Pints With Aquinas - Trent's Real Name is Trenton

Episode Date: August 5, 2022

Trent's Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/c/thecounseloftrent Support us on Locals, get a TON in return: https://mattfradd.locals.com/support Hallow: https://hallow.com/mattfradd Exodus 90: https://exodus90.com/matt-home/

Did you know that I'm now hosting a live daily podcast called Morning Coffee? Every morning at 8.30am you can join me and dozens of other early birds for a caffeinated conversation about theology, philosophy and how to grow in your relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ. The podcasts are completely free to watch. All you have to do is sign up on locals by clicking the link in the description below. Hope to see you there. You know, I do long introductions, you know, no, I when I watch those movies from the 90s, it's so funny It's just like done done done done done. It's just only a name and then another name people were just so much more patient back then Yeah, well, we were just used to it and then someone's like why are we doing this and they took him out and it's just when We're in or they just they're telling a story immediately and you've got the little names and the stuff like that right there in this

I tried watching Raising Arizona last night. Hmm. Yeah It takes me it takes a lot for me to get into a movie. I'm bored I tried watching the Citizen Kane stuff like what is that? I heard of it bad citizen Kane is a film from 1941 starring Orson Welles It's a fictional dramatization of I think think, of William Randolph Hearst, this famous newspaper owner. It's widely regarded as the greatest movie of all time. It's not super exciting, but it was very innovative for its film work at the time.

Do you like movies? Oh, yeah. What's something you've watched recently that you've loved? Recently that I loved? Oh, my God, that is such an American thing to do. Americans are always saying back to you the question you've asked them. How are you doing today? How am I doing today?

That's what I said. You clearly heard me. Why are you saying it back? Yeah, right. So what's a good movie you've watched recently? A good movie. One movie that I saw recently, I guess, is several months ago.

Oh, Top Gun Maverick. Was that good? Oh, my gosh, it was amazing. I love that. That was good. Did you? I watched the first one with my wife thinking we were going to watch the second one.

It was just so cheesy. Oh, it's better than the ice man. Remember what's that bit at the end where it's like you can be my wingman anytime is like bullshit. You can be my wing. That's something like that. And they hug.

Oh, yeah. And the volleyball scene. No, this was at the very end. Once they get out of the way. Yeah, no. You need. Yeah. Top Gun Maverick was so good. Yeah, it was because what was great about it

was they didn't really use any CGI. They were using real F-18s. They had the actors really in their Tom Cruise is really flying this jet. Holy crap. It's like the real did he fly a jet the first time around? No, I don't think so. You learn how to fly it. You learn how to fly this jet. Holy crap. It's like the real. Did he fly a jet the first time around? No, I don't think so. Learn how to fly a jet. He learned how to fly a jet. Yeah.

Wow. He does all that stuff. So it's like and it's a good storytelling. It's not woke. Yeah, it's just good. So Top Gun Maverick. That was really good. Do you think that Hollywood and Amazon and Netflix are going to wake up to the fact that they work movies aren't selling? Or do you think they're just going to keep doubling

down? What's the what's the trajectory trajectory? I don't know. I'm hoping that they'll learn from their mistakes. By the way, this is an awkward question. Okay. Did we already start? Yes.

Okay. Wow. That's amazing. Yeah. And that write what I'm talking about the long introduction Sucks, we're gonna do it. We're live. No, because you watch all you say people are watching right now. Let me check. Here we go Here we go. Here we go. Okay, we have over 200 measure those two I was here right now sitting around what you could have said anything Well, no, because you said you said something was BS and I'm like, oh wow. I shouldn't have said that I'm sorry Okay, cuz at first I'm like, oh, maybe we're not live yet.

No, we're live. That's all good. But no, yes, I loved Top Gun Maverick because it was just solid storytelling. And I'm there's a lot of CGI fatigue out there. Like you can tell.

I mean, it's it's entertaining, but it's not really real. Like my heart was pounding during a lot of these dogfights in Top Gun Maverick because it's it's real. Yeah. And that's what we crave as human beings. We crave that which is real and authentic. And then CGI can help. Like in the original Jurassic Park, that movie is still flying around your face.

Let's acknowledge it. Right. It's there. He's here. Like in the original Jurassic Park, that movie still stands the test of time because CGI was used as a Like a garnish like you know like yeah, it just Works with practical effects and camera work and now you can just try to do CGI with anything and it's you know It's fake, but I just think yeah really things that are really good stories. Another one would be Free Guy with Ryan Reynolds. I thought that was really good. I never watched it. Yeah, it's just once again, it's about trying to have

innovative storytelling, something that's not based on an existing intellectual property. Yeah. And just telling a good story without without trying to bash you over the head with the message. What are you and Laura watch for fun, like just shows? Oh, we it depends what kind of mood we're in. During the pandemic, when we both got COVID and we were just down for the count feeling just terrible, we watched Married at First Sight

because we wanted the most brainless thing we could think of. I don't know what that is. It's just awful. Total guilty pleasure. Is that where people meet for the first time and get married? Yeah, they're selected by other people and then they essentially

get and then they get married and it's it's just terrible. So sorry. Yeah, I watched, you know, but now like we tried watching one of them. Like, I can't watch this because I can only watch it when my brain was running at like 20 percent when I was on the couch and like I think I'm dying like about to die.

This won't be bad for my soul. But I don't know. We mostly we just try to I spent a lot of my youth instead of studying or doing things like that, reading articles and books I liked and watching a ton of movies and TV shows. things like that, reading articles and books I liked and watching a ton of movies and TV shows. So I'm always trying to catch Laura up on just classic movies that maybe she didn't watch, for example, or there were things like that. So that are just like really good series and once again have really good storytelling to them. I like movies with a ton of dialogue. So I watch Argo, your Quentin Tarantino person. I love I do like you. I don't like the sex stuff If there's sex stuff in the movie, I won't watch it. Yeah, just the same we're like we'll do the the

90 second fast-forward we're like just click the fast-forward four times. I'm sure to be done. Yeah, that's why I love Top Gun Maverick By the way, there's only one scene where the characters they're about to engage in intimacy and then it transitions immediately to pillow talk And so there's nothing gratuitous. Yeah. Sexual. That's great. Have you seen I haven't the latest Stranger Things? You interested in seeing it? I did. I did not get on that bandwagon. I watched a little bit of it, but some shows I see others.

I catch up to them years down the line. But that's something that we do once we've gotten the kids down to bed. Finally, after they've come out, you know how it is with kids, 87 million times, there's always something. Yeah, it's important. I just I just need to tell you I love you. Go to bed. No. And then it's like they open the door.

What do you will you pray with me? Well, now I feel bad. Yes, of course, I will come with you. That is so true. It's like even it's like, I already prayed with you. We're done. Why would I pray twice? Yeah. Oh, my God. Well, yeah, it's just nice to watch that or, you know, documentaries or things like that. No, but you said that you're taking three weeks off in August.

What are you doing for the I don't know. Is this like a new did you just decide while sitting on my couch that or have you? No, I've been I've been planning this to take time off in my 10 years at 10 years at Catholic Answers. I remember the first time you walked down the hallway, Trent, you popped in and went, hello.

And we went out for lunch 10 years ago. I know that's crazy. I was all wide eyed and naive back then. This is Catholic Answers. Wow. There's Matt Brad. You had a different accent. I did. Wild.

So I in 10 years, I just never I don't know. Wow, there's Matt Brad. You had a different accent. I did wild so I In ten years, I just never I don't know. I mean, I guess I've been doing a lot of Catholic answers, you know So I've just I was just always pedal the accelerator Because I wanted to build up the kingdom. I want to do a lot to help you I get addicted to writing books or now doing the podcast and It's just so exciting. But you have to take some time for, you know, personal inventory. So what I want to do is I just want to spend time with my wife and kids,

you know, figure out just what are some personal goals focus on, you know, I'm doing working out some martial arts stuff. And then I've just got other fun projects that I might just totally ran them off the wall creative projects like a fiction book I also thought about doing a I have two ideas for superheroes that I'd love to do like a parody comic book or See this is the problem How do you make your time off in August not be more work? Because when I took my first August off of the Internet, I just read Dostoevsky and ignored my family. It was great. Oh, I hated it.

But if you're going to be writing these books. Only doing something that I feel like is filling up my cup. Now, so for me, if I ever do something like a strict diet or a strict workout regiment or going offline, I have to have strict parameters or else I just start falling back into old ways. Do you, are you like that? What would these three weeks look like?

No, I don't know, I mean, this will be a long extended period for me. I do, the problem is I love what I do, so it is refreshing to me. So it's like when I wanna do something fun, I really do enjoy writing. So I can see myself falling back into that, wanting to do that, but I'm gonna take it aside

so I can just expand my brain in in different areas So alright, let me give you the pitch for these are two superheroes. I thought I won't hear them. Alright So the idea is that this is just wacky a wacky zany idea to make fun of superheroes two people some kind of radioactive lab experiment one of them Is a girl who gets joined with her iPod to become beat boxer, the world's greatest hand-to-hand fighter, but only when she hears music. That's awesome. And like when she hears things with heavy bass she can have concussive force fields, but without music she can't do anything. What if she

hears lo-fi? What would she do? Her fighting style changes based on the music. So like if it's more like classical or easygoing it's kind of like swooping movements, but if it's hard like if it's more like classical or easygoing, it's kind of like swooping movements. But if it's hard beat techno, it's more like quick fist pumps. So does she always walk around with a iPod or something? She needs something or a way to play music or to hear it. Maybe acapella, she could do that if someone's singing. I don't know.

The other guy is- Is this something that she learns as she goes that different music allows her to fight differently? Of course. That's so cool. The other, and then her friend is this guy and he becomes baby face. Okay. He basically turns him into Ryan Reynolds.

So if I make this as a movie, Ryan, consider the movie. And he's, he, instead of being joined with an iPod, he gets the powers of a baby. So, okay. So his one, his strength is proportional like a baby's to his body So he's stronger than most people like how when you try to like take things away from a two-year-old like go already It's interesting actually have kind of a strong strength proportion ratio. So he has stronger strength proportion ratio. He

Has suggest ability with women to get them to do what he wants because he's so cute He has a sonic scream to disable people he em admits a radiation that makes other people tired and exhausted. That's really cool. Well, think about like how and when he and he can run very fast because when I spend time with kids, this is what goes in my mind. I was like, with we have John Paul now and he's going to be too soon. I'm like, the things you can do to make me tired and one up me What if a superhero had your powers is he does he wear a diaper?

Does he have control over his bladder and that might be one of his weaknesses? I haven't worked out the weaknesses yet You know, what's really fun is to think of the best worst Superpower. Yeah, my Laura and I were talking about this. What superpower would you want? And she said just that. Let's get to that in a sec. But what is the best? That's what I mean. All of the worst super best of the worst. Right. I'll start and then you get OK. You you can you you can fly, but only as fast as you can run and it wears you out the same.

See, I think flying is just the worst superpower in general. Any superpower that doesn't pass the gun test, I would say you're not going to be a superhero. If I can kill you with a gun, if I can kill you with a gun, you can't be a superhero. Like flight. Yeah, it's like that's that's all you do. That's great.

I mean, it'd be a neat trick. But actually, if we tried to fly by our own power, it'd be really rough and dangerous. You'd get bugs would be flying at you, worried about hitting things. Here's another one. You can only you can you can talk to one fish, but he thinks you're a jerk and doesn't want to. Another one is this based on your own life or place fish with friend? You can travel to the moon, but only once and you can't come back. That's not a you can teleport. That's not a superpower. That's just a really bizarre way to kill yourself

I don't know. That's pretty supernatural So you got to think? Chatting with the Justice League and trying to get them to let you in but your superpower really kind of actually in ancient Greek mythology There's a parallel to this. I believe it's called Cassandra complex There's an ancient Greek myth about I want to say her name is Cassandra, where she's cursed by the gods with prophecy, but also no one believes her. So she has the ability to see the future, but no one ever believes her.

How about this one? You can save people who've just died if they're in the same area as you, but only by pulling your pants down, but then everybody only remembers you pulling your pants down and not the fact that they just died Beat that trend horn. No, I have a strict policy of being 500 feet away from anything where I pull my pants down in public It's just a you can save people. It's a profession. It's a professional. So you might have this power right now

You don't even know it's possible. Cuz I you're right. I know it's I've never I've never tested it and I never will test it All right. So what what did you and Laura come up with? Oh, well, not not best worst but I think we were talking about What powers we would want to have? And what we think the other person would want and she thought that I would want I think like super speed or Super intellect. Yeah, I guess even write books even faster. Yeah. And I do now. So what would Laura want? I thought that she would want telepathy,

like the ability to read minds. She's like, no, I don't want to know what people are thinking about me. How about here's the best word superpower? You can read other people's minds, but only when they're thinking bad things about you. Oh, gosh. It's a great best word superpower. Yeah, this is it.

There you go. There you go. I do still read comic books. I know you are the one. You and Jimmy Akin got There you go. Yeah, there you go. I do still read comic books. I know you are the one you and Jimmy Akin got me into comic books back at Catholic Answers, and I liked them for quite a while. But now I try to find a new comic book, and it's usually filled with gay stuff and stuff. And I'm just like, I can't do it.

Yeah, I was disheartened to see the new Marvel characters that were released. There is one called, I think, Snowflake and Safe Space. Oh my gosh. And they're like trying to, they're woke but trying to reclaim the terms. It's just, yeah. I haven't gotten into, I'm familiar with a lot of comic book lore. And I'll be familiar with if a major story arc comes out recently, but I don't follow them because I don't find anything that interesting of where to, you know, my time that I have now is just like so, I don't know, it's so limited.

I only put it towards if there's media that I think is really interesting, I'll put it towards, but I know like the big comic arcs and stories from the past. There's haven't been there haven't been any really amazing ones like that in a long time. What about Star Wars? Are you tired of Star Wars? I am. I am. To borrow a term from Taylor Marshall, I am a Jedi vacanthist. Jedi vacanthist.

All right. Jedi vacanthist. That means that Horn quotes Taylor Marshall. But no, I think he's correct on that point that I really don't like Star Wars after return of the Jedi The only Star Wars movie after return the jet a Jedi that I'm willing to tolerate is Rogue one and that's the story about what happened like right before they stole the Death Star plans I thought that was interesting. Yeah, but mean, I love that we have these great stories that are out there. It is just hard for me that we're really moving

into an age where a lot of this is just so commercialized. It's very difficult for genuine art to come out to really amaze people because studios have commercialized it so much. I mean, the original Star Wars, what makes it so good was they didn't have a bunch of CGI. They had a bunch of setbacks. They had a dust storm that like wrecked the set where they were filming in Tunisia. And so they had to wait.

That was episode one, actually, where they got wrecked with that there. They'd supplemented too much CGI, but everything they're doing, they're using practical effects. They're trying to tell a good story. George Lucas is just being creative. They have other script writers who are helping him and fixing things. Doesn't have full creative control. Yeah. And they they're really just trying to tell a really good story. Whereas now a lot of it's trying to make a really lucrative product. Yeah, it feels like it's so hard because there's a lot of stories that have come out recently, like Top Gun Maverick, I mentioned to you earlier. When you tell a good story,

then that will be a lucrative product because it's good for people. It builds them up as a human person. It's the same lesson for Catholics when we make material. Instead of being like, I wanna make a lucrative product, we think, I wanna make something that evangelizes, and that's what's first And you think like that's good, but you really should lead with I'm gonna tell a really good story I'm gonna tell a really good story and that evangelizes because people can tell if you've prioritized

evangelism over good storytelling It will be schlock God's not dead. It'll be oh, yeah it will be schlock. It'll be God's not dead. It'll be. It'll be hackneyed. It'd be something people don't really enjoy watching because they feel like both Hollywood and Christian films can make a similar mistake,

which is I'm using this film to beat you over the head with the message. Yeah. And people can spot that a mile away, whether it's woke Hollywood or the gospel, which the gospel is a good

thing. But you have to present it to people in a way that wraps it wraps in a good story. For example, I think the greatest depiction, one of the best depictions of the gospel in fiction and media

is Victor Hugo's novel Les Miserables. And it's adaptive, which many people haven't read because it's a brick of a book. But many people have seen the musical Les Mis and Les Mis is one of my favorite musicals. And that's just. Have you seen it? Yeah, I haven't seen it in a musical form, but I saw the recent one with Hugh Jackman. And well, that is musical. Oh, I thought you meant like on Broadway. Oh, you mean live like yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. No, that was really great

Yeah that I I went watching that do you sort of favor do yourself favor though go online get the 10th? Anniversary edition of Les Mis of the book or no of the musical There's a live production. I'm not sure where it was, but it's just all of them on stage. Philip Quast is Javert. It's just amazing. Absolutely. The 10th anniversary edition is my favorite. And it's a stage play that they filmed.

It's not like people are moving around. It's more like a concert, like everyone's standing and they have their microphones. But the it just gives me shivers because Russell Crowe, he looks like Javier, but his singing was poor. Why do you probably would remember all the lashback he got? Oh, backlash, not lashback backlash he got from that. I felt so bad for the guy. But yeah, he wasn't.

And that's what's interesting is that in older Hollywood musicals, they're dubbed and there's this yeah And there is this weird code now where it has to be, you know, it needs to be authentic Yeah, like no the older musicals just dubbed people if it was and that was fine Yeah, and so that's what they did on on the new early miss with Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe and Anne Hathaway But in there's the 10th and 25th anniversary editions are good, I like the 10th. And yeah, it's just like that story about grace, redemption, just in the very beginning

when Valjean steals from the bishop. It's gonna go back to jail and the bishop says, you know, I've bought your life, you know, to this silver I give to you. You know, I've bought your life with a price. Now what are you going to do? That's what Christ has done for us. It's like, oh, my mind's blown. And it's just, it's great. There's a similar.

I've been thinking about C.S. Lewis and Tolkien lately, and I don't think that Lewis is preachy, but I do think he pushes the allegory too far. So I often find it. You mean like Narnia? Narnia, I'm about to read the space trilogy for August. That's what I've set myself. I'm really excited. Narnia, I'm giving him a little credit for that because it's a children's book. That's right. Yeah. And so if something is written for children, you're allowed to be, you know,

because actually, you know, yeah, it was funny. I was driving home. I take Matt to the hob. The Hobbit is a children's book and that wasn't. Yeah, though it was interesting when I was driving home with Matt from Divine, when we have Divine Liturgy during the week, which I love we can do. So usually once a week they have it down in Irving, Texas. And so we'll drive about a half hour to go to that. And it's usually small, only about five people there.

Nice. And so it's just an intimate setting. Still an hour and a half or what? Oh, yeah. Oh, but it's great. And so we do that. We were driving home and he was asking me like, God, he said, Dad, why do you think the devil rebelled against God? Do you think it's because he was like,

God just bosses people around and I don't want to have to do that. Like if God bosses people around, maybe he's not so good. And I said, well yeah, Matt, maybe if he did do that, but do you think God is like that? Who do you think God is like?? Who do you think God is like and we were talking about different examples? Like what kind of a king is God like and I said, well actually because we he mentioned like a bad king from a film

And I said, well, maybe he's more like I said Matt, do you know who I think God is like and in like a story He said like who I said, he's like Aslan. He's like yes and Narnia and I'm like, there you go Yeah, and so I think when you have those good stories it works. But but yeah, I mean, and Narnia and I'm like, there you go. Yeah. And so I think when you have those good stories, it works. But but yeah, I mean, the the Narnia series, take it for what it is. But it is why I do wonder what has reached more people. This is a good question for David Bates over Pines with Jack. What has reached more people to introduce them to Christianity? The Narnia series or mere Christianity?

And the price still mere Christianity, but but both have had a huge impact. That's why, I mean, I don't know, maybe when I'm on vacation, I had this fiction book I was working on. I stopped it like five years ago, but maybe I'll start again. I think you sent it to me. Did it begin in a math class or some sort of school room? Yes, that was the first chapter. Will you be giving up your phone? Will you be giving up things

or are you just strictly going to distance yourself from work work? I'm just gonna log out an email. Although I'm one of those inbox ninjas. Are you? I'm not. I told Laura, I said like, I'm really stressed out. I got two emails from who? I'm like in my inbox, there's two sitting there.

I'm gonna make sure I deal with them. That's amazing. But yeah, and I'm like in my inbox. There's two sitting there. I make sure I deal with them. That's amazing but yeah, and I'm just gonna log out and You know and then just really it's hard with little kids right because the old adage is The year the days are long. Yeah, the years are short. Yeah, that's what I was idea with kids You know, it's like when you're especially Yeah, that's what I was idea with kids. You know, it's like when you're especially

Like Laura is gonna go visit her parents soon. And so this for the first time for like three days I'm gonna watch the kids by myself, which I'm gonna try really hard and not turn it into just Pixar and Wendy's Yeah, cuz I'm like, oh not I'm not used to this and sometimes if you just have When you have little kids nice feels like the day is really dragging on here And you have to be careful though, because like the day is really dragging on here. And you have to be careful though, because then all of a sudden, there's seven, there are 10, there are 17, there are 25. But you said you've been taking Matthew to jujitsu.

Tell us about that. How did you get started? Oh yeah, but that's one thing is I think to find those activities that are wholesome that you can do together. Totally. And that's what you wanna do with him. And especially like I have three boys.

It's so funny for Laura, because she grew up with only sisters. So she doesn't quite, she's like, want to do with him. And especially like I have three boys. It's so funny for Laura, because she grew up with only sisters, so she doesn't quite. She's like, do boys do this? I'm like, yeah, we do. Like the fighting. Yeah, like just wanting to wrestle and fight. Peter jumped on my back yesterday

when I was in bed sleeping and he started wrestling me. Right. Yeah. And I grab him around the neck and I'm holding him down and he's like, five, five. I'm like, what? It's like the five. Why are you saying five? And then I remembered we have this rule that when we fight if he says one?

I'm basically he can beat the heck out of me ten. I'll destroy him So he decides as his wrestling how hard he wants me to wrestle Oh, like seven and I'll start wrestling him and like two two two and I've got a kind of like that's like that's the old Handicap setting on Street Fighter you can set the difficulties That's exactly right. So I but I love the fighting time with boys. And I think one thing with for men and boys to bond like women tend to bond face to face, like talking to each other.

Men tend to bond side to side. Yeah, like we're doing something together and together working on. What are we doing? And so but it is fun. So, yes, we've started doing that. How did you first hear about your Jitsu? Taylor Marshall? You're in Texas. Do you ever like hang out with Taylor Marshall? Do hear about jujitsu? Taylor Marshall? You're in Texas. Do you ever like hang out with Taylor Marshall? Do you go jujitsu?

I have not come across Taylor Marshall. Do you do Brazilian jujitsu? I think he used to. I think there are some people who may, you know, maybe they'd want to want to see us in a match. Who knows of a different sort. Maybe. Yeah, maybe.

No, it was Cobra Kai. Okay. So you've asked what Laura and I watch together. Then so we were was Cobra Kai. Okay. So you've asked what do Laura and I watch together. Then so we were watching Cobra Kai and we just thought, okay, we want the kids to get into a martial art, to get exercise, learn how to defend themselves. And so I looked up and I've been interested

in martial arts for a while, just like reading about them. Like what is the most effective martial art? Like honestly learn. And we found a gym nearby us. It's just like a 10 minute drive. And we went to a few different gyms, but this one just felt like the absolute real deal. Like a lot of the guys who are the trainers there

are from like Ukraine or Eastern Europe, like the boxing coach. He was like basically coaching the equivalent of like Eastern European Olympic boxing. And he's like this short guy, but he'll be with me and he'll just be like, pow, pow, pow, pow. I'm like, man, you're like, you know, you're like 50 or 60 but like you still got moves like lightning

just to show stuff. And a lot of the classes, the kid class at the same time as the adult class. And so we go and practice and learn. And then Matthew, he just loves the the most so he'll go like, okay Let me let's let's try this later. So we'll do a mixture of Muay Thai and and jujitsu. So when you said you looked into what was the most effective martial art? What did you settle on? I would say

Honestly, probably Brazil. Well, it's effective like when you're when you're out there if you have to like be in a real fight with people I think you need like a combination of Well, it's effective, like when you're when you're out there, if you have to like be in a real fight with people. I think you need like a combination of kickboxing or Muay Thai kickboxing, but especially Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Is that what you're doing? Those two things? Yeah, that's amazing that you started doing both of them. Yeah. So how many times a week are you going? Well, this is a topic of discussion in the Horn household. How often I can go.

I remember I remember many years Like a year ago Laura said you should get a hobby I'm like, but I love being home with the kids and I love writing like my hobby It's just I'm writing another book for Catholic answers. You really need to have a hobby and then Laura makes a joke You know like what wives would say it's like you need a hobby But one that doesn't cost money and one where you're not leaving the house and I have to watch the kids Okay, so limited options. And so but it works that for a lot of them, I can actually take the kids. So they do a class and I do a class. So I'm doing this.

And then I if the kids go, it's usually maybe like three or four nights. They also have it during the day, though. So there's a small jujitsu class during the day. And I might go and there's only like three or four other people. And I am like the whitest white belt that I'm like, I'm like the vanilla ice level white belt. And I'm just there and I just tell them, you can just throw me around. I'll try to learn by osmosis.

So what I found weird, because I saw I went to a couple of Brazilian jujitsu classes and maybe I'll go back, but it was just five o'clock at night. It's not a great time for us. Sure. But anyway, what I found weird was you're just immediately on top of somebody. Someone's like, it's like aggressive cuddling. I'm like, I know I don't like doing this with strangers or anyone. Not my wife. Right. How did you get over that?

You know what? It. It didn't bother me as much. Like, I feel like we just want to learn these techniques because the reason I think Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is probably one of the most practical martial arts you can learn is that in a real fight, it's not like karate on TV. It's not like I wish it was, but it's not usually you're on the floor. Usually you're on the ground with someone and when you're on the ground, then it's like, can you immobilize and subdue? Honestly, the most important martial art like

self-defense technique to learn is how to not get in a bad situation and how to escape a bad situation quickly. That is the honest, like if someone's really honest about self-defense, it's to learn how to not get in a fight and to learn how to escape a bad situation as quickly as possible.

This is not the movies. Like you can get, and that's why you have to have a sense of realism about things. But if you're in a situation that you cannot escape, you want to be. Jiu-Jitsu allows you to maintain control over another person, even if they're larger than than you are. So has this kind of given you more pause when you see people down the street

wondering, like maybe before you did martial arts, you're like, I could take that guy, I could take that guy. Now, are you do you realize you're not so sure? Because who knows? Maybe they're training and maybe they're better than you even though they look smaller or oh, I Never would think like I could take him or or that person. I'd rather find my words Sir, would you like to have a debate?

Cratic dialogue you into the ground Yeah, you know it also helps to build up the humility in that regard that as, you see, oh, people who have been doing this for a long time. Actually better. Oh, yeah. But they learn and they're they're willing to work with you. It's not about ego. Yeah. And so so that's been good. And I found with other martial arts, like when I was a kid and I did those things, one was called Zendokai, one was called Taekwondo, obviously. And but there was a real workout there. Whereas what I found is when you're just learning the basic moves of

Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, I don't leave completely drenched. That's correct. Well, when I'm learning, when you're learning and I've only been doing it for a few months. So once again, why is white belt out there? But when you're just starting with the positions, you're right. It's like, oh, I'm not really working out that much. But then when you actually engage, which is called rolling. So when you actually go with someone,

that, I get more sore and worked out than even when I do boxing. Because you're with a guy, and a lot of the guys I work with are 20 or 30 pounds bigger than I am, and you're wrapped around someone, you're doing, it's essentially a lot of isometric exercise.

You're like pushing with all your might to prevent someone from choking you into submission essentially and that has a realism To it when you're when you're engaging others, so yeah, but it's but it's been fun And I think it's once again. It's important as Christians. We need to have balance in our lives So we need to make sure that we are spiritually healthy, that we are physically healthy, that we're financially healthy, we're emotionally healthy. I think it can be hard when people think that the path to holiness is just focusing on

the spiritual aspect of our lives. Now that should be the anchor to it. But there's a lot of people that get kooky if they focus so much on their spiritual health that then it's the same as someone who only focuses on their physical health and they turn into a muscle head and they're not praying and they're not going to mass. They're dysfunctional, but somebody who, you know, is very spiritually healthy, but neglects the temple of their body, that's also bad because we're not souls trapped in bodies. We are bodies.

Like there's a debate in philosophy about, I mean, I guess, let's see what you think about this. Do we continue to in the period after we die, when our soul leaves our body, but before the final resurrection, when we get our bodies back, do we exist during that point? I think we would exist, but maybe not as persons or not as human persons. Well, yeah, so there's basically two different views. So there would be the survivalist view,

which says you still exist, though you still exist in a different form. Then there's the corruptionist view, which says, and this is the view I lean strongly towards, you don't exist anymore. What exists is your soul and your body. And so there's- Before the final judgment, though,

so you don't yet have your body back. Yeah, I'm talking about that when, that I as a human person, I think that I as a human person am a composite of soul and body. Right, so when you're separated, you what? You stop existing. That's a view I strongly lean towards. So that would be, I think it's called the corruptionist view.

The survivalist view would say that, yeah, you still continue to exist. But I'm very- In a perfect state. Yeah, but I'm very leery of that view because I think it basically boils down to that you are your soul. So What's existing before the body returns? What is existing? Yeah, there is something is the soul of Trent Horn and the body of Trent Horn, but not Trent Horn, not Trent Horn. Interesting. But but the parts and those are my integral parts and things are happening. My soul

is being judged. My body is decaying. But but that's why we hope for the resurrection of the dead is such a wonderful thing to believe in, because now we have come back. But if you hold to that, was it Christ who went into Hades when he died? Oh, was it? Oh, well, there, the catechism references the perfect union that would exist between the person of the second Trinity still having a perfect union with his body and soul and So we would say that Christ still goes down into Hades because of his divine nature and being a divine person I say he can still maintain that perfect union with body and soul even when Christ's body and soul are separated So they thought of everything.

But that is a really good point. I do think a lot of Catholics, including myself, think almost exclusively about my spiritual regimen, like I need to go to mass every day or at least once a week, or I need to be praying the rosary every day. But how often do we think about and this is interesting coming from you. I hope you don't mind me saying this, but like you ate like crap. Oh, totally. So, no, one of the things that inspired me recently to actually

because I used to make fun of people who exercised. I said when 2050 gets here, they'll have a pill that fix us. I don't need to do that. No. So I that's completely fair to do that. I used to I used to brag about how badly I would eat when Matthew was born on the night before when Laura was before she went went into labor like an hour before she went into labor It was my 30th birthday. Mm-hmm. And so we went to Fuddruckers And I got a one-pound burger because when you order the one-pound burger, they shout one pound

You know, I'm like, and so I ate that with fries and a chocolate shake and then two hours later Laura started going into labor and I'm still digesting my one pound. One second Laura. Laura would be like, oh, it's starting. And then I would go, oh, it is. Oh, B2. She's like, stop it. I'm like, no, I'm back. So no, I was. But now in my late thirties, it was catching up to me. How so? What did you? You know, being tired, being bloated, being not as mentally sharp as maybe I once was, just all of these things.

And it's like, no, I want to be there for my kids and my grandkids. So I want to invest in myself now, just to basic taking care of myself. So I dialed back, not completely eliminated, but I dialed back flour and sugar. And then just working out, I had never really worked out because working out, I just, a lot of it just really bored me

Yeah, it's like I'm on a treadmill going nowhere climbing stairs that never end You know or any other kind of workout regiment? but I guess the thing I like about doing martial arts is it reminds me one of my favorite things to do as an apologist are debates and Debates are kind of like martial arts And so I've actually been having fun. One of my favorite things to do in our Muay Thai class is at the beginning we do shadow sparring.

So that is just before we put on gloves and you also wear these shin guards. Because in Muay Thai it's the art of eight point contact. So you can fists, elbows, knees, and your shins to kick people. So yeah, you wear gloves and you wear shin pads. But we'll do this shadow boxing where we just practice, but without any guards.

And some of the guys get a little over exuberant and we end up making like contact with each other. So I'll come home and it's just like covered. I like bruises. Laura told me, you need to get an MMA shirt because people will think that I beat you at home That way people know you got it from MMA But like doing it when you're engaging with someone I'm thinking okay if they throw this

They'll leave themselves open to this so I could throw that I'm like Oh, that's kind of what I think of in my head when I'm doing a debate. That's nice I think they're gonna advance this argument But here's the weakness with that and here's where I can move in if that's deployed or if this is and so it's I don't Know so it kind of so for me as an apologist they kind of complement each other Do you tend to get into things only to abandon them soon after? Oh, no, I'm gonna do a friend Matt Fred I'm in it to win it. I am you'll be here for long to a hundred percent melancholic in ten years, you know It'll be a black belt. I'll come we'll do a demonstration here

Did go probably that takes like a long time. And I don't have, and that you have to do multiple hours every day. This is just to keep me healthy. But no, it's funny with Laura and I, cause Laura is super sanguine, extroverted, might not be as keen as hanging on to things. I know you always say that you're the female Laura.

Yeah, usually when Trent talks to me about his wife, I'm like, I know. I get your wife. I am the male version of your wife, except what's funny is I'm melancholic, choleric. So I'm not really sanguine like your wife, but she is as bubbly. She's a bit. I hope this doesn't sound too bad, because I think I'm like this sometimes a little flighty. Oh, gosh, was that too much? No, no, I think.

I think. Well, let's see, I'll text Laura and like and kind of torches herself. You can text her torches herself. But she does stuff wrong. You should have been amazing. No, Laura, in fact, told me when we were first date, when we first got married, like she, you know, she would worry about like committing to things. And one of the things she said was, I'm so glad I got married. It's it's something I can't bail on. No, she's not. That's true.

And she's like, I now I bail on almost everything. My wife's the only person who's been able to hold my attention. No, she's not. That's true. And she's like, now that. I bail on almost everything. My wife's the only person who's been able to hold my attention this long. She's so funny. She said, I think one reason I married you, Trent, was that there were these guys, because I'm forward and melancholic. She's like, there were these guys who would call me,

and then I just forgot to call them back. I was like, oh, I forgot to call you back. And you told me, hey, can you please call me back? I texted you, but I didn't hear from you. And I really, I was just more forward about it. And so for better or for worse, now she stuck with me. But so as but as a melancholic, though, when I do this, here's our decision with Laura and I, here's our decision making.

Laura will immediately say, that's a great idea. Let's do it. And then down the line, oh, I really don't think we should have done that. But then for me, she's more impulsive whereas you take the time to reflect on me But she'll also bring a lot of joy Yeah We when we go into things where and she's more open-minded to give things a chance whereas I might be more pessimistic Yeah, so she has a benefit there that she's more open-minded So she has a greater generosity in that respect

But then there could be a danger of, well, we over committed ourselves. Whereas me, my downside is I could be more closed-minded. No, no, I don't wanna, I don't wanna, I don't wanna, I don't wanna. But then I'll think, okay, let me deliberate, deliberate, deliberate, deliberate. We're done, we're gonna do it.

We're committed. And then you'll set and change your mind. We're going through with this. And so that's a very melancholic tendency for you. We're familiar. That's the four temperaments. Yeah. Um, caloric, melancholy based on the old idea, the, the humors in the body. Yeah. The caloric is, uh, my wife is the absolute textbook caloric caloric is the tape. You kill each other as the take charge individual, uh,

who wants to their natural leaders, they're the CEOs. Melancholic is very introverted, analytical. They're the research oriented person. Sanguine is the extroverted, bubbly, life of the party. Yeah, and then the phlegmatic is they can get along with anybody. They're peaceful, calm. If you have a problem with them, it's your problem.

So what's funny about my wife is she said, you know how when you walk into a room and you assess who's in charge and if no one really is, like, you know, you kind of, you take that role. I'm like, no, I do not know at all what you're talking about. Yeah. Textbook cleric move. Yeah. So, so the relationship we have, and I love the balance that I have, and I think that's also something else to take into account. So going back to as Christians, how do we leave healthy lives to have a spirituality? But I also think, you know, spiritual health, physical health, financial health, emotional

health, like you can be a very like what I love about our faith is that holy people can be very different. I think it's dangerous when people think that to be holy, you have to look like Padre Pio. You have to have a certain personality. Yes. Yes. Like like even when you look like I love in scripture scripture or among the fathers of the saints. I mean, St. Jerome and St.

Therese of Lesu are both saints, but they do not have the same temperament. No St. Peter and St. Paul are friends that could come to blows because they're both saints, but they do not have the same temperament. No. Saint Peter and Saint Paul are friends that could come to blows because they're both holy, but they had very different temperaments. When I read the Bible. Well, Paul was the the confirmation name I chose when I was baptized because I read his conversion story over and over again. He was someone I identified with. And then later on in life, when I discovered like, oh, I have these

really melancholic tendencies I see that in st. Paul Constantly when I read his letters It's funny when you see him, right? He reveals, you know what other people say about him He says that they say of him or me. He says he is mighty in word, but not in person That you know, he'll write these very you know, here's the deal people in his epistles But then when he's in person, maybe not as forthright

With people but he's and I love in Galatians too when he opposes Pete He tell you because he's telling in Galatians and Galatians. He is grumpy Well, he's grumpy about people saying in in order to be a good Christian, you have to be a good Jew, you have to be circumcised. No, that's not required anymore. He's mad about people putting up these fences to the gospel. And people are telling him, well, Paul, he just wants to please the Gentiles. He's a people pleaser.

And he says, no, I did not try to please play and the beginning of Galatians all about I got The gospel I received this from God I did go to Jerusalem to confirm everything with the Apostles But I'm not trying to please people and he says I even opposed Peter to his face Because that was when Peter didn't dine with the Gentiles because he didn't want to be judged by the Jewish Christians So Peter didn't have a he didn't dine with the Gentiles because he didn't want to be judged by the Jewish Christians. So Peter didn't have a, he didn't teach error, he just failed to live out the teaching. He was cowardly, shocker for Peter, right?

So he, and so Paul just goes right up, he's like, sorry, you're wrong, and tells him and does it with that authority he has as an apostle to correct him. And so, and he, because melancholics, they care about the truth. So I guess for some people, they would rather, they would rather preserve harmony,

even if the truth gets lost, and other people will allow disharmony to make sure the truth will be there. And my wife like never lets the truth get in the way of a good story. So it'll be a month and she would have, she'll be recounting something that's happening. I'm like, that is, that is not what happened.

I need you to know now before this goes any further. She would have made a good rabbi. There is a joke on the, on the Simpsons where Krusty meets his dad, Rabbi Herschel Krustofsky. And who was played by Jackie Gleason, I believe. And he says, a rabbi would never, a rabbi never exaggerates. You know, a rabbi never exaggerates.

He adds details. He may have said things that never actually happened, but he never exaggerates. That's my wife. Yeah. So actually, she'll actually believe things that didn't happen. Yeah. So for me, I ruin a good story by the truth. That's called confabulation. Having a false memory that we can create in our minds. Oh, by the way, about Peter, when a lot of Protestants bring this up,

saying like this shows that Peter was not the pope, you know, he's not infallible. No, he wasn't making a teaching decision. He was not acting as he should. In the Greek, it said he was not ortho. I can't remember the exact. It's not orthopedic. And that's orthopedics. Maybe it's orthopedic.

Yeah, I think it was orthopedic and literally He was not walking upright is what it says in the gospel And so that's where we get orthopedics from he was not looking at Neil wondering if he was gonna look that up But thinking how would you know how to spell that? Yeah, so he was not walking upright in the gospel But I actually see that as an example of Peter's authority in the early church, because Paul says, no, I'm not trying to please people. Guess what, folks? I even opposed Peter. Yeah. Which that'd be like if I said if you worked at the White House and you said, I'm not a butt kisser.

I even told the president he was being an idiot. Yeah. Well, that's what we have acknowledged. And you told the highest person there. Yeah, that's exactly right. So hey, let me ask you, as you've been kind of delving into Eastern Catholicism and given the state of the church, has there been a point where you have found yourself perhaps freshly open to the possibility that Catholicism is false?

Because I think what happens is we become a particular thing. We become apologists for that particular thing, which we are. Sure. And it's likely the case that people talk themselves into the position they wish to be in for the sake of friendships, for the sake of community, for the sake of finances. But I find that there's been times in my own life where I've realized, okay, I'm at this point really open to the possibility of maybe I was wrong. Have you had that happen?

And how have you worked through that? I know you're different because you kind of came into the faith later on. So you researched your way in as it were. But yes, I have to overcome the objections. But even I mean, I didn't I didn't look at every single objection before becoming Catholic. So obviously, there's going to be newer be newer things that are presented to me, then more sophisticated objections that I might've seen prior to my conversion.

But in looking through them, nothing that's really shaken my faith. Though it's funny is I actually explore this a little bit in my newest book that's coming out this month, that's coming out in August. It's called Devil's Advocate, Confronting My Inner Anti-Catholic. Oh, wow. Oh, I'll. Is it a Socratic back and forth?

It is. Oh, that's wonderful. It's Socratic. And it's me talking to my inner skeptic. So it's one of those dialogue books. But I try to give the inner skeptic as much ammunition as possible. Oh, I love to read it. So he's not like a pushover. And we have a fun back and forth.

And in that book, I actually do talk about the elements of the faith that I think are like linchpins that are these difficult points and how I work through that. So I talk about, I mean, I talk a little bit about the problem of evil and hell. Well, I do talk about the papacy like what if you know one thing I read this is actually I think one of CS Lewis's concerns if I'm Catholic Mm-hmm like it seems like one of the benefits of Protestantism is that the only thing you have to defend is the Bible and it's a fixed known quantity But with Catholicism the things you have to defend continue to grow

Right. There's encyclicals ecumenical councils, dogmatic constitutions, papal definitions of things like the bodily assumption of Mary. And then so the idea is that, well, what if in the future the Pope officially dogmatically defines a heresy? Well, it's game over, right? I can't be Catholic anymore.

And so, you know, thinking like it's it's risky to be Catholic, that we have this gamble, like there's more and more things. Or you have to talk yourself into believing this false thing. Like, that's probably some of the injections that come our way to where it's like, OK, she wasn't immaculately conceived. But now that your pope has said this, you're going to have to find a way to justify this and to reconcile it so you don't get kicked out. That's terrifying.

Yeah. And that would be almost like a little bit of, I don't know if that's backward looking or not, but your idea is that, yeah, something will be defined that, you know, I didn't have to justify it. Yeah. What if with the Bible, it's like, OK, here's the list of possible errors. We can go through all of them with Catholicism. The list of possible errors continues to grow. And so I confront that with my inner skeptic, like, oh, should I, you know, isn't it better to be Protestant?

And I would say, well, no, because think about this, people will say, what if we discover in the future a letter from the apostles saying they recanted, you know, when they didn't actually believe this under persecution? from the Apostles saying they recanted, you know, and they didn't actually believe this under persecution. Or we found a bone box that said Jesus of Nazareth or, you know, son of Joseph, something like that. And people will say, you know, would you not believe in Christianity if you found some of these things? And I thought, oh, that's, I'm not sure. But if I'm convinced, but as a, but if a Protestant is convicted by the Holy Spirit that Christ rose from the

dead and the Bible is true, then he just knows that these hypotheticals will never happen. That since he knows Christ rose from the dead, he knows there, no such bone box will ever be found. There are at least one that definitely is. Jesus says there might be a hoax one, or there won't be a genuine recanting from the apostles, that the Holy Spirit gives him confidence these contradictions will not come up in the future. But likewise, if the church is divinely instituted and guided by the Holy Spirit, then these contradictions

and let's say papal infallibility will not happen in the future. So my confidence about what will happen in the future is rooted about what has already happened in the past. But there are more lynchpens in Catholicism than Protestantism, wouldn't you say? Because you get two objects or two possibilities for Protestantism, whereas there's, you know, potentially almost not infinite. Well, there's more because the more declarations you make, the more that comes. Because we share with Protestants all the Bible difficulties, right? Like we both have to figure out how do we answer these things.

But I sometimes find and this will come up in another book that's going to come out in a year called and I'm giving this talk at Steubenville. Yeah, right now. This this weekend. Great. Called When Protestants Are You Like Atheists? This is a series I've done.

Is brilliant. I've heard you do this recently and I thought it was wonderful. Yeah, you could have really got a great ability to take complex things and make them so stupidly simple that we all wonder why we hadn't thought of this yet. Or we think how come someone hasn't addressed this somewhere? Maybe they have. I don't know. Stupid like a fox. What was that?

No, I watched your interview with with Cameron Batusi and you addressed this. So feel free to say that. I've noticed that sometimes when Protestants are presented with alleged people like a fox, keep going. Right. Well, like alleged by. Well, they say Homer, it seems really stupid, stupid like a fox. Back from I think season two through nine, the only good the only good Simpsons. I've noticed that when Protestants are presented

with difficulties in the Bible, they'll say, they'll be very generous to the Bible. They'll say, oh, well, you know, there's all of this cultural context we don't understand. There could be textual errors. There's allegory. There's not, this is a non-literal reading of the text. And they're willing to explore.

And they'll put a lot of effort into exploring all the possible ways of resolving a Bible difficulty. But when they find a difficulty in the deuterocanonical books like Tobit, oh, that's proof it's not inspired. Or if you read a Vatican one, when it says that in every age it's known that Peter was the vicar of Christ, you know, that Peter received this authority from Jesus. Oh, but what about these church fathers in this period? They don't say anything about that. Oh, see Vatican one is false. Therefore, Catholicism is false. Well, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Dial back. Genesis one six talks about a firmament, a hammered out dome that keeps water above us,

which is from a Hebrew cosmology that's false. But that's not an error in scripture because the Bible's not asserting scientific truths about the way the world works. Cardinal Caesar Broneus once said, "'The Bible teaches us how to go to heaven, "'not how the heavens go.'" And so, when I see this,

they'll pick up magisterial texts or the Deuteronomy and find and you know, there there's a problem right there. Boom, it's false. But they're not willing to give that same elasticity that they'll give to the Bible itself. And so that's dangerous because if you have that same narrow I found a contradiction, well then that can be applied just to the Bible itself. Now there is a difficulty here because it's funny, some people have told me, well Trent, are you are you gonna say there's no errors in the Quran or there's no errors in the Book of Mormon because you don't want to act because you're acting like an atheist? And my response to that is actually, yeah, I'm actually very reserved in the amount of errors I will

ascribe to the Quran or the Book of Mormon. Just let me pause and back up for a second. So when you say that Protestants sometimes argue like atheists, what you're saying is they are as critical of the Deuterocanonicals as atheists are of scripture without trying to understand the context. Right. They've already got it set in their mind. Just as an atheist has it set in his mind, the proto-canon is just a bunch of human documents and they're going to show that. I think a lot of Protestants and they're going to show that. I think a lot of Protestants, when they examine the Deutero canonical books, they will say,

these are just human documents and look at all of these errors. And I've covered this, I've had dialogues with two wonderful Protestant. I've had a debate on this on your channel with Steve Christie. People can go and watch that. And I've dialogue with Steve and one of his cohorts. And so he's a goy for Jesus. Now his name is escaping me at the moment, but you can see their channels. And that's what I love.

I love having dialogues with people who disagree. But that's one of the criticisms thrown back at me is, oh, are you gonna say there's no, you know, are you acting like an atheist if you say the Book of Mormon is wrong or the Quran? No, I give those books the same amount of leeway, though I still find problems. So, for example, in I did a whole video about this where I was engaging a I believe he's an imam. Shaikh Uthman is his name. He's a pre I don't know if he's an imam or not. Maybe he is.

But he teaches in San Diego at a mosque there and he does these tables at Balboa Park. We went to Balboa Park once, so it was fun to talk to atheists. So he's, and he had a video talking about Catholicism and then he was offering evidence for Islam talking about, you know, in the Quran, talking about the splitting of the moon. And Christians have to be careful with this. They'll say, oh, the Quran is stupid. It says Muhammad split the moon. Wouldn't people have noticed that? I say, well, the book of Joshua says Joshua made the sun stand still. Wouldn't people have noticed that? Exactly. Yeah. And so what I would say is, well, in the book of Joshua, that might've been a local optical miracle

where only the people in that battle, the sun was still shining, while the rest of the earth, it was still, you know, the earth rotated and everything was the same. So maybe that's an optical miracle. Maybe it's a figurative way to describe an omen, a way of speaking in ancient ways that you accomplished in one battle

would have taken like two or three days. So if it's non literal, then the splitting of the moon could maybe be non literal in the Quran. I'm willing to give them an out there if that is the case. I feel this way slightly differently about when people criticize Mormons to rashly. Like I've heard people talk about their magical underwear that they wear. Oh yeah, because Catholics never wear special never wear special garments under them to remind them. That'd be like saying Catholics wear tea bags for some reason. It's kind of what they look like.

Magic tea bags. The scapular. So I don't like when we, I think if an opponent's position seems outright stupid to you, it's a good chance that you haven't investigated it. Yeah, I mean the variant to that, and someone who follows Chesterton more would be able to correct me on this. I believe it's called Chesterton's fence. Okay. Yeah, and I think it's where if someone says

This this is stupid. We don't need this. That's right is to say alright Well, why did someone think we needed it at one point and then tell me why they're wrong. That's really good I think that is I could be getting it wrong, but I think that's let's tear down this fence Okay, before we do that though, why do you think they put the fence up? And then let's see. Give me a compelling reason, sort of like with marriage, right? Marriage being between man and a woman is stupid.

Well, tell me why people- Why we come up with this? Yeah, so I try to, yeah, I think it's important to be fair, to be fair to our opponents, acknowledge their strongest cases, give them as many outs as you would give to yourself. Now, I still think there's big differences.

For example, here's a big difference with Mormonism and Christianity. If you take the Bible and you give it to a Jewish, a Christian, and an atheist scholar, they'll take the New Testament or the Old, they'll be able to tell you the rough area where those events took place We have enough archaeology that at the very least the Jew with a Christian and the atheist can say these events allegedly took place here

And the atheists or the Jew might deny some of the miracles, right? Like the miracles of Christ or any of the miracles like maybe the miraculous stuff didn't happen But yeah, this is where Jericho is is is where Jerusalem is. It all happened around in this area, basically. The Book of Mormon, it's very difficult. No one has really agreed on the general location where the events in the book take place. Some have said it's in a small, narrow bit of land in Central America. Others stretch it to North and South America. Some people put it in the American heartlands or the Great Lakes. That'd be like saying, well, Jesus might have died in Jerusalem or he might have died in New Delhi, India.

We're not entirely sure. So for me, that's a big difference there. But yeah, but I think it's important to assess the cases fairly. But even in doing that, I still, to go back to the original question a while ago, I still think the preponderance of the evidence on the whole is greater for Catholicism.

And you've felt that way even as you've examined Orthodox claims and objections, more sophisticated objections to the papacy. Yeah, and of course it's easier to, it's always easier to be inclined to accept a faith that is very close to yours. Because we in the Orthodox, we agree on so many things. What could be the things that we disagree on?

But I still think that there are a lot of key differences there that would keep me from Orthodoxy. I think that the office of the papacy provides a very important unity to the church. Could you give me an example of what the pope could do that would invalidate Catholicism? Well, I don't know if he if he reversed, you know, munis, Vintisi, Moustaous or the bull on the Immaculate Conception

and just said, never mind, you know, if he just reversed something that was definitively defined as saying he's a bad pope or't you just say that he's a bad pope? Or he's a heretic? Right, so that would be the case. And that gets into a little bit from, who am I thinking of around the Counter-Reformation, who's Cardinal Bell, I'm having a brain fart here. I don't know.

The people in the comments probably all like chatting it down real fast here. Neil will let us know. Yeah. How to, you know, what can the Pope be a heretic? And what would happen with it? He would be automatically deposed. So yeah, I guess it's always hard.

Like the hypotheticals, like what would it take to convince you that this is false? I think that's a reasonable objection, though, from Protestants, because we keep saying things like, well, he's not speaking ex cathedra. He's giving a talk on an airplane. But then I think the Protestant would rightly say, OK, give me any example where the pope would do X, Y or Z. And you know, I mean, that's enough for me. Or maybe an ecumenical council

of directly, directly contradicting in a solemn definition there. It's not just the Pope, it'd be all the bishops in the world. Acting together. That just seems so unlikely to happen. Well, but then, but once again, it's fair. Then you can ask someone who's Protestant, all right, well, what would make you not,

what would make, one, what would make you not be Christian? And then two, what would falsify Protestantism? They're saying, Bellermine? Is that what they're saying? Bellermine, of course, Cardinal Bellermine. They're saying Bellermine? Bellermine, of course. Cardinal Bellermine. Yeah, Bellermine. Thank you. Yeah, but this, I don't want to go to the Protestants too quickly because that feels

like the Tuquokwe fallacy almost. Like, stick with us for a moment before we throw back on them. No, it's fine. All I would say is that if their concern is you've only identified a narrow set of circumstances that are highly unlikely that would falsify Catholicism, then I would say, well, if that is a problem, why are you concerned you have the same thing as well? And so it's not too quo-kay.

Too quo-kay would be, I know this is bad, but you do it too. My point is, this is not bad, and you should agree because you do it too. I see. So it's not too quote. Okay. It's really, it's merely saying I don't think this is a problem and neither should you because you have the same thing. Okay. And so it shouldn't, it shouldn't be problematic in that, in that respect.

What do you see happening over the next 50 years in Catholicism? Oh, we don't have to go here if you don't want to know. I fully expect the next pope. Let's talk about what you want to talk about. Liturgy wars. You want to talk about trans stuff? Kind of. I fully expect the next pope to be worse than Francis.

And I expect this splintering and galvanizing to continue. I mean, that's just, you know, I am a prophet, so I'm correct. I don't. But it's been it's been it's been scary. It's been turbulent. I remember like 10 years ago when we'd be up on stage or leading Bible studies with people and it all felt like we're all on the same team. Whereas now increasingly, it feels like people are retreating to corners. I wonder, though.

I don't know if it has gotten worse or only if our knowledge of things has increased and that perception. Yeah, it was always that bad. There were think about there were always people who said, look at the terrible thing John Paul II did. It was very scandalous at the prayer gathering at Assisi in 1986 for example. Or even things Benedict had said but prior to the age of social media it's out there like oh yeah Assisi you know or just

something happened and but we're you know. You have a personal opinion about it having seen a photo but there's no one to really gripe about it with. Right but you're not suddenly sitting in front of a box and seeing all these other people saying how terrible this is So yeah, like oh and then you went back to playing pogs or eating on her pops. That's what I did in 1992 Yeah, I was in a World Youth Day, you know, I was playing pogs So I don't that's a good point So I think that because I mean you look through church like for me like in study of church history There have been just some some doozies.

There was a time when the Aryans basically controlled the Eastern bishops and empire. So, I mean, it was you have the pornography of the 10th century. But I'm not going to paint a rosy. There's things that are definitely. Here's what's funny, there's things that are confusing now. Like I'm working. I think it's the third book I'm going to mention. I actually have a podcast coming out called My Next Six Books.

Three of them are written. The fourth is 70% done, so that's just the last two. I want to write a book on progressive Catholicism called Confusion in the Kingdom. And that's what I think happens, like with Father James Martin and others that I'll read in some of these more progressive Catholic articles. They don't outright dissent, but they create all this confusion about the teachings. The thing that I think is sad,

because I did my review, if you saw my podcast, I reviewed Father Martin's new documentary about him and building a bridge and all of that. What I think is sad, honestly, is like this confusion that makes it seem like the church will change its teaching on homosexuality. And you can say like, from your perspective, the church is getting so bad. Look at these priests that have the rainbow flag on the altar and, you know, the LGBT ministry.

Look at all this stuff. I'm like, yeah. And so there's people on the far, far left or dissenters like, oh, it's a new springtime coming soon for the church. And then the CDF releases a document that Pope Francis approved saying you cannot bless same sex unions. The church can't bless sin. And so I'm like, all right. Not, not, not, I mean, back up a little over there. I know that the people who are involved, we must be pastoral to engage other people. My excitement at that is having a clear designation of what the church teaches so that we can then explore how to reach out to people that think the teaching is is a pile of crap, you know, but we need to have a clear understanding of what the teaching is so we can minister to people

and be pastoral towards them. Not just being pastoral. If you're pastoral but you don't know what teaching you're defending, it's very easy to just accommodate sin or promote error. So it's interesting. So seeing that, so I remember reading under Father Martin's Twitter page

when that definition, that decision came out from the CDF and people were mad. They were just upset. Did Father Martin respond at all to that? I can't remember how he responded. Maybe he just retweeted something, but they're mad. They're saying things like, you know, you're making us think that the church

is gonna change on this stuff. And we're in a new springtime. That's a theme in this documentary. And yet then we see the church very clearly lay down. So I think we have to keep it, we have to keep in perspective. You're right. There's a lot of things that are troubling. But also I find hope when I see like, I see that, I see this. Well, and the German Card cardinals the pope issued a very you know a sermon from what I saw it came from the Vatican I think it came with the pope's approval but I know it came from the Vatican expressing a concern about German synodality saying that you cannot change essential features of the church or church teaching

and so if there are German, even Cardinals or bishops or theologians saying we need women priests or same sex marriage, in that response from the Vatican, it said that churches that do this, that embrace these changes wither and die. And so it was pretty, so I mean, it's always hard to walk this fine line, right? You don't wanna be just sour and dour

and just everything is so bad doom and gloom. We also don't want to be so naive. You don't understand the problems. There's also so much of this. It's totally outside of most of our control. Right. And that's and we keep we instead of loving our family, reading scripture, going to holy mass, praying with our kids, teaching them the faith, we refresh our ecclesial political news feeds and feel angry.

And that feels more productive than doing the thing. And I'll be honest with you, Matt. I don't fall. I mean, I follow it. I see it. I try to be aware. Yeah, I just don't spend. I spend the minimal amount of time I can with that because my heart is to help people come to know Jesus Christ in his with that, because my heart is to help people come to know Jesus Christ in his church. That is my heart. And so my heart and charism, gifts,

I want to get rid of the things that are making it difficult. Let me just pause though. To come there. And I know you'll agree with this, I think. A lot of the things that prevent people from getting there are the things that are in the news right now, which we then have to respond to. Like the Pachamama incident

would be an example. No doubt. But also sometimes though I feel like we can be our own worst enemies. Like when I see people saying stuff like, oh don't bother. Like I'll see some Catholics doing online evangelism. I don't know what you want to call it. I'm excited to see what this means. Well, it's just, you know, telling a random person on Twitter, all right, then convert to Catholicism. Like, has that ever worked for you?

And being very abrasive in that regard and engaging people. Yeah. Whereas when I'm online, I just use an opportunity I love. I'll send you a book. Maybe you can call the radio show and talk to me.

Yeah. But as an opportunity to be abrasive, but they'll talk about both sides of their mouth Like when they talk to fellow Catholics bad-mouthing the bishops modernist bishops We can't trust yeah who needs them and then when they're engaging a Protestant online, it's like oh, you're your own pope You know, we have the church to guide us. It's like how can people why would somebody? Want to come, especially from Protestantism or orthodoxy, want to become Catholic when,

if all our time is just ripping on- Airing out our dirty laundry. Airing out dirty laundry. Yeah. To me, I don't see how that can serve the cause of evangelization. At best, I think we should be aware of it and we should engage others and be honest about things. But at the same time, I mean, it's just hard. People

take a sort of, it's a, it's shot in Freud. They say, you know, I look at, I'm superior. I'm in the know. I'm seeing all this bad stuff. Just, just pray for the church as a whole. And, and really, yeah, I think, I don't know, I think social media is... I wanted to ask you this, all right? Yeah, go ahead. Let me, because I'm thinking of canceling Twitter. You're gonna get rid of Twitter itself? Right, I think I might delete my account.

No, when you said that, I'm gonna cancel Twitter. It's gone, I'm gonna call up Elon Musk. Screw those guys. No, here's a question for you. Can you think of any like potential social media? Maybe it doesn't exist now, but maybe it'll be in the future. That wouldn't be worth a Catholic going on. Would not be. Yeah. And I don't mean because it's in necessarily intrinsically evil.

So I guess anyone could go on saying it's not intrinsically evil. But can you envision not worth social media that this is not worth your time going on? Maybe it's now now maybe it's I think in general There's a lot of social media that's not worth doing can you think I think of what's the least What's the one not worth your time like I think of tick-tock and I think if you're if you're someone who's on tick-tock You're probably a bad person. Sorry, but like can you think of a social media? They like I just don't want to spend my time there because the platform sucks. I got a call.

It's from a, that's weird. It's from the Chinese country code. It's so weird. Calling me right now. So like right now I'm on TikTok because Neil and others upload my shorts to there. But I hate myself for being on TikTok and want to cancel that or have them delete me.

Well, there's a difference when you say being on TikTok, your content is there or you spend time there. Never. No, I don't suck. But so there I think we could say there are less helpful social media platforms. I don't know. Like YouTube, it seems to me to be used in a way that's beneficial

to you in a way that TikTok can't. Like there's a difference. For example, I think it's great when mine and yours content is on social media. But us being on social media is different. I ignore my kids. I ignore my wife. But aren't we just fueling a platform so that others can get addicted to it?

Let me just ask the question again. Do you agree that some social media is better than other social media? Yeah, I think what would be an example of one that's better than another? I think that. what would be an example of one that's better than another? I think that, remember LiveJournal? You were never on LiveJournal, that was in the early 2000s, that was actually bad. That was, you had, you would do diaries

that people could read. Oh. And people would vent all their stuff, but at least you wrote a lot. I think Facebook can be better than Twitter. Here's where I think social media gets bad. Okay. It gets worse as it truncates human interaction. Okay. So for example, what makes Twitter very Stressful is you only have 280 characters per tweet to respond

So it incentivizes you to be very blunt with people because normally if I was to talk with someone I would Preface things I wouldface things, I would acknowledge agreement. You know, in a normal conversation, there's no one telling me, oh, you're out of words now. I can use as many words as I want to engage you. But when I'm restricted with my words, I might think the less essential words I'm gonna get rid of, but they actually are essential,

they're to keep me from sounding like a jerk. That's like, I'm just gonna communicate the information content, convert to Catholicism. But I need everything else to communicate to a whole person. So I think social media that starts to truncate things. I like that. Because I've had that in my head, right? That Facebook seems better than Twitter,

but I can't tell why. I'm saying Facebook's good. But you can write a whole post and explain something. And it's not a big thread either. And you don't have a thread where everybody can reply to every part of the thread. You just have, here's my thing, and one little comment. And so it allows you to better articulate yourself

and your position. And I think it's less likely for everyone to dogpile on you, to retweet and quote to say look at this idiot Yeah, I think Twitter is menu. You know, it's it's designed to be addictive like a video game. So I hear you I But for me and I said this the other day on Twitter At the very minimum I Would stay on social media, but I would no longer post Because I'll tell you one thing that's great about Twitter I would stay on social media, but I would no longer post.

Because I'll tell you one thing that's great about Twitter. I love going online on a Twitter, and I will search words like becoming Catholic or convert Catholic. So I search that. And then people tag me sometimes when they come across these things. And I've asked people to, and go ahead, if you see this by the way on social media, tag me. Where they come across these things. And I've asked people to, and go ahead, if you see this, by the way, on social media, tag me,

where they come across someone who says, hey, y'all, I'm thinking of, I think I'm gonna do it. I'm thinking of becoming Catholic. I don't know where to start. Or I'm really doubting atheism, but I don't know what book to read. And then I'll jump in there and I'll direct message that person,

hey, can I get your email? I'll send you my book. And I hope that it's helpful for you. And I love just immediately. And I would have never met that person 30 years ago, probably. So for me, that is so invaluable to be able to do that. It's worth it, but I would have to have strict guidelines that I just don't post. I'm not going to post. That's fair enough. I'm just wondering though, at what point does our existence on Twitter set a bad example for people who don't have that self-control and are getting their life sucked out of them? Whereas if we stood up and went, you know what, this is no longer healthy, I'm leaving. It's like anything. Now, what's interesting here is it goes back to the early church, like St. Paul and talking about meat and idols, saying that, you know, there are some people who are strong enough Christians, they can eat meat, sacrifice to idols and not fall back into idolatry.

But some people were not strong enough. It would seem that the majority of people are not strong enough to use social media because social media is too powerful for their brains. Laura was like that. She went on once and she's like, I deleted it. I can't do this. Can't do it. Can't do it. So the anxiety is through the roof. But it's just, but that's the thing. It's just like anything. Some people can't have alcohol. Some people.

Neil, are you on social media? Yeah. What do you like the most and what do you hate the most? Well, okay. And what are you under so people can go, follow you so you'll feel important. That's okay. I like, let's see.

I think that the stuff that kind of makes me laugh the most I see on Twitter. So I don't really use it for so much, I'm on Catholic Twitter and plugged into that. What do people mean by Catholic Twitter? So there's just a certain number of- I don't even know. So if you can imagine the daily wire type,

they would follow everybody from daily wire and have a list of people who would be in their feed and then responses and things like that. That would kind of be like the Daily Wire Twitter, like that group Twitter. So they have similar follows and preferences. Well, I'll tell you, the social media I probably spend the most time on is YouTube. When I discovered YouTube, I didn't work for five days.

Michael Scott. I like YouTube a lot. Well, I like YouTube actually, because when I'm working or doing things or I'm tired, I still, I will put on, I like educational videos and funny ones and things just on random topics like civil engineering or how boats work. Just real quick though, what was your favorite?

I just wanted you to get that out. Well, if YouTube counts, I'd say YouTube. I just, and what I like on it is, sorry, the worst, worst would be TikTok. Yeah. Definitely. Cause I have- Talk about truncating human interaction. I can't like huge YouTube It's like I would love to watch a 12 minute video to understand card counting but tick-tock I can't watch like a one minute video of people yelling at me and Weird tech even Catholic answers make tick-tocks now and they're doing a good job with it

But I told them I'm like I'm not part of this generation. I can't. But they should be part of that generation. But when it came out to me yesterday and said her son was on TikTok and she said, but if that's the worst thing he's doing, I'm like, yeah, that's the worst thing he could possibly do. But are we going to not go? But if we're not there, who will be there? See, this is where I'm not sure if that's a good argument or not.

And I'm trying to think that through. An example would be if the metaverse takes over and the majority of us are in it, there will be Catholic missionaries in the metaverse. And that makes me want to throw up. Maybe that's a good thing, but I'm not convinced that it is that we should go everywhere. Maybe I know as soon as I say that, I realize that's probably a wrong thing to think. I should go everywhere. But the only reason we should be in the metaverse is to get people out of the metaverse.

Well, like, you know, should we have had, you know, four or five hundred years ago, missionaries walking through the red light districts, talking to people who are there just to find prostitutes and alcohol. So long as they don't set up shop there and start a Patreon account. Yes. But my fear is we're going to set up shop in the metaverse, evacuate from all of the parishes and human places. And we go where the money is just like now. It aren't the majority of young Catholics who go to Franciscan probably more

interested in setting a YouTube account than being one on one ministry. But it just has to be has to be balanced. And I think that's that's the key with anything that we have in life. Like I said, whether it's food, whether it's alcohol, tobacco, whether it's exercise, there's anything you can take that you can go completely extreme with. Now there's some things that's easier to abuse than others.

Like I think it's easier to abuse social media than alcohol because alcohol hurts really fast and you start to realize, I really don't want that. The pain from abusing social media is not as explicit. Yeah. And so you wade into it deeper, but anything can be abused. So, but I would just be, you're right. I don't like TikTok at all. Like I, and I also haven't even been really creating content for it. I just hate having to truncate it to like a two minute answer to things. But other people, there's other people who are good at that. I don't know.

I think that we have to, we just have to lead by example and encourage people to have balance and temperance in all things. If you can't handle it, don't be on there. Set guidelines for yourself. If you can, keep an eye out for it. But I still think it's, cause if we're not there, cause you can make the same argument for YouTube. for it. But I still think it's because if we're not there, because you make the same argument for YouTube.

I'm sure the way we think about TikTok now, that's how a lot of that's right. People a generation beyond us thought of YouTube in that. But that's what scares me. Like I'm three minutes away from deleting my YouTube account constantly. Because I think no, no, no, I won't do that. But even to do believe, why would you get rid of Twitter? Because as an example, you're not even on it, right? I don't run it. No, when I do believe you, why would you get rid of Twitter? Good. You're as an example. You're not even on it, right?

I don't run it. No, but I got suspended recently. That was fun. But then I went back on and I just think it's a god awful fire hellscape. And I would like I had one idea that I would do a live stream and try to find a hundred people who would quit with me. And then I would just cancel my Twitter account. Because I think for the vast majority of people, it's detrimental to them.

It's not a helpful, healthy place to be. And I'm just why and I see your point. Moderation and all that. I just want to add there's some social media's platforms, even that you can think of in the future that would be so detrimental that they're just not worth being on. Yeah, if it turns into a point where it's just you can say one word. Jesus, Jesus, see, I'm evangelizing.

Oh, it's like the or see idiocracy. Yeah, a long time ago. Yeah. I worry social media is. Yes. Extrapolating into that point. I don't know. I think I'll know it when I see it. Yeah, but it's I'd say, Matt, it seems to me that whenever you're on a social media platform, at the end of the day, you're just still interacting with people. You're still interacting with another person.

It's still communication of some sort, whether it's like limited in this way or that way, it's still just communication. So I think that whether it lends itself to, you know, like toxicity on Twitter or, you know, just brain candy on TikTok at the end of the day You know you it's hard to say that something is just flat You know flat out bad nor should be on there for any reason ever and you should you know try to burn it down Because it's just people talking to people and communicating. Yeah, I agree because the problem you say like it's a dumpster fire Well because of original sin it's a dumpster fire. Well, because of original sin, humanity is a dumpster fire.

So and what did God do with Noah? Right. He regretted it and he wiped them all out. And that's what I'm saying. That's a figure. There's a figure of speech. That's me. I know. I know. But so no, this is the I mean, this is the first time I've really tried to think this through, though. It's like, can a social media platform be so deleterious to human conversation

that it's worth getting off and encouraging everybody else to get off and if so what does that look like? I guess I would ask you this for your Twitter page or for your YouTube. Does your Twitter page and your YouTube people is it more likely to lead someone to virtue or device? It depends on the day. No, but when they're at would you rather have them be on your page than on somebody else's? I would rather than be on my page and somebody else's for the most part But I'd rather have them be offline, but they're gonna be there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah Don't they scare you though the Metaverse Catholic missionaries in the Metaverse and that's their job Angel eyes and they lay down in their comfy boy chair and comfy boy. It's not they called that at all lazy boy

Then that's gay that could happen soon. I don't know a hundred years ago. I'm sure Catholics would be terrified that this is evangelism and maybe they were right But we've also reached so many more people. That's I mean there there's always it was Thomas soul is an economist love him said You know, there's no free or no, I think it was Freeman I think who said there's no free lunch, but so said there are only trade-offs Now whenever you institute a policy you're going to in order to get something you have to give up some such a true So in every decision we make there are trade-offs So I think we have to ask with social media, is the trade-off worth it?

And I think it is not worth it if, like for me, I would delete my account if I was just on there all the time. Or like I don't do debates on Twitter. I think that's incredibly unproductive. It's not helpful. Occasionally I do get sucked into a few, but I bow out very quickly because it's not a good use of my time. I try to go, I'll post something that I think is helpful, and especially I'll send people books to help them. But I think if you're wasting your time on social media, and use your Screen Time app, set a limit for yourself.

That is where I think you've gotta, it's just the same as if you were at the bar all the time, instead of being out in the real world with people alright So let me just kind of wrap this up sure I want to get a break and then come back and take people's questions But the original question was can you think or conceive of a social media that you would say it's actually worth us getting off this That's not like intrinsically wicked like pornography or something Or do you think no no I think the problem is if it's not intrinsically evil Then it would just be,

you would have to have a proportionate reason. And so it's hard for something to be so bad, I couldn't think of a proportional reason. I suppose if it was, I don't know, if the activity on there was just, it was just people? Objectifying others the most base instincts possible like like maybe there's a social media where all they do is they Vote on how cool a street fight is or how hot somebody is and that's all we do on this thing

I said there's little chats off to the side. I said I'd be like on this thing and there's little chats off to the side. I'd be like, nah, I can't be there. Even if I'm in the chat, like, you guys heard of Jesus? Look at him deck this guy and check out that hot babe. You guys heard of Jesus? Yeah. Who wants a free book? Yeah, like if I.

Okay, so there you go, that's a good answer. So you can think theoretically of a social media that isn't showing intrinsically evil things that you think, no, you know, at that point Catholics Catholics should bail. It just would be so unproductive if I'm not able to really engage people. But you don't think Twitter and TikTok are there yet.

I don't think they're there yet. It's kind of funny, it reminds me, we could have had this debate a thousand years ago. Actually, the ecumenical councils forbade Christians from being involved in jousting. So it's like, should we go to the fair and talk to people to invite them to come to mass? But there are jousts there, Matthew.

The joust has been condemned by the church and you're going to go to that place, invite people, they're heathens now. It's just like, they also said you couldn't use crossbows against fellow Christians. You could use them against Muslims, but you could not use a crossbow against a fellow Christian. On that note, we're gonna take a break and we'll be back to take some questions.

Thanks, Neil. Exodus 90. You've heard of them, haven't you, Neil? I have. Well, the guys behind Exodus 90 have started Exodus 21. They've called, they're calling it a 21 day restart. So for 21 days, you, along with the friends you invite, pray and read through the first two chapters of Corinthians while practicing disciplines such as 20 minutes of prayer every day Abstaining from unnecessary screen time that doesn't include points with the coin us obviously abstaining from meat on Fridays and fasting until 4 p.m On each weekday you can take this short opportunity to introduce your brothers cousins co-workers fellow parishioners and even your neighbors Be kind of weird if you didn't know them. Just assume they're Catholic and want to

torture themselves for 21 days on how to live like Christ and prepare them for Exodus 90 in days and then failed miserably. So Exodus 21 sounds super doable. You would have done great at this. Yeah, I would have crushed it, although probably because 21 days was the goal. I would have like faded out around the 11th day. I don't know. Exodus 90 dot com slash Matt. Go check him out to get started. People who have done it just says it really rejuvenates their prayer life and helps them. Exodus 90 dot com com slash Matt link is in the description.

Click it and check them out. And that starts January. You know, you can start whenever. Oh, so Exodus 90 is going to be starting in January. So this 21 day can be like a little test. But honestly, for me, I just do the 21 days. So you can do it whenever you want. Go check it out right now.

Exodus 90 dot com slash. Man, it's a great way to grow in friendship, too, with people in your community. Check them out. Also, I want to say thank you to Hello. Sorry. Hello is a really great prayer and meditation app. It is just phenomenal. Whenever I talk about Hello, I'm always impressed that a Catholic group has been able to create one of the greatest apps in the history

and catalog of current apps. It has sleep stories. It allows you to pray the rosary. It even has Mark Wahlberg praying the rosary. So you can pray with Mark Wahlberg, which is pretty cool. I just got back from a trip to Africa and I'm really bad at sleeping on airplanes. So I listened to sleep stories

and people read the Bible to you and stuff like that. It's really, really good. Hello.com slash Matt Fred. And also when you sign up on the website, you get three months for free. So if you just download the app and sign up that way, you got to start paying monthly. But you can try it for three months.

That's a long time. And you can see if you like it. And if you don't, you can cancel and you won't be charged a cent. Hello dot com slash Matt Fred. Finally, I want to say a massive thanks to everybody who's beginning to support us on Locals. Locals is a free speech platform that will enable me to continue putting out content

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Thanks so much. We do a hundred clips back and we're back. OK, thank you. All right. So we got some questions here. All right. From my very handsome and beautiful local supporters and patrons. Oh, we got to say something about Twitter before we go. I was just going to say, I want to make it clear that I think it can be a good thing if you or other people get off social media. Like, I don't think it's blameworthy. I totally understand that.

So but so I also see that there can be reasons for staying. So I see that it can go either way. Though I lean towards I do think that you do Honestly though if you had to give up anything, I would want you to give up Twitter Yeah, I like I'm be very strong. You should not give up you too. No, I'm not I'm not that one you do way too much. Yeah, but Twitter like for me I see Twitter and Facebook is way to share what I'm doing with like my podcast Yeah, so to give up YouTube by giving up your podcast and that's a good thing But a way but like the way to share what I'm doing with my podcast. So to give up YouTube, you're giving up your podcast,

and that's a good thing. But the way to tell other people about it, you have to pick and choose with that. Yeah. All right, so we've got some questions here. Patrick Lord says, the largest SSPX church in the world is being built near where I live. Would love to visit, but as a non-SSPX Catholic,

can I receive the Eucharist there? Well, the SSPX are in a status of canonical irregularity. So, so, you know, there, it's not, um, it's not schism, uh, but it's also not like the regular parish you would go to. So I would say to go and receive there, uh, you should have a good reason for going and you should, I would just take caution to make sure that in the things that I would ask, why would you go to receive there? I'm sure it's for good, like let's say you know a reverend

liturgy, okay that's a good thing. Just anywhere that you go, whether it's at a Nova Sordo, SSPX or wherever, just be wary of the not as good things that can be problematic there. And there are some problematic things there among the SSPX community. But because of that canonical irregularity, I would say you would need at least a good reason for going. But sorry, sorry. I got you off there. Heidi RC says Jordan Peterson in his message to Christian churches.

Do you watch that, by the way? Is it just me or is Jordan Peterson getting crankier? Clean your room. Don't be a lobster. But have you been watching the latest videos? You have a message to Christians. And I mean, I saw them a little bit being advertised, but I think it's kind of cool. You get to a point in life like you're always like, listen,

I'm just going to get cranky at this point. But right. OK, what about anyway? So in his message to the Christian churches, he emphasized that the churches need to invite more males into the congregations and to invite their participation. I tend to agree, says Heidi, but the message needs to come from masculine men themselves. First, you agree with his idea,

and second, how does the Catholic church go about doing something like that? I do believe that the church, especially the Latin writers, become less masculine over time. How do we help fix that? Let me respond real quick and then you can go ahead bigger answer I tend to agree with what she's saying Like I think there is a reason that Islam and some branches of orthodoxy tend to attract more men

than beige Catholicism because Catholicism can looks especially beige normie Which I've been accused of and I'm happy to be if I am because Catholicism can look especially beige normie, which I've been accused of and am happy to be if I am. Catholicism is, it's just like, well you don't have to fast today, or oh you're feeling a bit of a tummy ache, you don't need to do like, whereas you look at the Muslims, you see how they pray,

you see how they fast, and you think, well I want to give myself entirely to something that is gonna be difficult, and gonna take courage and fortitude, and if you don't see that, aren't going to be attracted to it. I think that's kind of funny though. I mean, I could throw a dig back and say, oh, so do you need to go to a faith where the reason you're so rigorous is because the faith demands it of you

or because the faith has made it an opportunity for you. That's kind of interesting. It's like, you know, wouldn't real manly virtue be that I pray the divine office and I pray a rosary each day because I want to, and I want to be strong in my faith, not because there's this explicit rule in a hadith or cantalaur or whatever

that makes it so rigorous for me. But there's something masculine about realizing you're a coward and needing to be called to something higher, which is why I think those fasts that are kind of demanded do appeal to the masculine spirit. There's something to be said with like doing it as a, like everybody does it seems to be.

Sure, and then I'm not saying that obviously it's good that we have, you know, we have things like the Lenten fast or the great fast, but this idea that, oh, it's, it's not, I guess I would want to know more like what is meant by it not being masculine enough. I agree with you. There is, there is a problem where men feel out of place in the church and wanting to give them that opportunity to beaver. I don't know. It's hard. I mean, I'll answer this stuff. I'm not an expert in like, how do we

fix the church? I don't know. I show that it's true. Everybody else can fix where we're not living everything, right? But men like to be called to difficult things. Yeah It's amazing like I don't know I it's a hard time if like a Men's group like I haven't found a men's group that like has really resonated with me because I don't want to kind of sit around Just talk about stuff like yeah, okay, I remember once I lived in Phoenix we went out and Prayed in front of a pornography store as a group of men Mm-hmm, and then one of the guys got really exuberant and went out into the parking lot to talk to someone and like eight police officers

on the scene And I still remember that. That's one of my most memorable times of being out with men. And it was in a situation where we're having a presence, there was an element of danger, kind of, or conflict. So maybe that, or praying in front of an abortion facility. And I'm not saying that men can only gather and protest. But I don't know, you're right.

Think of your example of jujitsu, right? Like you just said, would you rather be someone who goes somewhere where it's mandatory to train hard or do you want to be so manly that you go to like a, a kind of, you know, less than intense jujitsu place and you just do the training harder? He's like, no, you, you're aware that you're not who you should be and therefore require men who've who are advanced on this path to call you To that thing that they're doing that you're not yet doing I mean you said when you talked about jujitsu you went there because it seemed hardcore Right, and I think they also same thing

They also don't kick me out if I need to dial back a bit the first time I did jujitsu. I threw up Because I got because people are freaking choking you. And then I got pounded into the ground. You threw up on the mat. I made it. I made it to the bathroom. So what? Bless you for going back. That takes humility. It took a few months to get back.

I was like, I don't know if I'm up for this. And actually, what helped me was that was at a night class. So it was like eight o'clock at night. Yeah. And like, I'm already tired from the day. I just had three Wendy's burgers. Totally. You know, it's the trick with burgers. Just take the take the buns already tired from the day. I've just had three Wendy's burgers. Totally. You know what's the trick with burgers? Just take the buns off.

Oh yeah. The buns are what kill you. Take the buns off. So that's- That's a Michael Scott thing. Remember he gets that breakfast brought into him and he takes the bun and throws it away. Oh yeah, that's true.

So like to the jujitsu analogy, yeah like finding something where it's so soft that's like we're not even really doing anything. But also the other extreme is that it's so rigorous. Like quitting no water breaks. You'll be fine. Yeah, it's like, okay Now you're being inhuman and inflexible. So we have to find the balance there but to get More men involved, you know, it's funny. I feel like we really need in what I'd love to see more in churches I always hear people say Not just men but young men.

Like men in their 20s and 30s who are just starting out in their vocations. I always see people say, we need the youth. We need the youth at the church. Why aren't there more youth? And I'd say, how many youth are on the pastoral council? Like, it's always people who are, it's usually many times a lot of more elderly people

Who are in the parish leadership council? What about you know, you you want the youth but then if if young people want to do something different or to have leadership Within a parish community, they're they're locked out sometimes. Yeah, and so it's like well, do you do you really want them? So, I don't know. I think it's in What is it's in the movie flight of the Phoenix With its remake of an older movie a new role in Dennis Quaid where they are in a plane and it crashes in the Gobi Desert and there's a speech he gives they're trying to rebuild the plane to get out of there And he's like do you think this is gonna worry that speech you gave to get him to do something and the line is something like

If you can't give him something to believe in give him something to give a man something to hope for, if you can't give him something to believe in, give him something to give a man something to hope for. And if you can't give him something to hope for, give him something to do. And so this idea of purpose in life. Here's a good question from Mel. We spoke about the corruptionist view. Could you just sum that up real quick for those? Oh, yeah.

So that's is the question of do you survive death? The period when your soul leaves the body and then it returns again at the final resurrection. Do you survive during that period, which would be the survivalist view? Or do you stop existing? And the only thing that exists is your soul and your body. That would be the corruptionist view. So the question is, how does the corruptionist view answer to being able to ask saints to pray for us?

So if we don't exist after death, if something else exists, how do you square that with prayers to the saints? Yeah, that might be that that's a faculty or a property of their soul that they still have. By the way, I haven't done like a full scale investigation of the arguments for and against. But in looking at this, I think that we see that like we even look in the book of Revelation, it talks about the souls still retaining certain intellectual powers. So it talks about the soul. It says the souls of the martyrs cry out to God, you know, but not the martyrs cry out. It's like, it's the souls of the martyrs cry out to God, you know, but not the martyrs cry out. Interesting. It's like it's the souls of the martyrs that are that are there.

Interesting. What is kind of interesting in Revelation 12 that talks about the woman clothes with the son. I think that reflects a little bit more towards the bodily assumption of Mary. It doesn't just say this person's soul. Of course, that's not a knockdown argument. It's something I have a video on the assumption that's going to come out on August 15th. So, okay, would the would the idea be that if the corruption is few is correct and the person

doesn't survive, but their soul and body survive separately or in different states, if I'm praying to St. Anthony, who's hearing me and who's responding to me? Well, God is giving St. Anthony the ability to hear your prayer and make intercession. So it's St. Anthony. What is that? His soul. So I guess like to give the idea of like, what is the soul? I think Edward Faser gave this analogy of what the soul is. The soul is like a dog. If you cut off his legs and took out his eyes and tail and ears and you had this like yappy like nub Like it is a dog, but it's and it can still kind of do some doggy things

But it's severely hindered in its dogness And so we as human beings as a soul without a body We still have many of our human like traits, but we're still hindered though For example, like, you know when we learn about things it's because photons come in through our eyes We hear things through our ears with our bodies are the ways that we learn about things So if we don't have a body, yeah, and you're a soul It seems like God would have to infuse the knowledge directly into your soul. Yeah, and so we're kind of on crutches with God Yeah, I mean obviously God sustains everything, even our bodies. But in that respect,

it does seem like when you see in scripture and in the tradition, though it is disputed, well, no, it's not disputed. We are incomplete without our bodies. My worry about the survivalist view is that it can devolve into that the soul is the real you, the platonic view. You are your soul and it escapes your body. The body is a helpful accessory, but you are not your body. And so that also comes back, the corruptionist view often comes from people

who hold to animalism, which is that not just that, I don't just have a body, I am a body, I am an animal. That is what I am. So like when somebody attacks me, they haven't just attacked my body. They attacked me. You know, when I, I kissed my wife's forehead, I didn't kiss a part that my, my wife controls. I kissed my wife, you know, something like that. Will Smith didn't manipulate the husk, which wasn't him and threw it against the husk. That was not Chris Rock. Yeah. He didn't just slap Chris Rock, which wasn't him and threw it against the husk that was not Chris Rock.

Yeah. He didn't just slap Chris Rock's body that like he controls like second to Wilson with men in black, like you have a little alien controlling the body. Yeah. So, oh, here's a good question from Alex. He says, Trent, what are your three favorite video games of all time? This is basically free for all Friday, right? He says, totally three favorite.

Yeah. All right. Here are the, all right. I'm going to do the first Super Mario World, Super Nintendo. Three favorite. Yeah. All right. Here are the... All right. I'm going to do the first Super Mario World, Super Nintendo. I'll do two Super Nintendo's and a PlayStation. Super Mario World, Star Fox, the original Star Fox, because it had the super FX chip,

and I played those things nonstop. That was like fourth, fifth grade. Then like seventh, eighth grade, I played Metal Gear Solid on my PlayStation 1. And that blew my middle schooler mind that it was like this epic movie in a video game and I'm this super stealthy spy guy. So those, I think, I probably put those like my formative games, elementary, Super Mario World, Star Fox, middle school, Metal Gear Solid, and then finally getting more into college, maybe probably like Halo. What's your favorite, Neil?

Do you have one? Well, I was just thinking the one that came to mind is Civilization. Oh yeah, I love those kind of games. If I could think of the games I most enjoyed and played the most, even if I wouldn't necessarily play them now and rank them that way, I would probably say Warcraft II, Pandora Directive,

oh Red Alert was fantastic. Do you remember Red Alert? I didn't really play, it was like more a PC game. That's a PC game, I was more into PC games. We didn't have like super fast PC. Sometimes I like the idea of buying like a PS3 or 4 or whatever and I wanna play Red Dead Redemption. Have you played that?

I'm familiar with it, but I haven't played it. I haven't played it either. I watched my roommate in college, but it looks good. Part of me would love that and part of me would hate the fact that I might love that. Yeah, I guess the kind of games I like are not strategy based, but it's more just like reflex and shooting and just do you play games with your kids? Oh, yeah. Well, my Super Nintendo still works. That's good. From when I was a kid, I played a lot, too.

That would be another game that I played a ton and Tekken or Tekken 5. Yeah. Fatality. I watched the new Mortal Kombat recently. Oh, gosh. Very bloody. But it was funny and I wouldn't recommend not as good as the older Mortal Kombat. Mortal Kombat Annihilation still has one of the worst lines in movie history, which was mother, you're alive. Too bad you will die. That's very good.

It's so bad. Let's see. Nine solid says, Hi, Matt, I recently had a falling out with my brother over my beliefs. I love my brother, but him being gay, he takes issue with my stance on marriage. I ideally don't think it's something the state should be involved in, but do think the orbefell decision was wrong and Constitutionally when it came to light how I first sorry this is really long and I'm not reading it Well, he broke all contacts when he was the best of times

It was the worst times do you or Trent have any experience losing family members or close friends over beliefs? Regarding religious political opinions. Yeah. Yeah, I do. I mean, I have experience with that. When your core values are very important, especially now in this day and age, I think things are very politicized, that people often accuse Christians of like shunning people like, oh, I'm Christian, I can't be around these sinners. When actually it's a lot of people in the secular culture would say I can't be around you if you're not For a woman's right to choose or if you're not for equality Uh that what christians were accused of being closed-minded bigots who shun

Most often what I find it's finding these relationships It's not the it's the caricature in our modern world is that the christian You know shuns like like an amish person would. I'm not gonna talk to any of these sinners. When really what ends up happening is people don't wanna talk to us. And maybe we're being obnoxious and being holier than now, quite possible. But I think a lot of times they just don't like

that we have these views and that we're not in their tribe anymore. So I remember when I converted, for example, oh, this will be interesting actually. Next year is my high school reunion. I'm actually planning it right now. What year? It's 20th anniversary.

So. Oh my gosh, we're so old. I know. So I'm planning, well I was in student, I was the student body president. You're planning the reunion? Yeah, well I was the student body president. So I was like, okay, you know, and this is in Arizona.

Tray, would you mind pulling your mic down a little bit? Sorry, yeah. Oh, sorry about that. No, you're good. So I just took it on myself. Like I was involved in the 10 year. I'm like, oh, it'd be nice to have a 20 year. I'm not sure anyone else will do it.

So I'm putting that together. But I remember like when I converted, I had friends who were, half my friends were not catholic and we stayed friends even through college But you know, I I think it also used to grow apart as you you get into your vocations and stuff like that But I feel like one of the things that we would kind of grow apart with is that my core values were Were different. I still want to see people 20 years later see how they're doing but

Sometimes it's hard with friends and then family, yeah, I have family where we're not as close for that or for other reasons. And so I think what you should always try to do is just be gracious, extend the olive branch and just keep the door open for those people. This is what I was gonna say to this fella here, like don't let your brother be able to ever say honestly that you aren't the one graciously reaching out occasionally

and expressing your love and goodwill to him. Yeah. You know, even if he doesn't reciprocate. Yeah. All right. Let's have a look here. Mitchell Godfrey says, violence is permissible under some circumstances, such as self-defense and just wars. Why is violence never acceptable to protect the unborn? Ooh, how do you know? He says, I'm not suggesting it be option one, but more children died in the 50 years under road than in World War Two.

It seems disproportionate. I'll just briefly say, I'm not going to give you my opinion because YouTube would ban me. Go. Should we commit violence to protect the unborn? Yeah. Well, it's interesting what this person says. People, there are people who committed violence to protect the unborn.

And I would say, what was the fruit of what they did? So back in the early 1990s, so for example, back in the 80s, pro-lifers would take part in the rescue movement. So they would go and they would sit in at abortion facilities, and they would shut down the facility for the day. And what happened was that they would get arrested,

they'd be charged with trespassing, a misdemeanor, get a slap on the wrist, and then you're released. You know, misdemeanor, whatever. Or sometimes not even charged. And so they're doing a lot of good to be able to, and to me, that was civil disobedience. That I'm okay with that, they're not hurting anyone, they're just preventing this place from killing babies.

They're doing a sit-in. Martin Luther King Jr. did sit ins at segregated lunch counters. I think that's great. The problem was then in the early nineties, there were a series of abortion providers who were murdered by pro-life advocates. I think Dr. David Gunn was one of them who was, who was killed. And so those murders spurred Congress to pass what is called the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, the FACE Act. What the FACE Act did was it made it a felony

to block an abortion facility. So now, and then the rescue movement died out after that. Because it's one thing to go sit in a place and get a trespassing charge, whatever. But to go and become a felon, to lose, you know, you always put that on your employment history, you lose your right to vote. You know, you lose a lot of ability to get meaningful employment. The cost was too high for most people at that point. So I would ask this person, like, what is, what do you mean violence to protect the unborn? What do you really mean? Like, what do you mean? We're all just going to

get our guns and what are we going to do? We're going to shoot every, we're going to shoot abortion providers. Then what? All those people go to jail. Are we going to do a second civil war? You know, is the cost worth it or look what we've accomplished by being patient. The pro-life movement is one of the most peaceful social justice movements of all time. If you think about it, I've read liberal articles from pro-choice liberals saying they're amazed at how peaceful pro-lifers are,

given that they believe human beings are being killed. So the question is, is it permissible versus what's the most helpful thing? And that's what it sounds like you're responding to. Yeah, I would say, I mean, there could be circumstances where a person would use violence to protect another person. You know, obviously in cases of self-defense. But what I'm saying here is that there are, it would be permissible if there were no other

avenues, but there are other avenues. And we, and we've proven that by now in Texas for example I don't have an abortion facility to pray at yeah and we did that through peaceful means that that work and so as long as we have so I would say that is violence ever permissible well if the government said we're gonna keep abortion legal by taking away your freedom of speech by taking away your freedom of speech, by taking away your right to bear arms, by surveilling you and by basically repealing the Bill of Rights to ensure that we have all these things. Then if one's freedoms were severely taken away and you're essentially put

into a police state, then one has to go through the just war criteria to see if, if revolution would be necessary, but it should be done, obviously in a thorough logical way. But I would say that we're, we're nowhere near that that we have made these gains through peaceful legal means. We should be proud of that. And we should continue that. Here's something I've been interested in. If the Supreme court can overturn Roe versus Wade, is it just a matter of getting enough leftists on the Supreme court such that in

20, 50 years, maybe Roe versus Wade or something like that would be restated? That dogs overturn. Yeah. Is it going to be like a game of ping pong at this point, depending on who we have on the Supreme court? I'm not sure because here, here's what's interesting. The Dobbs versus Jackson decision that allows abortion. It's sort of like another decision. Uh, it was in 1999 called Washington versus Glucksburg.

That was a case about assisted suicide. So in a state, I think it was Washington, there were people suing saying that there's a right to kill yourself, right? There's a right to doctor-assisted suicide. And the Supreme Court said, no, there is no right to doctor-assisted suicide. Now, so there's no right to it. The state can allow it or the state can prohibit it.

So that's kind of what we, that's what we have for abortion right now. The state can allow it or can prohibit it. And so now, even though our culture has changed, I don't think we're anywhere near the court So that's kind of what we, that's what we have for abortion right now. The state can allow it or can prohibit it. And so now, even though our culture has changed, I don't think we're anywhere near the court coming in and saying, guess what? You have to allow assisted suicide or things like that. So I don't know if it would come to that point later on in the future for the, for the court

to do it through, like to sue, to say that there's this, there's right to abortion. I think more people are, they're going to try to do like a federal statute to codify Roe v. Wade into federal law, which would accomplish the same thing, but using legislators instead of judges. And but that's why in the wake of Dobbs versus Jackson, now what I'm grateful for is that for a long time, I would hear people like state senators.

I'm pro-life. Like, well, what have you actually done for the pro-life movement? But now it's like, oh, now you actually can vote for things that can happen. Now your pro-life claim can be, we can hold you accountable for that. What did the fellow, is it Abbott, who's your governor? Greg Abbott. What did he do recently? Didn't he declare it to be a public holiday to celebrate?

That was the attorney general. When Dobbs came down, I think he declare it to be a public holiday to celebrate? That was the attorney general. When Dobbs came down, I think he closed his office. He said that the Texas ban on abortion is now in effect. And I'm declaring Dobbs versus Jackson a state holiday. That's wonderful. Yeah. So that's why we moved to Texas. I like my. Do you think that the blue and red states are just going to continually grow stronger, redder and bluer? I like Matt Wals Do you think that the blue and red states are just going to continually grow stronger, redder and bluer?

I like Matt Walsh's point that civil war is unlikely to happen given that we're all fat, lazy cowards and there's no wifi on the fields of battle. So, uh, presuming that's true and there is no civil war. What do you see happening in America over the next 50 years? Yeah, what do I, well, I don't know. I worry, I worry about keep people getting dumber and more apathetic, myself included. I don't want to just get lazier and sucked into just easy things to make me happy. I worry about the discourse getting more polarized, tribal.

It's hard to believe it could become any more polarized, isn't it? It can, I know, but it's hard to believe. No, we look at countries where civil order is broken down. But America is still a real light of, of freedom that we can have these robust debates and it doesn't devolve into violence. And if violence does, if violence does happen though, that's an anomaly, not the norm. You look at other, you know, we, we really, we're very blessed to live in, I don't know, I feel

like, you know, we win the lottery. I love living in this country. So this is obviously, you should be patriotism, not nationalism, support what is authentically good in your country. And if something's not good, call it to make it better and acknowledge that. But yeah, what'll happen? I don't know. I do see things, you know, now with like telework and things like that since the pandemic, it does seem like people have a lot of freedom to, like that's allowed, like now with this technology, like I don't have to live in California, I can be in Texas.

I think more people are going to find that freedom and want to travel to those places. You're still connected with folks in California where we both used to live. Did you find that there was a mass exodus during the BLM riots and stuff? Most of our friends left. One of the reasons I left, yeah, there was, there was a riot, Matt, one mile from our home. They burnt down two banks and the police abandoned the area.

And I was watching on YouTube to see if they were going to come into our neighborhood. And I was ready to put our kids in our van and just drive through whatever I had to to get them out safely. It was a mile from my home. And they were looting, rioting, two banks were set on fire and the fire department never came to put them out. So I mean it was, and that's when I was like, no, no thank you.

And now where I live, I couldn't imagine that happening. You can't. No, absolutely can't. Do you think Dallas and Texas as a whole is going to become bluer as people flock there? Oh, you mean people, bluer or redder? Oh, Democrat. Blue is Democrat.

Oh, so that's what I mean. Yeah, so when I say more blue, that's what I mean. Yeah, I don't know. So you've got people coming in from California, New York, and you see these signs. Don't New York, my Texas. But I think a lot of people who do move there, move there for that moved. A lot of people who move to Florida or Texas

move there specifically for something that is different for a political climate. And I hope so. I mean, the fact of the matter is that we're always going to have political differences and that should be OK. It should be okay for us. And I'm okay with Catholics who have very liberal politics or very conservative politics.

Like, I'm a mixed bag. Just don't deny what the church teaches. And in areas where we have liberty, apply your prudential judgments in different ways, but we should be able to get along with one another despite our differences. Do you think Trump's gonna run again? If he does, it'll be huge, tremendous.

I hope he doesn't, but I fully expect him to. Clint Collins, Clint's real name is Clinton. Do you love time travel as a subgenre? Why or why not? Oh, in like science fiction? Yeah. I think time travel is super interesting, but there's all different kinds of time travel you can use in fiction and literature. So yeah, I like it because you can play around

with it a lot. So there's the classic, you know, going back in time, coming forward, or going to the future and back. There's the movie Frequency, which is about sending a message back. So someone, it's about a kid who gets his ham radio aligned with a solar flare, and he can then communicate.

He communicates in frequency with Dennis Quaid and I think Jake Gyllenhaal. Is he good? Oh yeah. Oh my gosh. So he's an adult and his ham radio aligns with a, what do you call it, solar flare. And he can communicate with the ham radio

in his dad's house 40 years earlier. So he talks to him in real time and his dad died in a fire. So he say he gets his dad to not die in the fire and it changes his present. Well, and then it so it's most time travel. We saw you got to reset your brain because there's there's paradoxes that they ignore. But I do think it's I do think it's really interesting genre. Yeah. When you need to go, I don't want to keep. Oh, usual. What's that?

Jim Caviezel, not Jim Caviezel. Jalen Hall. Yeah, it was. But you can see how I could mistake that. You can see how I could mistake that it was Jake Jalen Hall. If you look at the picture. So, yeah, Jim Caviezel and Dennis Wade. J.J. Lennal is in a time travel movie, I think.

I think it's one where he ends up on a train a bunch to stop a bombing. You can look that one up to. Yeah. When do you need to go? It's 1217. I think I think they want one where he ends up on a train a bunch to stop a bombing. You can look that one up too. Yeah. When do you need to go? It's 1217. I think I think they want me there at 130. Okay. When do you want to go? I don't want to keep you longer than you want to go in this fun.

Asking this on air. That's super fun. I do want to grab a bite to eat. It was to I want to Steubenville's finest eateries. I don't like it. You're crapping on Steubenville. Why did I say that? I said I had one of its finest eateries.

Yeah. What's the best way to find speaking engagement, engagements of Trent so we can attend, says Michael Jr. There's a calendar at Catholic Answer Speakers dot com. And I think they put my talks on there. Emma says, Trent, when you're not reading apologetic books, what are your favorite fiction books? I haven't read my fair. I wish I had a fiction book.

I'll probably write one before I read one. I just don't have the time. Let's see here. Did it do Jack one nine says, first of all, thank you to both of you. My wife and I entering our CIA, this for largely impacted both of you. I am. I also am one of the fabled 12 people Trent has mentioned who has what's the saints never said. Yes. As far as questions,

I have received some pushback from friends and family on some universalist dish sounding comments made by Bishop Barron and Pope Francis. Do you have any advice on squaring Jesus being the way, the truth and the light? And some of the comments around an atheist who is genuinely following their conscience can be saved. That idea. Yeah. So broad topic. I have a podcast where I talk about universalism. Just look on my

website. It's what is universalism and what is hopeful universalism? Though I don't think Bishop Baron likes that term hopeful universalism for his view, which is also called the dare we hope view. But my basic thing I would say is look When you read in scripture the reality of hell seems to be a real reality for people and it's not a purgatory It's a legitimate concern and we should not confuse We should pray that anyone hoping for the salvation of anyone is not equivalent to hoping to the salvation of everyone So I think we just have to just affirm, look, anyone, God wants all to be saved, anyone can go to heaven if they cooperate with God's will based on the knowledge and

revelation they were given. So we pray for them, but we just don't have a false hope that they'll be saved. So I mean, because the Bible and the church's warnings about it, it just seems pretty explicit to me. Even Hans Erzvon Balthasar, who did the dare we hope view, he said, uh, the judge has the cards to which we're not privy, but like they really can, the cards can show that we are, that we're not saved. Very good. Jesse says, do you think Pope Honorius can condemn nation as a heretic by the Sixth Council,

I think, and by several popes affects the doctrine of the indefectibility of the Roman See or show that the early church has a more moderate view of the pope than that given at Vatican One? Thanks, Jesse. No, I don't think so. I would recommend people this is for a quick question. I'm not going to get into the whole context. My book, The Case for Catholicism, mentions the situation of Pope Honorius, but this dealt with a controversy that

had not been dogmatized at that point, the question of Christ's two wills, and also with a letter he wrote to an individual patriarch, not something for the entire church. So the condemnations of Honorius dealt with him failing to prevent the spread of heresy or failing to do what is right rather than committing outright heresy. So no, I don't think so. Eric Musick says, hey Trent, I admire Americans specifically who are willing to move around to follow their dreams or work. Curious, what's your best advice to someone trying to find God's will in their

life? Pray and be willing to take a risk, uh, to find God's will in their life. There is father Michael Scanlon had a, well, actually I guess I would recommend just getting a few books on that. You got to be careful of waiting. Like if I don't get the right answer, I'm not going to act cause it's not God's will. We also don't want to do something patently stupid and say it's God's will when it isn't. So you need to be careful. Those are the two extremes I would worry about, inaction

and jumping off a cliff. So that requires prudence. So I would recommend Father Gregory Pine's book, Prudence, Living Boldly. I can't remember the subtitle, but it's Prudence by Father Gregory Pine. Father Michael Scanlon, I think has a book called what does God want? That's also super good Nick Walker says what is your favorite evidence one from scripture and one from the Church Fathers? For the papacy by the way both of you were part of the reason for my conversion in March glory to Jesus Christ Thanks for sharing that I mean so evidence for the papacy if you don't mind scripture and one of the church fathers or some church fathers. It's hard to pick a favorite

because people might think that I mean like that's the. Strongest. That's the strongest, yeah. But there are some that I just find to be intuitive. I don't know, I do think that Peter's being given the keys. I still think Matthew 16, 18, as much as Protestants have launched various counterarguments to it, I still think it Peter's being given the keys, I still think Matthew 16, 18, as much as Protestants have launched various counterarguments to it,

I still think it's a very strong verse. To me, I think what is most fair is to say, let's compare that to the verse that is used for Protestant authority. Like if we had a Matthew 16, 18, but if Jesus had said, this is scripture, and upon this rock I will build my church Upon this upon the word I shall build my church and the gates not prevail against it

We'd never hear the end of it like that would outstrip second Timothy 3 16 through 17 so sometimes I feel like when Protestants are critical of Catholic biblical texts, like, oh, that doesn't prove the papacy. Okay, well, let's apply the same standard. Like, could, how do I, and I think even there are Protestants who will be honest about this,

who say the Bible does not teach Sola Scriptura. It's something you infer as a logical principle. I would say, well, you have a problem here. Your verses, like, are nowhere near as forthright about something like Sola Scriptura. So once again, I want to bring up, and that's not too coquette, it's that this standard must not be as bad for my biblical proof because you accept less for your own doctrines. So that's something comes to me. As for history, I mean, I always try to look for things, you know, kind of early on.

One example I like to bring up, Pope Victor exercising his authority in the second century. When a lot of people are skeptical there was any papal supremacy and excommunicating a group of churches on celebrating Easter. And people said it wasn't prudent. He was making a gaffe, but they didn't doubt his authority to do that. It seems very interesting that seeing that bishop, having that particular authority over other churches and Ignatius of Antioch, having authority over churches in Asia Minor, but then just saying

a million nice things about Rome as if it's it's superior. We have a super chat here from Sam M. He says, I was raised Protestant, but the teaching of Peter Crafter has gotten me to look deeper into the truths of Catholicism. How do I learn more about basic teaching protocol with mass purpose of the rosary? Where can I learn more? OK, so that's more learning more because normally I would tell someone go to the catechism.

And if that's too thick of a book, the compendium of the catechism. But a book on like. know it's funny I think a friend of mine I knew a while ago was gonna write a book I think it's like on how to be Catholic I'm not sure there is a book like that out there that would be a good one to do you where I'm not aware of a book that's like here's how to be Catholic like all the stuff we do I'm not aware of one like that no my advice for what it's worth would be there are many devotions within the church's treasury.

Choose only a few and be faithful to them. Because I would imagine that when a Protestant becomes Catholic, they are overwhelmed by the multiplicity of devotions that are at your disposal and you could quickly burn yourself out. So, um, I wrote a book on the rosary. I forget what it's called. It's like a little leather book on the rosary. Ascension presents published it. That might be a good way to learn how to pray the rosary. I forget what it's called. It's like a little leather book on the rosary. Ascension presents published it. That might be a good way to learn how to pray the rosary better. But yeah.

OK, let's see. We have another couple of super chats. Dojo goes, as I recently discovered your channel a few weeks ago. Thank you so much for promoting great Catholic content. You're welcome. Zzz says I came back to the church 11 days ago. Where can I find precise definitions of the articles of our faith? Is Denzinger the way to go? Denzinger is fine.

That's more of a reference work, though. That can be. That's not really that easy of a read. Probably the classic work on that would be Ludwig Ott's fundamentals of Catholic dogma when it comes to the different levels of teaching, though that's also a thicker work. I'm trying to think of something more intermediate. They're asking about the list of the teachings or the weight of them? Yes, asking about the precise definitions of the articles of our faith.

Precise definitions. I know Scott Hahn has a book on the Creed. So that might be another start if you want just kind of introduction. But I would start with with with those like looking at books that cover the Creed, for example, moving out from there. I want to apologize to everybody who's been asking questions on, you know, super chat and locals, I'm not going to get to them all. Maybe we'll do one more question. This comes from Maria. Hi, Matt. Question for Trent.

When talking about faith and apologetics, when is it cowardly to avoid the topic with others? Context. Place where I'm from used to be very religious, but people I work with from younger generations know OF of the faith without knowing much about it and are really prejudice and against anything Catholic. I usually intervene when they mention things

that are completely untrue, but generally avoid the subject, especially when they are openly mocking anything religious. I thought I was being prudent, but then there's this thin line between prudence and cowardice. It's so true. Yeah.

Just like there's a thin line between courage and foolhardy. There is a thin line between temperate and mealy mouth. You know, it's the virtues, you're always walking kind of a fine. It's not like the virtues is like a, like a triangle, like walking on it, it's, you know, you can get your grip here, but it's easy to slide down to one side. That's good.

So that triangle one's better than what Aristotle came up with. Well done. Better than Aristotle. Boom. Trent Horn. It's going to be in your biography. One day on pines with the quietness, Matt Fred said I was better than Aristotle. Trent Horn. It's gonna be in your biography. One day on Pines with a Gwiness, Matt Fred said I was better than Harrison.

Oh, goodness. Yeah, so when it comes to Tuesday, it is gonna be a judgment call. I think you have to ask yourself a question, why am I not saying anything? And if it's because I'm worried about how I will look, then it might be leaning towards cowardice. If the concern is it's not going

to be overall helpful for this person, like if they're just not in the mood to talk about this right now or they've made that clear, I think what can help us get around this fear is using a Socratic approach. In fact, in my, there's a recent book, Wisdom and Wonder, The Apologetics of Peter Craift that Brandon Vought has put in the anthology. A bunch of us wrote tributes to Peter Craeft. And I wrote about, oh, sorry, there's two books. One is that, the other is from Word on Fire, called The New Apologetics by Matt Nelson,

and a bunch of us wrote about how apologetics has developed. And I wrote a chapter in there on Socratic apologetics. Like, asking people questions is- you're very good at that. But it also it makes you less scared to do it. It's because I'm just I'm just asking a question. I just want to know. And then it's not you trying like, hey, have you thought about doing, you know, let me tell you about why I believe in Jesus and you should, too.

And it's like, what would you ever want to come to church with me? What do you think about the church right now? No, I'm just curious what you think. And that's it. I think it works if you're actually curious and are not trying to pummel them with questions in that negative. Cause some people think the Socratic method is like a lawyer and cross examination. And there's a point to do that. But you should start with a lot of just gathering information.

Yeah. Yeah. Sweet man. Well, this was fun. Time flew, man. Yeah. I love having you on the show. Um, you've talked about three books you put in out. I always point people to your book, uh, why we're Catholic. That's an excellent book. That's probably my favorite book cause it's done the most good. Like I think it's really helped a lot of people. And it amazed me when I wrote it. Like there just wasn't like prior to why we're

Catholic. It's always funny. I always see this online It's like what book do you recommend giving to someone who's thinking of being Catholic? And it's funny sometimes like I see different references like I'll see the summa theologia I'm like nice, please don't might be might be a bit of a start They even like the catechism or you're like Augustine's confessions. I'm like they all have merit to them Yeah, but there wasn't like, here is an, I wanted to write something that was like mere Christianity for C.S. Lewis.

Like an easy read to give to people to help them understand. Prior to that, Matt, the book, the only book I could think of prior to writing Why We're Catholic was Rome's Sweet Home by Scott Hahn. I don't know what else, like, prior to writing Why We're Catholic, I said like- No, you brought that up to me

back before you wrote the book. You said, can you think of a book? And I said, well, Rome Sweet Home was the best I could come up with. That's what everybody was giving everybody. Yeah. But it wasn't as comprehensive an introduction as this book. I mean, this if you're an atheist, if you're a Muslim, if you're Protestant, this would kind of take you from nothing and show you why Catholics believe what they believe. That's right. So that's my favorite and always love giving away to people.

Hey, let's do this before we wrap up. What are some of your favorite Catholic YouTube channels? Maybe some that are somewhat obscure that people haven't heard of yet. Oh, my goodness. Favorite. This is bad. I'm going to be back to you on the spot. I know, because when I'm on YouTube, I watch like Road Guy Rob on civil engineering or I'll say a few.

Those are great. They are really good. Why do they build culverts? But I mean, I'm familiar with, oh goodness. See, I'm cheating because I have a computer in front of me. I know you are. Well, there's this young girl who I find very articulate and just very good at recording videos, the religious hippie.

Oh yeah, I have seen some of hers. So people should check her out. I'm gonna have her on the show soon, actually, the religious hippie. Oh, yeah, I have seen some first. So people should check her out. I'm going to have her on the show soon, actually. The religious hippie. And then I love what Michael Lofton has been doing. Oh, yeah, I was going to say, of course, reason, reason. And he's not the only reason. And actually, oh, I have an episode coming out

next week, next Thursday about how to be, how to become a Catholic apologist. And in that episode, I do talk about a series of YouTube channel. And I talk about how to be how to become a Catholic apologist. And in that episode, I do talk about a series of YouTube channel and I talk about how to be Catholic. You just have to go and do it. Yeah. Get on YouTube, give it a shot and go for it. And one of the channels I mentioned is Reason and Theology. I think Michael's got his head on his shoulders. I like about I like many things about him.

But one thing I really like was he did a video yesterday about why he stopped pope bashing. And I thought that takes humility. This is why I stopped bashing Pope Francis with Michael Lofton. And there he says, like, I'm not saying you can't criticize bishops or priests or even the pope, but I did this and here's why I did it. And here's why I regret it. I said, when anybody does anything like that, it shows humility.

My other favorite Catholic channel is Capturing Christianity. I think that's converted more Catholics than Pines with a Guiness. Cameron is a wonderful individual. I've really enjoyed cooperations with him. It's so funny, the last two conference events he's put on, I've ended up stepping in to do the debates at them. Yeah, I did.

I'm hoping he'll upload it soon. I had another chat with Alex O'Connor. Oh, good. I hope that gets uploaded. Yeah, it'll upload it soon. I had another chat with Alex O'Connor. Oh good, I hope that gets uploaded. Yeah, it should be uploaded soon, but Cameron's done a good job of bringing the Catholic Protestant issues up on his channel and of showcasing really good Catholic thoughts. So I am really appreciative of the work he does.

How was it meeting Alex O'Connor? Because the first time you debated him was on my channel two or something, two and a half years ago. He's tall, is he? Oh my gosh, yeah. When you see someone only on YouTube, you think they're like three inches tall, or two or something two and a half years ago. He's tall. Is he? Oh my gosh, yeah. When you see someone only on YouTube, you think they're like three inches tall,

but he's like six one. Three inches. Yeah. But and Joe Schmidt too, cause he was there also from Majesty of Reason. Oh yeah, I want to do a collaboration with Joe in the future. That's the one debate that's taken place on my channel

where I thought my guy lost. I mean, there are certain debates where I don't have a quote unquote guy, like when you and Jacob debated, I think it was just like chatting about something that I'm open to going one way or the other. But when he debated Gregory pine, probably Gregory lost that debate. Hmm. Interesting. And it was like, ah, well, uh, which is fine.

Joe is very good at assembling a lot of arguments and putting them forward. He he's very logical and analytical in his approach. And so if one is not prepared. He's also super, what's the word? You don't expect a lot. He just has this baby face, like, hey there! Like kind of jokey, laid back attitude. And then you're like, oh no,

this guy's like an intellectual samurai. People used to say that I was like a baby and a little kid, and now they just say I'm tired. I look tired. That's what happens. It's brutal, isn't it? On YouTube, people are always like, why do you need to get more sleep? You need to be more polite. Right. Hi, deaf cameras. Yeah, I think they emit a radiation that makes me look tired.

I couldn't look that bad. That's so funny. So when are you taking this three week off like tomorrow or? August 1st on August 1st. I got a this weekend. I'll speak at the conference. I'm gonna finish up some last-minute I'll have a video on the assumption a rebuttal video So that'll be I'll be doing some I have some episodes airing next week and then also just taking some time off Maybe a bonus episode one of the weeks and then I'll have a rebuttal on the assumption and other great content coming out. But yeah, for the first part of August, I'm excited. I just want to spend some time work on my baby face and beatbox or comic book.

Maybe other fun stuff. Who knows? You know, you're going to live vicariously through your character, baby face, since apparently you no longer have one. Is that it? I could be young again. How dare you? I could be young again too. If you could debate anyone on any topic, what would it be and who would it be against?

Debate anyone on. This is what always happens on points for the quietest rise. We're wrapping up. That's when the interview starts. I'm so sorry. I know this, but like, I can't have you thought about it or that you don't want to. Oh, I don't know. I'd love to. Well, we have. No, we have. We have an event.

I mean, I'd love to just debate Richard Dawkins on atheism because he refuses to debate anybody. Well, he had to be John Lennox, he did that a little. But that's always like, hey, you started this big thing and now I want you to see what all of the powerful, even many atheists I deal with now would say, no, his case doesn't work at all. And I'd like people to see that.

Yeah. Good. All right. Thanks everybody. I want to let everybody know that we have a brand new Pines for the Quinus website, pineswithaquinus.com. Go check it out. We're now doing four or more blogs, blog posts a week. It's, it looks really sharp. We put a lot of work into it.

Go check it out, pineswithaquinus.com. Subscribe if you haven't and ring that bell and be sure to go check out Trent's podcast. We have a link in the description below. It's called The Council of Trent. It's excellent. Your videos are really good. Thank you very much.

Thanks for the work you're doing for the church. Absolutely. Cool. We should mention Locals too. Mattfrad.locals.com.