Pints With Aquinas - 130: Why curiosity is the enemy of wonder

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to Pints with Aquinas. My name is Matt Fradd. If you could sit down over a pint of beer with Thomas Aquinas and ask him any one question, what would it be? Today we're going to ask Thomas Aquinas about the virtue of studiousness and the vice, yes, the vice of curiosity. And we're going to see why curiosity is indeed the enemy of wonder. Yes, welcome to Pints with Aquinas. This is the show where you and I pull up a barstool next to the angelic doctor to discuss theology and philosophy. Today, we're going to look at what Aquinas says in the Summa about the virtue of studiousness and the vice of curiosity. It's going to be a very interesting episode and a very helpful

Starting point is 00:01:00 one, I think, for the internet age in which we live. I'm sitting here, morning time, birds chirping outside the windows, you might hear them, drinking some coffee. And I just got back from a trip from Kansas City, which was really terrific. You know, I travel and I speak. And I used to refer to these things like a speaking trip. So like, yeah, I'm going on a speaking trip or, you know, or sometimes I would as speaking trips. I'm like, yeah, I'm going on a speaking trip or, you know, or sometimes I would just colloquially say something like, yeah, I've got a gig in Kansas. And I've stopped saying that.

Starting point is 00:01:31 I've begun referring to these things as mission trips because they genuinely are that. I mean, I'm going to proclaim the gospel. I'm going to invite people to renounce sin and to choose Christ and to live virtuously. That's what I'm doing. And I think, you know, I think often the reason we don't think a lot about spiritual warfare is because we don't hold ourselves in the regard that we ought to. We play down our significance. And when we do that, we think, why would the devil be interested

Starting point is 00:02:04 in what I'm doing? Which is a sort of false humility, I think. You know, it occurred to me the other day that, you know, a lot of what I talk about when I speak at high schools and colleges is this sin of pornography and leaving it and living chastely. The idea that the demons aren't interested in that, you know, aren't interested in me, aren't interested in preventing the young people from genuinely hearing what I'm trying to say, that they're not interested in that, like, that's not humility. That's me being delusional. Of course they are. So these are mission trips, you know, and whenever I go, I try to spend time in the chapel right before, right after, and I just, you know, pray that Jesus Christ would enlighten their minds and hearts to receive the truth that I'm going to try to communicate, yeah?

Starting point is 00:02:58 And I'm aware that there's spiritual warfare going on, so I'll pray to our Blessed Mother, I'll pray to St. Michael. And look, the demons do not want these young people converting if they are immersed in the sin of pornography. So these are mission trips, okay? And if you are a supporter of mine on Patreon, you know that I often send these little videos out just to you guys, telling you I'm about to get on stage, give these talks, would you please pray for me? And I'm so thankful to all of you that have been praying for me. I thought what I would do is just quickly share some feedback I got the other day. Because it was pretty cool. I was speaking at an all boys Jesuit high school. How many people were there? There was about a thousand young men. And I knew it was going to be a powerful

Starting point is 00:03:47 presentation, honestly, because my wife was dealing with a lot at home. You know, like when I'm at home, we usually all sleep through the night. You know, my youngest kid is four right now. So we're not kind of dealing with babies waking up and crying. But when I leave, very often, she doesn't sleep, the kids are up, like throwing up and screaming. And when it's really bad, I'm like, okay, well, this is probably going to be a good trip. I don't tell her that. I don't, it's not like I'm like, woohoo, you know, but, but no, she's aware of that as well. You know, like, I'll call her, how you doing? And she's like, your talk is going to be amazing today today because i've been going through hell all night so she was going through a lot and so i'm like okay this is probably gonna be a good talk and while i'm giving the talk about 20 minutes

Starting point is 00:04:31 in one of the guys one of the teens up in the you know bleachers faints so there's a lot of commotion going on a teacher kind of runs up and they're trying to kind of bring him back to consciousness bringing him down and all right and then I keep talking about 10 minutes go by a guy on the other side of the gymnasium faints. Okay. So like, all right, this is either a great talk or maybe these interruptions are sort of ruining what I'm trying to communicate. Well, thankfully that's not the case because I got back to the hotel and I guess one of the teens that night, posted something on Reddit about this talk. And I wanted to share it with you, because I thought it was really cool. Here's what he said. He said, recently, I heard Matt Fradd would be coming to my school. I was excited to

Starting point is 00:05:19 hear him talk. Today, he came and let me tell you whatever he's doing is working. It's mainly caffeine and Jesus. Okay, so he says, Matt Fradd was able to do something I really thought was impossible. He made a school of old boys take seriously the pornography epidemic. He was hilarious. Thank you. Everyone was actually laughing with him. He had this sense about him that did not make a single one of us feel bad about ourselves. The school I attended puts forth a lot of effort to provide students with information on pornography. My freshman year, we were bombarded with information and we all thought it was just some dumb joke. Not this guy. This guy changed perspectives. He came today and

Starting point is 00:06:03 already I have six of my closest friends, who, mind you, are not exactly the most religious guys you'll ever meet, on the Victory app, which is an app I created with Lifeteen to help people overcome porn. He continues, given that we are in high school, there has already been some prayer requests and it's worked. Somehow this app managed to get my friend, who's not particularly religious, to say that this app genuinely makes him want to stop and is the most effective thing he's ever seen. I'm blown away by you, Matt Fradd. This is incredible. So glory to Jesus Christ. I'll have to read you guys some hate mail that I get. I get a lot of

Starting point is 00:06:43 that as well. But I just wanted to share that with you because I thought, what a beautiful thing. You know, it is interesting when I go to schools and get up to speak on this topic, I'll often have the principal or the teacher make some sort of joke that implies that this talk probably won't go well. You know, they'll say, all right, well, I hope you've had your coffee, or you're going to need that because you're about to speak to teens on this topic. So good luck. Like they'll say something like that. They hope it's going to go well, but often they don't think it will. And I have to say like nine times out of 10, I think 10 times out of 10, like it's received well. I think teens are finally ready to talk about this issue. So it's just been incredible.

Starting point is 00:07:26 So a big thanks to everybody who prays for these mission trips that I undergo. By the way, I guess I should say, if you want to book me for a talk, you can write to my assistant, Melanie. Her email is assistant.mattfrad.com. But I think I'm booked out for 2019. So I don't know. You might have to book a couple of years in advance. I try not to book any more than a year out. But, you know, there might be a weekend here or there that I could still come and speak. I really do love it. It is really a joy and an honor to come and speak to people about this

Starting point is 00:07:53 issue. So all right, let's talk about what Aquinas has to say on the virtue of studiousness and the vice of curiosity. And this is something, as I say, important in the internet age. Now, there's a guy who wrote a book called Shallows. What the internet is doing to our brain. His last name is Carr. C-A-R-R. And he argues that by repeatedly practicing the sweeping but fleeting and superficial scanning of information on social media and just that's what the internet is. He says we're actually producing changes in our brain tissues that's creating serious detrimental effects to us. And it's making us less able to pay attention. I haven't read the book. I've just read reviews of

Starting point is 00:08:56 it. I think I might end up getting it. But I think many of us are sort of aware of that. And that's why I think today's episode and what Aquinas has to say on curiosity is really important. Forgive me for always talking about how I gave up the internet for August, but it really was a great experience. And so that's why I keep referring to it. But you know, I think I told you, I read the Brothers Karamazov in like 20 days and it was easy to do. Okay. Now I'm back online and I'm rereading Crime and Punishment and I've been aware of how difficult it is. Not that the storyline is difficult to follow, but I'll find myself reading and I'm two pages in and my mind just starts wandering and I have to keep bringing it

Starting point is 00:09:37 back. It wasn't like that a few weeks after giving up the internet. I could read and it was fine, but what I'm finding is I try and read a couple of pages and I got to put it down because I just keep thinking of different things I got to do or different things that I saw. And I don't think I'm alone in this. I think many of us are dealing with this and I think we're right to be concerned. Okay. So if you're concerned about this, if you've noticed this kind of lack of attention span, maybe you suspect it's being brought on by the internet, you're going to appreciate what Aquinas has to say. So here's what, let's talk about studiousness and then let's talk about curiosity. So, Aquinas means that virtue which enables a person to apply his mind for the purpose of acquiring knowledge and broadening his knowledge. Now, knowledge is a good, and it, you know, is a good in and of itself. And this is something Aquinas says. So, when he's going to condemn curiosity, don't hear him saying, you shouldn't be interested in knowing truth. That's not what Aquinas is saying, obviously. I mean, have you read what he's had

Starting point is 00:10:54 to say about literally everything? And not only is it good that we know things, it's natural that we know things. This is how Aristotle begins his metaphysics, with that famous line, all men, by nature, desire to know. Monsignor Paul Glenn, who's written a, something of a summary of the Summa Theologiae, points out that the virtue of studiousness is actually part of the virtue of temperance, right? Because its function, like the function of temperance is to moderate appetite, to prevent excess in the use of material goods, right? But in reference to this spiritual appetite for knowledge, studiousness has this temperance-like function of moderating desire, and it prevents excess. moderating desire, and it prevents excess. So, what's curiosity then? All right. Curiosity, on the other hand, is that vice which makes a person inordinate in his knowledge-seeking.

Starting point is 00:12:00 So, it throws off the moderating influence of studiousness and seeks knowledge that's either bad in and of itself or for bad reasons. And so Aquinas is going to talk about that. We're going to read directly from him in a moment. But what he says is like, you know, you could seek knowledge to take pride in it. That's bad, right? If you just want people to think you're smart and that's primarily why you're seeking it. You might seek knowledge in order to know how to sin. That's not good. I remember when the internet became a thing,

Starting point is 00:12:25 I was like 17 years old, 16, 17 years old. Yes, I'm really old. And anyway, by the way, that was in Australia. Maybe in America, it came out a lot sooner. But in Australia, I was about 17 when it came out. And I think one of the first things a lot of us did is like, we just looked up porn. And we also like looked up how to make homemade bombs to like blow up people's letterboxes i had a checkered past okay i'm not proud of it i'm just saying that's where i was at the time but anyway so that's obviously like seeking knowledge in order to know how to sin um also like we can just and this kind of gets back to what i was saying before in regards to the internet like we can just, and this kind of gets back to what I was saying before in regards to the internet, like we can just seek useless knowledge and waste effort, which could and should be expended in learning what we actually need to know or, you know, or knowledge which is good for us.

Starting point is 00:13:18 So to sum it up, I would say studiousness is knowledge pursued well. Curiosity is knowledge pursued improperly. So, studiousness is knowledge pursued well, curiosity is knowledge pursued improperly. So, you know, if you think of knowledge as food, okay, well, food's good, okay? So, studiousness, we could think of as sort of like our appetite for the food, right? This is goodness, we could think of as our appetite for the food. This is good. But we could think of curiosity as a sort of gluttonous approach to knowledge. Again, referencing Monsignor Paul Glenn, he says that curiosity appears also in the order of sense knowledge. This inordinateness here appears in an excessive love of sightseeing,

Starting point is 00:14:10 of neglecting study to gaze idly on meaningless spectacles, on looking needlessly on what may occasion evil thoughts, of observing the actions of others to criticize and condemn them and so on. If, however, one is intent upon material things in an ordinate way, of observing the actions of others to criticize and condemn them and so on. If, however, one is intent upon material things in an ordinate way, that is, in a way that accords with reason, one exercises studiousness, not curiosity, even in the order of sense-knowing. Now, the other night, I was giving a talk somewhere, I think, yeah, back at Kansas City again. And I came back and I was really tired. And one of the things I've tried to do more and more is my bag. And like one of, one of, I think, one of my vices, one of my temptations is just to go back and just to binge on YouTube and Netflix, quite honestly. You know, like I'll get back and I'm really tired and I should probably just go to bed because I'm going to get up early and give a talk the next morning. Like I should be praying,

Starting point is 00:15:18 I should be reading something good, something like that I should. But, but the other night, I was, I'm afraid to even tell you what I was doing because I think maybe you'll go and look it up but I'm going to tell you anyway I was laying on the bed I was on YouTube and I something popped up and I started watching it and you know how you just follow this sort of path down this meaningless path of YouTube videos all of a sudden I found that there was these videos of people farting into funnels that were connected to gas masks, and the people in the gas mask were vomiting. What? That's what I was watching.

Starting point is 00:15:57 I'm laying on my bed, watching people throwing up into gas masks because people were farting into funnels attached to them. I'm not proud of this. I'm kind of, I'm really embarrassed to tell you that I was doing that, but that's what I was doing. And I just had this like out of body experience where I'm like, what the crap are you doing? I saw myself and I'm like, I like shut the laptop, put it away. I'm like, Oh God, have mercy. Like, surely there's got to be a better way to spend my time. So I think that would be an example of curiosity, right? This sin of curiositas, to use the Latin word. talk about something less gross. I mean, usually when you go on different blog sites that may have good information that you want to read, you know how they have those sponsored content boxes down the bottom of blogs right before the comment section. And it's filled with clickbait articles designed for you to waste your life looking through. Like I'm on a site right now just to

Starting point is 00:17:00 kind of get some examples. So here like the US government is compensating Americans with disabilities age 50 to 64. Another one, Mac user, your team will love this examples. So here, like, the US government is compensating Americans with disabilities age 50 to 64. Another one, Mac user, your team will love this tool. Another one, the big banks don't want you asking about these saving accounts. You know, and you'll see things like,

Starting point is 00:17:16 you'll never guess what Sylvester Stallone's daughter looks like now, right? All of this is designed to, you know, get us to click on it, because we desire to know, back to Aristotle, all men desire to know, and that this is a good thing, but that it can become a bad thing. All right, so let's read directly from the Summa Theologiae, shall we? And yeah, I think that, and then we'll kind of go from there. So Aquinas says, let's see exactly where I'm reading this from, so you can follow along. I'll put it up in the show notes. But okay, so we're looking at the Secunda Secundae question 167. This is where he addresses this, right? Aquinas says, for the knowledge of truth,

Starting point is 00:18:05 addresses this, right? Aquinas says, for the knowledge of truth, strictly speaking, is good, but it may be evil accidentally by reason of some result, either because one takes pride in knowing the truth, according to 1 Corinthians 8.1, knowledge puffeth up, or because one uses the knowledge of truth in order to sin. So, if anybody ever says to you that Aquinas condemns curiosity because he's like anti-intellectual, I mean, that's so stupid when you see all that he wrote and what he wrote about. But right there, he's saying the knowledge of truth is good. All right, so just get that straight. But he says, on the other hand, the desire or study in pursuing the knowledge of truth may be right or it might be wrong. So here he gives us like different, two main reasons for why it could be wrong. He says, first, when one tends by his study to the knowledge of truth

Starting point is 00:19:00 as having evil accidentally annexed to it. For instance, those who study to know the truth that they may take pride in their knowledge. Hence, Augustine says, some there are who, forsaking virtue and ignorant of what God is and of the majesty of that nature, whichever remains the same, imagine they're doing something great. If with surpassing curiosity and keenness, they explore the whole mass of this body, which we call the world. So great a pride is thus begotten, that one would think they dwelt in the very heavens about which they argue. End quote. That's from Augustine there. And then Aquinas says, on like manner, those who study to learn something in

Starting point is 00:19:51 order to sin are engaged in a sinful study. According to the saying of Jeremiah 9.5, they have taught their tongue to speak lies. They have labored to commit iniquity. tongue to speak lies, they have labored to commit iniquity. Here's the second reason, and he has some, well, okay, I'll just read it and we'll talk about it. It's pretty impressive. He says, secondly, there may be a sin, or there may be sin by reason of the appetite or study directed to the learning of truth being itself inordinate, and this in four ways. First, when a man is withdrawn by a less profitable study from a study that is an obligation incumbent on him. All right, so if you ought to be studying something, right, learning about something, and you put that aside and you just start messing around on YouTube. All right. And I don't think he's just saying like you accidentally start looking at this other

Starting point is 00:20:52 thing. I think what he's saying is like when you neglect what you ought to be studying and you begin to pursue something that you shouldn't be. And here is a challenge for our priests that he gives. So if you're a priest out there, and this doesn't just apply to priests, of course it applies to me, it applies to you if you're not a priest, but he quotes Jerome. Listen to this quote from Jerome. He says, We see priests forsaking the gospels and the prophets, reading stage plays, and singing the love songs of pastoral idgels. So that's pretty crazy, especially when you consider that I imagine stage plays were far less, well, maybe I'm wrong in this, but far less sort of immoral than Netflix.

Starting point is 00:21:49 Like there's a lot of junk on Netflix. And I totally applaud those of you listening who have just done away with it, given their promotion of pro-abortion shows and all those sorts of things, you know. But, you know, here it's like Jerome doesn't, he's not saying people are forsaking the Gospels and are watching porn. He's saying priests are forsaking the Gospels and they're reading stage plays and singing these love songs. And so the point isn't these love songs and stage plays are wrong in and of themselves. The point is, there are lesser good that you ought not to be that concerned with.

Starting point is 00:22:25 So this is a good challenge to you and to me. Christ ought to be the center of our lives, not Dostoevsky even. Imagine that, you know. It ought to be Christ. And if we're kind of forsaking what we ought to be reading and studying in order to read and study and watch other things, that's not a good thing. Aquinas says, secondly, when a man studies to learn of one by whom it is unlawful to be taught, as in the case of those who seek to know the future through demons. This is superstitious curiosity, of which Augustine says, quote, maybe the philosophers were debarred from the faith by their sinful

Starting point is 00:23:06 curiosity and seeking knowledge from demons. All right. So that second point is like, you know, you might have, you know, you might be curious about where your father or mother is right now. You know, maybe they've passed away and you want to hear from them from beyond the grave or something. And you go and you talk to a fortune teller or something like that. That's clearly a sin. Aquinas says, thirdly, another reason we can see that this is inordinate and curious is when a man desires to know the truth about creatures without referring his knowledge to its due end, creatures without referring his knowledge to its due end, namely the knowledge of God. Hence, Augustine says that in studying creatures, we must not be moved by empty and perishable curiosity,

Starting point is 00:24:03 but we should ever mount towards immortal and abiding things. All right, so again, like the point of our desire for knowledge isn't nothing. This is an interesting argument, I think, for God's existence, you know, because we all desire to know things, but we don't just desire to know individual things. We desire to know truth as a whole. Isn't that right? Like, it's not like you would ever come upon a particular truth, know it, and then be satisfied. No, you want to know more. You don't just want to know particular truths. You want to know truth itself. And one argument for God's existence is, if you couldn't, if truth itself didn't exist and you couldn't therefore know it,

Starting point is 00:24:44 then the mind would be vain. The desire for knowledge would be in vain. And so we can't be moved or focus on empty and perishable curiosity. There is a point of the intellect, and that is to know more, that we may love more, and that we may ultimately know God. Fourthly, says Aquinas, when a man studies to know the truth above the capacity of his own intelligence, since by so doing men easily fall into error. Now, this is a difficult one for me. I'm not really sure how to understand this because almost everything seems to feel, it feels at least, that it's beyond my intelligence. Like, I pick up the Summa, and I'm sure you do too, and you're like, this is definitely beyond my intelligence. So, that can't be what Aquinas means. Like, I don't think Aquinas is saying, it's a sin if you read my work and aren't smart enough to figure it out. I think he's talking about speculative matters that might lead us astray from the truth, perhaps. Because the church obviously teaches some very lofty theology and philosophy.

Starting point is 00:26:20 But perhaps there is a call here for us to be humble in what we can know and perhaps to be satisfied with that. I'm not sure. But anyway, that is what Aquinas has to say. That is the difference between studiousness and curiosity. Now, I came across this fantastic little article by J. Budziszewski. He wrote a fantastic book called The Meaning of Sex. He's a philosopher. And this is just a little couple of paragraphs that he wrote, which I think really sort of sums up what Aquinas is talking about. He says, if you want to win murmurs of approval, quote Anatole

Starting point is 00:27:01 France, the whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards. If you would like to evoke little gasps of admiration, follow up with Albert Einstein. It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. It is in fact nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry. And he says that the problem with this, this curiosity as holiness line, is that it's carelessly undiscriminating and at best half true. And Budziszewski says, like, well, here's the true half. In itself, right, just like Aquinas says, knowledge of truth is good. Aristotle says,

Starting point is 00:27:52 for example, that philosophy is the, you know, it begins in wonder. John Paul II says everyone wonders, and in that sense is a philosopher. And Thomas Aquinas says that man's natural vocation is to seek truth, especially the truth about God. So we are made, among other things, to know as no other animal is made to know. But here's the line I like. This is brilliant, and this just sums it up, puts a bow on all that we're saying. Listen to this. Mere curiosity is to the tender love of truth as voyeurism is to marital love. Say that again. Mere curiosity is to the tender love of truth as voyeurism is to marital love. Isn't that excellent? Now, voyeurism, for those who aren't

Starting point is 00:28:43 aware, he's not talking about fornication. He's talking about watching people having sex. So it's like porn, essentially. It would be like you climbing up a tree like a disgusting pervert and looking into the room of a married couple. That's a really cool kind of analogy, I think. Sorry, I can't get over it. I think it's excellent. Curiosity is to tend to love of truth as voyeurism is to marital love. cool kind of analogy, I think. Sorry, I can't get over it. I think it's excellent. Curiosity

Starting point is 00:29:05 is to tend to love of truth as voyeurism is to marital love. So just like the love of truth and the acquiring of truth is satisfying, maybe in a way that marital love is. But voyeurism isn't. I mean, if anything, all these studies that are coming out about pornography are showing that if you want to remain sexually dissatisfied, you should watch porn because it seems like one of the best ways to remain sexually dissatisfied. constantly scrolling through Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and reading half of a blog here and watching half of a YouTube video here and watching stupid videos like I'm tempted to do and sometimes do do, it doesn't satisfy. It's like, as he says, porn is to marital love, so curiosity is to this love of the truth. So, you know, all these episodes that I do, I hope that they apply directly to your life. And I want you not just to look at me and say, wow, I can't believe Matt is so stupid that he would watch dumb YouTube videos. No, look at yourself.

Starting point is 00:30:20 Look at yourself and say, how am I falling into this sin of curiositas, especially as it relates to the internet? Do I sit around and think, what can I be doing? What can I be looking at? Is this this constant, insatiable appetite for novelty? And this is what the internet provides. And this is what the internet provides. You will never in your lifetime be able to internet, like most kids are given a tablet today, it probably would have destroyed his mind and he would have been just as useless as most of us. And yet he was able to accomplish so much because he genuinely loved the truth, even though he had to write, you know, by sunlight and then by candlelight and with a quill, I guess.

Starting point is 00:31:24 It's pretty amazing. Like, this is one of the reasons we don't give our children tablets. We don't give them phones. And I don't think you should either. And I don't really care if you feel judged by me saying that. Like, if you're giving your kids a tablet or a phone, I think you're doing something wrong. Like, this is why I want my kids to memorize poetry, which they do. This is why I want my kids to memorize poetry, which they do. This is why I want my kids to memorize the Baltimore Catechism, which they do. Like, this is why we don't have, you know, Nintendo Switches for the kids and things like this. And this is why I'm not even a big fan of some of these fantastic apps. and granted, they are fantastic, that help kids memorize the

Starting point is 00:32:06 Bible. Well, why would I be against that? Because I think there's other ways to memorize it which respect the intellect and don't sort of use these methods that they sort of become addicted to and then are unable to read a book. I mean, there are good apps out there that say, teach the Bible and things, and they're bright and they bing and they zap and they zing and they, I don't think that that's good necessarily. Like maybe if you're already the sort of person who's become so addicted to technology that you don't know how to learn unless something like that is kind of put in front of you. But why, why would you do that? Like, this is why I have to say, look, please don't get me wrong. I'm not saying I'm a good parent.

Starting point is 00:32:48 I mess up in a million different ways, but this is one of the things I'm so proud that we are doing. We're homeschooling our kids. They go to a two-day-a-week classical hybrid school called Regina Chaley. Look it up because it might be in your area. It's absolutely amazing. You walk into a high school class,

Starting point is 00:33:05 the kids are reading Augustine and Aquinas. They're talking about C.S. Lewis's problem of pain. They're talking about and debating what Aquinas has to say on politics. There's no reason we shouldn't be this interesting. The thing that's making us less and less interesting is this voyeurism-like scan of truths that don't actually satisfy and that mess up our minds. One of the examples I've given before about kind of quitting the internet was this, you know, like back in Australia, quitting the internet was this. Back in Australia, in a small country town where I grew up, I remember one day looking out my front door and there was a police raid across the road. And I was just so enthralled by this because we live in a small country town. Nothing like this ever happens. My whole family became addicted to looking out the front door to see what was going on. This took all day. This

Starting point is 00:34:05 wasn't like a quick police raid. There were several police cars surrounding the house. They were shouting things out, walking around the perimeter, knocking on the door. Clearly, there were people that had either barricaded themselves inside or they didn't want to kick the door down yet for some reason. And that whole day we spent eating and then going and looking at the front door, going to the bathroom, coming back, looking at the front door, going to do this or that that we had to do and then coming back and looking at the front door. And it just totally interrupted our day. It interrupted what could have been a beautiful, fruitful, productive day. You know?

Starting point is 00:34:40 I mean, and I think that door to that scene is like your phone to the internet. Now, look, I feel like I'm the only one talking about this. And sometimes I wonder if it's just me. But I have to think that you've suspected this for a while and that something needs to change. So what's it going to be? Maybe let me know on Twitter. Maybe if you support me on Patreon, thank you. Let's talk about this in the private Patreon forum. It would be amazing to talk more about this and encourage

Starting point is 00:35:13 each other to be lovers of truth and not just voyeurists of meaningless content. We want to be studious, not curious in that negative sense thank you very much for listening to pints with aquinas maybe you listen week after week maybe you only catch a show every now and again i want to invite you if you haven't yet to consider becoming a patron of pints with aquinas you can give me a dollar a month that's 12 bucks a year hey that's not bad you know maybe the show has blessed you and you're like i just want to give back uh someone recently said that they quit their subscription to hulu and started supporting me instead because they said why am i supporting content that i find immoral and uninteresting at the end of the day when i could be supporting people that i believe

Starting point is 00:36:00 in and so huge thanks to those of you who support me on patreon if you want to start supporting supporting me on Patreon, you can see the free stuff that I send you in return, like a signed copy of my book and Pints with Aquinas stickers and the best Pints with Aquinas beer stein. No, just the best stein. No, just the best drinking vessel in the history of drinking vessels. You know, like we have private video chat groups that I'm a part of with y'all and all sorts of free stuff I give you in return for your generosity in supporting this show and enabling me to grow it. I mean, that's the reason I'm doing these monthly long video sit down chats. All of this is made possible by you, my awesome patrons. So a huge thanks if you are supporting and if you want to support, go to pintswithaquinas.com, click donate. And there, as I say, you can give as little as a dollar a month. That's pintswithaquinas.com

Starting point is 00:36:49 and click donate. Thanks so much for listening. God bless and have a beautiful week. Who's gonna survive? Who's gonna survive?

Pints With Aquinas - 130: Why curiosity is the enemy of wonder

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.