School, Pharma, Religion: Finding the Courage to Leave Institutions That Limit You & Your Family

The way it's often taught, have faith, it's an excuse to compensate for ignorance and naivity. It does require you to question your foundation and thoroughly face the doubts and the fears that you have stronger faith because you have walked through the shadow of death or doubt. If you walk the entire labyrinth, you actually come back and have stronger faith. Being willing to face those greatest fears that you have, that is the thing. You could throw all your doubts and fears and anger and everything at it and truth just stands. One of the most controversial things Jesus taught was this idea that the kingdom of God is within you. Question all of it and say, "What are the motives behind this? Where did this begin? Why is it the way that it is?" Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Extraordinary Family Life podcast. We're your hosts, Greg and Rachel Denning. And today we are going to try to be controversial and um we're going to try to be we're try to be No, we will be and probably ruffle some feathers and fire some shots at your sacred cows and we like killing cows. talent. We've got a challenge are like the narratives we're we're buying into and perpetuating and the things we've just accepted. Now, the interesting irony we we did this, we still do it and so many people do it. They come along. Well, actually, some people really want they want to they want to fit in. They want to just do just give me the rules. Tell me what to do and I'll do it. We hear that a lot. Just tell me exactly what to do and I'll do it. They just want to follow the rules. And there there's nothing inherently wrong with that as long as you have good rules to follow. But it's easy to get uh manipulated and controlled that way. And then there's others like yes freedom I won't conform. And they they fight for their independence but then they're total conformist to other things. maybe their mother. The guy, you know, fights against all kinds of he's like the epitome of civil disobedience, but his mother says to do something and that's the gospel law and he does it whether it's a good idea or not as just an example. But I think our invitation today is challenge all of it and stop stop conforming to structures, organizations, rules, systems, systems, anything that doesn't serve you. What we're not saying, and this is so important, please please hear this. Um, because I don't I don't want this to be misunderstood. We are not saying throw out all tradition and all rules and all guidelines. We we're not saying that because some of them are so good and it's what keeps society functioning. Society functions because there are rules and guidelines and traditions and some traditions are so beautiful. So so beautiful. That's one of the reasons we love to travel the world is we go we go see the traditions in each country in each place and culture is like this is beautiful and some of them are ancient but then some of them are really dumb and they're like really why why are they still doing that? And then you stop and say, "Well, wait, why am I still doing what I do?" And we we pick up and inherit these things, whether it's from family or or community or man from our high school experience. I mean, how many traditions do we pick up in the public school system that you just keep perpetuating and you do it in sports and politics and religion? It it's just everywhere. So today um my message is I want you to in intentionally with wisdom question all of it and say what are the motives behind this? Where did this begin? Why is it the way that it is and am I blindly seeing things? So this is particularly true with like church is the church is doing certain things and it has their traditions and and people want to conform because they want to be good. They want to be righteous. They want to be spiritual. They they want to be close to God. They want to do the right thing. And so they conform because they believe their church is the church, right? That it's the way. And so the danger there is is we start kind of narrowing the lens with which we're even reading from the scriptures because you you go it's confirmation bias. You go looking in the scriptures for confirmation of what what you already believe. Yeah. What what you already believe, what's happening in your church. And so you go look there it is there it is and you skip over verses in or entire chapters massive sections that are actually teaching the opposite right there in the scripture teaching the opposite of what your church is teaching but you're like I'm going to go along with my church and and I love I think that's an excellent example and I don't know if we start there we'll come back to it but what Jesus taught how he actually lived was as a non-conformist non-conformist a contrarian a a rebel, authority. He was he was a disruptor. And he fought adamantly against organized religion, against institutions, governments, like all of it. It's all there. It's it's very evident and very clear. But then each in their church thinks, "No, no, no, no, no." Like what he was teaching is what we teach in our church. Our church is the way. Anyways, it's I know I'm I know I'm already firing shots at your sacred cows, but stick with us. Listen to this. Just kind of walk through this episode today to to hear and kind of just wrap your head around this message. Well, and in some ways, we're not even sure what we're talking about. We're just literally exploring these ideas here. Um, which we like to do with each other. But for sure I think when you do dig into it specifically in this case the scriptures more I think one of the most controversial things Jesus taught was this idea that the kingdom of God is within you ultimately that you are the source. You are connected to the source of truth, authority, power, you know, which gives you independence, which gives you sovereignty and ultimately that is a quote unquote dangerous idea to institutions. You know, whether that's a political institution, whether that's a religious institution, like in many ways, all institutions and systems are challenged by that idea that the individual is the ultimate authority, especially when it comes to their own life, well, their own salvation. And and if you step back and say, hey, wait, is is salvation a group experience or is it an individual experience? And I think everybody would say, well, salvation is personal. individual. You can replace salvation with lots of different words. That could be success. That could be health and well-being. That could be mental, emotional, spiritual, because, you know, it's the thing that you always love to talk about, the little joke that we like to have is that nobody can do your push-ups for you. Like, if you want to get in shape, you're the only one that can eat the food and do the push-ups. But in some ways, and maybe this is kind of what you're talking about today and where you're going with this, in some ways it's like we don't take that same principle and apply it to everything else in our life. We think, I'll outsource my spirituality to church or I'll outsource. So, as long as I go to church, then it's being taken care of for me. Yes. I'll outsource my my education to the school. My kids education. Well, well, even think about it. Your own education, you've outsourced it to the school. You went to school. You graduated. You're done. Babe, I have my diploma and I have a degree. And so I went, I checked the boxes. I took the test. I right done got my education. Right. That's because that type of thinking means you have outsourced your education and growth to an institution. Yeah. To a system outside of you. And if you reward this of like I don't know what you could replace kingdom of god that relates to education like that's within you. Your growth and development is within you and it's as though people do that and they graduate and then they stop learning like they spend the rest of their life yeah I got my education and have this aversion to like personal growth and development as though it's a swear word or a bad thing right because why I'm educated I got educated what else do I need? But it's like we have that about everything. And then you're right, we do it about our kids' education. We outsource that instead of teaching them that ultimately they are the source of their education. They are in charge of their education. They have literally have to be autodidacts with like you an autodidact is it's an individual's responsible for their own education. And that's true. Education is individual, right? Because it's like that quote I love. It's it's lighting a fire, not filling a bucket. You can't have someone else filling your bucket and call that and education. Call that religion, call that spirituality, call that like whatever it is, health and wellness. We can't be filling buckets here. We have to be lighting fires. And that fire is within. So you can walk around, you know, you and I as as teachers, mentors, leaders, we can walk around with a torch and offer it sparks. The individual has to accept it and then like nurture it and fan the flame and then feed it. Exactly. All that kind of stuff. Like that's an individual process. So even in that analogy right there, there can be a place for school. There can be a place for religion. There can be a place for politics and government. But the problem is, and I think maybe this is the main message this episode, is that when we allow the system to become the replacement for our own inner direction, our own inner guide, our own intuition, individual responsibility. Exactly. Our individual responsibility. We give it up and we're like, "Oh, well, I'm going to church, so I'm checking that box." Right. This even comes down to reading a book. So, I'm like, "Oh, I have the book and I'm just going to be a passive learner here. I'll read what this author says and and then that's okay. Now, I've I've read, right?" Rather than thinking about it or even arguing arguing with Yeah. with the authors like, "Wait, why?" And let's push back. Let's test this. Were you right? Were you wrong? What do other authors think about you? Why why did you think this way? I mean, if I get my own experience, I'm going to push against this. Real learning, real growth, real spirituality, real health, all has a big price tag on it. And so, we can't, you're right, we can't even outsource it to a a book at that level because it's still the individual's responsibility to wrestle with it and learn from it, learn with it. So, so then and I think that I I love how you said that because then that's a great way to to look at everything we're doing in life is have we I I would say it's subconscious. I don't think people are deliberately saying, you know what, I'm not going to do anything except go sit at church and if I sit there then I'll probably be saved, so I'm good. It's it's more subconscious. It's like, well, if I go to church, then whatever my salvation, I'll be a better person. if I send my kids to school, they'll get an education. To me, it comes down to to checking the box because I think it's just human nature, like you were saying before, I think there's a part of all of us that's like just tell me what to do and I'll do it. We like that. We want to make it simple and easy, which okay, to be fair, like that can be a valuable thing. Like we want to simplify our life so we're not constantly every single day saying, "What do I do today about my education?" We want a checklist. We want something to do. The problem is then it becomes wrote. It becomes automatic. It becomes meaningless. It becomes transactional instead of transformational. And and so that I guess is the question or call or or challenge today. It's like how do we get back to more of the transformational whether that is with education or our children's education or with our relationships our marriage or with our parent child relationships or with our health or with our religion and spirituality like how do we get back to transformation rather than just transaction. Yes. Yes. Yes. Because at I guess at the core of all of this, if we're not very deliberate and intentional about each aspect of our life, then it becomes thoughtless, mindless, empty, automated, right? So, it becomes subconscious and and we're doing it. And here's how you can all test this. So, even if everyone's listening and you're skeptical, you're like, "Oo, you Dennings, what are you saying? What is this dangerous heretical talking?" It's easy to test. So, even as you're listening to us, don't like don't do the same thing. Don't just take our word for it. Don't just sit here and listen like, "Okay, the Dennings are telling me what to do and I'll do it." Like, don't do that. Like, like chew on it and try to disprove it and then try to prove it. So, when you you take an idea and try to prove it's like, "Okay, well, if if going to school and getting good grades, like if if that is a formula that actually truly works, then everyone who went through and got good grades is genuinely educated and we better off in life. And then you start looking through, you're like, "That's not true." And you're like, "Well, if everyone who attends church regularly, and I mean, they know the right answers. They say the right things. They check all the boxes, they have like all the outcomes and results they want." No, not even not everybody has all the outcomes and results they want. Okay, you're right. So then is it all futile? Nobody can have it all. So what's the point? or is it and I don't even think that's that's good for this is like it's like it's you strip away everything philosophically here is like what's the point right and you know obviously I don't think you're saying this that the ultimate goal or the ultimate success is that you have it all that's not what you're after but I think you are saying is that you are on a journey of progressing in the most important areas of life that's what you mean I think by having it all. It was uh that you're not just like financially successful. You also have a great relationship, a marriage and great relationships with your children and you're spiritually developed and you're healthy and fit and mentally healthy and fit, emotionally. That is what you mean I think right by quote unquote having it all. But it also doesn't mean you've obtained the the pinnacle of all those things but that you're working on towards it. So Earl Nightingale said that success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal, which I I love that progressive progressive. It's realization of worthy ideal. Jesus said be perfect. We like to skip that one because we're like, well, I'm not perfect. And and we like I've heard so many people water that down. Oh, he was referring, oh, it was that. And um if you look at the original text and the word that the meaning there was whole, complete. So, so that that's the holistic exactly part that you're talking about. It's not like have it all. You have the Lamborghini and the fancy car and this and that. You're talking about mental, emotional, spiritual, social, physical, financial and that progressive movement. Yes, exactly. Those things towards those things. But palpable progress, not I'm working on it. And the church is a hospital for sick people who are always sick. Does does everybody anybody ever heal? Like, are you kidding me? At what point are you whole and healthy and never? I'll always stay here and be sick. I'll always be wicked. You're like, whoa, what? Let's go. Which that's a whole another discussion. Hey there, this is Greg Denny. We want to reach as many people as possible and help as many families as possible with these conversations and we want to keep this podcast ad free forever. You can help us do that by subscribing on Spotify or Apple Podcast or wherever you listen your favorite platform and on YouTube and leave a quick review and share your favorite episodes with friends and family. It makes a big difference. Thank you for being a part of this very important movement. Yeah, but there should be in my mind there should be progress like if you are pursuing a worthy ideal whether that's at church or in your education or with your finances or in your marriage there should be palpable progress or else the way I think something's wrong. You're not doing something right. So if progress is not occurring something's off. And for me that is one of my major challenges with religion in general. Some rel you know not necessarily all religions some religions in general some Christian religions but public education being one of those religions. Yeah. Well yeah even that public education is modern medicine like the whole medical field in the US are like how long are we going to do this for? Like it's literally become a business. Oh my goodness. It's become a business. And so the palpable progress is not there. And and same in religion. If there's not this progress that's being made, something's off because we should be making progress, not just maintaining the status quo. Exactly. By checking the transactional boxes. So again, listener, test this. Disprove it and then prove it and then disprove it and then prove it. Look at it. Say, "Hey, if I check all the boxes, look around the people who are checking the boxes. Are they making palpable progress? And you'll see that the vast majority of the time, no. Now, is there a benefit? Yes. Rachel and I talk about that all the time. It's like, should we get rid of public school? No way. No way. Because the masses need a place to go that is better than nothing for it in society as a whole. Yes. Should we get rid of religion modern medicine? No. Should we get rid of churches? No way. No way. like they all serve a purpose. But I guess we're talking today to a group of classadelic bohemian ariodites, meaning people who want to question the status quo, who are tired of checking the boxes and and who are looking around but maybe afraid to speak up or step back and be like, "Wait a minute. Is everybody just drinking the Kool-Aid here?" Like, what's going on? Why Why aren't we getting far far better results, right? Why do we keep hearing the same messages? Why does this always seem like an echo chamber? And wait a minute. And every once in a while you're reading along, you're like, "Wait, Jesus said that? That's not what I've been taught my whole life." Or you you do a deep dive into education and you start really, wait, what? The school system, mass distraction,

vaccinations there. More I'm so excited about this. more and more research is being done like people are really pushing back now. Well, it's it's being revealed research has been done. CO was a catalyst for everyone to start, well, not everyone, but for real thinkers, for non-conformists to start saying, "Hey, wait a minute. What's going on here?" Like, they're they're pushing, this is all money trail. Now, they're even pushing harder on traditional vaccinations that everyone just kind of accepted the narrative and they're going like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa." All of this crap is just a money trail. In fact, I saw somebody yesterday saying the same thing about veterinary medicine. you know, take your healthy animals for a regular vet checkup and then they're giving all this crap like this is such a business scheme. Sound like a conspiracy theorist, Greg. Or then you discover that they're just conspiracies. Yeah. Well, yeah. One of the memes I saw recently that I is accurate is that if you're over the age of 35, you have had fewer vaccines in your entire life than a six-month-old baby is required to have because they keep pushing more and more and more and more and more without evidence, without need, without the science behind it. I think I could actually do a whole episode on vaccines. Maybe we'll do that in the future. I I could too. I think and and again, I know I know we're we're finding shots at sacred cows right now and people were like, "You what? You crazy knuckleheads like you've you've lost your minds and jumped off the edge of the flat earth, whatever." But it's the nonvaxers that believe in the flat earth, baby. Getting confused. We're inviting you to challenge your assumptions and challenge and we've we're inviting you to do it because we do it. We have done it. We are doing it. Well, and I think one of the reasons why people don't do this more often is because it is actually scary and uncomfortable and in fact sometimes terrifying. Mayhm, may I add? They have seen evidence of people questioning it whose lives unravel. Yes. And so they think, well, if I question it, that's that's what the result. I think that's especially true. I mean, that can be true with education and homeschooling. That can be true with religion. Can be true with medicine. With medicine, there's all these scary walk away from it and then they die because, you know, like there's a whole that whole series on I think Netflix, the apple cider vinegar one. I mean, I felt like it was a very interesting story of this woman who pretended she had cancer and then pretended she was cured by it from natural remedies. But to me, the underlying propaganda that was being shared is like, "No natural remedies work. Trust the system." Right? It's that kind of stuff that's very subtle and unless you That series must have been funded by the pharmaceutical companies. I wouldn't be surprised. No, I wouldn't either. Um, but you know what? Like that sounds crazy for us to be talking about that, but the more it's like the more you start learning and going down the quote unquote rabbit holes or whatever you want to call them, which this this is something we've been doing for 20 years and I no longer consider it a rabbit hole. It's just like, oh, this is called truth. The more you realize that this stuff kind of stuff is going on all the time behind the scenes. It's not just in the movies. You get the ideas from real life, right? From real life. And people like if you talk to people and like, "Hey, are do you do you believe that there are like secret combinations like secret conspiracies happening in business and government?" They're like, "Oh yeah, 100%." Like even even the scriptures talk about that. That's what's happening. Okay, so let me tell you the big pharma. No, they would never. How how could you say such things? You're like, "Wait, what? You literally think big pharma's like in it for your health and fitness. Do you think the government cares about your well-being? Do you think anybody gives a crap about doctors aren't paid to give the vaccines to children? What? It's like, no, man. But we want to we want to hold our sacred cows and we want to say, "Well, yeah, that's totally true, but not in my little not in my world. Not in my world. In my narrative, not the one that I hold on to, right?" Yeah. So, so back to this idea that it becomes terrifying to do this because it does require you to question your foundations. I I would say that's the only that that is the path to capital tree truth. Yes, you have to examine the scary parts, right? The threatening parts. And I think if we especially if we use we could use medicine as an example and talk about big ferment we can also use religion and talk about that you start questioning let's say your religion whatever it is that becomes terrifying because everything you've been taught to believe everything you have believed everything you've built your life on is now suddenly at risk and I get that like I I understand that's terrifying what we are saying is it's also liberating And it does not require your life to be destroyed either. I guess that's the other Well, and especially if you walk the entire labyrinth. Yes. If you walk the entire labyrinth, you actually come back and have stronger faith. Yes. And you may come back and we I think we talked about this in the last episode. You may come back to the exact same place you were and keep doing the same things you were doing, but you have stronger faith because you have walked through the shadow of death or doubt. Right? You've walked that path and it actually makes you stronger because you were willing to face the darkness and the doubt. And I would say like we were talking about a moment ago, we're not whole. Perfect is the word they use in the Bible. You're not whole. You're not complete. You're not integral until you've walked the labyrinth. Yes. 100%. And in order to do that, you have to go through all the scary parts. You There's this there those old maps says, "Here, there be dragons." You you've got to walk through the part of the labyrinth that has dragons. It scares the crap out of you that actually questions the core things you've held on to, right? Like I remember for me, one of them was evolution. Like, you know, I'd been raised being taught that evolution wasn't true. It couldn't be true. If if it was true, then God didn't exist. And when I started to question that and then realized, well, no, evolution is true, I realized, guess what? God can still exist if evolution is true. like it's not they're not mutually exclusive. I guess what helped you with that is this Christian scientist, but he wasn't from the Christian Scientist church. He was a scientist who was Christian and he said, "Hey, they don't have to be mutually exclusive." And he also said something or it was on a podcast of his where he said something like, "God's not afraid of your questions." Exactly. Like he can handle whatever questions and doubts you have. So So can truth. Exactly. Like truth is is just there. Like you could throw all your doubts and fears and anger and everything at it and truth just stands there. Like the only you can't break truth. You can break yourself against it but you can't break it. It truth will stand on its own. Yes. So, another thing that came to my mind is one of the one of the things Jordan Peterson likes to say is that and again this is a legend but I think it teaches principles like supposedly in the search for the Holy Grail like King Arthur and the Knights when they went out to go search for the actual grail which represents whatever a worthy ideal a noble pursuit that they each looked at the forest and at the place that was the darkest and most frightening to them. That's where they began their search. That's where they started. So they looked at what was frightening to them. They looked at what was terrifying. Each one individually, each one individually and decided to pursue that in order to find the holy grail, to find that ideal. So going back to this idea of walking the labyrinth and being willing to face those greatest fears that you have, that is the thing. And I love how you connected it to being perfect or whole. That is the thing that develops you and makes you more whole, helps you to walk that labyrinth. You and I have talked about this many times that we've met people, you know, around the world and in religion that are good people. They really are. But yet, as we've talked about it, we've said they're good, but there's something missing. And ultimately what we realized was it a lack of whole developed. Exactly. A lack of walking that full labyrinth and going to all the scary places and all the scary doubts and all. They never went there. And so that is all like missing, right? It's like a a map that's missing here. There'll be dragons. Like they don't know what's over there because they won't walk to the edge. Yeah. They've only developed in this one part, this one area. And so while they are good quote unquote, we've also talked about that in reality they're not really good because as Jordan Peterson also says, you can't be well he uses it in relation to being a dangerous man. But I think the principle carries over, you can't really be a dangerous man unless you're actually capable of violence and choose instead to sheathe your sword and not use it. That's what makes you good. But you know how to use the source. Isn't Isn't it the same true with education? You're not truly educated religion and you're not truly spiritual or religious unless you can face thoroughly face the doubts and the fears and the hard questions. The hard questions and trying to disprove what you believe. Like to to understand a subject, you need to read those in favor and those against and then have your own internal wrestle and dialogue and then talk with others who are in favor and who are against. That's the educational piece. But most like well no no I'm just going to read development. I'm going to read those who are in favor and I would never read those who are against. And unfortunately that's what's pushed or promoted encouraged in many organizations and systems and institutions because they want to control the people maybe right and so we have to ask that question like what's what's going on here interested as the organization as a whole in fully developing the people in fully perfecting them through that walk of the labyrinth as individuals rather than encouraging them to not ask those hard questions to not pursue the difficult doctrines. Why are we are we doing that? What is the ultimate because Rachel purpose? It's impossible to herd cats. That's true. And and think about it as an organization like the ideal outcome, the aim should be to make every individual autonomous autonomous cats. We're going to call them cats because spiritual cats. Spiritual cats because they can't be controlled. They can't be manipulated. They can't be hurted. They'll what they will do. Exactly. We just we just heard the other night. It was so fun that I guess they It was on Mythbusters. Mythbusters. They took some professional like hurting dogs and tried to herd six cats, I think it was, and they just couldn't do it. Yeah, just six cats. We will not be hurted. What if? What if? And I think I think that was what Jesus was doing. He was here saying, "No, be a cat. Be a spiritual cat in this, you know, metaphor like be a non-conformist because the kingdom of God is within is within you. your connection to God. And if you look at what he taught and what he did, like he was not going to conform. He was always pushing the buttons. Oh, he loved it. Let's go. Who are the who are the most conformists? The Sadducees, the Pharisees, the the Sanhedrin. Let's let's go push those guys' buttons. Let's do the things they hate. He loved it. Oh man, he loved it. And it was so awesome. You're like, well, I'm okay. If I'm genuinely trying to be more like Jesus, I have to resist authority, conformity, institutions, governments, organizations. Now, is it resisting just for the sake of resisting? No. It has to be thoughtful. It has to be purposeful. And sometimes you'll find very often you'll find rules and traditions and instit like, "Oh, this is really good. This is helpful. It should stay in place." That that's walking the labyrinth, I think, where you come back to it and you realize this makes complete sense. I see why this is a rule in society or a rule in religion. It makes sense. But the amazing and yes, I know some people are going to say, well, that's about having faith, like having faith and trusting that others know. Okay, I get that. And you don't have to make all the mistakes yourselves and you don't, you know what I'm saying? Like, yes, 100%. But in some ways, I think that's why we have an imagination so that we can at least mentally go there and learn the lessons and make that our own belief or rule as opposed to just always taking it by faith from everyone else. And some people have their gift. Maybe that's their thing. still the the way it's often taught, you know, have faith, it's it's an excuse to compensate for ignorance and naivity because we don't want to walk the labyrinth. We don't want to face the scary things. We don't want to do the hard work that's individual and so we just say, "Well, just have faith." Like, no, face the abyss. Like, figure it out. Wrestle with it. You look at again like go to the scriptures and look at the stories of real faith in there. They weren't like, "Well, just have faith." Right. Well, because as you're saying this and I as I think about my own life, Yeah, you're right. It wasn't having faith about the blind obedience things that was really helpful. It was when I was willing to ask the hard questions and come up against things that are are terrifying. and then still not being able to find an answer. That's I think when faith really counts because you're like, "Wow, here I am at this abyss. I'm at the edge and you want me to step off, right? It's it's like Peter walking on water, right? You want me to get out of this boat and step into the water?" Well, he wanted to. He did. That's what's amazing. But some of us, we're not like Peter and we don't want to. We're like, "No, I'll stay in the boat, please. Thank you." You know, that to me is when the faith really counts. when when when it's like God is calling you to do things that doesn't make sense to get out of the boat and get out of the boat. All the religious are sitting in the boat and saying, "No, no, I'm just gonna have faith." Right? It's good. I have faith, right? That I could like No, no, no. He's not saying you could sit in the boat and exercise your faith, right? The exercise of faith is to get your butt out of the boat. Yeah. And and that to me is when it's most challenging and requires the most faith because as we think about going back to the kingdom of God is within me ultimately that is the guide I need to be developing that connection that individual connection and if it tells me to do something that seems contrary to religion contrary to conformity contrary to status quo contrary to whatever That's scary ground because now you're the heretic. Now you're the apostate. Now you're the blasphemer. Now you're the whatever. There is a real danger in that because if if I'm uneducated, uninformed, undisiplined, I am following my just the the indulgences of my body and then I'm like I just feel like I should do things different. then I'm going to like I'm just going to respond to the the lusts and desires of the body and that's going to lead to destruction which is is clearly evident. I I think okay this is a really really important part when you start questioning convention you have to do it with such a thorough search you have to read the greatest thinkers and teachers and leaders of all time and then you find even like Will and Ariel Durant who were full-on humanists who who called people were just trousered apes but they in studying history they wrote the story of civilization they realized Just going off your whims for sexual desire is an absolute recipe for destruction. Not in lives and families, but societies. Entire civilizations will collapse if we just run after our sexual desires. So then when you're sitting there, I should question the rules of my religion or past chastity and purity. You know what? I'm going to question this. So I'm just going to go out and have sex ravenously. You idiot. All you had to do is read a book to realize that won't work or look around. Like you got to open your eyes before you just run off the edge like I don't believe in this gravity crap and so you run off the cliff and you're like shoot I should have read about this or yes noticed other people that fell off the cliff before me. You know what I'm saying? Of course. People were like, "Well, I'm going to try drugs and al I'm just going I'm going all out. I'm going to be a non-conformist." Right? Like dummy. that test has already been taken. Well, and that's why um No, you're 100% right. And that's why I like the idea that we have imaginations and we have access to books and history and like all these other like we can learn by learning from others. For me, that's one of the reasons why I'll watch movies that are inappropriate or whatever because it's helping me see, oh, this is what happens if you live that life. You know what I'm saying? It's another learning. To be clear, you're not watching some trash movie. You're watching a movie that has a a great moral lesson, but includes realities of the dark side of life, right? So, it has a good thing. It's not. It's like there's books and movies and and songs, whatever that are are bent or broken and and they're just evil and the the intent is evil. Then what you're talking about is like these ones that that that's it's dark. It's hard. It addresses issues that are challenging and and you you you face things that are disturbing. Yes. That's why you watch something because you're like, "Okay, instead of experiencing this, right, like I don't have to go out and do it myself. if I can I can watch oh here's what happens when a person chooses this lifestyle and this is the outcome that that's the point of books like the classics right you know we're going through the classics with our children and a lot of these books are just downright depressing end miserably because that's reality the point like these writers were trying to teach us here is what happens my concern they make you cry and weep and hurt while you read them and get disturbed my concern is for the people who aren't even willing to read the books because in well they're just depressing babe and they're disturbing and they're inappropriate. Like you know you teach a class for teens and in the class you guys read books and discuss them and we've literally had parents messaging us saying why are you having my child read this book that was that happened to be a World War II book. It was a book about two and she was almost raped and like all the almost raped wasn't even raped. She like but she says this is what happened. She's just telling her a story and they're like this is inappropriate. I don't want my kid to read this. You're like this actually happened. Well, this happened to a teenager, right? Your your child's age. It happened to them. It's better for them to read about it than it is to actually experience their naivity. Yes. Yes. So, this is one of the things, you know, as we're bringing this up that I'm talking about with being willing to walk the labyrinth. Walking the labyrinth doesn't mean actually doing it all yourself. You don't have to go out and get raped. You don't have to go out and do drugs. You don't have to go out and be a prostitute. But you can read about all of those things. You could watch movies about them. And it will still be uncomfortable for you. But it will help you to walk the labyrinth. And with with faith and religion, you don't have to abandon your faith or your religion to walk the labyrinth and question it all. Yeah. Question all the aspects of your religion. You can still do that and remain in your religion and then find out here's here's a perfect example because we in our family we love doing scholarly research on especially the Bible and religious studies and you dive in deep and you realize some of these stories in the Bible that well I I just want to add as you're doing that because I want people to understand that also includes like right now our daughter Aliyah who's 18 and I've already read them is reading the panachads which is the Hindi scriptures she's read the Bakavita which I've also read both of them and she's read the dharmapata and she just ordered the daqing. We're still also reading all of those things. Yes, we're digging into the Bible and we love and we should read all the religious texts. We're also really reading other religious texts and other just all sorts of texts all the time. So what happened is you dig into scholarship and like in the Old Testament they're like yeah that story never happened. It's it's a fictional story. But if you grew up in a religion that taught you that everything in the Bible is literal and every character was real and did exactly what was written there, all it takes is a little bit of understanding the Hebrew, understanding the ancient culture, understanding who the authors were and all the unknowns and and like and then digging into history realize that's not a real story. But all of a sudden it's like it's like the evolution thing. It will. And and so then you feel like your faith is unraveling if if those aren't actual characters with literal true stories. It's almost as naive as saying, "Wait, those Jesus taught parables. There wasn't actually a prodigal son." The wait the prodigal son. Yeah, exactly. What? The prodigal son isn't a real person. There goes my faith. It's like, no, the story is still true. True in and this is what like changed for me, but true because yeah, you can have something be true that's not literally true. It it's a meta truth. Y we can watch a movie, we can read a book like one of your favorite books, Lay Miss, right? It's notiction actually true. It's fictional and yet it's still true. It's a meta truth. And it's as silly as me saying, "Wait, Jean Bjan wasn't a real person in France. I can't believe this is a lie. This whole book is a lie." And now my favorite book gets thrown out because it's all a lie. And yet that's one of the most true books I think ever written, right? And is truer to life and the story of humanity than most all other books. And yet it's completely fictional. Those characters aren't real, but they represent metatruths and archetypes, and so they're true. And so it and you can do that even with your faith and say, "Wait a minute. You mean Moses probably wasn't a real person? You mean Jonah didn't actually get swallowed by a whale?" It was more like Pinocchio story. Wait, God wasn't actually there with the devil saying, "Let's see how we can test this guy." You with me? It's like, "Wait a minute. What if those are just fictional stories that were told to teach beautiful truths? You're like, wait, it's still true even if it's fictional. So, one of the other things that keeps coming to my mind that I think I want to talk about because especially when you are bringing up, you know, cuz I'm talking about, oh, if you're listening to your inner guide and it's telling you to do things and and now I'm like, I'm off doing drugs or sleeping around whatever. What came to mind was the idea of something we talk about, which is the fringe. And we actually got this idea from watching the Exodus series with Jordan Peterson which also includes Dennis Prager who's Jewish and I think it has Ben Shapiro in it sometimes. But anyways, they were talking about an atheist guy and religious. Yeah, they have all kinds of scholars there which makes it such an incredible discussion where they're actually discussing these things. They're diving into it. They're asking questions. They're having doubts. They're saying what about this? you know, like they're not afraid to address the difficult questions, but they take this idea from the Old Testament of this piece of clothing that the Jews, Orthodox Jews, will wear that at the bottom has a fringe. And they were talking about how it's important in the society that we operate in, in our institutions, in our religions, in our systems, that we leave room for the French. You know, Dennis Prager, the Jewish man, say it. That's why we have the fringe on our garments. It reminds us that we need room for the fringe. And what the fringe represents? Well, I just look at the definition. Go ahead. Well, read it first. The actual definition, at least here, it says it's the border or outer edges of an area or a group. Yeah. Right. Not part of the mainstream, unconventional, peripheral, or extreme. Yes. Yes. Okay. Exactly. I love that. And that's actually perfect. I like that. And even one of the traditions they would have is that say when they're harvesting the fields, they would always leave things at the fringe at the edges, they would leave the grain. So that provided provision for the needy, the want the the widows, the beggars, like people who are not within the mainstream of society. They had this fringe to help provide for them, right? So, one of the things that we talk about is that there needs to be room for the fringe, but there are also two different fringes. There's the lower fringe and then there's the upper fringe. And so, it's almost like in society, the lower fringe is the people living unconventionally. They're living outside of the norm. They're not conforming, but they're also not thriving. Like they're they're they're suffering. They're poor. You know, if you're outside of the economic fringe, you're poor. You're living in poverty and uneducated. You're uneducated. You are living in you don't have a family support basist level. Single moms. It's, you know, it's like that that's the the lower fringe in a way that are just barely surviving. Yeah. Barely getting by. But but they they also have a hard time understanding bigger concepts. And I mean, they're just in a lot of ways of education. They're infants and they're they're just barely coming into understanding and wrapping their heads around things. So this is what this is when and why and what we mean when we say that's why there is a need for the conventions. There's a need for religion. There's a need for public school. There's a need for these institutions because that helps to bring up the lower fringe and and and bring more education, bring more economic stability, bring more spirituality, personal development, more discipline to your life, more of the things that actually help you not just survive, but thrive a little bit. But then as you move through that, I don't know if we want to look at this as like a tree. That could be a good example. So you have the roots, the lower fringe, and then you have the trunk, and then you have the branches. The upper fringe is kind of what we're talking about here. As we're walking through all of these different things, all the things we're saying to us, that's the unconventionality on the upper fringe. You don't have to go down and and live in si quote unquote sin and and do drugs and swallow and be, you know, poor, live in poverty. You don't have to do that in order to get out of the convention now to get out of the system. This is so beautiful to me because as we talk about, you know, questioning things, a lot of people think questioning means going back down. It's like going down to live the hippie lifestyle. Not not that I I'm not degrading hippies, right? Because we lived the hippie lifestyle, but most often what I see is when people live leave society and they leave the conventions, it's more like the hippie life, which is where we started as well. We left society. We left its conventions. We went to the hippie lifestyle because it's a way of living outside of the system. That's why you talk about becoming that classelic bohemian arudite like you know bohemian comes from the word bohemia which came from the gypsies in Bohemia outside of the crowd. It's outside of society. What one author called the unthinking herd. Yes. But it's not in say the lower fringe of the actual gypsy because we're here in Portugal. There there are gypsies that live around here and they live outside of society and it's actually very sad because they're limited in what they can do because they don't have birth certificates or licenses. They don't have education. They're literally just barely surviving and existing. You can be, you know, and that's where bohemian comes from comes from the gypsies. that you can be that bohemian but the classadelic like you're living at a higher level in the higher fringe because of education because of um pursuit of personal growth because of development of intuition and spirituality you move up through and that's where we're saying those things are beneficial because we have you and I have gained benefit by participating in religion it's a good it has been a good thing in our But as we move through that we do come to the other side of the fringe where in a way you leave the institutions behind. Not that they lose their purpose or role in society but maybe in an individual life they lose some of their I guess what I'm saying is you eventually move past checking the boxes. Yes. from transactional. Some sometimes checking the boxes helps people. It helps you at the entry level. You help people with structure and patterns and new habits and new frameworks and new way of being. But then at some point you you do have to move through checking the boxes. And it's not to say that you stop with the good habits. The good habits must remain. The higher values must remain. In fact, and this is so important, when you go to the upper fringe, you're actually living by higher standards. That is absolutely critical. Anybody listening to this has to get that in when what we're talking about leaving the herd out the higher fringes, questioning everything, we're talking about living by much, much higher standards. So, if you leave conventional education, it's because you want a world-class education. If you leave conventional medicine, it's because you want absolutely phenomenal health. You want to outlive everybody. If you leave quote conventional religion, it's because you're on this spiritual journey of absolute purity and oneness with God. Like we're talking about questioning to go out the top and live by higher standards because it no longer is about the transactional checking the boxes. It's the transformation where that becomes your way of being. That's why you stop checking the boxes. because you're already living it. You that Yeah, exactly. That's who you are. So, you don't have to check the box because you just do it automatically, right? Yeah. I love that. You don't have to set a reminder to be spiritual because you are living spiritually, right? Exactly. So, that's it's so powerful. It's so beautiful. So, is there a place for for school, medicine, church, religion? Yes, of course. All that. There's some of you I hope those of you listening are saying, "Okay, wait a minute. I want something better than what's offered in traditional school. I want something more. I want greater health than what's available in traditional medicine. I want deeper spirituality and faith and even I'd say religion, which is the practice of your spirituality, than what's being offered as a basic serving in sadly in most churches where it's pretty weak. It's watered down. And it's sad. And I know I'm shooting at sacred cows again here, but like is your church really truly truly like showing up and transforming people, standing up for what's right, or is it just filled with cowardice and conformity, wanting so desperately to be nice and fit in and be liked by everybody? I I don't find any prophet anywhere in scripture who went around trying to be liked by every everybody and only said very nice things and and all of his speech went through the PR department first and the HR department to make sure nobody would be offended and then we just say it so nicely that nope, we're not going to take a hard stand on any issue because I don't want to. What's the backlash? These prophets were calling them out, man. They were mad men. Where are those guys? Yeah. Where are those? I'm And I'm dead serious. Like, come on. Maybe Eric Mataxis, he's he's starting to do it. He's doing it. And Jordan Peterson was doing it. Absolutely. So, question all of it and and come back to what Rachel is saying. And what I love to say is like nobody can do your push-ups for you. Not mentally, not educationally, not spiritually, not in your relationships, not in your health. Like you have to own it and you have to question the narratives. You got to stop drinking the Kool-Aid. And I, as we have said this whole time, there is risk. There's real risk. If you step away from convention, you remove your safety net. If you step away from traditional education, you're left with the education you earn or help your kids earn. If you step away from modern medicine, you're left with your own results from from your, you know, challenging your faith or your religion, your spirituality, like you better be able to produce better results. That's that's what I tell my kids. That's what we that's this has been our conversation for 23 years. If we step away from traditional education, we better be able to produce better results. Because if we just step away and then our kids are worse off, like we failed. That's an epic failure because like it's it's below mediocrity in the public system. Like if we can't beat that, golly, it's so important to realize that that what's being offered as a whole is the bare minimum. That that's what it is. A lot of us think this I've arrived. It's like, no, that's the bare minimum. Checking the boxes is the bare minimum. The real life, real living is far above that. Okay, thanks for listening. Love you guys. Reach over.

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