penny on it. All I can do is say, hey, thanks. You came through for me and walk away. Unfortunately to defend general Christianity for a moment, I think that there are probably more Christians that are like that than are not like that. It's just the people that are like that make the most noise. And some people that are like that that make the spectacle. And that's what gives Christianity a, well, one of the things he gives Christianity in general a bad name because people make a spectacle. It's strange to me that if I go and I read, I've read most religious, major religious texts, if I go and read the book of Matthew, for example, and Jesus says in the book of Matthew that when you pray, I'll paraphrase this, Matthew 6.6, when you pray, you enter your closet and you shut the door and you pray in secret.

25:29You don't make a spectacle of it. You find the exact same thing in the Bhagavad Gita. And I know contrary to popular belief, you actually find the same exact thing in the Quran. It says, do not worship the Lord like as a spectacle. You need to do it privately. So we're being taught this Islam Christianity, ancient Hinduism, ancient India. This is a pretty universal concept that if you're going to pray, if you're going to believe and have a relationship with the father, Godhead, whatever you call it, you do it privately. You don't make a spectacle of it. You don't build a giant mega church. You don't have a rock band come in. You know, that's not really how you can worship that way if you want, but that's not really how you're supposed to pray. You're supposed to pray based on the teachings of these faiths or these religious systems. So it's almost like it's my question to you, Joshua's it's almost like the people that claim to be Christians or the people that claim to be Muslims, the people that claim to be anything.

26:30If they do the very opposite of what the religion actually teaches or what the text teach tells me that they're not really those things that it seems like they're like hollow people that they're looking for a title and identity, not for actual quote salvation or actual relationship with the Godhead, if you will. Does that make sense? What do you think about that? It actually makes perfect sense and you're right. So many people get tied up into I want to be a part of a group. I because of the area that I'm in now, there's one of the big mega churches that they have a very simple bumper sticker. I'm not going to dox them, but I see it everywhere now. And I'm just like, what what have we become? I mean, we cannot, like you said, it's more or less practice what you preach, you know, if you're saying that you're a good person and you're doing this, and like you said, most Christians, they're good people, they have good intentions, but their beliefs are based on what they're being told in their church and their church is telling them, they're the ones who are right and everybody else.

27:40If you leave the church, what do they say? They say you've fallen away, you know, fallen away from what? Just because I'm not going to your church does not, you know, negate any personal relationship I have with God. It just means I don't want to go to your church. You know, if you if you if you convert or switch to a different denomination of Christianity, I assume you'd still maintain that relationship with God or the Godhead. So what does it matter? How's that falling away? You're falling away from a denomination from a title, but not from God. Right, but that's in that neuro-elistic programming to where it's a bad thing. If they're, you know, if you're having a simple conversation, having coffee, you know, before the church service and, well, what happened to Bob and Cindy? Oh, well, you know, they fall in a way. Well, no, really, they just moved to another side of town and they're going to another church with their friends. They didn't fall away from the faith, but by using that wording, it's automatically planting that negative seed. Well, I don't want to fall away. I don't want to be disconnected from God. I mean, that's why I'm here.

28:48And so that's why it works on good-hearted believing Christians. They want to have that relationship. And, you know, mega church or not, you said two things that just triggered me, the whole rock show thing. You know, if you really have a good, if you really, if your message is worthy, you don't need a spectacle. You don't need a mega church. You don't need a rock show. I don't need to walk around with the cross around my neck, proclaiming that I know the truth. If I'm living the right way, and my God that I believe in chooses to bless me, great. I'm on the right path. And, you know, I have enough money to take care of my family and we're good. That's all I need. I don't need millions of dollars. So really, I guess I could have prefaced everything I'm going to say is just so everybody within the sound of our voices. No, I don't have a book to push. I don't have a show to support except for yours and ground zero and, you know, the other guys. I don't have anything I'm trying to pawn off.

29:56I'm not selling anything and I was so disheartened to hear that people wanted to charge you to come on and talk about their faith. Like I'm like, you know, we're supposed to go around telling everybody about our faith. We're not supposed to be charging for it. You know, who do you think the money changes were that Jesus was taking over their tables? You know, did we forget to talk about that part in Sunday school? And that's how I feel about it. And that's why there's such a confusion nowadays. And you made a good point that it's the majority are good-hearted, well-intentioned, but they're being outspoken by the spectacles, by the minority that are too big to fail. The mega-church is the ones that aren't listening to anybody else that think their way is the right way while they're pawning off books and everything else, basically telling, you know, writing down into words what they think the Bible is supposed to mean.

30:59And to me, that's just a bastardization of what it's really supposed to be. You know, if we are supposed to believe the tenant, a fundamental principle of being a Christian, that means we are following Christ. I'm not following a pastor. I'm not following a preacher. I'm following the words that he spoke that I can see that he spoke. I'm not worried, and this is going to make some people mad, but just understand the heart that I have with this and where I'm coming from. I don't hinge my faith in my beliefs on what Paul taught. I don't hinge my faith in beliefs on, you know, visions that other prophets had that they wrote down. No matter how much it's shoved down your throat and church, I want to get down to the basics as a good researcher as I try to be. So I'm going to follow what Christ said. And that's it. And he said, love your God with all your heart and then love your neighbor like you love yourself. He even said, my yolk is easy.

32:02You know, he came to set us free. Well, if you look at what we are in bondage with, I mean, today we're in bondage with whether it's the politics and the government or whether it's a religious people telling us it's the end of the world and you better hurry up and you better plan and you better prepare by coming to church and not actually doing the right thing and planning and preparing for your family. So what exactly then from your background and the different denominations that you grew up in and were in and out of? I guess I can ask this question. How do I ask this question? I'm not going to get offended. I want to answer as openly and honestly. So any question you have there's it's all fair game. It's not about offense. It's just about it feels like a loaded question because of the different denominations, different interpretations, but okay, just put it simply. What exactly is the Bible then? This is something that I need someone to explain to me. Yes, I've read it. Yes, conceptually. I obviously understand it, but when people just say, well, read the Bible, you're under, you'll understand or read the Bible and it'll just become clear to you.

33:15I don't know what that means. Maybe you can help me understand what that means or what they mean. Well, actually, I can give you both perspectives. What they mean is, oh, we'll just read the Bible and you'll figure it out. And that is that is basically a customer service way of saying, hey, if you look online, you'll find what you're looking for. You don't need to pass me. That's great. Yeah, that's right. That's exactly what it sounds like. And that's what it is. It's a cop out and it's a lazy way of just pawning it off. Say, we'll just read the Bible. I've read the Bible several times, cover to cover some books. I've studied more than others. But to be honest, the first time I read it through, Gerrata, I read it, cover to cover and I had more questions and answers. You know, and so that's when I started to break that programming I had of, well, this is what you have to believe because pastors such and such said so.

34:19And I started to really dive in onto what was really being said in the plain text. And just like, just like if you're researching a topic on a UFO siding, you know, one of the things you're going to ask is, well, do you live by airports? Are you used to seeing this? Getting a frame of reference. So in that same extent, researching this, you know, I'm going to delve into the Jewish traditions. I'm going to delve into what he said and, you know, Christ and whether that lines up with the rest of the Bible. And if it does, and why don't more people spend more time on that than everything else. You know, you asked the question, you know, what is the Bible? And this is going to make a lot of people pucker up. They're not going to like it. But it is a collection of books. It is 66 books by 40 different authors. The Christian Christianity is made to believe that it is divinely inspired and is word of God and is 100% available.

35:28Common. We both know that there are inconsistencies in the Bible and anybody that can read through the Bible and really does pay attention to what Christ said and what he did. We realized that it was a dominating church at the time, along with the government that didn't like what he was saying and doing. And if we really think about that, we're not doing that right now. You know, if somebody was to come on the scene right now today, if Christ himself reappeared or resurrected into a different body, or reincarnated or just came back, imagine being able to just go around healing people, you know, walk into a hospital. He'll everybody just by the utterance of your presence.

36:30And then just walk away. After a while, you'd be a pretty dangerous person. A lot of people would not want you around because it's bad for business. You know, if you interpret it, I don't mean to cut off your train of thought. If you were to interpret it in a literal way, yes. If you were to like myself, ask a question such as, well, I've read, I've studied, I've an academic terms studied and read that the idea of, let's say, healing the sick is universally recognized as a metaphor, meaning that people who are not believers in the soul, the spirit, the Godhead, people that kill and steal people that commit, we'll call them sins, that these people are spiritually dead. They're spiritually sick. And someone needs to help them. And if you can show them the way, then that will actually show them the way that's not just an accidental term, like the way is a universal concept as well. It's from East Asia to the western part of the world.

37:34So if you can show someone the way that that's not the way that you behave, like you don't kill, you don't rape, you don't steal, etc. All universal tenants that far predate the 10 commandments, then maybe it's not talking about walking into a hospital and healing people are walking around the, you know, the time period, the geographical region and healing people, maybe they're talking about, metaphorically speaking, healing people that are behaving in bad ways, people that are sick spiritually. Showing them the way and healing them in a different capacity. And maybe the best proof of that is the fact, you probably heard me say this before in the show, is that if Jesus openly says that he's speaking in parables, then why would I interpret anything else that's being said as literal, if he's speaking in parables. So like that's the New Testament. It's mostly parables and stories. So that means that it shouldn't be taken as literal just on that basis of loan. How do you respond to that?

38:36You're right on that. He most definitely when he was speaking in parable, he would say, hey, here's a parable about, you know, the good master in the slaves. Here's a parable of the, you know, the virgins. Other than that, he did speak, speak very plainly and literally and even taken it literal. I mean, you brought up a topic earlier about the Buddhists and to be fair and not to really counter on what you said, but to piggyback on it to maybe prove a point is I look at though, look at that religion is very peaceful myself. I look at it that my spiritual beliefs line up very good with their beliefs, you know, and I understand I can relate to what you mean about going into a temple and feeling that peace and that calm because I've been there and I've gone into the temple. I've checked it out and yes, there is something about that.

39:38You can't deny that at all. And so going back to what you're saying, you know, there are people that will take a parable and make it literal and they'll get very legalistic about it. You know, it's the people that if you can't quote the exact chapter in verse in the Bible, then you're not a good Christian and you don't know what you're talking about. You don't have a college degree to back it up saying that you graduated from this particular college of this particular denomination of church. And then there's those of us that can read for ourselves and say, oh, well, he said this is a parable. So he's trying to dumb down what he's saying so that the people he was talking to would get it. So I'm not going to take that literal. I'm not going, you know, I agree with you basically is what I'm saying. I'm not going to take a parable literal, but I will take what he said and what his messages were and the heart and meaning behind it. I can take that literal, but it's not going to be my determining factor. If I believe in heaven and hell and you know, I've got to make it into heaven. I'm not going to.

40:44I'm not going to base my belief system on, you know, somebody misinterpreting a parable or the literal translation of that makes sense. It makes perfect sense to me. And I probably should define just for new listeners and people that don't know in general what a parable is a parable is a simple story. I mean, you alluded to it. It's a simple story. It's used to illustrate a moral or a spiritual lesson. And it comes from the Latin meaning discourse or allegory and an allegory is basically what I just said. So it's the telling of a story. It's a symbolic story and it explains it details it expresses some kind of moral lesson, which yes, you're right. I don't make that that I don't make that observation enough, but yet you're right. You can have a parable and allegory a metaphor, which teaches a moral lesson or a truth, if you will, something that can certainly be interpreted as as a literalism in some way depending on the situation, which is on the context.

41:46But that's what a parable is and that's what it's an allegory. It's a metaphor and which it's important to understand that I've said that if we just taught people what a metaphor was we could probably prevent a lot of wars throughout history, especially stuff happening today. Like a metaphor is an allegory is, you know, a symbol is something that is not literal. It's meant to convey a much deeper meaning that does not that that cannot be or it's difficult to explain in words otherwise. And it's something that speaks to us on a subconscious level, something that we can innately understand. And if you were to apply that to and apply the the the understanding of metaphors to the Christian religion, at least in general, all denominations. This is why I'm not angry about it, but I I don't I would never consider myself a Christian because I just find that the same things are being taught in Buddhism, the same things are being taught all over the world and have been taught and were taught long before Jesus was ever around.

42:58Chinese philosopher Laozi was literally right. I mean, there are some things in and Laozi's writings that are almost verbatim what you read in the New Testament that so there's no possible way. It's not like the Israelites, the Hebrews, Jesus, the Jews, early Christians went to China hundreds of years before Jesus was even alive and taught the Chinese this stuff. No, this was Chinese philosophy in a land far removed from where Jesus lived. And it was taught hundreds centuries before Jesus lived that doesn't undermine what Jesus taught like if you have two teachers teaching the same thing just because one teacher teaches it later doesn't mean that it's it's wrong. It just reinforces that maybe it's right if two professionals think that this is accurate and they're both teaching it makes sense. That that makes perfect sense. I do have a question for you. It's going to be a little bit long-winded, but I really can't wait to hear your answer to this. So and this also may give you a little in depth as to what I'm really getting at and far as trying to really study for Christ, you know, study his word.

44:12One of the things that's always bothered me is the missing gap in years, you know, and what happened in the most missing years. And going back to what I was saying earlier about being able to accept so many different theories and ideas without having to say yes, I believe this 100% I'm willing to state my reputation on it. So there's talks and some of the agnostic writings, there's other writings and yes, if you date them, they're not going to line up 100% and I can understand that that's why a lot of the gospels that were left out of the Bible were. That's the story for another day, obviously, but I'm willing to accept two things and at the end of that, my question is going to be pretty simple, but I'm willing to accept that possibly Christ did, you know, according to some of the rumors and some of the different writings out there that, you know, when he entered adulthood, he actually got married.

45:17Maybe he had it or while they were going to have a child, his wife and child died during birth and that caused him to, you know, want to leave, he took off the Egypt, their stories about that, their stories, they took off to India. And so in my head as I'm trying to really dig in and research it, if he were to be fully human and fully God, like we're told in Christian churches, the fully human side of them could have been overcome with grief and needed to basically get away to find that piece, what better place or what better area to do that in than to study Buddhism, to study that life and that tradition. Does that negate his Jewish teachings? Does that negate him being perfect according to the law of Moses? No, it absolutely doesn't, but that's not a popular opinion. Could he have gone and studied over in Egypt, what the Egyptian book of the dead or the Tibetan book of the dead? And either way, could he have studied those, could he have learned how to resurrect? And that's why we have the story of Lazarus, could he have learned the healing, could he have learned, you know, being able to meditate and truly pray the proper way, could he have learned all that and still been perfect in the eyes of the law.

46:46And the Jewish law, meaning he didn't send, he didn't break any laws whatsoever, is it still possible to accept that and still have your relationship with him and see him as okay, he died showing us the way, you know, and he resurrected, but he also had this human side. He actually had to come down and take the warriors journey, if you will, that's been told in so many various stories like Perseus, you know, he had to learn how to heal. He had to learn and experience all the human emotions and sides of the human existence in order to be able to show us the way quote unquote. The architistical journey. Absolutely. And just because it's archetypical doesn't mean, I mean, nobody can actually copyright it and say, oh, this is our story, you know, where the ones that hold it because no, there's so many other stories that predate it, you know, the, the ancient Samarian text predate so much of the Bible yet we give no credence to them because we're so caught up in all those are the other ones.

47:59We can't study that because we'll be bad people know study it, you don't have to fall into the trap of religion and be dogmatic and be radicalized. You can actually be a good person and accept the beliefs and traditions of any religion, you know, I can have a conversation with anybody, even if you believe in the big past, the monster in the sky. And we can come to certain terms and grounds and there's no need for arguing and debating. And so that was why I was going to present to you as my question is, is it okay to accept these other possibilities because it doesn't negate the whole. But when we accept them were, were ostracized and we're not allowed to talk about that around other Christians because it challenges what the churches say. Well, that is one of the central core components of what I talk about on this show, as a matter of fact, while you were expressing your view and getting to your question, I was just thinking about Lowsie and I was talking about the Bhagavad Gita and how the writings of Lowsie predate Christ by about 500 years.

49:10The Bhagavad Gita, the tradition is 3000 BC. It was written down sometime around when the Torah was supposedly written down, but the tradition is exponentially older. The New Testament was written later. So even if you don't have the Old Testament, the New Testament is, you know, the consciousness and resurrection, it's the Jesus story, which if you read the Bhagavad Gita, it's verbatim. I mean, it's verbatim. It's literally the same story, but in a much more complex way. The entire Bhagavad Gita is about Christ consciousness. That's literally what the book is. It's Krishna Christ consciousness, some of the same stories that are in the New Testament are actually in the Bhagavad Gita. So when I read all of this stuff, especially because the time period when a lot of this stuff was written down, including the Zendavesta, the origin of Buddhism around the same time of Lowsie, what you're looking at is regardless of where Jesus may have gone or may not have gone. You're looking at a universal tradition and you're looking at people today who say ours is the exclusive correct version of that tradition, even though plenty of other people have the exact same beliefs.

50:18So then it goes back to what we were saying about identity. And apparently identity matters. This is when it becomes a cult identity matters more than the lifestyle or even quite frankly, even the faith, even the belief in these ideas. So I think it's incredibly important to acknowledge these alternative, at least as far as the church is concerned, these alternative views, which are identical views to what you actually believe, because it reinforces what you believe. And I just, it's unfortunate not just because of the way that people that are Christian tend to view these things. It's unfortunate because people that hate Christians for whatever the reason might be. However, they follow away. They also use these predated topics, these predated facts, these predated texts to undermine Christianity because they hate it. So they're like, well, you know that this God or this God is predates Christ and their story is the same. So that means Christ story is not accurate. And it didn't, it took me a while to realize that's just like a really dumb argument. If anything, what you're arguing is that it just reinforces the Christ story.

51:26And if that's the most recent version of the narrative that you want to adopt, there's nothing wrong with that. But if I also want to adopt the Bhagavad Gita, because it says pretty much the same thing and more complex and sophisticated terms as far as I'm concerned, and we get to the same destination, then what's the problem? What's the issue? That's how I view it. If that answer your question. No, you're right. And that's a great answer. Thank you. In fact, that book is what caused is really my introduction to you. I don't remember if it was the secret teachings or if you were a guest on Clyde show, but the first time I heard you talking about it, you know, it caused that cognitive dissonance. And I was like, oh, he's talking about something that I know about. I don't think he's right, but he's making so much sense. I have to look for it for myself. And it was such a hard read because it was very in depth and very, I don't know, it was just different. But when I got into it and read it, and I even re-listen to that episode, the podcast version of it that I heard you on so many times, taking notes because you challenged me.

52:44And it was just because you gave me something that makes absolutely perfect sense. It's absolutely the truth. It's backed up. It's been proven. And yet it doesn't negate my faith. It doesn't negate my belief. It reinforces it, I think. I hope. Absolutely. Absolutely. It does. I case some point. And maybe this will kind of let you and the listeners know a little bit more about me without having to go into detail. But the story with Lazarus, you know, if we were to take it and say, OK, yes, this event happened. So let's just delve into exactly what happened when Christ came up on the tune. This is this is the church's son of God. This is the son of God. This is the guy that can call down, you know, thousands of angels that he jumped off of cliff. This is the guy that is going to resurrect. This is the guy that's going to die for us. He knows he knows the truth. He knows that, you know, death is the illusion, right?

53:47He knows that we continue after this. He knows it. But yet in that moment, he was sobbing and weeping because he lost his friend. He lost somebody he cared about. The son of God was crying, weeping so much so that it was written about because people remember that it made an impact on them. And in that moment, you know, he cried out and used what the power he had and resurrected Lazarus. And I say that because that story resonated with me because that showed his humanity. It wasn't just, oh, I'm going to walk up and snap my fingers like in an episode of supernatural and he's going to come back to life and everything's good. No. His humanity showed right then and there. He wept bitterly. That is an interpretation. So that humanity, we have to at least see that and acknowledge that humanity.

54:50And if that means we can accept other texts and other writings about him that's not in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John so be it. It doesn't negate our faith. It doesn't negate what he did. Maybe that's where there's confusion for me because when people say Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, yes, I've read them several times. Yes, I remember them from going to Sunday school. But when people say those things, they use those, you know, the titles of the books, the names of the characters historically. To me, it always sounds like I got you like, well, we got Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. I know who they are, but am I supposed to know who they are? Like is that we got the Bible? I know what it is. I read it, but like, why is that make anything else less important? I don't really understand that argument. Like we got the Bible, Mark, Matthew, Mark, we got Jesus. And I don't know. I got Buddha. I don't like what is that? What is that supposed to mean? It's not it's not like an end all conversation argument. But I think people feel like it is.

55:52I feel like that's where the cult mindset comes into play again. That's one of the issues that I have where I just don't understand what it even is because that's the, if that's the argument being used, it's like, okay, well, I've got, I've got a copy of, I don't know, Dune. Does that make that it's, I mean, it's real. I just understand how that is a valid argument. I feel like people could argue their religion or their faith much better for Christianity anyway. You're right. It's not a good argument. It's just a, again, it's somebody that doesn't know a good response. They don't have a good answer because they haven't researched it for themselves. They're just going on second or third hand information. And it's just a way to basically weaponize the Bible as Tlight has always said. You know, beat you over the head with the Bible. That's, that's not what Christ taught. You know, not at all. That's a great response. You're right. That is not what Christ taught at all. So why do people do it?

56:52I think people do it because they got a little piece of the information. You know, they, they know enough of the church. They know enough of the Bible to say, okay, Matthew, Mark and Luke and John are the ones, the important one, because that's where, you know, we get the actual words and quotes of Christ. And what I'm about to say may make me sound to some franchise, it may make me sound like I have a chip on my shoulder, but it's very simple. I don't negate the rest of the Bible, not at all, actually, but I do have an issue with people that will teach what Paul wrote and make those words have more meaning and more importance than what Christ said. And yet, you know, we're not, you know, you don't go to church for a feel good message that you can get on a message of the day calendar at Target. You go to church because you want to learn what Christ said, you know, and so to be very blunt about it, my faith and my beliefs do not rise and set and fall on the visions that Paul had about Christ or the dreams he had or what, you know, anybody else said that.

58:11And that sounds very mean. It sounds like I'm disregarding, you know, so much of the Bible that I'm throwing out the baby with the bathwater, but that's actually not what I'm doing. I'm, you know, if Christ is a central thing, then I don't need to hear what Paul thought about it. Paul didn't spend his entire life growing up like Christ did. He was the one that was persecuting the church. You know, and I get that he was saved and born again and he changed his ways. Still, I'm not going to hedge my faith on what he said. I can take it. I can listen to it as a metaphor as an allegory because they were visions and dreams. But I'm not going to live my life based on that. And so when I say Matthew, Mark, Luke and John is because as the researcher as trying to understand Christ, I don't need to understand Paul. I don't need to understand his circumstances. I don't, you know, I know it all. I've, you know, I've read the Bible several times.

59:17So it does bug me and bother me when Christians well meaning or not, even if it's just the huboer of sight of them coming out and saying, we'll just read the Bible and just wear the ones who write, you know, we're the ones who's right. You know, it's no different than the people saying, oh, it doesn't matter what's going to happen tomorrow because we win in the end. Well, just because we win in the end doesn't mean it's going to be all safe and happy trails. You know, you're disregarding people's honest questions and their honest curiosity by just saying, well, it's in the Bible. Read it or well, we have the right way. Just come to church every Sunday and we'll teach you. I wasn't for the record. I wasn't saying that you had suggested that or implied that by bringing up Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, I was just adding to your comment that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, like the Bible itself or like anything else that is mainline Christianity. It's always used as an I got you like, well, well, we've got we've got the real one here is like, and that's your opinion. That's circular logic. Why is it the real one because you say it is so. I wasn't saying that you are arguing that.

1:00:24Oh, no, you were I didn't take it as an argument. I took it like, okay, this guy's been secretly listening to conversations. I've been having with my friends because I have been bringing an up a lot. I'm a real good friend of mine that I was mentioning to you on our correspondence, you know, who his mom stationed over there where you are. She he's been having a real conscious of or crisis of conscience really because he really believes and his views line up more with what you and I and you know, those of us in our circles would more or less. The truth and so he's really getting taken it on the chin really from a lot of his friends and family in the church. And so he's really having that and as a pep talk the other night we were kind of talking and I was like, look, I don't it was there was a lot of expletives in that, but it was I was like, I don't care what Paul said.

1:01:25I don't care what everybody else said just if you're really trying to be a Christian, the main word in that is Christ. If you're really trying to follow Christ, stop stop worrying about what the churches are preaching, stop worrying about every other book in the Bible, stop worrying about Bible prophecy, stop worrying about that and just read what he said. Because if you're going to stake your faith and your belief system on being a good person and having a relationship with God. Then you can follow his example, you can like you said, you can go to a quiet place and meditate, you can go out to the desert for 40 days and fast and pray and have that connection with God. And it doesn't require another human being, it doesn't require a teleprompter, it doesn't require communion plates, it doesn't require you tithing your 10%. It doesn't require any sacrifice except just being willing to be quiet and talk to your creator.

1:02:29If you're just joining us tonight, I'm Ryan Gabel, this is the secret teachings radio. We have Joshua Nelson with us tonight and we are discussing having a conversation, an honest conversation and good faith about what exactly Christianity is and we're getting that information from Joshua Nelson who has a slightly different but mostly similar or respectful, we'll call it view on the subject. So you don't have to just listen to me like last night, talk about it, listen to someone else. Joshua going into hour number two tonight, I wanted to, since you've been to a Buddhist temple before I wanted to give you an example and share a story with you that I think is very relatable to what we're discussing. When I came to East Asia and I went to a Buddhist temple in Hiroshima, I went to the island of what to the shrine of it's Koshima and I went to this little island called it's called me a Gima and I go to this island names don't matter, but I went to this island and there's a boot there's a couple of Buddhist temples, but I went to the main one at the very top of the the island.

1:03:31And I had never been to a Buddhist temple that had these elements, the elements where they had an impression obviously not literal, but an impression of the feet, the physical feet of Buddha. And if you stand in them, you're supposed to be healed. So you are healed by following the path of the Buddha. Now mind you this is five centuries minimum before Jesus. Then there is a very fascinating ritual that I had never seen before I had never heard of before. They had a little tiny sign that was in Japanese and Chinese and they had a very slight English translation that wasn't really that great, but it's called Kaedan Meguri. I'm assuming that's how you pronounce it and it is it's very similar. It's almost basically the same as the great pyramid initiations in Egypt and it translates to traversing the path of the Buddha.

1:04:33And what it is is if you take off your shoes and walk down into this little dark room, you follow the path. It's in complete darkness. You can touch the wall to guide you. And then you go around the your underneath of the temple, you go around the outskirt of the under part, the under skirt of the temple, and then you exit the other side and you exit toward the rising sun, which is very similar to the temples in Egypt you'd enter. And then you'd exit usually after three days, but you'd exit toward the rising sun, not the setting sun. So there's a lot happening here. I see the footprints, the path, the way of Buddha. I can be healed by following that path. It is a symbolic ritual to stand there on those feet and pray that you're obviously not walking a literal path. You're not actually literally being healed of some condition, but it's a spiritual healing and it happens by figuratively following that path. And then when you take this little literal path, this little ritual and you go down under the temple and come out the other side, I mean, that is the death of the ego. It's the death of the physical. It is the death.

1:05:46The death of Lazarus of Christ, whatever, whatever other example you want to utilize, and then you're resurrected on the other side. That's the ritual. And these practices, these ideas and concepts, unevolved or evolved at the time. I'm not sure what exact date they were developed, but their centuries before Christianity and their centuries before Jesus. To me, unless I'm just a bigot, I feel like that's very subjective. I feel like that's very similar. In fact, identical to the teachings of or the stories of Jesus and what's in the New Testament especially. I mean, you got the following of the way, you've got the healing of the sick, you've got the death and resurrection, but that's all within Buddhism and the far east where there really isn't Christianity for the most part. So how does that happen? How does that evolve? That's not really the question to you because I'm not asking you to explain how that happens. But in noticing that, I mean, I can't just ignore that. I have to acknowledge that and have to see the timeline and help and to see the world.

1:06:52I mean, it's helping me to see that it predates Christianity. But I don't, again, think that that undermines Christianity. I think it just reinforces that we're missing some context and pieces of history here. But I think generally speaking, whether in the far east or the west, we all kind of have the same rituals and the same beliefs. We just have different words for them, different interpretations of them. But I think that this kind of a thing should unite us rather than separate us. Do you have any comments or thoughts about that? Yes, actually, wow, that was, I wish I could have been there. That sounds like such a great experience. Mine wasn't as great and then depth as that. I was talking to one of the caretakers and I was able to go through and kind of learns from about learn about it. And he was showing me particular things. And I wish I would take a note. But it was such a great experience. But being a logical person, I can't deny and does no good. If I'm going to share my faith, I have to be honest. So yeah, I can look at other stories and other text and other writings that predate Christianity that predate all of it. I can see that.

1:08:08And I see those same similarities and the same stories and such and even seeing that and recognizing that and even openly talking about it with you, you know, you're absolutely right. Not to make a funny comment about it, but 100% you're spot on. I can't negate that. My, I guess one of the main tenants and possibly I've been doing a disservice to the listeners are probably yelling at their, you know, their listening devices right now, but you know, one of the main tenants of Christianity is the belief in, you know, the birth death and resurrection of Christ because the resurrection is where that power comes in. That's where, you know, we were set free. And I never really understood that myself. I could tell you the scriptures. I could, you know, talk a good game. And it wasn't until I stripped away the dogma and the radical elements, I guess, if you will, of the religion and was able to just study it and say, OK, maybe a better allegory or analogy for Christ and what he did and why it's important.

1:09:28Would be the movie, the matrix. And I'm not saying we're looking to kneel as a God, but that movie to be quite honest and I was hearing an interview with Dr. Travis Taylor a few weeks ago. He was on a podcast and even made the statement that if he was God, you know, the best way to create. You know, this world, this universe, the simulation is basically like a computer simulation. That way you didn't have to go to all these different planets. You could just pause the program, do what you needed to do and then unpause. And so that really brought up again, the analogy of using the matrix to, I guess, better depict what I believe. And I know maybe that sounds, that sounds backwards, but being a visual person, I'm the type of person that I'm a visual learner. You know, I have to see something in action. I have to see it for myself and then I can do it myself and then I can understand the, the subject matter. That's why when I listen to your show, there's so many times I take notes and I'm text my friend back and forth so he can listen to the show and it's just that wanting to learn wanting to get the information and the correct information.

1:10:46And so if I can visualize, you know, when Christ said, you know, I came to such a free and show you the way I can visualize it looking at the matrix like they're saying, Hey, yeah, you're maybe in a simulation, if you will, you don't know if the simulation is good enough, we wouldn't know it was a simulation, but whatever it is, I'm showing you that you go on when you take your last breath. Your spirit goes on, your soul goes on, you know, hell in the Bible was meant for the, the fallen angels that caused the incursion. It wasn't meant for human beings. Somebody can prove me wrong on that if they want to try, but I'm sorry, it's not biblical. Well, well, that's the second coming is recognizing that you have a soul that you are not just physical, that you are not just, you're not just an animal and you're not just beholden to animal instincts. That's what Christ consciousness is. That's what the second coming is. That's what resurrection is.

1:11:49Yes, yes, absolutely. And I as a tenant of my faith, I do believe that Christ physically died. He physically resurrected with documentation with all the witnesses and all that. I get it. I can believe that. And I can accept that. And that's where my faith has to lie in is that he was showing us the way he was showing us how to be a good human being. How to take care of our neighbors, how to love other people, how to be there for people that are hurting, how to feed the people that are hungry and knowing that when we take our last breath. That's just the beginning. So let me ask you this. You already sort of answered it. But when you say death and resurrection literally dies, literally is resurrected. So you believe that literally, literally like died takes a last breath.

1:12:49Dead body, no spirit, no soul and then resurrected again. Is that what you mean? Is that what is that what you're saying in regards to Christ? Yes, I absolutely believe it 100%. Okay. So then here's my question to someone who's willing to have a conversation about this because we disagree on this topic. If you were to look back, I'll just give you one example. You look back into ancient Greece and you find a long tradition of what is today called the mystery tradition or the Eulucinian mysteries. This was a state sanctioned ritual religious practice wasn't for everybody. You had to be knowledgeable. You had to be, I don't know if you had an necessarily be selected. I think you could enter. But you have you had to educate yourself. You had to be you have to go through it period probation. But what these mysteries were were the teachings of science, the teachings of nature, the teachings of what was understood about the universe and what was understood about life. And part of the ritual and this wasn't just in Greece. This was also in Egypt and various parts of the world. I think on Malta as well, islands. It's all over the world actually.

1:13:59You would go into a ritual space usually in the woods and you would do so usually on midnight long story short what would happen is you would be symbolically dead. And then you would be resurrected and by dead and resurrected, I mean you enter as a child of the world who is just animalistic and adhere to your instincts. And once you learn the great mysteries that and the mystery is the mystery of birth, the mystery of life, death and in a sense reincarnation or resurrection that things die and then things come back to life like plants, animals insects, humans. So when you have this long standing tradition of death and resurrection being symbolic anywhere and everywhere you look in the world from the far east to the island of Malta, goes to this very famous you lose him mystery tradition in Greece or in Egypt as well. Maybe maybe more famously. That's where I see the Jesus story again as not being literal. That doesn't mean that it's invalid. It's just that what Jesus was teaching was a was a far more public version of what was otherwise held in secret and private because at least to the Greeks, they believe that by giving this knowledge to the common person, the common person was not ready to have it.

1:15:21And so they could abuse it and that would cause problems. So whether people agree with that perception or not in the context of it, my central point is throughout all of human history, the premier central mystery of most religions and traditions and teachings is that nature resurrects all things resurrect. And you would go through a symbolic process of being considered dead and then you would be resurrected with enlightenment. That's your rebirth. You're the second coming, etc. It just sounds way too similar slash identical to what Jesus went through in this case of the Lucian mysteries. We're talking 1500 years minimum before Jesus. Even if it's a few centuries, it's a long time before Jesus and you have these rituals of death and resurrection, which were symbolic. So how do you and I don't mean that isn't I got you. I just mean how do you approach that from the point of view of someone who believes that it's literal.

1:16:22How do you how do you deal with the fact that there are these other traditions that are universal that were always about symbolic death and resurrection realization of the soul spirit, etc. You have the floor. Okay. Yeah. I didn't think that's a gotcha. That's actually a great question. I'm glad you asked it. Because it does cost so much contention with people. The best way that I can say it and it's kind of sounds so condescending because it's just the first thought that came to my head. I'm like, well, I personally believe it. That Jesus Christ did fulfill that. You know, while it may be symbolic. I believe that he actually fulfilled that because it in just the last week of his life. He fulfilled no less than 36 prophecies that had been written hundreds and thousands of years before he was even born. Now that again that's taking it at face value that 100% right.

1:17:29But in either way, I look at it while yes, I see the symbology of it. I also and maybe this is going to sound humoristic on my part and I don't mean it to be but according to my beliefs, I believe that that's why he was the one. Everything was leading up to that. It wasn't just the Jews having a copyright on Jesus Christ. You know, he has it. You know, when we writer talk about there's a capital S on that word savior. There's a capital M on the word machia or Messiah. There's a capital L on Lord because he was the one. It doesn't negate the traditions. It doesn't negate the real life applications of those traditions and the enrichment that it can have in people's lives. You're right. He was basically telling the common folk how to do it. He was out there showing them, hey, all this has been in secret. I'm showing you. You know, this is it right here.

1:18:40And I'm okay with other beliefs and other traditions and say, well, his life and death was another, you know, symbolic thing. It was another allegory. It was all metaphor. I'm okay with that because the the message behind it is my consciousness goes on when I take my last breath. My my beliefs tell me that when I see somebody hurting, I'm going to go give them a hug. I'm going to comfort somebody who just lost their child. I'm going to go get an extra sandwich for the guy down on the corner begging for money. I'm going to help people. I don't need to advertise it. I don't need to do it openly. I don't need any recognition at all. I just need to do the right thing. And, you know, by the Christianity definition, that's not enough for me to get into heaven, but that's okay because I don't have to believe that dogma.

1:19:47I don't have to be relegated to the fact that if I just confess it that I believe that he was born, lived, died and resurrected, then I'm saved and I'm going to heaven because life is pretty boring if that's all we're doing. If all we're here to do is say, okay, I set it out loud. So it's true. You know, you're saying something that you don't understand and therefore you're saying something you don't believe. And that's watered down the message over the last 2000 years so much that now there's a church on every street corner. You know, those churches aren't free. They're not built out of people's good will. There's money. There's hard earned money and resources going to those churches and how many homeless shelters do you pass before you go to that church? How many food banks? How many grieving widows do you pass by? How many people that just need three hour nap away from you know while their toddler sleeps that they just need help? How many of those people are you passing just so you can go to church?

1:20:51Give the 10% of your money. See a rock show. Here a good feel good message and go home with a bumper sticker. I think that your answer is first of all, it's an answer that I've not officially on this show ever had someone give me. So one, I respect your answer. We still disagree, although when I say disagree, I don't mean to imply that I have like a solidified faith or belief that I'm holding on to. And that's why I'm in disagreement with you. When I say I'm in disagreement, I just simply mean I believe logically based on the longstanding traditions that just because Jesus is teaching something publicly doesn't and he dies and resurrects to me. The longstanding tradition is that it's always been metaphoric. It's always been symbolic. There's too many similarities. And in fact, it's actually the church itself. It was the Christian Roman Emperor.

1:21:53In 392 CE that outlawed these mystery traditions because they were so almost identical to what the Christians were teaching that it was a threat to the new Christian system. So that on top of the fact that from I know every denominations of Christianity is different, but from the Eucharist to the goddess motif of Mary to the three and one, the Trinity, these are all universal and very old ideas that simply because they may evolve into literal interpretations, I don't believe that they become literal interpretations. I believe they become misinterpretations. But that's how I see it. So I appreciate your response and I respect your response, even though I think we definitely disagree about that. But I respect that you give me that response, respect that you come on the show and talk about it rather than asking me to pay you $150. I will tell you what I tell everybody my advice is worth what you pay for it is free. If I had all the answers Ryan, I would not.

1:23:02Life would be a little bit different. You know, if I had all the answers, but I don't claim to have all the answers, I want to learn. I want to expand my knowledge. I want to delve into other beliefs to see what they're doing. And it doesn't negate my belief, my central belief in Christ or God, it doesn't negate that at all. You know, in order if I were to just shut myself off and say, I can't listen to any music that's not Christian, I can't listen or I can't watch any television show that's not Christian, I can't consume any kind of type of information that's not sold at a Christian bookstore. That's putting God in a box. And if you believe in God, then you believe that you shouldn't put them in a box. If he created the entire universe, if all existence, then why would I want to narrow my beliefs down and my views down to one small grain of sand and time that's just backed up just because of the cult following this pushing it.

1:24:11So I have another question on that subject, a very brief question, simple answer, simple answer. And then I have a comment so we can expand the conversation. So my simple question, simple answer is, how do you define that God had then? It's all knowing all powerful, infinite, almighty. How do you define that briefly? Oh, that's a tough one. Like, okay, then what does Jesus is the son of God? Jesus is God incarnate. So literally dies and resurrect. So what exactly? What does that mean? What does that represent? It's on again, it's not like a trick question. I just I'm trying to get your perspective on it. What does that mean? What is the God? What is God? The big G? Yeah, okay. So the big G God in my opinion, and we could back it up with scripture, but there's no need. My opinion and my view is the big G God is the one who created this world and designed it. And I also believe because of the same Bible, the same scriptures that talk about God, talk about other gods, big G or little G.

1:25:25There's other gods mentioned, you know, the Elohim. So while I have to say, yes, I am believing in this God that created this world, this universe, if you will, I also have to logically recognize that the same book that tells me that we need to believe in this God also does talk about other gods. They know what they call that he know he knows he isn't, I think, is the name of that. So you're not denying that there are other gods, but there's a central God. Right. Right. Because again, one of the 10 commandments is thou shall have no other God before me. You can look at it very. Right. Well, that was a metaphor, but I can take that literal and say, it's an infinite universe. You know, you could get into the topic of ancient aliens in the same conversation and intermingle those words except for demon. I get, I get a little edgy when people try to say aliens are demons because demons are spiritual. They're not physical. That's another topic. I'm sorry.

1:26:31I just want to say that. That is another topic. I think I'd be inclined to agree with you generally on that statement. So, he knows theism is the belief that there are lots of gods, but your belief, you know, the faith that you as an individual have, not you, Joshua, but the general you is in one central God, which is implied by thou shall have no other gods before me, which I interpret that as a, as a plagiarism, quite frankly, from ancient Egypt, maybe from Babylon, a plagiarism. And I believe it's a, it's a team version of the original concept of having no other gods, because I think what it ultimately means, if you go back far enough, as it means that you shouldn't be worshipping things, vices and things that are outside of you, the kingdom of heaven as Jesus says is inside of you. So the God that you shall have your faith in is that is the soul, the spirit that connects to the God had the sun and the father. This is a much more complex, nuanced interpretation, but I'm explaining it because part of the problem with using words like he know theism or polytheism is that we're interpreting these terms.

1:27:44And we're defining these terms by standards of the 21st century or the 20th century, whatever. And you can't really do that when we first of all change definitions all the time and second of all, we have somebody to domination of monotheism today that we can't really agree on one. So if you go back to the period of ancient Egypt, you've probably heard me say this on the show, the ancient Egyptians believed in a central God many of the different cities actually were monotheistic, the different gods like in Hinduism, the different gods are not necessarily gods that are considered the big capital G God, they are emanations of like the angels, the hierarchy of angels, they are emanations of the central God like a symbol of the ancient Egypt. Like a tomb, for example, in Egypt, even you could even argue heca, these different deities that are like the central deity, the central chief or Brahman in ancient Hinduism, it's a central deity and then everything emanates from it.

1:28:50So it's not really polytheism, it's actually a more complex form of monotheism. So that's another one of those things where if we're talking about different gods that we can't define the past, this is where that term pagan usually they're pagan polytheists, not really they're not really polytheists. They were kind of like complex, very sophisticated monotheists and each God had its place and its duty and sometimes those gods weren't really gods even in the lower case, G since they were more like the anthropomorphizing of a forest or of a lake, the giving of a personality to something to understand it and to give it life. You know, these people didn't live in a time where they had cell phones and TV and people had time to think and also superstition meaning that you don't really know where something comes from was certainly more rampant, although today, superstition is pretty rampant because a lot of things that we believe really we don't know where they come from. Like the first time I looked up like some of the Christian prophecies, I realized that it wasn't like a central prophecy.

1:29:59It was like 10 different books that they pulled one verse out of here one and also you basically just manufactured this from random interpretations of text. So anyway, the point that I'm getting at, I don't mean to be so long-winded, the point that I'm getting at to come back to the idea of God and to come back to my question is, if God is what you described or some people might describe God as just the I am, give me your interpretation, especially in relation to the literalist resurrection interpretation that you have and belief that you have. Give me your interpretation of how or why, why would that all knowing all powerful that I am, if you will, why would that literally incarnate into a physical body? I don't, I would prefer for you not to use the argument of like just love. I just want to know why the all powerful would, would reduce itself to a single definable thing. To me, that's what makes a lot of Christianity blasphemous. That's my perspective. You've got the floor. What do you think?

1:31:06That's a man, that was a great question. I really had to dig deep and start thinking about that. You can use love if you want. I'm not restricted to your answer. I'm just saying that that's usually the answer I hear is like well, he just loves us. I don't think that's an adequate answer, but. Okay, so if we go along that definition or let's say we use that train of thought because I did tell you, you know, growing up in my Christian background, I can speak from the Christian side and I can tell you what I believe now, but the general idea is. He created us and so he loved that creation and it seemed like every step of the way that creation us humans needed an idle to worship. We needed a visual physical representation of this God to worship or else calamity and chaos ensued. I mean, how many wars have been fought and how many lives have been wasted just over somebody else's definition of God?

1:32:12You know, so you can definitely say he came down here out of love and he incarnated to show us the way and it's all love and happiness and blah, blah, blah. That to me, that's not good enough because I'm like, you don't tell me, oh, just read the Bible. Oh, well, he just came down here out of love because I'm going to look at you and say, have you seen this world? What's there to love? I mean, there's so much going on. If you just took a big bird's eye view, wear a mask. You know, so don't tell me they came down here out of love. If I'm trying to look at it from my perspective, if I was God, I would say he came down here out of frustration. I feel like he came down here and said, look, you guys have really been messing up. You're not getting it right. I'm not a golden calf. I'm not some, you know, bearded dude up in the sky. Ready to send out a thunderbolt that you that that's not the way it is. This is this is the way it is. And just like you've seen in so many movies and all that, you know, the people worshiping the guy has to kill him and sacrifice him to set the soul for you, right?

1:33:24You know, you were talking about the symbology and so many other religions and texts. There's another one right there that plays out in front of us in Hollywood, you know, the sacrifice. And so I really am a hard heart. I think the he came down here out of frustration and anger. Saying, look, here's what I want you to do. You know, focus on me, focus on the right things and focus on being good and love your neighbor like you love yourself. Because that's what Christ said when he came down here, he said, look, you know, they were trying to trip him up with the legalism like you were hinting about like you got to know each first in each book and see how it lines up so they can prove my point. We're not in a court of law. You know, I'm not trying to be a lawyer and argue my faith for, you know, anything. It's just this is what I believe. So when he came down, they were trying to trip him up, you know, legalistically, and he said, look, love you, Lord God with all your heart and love your neighbor like you love yourself.

1:34:26And I can base my belief and my life on that. I'm okay with that. If I, if I want to do the right thing and God himself came down and said, look, love me and follow my way and love your neighbor like you love yourself. That's pretty simple. It's pretty simple. I mean personally Joshua speaking for Joshua. I don't feel like I can mess that up. So you don't you don't have any interpretation of it being somewhat sacrilege or profane or blasphemous that the undefinable defines itself. Your interpretation is if correct me if I'm wrong, but your interpretation is that the incarnation is in order to show that I'm real or that I'm, you know, I'm a, I'm, I'm you, you are me. We are part of the same that you should love your neighbor. Is that what I'm, what I'm to understand from what you're saying and you don't find that to be blasphemous or profane or sacrilege or can you see how people might interpret it that way.

1:35:33I absolutely do. And it goes back to what I was saying at the beginning of the episode tonight that that's the reason why my views aren't allowed in church. You're not allowed to question those things. You're not allowed to go against the grain. You have to stay in your lane. So to speak. And I'm not the type of person that stays in my lane because I want to know I have a thirst for knowledge. And if I'm tied down to you can only believe a B and C. Well, there's 23 other letters in the alphabet. Why can't I go and at least see what that's all about. You know, it doesn't go. It's not going to make me a bad person when I read the Quran. It's not going to make me a bad person that I want to go to a Jewish synagogue and see what they're all about. It doesn't make me a bad person or negate my faith to do any of that. So I guess maybe I'm different and that I don't feel tied down to a particular denomination anymore.

1:36:40I am free to pick up a Quran as easy as I am a Bible as easy as I am the Egyptian book of the dead as easy as I am behold the pill horse. I can pick up any book I want and I can find meaning, you know, to for my life and I can find the information that I want. And so I don't feel that it's blasphemous at all. In fact, to be very blunt with you, I feel sometimes emboldened that I'm doing the right thing by questioning the narrative by wanting to dig deeper, by questioning what Christians believe. Just like you are, I'm not trying to argue with them. I'm not trying to debate them. I don't want to upset their world, but I do want to cause them to question it. I do want to put a seed of, hey, maybe you need to really think about this more. You know, and at the end of the day, if you still believe what you believe and I believe what I believe, that's fine.

1:37:43You know, that that's what being a human being is all about. You and I don't have to agree on this. We can agree on so many more things. And we can have great conversations as we've been having without anybody getting upset or feeling like our beliefs are challenged because at the end of the day, our beliefs are spiritual and they should be internal anyway. That I agree with the latter part. So just to clarify, I personally, not from conviction or faith, just from let's call it academic rationale or logic for lack of a better term. I feel like it's sacrilegial blasphemous to say that the all-powerful reduced itself to not an all-powerful, reduced itself to a finite thing, the infinite to the finite. You don't see that as blasphemous, just to clarify. No, I don't see that as blasphemous. So my next question is because you will actually should be more of like a quick story in a statement.

1:38:47Since you brought up the Quran, I don't know if you've ever heard me say this, but I learned about the Quran because I just kept hearing people when I lived in Orlando, Florida many years ago. I'm from Florida. I just kept hearing people talk about the Quran, the Quran, the whole horrible, evil, evil. So I thought, I'm going to read it. So I went to Barcinobal and I got a copy of the Quran and I went up to the front desk to pay. This woman, this was like 2010, this 11, this woman asks, she's the bookseller. Like they have the book there, they don't have to special order it. She says, why would you want to buy this? And I said, I was so taken back, it's a bookstore. They sell porn there. They sell all kinds of stuff there. And so I said to her, I said, so it just that sarcasm immediately came out of my mouth. I said, so I'm not a retarded person who asks dumb questions like that. That's why I want to read it so I can learn about it because I'm literate.

1:39:50I didn't mean to be that mean to her, but I just like have this reaction because what kind of question is that why would you want to and it was a sarcastic, why would you want to read this? Because I want to know whether it's the Quran or I don't care what it is. I want to know what it actually says, not what the news tells me it says or not what the most it was Christians and the the libertarian groups that was part of or the conservative kind of political libertarian groups that were always bashing Islam. And I would let's go read it. And then I just learned that what was in it wasn't at all what they were saying. Like for example, if you read if you read the Quran, it actually says that that a law protects synagogues, churches and mosques. Real Muslims don't burn those things down. And if you're burning them down, then you're not really a Muslim because those are the houses of a law and a law is Arabic for God, which brings me to my my point is that sometimes the bigotry and the fighting is not necessarily over even an interpretation or a disagreement.

1:40:58It's literally over language. Oh, a law is not God. No, no, no, you misunderstand a law is literally Arabic for God. To me, that's one of the dumbest things is when we fight over language like well, Arabic's not that's not as valid as what what an English interpretation of like Hebrew, air, or a Greek, I think the Arabic's probably closer to some source than the modern English is, but things like things like that, like a logist means God. And if I were to read, go back to the Bhagavad Gita, I'll read you one sentence from it. This is in chapter 14. It says, it should be understood. And this is the supreme Godhead, Krishna speaking. It should be understood that all species of life are made possible by birth in this material nature. And that I am the seed giving father. So here you have the motif of the seed, you have the motif of the father, you have the motif of the children of the father. So this isn't the Bhagavad Gita. That's pretty much the same new testament, the same motifs.

1:42:06Of modern Christianity. Again, it reinforces, but just because it's written in Sanskrit or Arabic, how does that? I know that you agree with me on this anyway, but like sarcastically and rhetorically, how does another language invalidate literally the same belief? That's such a silly thing to me. It is. And oh, my goodness. Like I would have with your experience and Barnes and nobles, I tell people all the time, my sincerity and my sarcasm sound exactly the same. That's the only way I can survive in a customer service industry. And so I would be taking it back to the Shiasu, why you're buying it. It's become so strange for people to want a question and for people to want to read other beliefs and interpretations. Because they're so afraid that their fragile beliefs that are based on nothing are going to be shattered just by hearing somebody like you and I talking about what we're talking about.

1:43:09Well, that's the problem with the term faith is that I think that there certainly is a variety of ways that you could interpret it linguistically etymologically philosophically. But faith that it's core, it comes from feed us or like fidelis or like, you know, fidelity, but faith itself, like the word means a belief without proof, like a spiritual conviction without proof. So by definition, when people say they have faith, they're saying that I have no proof to back this up. I just simply believe it, which is where that that issue. And the example of buying that book, assuming that that's why the woman hadn't had an issue with it, like, well, maybe she was a Christian or maybe she was Jewish. I don't know. She had an issue with it. And I guess it's probably why people want to be paid to talk about Christianity or they just don't want to discuss it at all because it like it conflicts with with the faith, which is it conflicts with blindly believing something admittedly without anything to back it up.

1:44:14I think that might be what the that's why faith maybe should be used a little more, a little more carefully because faith doesn't necessarily mean what people think it means, I think. Yeah, you're right because going back on what you were saying with using the term a law. I don't have a problem with that at all. You can say a law. You can say, y'all way, you can say God. Yeah, whatever. I'm going to know who you're talking about. And I'm not going to be so legalistic as I'm going to say, well, that's not his name. You know, that's not the proper terminology. That's why most of our conversation. I've been using the name Christ because I don't want to. I don't want to single anybody out that may say, oh, well, his name is Jeshua or it's Jesus. That's another part of this. Yeah. Yeah. And and it's to the point where I've done enough research that I believe I know what his name really would sound like in English, but I don't care because that's not.

1:45:18That's that you're getting legalistic over somebody's name and the proper pronunciation and you're totally missing the whole reason for his existence and his message. That I agree with. Yes. That I think that's very, very important. You know, and so yeah, if I'm going to pray and I'm going to say, okay, I'm going to pray in Jesus name. I take that very literally and I don't say that when I pray, I know that what he was saying when he, you know, when he said that was praying in my name, meaning praying on the behalf of I'm the one showing you the way. And you can interpret that however you will. But my main point is we can't get so tied up in the names or the English translation and it has to be the proper way that I say it or else you're wrong. No, I would never tell anybody, hey, you're wrong for saying a law or you're wrong for saying Jesus or you're wrong for saying Jeshua or whatever.

1:46:23Who might have say that you're wrong for if that's how you view it and that's how you know him or her or it or whatever. Who might account in your beliefs? I'm just going to shake my head and say, hey, good on you. Let's go have a coffee and talk about it. So this is interesting if you were to go and take that. So take the same discussion, the same argument and you go into Arabic and you find, okay, a law does mean God. When someone says, and this is a talking point nowadays, no, it actually means devil. No, like, do you know what the devil is in an Arabic? It's Shaytan or Shaytan or if you want to talk about the plural version, it's Shaytan. So a law is not the devil. So why are people saying that? Where did that talking point come from? But furthermore, it's difficult to have these discussions when you're talking about different languages. It's an entirely different thing when you're talking about vastly different, completely opposite cultural interpretations. Like for example, over here in Japan, there really isn't a concept for God or deity.

1:47:34There is Kami, which is like various different gods, spirits, just the spirit world. You can't nail it down like you can and a law or a Yahweh. It's not a solid thing. And part of that comes from cultural interpretations. Part of it also comes from the fact that when you're not dealing with Romanized lettering and you're dealing with pictographs and what they call kanji. You're dealing you're literally literally looking and interpreting and viewing the world in a completely different way. The symbol itself means something and as this conceptual idea that's incredibly complex. But they do have a conception for it. They just don't it's nothing like the Western interpretation, but it does exist. They see it as to be bound to something. This idea of being bound to the universe is the very root of the word religion. Religion comes from relegare meaning to bind in Japanese. It's Musubu and it doesn't mean God.

1:48:36It just means to tie together or to hold together. Well, that's what God does. God holds the energy, the universe together. And if you study the origin of like say Islam, Islam, it means to be under the authority to be obedient to God. If you look at Yisra, it means to strive and to struggle with God. So these same concepts, these same ideas in different language, different cultures. It's so important to recognize this is really what frustrates me the most Joshua. And why I'm so glad you came on the show to talk about this is most of our conflicts, most of our issues come quite literally from being and choosing to be ignorant and being bigots about that. There are other people in the world who see the world differently. They speak different languages. They look at things differently. They have different interpretations and rather than writing that off and going to war with everybody who has a different interpretation, including hundreds of denominations of your own religion.

1:49:38I feel like it's much more Jesus-esque or Christ-esque to kind of accept these neighbors and to treat them with respect and ask them, what do you think and what do you believe? Oh, that's an interesting interpretation. I never thought of it that way. That's what I'm trying to preach here on this show if anything. Let me know when went when the next service is because you're not saying anything that negates my beliefs. You're not saying anything that negates my spiritual beliefs. There's nothing wrong in what you just said. That's that's why I was so excited to be able to come on and talk to you aside from being a fan for so many years, but being able to have a common sense conversation without anybody getting upset or feel like we have to tear each other down. If you don't believe the way I believe then you're wrong and I'm right. No, no, no. I've been sipping my coffee. We've been having a great conversation and you're right. So many wars and so much strife would have been eliminated if we could be like Christ and just say, hey, what do you believe? Really? That's interesting. Well, why do you believe that? Wow, that I'm going to look into that. That's that's awesome. Thank you.

1:50:54You know, I mean, it's the people like you were mentioning last night like the political pundits that are talking about the anti Christ or everywhere. They could be among us. I agree with you that he's a crazy person needs to be locked up and taken all of his power in authority away. 100% and that's that's the problem is the fact that it's people like that that have no clue that they are ignorant of other beliefs. Let alone the one that they claim and profess. They're just using it to get the Christian vote. Oh, that's exactly that's exactly what it is. It's just disgusting. It's just disgusting. And it really that it's that type of mindset from so many people and organizations that made it easy for me to walk away from the church and from organized religion and say, you know what? I'm going to find this out on my own. See, this is another thing, Joshua, that confuses me is that as someone who's not a Christian, which apparently for some people just invalidates everything that I save. And if I live a lifestyle like that, I am confused why it's not easier for Christians who are very suspicious of everything sometimes including music, including clothing, including, you know, the way that you said at the dinner table.

1:52:15The Christians don't see I think on average and I mean all Christians on average, I don't think see that your JD Vance is who you refer into in regard to the Antichrist who just also in that same interview said, if what I do leads to the end of the world, so be it, you know, that's my faith. That's absolutely insane. And if the Iranians are, you know, are also insane, then maybe, you know, maybe we should reassess what our position is in the world because we call everybody else religious fanatics and then we've got vice president saying we can blow up the entire world. That's Jesus wants that like that's insane. That's crazy. We agree. We agree on that. But beyond that, I don't understand why Christians don't see the fact that Christianity is being used abused and Christians are watching people claim that their Christians are not going to be able to do that. I don't believe that religion to get not just votes, but to make money like I don't believe that Lily Phillips, the only fans horror is a Christian. I don't believe jelly roll or Russell brand or Christians or Nicki Minaj, whose name means Nikki, the devil, Minaj, Minaj, H. Wah with Satan.

1:53:22People are Christians just in Bieber. Maybe they are done really matter, but like I feel like these are the kinds of people that are doing it because the record label said there's more money here. I don't, and there's a lot of that going on Christianity is like a selling point. It's a topic of, you know, it's like a brand. Well, I'm a Christian now because you know you'll get the votes. You know you'll get the money. You'll know you'll get the clicks. And I'm not even a Christian and that disgusts me. So there's got to be something that changes within Christianity. Something that changes within the United States of America, you know, even just on the basis alone, like if you're arguing to have other religions like Islam completely banned, you're ultimately arguing to have Christianity banned. If you can ban one, you can ban them all. So this is the big issue both philosophically, spiritually, politically, constitutionally, et cetera with me. If you have comments on that, I wonder if you agree. I'd assume that you do. Yeah, I absolutely agree with you. I cannot find fault with it. Now we may disagree on a few tenants of it and that's fine, but the disagreements are in questions that you and I both have. And to be fair, we have some of the same questions about the same topics, especially with Christianity.

1:54:39I think what really needs to happen and whether we're talking politics or whether we're talking Christianity or religion, I think those of us that have a voice that are able to use that voice need to speak out when we can to speak for the weaker ones that don't know what's going on. You know, the boomers, you know, the older people that are just, they're still following the Republican side because that's just what we're supposed to do and they're God fearing and God bless America and drill, baby, drill, whatever it is. I'm here in Texas, so I've lived my whole life. You know, it's whatever it is, you have to have that, you know, that team to root for. And so that's what it's turned turned into. And it's sad because yeah, so many people can capitalize on it. Famous celebrities, mega church pastors, they capitalize on people's need to belong to something.

1:55:41And it shouldn't be that way. What what it should be, what spirituality, what religion, what Christianity should be, is what really you open the floor for. You know, and you're right for so many years, you know, not that I care, but for so many years, I believed you were probably along the same path of belief that I was in Christianity, just because you do live clean, you know, your diet, your health, the things you talk about. They're not anti God and they're not anti my God. So it was easy for me to say, well, hey, we have common ground here. You know, and guess what, we don't believe the same thing, but we still have that common ground. And that's worth more than absolutely that's worth more than anything else is being able to have that human connection and talk to somebody, even if you disagree, but still enjoy the conversation and enjoy the friendship because at the end of the day, we're all here on this planet. We need to get along and we need to be able to just be better people to each other and hear each other out.

1:56:49That's what this conversation is all about. That's really what the secret teachings is all about. Joshua Nelson, thank you for coming on the show tonight. Ryan, it's been my pleasure and an honor and thank you so much. I look forward to talking to you soon, but have a good night. You got it. If there's an email that you'd like to give out or anything that people could get in contact with you, if they would like is, is there something that you would like to give? If they want to reach out on me on the social media, where I commented on your post, it's fine. Again, I don't have any books to sell. I don't have any agenda to push. I'm not trying to make money. I just wanted to have a great conversation and have somebody speak on this topic that wasn't held down to an organization or a dollar sign. Well, I appreciate that and respect that. Thank you. And we'll conclude the show tonight. I'm sorry. Go ahead. I cut you off. No, absolutely. You have a great night. Thank you so much. All right. You too, Joshua. Bye bye. We'll close the show tonight. I'm going to read you something and then you as the audience rhetorically. Tell me who said this. Love the world as your own self.

1:57:58Do you do do do who said that? Is that a Matthew? Actually, that's from the Talta Ching from 500 years before Jesus. Here's another one. Love your enemies. Help everybody. There's no rejected person. A good man is a teacher. I mean, that kind of to me sounds like the book of Luke. Love and your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. So there's a similarity here. There's a similarity between these two philosophies or beliefs. The sage wears rough clothing and holds the jewel in his heart. Sounds like Matthew for where your treasure is there. Your heart will be also. Again, 500 years or so before Jesus doesn't disprove it. It just reinforces it. Like that's still a valid series of valid philosophies. Regardless of who said them. I don't care if the I don't care if the like a cartoon character says them. They're still valid.

1:59:03Anyway, TST radio.info. That's the website. Please sign up to the ad free archive. If you enjoyed this show, you don't like the advertisements, which who does. That's how we finance the show though. We don't have advertisers or sponsors. So sign up at TST radio.info. Get access to the archive without advertisements. It's very simple. It's very straightforward. If you have questions, already gave a 1991 at Gmail.com. That's the email. You can also buy me a coffee and support us via cash app. If you throw us $5 or $10 or you buy a book like Occult Arcana where you can read a lot of what we discussed tonight on the show. It's a massive, massive encyclopedia like text. All right, the music is white bad audio. Josh Winnelson, our guest tonight. I'm Ryan Gabel. TST radio.info. Have a great night. I'll talk to you in the next broadcast. Bye-bye.