Digital Social Hour - How Faith Transformed My Life Forever | Ruslan DSH #683

Episode Date: August 31, 2024

Experience the profound journey of faith and transformation with Ruslan on the Digital Social Hour with Sean Kelly! 🌟 Discover how Ruslan's faith reshaped his life against a backdrop of adversity, from escaping the violence of the Soviet Union to finding hope and purpose in a new land. 🇦🇲🇺🇸 Dive into a conversation packed with valuable insights about the power of belief, the impact of community, and the quest for truth. 📚✨   Join the conversation now and explore the depths of spiritual awakening, cultural richness, and personal growth. Don't miss out—watch now and subscribe for more insider secrets! 📺 Hit that subscribe button and stay tuned for more eye-opening stories on the Digital Social Hour with Sean Kelly! 🚀   #CapturingChristianity #PersonalGrowthJourney #PersonalGrowth #Apologetics #JesusMythicismDebunked   #CameronBertuzzi #NewTestament #JesusChrist #Transformation #Jesus   CHAPTERS: 00:00 - Intro 02:26 - Armenian Refugee Experience 06:38 - Impact of Environment on Life 10:05 - Ruslan's YouTube Journey 11:17 - Insights on Jordan Peterson 14:26 - Joel Osteen's Influence 17:06 - Understanding Tithing 19:07 - Personal Beliefs and Values 20:37 - Thoughts on Aliens 21:47 - Belief in God 24:39 - The Best Time to Be Alive 26:45 - Business Partnerships 28:55 - Evidence for the Resurrection 32:11 - Billy Carson's Perspective 33:05 - Writing of the Bible 34:50 - Yahweh vs Hashem Explained 35:55 - Transformative Power of the Bible 38:26 - Future Plans for Ruslan   APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://www.digitalsocialhour.com/application BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: [e-mail]   GUEST: Ruslan https://www.instagram.com/RuslanKD/ https://www.youtube.com/ruslankd   SPONSORS: Deposyt Payment Processing: https://www.deposyt.com/seankelly   LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Proof is an interesting concept, right? Because to prove something, we would need a time machine and a video camera to go back 2,000 years and say, did Jesus bodily rise from the grave? But I do think there's a proof in a historical sense, not in the scientific sense, like material matter sense. I give my life to Jesus, start living his ways, and then in hindsight, everything changes. I'm overweight, I start eating chicken and broccoli,

I start compound training, all of a sudden my body changes, and I go, that's the proof, I need it. then in hindsight everything changes i'm overweight i start eating chicken and broccoli i start compound training all of a sudden my body changes and i go that's the proof i need it all right guys we got ruslan here today coming off of uh panita's event right that's right yeah how about your first talk with slides first talk with slides man it was it was uh interesting yeah it was good though good event ryan's an amazing guy yeah so it was fun he's done a great job fostering that community he has in that space he has he's done a good job of not always having like the biggest like youtube podcast numbers but just incredible conversion to his live events which i admire a lot and quality people too and

quality people like like he really figured out the avatar. Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of the people in the church space have built up a huge following. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's like a cultural shift happening where I think people are re-intrigued by faith because they are starting to see the practical utility to it. But then there's like, well, what if it's true? Right?

Like C.S. Lewis said, like Jesus is the myth that's fact. So like there's a practical utility that influences our laws and, you know, we do onto others, the good Samaritan law, like this is all New Testament. But now people are starting to say like, well, what if, what if it's real? You know? So it's cool. It's cool. Yeah. It'll be cool to see if they ever prove it one day. Like, cause there's always that debate with the scientists and the religious community. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, proof is an interesting concept, right? Because to prove something, we would need a time machine and a video camera to go back 2,000 years and say, did Jesus bodily rise from the grave?

How do you know to prove that? But I do think there's a proof in a historical sense, not in the scientific sense, like material matter sense, but in a historical sense. And I do think there's a proof in, I give my life to Jesus, start living his ways. And then in hindsight, everything changes, everything becomes different. So it's like, I'm overweight, I start eating chicken and broccoli, I start compound training, all of a sudden my body changes. And I go, that's the proof I needed. I don't need to hear from a vegetarian that chicken's bad for me. I don't care because I know that I walked this out and it works. It's like a different type of proof, if that makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense. So you came as an Armenian refugee?

Correct. Yeah. So Armenians are culturally Christian. The oldest Christian nation, the Armenian Apostolic Church traces its lineage all the way back to the Apostle Bartholomew, one of Jesus's 12. And you could still go to parts of ancient Armenia today and stand at the gravesite of a disciple of Bartholomew. So Christianity invades Armenia. Armenia becomes Christian. Armenia doesn't have a written language until Christianity hits it. They translated the Bible. We developed the language to translate the Bible. So deep, rich Christian history. I grew up Armenian apostolic, but because of communism in Azerbaijan, a lot of persecution, and we eventually were forced out of Azerbaijan because of the ethnic cleansing by RZs against Armenians and came to America in 91. And the sad part is this just happened again just right two weeks before October 7th.

Dang. 100,000 Armenians were just displaced from eastern Azerbaijan. Because of being Christian? Because of the, just the fighting amongst the Armenians and the Arzis or the Arzis and Armenians. How you look at it,

Azerbaijanians tend to be Muslim, right? And then there's also this, the Borokaragak region, which is autonomously Armenian, but it's an Azerbaijan territory. And so Azerbaijan just invaded and just dispelled 120,000 Armenians. Where did they go this time? They went to Armenia and the Armenian diaspora is all over the world, right? So like Glendale

is like a huge Armenian community. Glendale, Arizona? Glendale, California, right? Oh, California. Okay. Wow. So that's where you went? So we came from Azerbaijan. We went to Moscow. We applied for asylum refugee status in Israel, Australia, and America was the last place. And we got picked up in Armenia. I mean, I picked up in America. That was the last place we applied, first place we got picked and came to this beautiful San Diego. Nice. So America was your last choice of the four? Last place we applied. Oh,

okay. First place that accepted us. Was it not the one you wanted to go to at first? I don't know. I was a kid, but I was pumped. I got to America and they took us to Lucky's grocery store off of El Cajon and like 30th Street. And I had never seen a grocery store because in Armenia, we grew up under, I mean, in Zabrinov, we grew up under rations, Soviet Union rations. Food was rationed. Holy crap. We'd get a tub of water to last us for the week that we'd have to share as a family.

We'd have to line up for bread, right? So my first time seeing a grocery store, I thought it was a toy store. I was like, how thoughtful of my parents. When you think about businesses that are selling through the roof, like Aloe or Allbirds or Skims, sure, you think about a great product, a cool brand, and brilliant marketing. But an often overlooked secret is actually the businesses behind the business, making selling simple. For millions of businesses, that business is Shopify. Nobody does selling better than Shopify, home of the number one checkout on the planet. Thank you. on the web, in your store, in their feed, and everywhere in between. Upgrade your business and get the same checkout Skims uses.

Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com slash try, all lowercase. Go to Shopify.com slash try to upgrade your selling today. Shopify.com slash try. To take me to get toys. Why wouldn't we land? And I was like, oh, it's like food and stuff. I was just saying, it's a total 180 on lifestyle.

Total 180. Everything's different. It is like the world became colorful when I came to America. That is cool. And you had no idea this even existed probably

because the media probably didn't want you seeing outside. All I knew was Michael Jackson and American Ninja. That's all I knew about America. Wow. Yeah. So that was really communist, son.

Really communist. Like we didn't go to church in Azerbaijan because of how communist it was. Dang. Yeah. So that was really communist, son. Really communist. Like we didn't go to church in Azerbaijan because of how communist it was. Dang. Yeah. So then when we came to America, then we discovered like, oh, Armenia has this rich Christian history. And so we become a part of the Armenian apostolic church. I get christened as an altar boy, become an altar boy the whole bit. And this is like the late 90s.

At the same time, my mother and father divorce. And it's a really nasty bitter divorce my my dad brings out his uh girlfriend gets remarried out of my life and i just i go down a complete downward spiral of just insanity i got i got sexually assaulted by some older altar boys so i'm like seven they were like 13 14 and that with my dad being gone like completely derailed my life so i end up getting arrested at 11 for breaking into houses i get i lose my virginity at 11 i'm selling weed damn just like a mess of a kid man really bad wow yeah at 11 years old 11 years old you're breaking into houses breaking into houses breaking into schools my fourth grade teacher was so sweet she had this

karaoke machine she let me try to rap on it and i broke in and stole it holy crap yeah does she know that she does now shout out to that teacher man she's so sweet she believed in me and so it was a mess man and and i i like the gangster rap thing is at its peak this is around the time like tupac gets killed yeah i'm just gone do you think that music influenced you subconsciously i think the neighborhood i was in reflected the music. And then I think the music made everything worse. Wow. So my best friend's house, the night he was spending at my house, we did our sleepovers. So my best friend's name is Steven Jackson. His mom's Cherie. She was involved in some sketch stuff. He spends the night at my house. His room, the backside of our apartment building is shot up

jeez and so this is like the climate in the early 90s in san diego like people think san diego is sweet and it's like this amazing town but like san diego in the early 90s was pretty rough wow yeah you were growing up in violence yeah i thankfully never got into guns and never got into like i mean i was a kid like i was a scrawny kid so like i never got violent but there was a lot of shootings and SWAT teams being called and just craziness. San Diego. I didn't know it was like that back then. Back then, it was different.

I remember our upstairs neighbor got into a confrontation over a parking spot, shot somebody, and they wouldn't let us back in the house because there was a SWAT team trying to get him and his whole family and my friends out because of the shooting happened right in front of our house. It didn't get killed, but someone was shot over a parking spot. So silly. Yeah. It's crazy. Yeah. People couldn't control their emotions. It's interesting. Men without father figures struggle with emotional regulation for sure. And that's what happened to you, right? That's what happened to me, man. And thankfully my mom was a blackjack dealer. She worked nights, which was awful at first, but then she got a job at Ocean's Eleven in Oceanside, California. And so she saw me down this trajectory and transplanted us to Vista, California, which is where I live now.

Vista is like a suburb of San Diego. It's way quieter, way green. You know, it's like the best of both worlds. It's like country and city in one. But it wasn't what I grew up in. And so I decided, oh, okay, great. This is a fresh start for me. Going into eighth grade, my GPA in seventh grade was 1.2. My GPA in eighth grade was 3.8. I got into basketball completely, just went a different

trajectory because environment, like my environment changed and I wasn't involved in all this foolishness. So just the environment change caused all that. Just the environment change had me almost be a base student, perfect day student, eighth grade year. We're going to have to hoop, man. Yeah, man. Well, I got a bum knee now. You look like you're nice. I'm decent.

Yeah? How often do you hoop? I'm in the lifetime leagues out here. We just won last season. Okay. Yeah, you hoop. I'm decent. Yeah.

You hoop, hoop, hoop. Yeah. It's fun, dude. When you're 6'6", you got to take advantage. You got to take it. You ever play like ball in high school, college? I i didn't one of my regrets is not doing that actually yeah see i thought i was gonna go to the nba yeah you were nice and then i discovered that i was armenian and then genetics and then my mom's boyfriend losha he sat me down and had to like explain to

me like it's not in the cards for you bud yeah you know and so my buddy rufato he says like if you count the kardashians armenians have taken more people from the nba than we've added damn yeah holy crap yeah i can't think of any armenian nba players now there aren't any all right so i got cut from my jv basketball team my sophomore year and then i was like i'm gonna do the next best thing which is be a rapper and i went on the became rapper was a full-time rapper from 2015 to 2020. How'd that go? Terrible. It was awful.

It was before TikTok. No hits? I mean, I got a couple songs that are like 10 million. Oh, nice. Yeah. So I made a living. We grossed $100,000 a year from 2015 to 2022. Oh, for a rapper, that's solid.

For an independent rapper, it's good. And then when the pandemic happened, I pivoted to YouTube and everything kind of blew up from there. Right. Yeah. You're popping off on youtube man thanks man that's how i found you but you don't even cover any hip-hop stuff on there it's not really like i covered a little bit of the drake kendrick beef yeah but but not really because it's just so fragmented i feel like hip-hop is just in a real weird spot you know and so i still put out music occasionally but like the youtube's just been so good to me yeah what's your bread and butter on youtube what topics right now right now we're in real time pivoting to long form conversations like this like trying to go deep with people who are

experts in something and so that's what we're trying to go on writing a book about godly ambition for young men uh usually the stuff that works is a combination of reaction stuff around something that's trending and then tying in my expertise so like our last viral video was about jordan peterson sitting down with alex o'connor alex o'connor asks him if i will go back in time with a video camera would jesus walk out of the tomb and jordan peterson goes i suspect so so that's like a big deal like jordan peterson affirms the bodily resurrection of jesus so like something like that something about maybe like the nephilim aliens and tying that into it to the bible um in time stuff is always hits so those sorts of things but we try we're really trying to get people to like hey live god's ways because god's ways are good for you that's what we're trying to point young

yeah yeah jordan peterson's had an interesting uh religious journey right really interesting religious journey my friend jonathan pejo is really close to him i don't know if you know who jonathan is but he's an eastern an Eastern Orthodox Christian who's an iconographer, artist, writer. He's brilliant. And so they just did a whole series on the gospel that's about to come out through Daily Wire. So his journey has been really interesting. This is like as close as we've seen Jordan Peterson overtly affirm the bodily resurrection, which is like, that's the line. Like if there's a line, if you believe Jesus literally rose, or if you didn't believe Jesus literally rose, that's kind of like Like if there's a line, if you believe Jesus literally rose or if you didn't believe Jesus literally rose,

that's kind of like the distinguishing factor on if someone is on our team. Really? Yeah. Oh, so that's the factor. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like if you believe a miracle happened, a supernatural event that's never happened,

you're like, I think it's more than likely and I have confidence that that probably happened. I would say, okay, that's the line of orthodoxy amongst other things. Believe the Bible is reliable, right? Other things. But yeah, I would say that that's pretty high up there, affirming the bodily resurrection.

If someone doesn't believe in that, will you converse with them and debate them? Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I debated destiny on the- He doesn't believe in that? Destiny? No, destiny.

I mean, destiny is pretty liberal on a lot of these things. Yeah, destiny. We debated on No Jumper, Adam 22. Adam 22 hits me up. Hey, hey, I got the opportunity you've been looking for this is at like 11 o'clock i need you here at 9 a.m to debate destiny and i'm like oh gosh that's that's he's good like he's a great he's a great debater great i saw him against peterson actually yes that was that was a great conversation he held his ground so i was like

really like oh gosh because i don't think i'm a great i'm a great debater and and thankfully man everyone is like, imagine a studio like this, but your camera operator smoking weed, your video switcher smoking weed. Everyone in the room is smoking weed. And I'm sitting there praying like, God, please, I can't catch a contact high.

I can't unravel. And bro, I believe the Lord preserved me. And then when he got on camera, he was gone. He was so high. He was high, bro. And so something happened there on camera, he was gone. Like he was, he was high, bro. And so something happened there. So if people go back and watch that, like, I'm not saying like I owned him, but I definitely think like he was off. He was off. Damn. That's the worst debate I've seen him with a Christian. I got to check that out. I would definitely get a contact high

if I was there. Oh, absolutely. I don't smoke. I don't know how I didn't. I don't know how I did. Do you smoke? No. Oh, wow. No. I mean, I take some edibles when I blew out my ACL. I'm at my meniscus 2019 and I had the same surgery 2020. So instead of like, what do they give you? Morphine. Not morphine.

What do they give you? Painkillers or whatever. Oxycontin and like all that crazy stuff. I was scared. So I ended up taking edibles. Good choice. Yeah, that's the most

I've done anything cannabis related in over 20 years. Do you drink or do any drugs or anything? No. My mother's an alcoholic. She just recovered. She's related in over 20 years. Right. Do you drink or do any drugs or anything? No. My mother's an alcoholic. She just recovered.

Oh, shit. She's been sober for three years. Damn. And so I'm too scared to drink. You drink? No. Yeah. My dad was an alcoholic.

Yeah. That fucked me up, I think. Yeah, same. Same. And last time I had a drink was in Israel. It was like a Shabbat dinner with an Orthodox Jewish family. And it was like, have some wine. Yeah, I'll have a drink in the right situation, but.

I had a drink and was done. I was like, this is why I don't drink. I had a glass of wine. It was like, I'm chilling. I'd probably black out right now off a glass of wine. I'm chilling, yeah. I got no tolerance anymore. It's not worth it.

It's not. When you're trying to operate on a high level. It's not. If you're trying to be an athlete and you're trying to run a business and you're trying to ideate things that can help people, I don't see the cost reward. I'm not saying it's sinful or bad, just not for me. Yeah. So in that Kendrick diss, he went out Joel Osteen. Yeah. Yeah. What do you think of that guy? Cause I've never seen any positive things on him

actually. I think Joel Osteen means well, I think Joel Osteen really is trying, but I think Joel Osteen is trying too hard to be a motivational speaker. And okay. This is my overall analysis of if Joel Osteen was starting today, if a lot of these celebrity preachers were starting today, they would be doing what you're doing and what I'm doing and not trying to run churches. And I think Joel Osteen just started at a time where his dad died. He takes over this massive ministry and he just wants to be an encouraging guy. That's not the same as a pastor. So I don't think he's malicious. I don't think he's trying to be harmful and push nonsense. I think he's genuinely doing what he thinks is best,

born in the wrong time. And therefore, there's so much confusion around it. There's a guy named Carl Lentz. I'm not sure if you're familiar with who he is. He was like Justin Bieber's pastor. Oh, I saw that. Didn't he get exposed or something? He did.

So Joe Rogan roasted him for the D-Root, his penis root photos, walking with Justin Bieber on the beach, his crotch showing. So this dude got completely exposed, lost his church, lost everything. And now he's becoming a podcaster. And I'm like, if he were starting now,

he would be a great podcaster. He'd be a great YouTuber. He'd be a great influencer. But these guys, they just kind of, they're charismatic, they're good looking. What do I do? I'm gonna be a pastor. And it's not what looking. What do I do? I'm going to be a pastor. And it's not what most people need to do. They don't need to be pastors. That's a really

serious thing you're taking on. And so I think like they're, I don't want to say they're victims of their circumstance, but I almost feel bad for the guys, if that makes sense. Yeah. These mega churches must be tough to run. Yeah. I mean, you got to, you have to have a TED talk every week. You have to manage hundreds of employees. And you have to be semi-available to actually pastor and shepherd people and love people and be compassionate. What other industry is someone having to do all three of those things? That's very difficult. So that's what I mean.

I'm like, I get it. Like, it's hard. It's tough. It's tough to make it work. And a lot of the criticism they get is on the financial side of things where they're spending and investing the money and to their credit all these guys have paid back their salaries all most of them like joel seems paid back his salary he doesn't take a salary he lives off his book sales okay right now you're still using your platform as a pastor to sell books but it's not the same as like he has a million dollar salary as a pastor he doesn't take a salary and

the books is what keep him afloat i didn't know he had a million dollars most of these guys i think i'm not saying he does i'm saying it's not't know he had a million-dollar salary. Most of these guys, I think—I'm not saying he does. I'm saying it's not as if he has a million-dollar crazy, exorbitant salary. The books run everything. He works basically for free. I think the same for like—and I'm not a fan of any of these guys, but the same for like a Stephen Furtick or these guys. So I'm just steelmanning that they're not like running church money into the ground by having lavish jets and craziness. Like that's not with these guys.

Some are, but not these dudes. Do you participate in the tithing, the 10% to the church? I do because I think it's a good principle and it's a good discipline. And I think there's something, there's supernatural math there. It doesn't make sense on paper.

And I've been doing it since I was a kid. I remember my 87 Toyota Sallica got broken into. I used to have 12 inch subs in my trunk. My car stereo, everything got stolen. And I started tithing at my first job at Pizza Hut, maybe making a couple hundred bucks a week. And I just was faithfully like, I'm gonna try. And that same time, I didn't know this,

but the guy who broke into my car, they ran fingerprints, they caught the guy, they made him pay restitution in a fund. And like the same month I tithed for the first time, time i got like a 900 check in a while from the county who runs fingerprints and then goes and finds the guy yeah who breaks a kid's breaks into a kid's car and steals a stereo and that and so like ever since then i do just as as as a discipline i think it's a good practice to live on 90 and give 10. And truthfully, we're giving more than that

across all the other nonprofits we support and everything from Charity Water to Live Action. We try to be very generous. I'm big on energy. I think when you give,

you get back. I think there's something in the aspect of the psychology of just being a generous person and having an open-handed mentality, which is what's preached in the New Testament. It's not about a tithe. It's about radical generosity. Be generous with what you have because if you can have an open-hand mentality and you

have means and you could serve people, God will trust you with more. You got to be faithful with little and then God will trust you with more. And I would say I'm like that and I get a lot of criticism for it, dude, because I'm open with my podcast guests. Like if you see someone on my show and you want them on yours, yeah, I'll do that. But apparently a lot of people won't think like that. I think that's that scarcity mindset, right? Like if you're like, hey, I'm cool. I'm not threatened. I'm good.

I think the contrary to that is like, no, no, no. I'm going to keep all my chips close. And I'm going to keep all my connections close. And I think you generally are a more attractive, generous person. So that's dope. That's dope that you're that way and that you are intentional about it. Yeah. my connections close. And I think you generally are more attractive, generous person, you know? So that's dope. That's dope that you're that way and that you are intentional about it. Yeah. No, it's interesting to see people live like that though. So closed off. I was never like that. I was always pretty, even as a kid, just super giving, you know? It's good. Would you say your parents gave you that or where does that come from?

I'm trying to think. I don't know. My parents were both immigrants, so it could have been just that. I'm not sure. Where are your parents from? My dad's from Ireland. Mom's from China. Okay. Yeah. I think there's a different perspective growing up as an immigrant. You probably had that you didn't take this for granted, and they didn't take this for granted. And so then if you're in a position to help, you just naturally... I see that a lot in immigrant kids. Really?

Yeah. That's good to know. Supernatural side of faith. So what do you believe there? I believe there is a realm that is beyond this dimension and that it is real, that it is active, and that people can exploit and do dangerous things with. The CIA did, we did a video on this,

but the CIA did an experiment as a way to try to spy on, ironically enough, the Soviet Union. Wow. And they found that these combinations of exercises they were doing were offering people the ability to go across and travel through space and time

and collect intel through the supernatural, through the spiritual realm. So there's definitely some sort of spiritual realm. I would say that's, I don't know if you could prove it with science, but there's something spiritual that we would all say there is. And I think it can manifest in the physical. And so when it comes to things like aliens, like I don't think aliens are from another galaxy. I think they're interdimensional beings that can show themselves in a physical sense to certain people so that's remote viewing right what you're talking about with the cia yeah yeah remote viewing i don't remember what the operation was called i just i was i was gonna think about doing a part two was it the gateway process yeah yeah the gateway

process yeah yeah i saw your video on that yeah gateway process yeah man so so that's like a trip so that like that i don't again i don't want to say like oh that absolutely proved that a spiritual world exists but but it proves something something's out there i think it's out there dude yeah i think everyone has a spirit yeah because you feel people's energy man yeah you know you could tell if they're a good dude or not pretty quick yeah so i think if if if the spirit world is real then i mean something had to have caused this spirit world to happen. And I think if I look at all the potential alternatives, I think I can't think of a figure that's added more good to society in terms of value system, in terms of women's rights,

in terms of dignity of children, in terms of dignity of people, in terms of erasing class divide than Jesus and the teachings of Jesus in the New Testament. And to be fair, a lot of that has been corrupted and co-opted. And so I think if there's a supernatural, there has to be a God. If there's a God, what's the most reasonable conclusion? And I go, I'm confident that it's Jesus.

And then from that confidence, it's the faith of a mustard seed. That if I just have enough confidence to believe in that and actually apply his ways, like let's just say tithing, right? Which is like a crazy amount to anybody. Why would I give 10%? Which sounds insane. I did it. And then something miraculous happened. And by the way, I'm not even saying that you have to do these things. I'm just saying something happened when I said, I'm not going to have sex

with my girlfriend anymore. Something different happened. Something when I said, I'm not going to be stingy with my money anymore. Something different. When I said, okay, I'm not going to live for myself anymore. I don't want to make it about me, me, me. I want to see how I could serve and bless people. Something happens. And I think all of this comes back to Jesus. And then I think Jesus has this, like, it's like this drop where it hit past and future worldviews, meaning that there's principles from other faith traditions that I think Jesus then impacts past history and future history from his timeline. And I think we really see that everywhere. We see that in our ethics system.

We see that in our law system. Like a lot of the just war theory, like a lot of these things we take for granted in the West are almost, I mean, I use the example of like the Good Samaritan Law. That's a parable. Jesus has a parable of the Good Samaritan Law, directly where it's from, do unto others. That's the saying of Jesus, right?

So this is everywhere. And then when you start seeing it, you go, whoa, like we really take this stuff for granted. I'm not saying America is a Christian nation. I'm saying we are so influenced by Christian principles and Christian ethics that we take it way for granted. And you don't really know this until you go travel to other places. Really? You go see other places. You go see the Middle East. You go see how babies are treated. I mean, even with China's one childchild policy up until 2015.

I saw a whole documentary about it, and I'm like, that's dark, man. The lack of view. Soviet Union, Soviet Union communism. The way we viewed people was not as image bearers of God with innate value. Yeah, no, I agree. There's a lot of Americans that complain about this country,

but they're not factoring outside country views. They haven't lived in other places. And we're probably one of the best. Have you traveled internationally? I've traveled, yeah. Where would you say

is the like far off Western culture you've gone deepest? Western, like Eastern? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, well, just not in the West. Not in the West.

I've been all the way to China, been to Thailand, Greece, Ireland, Australia. Okay. Yeah. Things are different for sure

different mentality over there I think America's one of the top though to be honest I know a lot of people complain about it but they haven't traveled yeah I mean

one they haven't traveled two they take for granted what we have three I would say there's a lot of value in those other countries because what I'm saying

is like other people aren't good people what I'm saying is there's also something in the scriptures where it talks about natural law and common grace. Like people have eternity in God's ways written on their conscience. So just because you've never heard of Jesus, you haven't been exposed to Christianity, that doesn't mean that you can't

have valuable aspects as a culture, right? But what I will say is that I think we take it for granted. And I think this is the best time ever to be alive. I'll give you an example. I'm sure you're familiar with the book Outliers or Mastery. I've heard of it. So Outliers and Mastery both explore this idea of the 10,000 hour rule. In order to be a master at chess, in order to be a master musician, you got to spend 10,000 hours practicing your craft. Recently, they discovered that because of online learning, because of stuff like the iPhone, that that has been completely slashed in half.

Wow. Not half, excuse me, slashed by fourth. So you can become a chess master through playing online in about 2,000 to 2,500 hours. Holy crap. Yeah. So that wasn't possible 50 years ago. Now take that and apply that to other skills that someone might need, right? Say you want to, I was just talking to a girl and she's like, I'm a reseller. And I'm like, great. Figure out how to develop your own products, figure out how to develop Facebook ads, figure out how to develop a website, Shopify. It's never been a time like this, ever. And there's never been a time easier to learn those scarce skills that are like the deficit between,

I want to have a podcast too. I didn't understand the cameras and the microphones. And like, it's all of that has been compressed with technology. So this is an amazing time to be alive. Yeah, so you're saying it's the best time ever right now to be alive. Ever to be alive and to the best time ever

to do the most amount of good to the most amount of people. Wow. Charity water, you familiar with this? with yes okay so 100 of everything they generate goes to actually building clean water filtration systems you can contribute your birthday right like i might i forgot what birthday it is but i just asked everybody hey don't don't give me money all my subscribers go give my birthday year this 36 or 37, to charity water, we raised $12,000, which is enough to build one water filtration system in a part of the world that doesn't have clean water. Incredible.

To completely revolutionize the full trajectory of that village. Not just they have water, they can farm, they can clean their clothes, sanitation. That's insane that we can- For $12,000. For $12,000. Incredible. Crazy. Raising hundreds of lives for $12,000. Yeah. thousand yeah that's powerful yeah there's certain charities that i really like and then certain ones i don't know where they're spending the money you got to do your own research

the beautiful part about charity water and this is not like a full endorsement i don't know everything they all believe but they start the founder was christian and then 100 of everything they raise goes to the actual cause and then have a separate non-profit to fund like the administrative fees or whatever when it comes to friendships and business partners do they have to raised goes to the actual cause. And then I have a separate nonprofit to fund like the administrative fees or whatever. When it comes to friendships and business partners, do they have to share your, your views on religion? No. Well, business partner. Well, I don't believe in business partners. I believe in joint ventures. So like that no one owns any aspect of my business with me. So that's like a Dave Ramsey thing. I'm not sure if you're familiar. The only, uh, the only

ship that doesn't sail as a partnership. That's what it is. I like that. So I don't believe in partnerships at all. I believe in joint ventures. So Chris is helping me shoot music videos right now. We're trying to figure out how to crack the music. He's coming on as a joint venture on a project. I have a working agency to do my first three-day summit. They're a partner, but we don't have a separate LLC, if that makes sense. Got it. So do they have to believe everything I believe? Not necessarily, but they should have my value system. Like I wouldn't go start a YouTube channel. Well, actually, no. My buddy Rufat is an atheist,

and we've talked about like doing stuff together. And then David Wood started a whole podcast with Apostate Prophet, who's an atheist. So you got a Christian, hardcore Christian, a hardcore atheist. Wow, that's interesting. It's really interesting. So like, I would do something like that, but I wouldn't like build a YouTube channel with an atheist. Like we just have different values. Yeah, totally different. I used to be atheist. Yeah. What would you say brought you over? Would you say you're more deist now or more theist? Or what would you say you are now? I don't know the difference between those two. So deist is like God set the

world in motion and checked out. And he's like having a cigar, he's not paying attention, you guys go figure it out. A theist is you believe in a personal God that wants to engage and has an opinion on how you and I live. Huh, I would say theist. I think someone's still there right now.

So someone's still there and he cares. And he cares and he has ways for us to live. Okay, yeah. So what would you say brought you over from atheist to theist? Dude, I was depressed, honestly. Like I needed something to believe in, some purpose. I mean, being atheist, it's kind of mundane.

I mean, go through life and it's like, damn, what the fuck? Like, what am I doing? You know what I mean? So I was like that for years. I would say in high school and a little bit of college. And I was like, damn, there needs to be something, you know? So you were like, I'm going to choose to believe in a God and that's going to give me meaning.

Kind of, yeah. It wasn't like a set decision, but- Slowly. Yeah, slowly over time. That's interesting. So the darkness brought you into the light. Yeah, it was just such a bad way of living, honestly. Now, where would you say you are with Jesus now?

Have you examined the evidence for the resurrection? Yeah, not really. I haven't studied or looked into it. I'm not sure where I stand on that, to be honest. There's a great movie called The Case for Christ. I actually read the book of it. It's on Netflix, I think. And it's about Lee Strobel, who was an investigative journalist.

His wife becomes Christian. And he's so irritated that he is hell-bent on disproving Christianity. So in his pursuit to disprove... Multiple books have been written from this perspective. In his pursuit to go disprove Christianity, he ends up getting radically converted when he examines the resurrection. No way. Radically converted. And now he's one of the leading voices in what we call apologetics, which is a defense for the faith. Okay. I got to watch that. Dude, it's nuts. It's a good film. There's a book, there's a documentary about it.

So I would just encourage you to start there because there's things that kind of all of the, even the non-Christian agnostic scholars believe. Jesus really existed. Jesus really had a following, right? These are like, people believe Jesus was a person. People believe Jesus was crucified under Rome. People believe that. Like the atheists believe that. And then the part that you can't, that's very difficult to fill in is then, and they believe, a Bartram will say, and he believes that the apostles were convinced that they saw a bodily Jesus. So they're not going to say the tomb was empty.

They're not going to say Jesus bodily rose because they're agnostic and atheists. But they will say they, Peter, Paul, all these people that followed him were convinced that Jesus bodily rose from the grave. If Jesus bodily rose from the grave, then it means the New Testament's reliable. If the New Testament's reliable, that means that God has an opinion on how we are to rose from the grave, then it means the New Testament's reliable. If the New Testament's reliable,

that means that God has an opinion on how we are to live. And again, then it becomes this like, I have enough faith. I have a little bit of faith. I put my confidence in that. I walk it out. And then I look back in hindsight and I go, whoa, this is real.

Like, this is real. So it's like the chicken and broccoli. Like, I don't need a vegetarian to tell me chicken's bad for me because I've walked out the process of strength training, eating chicken and broccoli, and I've seen the gain. to tell me chicken's bad for me because I've walked out the process of strength training, eating chicken and broccoli. And I seen the gain I've built, built muscle, lost fat, you know, bad, bad parallel to Jesus and faith, but you catch my drift. Yeah. There's things I really like about it. Like the community. I love that bringing people

together, like-minded people. Um, I think having a belief of some sorts really good in life. Yeah. Have you ever tried to just read the Bible? Uh, when I was super young, I don't remember anything from it though. Okay. Here's a challenge for you. Read the gospel of John in a translation you can understand and try reading a chapter of Proverbs a day.

Okay. Your mind will be blown on how much of our like self-development content comes from Proverbs. I mean, everyone is pulling from Proverbs and they don't know it. Wow. Proverbs, so whatever the day is. So like today is Proverbs 31. I mean, today is pulling from Proverbs and they don't know it. Proverbs, so whatever the day is.

So like today is Proverbs 31. I mean, today is May 31st. I'll read Proverbs 31. And I've just been doing that for about 20 years. Every day, whatever the day is, I'll just read that chapter. Oh, so there's one for every day? Yeah, one for 31 Proverbs, 31 days in a month. I just read those.

And then you'll start seeing things like follow God's decrees and his son. Like his son is the wisdom of God. Like you'll see these things. And then the gospel of John is just laying out the eyewitness account of Jesus's life, ministry, divinity, resurrection by the apostle John.

It's a later gospel written about 80 AD after the, I think they say some people believe after the destruction, some don't, but I would really encourage you to try those two things. And then just, just tell me that like the words of Jesus don't. But I would really encourage you, try those two things, and then just tell me that the words of Jesus don't totally illuminate you. Okay. I'll report back to you.

I'm open. I'm open. What do you think of Billy Carson? I don't know Billy Carson. Oh, you don't know Billy Carson? No. Okay. Can I Google him real quick?

Yeah. Who is Billy Carson? The name sounds familiar. You've probably seen him, but he's like this anti-religious guy. Billy Carson. No, I don't know who he's like this anti-religious guy. Billy Carson. No, I don't know who he is. He's my most viewed guest of all time. Is he?

He's anti-religious? Yeah. Why is he anti-religious? Oh, yeah, I've seen this guy. Yeah, I'm familiar with this guy. He has some interesting views. I've seen a few things here and there. I'm not super familiar what he does and doesn't believe.

Yeah, he's more of a historian and needs proof, I'd say. That's the first thing we start off this podcast talking about. But yeah, I guess the evidence wasn't enough for him or something. Yeah. I mean, again, evidence is an interesting word, right? Like, what do we mean by evidence? You want a video camera and a time machine? Like, that's, you know, but like- Well, he reads the ancient tablets and he was saying the Bible wasn't actually written by God. It was written by people. Well, it was written by people.

Yeah. So he was saying there's been stuff lost from the original meaning. Yeah. I think the tough part is when you get into case for Christ, you get into the number of manuscripts, like the number of surviving manuscripts. So think of like, people think the Bible is like the game, a game of telephone, right? Like you've played the game of cell phones as a kid, right? The Bible isn't like that. It's like, it's like, um, one letter gets translated into four letters, then gets translated into eight letters, then gets translated into more letters. And then as we dig up these manuscripts, there were 5,500 of them, and they're more or less all the same with textual variants like typos and this word and that word. But even Bart Ehrman, who's an agnostic New Testament scholar critic, will tell you that the end views

and the end doctrines are all the same. So despite there being textual variance, they're all the same. And as a resource, people who are nerdy about this stuff,

I'm nerdy about this stuff, Bart Ehrman versus James White, textual critic debate. It's really good. About four hours long. But they get in the weeds of what came out, what manuscripts,

what is different. And there are discrepancies, but they're so inconsequential in terms of typos, grammar, little things like that. His biggest thing I believe he said was God's was plural and they removed the S. So there is a title for God that is Elohim's. And if you really want to, this is trippy. If you really want to go down this rabbit hole, Dr. Michael Heiser, who's since passed on, did amazing work about the heavenly council, about the Elohims, about there being people kind of co-ruling with God, but not being the same as Jehovah God, Yahweh God. Yahweh God is the highest title. So Jews don't say Yahweh. They say Hashim.

They say the name because they're afraid to tremble the name God. Or if you've ever seen God and they don't write the O, they'll just write, right? So they're afraid to say, they're afraid. That's how much reverence there is to the name Yahweh. Wow. The interesting thing about Yahweh is if you read the Old Testament, you will see multiple accounts of multiple Yahwehs, of a Yahweh in heaven and a Yahweh on earth, right? When Abraham comes down, Yahweh and the two angels come down, there's a

Yahweh that shoots down fire from heaven to Sodom and Gomorrah, and then there's a Yahweh present with Abraham. It's a physical Yahweh. Now, we as Christians, we look back and go, man, there's a lot of Yahweh, physical Yahwehs, and there's Yahweh on earth. That sounds a lot like two different, right? A physical and a spiritual God. Jesus is God in the flesh. Father is in heaven. The Holy Spirit indwells believers, right? So one essence, but three distinct people. Interesting. Yeah. Wow. This gets deep, man. Yeah, it can get deep. It can get real heady and spacey, but at the end of it, people have to work through the resurrection. If the resurrection is true, that changes everything. If the resurrection happens, that changes it. And we can get into

the translations of the Bible and what manuscripts and what stream, the Byz is true, that changes everything. If the resurrection happened, that changes everything. And we can get into the translations of the Bible and what manuscripts and what stream, the Byzantine stream, whether it's this stream and a school of Isaiah, like all that stuff is really interesting, but the resurrection and it being true in a tacit practical sense. If you were to go to church for a year, hypothetically,

let's just say you go to church for a year, you read the Bible every single day, you give 10%, I guarantee your life will look so different. Really? And you will have an incredible encounter. Just doing the things oftentimes, but you have to have enough faith to say, I'm willing to give the things a shot.

Right. I think there's something to this resurrection and I think the Bible is true. If you can get there and then you go do it for a year, you'll be like, dude, this is incredible. Interesting. Do you ever question any of it or do you just follow it completely? I have wrestled with my faith in that I came in through the door of questioning.

And I wasn't, there was no questions I was afraid to ask. So I grew up Armenian apostolic. I didn't believe there was a God. I was a full-on atheist. I started dating a girl. She gets me going to church. Only way I could see her on Sundays over the summer is if I go to church. I started dating a girl. She gets me going to church. Only way I could see her on Sundays, over the summers,

if I go to church. I start going to church. I'm hearing about this Jesus. At the same time, me and her break up, I start dating a Jehovah's Witness girl. Then I have my Muslim friends. Then I have my Buddhist friends.

I have all these other friends. I'm reading the Book of Mormon. I'm reading all these different things. And I am working at Pizza Hut, and God, in his providence, my manager and our lead delivery driver were Christian. And I asked them all the questions. Is Jesus really God or is he the son of God?

How do we know the Bible is reliable? All these different things. And they gave me a book called The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict. It's like an encyclopedia. It's written by Dr. Josh McDowell, similar as Lee Strobel. And I read that book in my sophomore year. And it was like, okay, I got the answers to the hard questions. Now, do I question, does God exist now?

I think it would be disingenuous to say that faith doesn't come with some degree of doubt, right? I think fundamentalist would say that faith is absolute certainty, right? Where if you are approaching faith as like a C.S. Lewis, mere Christianity, Jesus is the myth, it's fact, it's okay to have a healthy degree of doubt and ask questions. And I have access to the greatest people in the world from my pastors to some of these scholars and thinkers that I'm not afraid to ask questions. But in terms of anything major, it's been sorted out. It's been sorted out. And I've seen the evidence on the other side of walking with Jesus for 20 years and how many of my friends went to prison, how many of

my friends are still in prison, how many of my friends have gone through awful things and yet I have this incredible life. That's not perfect. I still experience trouble. I still suffer. And I'm not saying like follow God to be rich and happy and successful and a famous YouTuber. That's not what I'm saying.

What I'm saying is on the other side of this, man, my life is so much different than everybody I grew up with that didn't follow Jesus. There's probably something there then. hope so yeah ruslan it's been fun anything uh you're working on or want to promote uh we're we're always working i'm working on a book uh that'll be coming out next year with penguin um we are gonna announce our three-day les scott summit so we'll get you that information that's happening in southern california at the end of january so we're gonna have some amazing speakers for that concert, some, some amazing artists. And yeah, they can check me out on YouTube.

Ruslan KD on all platforms. Link below. Thanks for coming on, man. Thank you, brother. Yeah. Thanks for watching guys. As always. See you tomorrow.

Peace.