Live from the Pathway Studios in Johnston proper. You are live from the Pathway Studios.

And you're listening to Live From The Path. We're coming from the Pathway Studios here at Justin Proverbs. It's gonna be with you. Anyway, what what? How how did it do? I got problems already? Yeah. Look at that. What was the what was the problem? Michael, it's going super red when you speak. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. I got that. I got this under control. Serious. That sounds really serious. Yeah. Mean, we don't need any we don't need any problems. We're already, like, late to the train here. There's no no reason to continue to have problems. And this has been from Life in the Path, in case you've forgotten me. It's understandable. Here's what we got going on the show tonight. First of all, welcome back to us. Thank you very kindly. We're glad to be back. So as we get a little bit of catching up to do, we're not gonna spend a ton of time on it, but like since we've last been on the air, Mike and I have been been to Ethiopia and back. Dan has been from to Zimbabwe and back.

And so, I mean, and Boof has been gone and Not come back at all. Boof's been wandering the ground somewhere. And so, so here's the deal. No one wants to look through someone else's, you know, vacation slideshow here, ministry work or otherwise. So your goal is to try to try to, some you got like one thing. You got one thing you can one thing you can volunteer and then one thing we can ask and then we're gonna call it a day on the trips

Yeah. About stuff that's going on. And there was an article, that I saw, it was it was interesting. It was about how artificial intelligence, predicts why atheism isn't, popular.

And so, like, they've got a model that says, like, these if these things exist or need to exist for atheism to become popular. And, like, I know it's it's kind of a cool look at it. So we're gonna we're gonna talk just a little bit through that and see if we can find anything interesting in there. Also, so let's see. We got Mike, we got advice this week? Yeah. Of course, we do. I haven't looked it up. I completely forgot even how the show runs. So I didn't look It's been a while. To see if there was some available, but I'm certain there is. Okay. Yeah. That's understandable. Okay. Alright. So I mean, I think that's all we got on the shoulder knife. Should we can get that done, and and, you know, cut the tape. I think we'll be just fine. Yeah. I mean, it'll be better than what we produced lately. So Yeah. Yeah. That's right on. Alright. So, alright. So so first first context, suppose. Mike So and I ended up in Ethiopia. Well, so Mike Mike, why don't you kinda set it up just a bit? So my wife and I had been attempting

to adopt out of Ethiopia for about the last five years or so. And and so, you know, we've been we've been keeping up with the paperwork and doing all this jazz and and and every year doing home studies and visits and whatever and paying a fee and blah blah blah immigration, all this stuff. And so, you know, when we first opened it up, they're like, hey, three years is about the how long it'll take. I'm like, yeah, that's fine. I don't care. That's not a big deal at all. And I'm like, well, it's getting a little clogged up. We think it'll probably take four years. I'm like, that's no problem at all. Yeah. So, you know, you're a year later, they're like, okay, we think five years will cover it. And then you'll definitely have this baby. So I'm like, great. There's no problem. Great. This will be the year. And after five years, Ethiopia decides they no longer wanna do international adoption. And that's rough. And then and then we don't we don't adopt from Ethiopia.

And so long story short, like, you know, God had provided, you know, a way for us to to be able to do this. It's it's, you know, kinda expensive to adopt internationally, and and it wasn't really on our radar until, you know, we felt like God had brought it up. And then all of sudden, five years later, it's we're not going. It's just it's not happening. And and I sit confused. I'm like, boy, I feel like this was the thing, and and maybe it wasn't the thing. And you know what we're gonna have to do? We're gonna have to go to Ethiopia and and see what the thing is. Maybe I just half misunderstood what was going on here. And so my wife went over in September,

of last year and absolutely fell in love with the place. Just thought it was great. It had a heart for for every kid, every orphanage they visited and stuff. And and and so, you know, she's like, you know, you gotta go. And so I said, well, you know, we have we have the ability to go. We should probably take somebody with us. And so I asked Ben if he wanted to go and he said, yeah. So we went over there to, you know, kinda look at the because the international adoption had been shut down, they don't do income in country fostering or in country adoption very well. It's an option, but the the culture just doesn't do it. And so we were visiting orphanages that were starting to take on kids,

you know, and and due to the the no longer international adoption thing. And so that's what we were doing over there. And there were some very very cool experiences with them. There were some very humbling experiences over there in Ethiopia with the kids and whatever, and and, you know, nothing has changed. I still have a heart to adopt kids from over there, but there's there's things about their community that I just could not envy anymore. They seem to do community

amazingly well. They take care of each other within the orphanages community at least very, very, very well. It's kind of it's kind of cool to see. Alright. That's the setup on Ethiopia. Dan? Yeah. So I think we talked about this a little bit before you left, but, like, quick quick setup on Zimbabwe. Yeah. We became partners with Hippo Valley Christian Mission. They have 27 schools,

two working on three medical clinics. The the the schools each have churches. The churches or the schools also have these clubs called Living Proof, which is the children there. They're educating and then and have sponsorship type of things. The two orphanages, Bible College. They just have a quite a web throughout Zimbabwe. So we partnered with them

so that we could do some ministry, help them out, and then leave. And there there still be them there to to to finish the job type thing, you know, because we the goal is discipleship. Right? Not just to make a splash. So and that's what that's what we did. We partnered with the church. We we we did some pretty cool things. We're still hearing some neat reports

about the stuff that went on there. And we had a group of 10 and I'd say it was pretty life changing for them as well. Awesome. Yeah. Awesome. And so I I don't I guess I don't really have a setup, but Mike kinda covered mine. We ended up there just in kind of tagging along to something that,

that that Mike and his family were kind of invested in. And, and I agree. It was, there there were life changing, parts of that as well for me. Alright. So Mike, takeaway. From the from the trip? Yeah.

You know, I don't know. I don't know. You know, I'd actually my wife asked me the same thing when when I got back and I I didn't know that I could answer. Right? Like, I I don't process that fast. Things that are bigger than me like that Yeah. Like, I don't I don't process it that fast. I know that that there's a I I don't wanna say forced simplicity about the way that that some of the situations we ran into that I thought, man, they just they're able to find so much joy in situations that, like, would be completely depressing to me. And I thought, that's foul on me. That's big time foul on me, you know, like like like the either case. I I think there was a there was a simplicity and there was an openness that God is,

still doing things and still very powerful in the eyes of a lot of people. And, sometimes our our society misses that. We miss we miss community for stuff and status. And and and I I think if I'm if I'm starting to grasp something that I pulled away from there, that that might be that might be where I take it. Alright. Alright. Dan, take away from Zimbabwe.

That that what we do matters. You know, you kinda go you think, okay. Really, we're going for a couple weeks. We're just a handful of people. What what are we gonna do? You you know? We we're doing it here to to

some success, but nothing exciting, you know. Nobody's, you know, inviting us to speak at conferences or anything, you know. It's just like we're just we're just doing our thing. Why would we spend all kinds of money to go over there and do the same thing that they can do themselves? And it it matters. It really it really does. We we met one of the guys we we worked with. He is in in he oversees the the I can't remember. It's '26 or '27. I should look that up. The schools and the pastors

each school has a has a church, so he oversees the pastors, and they're called patrons who oversee the the Living Proof kids. His story is incredible. He he's a just an amazing Christian man dedicated to Jesus, you know. I mean, he's just this neat guy. I just love sitting down talking to him. We got to spend hours with him because you get in the truck, takes hours to go places. And anyway, back back in the day, you know, thirty, forty years ago, a group of white people showed up and had a revival at a church and he heard the rumor there were white people and he thought, what what do white people look like? I mean, you know, it's like Yeah. What do they want? Yeah. Mean, they they they they've gotta look they gotta look funny. I mean, know, the how do you You know, he's just trying to figure out. And so he went just out of curiosity, didn't speak the language, he speaks Shona.

And so he didn't have a clue what they were saying. But, you know, he he there was an interpreter and stuff. He he he discovered that that the message was that there is a God who loves you and and that we love you too. And and he went home and he couldn't let that go and he ultimately became a a believer, a follower follower of Jesus and grew up in the church. It's one of these Hippel Valley Mission churches and now

he's like over all this stuff. And the big deal is he he comes from a a long line of spiritualists. His his mom wasn't heavily involved in in like he liked the the village healer and and demonic activity and and some of the stuff you might see in the Hollywood movies like she she lived it. And you know speaking voices and accents and genders and and languages that she's never known contacting the dead. All you know, this kind of stuff. Yeah. And and like he would have been next. I mean, he would have been raised in that. He would have been the next guy for the village and Jesus changed everything because this group of white people showed up for a week and said, hey, God loves you. And I guess I guess I needed to hear that because because, you know, you spent that's a lot of money and a lot of time and a lot of effort to go

halfway across the globe to do the same thing we're doing here, and it it really is worth it. And so that that was my I guess that was my big take home that it it was it was good. It was good. There's there's god things happening simply because of who we are. Not that we're special, but that people saw us like as a freak show. You know? Right. Let let's go see the white people. And we we were able to just because of that, say, hey. God loves you, and so do we. And we we we showed them some pretty tangible ways, some love. So

You know, we never take that tact in this country, and we should do it more often. Right? You gotta figure out the weirdest thing you could possibly be. Like to say, hey, look, there's people dressed as dancing umbrellas, and I cannot understand what they're doing here. And they show up just to check it out merely because there's dancing umbrellas, and then you whip out the gospel. Never tried that here. But you know what? Think that's where some of the churches have have in from a good motive, some of the craziness of the attractive model church has done some crazy things, having literal circuses and stuff on their stadium. We've already tried that. Actually, have done that, but then but then they they don't disciple. You know? Yeah. You've gotta you need the other half, you know? If if it's just the show and just the Circa Freak act, then you're just being freaks. Well, that's true after a certain extent. You know, I mean, like if you paraded white people in there all the time, they lose their novelty and they're like, it's just another white guy. It's another white guy. Yeah. And they think we all look exactly alike, which is really funny. Because, know, like we have different color hair. I mean, you know, there's so many features, bigger, smaller, all that stuff. Then Right. I can't tell one from another.

That's awesome. Yeah. It's pretty good. But and and they're just so loving. They're just so and like like you guys noticed too. It's just they're so full of joy. They live in dirt, literally. And and they walk in dirt, and and and they're just full of joy, and and they're they're they're just cool. It's great to partner with them. Yeah. And I think that that, I would echo that. That was part of, I think, my takeaway, if I could there's maybe there's a couple in here. But, like, it was

seeing seeing like joy and like what's what felt like natural, like a natural sense of community and like there's part of the lesson was is that like I think we we try to to do that here, but like we we simply aren't in the same situation. I think we have to recognize that like when when your community looks like people that are literally next door and like the store of which you buy thing like every corner in Ethiopia has got brooms and soccer balls and Fanta. Like every store's got it and it's within 20 feet of any given given person at any given time. Right? And so like, if that is your community, like you will kind of naturally have a closeness because you are close. It takes effort to try to reproduce that in a in a society where, and so like like, this Dan Pathway is a good example. Right? Like you've got people coming in from all over the place. Right. And so it's so it's actually, it it is not as

natural and like we we try to build it in, and I think there's ways to kinda do it, but like it it just it it isn't the same thing. I think we actually do have to recognize it's not it's just not quite the same as, as that that is kind of where everybody is always at, is kind of in this in this focused area. But like, I I think in general, seeing seeing people treat each other in that way, like, was just such selflessness,

especially in like the orphanages. There was it's like an orphanage. Got 200 girls in it and like, they were handing out stuff that we had brought for donations and stuff and, like, there were two girls that were kind of in charge and they kinda they like, they knew all the girls. They knew all the girls and they knew what all the girls needed. So, like, they would be, like, oh, you know what? This person needs this. Oh, this person needs this. And I felt, like, I mean, I know 200 people, but I I I could not tell you I probably couldn't give you all their names nor could I tell you what is they needed in any given time, you know. And so I think there are aspects of that, but then I think there are there are aspects too of of kinda Dan, what you were talking about is, like, they seemed like small things. Even the the distance was big, but like the stuff you were doing, you certainly can do anywhere. Right. And it actually reminded me of two things. It thought it thought like

that even even small efforts on we brought a bunch of suitcases, empty suitcases for some of the orphan girls who like who were leaving the orphanage. They wanted to give them something that made it feel like we weren't just that they weren't just saying put your put your junk in a in a in a sack and go go away. Right? Like a suitcase means you're you're a legit person, you have you have something of what you carry your stuff in. And so like, I mean, it took a lot of effort. We got like 24 empty suitcases over. And so so but it just seems so it wasn't much. Right? It didn't like it didn't cost much. It was an effort to get it there, but it didn't cost much. But but it reinforced the fact that, like, yeah, just just do the things. Just the effort. Just put the effort into it, like, it will it will find its way to light somewhere and then also kind of pointed out to me that like, I don't know that I believe that here.

It's true here, but I don't think I believe that here. Because I can easily say they don't have access to suitcases. Hey, got them some suitcases. Big deal. Cost me $2 per suitcase at the at the Goodwill or something. I would think to myself, I can't help somebody with a suitcase here. But like in concept, yeah, you can. Like some of those like those same things do actually apply here and I think I need the reminder that that, our small things may be different small things, but they they do have kind of the same impact and so,

you you get a bit of a mountaintop experience for being in another place, being the person that has resources to actually help when no one else has resources. It's cool. It's fun to have resources and be able to legit help people and make a significant difference. But like, just because you're not that here, doesn't necessarily mean that you don't have the same opportunity. Like what we have, we don't call them orphanages, but like there there still are kids who could use someone to come visit them and say hi and read books and like you just do stuff like that. And so, it's a good reminder that,

don't don't don't write things off and say, look, everybody who needs taking there's there's plenty of organizations, there's plenty of people, these things certainly must be getting taken care of. It is not necessarily true. Just start asking around the things you care about and jump on in on it. You know what's cool is, I mean, it it puts you in a surreal place where like all week we basically gotta go around and listen to other people talk and

provide them with things and help people and be interested in their lives and and it was really fun. Like, was really fun. And you don't get to do that. I don't get to do that here. Right? Here, I have to go to work and do stupid things that I don't like. And then I get to take a week and do literally all the things that the kingdom of God says will bring you joy. And it would and and he wasn't kidding. Like, I'm not making things up. Right? Like, we spent we spent a bunch of money. That wasn't even mine. People donated it. And I said, well, we get to say, what do you guys need? And they're like, we need this. I'm like, we'll go get this. And then we went to go get it. And it was awesome. And they're like, you need three. We need three. And we're like, here's 10. Yeah. Here's 10. You had it. We Yeah. Yeah. It was really the the one of the the things I always remember is we went the the orphanage with a couple 100 girls in it. They're like, no. We can't we can't accept anything. We've gotten our government rations or whatever. And so if you give us more, then it'll look bad and then they'll stop our government rations. I'm like, okay. Well, can we bring soda? They're like, yeah. So we bought like 200 Fanta. Clear cleared the place out of Fanta, right, and go to this over. And these girls are so appreciative that we brought it. Mhmm. 10 of them try to give it back as a gift for giving it to them in the first place. Yeah. And I'm like, I don't know what to do with you guys. Like, my kids literally would have taken a Fanta right away. Yeah. Yeah. And barely acknowledge that it came out of the car and be like, Fanta, right off. No. Thank you. Just Fanta, gone. And these kids are trying to present it as if they've owned it. We came back the next day, it's half gone, and they're still trying to pawn it off. They haven't drunk it all. They're keeping it around. And they're like, here, want some feta? I'm like, I know. You I can we gave you a feta yesterday. Drink that feta. And it was it was just it was it was just wild.

It was wild to see that type of generosity. Yeah. Who is so appreciative of that that they have had something that they try to give it back to you as a gift. We wear the same same group of girls, like, had brought it like a bunch of friendship bracelets and handed them out to them and I I have two on my arm right now because those two girls got them and they're like, hey, we wanna keep you these friendship bracelets. And they do have a penchant for Justin Bieber, which is terrible. Which is terrible. Yeah. There was a guy there was a guy with us and he was a younger teenage guy. He's he's a he's an alright kid, you know, he's cool, but but like, they loved him. They thought he was they thought he was Justin Bieber. And so they're trying to get him to sing tunes and whatever. I'm so glad I'm old.

I don't wanna sing no Justin Bieber tunes to a bunch of teenage kids. It's terrible. Yeah. That was pretty funny. So so, Dan, before you left, we you we talked about the prospect. We we were talking about, like, what do you do with your life? It came up that it was a possibility you were gonna do some street evangelism in Zimbabwe. Did that come to fruition? You you know what? They canceled that because of the elections coming up. There was just a lot of concern for turmoil,

and and the government officials were watching this. Yeah. And they even came to the revival and everything. And they just decided, you know what? They're gonna think where they're trying to persuade votes. Oh, right. So we we left these little Evangel Evangel Cube, it's called, and and the kids loved it. Then someone had found it. And it's like this picture block thing that you change the pictures, and it tells the gospel. Cool. And yeah. It was it was actually that was kinda fun. And so that they were eating that up and but, yeah, we didn't go out on the street. Dang. No Zimbabwean street evangelism for damn. I really wanted to hear how that I know. It would have been crazy. I'll tell you though, at at the at the at our orphanage we went to, we we brought shoes. Right? Yeah. And half these kids don't have shoes or some had, like, their toes were sticking out. I mean, it was like it it was it was a legitimate need. And and we had this whole pile of new shoes we brought in that our kids decorated and stuff last Christmas and left notes for them and stuff. It was it was really pretty cool. Yeah. But and the kids were super excited to get shoes, but we didn't have enough. I mean, we didn't you know, we didn't know how how many it happened. And and

the disappointment, but they didn't show the disappointment of like that, you know, there was no no whining, there was no looking dejected. They were just like, okay, you know, we just don't get any. Yeah. And and then later on, we went and gave some people money to buy some and get you know, they they got shoes, but just not when we were there. I know that just impressed me with them too because because can you imagine our kids, they'd be, you know, on the floor keeping their legs up and down. And so and so got shoes. They got shoes. I don't have shoes. I want Spider Man shoes. They just were just like, well, I guess we don't get any. Yeah. I mean, they were trying to stuff their feet in those two size, two small shoes. Oh, no. This works. We're like, no. That's No. No. No. That's gonna hurt you.

And it's yeah. So and I said it was just pretty cool that that their attitude and and and, well, like we already said, the joy and contentment Here's the article. This is from The Atlantic, and this was just from July of this year. And it's and the article started, artificial intelligence shows why atheism is unpopular.

And so I'll give you a little bit of the premise here. They said, imagine you're the president of European country. You're slated to take in 50,000 refugees from The Middle East this year. Most of them are very religious while most of your population is very secular. You wanna integrate the newcomer seamlessly, minimizing the risk of economic malaise or violence, but you have limited resources. One of your advisers tells you to invest in refugees education. Another says providing jobs is the key. Yet another insists the most important thing is giving the youth opportunities to socialize with local kids. What do you do? Well, you make your best guess and hope the policy you choose works out, but it might not. Even a policy that yield a great results in another place or time may fail miserably in your particular country under its present circumstances.

If that happens, you might find yourself wishing you could hit a giant reset button and run the whole experiment over again, this time choosing a different policy. But of course, you can't experiment like that not with real people. You can however experiment like that with virtual people and that's exactly what the modeling religion project does. An international team of computer scientists, philosophers, religion scholars and others who are collaborating to build computer models that they populate with thousands of virtual people or agents. As the agents interact with each other and with shifting conditions in their artificial environment, their attributes and beliefs, levels of economic security, of education, of religiosity and so on can change. So so in general, what they're trying to do is to say, how do we make policy decisions that put people at risk or try to understand kind of a mass behavior of people with a ton of different variables without actually kind of playing a let's see what happens type of game. So can we use artificial intelligence and kind of these created environments to model and figure out what people are gonna do? So someone's programming, this is what a Muslim does. That's right. That's what a Christian does. That's right. And that that interesting interesting interesting to be part of that conversation of how do you decide how to program a Christian. Yes. Yeah. Exactly. Right. They actually that that's a really good question. And they have so everything is online like it's an open source tool. And so they said the goal of the project is to give politicians an empirical tool that will help them assess competing policy options so they can choose the most effective one.

And it said because all of our models are transparent and the code is always online, if someone wanted to make people more in groupie, more anxious about protecting their rights and their group from the threat of others, then they could use the model to figure out how to ratchet up anxiety. And so, like, it runs the the article will kinda spec this out later on, but, like, Dan kind of nailed one of the risks to this. Right? Like, it's it's trying to kind of say this is how people behave with these when these attributes are present and they have this belief system or whatever. Right? I can't even say how Christians act. Yeah. I know it's such a wide gamut. Yeah. Yeah. I think they should. Right. But Yeah. Yeah. Exactly right. So it's so there was one that focuses on

refugees and then that this was the interesting part and where the title of the article come come come from comes from using the same kind of basic premise. It says, another project forecasting religiosity and existential security with an agent based model. That's the title. Can't read articles like this. I know. Hey. Here's this. Actually, so, again, I I you've probably experienced this too. Like, it it isn't true necessarily for like, the theology theological,

like, commentaries. Like, people who are writing books don't necessarily tend to do but people who are publishing articles about theology tend to do the longest names for things. Like Yeah. Like like like they they're explaining it's their their sentences to as the book is or the article title, to to make it real super clear what it is that they're talking about, and, like, it's outlandish. Yeah. They can't just come up with like a single single title for things. So anyway, it says, it examines the questions about non belief. Why aren't there more atheists? Why is America secularizing at a slower rate than Western Europe? Which conditions would speed up the process of secularization or conversely make a population more religious?

And so, the guy's team tackled these questions using data from the International Social Survey Program conducted between '91 and '98. They initialized the model in 1998 and then allowed it to run all the way through 2008. It says we were able to predict from that 1998 data in 22 different countries in Europe and Japan whether and how belief in heaven and hell, belief in God and religious attendance would go up and down over a ten year period. We were able to predict this in some cases up to three times more accurately than linear regression analysis. Schultz said, referring to a general purpose method of prediction that prior to the team's work was the best alternative. So, and in general, maybe you could think of that as

we looked at data over the last fifty years and saw its trend and then assumed it would continue in the same way with a few variables that otherwise might impact it. This is saying we were three times closer than that kind of historical regression model. So that history regression model, that's basically how they figured out carbon dating. They look to see how carbon, whatever dates over the last x fifty years or whatever extrapolated forward. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. With you. Alright. So using a separate model, future of religion and secular transitions, the team found that people tend to secularize when four factors are present. See if these make sense. Existential security, you have enough money and food. Personal freedom, you're free to choose whether to believe or not. Pluralism,

you have a welcoming attitude to diversity. And education, you've got some training in the sciences and humanities. If even one of these factors is absent, the whole secularization process slows down. This, they believe, is why The US is secularizing at a slower rate than Western And Northern Europe. So thoughts? What what are we lacking of those four? Is it the diversity?

What is it? What do you think? Hold on. What were the four options again? You have enough money and food. Yeah. So security, enough money and food. Personal freedom. You're free to choose whether to believe or not. Pluralism. You have a welcoming attitude to diversity. Education, you've got some training in the sciences and humanities. Look at all of it.

Mean, because we're not good at the science and humanities? Or is it the divert I don't think it's the diversity thing. Mike thinks it's diversity, Dan. Yeah. I'm gonna guess they say it's diversity, although, like, they're pushing us so hard, It's there. I mean, Dan says we might just be burned out. We've already seen it. Pass it on. I don't know. I mean, I I don't think I think I mean, I live in my own bubble, I don't have a problem with anybody. So I guess I'm diverse. I don't know. So so I mean, they seem like real,

I mean, you could easily be offended by this. Right? Because you're saying, I like the existential security, you have enough money and food. It it does actually make sense to me. I I I'm kind of interested in what they mean by enough money. Right? Enough food might be a slightly different thing, but this goes back to what I think what we were just talking about about some of the the stuff in Africa is that, like, when I I do consider kind of an excess amount of stuff starts to create a blindness. It starts to create, you believe you control more things than you do, and it gives a false impression. And so, that actually does make sense. You don't, when you feel like you have enough power, you do not have to lean on a higher one.

And so perhaps you don't. The personal personal freedom, you're free to choose whether to believe or not. That also makes sense. Although there's probably a difference between what people believe or and what they actually believe and what they otherwise cop to believing. Right? Like, so if I'm in a kind of a authoritarian state of which I have to believe this thing, You don't have a way to evaluate whether I actually believe it and follow it. You just know whether I say that I do, probably for protection reasons so that you don't come after me or my family based upon what I say I believe. Like the barn surveys. Yes.

Like the barn surveys. Yeah. Right on. So in that way, pluralism, have a welcoming attitude, diversity. Like, that's a super big I I'm sure there's more detail actually in the study itself, but, like, a diversity of what? Yeah. Because that's it's a significantly broad category of, what is diverse. Like, are you saying that that you are welcoming to other religions, other races, other situations, other choices Yeah. Or whatever. Yeah.

So anyway, so they they here's the the result, the why The US is secularizing at a slower rate than Western Europe and Northern Europe. It says, The US has found ways to limit the effects of education by keeping it local. And in private schools, anything can happen. Said Schultz collaborator, Wesley Wildman, a professor of philosophy and ethics at Boston University. That's the best. Yeah. He probably says it Wildman. I mean, would say Wildman. Because we don't have a universal educational system? Yeah. I think that's what they're saying. And I I wonder if the implication is is that it that means private schools or local control over education means that they may not be extensively

in sciences and humanities that otherwise may point you away from a belief system. Yeah. But I mean, when the flip side be true is like, because there's certain parts of the sciences that I go, you're because of of my religion, I think what you're saying is a stretch. Yeah. Right? Like some of some of the scientific theories that I find are are are possibly coming from this wild man. You know what I'm saying? Like, they're they're shots in the moon. They're poor science, actually. And so, like, what they're defining as the study of science and humanities, they're they're they're saying hold on now. This is part of the same wheel because science and humanities, that is atheism. Right? And you're saying if you don't believe in science and the humanities or a k a atheism strongly,

then you will be more religious. Well, That makes no sense. Yeah. So so I I suppose that is the point because it's not a, like we we would make distinctions here. Right? Like it's not a matter of accepting or believing or studying science or humanities. It's the question is do I allow those things as the as the prism through which I define my worldview. Right? Do I say because you say this thing, I believe this is my core focal point and then I digest everything else through it,

through either with the discussion about humanities or like depending on what you're studying, sciences. And I I would say like I have a core focal point of a a a belief in in God and then everything gets digested kinda through that same thing, which isn't necessarily rejection of humanities or sciences. But what it says is is like, I'm not saying this is the prism through which I digest the world, which seems to be kind of the implication here. Is that as you get exposed to those types of things, then you allow everything to throw go through that prism and then, you may kind of discard other things. And I suppose to be clear, this is not a Christianity question. It's a it's a secularization question. It's atheism versus a belief system. Atheism versus everything. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So like we abandon the concept of a higher power relative to you don't you don't feel like you have any need for them, because you're you're secure. You recognize and and I think the implication here from a diversity standpoint is that because everyone doesn't believe the same thing as you, the sheer number of other options should bring you some sort of doubt that that the thing that you believe is the true thing. Because if I welcome a diversity of thought and I otherwise treat them as viable, it should bring a natural question as to why you think the thing that you believes is is better than theirs. Well, once again, like, I mean, it's not like you can't welcome diversity without taking it on. Right? Like these things are not mindless

thugs that like just because a Buddhist rolls in, I mean, I can like the guy and think he's alright, but it doesn't make me a Buddhist merely because he's here. And so like you're the ability for say, the humanities, we'll call them, to take you over as if you're a symbiotic host for whatever they're bringing seems to be the the the stretch. Yeah. So, I mean, like, what this seems to me though is like so I can digest it from, a Christian perspective, is these seem like, proper separation points, right, of what otherwise might have been a shallow belief anyway. Right? Like, if I'm following if I'm following God simply because I expect him to provide me something and the presence of food or money would allow me to say, oh, I don't need him anymore. Well, then I

right. That that wasn't like a core belief system. It was a it was a personal use, a cudgel, a a way to get something that I wanted. When you're when you're free to choose whether or not to whether to believe or not, that's actually the opposite. That is a some sort of institutional. It's government or otherwise or even religious kind of oligarchy stuff that otherwise forces a belief on you and you don't have a choice. Again, that that doesn't necessarily imply that you have a a true faith in something. It just says it is in your best interest to say that you do or to appear that you do.

The welcoming the you have a welcoming attitude to diversity and again that says that that's actually a core question of is there is there a a truth? Is there something one thing that is true even if other things are not true? To the extent that I am less or that I'm ambiguous about a, a universal truth or truths, then it's hard to be able to say I believe in this higher power and you do not, but we can't reconcile either one of those two things. So you're naturally going to give it And then the final one, like, you get some education, that just assumes that the reason you don't follow these, that you haven't given up on God is because you don't know enough. And then once we teach you these right things, then you will stop doing that. Yeah. I mean, that's kind of the implication of now, I I I don't know that they're not implying that with with the study because I actually think it's probably true. I think some of those things are accurate. I think, you know, people have,

faiths that they are that are not, actually, you know, core to their belief system. And so any one of these things might cause them to say, oh, well, this seems like a better option. I'll just I'll just do that then. So, I mean, I I don't know that they're wrong or they're actually targeting negatively religion. I think those things are probably true, but I think we, I think I would interpret the results differently than saying, oh, it's because people are actually, like, their minds are getting straight as opposed to, like, there's just they either weren't committed to begin with or, they're going for personal reasons or otherwise, they're just going with other ideas. Alright.

So he had said, yeah. The US has found ways to limit the effects of education by keeping it local. Lately, there's been encouragement from the highest levels of government to take a less than welcoming cultural attitude to pluralism. These are forms of resistance to secularization. There's another project, mutually escalating religious violence aims to identify which conditions make xenophobic anxiety between two different religious groups likely to spiral out of control. What do you think, Mike? Two two different religious groups.

They they obviously don't get along. What needs to be present for things to spiral out of control? A crazy person in either camp. Like a like a dominant personality Yeah. Calling things forward? Yeah. Dan, what do you think? Yeah. Yeah. I guess I like the extreme extreme views of either side. I mean, which usually comes from a dominant person, I guess.

Yeah. I'm understanding their question. Yeah. So so here here's an example. They were looking at, there's a 2002 riots that erupted in, the Indian state of Gujarat, Three bloody days during which Muslims and Hindus clashed violently resulting in hundreds of death on both sides.

According to the official figure, 790 Muslims and 254 Hindus were killed. When I started Hey man. The the Hindus got the upper hand. Unexpected. When I started looking at data, I said to LeRon and West Wildman, oh my oh my gosh. Because I knew the case of Guzarat and what happened there. It it tracked them all beautifully.

So she says, it shows that mutually escalating violence likely is to occur if there's a small disparity in size between the majority and minority groups less than a seven thirty split and if agents experience out group members as social and contagion threats or they worry that others will be invasive or infectious. It's much less much less likely to occur if there's a large disparity in size or if the threats agents are experiencing are mostly related to predators or natural hazards. So the the they only they only throw to violence when they think that they're threatening their way of life. Right? If the Hindus are trying to take over, the Muslims are like, we ain't doing the Hindu thing, so now we're fight it out. Yeah. Yeah. So so anyway, they're they're working through these through these models and one of things that they're struggling with is that the they're trying to get people to adopt them and try them out in other real world scenarios, but they're having a hard time. Like, people are distrustful of the model, of the data, of what it points to because there is People are not predictable like that, are they? Like, I mean, it's just like you were saying before, who what's a model Hindu look like? Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Like, I mean, I can tell you what

the bible lays out for a follower of Christ. And I can tell you I have met one guy that seems to pull that off consistently, and his name was Jesus. Everybody else, like they're just they're unpredictable in in the in in their ways. There there's a certain amount of consistency, but like, I don't know that you could throw it into a model. I mean, what tells you what tells you one day that I that I that I will tolerate x amount of whatever and then the next day I'm like, you know what? I'm done with this. I'm done tolerating this. And I I personally have just changed. But like the the facto 20 copies of me you made to put in the study, do they all flip at the same time? Does nobody flip because their their behavior is so consistent over last time? I mean, many people did you know ten years ago that were following Jesus? And you know them right now. They're not.

They're just gone. They just decided it ain't for them no more. Ten years. And so you wanna try to try to adopt a model that says a Hindu gonna be a Hindu for the next ten years and act in all Hindu ways. That seems really hard to pull off. Yeah. And and it's hard for someone without faith in any in any faith, to to assess what's really going on with people of faith. Like like, they probably the researchers probably looked at these, the Muslims and Hindus, and thought, oh, look look at this happened. This model happened. Blah blah blah. My first thought was, man, all of them went to hell. Because they're both wrong. You know, like, that's really sad. They they lost their eternal souls. I'm I'm looking at it as a loss because none of them are Christians. Right. And and and the researchers are looking at it, well, this religion versus that religion, because we're all on equal grounds. We're all we're all right, know, nobody's wrong. Diversity.

That kind of clouds the waters. That makes me not trust, you know, the research. I mean, don't if they didn't imply what their eternal state then. I think they were just not speaking to it. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. Because they don't even think of it that way. But but as a bully, as a Christian, I'm thinking, those who were eternal souls, you know. It wasn't just people who died. They went to judgment. Yeah. And actually, I think there's I I think there's and maybe it's a step in a in a slightly different direction for that. But I think it's the same basic premise, which is you cannot evaluate or I think it'd be very difficult to to to make tangible or quantify the extent or what what the passion to which people believe things. Yeah. Right? Through which a level of importance because like you can you can kind of arbitrarily say like these these are the these are what these groups value. But the extent to which they value them or the consequences that they think are associated with them and then frankly the disparity of that among religious groups or within religious groups is

very difficult. Because like how many like the the the we we I think we've we've talked about this in this room. Right? Like, evangelism and discipleship. These are things that these passing out good news that changes the world. I don't do enough of it. I want to do more. I'm not doing enough. So like you had an internal conflict. Good luck putting me on the page. Right? And so like and then spread that out among kind of various belief systems. Some who have like historically, acted a lot more, tangibly

in those things than others And it just seems it seems super difficult. And so, like, it may be not just the it's the it's the fact of not this model, but it's the concept of a model at all that says we can we can speak to this. And I don't I don't know that you have to kinda throw everything out. It seems like there might be, there might be tells on human behavior, but like it it's if you get to like a minority report aspect where like I'm predicting,

it it seems to imply that I will I can know more than I can know, which is a bit of a God complex already. Yeah. Good luck. The Holy Spirit's crazy. Right? Like, you can see people doing all kinds of crazy stuff. Yeah. Like a regular Christian dude with with low anxiety and just hanging out and then you find out a month later, he sold everything he owned and decided he was gonna win a big old round and then go to churches or whatever. You're like, why? What? Because the world's gonna end. It's crazy. You know? And like, where's that guy in a model? There's too many crazies to try to put them all in a model. It it's just nothing. So it said, even harder to sway maybe those concerned, not with the methodology's technical complications, is kinda what we were talking about, but with its ethical complications. As Wes Wildman told me, these models are equal opportunity insight generators. If you want to go militaristic, these models tell you what the targets should be. Right? So like, if I know that this is what I need to be able to say create violence or,

like, start an uprising or rile up folks, Like, you can use it as a as a as a map. That's right. To get it done. It's a sourcing tool as opposed to a prevention tool. Yeah. Right? I know who to irritate and I know in what way. I know how to create the imbalance of it. So they gave it a table said, when you build a model, you can accidentally produce recommendations that you weren't attending. Years ago, Wes Wildman built a model to figure out what makes some extremist groups survive and thrive while others disintegrate. It turned out one of the most important factors is a highly charismatic leader who personally practices what he preaches. This immediately implied an assassination criterion, he said. It's basically leave the groups alone when the leaders are less consistent, but kill the leaders of groups that have those specific qualities. It was a shock to discover this dropping out of the model. I feel deeply uncomfortable that one of my models accidentally produced a criterion for killing religious leaders. Yes. It does seem to be a problem. I mean, but that's the thing. It's like, do we really need the model to understand that?

Like a highly charismatic dude that's leading people to do the wrong thing while he does the wrong thing. Yeah. I mean, you're right. Like, a lot of this does seem pretty common sense. Mean, is that a real shocker? David Crash is easy to pick out. You know I'm saying? It's not like you need a model to go, I wonder if those guys are off the ball or gonna make it. They have a highly charismatic dude that's dragging them all into weirdness. Yeah. He's a problem. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. I don't I don't think the model could be Actually, some of this stuff points to, I think, something that we're, and I think it's a problem now. I I I seem to think that it's going to get worse. Is that like as people do analysis, especially like macro, broader analysis of human behavior, it starts to build within individuals the sense that you don't you cannot know things.

Right? That like people behavior can be analyzed to tell you how people truly work and that your ability on a personal level is degraded. Like that as a whole society we we need to study these types of things so that we can so we can understand how things truly are. It's like how often do we find that like the the implications of a study that says, we believe it was this thing but really the thing works completely opposite. And so studies like that then start to produce in you some sort of hesitation that says, well, I mean I believe it to be the case but I don't know if I can be trusted. They found out this thing based upon the study of human behavior and blah blah blah. And so, like, if we look at this kind of criteria, you're right. Like, I I I would if you would maybe guess as to what would be a successful religious cause,

someone who's charismatic, who otherwise is faithful to the things that they're, like, practices what they preach. Yeah. Like, that would that would be better than someone who, like, tells people to do one thing and then does a complete other or is super boring. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And so, like, like, I could have told you that without a data model. But, like, the ability to do analysis on such a large scale over things like this, like, and maybe I'm putting this on society and it's really me, but it causes me at times to think like, I mean, can I truly maybe I don't actually know these things? Yeah. I don't trust my own analysis. That's right. You can't you can't even trust your gut where you're like, man, I feel like everybody's you're just in an offhanded comment. I feel like everybody's getting married around me. And then you sit down and think about it and spend like two people. You know, like, man, I can't assess the situation right. He's so this is he was talking more about the ethical considerations. He says, results of that model have been published, so they all read from foreign military action. Is this the type of thing being used to figure out criteria for drone killings? You know, Wildman, you're kind of a pompous dude to take everybody to read these models. I ain't even heard about this before today.

And all of a sudden, he's like, oh, great military strategists are checking out my religious models. That's that's that's pretty beastly. I mean, I think it's time for, you know, ethical crisis. So, I mean, I feel like you could have seen this coming. Right? Like Like, Schwarzkopf is like, give me the latest copy of the Atlantic. Maybe Wilderman has put out something that I really need to know. He said, I don't know, because there's this giant wall between the secret research in The US and the non secret side. I've come to assume that on the secret side, they've pretty much already thought of everything we thought of because they've got more money and are more focused on those issues. But it could be this model actually took them there. There's that's a serious ethical conundrum. Okay. Listen here. Wildman is this highly charismatic dude he's talking about. He's leading a band of dudes creating these models.

He believes in the models completely and he is completely egomaniacal where he thinks everyone is basing their lives off these crappy models that no one's actually ever heard of. Yeah. So actually, he continues and so there's another guy who's gonna rebut about it. Here's here's he continues. The other models very similar concerns. He said the the model gives you recipe for accelerating secularization and it gives you a recipe for blocking it. You can use it to make everything revert to supernaturalism by messing with some of those key conditions,

by triggering some ecological disaster. Then everything goes plunging back into pre secularism. That keeps me up at night. Oh, yeah. What a disaster. People may fall into a belief system based upon a volcano trigger. Okay. First of all, there's repeated events throughout history that say that's not not screw at all. We've had many natural disasters in this country and not have bailed on atheism completely. They're still out there roaring. Yeah. But I mean, it was it was generally true. I've heard that, like, at 09:11, right, people ended up going back to church. Yeah. Okay. But that's the thing is is is visiting

temple or going to church or whatever doesn't necessarily make you religious. It just makes you seeking a comfort somewhere. And that was because a natural disaster happened. Yeah. You saw community and comfort somewhere. Right? And and and frankly, the Christian church is the best place to find that. Yeah. That's a good question actually. So isn't the core isn't the core concept the what what is this guy this keeps him up at night. So Wildman seems to imply that there's a significant risk of people going back to belief systems, like, they're going the opposite of what he would call the secularization of it. Right?

And so what what is to be feared from a societal perspective of shallow religious belief? Like, not not don't answer that from a a as people who follow Jesus, here's what we think the risks are. But like, I wonder what he believes the risks are to to ecological disaster

and then half the people who, like, hadn't been in a church in years go there, for a sense of comfort, but otherwise don't change much about their belief system. What is what is the what is the societal risk that we are hedging against besides the fact that they are otherwise implying that you just believe something that is false, which is odd coming from groups of people who don't believe in a true false thing. Like, something can't actually be false. But, like, what what what are the sciences humanities will suffer? People will stop caring about them and it would be a detriment to our world. We

mean because frankly, is it is if that's one of the criteria that drives people to atheism or away from religious behavior, Aren't you implying then if all the people were religious then those things would move. Right? The education of humanities and science would be less because no one would actually care about it. But that's not a true statement for the religious people now. They don't think that. Well, most of them don't think that. Right? And so so like once again,

I mean you could not put more of a wild man bent on these models on perceived notions of religious people or how religious people act, want, invest in the world or act people around them and then project it on everybody as if it's the way the world spins because you said so. Right? It's like creating a a a a it's just like I was listening to a guy, it was super interesting. Listen to this guy talk about how most of your life anymore, especially connected to your phone, is driven by algorithms that you don't have any control over. You're basically being bossed around by a math equation most of your day. Right? And so the same thing is true with Wildman here. He goes ahead and puts his model together and he goes, you know what? According to my model, every five people is red. And then at the end of the study, he goes, the thing is, we gotta maintain this five red people thing.

And I can see the world's not trending that way. And they might look at my model and figure out how to squash the five red people thing. But it didn't exist. Wildman put it in there to start with. Right. He created a false reality and then starts to manipulate true reality based upon the implications of the false one. And then cry foul that the Redmen are getting destroyed. And they weren't there, Wildman. They weren't there. So if it makes you feel any better, Neil Johnson, a physicist who models terrorism and other extreme behaviors and a rise in conflict system says, that's an overstatement of the power of the models. Yes. Alright, Johnson. Shoes up from the field. So this is in response to the ecological disaster thing. He says there's no way that removing one factor from a society can reliably be counted on to slow or stop secularization,

he said. That may well be true in the model, but that's a cartoon of the real world. I love this guy. A real human society is so complex that all the things may be interconnected in a different way than in the model. He's nailed it. Yeah. Although Johnson said he found the team's research useful and important, he was unimpressed by their claim to have outperformed previous predictive methods. Linear regression analysis is not very powerful for prediction, he said. I was a little surprised by the strength of their claims. He cautioned that we should be skeptical about the word prediction in relation to this type of model. Opinion might be better. It's great to have as a tool, he said. It's like, you go to the doctor, they give an opinion. It's always an opinion. We never say a doctor's prediction. Usually, we go with the doctor's opinion because they've seen many cases like this. Many humans would come in with the same thing. It's even more of an opinion with these types of models because they haven't necessarily seen many cases just like it. History mimics the past, but doesn't exactly repeat it. He seems to have a head over shoulder. He's very reasonable. I like him. I agree. He said the silver lining here is that if the power of the models is being overstated, then so too is the ethical concern. Nevertheless,

just like West Wildman, Schultz told me oh, and just just so you know that the writer's not bad. I I am potentially repeating his entire name every time. It just says Wildman. Yeah. Schultz told me, I lose sleep at night on this. It is social engineering. It just is. There's no pretending like it's not. But, yeah, that other groups like Cambridge Analytica are doing this kind of computational work too. That was the that was the group that got in trouble for Facebook. Right. Facebook data. Yeah. Yeah. It's going to be done, so not doing it is not the answer. Instead, he and the Wildman believe the answer is to do the work with transparency and simultaneously

speak out about the ethical dangers inherent in it. This is a wild this is a wild presentation this guy's making. It has to be done, but there's serious risks to it. I really I here's the thing. I wish that I, at the end of the night, I felt like I made as big of an impact on the world as Wildman does. You know? Or like, you know what? I've because I'm here, this is a weighty day. What I'm doing is important. I'm dangerous. I lose sleep at night. That's right. This could bring disaster to the world, but it must be done because someone else might be doing it as well. Running a science that didn't exist fifty years ago. Don't make statues of me. Computer analytics is brand new and all a sudden it's a game changer. It's taken the world down. We've survived the black plague, numerous natural disasters and measles and then wild man's born and the whole world's in peril. Everybody heads up. I mean, this seems super risky though because like there is always a market for people who believe,

who wanna know something that other people don't know. Right? So like the capability like this sounds like the exact type of thing that like we might have out with the kind of like as a a US government might look at it and be like, hey, you know, there's a lot of problems with this this, you know, we're not gonna apply this. And then you get under somewhere where there's like, you're in Venezuela or somewhere and the guys get super excited. It's like, you know what? This is gonna be awesome. And employs it to do, like, ridiculous things in the neighborhood, but this is how people are and we're trying we're just trying to protect our folks. And so we're taking these following steps to ensure blah blah blah. And so, like, I mean, he's kinda right that people are gonna do it anyway. I don't know if that means, like, you do a better job to refine your model so that at least it's effective and just warn that someone else might be using it ineffectively. Like that that's like continuing to design,

to make sure to go through the effort of finding the most powerful, like world destroying weapon you possibly can And it's simultaneously saying, by the way, someone bad is probably gonna use this, but it might as well be exactly what it is supposed to be and act to its perfect specifications. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How can a bomb be fulfill its greatness if you prevent the bomb from exploding? Then the bomb won't actually be great and it won't be a bomb at all. Yeah. It's a think piece like a humanity's argument.

I here's Wildman is He's he's gonna sign off. He says, that's why I work here two pronged. I'm operating as a modeler and as an ethicist, Wildman said. It's the best I can do and protector of the universe. And sometimes I have time to sit on my throne. I'm blown away by the egomaniacal properties that Wildman loses his models running. Like, seriously.

I I really should I should've gone back and read like, now I'm super interested in, like, the commentary around those four things that that imply secularization. Yeah. And and and fact, you here's you know what be interesting. I wonder if anyone has done

has done, like, some sort of analysis on like, what if you wiped out let's just take Christianity for now. Christianity and its impacts in The United States. And just said, look. Here's here's what the world looks like. Here's what it looks like.

Current state, if you were to remove Christianity and things that are like, it can at least be tangibly tied to Christians. And so, you know, that that impacts hospitals that were started by Christians, and let's go with, like, colleges, most of your major colleges, your Ivy League colleges are started by Christians. Let's go charitable giving. Vast majority are done by Christians. Same is true for a number of adoptions, both international and and within country. And so, like, it'd be it'd be interesting to say,

the the the implication here is that the presence of of religion is is not good. Right? Because, like, you're trying to say, why don't we why will real people take advantage of atheism, of secularization? And, like, if you can scare them or if you can make them so that they need things, and they'll they'll go back to green to their god. Past

that, they'll they'll move on to more rational thinking. And so it'd be interesting to look at so not only the kind of tangible analysis of what it looks like for, like, where dollars go and where people get adopted, who gets cared for, and what care centers are open. But, like, the presence of what does it look like if people don't have that stuff in their lives? Like, associated with going to communities of of believers who and that type of thing. Where what what happens when people need solace or where they're looking for hope or or, like, whatever it is like. What what does that actually look like in a society where that doesn't exist?

That'd be super interesting if someone could, like, lose some of head. Like No. You would write that up? No. I I've never been so far out of my depth in my life, man. All I know is it sounds like sounds like an author writing up a book on how the world is and then and then trying to keep it from being focused because someone might read it and think it's true you as a real man. Alright. Hey. You're leaving us alive for the path.

Who is the thing? How good I'm informed of this movie? What is what is the simplest thing I've ever heard of? I read this bottle and everybody reads it. No one reads it. Money.

Alright. Dear life runs the path. My brother, parenthesis Nick, was married for seventeen years until he got caught cheating on his wife with her much younger niece. Oh, wait. But with her niece? Yeah. He's 34. She's 20. Oh. They say they are in love. Nick has come to be near family because he's been a stay at home dad for the last four years and doesn't have the means to start over without help. They live ten hours away. Problem is, he has asked to stay with me, which would have been fine, but he's bringing along his new love. We all love Nick's wife, and they have three children together. So let his lover stay here with him feels like a betrayal of my sister-in-law. Yeah. Out of all the siblings, I have the most room. We are recent empty nestlers, and I can swing it financially. Suppose I I should just get over and help because he's my family, but I'm afraid my husband won't be so forgiving.

What? No. No final question. Just see what's This is not a this is not a question of forgiveness. No. There is, like, allowing someone to stay in your house and facilitate whatever it is that is going on here is a far different item than

forgiving of a situation, if that is even called for at the moment. You know? Okay. So I have a question. Well, I don't have a question. I I more of a ponderous. Right? So I find that I take God's heart well on when bad things have happened to somebody. Right? Like, when a situation has been oppressed upon them and they're in a rough space

and I feel like, yeah. Okay. I get it. We're we're we're ready. You're in a bad space. Let's help get you out of it. Right? Yep. I have a harder time when people have made choices that have put them in the bad space. Repeatedly. You know what I'm saying? They're in the bad space because they've essentially chosen to be there by the choices that they make. Yeah. So,

essentially, that that's that's where we're at with Nick here. He's not the guy that has been cheated upon. He is the dude doing the cheating. And now his wife has kicked him out and said, look. I will not tolerate this. Now Nick is essentially homeless, and so people would say, should we help homeless people? And our answer to that would be, oh, yes. We should help homeless people. But Nick has chosen to be homeless by cheating on his wife with a 20 year old member of her family.

So now what's the stance? Right? Is the grace on the fact that he's homeless different than the grace on the fact let's say that he kicked his wife out after cheating on her and gave her the boot and she's homeless. You seem to have no problem taking her in.

Right? You would say, yes. Someone should should help her and take her in. But now Nick is homeless and he's the one that caused it. Do you have a harder time taking Nick in? Is it is it God's heart for him to feel the weight of that of that sin for a while? Is that God's decision and not yours? Damn.

Pass. That's it. Because you know every person you help is probably they're they're partially their business board choices. You just don't know what they were. And so it's easy to have a break. Like, you shouldn't have married

space. Well, yeah. What about like the the the other people down at the homeless shelter? Okay. Or or Nick. They they they they kicked Nick out too. And and you helped put all these other people in the shelter because you're like, you have a heart for them. You care for them. Yes. Because you don't know their story. You you you don't know the wife they cheated on. You're right. There's ignorance to that part. Yeah. So it's easy to be like, oh, who's gonna love? We gotta forgive. And and all you can think of is is his wife sitting at home going, what the heck? Yeah. You know? And and so those are valid questions. I don't know that I have an answer because I'm I'm in the same place. I I feel the same way. Like, Nick, you need to feel pain a bit. You need to not be in my home

unless you repent, get rid of this person you're with, and let's try to work on your your wife, get the marriage re resolved, then I'll help you out. I'll I'll plenty there, but I'm not gonna help you continue

in an important choice. So so see, that's where things get a a little bit more gray than how people want to paint them. Yeah. Because generally, when you say something like that, people go, oh, I see. Your love was comes with conditions. Yeah. And your your rebuttal is, no. You living at my house comes with conditions. I can love you wherever you wanna be. Right. Right. But like, you living in my place, that is conditional based on you changing x amount of behavior. Right? And and and so but people wanna draw with a much broader brush than that. And say and and and they'll use the name of Christ to do it. They will say, look, you need to love,

this way, and and God's love is never ending. That's true. But, like, this man who is choosing to live we'll even put it in a Christian aspect. To live his life in a way apart from the teachings of Jesus, that's what happens at my home. And, like, if you if that's not how you're living, then, you know, you can't stay here. Is is that fair? It's to say, look. If you don't follow Jesus, actually, my my door's not open to you. Because it's not let's say, it's not dangerous behavior that he's in he's doing. Right? He's not he's not, dealing drugs out of your out of your garage. He is merely

cheating on his wife with another woman at your place. Not illegal, certainly not Christ's fault. It's destructive to him just like selling drugs out of my garage. Truth. Yeah. Truth. So like the the measure I mean, you could measure, you know, what what potential physical harm may be coming to him or my family related to his presence. But like, in general, when I say, hey, can I use your house to just continue to destroy myself? I'll be like, well, no. No. You cannot do that. I'm gonna destroy myself anyway. Might I as well do it in comfort? And then the notion of your love? Because like You're gonna pay me rent? Because if you say because here's the thing, it's like realistically Nick could say, hey, I get your concerns, but I'm gonna I'm gonna do it anyway. Yeah. You know, you're you're not actually helping me to move one way or the other. That that's kind of off the table. So are you gonna let me be homeless then? Yes. Yeah. Yes. You're choosing to Are you gonna let you be homeless? Yes. Right. You're making the choice to be homeless. Yeah. Yeah. You have a house. You have a wife. Okay. Yeah. Choose to not live with either one of those. Okay. So it's our advice then to this lady,

yeah. You don't have to let this man move in. You don't have to get over it. The answer is no. You don't want anything to do with this, and that's okay. Go ahead and forgive, but don't let him live there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think there's oh, wait. This this has come up multiple times in conversation with us, I think, like, the like, I think there's a difference in walking the road with someone who wants to be going that direction and being the person that is attempting to drag them that way.

Like you're you you simply cannot solve someone's problem by dragging them around. Like I think there are aspects of where like if you can be the person that like is the confronter that says look you're heading down the wrong path, it needs to shift. But like you're physically doing anything to force them or try to make them live a life they don't particularly intend to live. Like, you're you're you're exercising less freedom than what God has given them to exercise. And so, I feel like that's not gonna work out for you. If God deemed that it is that is appropriate that people get to make their own decisions,

I don't know why you think you're gonna have more power over their lives or that you've given them more grace by restricting it that what from what God has allowed. And so, you know, yeah, to the extent that he wants to work, say, look, I wanna get back from my wife, she won't take me back, I need a place to stay while I try to work on this. Yeah. Okay. I can I can walk that path with you? Yes, you can stay at my house as long as that remains to be the case. But no, you cannot destroy yourself at my house and continue to harm this woman at my from as my place is the home base. You're gonna have to work at the Home Depot and figure out how to pay your own rent in in lieu of, you know, moving in the right direction. And I I I think that's I do not that is not outside of Christ teaching. That is not a a refusal to show grace or love or forgiveness. That is simply a reality of you not facilitating, people destroying themselves or others. Like there's just like there's no call that says you have to, do all these things so that other people may be destroyed. Secular says,

it's difficult, but I'll refrain from commenting on your brother's morals or judgment. Whether you should get into the middle of this mess because Nick is family isn't a question I can answer. And you won't know the answer until after you have discussed it with your husband. I mean, that was the biggest spate of non advice I've ever heard. Yeah. Dear so and so, what should I do? Thanks, secular. Nothing. I've got nothing. Ask your husband, see what he thinks. Yeah. Post script. I'm so mad I changed my mind about not being judgmental. Would It be a poetic justice if the niece met a handsome hunk of rage and dumped your brother. Yeah. That would set everything right. Yeah. That's good. That's good. That'll that'll put the the shine the light in a dark room. Chase them shadows out with more shadows. Yeah.

Drop this guy, make sure she shacks up with some other kind of hunky dory. Good call, Singular. Alright. Let's do let's do one more. Okay. Let's see. Holy cow. Yeah. Okay. Dear life from the past. In 1985, I met a lovely divorce lady with two adorable children. Mhmm. The three of us got along well. A year later, I married into this family. Until then, I had no children of my own. The The kids had regular visits with their father. The first father's day after I married their mom, we arranged for them to spend the weekend with him. When they returned home that Sunday night, were exhausted and off to bed they went. I did some thinking about the idea of celebrating holidays and realized there are holidays in every month except August. Even a rodent gets his day in February.

What's that rodent? Groundhog? Groundhog day. This guy's he's sharp, Mike. He's a modeler. He's a he's a comedy man. A man full of comedy. My family and I discussed it, came up with the idea for Step Parents Day on the second day in August. When that day arrived, we all went to church and then to brunch. The kids gave me cards and a nice gift. It was a truffle day, and it became a tradition every year after that. I wrote a letter about it to our mayor. He sent me back an official looking document with his signature proclaiming the second Sunday in August to be Stepparents Day in our city. It was gratifying. Dear Laugh From The Path, please let your listeners with blended families know that they may want to observe this special day too.

I mean, suppose they need a day. Right? I mean, signed professor Wildman. I always thought it was awkward on Mother's Day. Like, I never called my dad's wife who was not my mom. Right. And Cheryl was like, you're going call Dolores? Like, well, why would I? She's not my mom. Right? Yeah. I I struggle with this myself. You know, I because my wife is like that. She's like, we gotta call this person or go over here and send cards. I'm like, I only have one mother. She goes, all these girl all these people are mothers. And I said, to other people.

These are these are not my mothers. You know what I'm saying? Like, they're mothers. The other people are like, you're heartless. I'm like, no. I just have one mom. I don't I don't understand this massive output that we're doing here. Cars are leaving the house at a ridiculous rate. I mean, I mean, I I get the it's it's kind of a nice sentiment. I feel like you could still do it on a I mean, maybe they don't wanna take away from their dad by doing, like, giving two Father's Day things. Yeah. If they like they I mean, I kinda like it. Although, I mean, it does it is wild man territory to say, I thought of something, it's necessary that everyone else would be the same. Yeah. Dear everybody. Yeah. I thought of this idea, I implemented it, I thought it was wonderful. A nice model with lots of dads. I sent out I sent a letter to the mayor.

He said it was wonderful. Now, do you guys wanna hear about it too? So you can know how wonderful it is. Okay. You're either mister Rogers, which I'm doubting or you're just weird, you know. Like, hey, that's the thing I don't understand. It's like you've come up with something that works for your family. I'm happy for you. What made you feel the need to spread it around? You know, like tell your friend, you know, or like Yeah. Hey, a brother of mine, we do this at my place and it is working splendidly. Oh, that's cool. Because it's even pretty self indulgent. I mean, it's like, this is what made me feel special. Yeah. Right. Right. You're right. It's not like the kids created the day. Yeah. You created the day. And it's not like you were outside of a looking in, like you were just a regular single guy Yeah. Who thought step parents were getting the rub. So you thought you'd help it along. Yeah. No. You waited till you were a step parent and now all of a sudden you get a day. I need my day. Yeah. I was bold at the least. It's bold. Okay.

Secular replies to this man. Your letter made me smile. Yeah. I bet it would. When I went online to learn more about it, I discovered that for more than twenty years, there's been a National Step Family Day observed on September 16. Take that. This is called Krausna. What do you call that? The quote, Kwanzaa. Kwanzaa, yes. It didn't sound right. Well, thunder stolen. I'm sorry. It's already existed. John, who thinks he just invented the square today.

You may want to consider adding it to your calendar because it's a day that celebrates all members of the blended family, not just the parents. Oh, man. Here's the thing. Stepfather man, he was he really wanted to name the day, Greg Day. But no one would go for it. He was He was just out Greged by seculars. This a day for everyone. Okay. Last one. Ready? Yep. Your life from the path. My future sister-in-law,

Lida, and her daughter came over from overseas to visit for a few weeks. It was their first time in The US. They never met my family, and I decided a bowling excursion would be a good way for them to meet my sister, Eileen, and her family. We all had a great time. Later that evening, Aileen texted me saying a friend of hers was recently diagnosed with lepidima, and Lita may have it as well based on her body type. I ignored the text but didn't think to delete it. Few days later, my fiancee, fiancee. What's the difference between a fiancee and a fiancee? Spelled the same?

Am I just saying it wrong? Yeah. You're just saying it wrong. It's got two e's on it. F I a n c e e. Oh. I don't know. It feels like you are being fianced if you say I'm a fiancee. I'll see what I can find out. A few days later, my fiancee saw the text. She's furious with my sister. My fiancee says Aileen was rude and judgmental and she shouldn't judge someone she just met because Eileen isn't in the medical profession. Eileen says she was only pointing out something she had noticed and wanted us to know in case my future sister-in-law ever complained about it. Was my sister out of line to do it? Okay. Hold on. What is lipedema? Does that have something to do with being big big bone?

What? Hold on. How do you spell it? L I p e, dema? Oh, man. The suggestion were lipedema arms. Oh, yeah. Let's see. It happens when fat is distributed in an irregular way beneath your skin, usually in the buttocks and legs. Well,

I mean, there's no polite way to see. I think you got the I think you got the fat butt. Oh, okay. Okay. It's like the elephantitis for a leg. Hold on. I don't know. Hold on. I don't know about this. Hold on. I'll I'll show you what it is. The lymphedema is what I was just looking at. So here's the here, Mike. Here. I'll put it up on the screen for you. Yeah. Do it. Hold on. I'm working on. I see. You have an awkward body shape. I mean, granted, I don't know how you say that out. Right? Although you aren't in the medical profession. There it is. So lymph Oh. Lymphedema

is like, boy, that that's that's significant. The limbs aren't working. Yeah. They're not draining like they're supposed to be. But the lymphedema, so this poor lady's got, like, a significant distribution up top of her leg, and then, I mean, don't know. How I mean, how would a non medical professional be able to look and know the difference between that? I I don't know. And just someone What's that? Which one did they say? The one on the right. The lip edema. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Not the one not the lopsided lymph edema.

Yeah. I don't know. You see, my wife has to be careful at the one on the left because when they looked at her lymph nodes, they're they're damaged. So she has to put little stocking so that doesn't happen. Oh my god. It's a wrap like that. The compression But she didn't do anything. Yeah. She didn't do anything with compression socks, it it would eventually happen. So so all this reason the research being done here is because, obviously,

she is Aileen texted me saying a friend of hers was recently diagnosed with lipedema. K. And Lita, the visiting lady, may have it as well based on her body type. I'd leave that one alone. Would you text it to a buddy of yours who's not gonna show it to anybody?

No. No. I'm gonna I'm gonna assume they go to the doctor once in a while. Even if they get sick, at some point the doctor will say, hey, looking at your body type, you look like you have lipedema. I mean, to a certain extent, it is like what you have a cough and a fever, you've got Wegener's. You've got Wegener's disease. Right? Because one guy you met has this oddball Wegener's disease, and then you decide that your nonprofessional opinion is a cough and a sneeze is gonna be Wegener's. Right? And so, like, it is a little bit out of left field that you can just pick lipedema because you see big legs or something, you know? Yeah. Okay. So hold on. Let what was the question? Was my sister out of line

to text that? What? To her sister. But they didn't know, but no one said it to the lady? Right. But the fiance saw it. The fiancee saw it and is super mad because they feel like the sister was being judgmental of the body shape of the visitor by suggesting they might have No. Mean, I don't think it's wrong to text.

I don't think it's wrong to text it. Really? I mean, she is not a medical professional. What text does she know about lipedema? She knows one guy that's been diagnosed with it. Well, right. I mean, I'm not saying that she's right or wrong. I'm just saying like, I mean, it doesn't sound outlandish thing to it. Is it in let me ask you this. It's different than saying, hey, you think Ted should have that mole checked out? I mean, this is that seems like the same thing. What do you think?

No. It'd be like the guy yeah. Well, it'd be like the guy saying, I think that mole that Ted has is cancerous. Yeah. Or or I I I Not just, hey, you should check it out, but here is my diagnosis. I think it is I think that's a cancerous mole on Dave's head. Well, right. So but here's the thing, it's like like you because the guy's not a doctor, you have to in you you have to invest in it to be offended by it. It'd be like if the guy at the gas station looked at me and goes, hey, you're looking a little pale. I wonder if you have brain cancer. I'm like, you know, you work at the gas station, I'm not putting I'm not investing anything into that. That's true. Today. Yeah. No. That's true.

Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, I think it's it's fine to text. There's no reason to overreact about it. Like, he obviously doesn't know. So or she doesn't know. Yeah. And he said to be you do not be so nosy and and and the fiance needs to just kinda lighten up a little bit too, isn't he? Yeah. That's true. Texted and been like, hey, by the way, your future in laws are are fatty fatties. You know, that's straight out offensive. Yeah. Are you is the worry that they think that the sister is trying to to criticize, but doing it in like a slide, the meeting way without actually having said it and then therefore came up with this lipedema diagnosis. I mean, that's a real in round way to insult somebody. I mean, in round, especially when you're talking to your sister already. No one talks like that to their sister. They just be like, hey, that lady be. You know what I'm saying? Like, within a family text, you're pretty straightforward and you don't do all this. And so, yeah, I you're right. I think it was harmless. Yeah. Alright. Segular says,

the question was, was my sister out of line to do it? Segular says, not knowing Aileen, I won't accuse her of being rude or judgmental. Her motive may have been pure when she mentioned her concern in the light of her French diagnosis. While your fiance had a point when she said your sister doesn't have the expertise to make a medical diagnosis, the text that upset her was meant for you, not her. And she wouldn't have been reviewing it without your permission. Yeah. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. I don't know. By the way, you sound you sound ridiculous, Mike. It said, fiance either way how it's spelled. I I To be fair, I explained to you how it was spelled and you said, I'm not sure. Yeah. So here's the here's the here's the difference. Fiance refers to a male that is engaged.

Both fiance and male have one e in them. Fiancee or fiance with the two e's refers to a female that is engaged. Both fiance and female have two e's in them. Two e's in them. I don't remember that. You wouldn't be able to tell audibly because you would say both of them fiance. But if you're gonna write them down, it has two e's on it. If it's a if it's a lady who's engaged, it's got one e if it's a guy. Especially if she has the, lipedema. Yeah. I gotta be honest, it's a weight off me. I've been worried about that my whole life. And finally, I'm free to ride away. I've straightened it out. You're good to go. Alright. You've listening to Live From The Path. Thanks for hanging out with us. We're glad to be back. If you got any comments on the show that are good, shoot us an email [email protected]. If you hate the show shoot. I've forgotten Roloff's email address at the at the Truth Network.

It's it's, [email protected]. Yeah. Try that. Anyway, go just Google Chris Roloff and Truth Network and find an email address and tell him you hate the show. Yeah. Yeah. Do that. That seems worth doing. Anyway, we will I mean, it's very possible. We'll see you next week. Thanks for having one of us. You've been listening to Life in the Path. In the meantime, be faithful in means. God will handle the ends. You've listening to Life in the Path.