Predictive History - The Story of "Civilization", "Secret History", "Game Theory" and more - Dante #2: Paradise Cantos 5-7

Episode Date: August 22, 2026

Watch on YouTube: https://link-to-youtube.s.gy/dante02

Good morning. We are live. So we read your comments yesterday and there are three concerns. The first, the major concern is a sound quality. So Carol and our team are fixing that. Second is that there are parts of the video missing because of network issues. And so what Carol and our team are going to do. do is upload the complete version later today or whenever it's ready. And the third issue is the quality of the resolution, the resolution quality. Unfortunately because it's a live stream, we have to lower the resolution in order to make it more smooth, but we will upload a higher quality version later on, okay? So thanks so much to care on our team for making this possible. And so we are going to continue to the line call me today.

But before I begin, are there any questions or concerns from yesterday? Yes? So yesterday we got to canto four and five. Five. Five. My point is we were over for it. And in four I had this really big question. So in Kent of four, they show themselves to you here, not because this is their sphere,

but as a sign for you that in the inferior, their place is lowest. So what I take this section to me is that even though there's no difference in accommodations, so like there's a five-star hotel, there's a four-star hotel, and everyone goes to the five-star hotel. However, there is a difference in prestige as in their place, its lowest. So my question is, if there is no difference in accommodations, then why does God divide them into casts of prestige? Okay, great question, okay? So, first of all, we are beyond time and space. So everything is together. It's complete unity, unison, okay? Doesn't make sense. That's point one. Point two is that everyone is with God in the Imperium.

That is what is in reality. But to make it comprehensible to Dante and to us, Beatrice has constructed the heavens visually in a hierarchy. And then what is this hierarchy? This hierarchy is the amount of God that you receive in your soul. So you are all in heaven. You're all with God with a certain souls that are able to receive the light of God greater than other souls. And that is what the hierarchy is like. The closer you are to God, the more you are able to receive his light.

the more you are in communion with God. And what differentiates your ability to absorb God is your understanding of your relationship with God. Okay? So Ricardo is in the lowest sphere because she thinks that she is unworthy of God. She is unequal to God. Therefore, she must obey God. but that's not what God wants.

God is all forgiving, all generous. He wants to come into you and become you. So you must welcome him. Ricardo is like, I'm not worthy God. I am just a mortal. Okay. And so what's happened is she's placed herself further from God because she thinks she's not worthy enough to be close to the God.

Okay? Doesn't make sense. Okay, so that's what it is in reality, but for us to better understand this, they've constructed a hierarchy of spears. And each spear has its own distinct characteristics, as we'll see as we go along. All right. Any more questions or yes? Okay, so I was just rereading canto one to four. And there was a couple of lines in canto two that caught my attention because at least, least I found them to be very interesting, so I'm going to read it out to you guys. So from line

23 to 25, it should be, but in a span, perhaps no longer than an arrow takes to strike, to fly, to leave. So ideally, I think the right order is first for the arrow to leave the bow to fly and then to strike. So why does Dante kind of like intentionally reverse this order in during this part of the text. Okay. So first of all, we are beyond time and space, meaning that what's happening here in maybe our universe is just one second or less than that. Okay? So everything's happening at once. And so he's trying to show you the speed at which things are happening.

Okay, can you explain that? I actually need, I don't have access to the line. Let me go up first. Oh, it's in canto two from line 23 to 25. Line 23 to 25. Line 23 to 25. Okay, can you read again? But in a span, perhaps no longer than an arrow takes to strike to fly to leave the boat.

I reached a place where I could see that something wonderful drew me. So I'm just like interested why Dante is reversing the order that. Typically an arrow shoots out from a bowl because it should be first it leaves the bowl, then it flies, then finally it strikes. Okay. So this is poetry and there are different conceptions. Okay. But I think what he's doing is he's collapsing time.

Does that make sense to you? Because as you say, the proper sequence of events is you first leave the bowl, then you fly, then you hit your target, right? But then he's saying, I first hit my target, then I fly, then I leave. So I take this to me the collapse of time. Does that make sense to you? Yes, we are in a place where time and space has collapsed altogether. Yeah, so there's no time and there's no space. Right.

So there are, the most basic interpretation is that this is happening so fast that it's beyond perception. You understand? Because what we're seeing, it's human perception, right? It's the human logic. And what he's saying is that this happening so fast, it's even beyond my perception. But another way to interpret this is it's half, it's beyond your perception because it's collapsing time and space.

Okay. Does it make sense, guys? Can I offer? Yes, absolutely. Yesterday, you put on your board where there's a will, there's a way. And so in a way, this reverse order kind of enunciates the importance of the aim and the goal first. and then goes backwards. And yes, chronologically, it's different,

but it's the, you know, this is inspired by commentary here too. It's kind of how things actually happen, because where there's a will, there's a way, and you start with the goal first, the end first, and then everything else proceed. Okay. That's beautiful. Thank you. Yes.

Yes, okay, so again, there are multiple explanations, right? Good. Okay. Yes? So I hope to add to that because as I was, as I was biking home last night, I was listening to a book on Einstein and the narrator connected it to Dante just coincidentally. And Einstein's working with space and time. And he had this kind of quip that said, time is what prevents everything from happening at once. And then they said, much like Dante's Paradise, where everything can and does happen at once. It didn't pull that line. up specifically, but I think that's the answer that Einstein came up with. Yes. You know, I want to add to this point and point out that the greatest scientists, they were first and foremost poets. They were the ones who were willing to imagine a new reality, people like Newton and Einstein. So this is something that we've forgotten, where before science was driven by the imagination,

by intuition, by poetry. by the occult, by a desire to be closer to God. And now we've broken science into these logical processes that are compartmentalized. That's why, honestly, for the past 70 years, we've accomplished nothing, okay? We've had no 70 breakthroughs for these past 70 years. Okay, so thank you for that. Any more questions before we begin? Yes?

This is more of a conceptual question. So yesterday you emphasized to us repeatedly the importance of imagination and intuition. Now, according to my limited understanding, one of the criticisms of the Middle Ages is that it relied too much on mysticism and unreason. So if Dante is like almost a representative or a pioneer of the Renaissance, which is characterized in opposition to the Middle Ages, which must therefore be comprised of reason and light of reason and rationality, why is Dante's work, why does Dante's work emphasize intuition and imagination in such a way? Okay, so we'll talk about this today, but Dante is very much a revolutionary. He's going to respond to the limitations of his time and period. And his major concern is that the Catholic Church is involved in geopolitics, meaning that the Catholic Church is trying to be the empire.

And he doesn't like that because it obviously creates a lot of problems. It creates a lot of wars. So, Donnie's primary concern is that as an empire, the Catholic Church is not focused enough on spirituality, not focused enough on mysticism, on the occult. It's more focused on temporal power, on getting people to obey them. And that's what's limited the imagination of medieval Europe, okay? So we'll discuss us more this morning. But does that answer your question for now? Okay, because our conception of the Middle Ages is almost anachronistic, okay?

We're looking at it from our lens, okay? But in my economy, we're seeing it from Danty's lens. All right. Question? Yeah, yeah. So one like overall question maybe for the book as well is just I still don't really understand how he came up with all of this. Like did he came to him like in a dream? Was it like multiple dreams and then he wrote them down? Yeah. Like did he just imagine it on his desk like sitting on his desk or like walking in a park or something like I like how was it so.

And then so in-depth as well, like, I don't understand that. Okay, so there are two major themes today. The first major theme is Dante's revolution against the Catholic Church. Okay, what are, what are concerns about the Catholic Church and what is he trying to change about the Catholic Church? Okay, that's the first major concern. Second major concern is how did he write this? Because this is a time about computers. This is a time where pen and paper,

are not that accessible, okay? And he published it, he published first the inferno in the purgatory, then Paradise. But you read the Define Comedy, it is pretty coherent, okay? It's almost like he first went everything down, then he shaped all three parts to be coherent together to flow seamlessly. But we know for a fact, that's how it happened. So the major question is, how are you able to, even before you write anything down, how are you able to structure in a way that is mathematically perfect?

Right? So something that we will not quite discuss, but something that we should discuss more is the mathematics, the numerology of the divine comedy, where there are three sections. The first section is 34 cantos, Second section is 33. Third section is 33. That's 100. Also, the number 33 has a lot of occult meaning because 33 is the age when Jesus died. 33 has a lot of occult significance. So this is like really weird. How is able to, even before we wrote anything down, mathematically concede the entirety.

of the Divine Comedy. And this is something that we will address throughout these two weeks because it's really a question of what really is our connection to the divine. Okay? So something that I will argue to you today is that

Donte could have only written this if God exists. Okay? If God doesn't exist and randomness is what rules the universe, there's no way you could have written this. It makes absolutely no sense. Only if he is able to channel God, the monad, the source, whatever you call it, is he able to write this down?

And when we really try to understand divine harmony, you will see that within it is divinity itself. Okay? So this is a question, that is the fundamental question we're trying to address these next two weeks. Okay, but thank you for that. Any more questions before we begin? Okay, good. Okay, so yesterday we left off with Picarda. And the Picarder presents an extremely complex more dilemma. She did nothing wrong, right? She loved God. She married God by being a nun. then her brother, who is a duke or prince, I forget actually, he needs her in order to create a military alliance. So he steals her from the convent and marries her all.

And again, she did nothing wrong, but she ends up in the low sphere of paradise. So she's in heaven, but it's a furthest from God. And Bonnie is like This makes no sense She'd have been right She did having the Catholic Church told her to do She followed her heart

And she ends up the furthest From God And what we said is It's because she Did not actually Practice her will She did not show her true faith in God

Right And there are many things she had done she could have ran away, she could have threatened her carousel. She could, um, and so there were many things she could have done, okay? What I'm going to do now is go deeper into this story and show you how complex it is. All right. And then we, I want us to use our imagination or intuition to figure out what the proper choice would. have been. All right. So let me explain the situation, okay? All right. So let me set up for you. Okay. We know that Picarda has made a vow to God. I'm going to marry you, God.

And what Beatrice tells us is that making a vow is a very serious thing. Making a promise a very serious thing because the greatest gift God has given you is your free will. When you choose to surrender your free will as a gift to God, there's really nothing you can do to compensate for breaking this vow. Okay? So Ricardo, the issue is that she has a vow to God. All right. Now, her brother, and again, I don't know if this is historically true, but I'm going to create a scenario for you guys, okay? her brother has a friend and the two are trying to conquer Italy together and they're in a battle okay and before this battle the brother says to the friend you know the Picardas brother if we win this battle I swear to God that I will give you my sister as a bride okay so it's another battle right and they win the battle

That's a situation, right? Picard has run off to a nunnery. Her brother is like, oh, okay, I swore to God that I would give my sister as a bride. Therefore, I'm obligate my God to do whatever I can to get her back. Okay? Right, because I made a vow to God. So now let us think deeply, okay, and say, Let's say for whatever reason, both Picarda and her brother have true faith in God,

meaning they would do whatever they can to ensure they do not break their vow to God. Right? So here we have Picarda saying, you know what? I am on the roof. If you come and get me from the nunnery, I will go jump off the roof and kill myself. I don't care what the Catholic Church says. yes, I know it is the greatest in the world to commit suicide. I understand that.

But my vow to God is greater than the Catholic Church. And then the brother's like, well, Picarda, I also mean a vow to God. And God has given me victory in battle. And therefore, I cannot betray God. God has already given me the gift of victory in battle. So I must give you to my friend. So now what we're going to do is we're here in your imagination and intuition to figure out how, first of all, how this will play out. But also, what is the proper or right choice?

Okay. So here, Picard is like, you know what, you come and get me, I'm going to kill myself. What's the brother going to do? Yeah? Personally, I think, assuming that the brother has true belief in God, I think this hypothetical is a little bit weird because as you mentioned before, our free will is our most precious gift from God. And the only person you can promise you can surrender your free will to is the person

who gave it to you as in God. However, the brother here is playing God. The brother here is presuming on behalf of another to take away her free will. I know that in the Catholic Church, a wife swears obedience to her husband upon marriage, but this is the Catholic Church. This is not Dante's God. So how dare this brother who has true belief in God presume to strip his sister of her free will? Okay.

Okay. I understand. But like, let's just play this game, okay? Let's just first use our imagination and play out this story, okay? Let's imagine we're writing a movie, right? And this makes a great movie, by the way. So Picarda is like, I'm gonna kill myself. What would the brother do?

Well, I think definitely her brother are gonna save him because the brother have a commitment with his friends. He need to win the battle. So I believe in order to win the war, the brother will not allow her sister to die. That is why her brother are gonna save Piccada if she wants to say that. No, no, no, she's already dead.

Oh, she's already dead? No, I'm saying like, you come into the comment, I'm gonna jump myself, I'm gonna throw myself off the roof, I'm gonna kill myself. How can she possibly, possibly save her? Okay, all right, so here. What he's gonna do now is say,

you know what, Picarda, I'm gonna kid not our mother, I'm gonna kill her unless you come out of the comment and then my friend, right? That's something he would do. Yeah? Why couldn't he just marry his, own daughter or like another sister because he made a vow right he said before this battle if we he's saying this to his friend i swear to god if we win this battle i will give you my sister ricarda

as your bride okay so he's already made this vow all right so we are now now the situation is the Duke presents their mother, okay, and says, hey, Picard, you rather come down now, I'm going to cut off her hat. Right? He go gets another brother. No, no, Picarda go gets their father. And then says, if you kill our mother, I will kill our father. Okay, guys, this is not how it works, okay? So now it seems like Ricardo has no choice, right?

Because, I mean, to kill yourself is one thing, but to end up killing yourself and your mother is something you cannot possibly do. So what she does now is surrender, right? But if she believes in the will of God and if she has will, if she has faith that God is standing on her side, she'll have faith that her mother won't die. So she'll still be standing on top. Okay. Let's say she has complete faith in God. The correct choice would be to surrender. Why? Because it's not just her. It's her mother. So if it's just her, it's her choice to make. But if it's her mother, then. Okay. So this is hard, okay? But I want you guys to imagine this. It's really hard. But what's happened is

the brother says You either surrender Ricardo I will cut off our mother's head Ricardo's like fine I surrender What happens to the friend now I think he'll feel I think he'll feel really bad about it And maybe just like

Can he withdraw from that vow and be like release you from the vow? I think if you're that friend It's very hard to go through the marriage Right? Yes. Because what does a friend want to do? At first he just wanted to get married, but now he's making...

But why do you want to get married? For power, right? So if you are a person helping on power, and you see the scenario, you're like, screw this, I'm not getting married. Why would you do that? Because you are now gaining power, you are losing. You're losing all the power. Why? Not just that, but it's a you're breaking that.

family apart, I guess. Yeah, you're not actually forming the alliance that you want. What are the people think of you? Uh, the mother slayer. Yes, and what would your soldiers think of you? Yeah, you understand. Yeah, okay. So it's really interesting how if you use your imagination intuition, you just play this out. Okay. Yeah.

But does the friend have a moral obligation to not go through with this? like would it be more of him to do right so that this is a more dilemma right because they've already made a vow to each other that if we win this battle then i will marry picarda right okay so so this is the point in the point is nothing in life is as simple as it seems there's complexity okay and this is a question like given this hard choice what do you believe to be the right choice and how do you come to this choice? And what Dante is saying is just your faith in God will lead you to the right choice. So Picarda cannot possibly map out what's going to happen.

So Parcarta is like, I know it is wrong for me to break my vow to God. And if I break this vow to God is worse than my own life, okay? That's for faith. And the brother's like, no, I've already made this promise to my friend before God. I cannot break this vow. And therefore, I have no choice but to up the ante, right? To gamble, basically. He's not going to, he's not really going to kill his mother, right? And Picarda knows in this situation where my mother's life is being threatened, I have no choice but to surrender because obviously my brother is so power hungry, he's willing to destroy the whole world, right? And when this happens, then God intervenes and implants ideas into people and the friends like, screw this, this family is crazy. I probably don't want to get involved. All right? You understand? So the idea

The idea that this thought experiment shows us is you can never ever truly strategize. You can never ever truly map things out. Okay? Your best guide is your intuition. Your best guide is your faith and your will. And then things will naturally manifest the way you want them to manifest. Okay? Yes? Does that mean, so does that mean that as long as you have the faith in you, whatever you do, the God will lead you to the result? Okay. As long as you have faith, God will give you what you want? As long as you have the faith in you, the things you do and the God will lead you to the right answer. Okay, so in Dante, in life, there are no easy answers.

Okay, if I would just say to you, have faith in God, having worked out, that's irresponsible. That's the wrong way to perceive things. The major idea is that the world is extremely complex. And often in life, it's better to trust your intuition than to try to your intuition than to trust your logic. It doesn't make sense. Your intuition comes from your connection to God, which is an expression of your faith in God. Okay, so when you say have faith in God, what it's really saying is have faith in yourself, have faith in your intuition. Do what you believe is right. Okay? Yes? Since we're on the topic of hyperfetched,

hypotheticals, I would like to know if it's possible to be put into a situation where you have to betray a vow you made to God because you love God. So for example, say there is this monk who swore never to kill anyone. And right there, there is a man who is invincible to everyone except a monk. Like, you know how hypotheticals work by this point. He's about to push a button that would destroy God. So what will you do as the monk? You love God so much. You don't want God to be destroyed. So you kill the man and you break your route.

Is the situation like this possible? Okay. So the answer to this is what do you think is the right thing to do? Oh yeah. So my question also just like her, you know, saying our people have their own perspective. You can believe your own God.

I believe my God. But it's their possibility that God is Almighty God, it means that it is truth. Everyone is looking forward to the one truth. Or is this people have their own imagination? So this is my question. So is there kind of Almighty God there, or just the God which is out-existent individually?

Okay. So in the Divine Comedy, the God that presented is not the God of the Bible. It's not the God that you know, okay? This is in Platonic philosophy, what is called a monad, the source, the center, the soul of the universe. We will go into what this god is later on, okay? Okay, so I'm not, okay, so what's really important is to appreciate that great poetry excites the imagination. It raises questions for us to ponder.

And whatever problem arises, ultimately you can't say, hey, what would, you know, my parent want me to do? What would the Catholic Church want me to do? You have to look inside your heart and ask yourself, what does my heart want me to do? and that's often in life your best guide to the answer. Does that make sense, guys? Yeah. So a follow question. Since you said in relation to my hypothetical that you should act as what you think to be right,

then we assume that the monk acted in what he thinks is right and he killed a man between his vow. However, because he act in the way that he thinks is right, he still has. the most of God in him and he went to the uppermost layer of heaven. Let's say that. So what you are saying right now is Picarda's actions don't matter that much. She only has to forgive herself and rationalize her actions because if she rationalizes her actions as an act of love to God, then she would be able to ascend beyond her lowest fear. Is that what you're saying? Okay. So there is a fundamental error in your logic. And the fundamental error is that it is up to us to be able to rationalize away our sins.

Okay. That's what you're assuming. We have the power to think away what we've done or rationalize away what we've done. Okay. And we don't. And it's a hard concept to understand, okay, because you think that, okay, These people in history who killed millions of people, people like Stalin, people like Hitler, people like Gendon's Khan, right? Well, logically, they did what they did because they felt it was right.

I have to save my people. I have to make my people happy. And that's why I need to start these wars. okay that's what we think they think but what if you study literature what you recognize is that there are many different dimensions to the soul okay and maybe on the surface you can lie to yourself but in your heart in your true self you know exactly what the truth is okay okay so I Like, because you're using logic, you're using philosophy, and sometimes it doesn't get you anywhere. So, so, so, so, um, I will leave you with this idea, which is, do you know what happens

when people take psychedelics or when they have near-death experiences or they do meditation? You get, do you know what happens? Okay, the thing that happens is you are able to ascend to a level where you're able to see yourself from the lens of a person you've hurt. Does that make sense? You're able to see when you die or you're near-deaf, the totality of the pain you've caused the world. It's pretty amazing, but people who do psychedelics, ayahuasca, people who have near-deaf experiences, this, they all say this. When this happens to you, when you actually ascend, when you leave your corporal body, the first thing that happens is something called a life review where you're able to see once and for all, all the totality of the pain you cause other people. Even that

cat you kicked, okay? You can see it. And you're like, wait a minute, I don't remember I kicked the cat. No, you're able to see it. Okay? All right. Does that make sense? So just because you think something doesn't mean it's all you're able to think. Okay? Wait, Professor, so that, so does, do you mean that like if I meditate and not, like, I'll be able to kind of like foresee the future and see who will win like the 26 World Club Cup or something? I don't understand that. Do you mean that it's kind of butterfly effects? It means that I do something, but I don't mean to do something for other people. For example, maybe I prefer love as a girl, but I don't know there's another girl who doesn't love me too.

So it's got hurt. So let me rephrase it in a way, okay? Is everything you do is being recorded by the universe. There is an eternal memory of what you do in the universe. And this eternal memory is stored inside you as well. And even though you don't know this, even though you don't remember anything, when you die, after you die,

this eternal memory will be revealed to you in its totality. The question for you is, do you wanna, when you actually see this, all this recording of your life, and you see all the pain, you've caused other people, do you want to deal with that? Okay? And this is a truth that's embedded in all religions. And this is something that is also embedded in the Vying Comedy.

All right? So this is something that we will discuss later on, but I want you to remember this idea. Everything you do, first of all, it's being recorded in by the universe. Second of all, everything you do impacts the universe in a certain way. Okay. So if you live a good life, this brings happiness to universe. If you live a bad life, it brings sadness to universe. Sorry, I have questions. So I'm curious about the relationship between this kind of memories and physical materials and matters. Where's your memory stored? Physical material. Yeah, where's your memory stored?

Sorry, in brain. Are you sure? I'm pretty short. Have you talked to the neuroscientist? Yes. Yeah, actually I choose in philosophy of cognitive science. Okay. Someone Google for me, what evidence do we have that memories are stored inside the human brain? We have nothing.

Google for me. Yeah, go ahead. Evidence that the memories are stored inside the brain. Can you just read it Carol? No, okay. Memories are not video recording. video recordings stored in a single file. Instead, they're encoded by altering the physical connections synapses between neurons. When you learn something new, neurons form stronger

or newer connection through a process called long-term potentiation. Anyway, NIH researchers uncover how the human brain separates, da-di-da-di-da. Where are memories stored in the brain? Memories aren't stored in just one part of brain, different types are stored across different... We don't know. Okay. This is all something garbage for like, we don't know. Most basic question is like, where are your memory stored? We don't know. Yeah? Technically we do know. So there's this very famous case of this person called HM. He had his hippocampus was damaged and so he no longer had long long-term memory. And so to some extent, through animal experiments, we can understand that memories,

at least the function of memory, is supported by the hippocampus in relation with the cortex. Okay. So that example, that case study, shows us that he cannot access long-term memory. Does that make sense? It does not prove that he no longer has long-term memory. It just means he that it lacks access to his long-term memory, right? It's that he was not able to form long-term memories. No, but I'm saying like, how do you know for sure he's not able to form long-term memory? It shows us he cannot access long-term memory, and it could be because he cannot form long-term memory, but it could also mean that there's a disconnection between his long-term memory and

his consciousness, right? So I have further questions. Like if we assume that the memory is not a story in brain. So what's the physical realizers of memory? Or if memory doesn't necessarily need just physical realizers, so what the relationship between memories and physical materials? Okay. So there have been recent neuroscemic studies that argue that our memory,

our consciousness is stored inside the universe, okay? So think of the internet and our brains are just smartphones that access the internet. So our memories are stored on the cloud and what our brains do is it access the cloud. Yes? But how would you possibly explain the fact that say a person who can form long-term memory before, but he's getting older and older and he got a part of his hippocampus degraded? And then he forgot a lot of things. He even forgot who he was.

And how could you explain how hippocampus, like a specific region in the brain, is not related to your memory. So you have a computer, right? When you buy the computer, the interconnection is very smooth. You can download things really fast, right? Over time, as you use it more and more,

the connection becomes worse and worse. It's an old computer. It's the hard drive in the computer was broken or like just with war with time. Right. And there are different types of memory, right? There's memory you can store your computer. There are memories you can store on the cloud.

There are memories you can access to other parts, right? And I want to add up to the psychedelic question you raised before. So it's a chemical compound that actually, I studied neuroscience in college. It actually hits a certain receptor in your brain that costs like a down, downward signaling effect that makes you meditate, makes you trip and all that. And this is a very physical or like chemical thing. But now you said the memory is not about this material thing, but rather related to the universe or some more spiritual kind of realms.

How would you explain the differences? So first of all, they're different psychedelics, right? And what is interesting is, depending on a psychedelic, you have different experiences. So for example, if you're going to ayahuasca, you'll see, like, demons and spirits floating around you. Like, the entities, yeah, I've heard of that. But the majority of psychedelics, they actually hits the similar regions, or, like, at least the, like, maybe they share 70% the same, like, 5HT2A receptors in your brain. that's the serotonin thing it hits. And yeah, there are lots of different like psilocybin, like LSD, and all that.

But the effects are more similar than they're different. Would you agree? Okay. So again, what's happening is that you're looking at the hardware issues and you completely ignore the software. Does that make sense? You're like, okay, okay, this connection, this fact, about the connection. You are analyzing it and detailing it how it works, but who cares? What matters is the information you're downloading. Why are you able to download certain information

when you take a certain psychedelic? And the argument is that our brains exist in order to anchor ourselves to this material world. We have to believe that this material world is what's real. because if you just do, if your brain just can do whatever it wants, and it's able to access all the information on the internet, your computer is going to explode, right? Yeah. So your computer has to be strategic about what information it absorbs in order to navigate the world, right?

Ultimately, you should have to survive. You have to, like, get food, you have to, like, get along with other people, you have to have sex, you don't have children, right? Yeah, and this is what is, yeah. So your brain, is strategic in how it absorbs information and then how it actually perceives this information. Yes? Or so it filters out a lot of information.

It filters out 99% of all information. Yeah, and when you take psychedelics, it actually like reopened the gate of receiving more information. And so you're now able to see all these different forces at work, including spiritual forces. And also your ego is shutting down. Right, exactly. And so your ego is shut down. And so you're able to see it for more objective lens. Okay.

Does that make sense? So that you would say is actually more objective. Okay. The point I will make is that the period we're living in today in the year 226 in China, it is a unique period in human history. We go back to most of human history, okay? Most cultures were animistic, shamanistic, meaning it was just assumed that there are ghosts and spirits all around you. You know, like trees have spirits and animals have spirits, but now we just use that as resources for our own needs.

Right. Do you understand? It is weird to me how for the vast majority of human history, we just assume that the universe is conscious, that there is a God, that there are spirits all around us. They manipulate us. Okay? And like for the past 50 years, we're like, no, it's just us and that's it. And we don't know how conscious this works. We have no idea where memories are stored.

Yes? I want to add a comment. So if the brain, if the memory is storing the brain as a hardware, this should be an upper limit, but actually there's not an upper limit. Exactly. So we cannot possibly explain how we're able to have these conversations, right? Like, if in fact that the brain is like a computer and there are synapses, then there should be a limit to the storage of the memory, right?

But we know for a fact that there are certain people who can memorize Paradise Laws and recited. There are people who can memorize Divine Comedy and recited. Excuse me? Right? Right. Right. And then we also know the human brain is able to be able to be able to be able to be able to

take tremendous leaps of imagination which if if it were to translate into a computer would require like entire world to computer that processing power in order to make the imaginary leaps that we make right that's why i think a full reductionist view of the human brain and that the relationship between the physical and spiritual is not not ideal because yeah we i mean i study neuroscience i know like the something about the brain but we still cannot just give up the spiritual part about it. So again, I go back to Divine Comedy, okay? If God doesn't exist, I have no idea how this was written.

If God does not exist, I don't know how this was written. I just don't. How could one man, over the course of 20 years, without any computers, by himself, okay? Like literally by himself, in his room, he's able to, to conceive all this and then almost a thousand years later we're able to sit down together and read it and understand completely what he's trying to convey and knowing that but we find what he's trying to convey beautiful and truthful how does that work uh professor is that possible that just like people right now just get smoking get drinking the micking or even the marijuana

which just can inspire people to get a high so that they can make a good use of their brain for other people. Maybe more people that can only have a 30% of their brain, but he can just make use up about a hundred percent or maybe. Is it possible? Okay. All right. So, I mean, the reality is that we don't have a Dante in this age when we have access to all. all the words information when we have unlimited well. I mean compared to Dante, we're all kind of stupid. I don't understand how this works. Okay, all right. So let's continue the divine comment.

Okay, one last comment and then we'll continue the divine comment, okay? So I think in this discussion, I think it's really important to separate the inside from the outside. So if you're talking about the inside, if you're talking about the literary genius of the divine community, then I absolutely agree what you said. I think it's an amazing work and I think if you're talking about God in the context of the divine colony, then I absolutely agree with everything you said about divine inspiration. However, if you're going to take this to outside, if you're going to take this to our present day, if you're going to take this to our brains, our neuroplasticity, then I have to

say that I am not convinced by your arguments because I personally do not believe in God and because many others do not believe in God. And I think it's kind of weird that we're trying to take an argument from divine community outside into our present-day science. Okay, so this is a class of speculation, of inquiry, of debate, okay? So you can believe whatever you want. All right, anyway, let's continue, okay? Carol, can you read, please? Sure. We're picking up at Canto 5, line 43, Paradise. Two things are of the essence when one bows a sacrifice. The matter of the pledge and then the formal compact, one except. This last can never be annulled until the compact is fulfilled. It is of this that I have spoken to you so precisely.

therefore the Hebrews found it necessary to bring their offering although as you must know some of their offerings might be altered as for the matter of the vow discussed above it may be such that if one shifts to other matter one commits no sin but let none shift the burden on his shoulder through his own judgment without waiting for the turning of the white and yellow keys and let him see that any change is senseless unless the thing one sets aside can be contained in one's new weight as four and six. Thus, when the matter of a vow has so much weight and worth that it tipped every scale, no other weight can serve as substitute. Okay, so the idea here is that take your vows seriously. So in her book, the human condition,

Hannah Rand said that there are two actions, okay, that make us fundamentally human. There are two things that we do that we can all do that make us fundamentally human. The first is to make promises, okay? Because when you make promises, what you're doing is you're bonding yourself to another person, but you're also bonding yourself to the future. You're imagining together a future. Does that make sense? So making promises, is a very, very serious thing that only humans can do and which expresses our humanity. But then there's another thing that we do that makes us fully human and which expresses our humanity. Do you guys know what it is? Number one is to make promises. What's the other?

Bringing promise is not a good thing, but that's half the answer. Swear. Huh? Swear. That's making a promise. What's the other? What's the other? thing that makes us truly human which expression of humanity which uplifts our humanity language speaking love the animals can speak animals can love art and imagination uh no what yeah i would have said to create things no there's There's something else that makes us uniquely human. Self-reflection? Self-reflection.

Yeah? Maybe language, like a developer. An action, guys. Think of an action that you do with people. Not by yourself, but with other people. The first is to make promises, right? Making promises to affirm your individuality with another person and to imagine a better future.

Maybe to lie. But it doesn't uplift, but it's something like humans. Yeah, lying is a bad thing. Something that is truly divine that we can do. Can I say? Yes? Sacrifice? Sacrifice.

What do you mean by that? The giving of oneself for another person's good, but inconveniencing and potentially hurting oneself. Okay. All right, that's close, but it's actually much more specific than that, okay? Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. All right. All right. I mean, it's something that happens every day, right? So for example, we're walking on the streets, okay? I don't see you. I'm walking really fast. So I bump into you and you fall down, right? And I say, I'm sorry. You apologize. Okay. And you forgive. Do you understand? These are the two things that makes us truly human. to make promises and to forgive each other for breaking promises or for making mistakes. Okay? So this is a really important idea because you ask yourself, what makes a good society? What makes a just and happy society? And it sees two things. If people feel empowered to

make promises and if people feel empowered to forgive each other, because often guys, it's hard to it's hard to forgive each other, then this is a good, just, moral, divine society. Okay? Does that make sense? All right? So we as humans to strive to create a society in which we can make promises and we can forgive each other, okay? All right. So making promise is a very big thing and what teachers are saying is that sometimes you make a problem. that is so valuable that you can never compensate for it, okay? And the example she uses Picardo makes a promise to God. And there's something she could do to compensate for this. But she also recognizes that nothing in the universe is absolute.

And so she's going to explain that the situation is is much more complex than we think. Okay. Can you continue to read, please? Sure. Paradise, Canto 5, line 64. Let mortals never take a bow in Jeth. Be faithful and yet circumspect, not rash as Jeptha was in offering his first gift. He should have said, I did amiss and not done worse by keeping faith. Okay, okay? This is really interesting, okay? Does everyone know who Jet Phi is? Okay, all right, so let me tell the story of Jetfa.

This isn't a Bible, and it's in the book of judges. And Jetfa, he's obviously a leader of the Israelites, okay? A leader of the Israelites. And he goes to war. He goes to battle, and he says, Dear God, I swear to you, if I win this battle, if you let me win this battle, I will give you as an offering the first person to walk in my door.

Okay? Right? He's made this vow to God and according to Beatrice if you make this vow to God You must keep it who's the first person so he wins this battle okay and who's the first person that walks in the door in his house? You guys know his daughter his daughter? He's completely screwing out right so what does he do? According to the Bible well yeah she he kills the daughter okay According to Beatrice is this good or bad? No it's not a great area What does she say? What does she literally say?

And? And what? You should have said, I didn't miss and not done worse by keeping faith. He should have broken the vow. She said, wake that vow, man. I don't care if you make that vow to God. You get to kill your daughter. Don't keep that vow, man.

So this is a paradox, right? Someone helped me understand this paradox. It would seem that like Picard has ended up in the bottom level of heaven because she's, she had fear in her vow, so she didn't, she didn't complete her vow with 100% total faith. And so here he's putting himself in some sort of lower level or even maybe out of heaven. I'm not sure. But he's never going to get the higher levels of heaven because he's not taking his bow seriously. but it was a vow that he could never commit.

Who's he? It seems to be Jebitt. No, no, no, no, no. So Jeffa is a reference, okay? Sure. She's talking and she's explained with Dante, take your vow seriously and don't be like Jetta. But that's a paradox because Jeffa did take his mouth seriously.

Right? So someone explained me the reasoning here. Do you understand it's a paradox? She said, take your vows seriously. and don't be like Jetta. Who did take his vows seriously? Yes, you, then you, okay, yes? Taking it seriously is understanding the weight of the vows you make.

When you make a vow, you, like, you know, taking vows seriously and don't simply make the wrong vow and make the boughs in haste. Okay, yes? Yeah, I agree. It's the same. It doesn't help me understand the paradox here. There's a paradox, yes? So what I'm trying to say is I think that God instituted all this understanding into us so that we will be able to follow his rules. So as I mentioned before, like the first time when we were doing the hypothetical about Picarda, I mentioned that if you truly believe in God, then you should truly respect God's gifts and you should truly respect God's most precious gift, which is free will.

So maybe God instituted this understanding into us so that we will be able to not. make promises such as this. It's like, it's like prevention. It's like a vaccine. It's like a prevention shot. Is that possible? I still don't understand what you're trying to say. Explain to the paradox where Peter said, take your mouth seriously and don't be like Jethah, who took his vows too seriously. It's a paradox. Sorry, you first? Could this be like a jab at the Catholic church. Yeah, what everything Donnie does is a jam at the Catholic church, but but yeah, can you explain? Well, just saying that obviously there was Jephyl from the from the Bible and that he obviously followed through with this vow, but used sort of zero circumspect and rationality to look back and

realize that it's wrong. And maybe at the time of writing, a lot of religious people would have taken more that view, but he's showing that you need to sort of have more tact. Okay. Yes? Well, my answer would be that Hannah Aaron said that like the first thing is what makes us human is to make promises and then the second thing was to forgive ourselves

and this is probably to forgive ourselves is more important than making promises. So what Jeffa should have done is just forgive himself for breaking the promise. Yes, that's right. So that's what Beatrice wants. Like just, Jeff, I, You did make a promise, but you did it in you did it rashly, right?

So just forgive yourself and not kill your daughter, man. Yes? So I think that we should understand this by looking at like all the three works of Dante. Because like I read infernal first. And I think that in infernal, if you commit like treachery against kin, that's not just, you know, murder. And that doesn't mean that you just belong to the seventh circle. You get put way lower. So I think that this is kind of what Beatrice is kind of saying.

So like compared to breaking a vow, like if you kill your daughter, you're going to end up like farther away from God. You're going to end up in hell. While if you break maybe a promise, you will probably end up like Picard. So that is still much better than ending up in hell. But why is Chuck you so bad? Why would church be worse than breaking a vow to God? I think it's like the violence of it all and also because they are like your own flesh and blood.

So, you know, that would be kind of gruesome. So, so let's do the hypothetical where, okay, the problem is that Jethah had to kill the daughter, okay? Let's just say, okay, the person coming in the door is not the daughter, but the aunt. Now it's okay, right? Now it's okay, because it's not the daughter. It's the aunt. Let's kill the ant. I think he would, if he would kill the ant, then, like, he would probably still enough, like, in the seventh circle or lower.

I think so as well, okay? So now it's like, it's not the aunt. It's the neighbor. That's okay now, right? No, actually, actually in Inferno, if you kill your neighbor, you also end up. Okay. still bad, okay? Let's give you the daughter. Okay, how about, I don't know, stranger? Yeah, the stranger. That's still murder. That's still, so no to who he kills, okay? He's still going to hell.

Right? So, so what's going on here? You say flesh and blood, but it's not flesh and blood. And it's not treachery, but it's not, it's a stranger. Yeah, but in this case, because it's flesh and blood, that's why it's bad. That's why he is like the key example that I understand but I'm saying like let's just switch and say it's not the daughter let's just say it's a complete stranger. Is it okay now? Okay, all right. Okay, so this is hard okay. Okay, so what I'm gonna do now is I'm gonna present a hypothetical okay and let's just say I have a wife and I love my wife okay my wife says to me If you truly love me, you will go steal a million dollars from the bank so I can buy a Porsche. This is just hypothetical. My wife would never do that. What's my response now?

If you truly love me, you go and steal a million dollars from the bank and buy me a Porsche. Is it possible about the sabotage? I mean, just you love me so have you do something for me. Is it kind of the excuse, because they want to take control over you? Is it possible? What is my proper response? So you're saying my response should be, you know what? I'll go rob a bag and buy some jewelry. Like, what's my proper response?

You should say, if you really love me and it can't force me to buy for you, to buy something for you. Okay, okay, okay, so this is really key to understand it down there, okay? So my wife says to me, if you truly love me, you will go out of a bank and buy me a Porsche. Right? Or go start a business and make a billion dollars. And so you think I should go and make a billion dollars to show my wife? Does that feel right to you?

What's the right thing for me to do here? Because it's to investigate why she would make sense. such a request and try to get to the truth of it all. Yeah, so I ask her, like, do you really want me to do it? Just yes, I really wanted to do it. I'm still stuck, right? Maybe just. Yeah, sorry, who, who?

Okay, maybe just leave her. I should leave her. Yeah, because that does mean that she doesn't actually love you because the real love is unconditional. Yeah, actually. Yeah. Yeah, it's like I'm probably going to hold a similar opinion. Maybe we just leave her because because like based on the plot of cave theory like you mentioned in the video and I think if she just cannot know what happens beyond the mirror and we never can wake up a person that do not want to be awake, you know,

so we will possibly just leave her and find someone else that we have the like similar similar opinion. Yes. Yes. Yes. I was just saying you'd say no. Yes. Okay.

All right. So, all right. This is hard, okay? But the right decision, the right course is just to walk away from her, right? Because the logic is this. If she's making you this request, like if you truly love me, go steal me a million dollars, right? Well, first of all, she doesn't love you, right?

She can't possibly love you if she's making this request because if you go rob a bank, they're going to put you in prison, right? You're not going to go by the car. You're going to go to prison. Okay, that's number one. Number two is if she doesn't love you, right? You being with her is wrong. You understand? So you should just let her, you truly love her.

You should just let her go fight someone who's right for her. Doesn't make sense. Okay. So this goes back to this case where Zepha is saying, I love God so much that I'm willing to give him my first daughter. And God's like, that's not what I want, man. I don't want this crap from you. You understand.

So what faith is is first and foremost understanding the nature of God. You understand? God is first and foremost love. And when you kill your daughter, it's an act of treachery, which degrades love in the universe. So you are not obeying God. You're betraying God. You understand? Does that make sense? If my wife were safe, go rob a bank to give me a million dollars, okay? I have to say to her, no. It's because I love you that I'm not going to do this. If I go rob the bank, it's only because I want to possess you.

It's only because I want to control you. And that's an act of betrayal of love. Okay, does that make sense? Okay? So the paradox can only be resolved if you understand that the nature of God is love itself. And because God is love itself, because God loves you unconditionally, God would never, ever ask you to hurt someone or betray yourself. It doesn't make sense. And so when you make this vow, I promise you God that if I win this battle, I will kill the first person who walks in the door.

God's going to ignore you, okay? you understand? I don't care. No one cares if you make this promise. God's in keeping make this promise. God's just going to ignore you because it came through rashness. It was because you don't understand God. You don't understand God and there's no connection. There's no way you can make this vow. Yes? That's exactly what I meant to say. So if you truly understand God, then you would never make such a vow. It's like a vaccine. God has put it put in us the understanding that we would not make such a vow. the vaccine to prevent us for something doing something like this.

Okay, yeah, but then why do people make these vows? Because because they have not taken the vaccine, because they have not been in contact with God, therefore such a vow is ungodly. How do they break their connection to God? By understanding themselves more fully. Like I said, God made provisions for us and it's up to us to discover these provisions. It's up to us to make ourselves his vessel. Is that what you're saying?

No, no, I'm saying like, how did we lose our connection to God? You're saying we lost our connection to God, but how do we lose it? Because why would we lose it? It makes no sense. Like, because we have free will, as you mentioned before, whether or not to lose our connection to God. Why did Jepha make this vow? Why did Jepha make this vow? What's the reason?

Yes? I think he was in the really hard to win battle, and he wanted God to really help him or something. You want a power? Yeah. You understand? Yeah. He wanted power.

And that's what moved him away from God. You understand? When you want power, when you want worldly power, that's what Severe's connection to God. You've always had it, but you lose it when you want power. Okay? All right. Can you read Carol? Can I ask something before we move on?

So life seems to be fraught with mind-filled of vows that people can make on your behalf. So we've got Picard's brother has made a bow on her behalf. And I understand she ends up in the bottom level of heaven, essentially because she had 90% faith instead of 100% faith. And she was a bit fearful. But so Jeptha's daughter has this vow essentially bestowed a place. on her and you said that God ignores vows when they're made incorrectly like sinfully or ungodly they're getting the wording wrong but that there is some connection here with the Carter and her brother because the vow was made for

power there as well and her place in heaven suffers because of this whole seemingly situation so I guess maybe my my question is getting towards like where would Jebz's daughter be in the hierarchy of would she end up in the inferno because submitting to her father's death would be like a form of suicide? That's a really interesting question, yes, okay? So, sorry, why would Jeffa be infernal and not in paradise? Do you guys know why? Okay, yeah, I'll show your question, okay?

But like, my first question is, do you guys know where Jeffa would be in Infernal? He's actually not... So where would Jeffa be in Divine Comedy? Which level? Infernal, proletory, or paradise? But why infernal? He killed his daughter. No. He's actually infernal because he's not a Christian. He's infernal because he was born before the time of Jesus.

Therefore, he could not become a Christian. therefore you cannot access heaven, okay? That's point one. Point two is, where would Jeff's daughter be? You guys know? Purgatory? Why purgatory and not anyone else? I mean, following that logic has not known Jesus, but not knowing how she has acted in her own life. I'm just assuming that she has not killed anybody else. And so this is, she was killed against her, presumably against her own will. And even if it's her will, she was the victim. Yes.

Who's the hero of the story? Who's the hero of this story? If you read the Bible, who's the hero of the story? The daughter. The daughter. But why the daughter? Because she understands the importance of the vow. she wants to keep it despite that she has to sacrifice herself?

Yes, okay? If you read the Bible, it's clear the daughter, who is the hero of the story, because she was willing to sacrifice herself to ensure her father keeps a vow, right? Because if you read the Hebrew Bible, the worst thing you can do is not give your vow to God. So she would actually be in paradise. Okay, does that make sense? So this is a paradox of the divine comedy where there's a rule that if you're not a Christian, you are not, it can't be in paradise. You can only be in

purgatory or in infernal. But because of the nobility of her sacrifice, she gets elevated to paradise, okay? Right? And so it doesn't largely make sense, but it makes intuitive sense. Doesn't make sense, yes? Part where you said the sacrifice, the daughter made a sacrifice. Okay, the story is this, okay? The story is that Jethah to win a war because he's leader of the Israelites, okay? And the Israelites have lots of enemies because it's the Middle East, right? And they win this battle.

But before the battle, Jepha says, if I win this battle, I swear to God, I will offer a sacrifice, whoever walks in my door. Okay, he makes this vow. He goes home, the first minute to walk in the door is his daughter. Now he's screwed, okay? Because either you kill your daughter or you defy God, right? So he is complete, ugly screwed. So what the daughter says is, father, let me make my own offering.

Let me sacrifice myself willingly so that it absolves you of the guilt of killing me and it allows you to fulfill your promise to God. And why this is worthy of paradise is, it is an act of love. Because this is completely selfless. You understand? And when you commit an act of love, you are elevated to paradise. Okay. Is that clear, guys?

So you mean, willingness is the necessary if it can be, you know, up level into the paradise. Excuse me? The willing means because it's that if you will to die, it means that you can go to paradise. Is that what you mean? No, no, I just said a selfless act of love is what elevates you to paradise, not the will, not the desire, but the action itself. That's driven by the will and desire, yes? But there should be acts of love before Christianity. That's why she's in heaven. She's not a Christian. She's a Hebrew. She doesn't believe in Jesus, but if God could put her anywhere, where God will put her in paradise.

Okay? In fact, when we read, what you will discover is, there are quite a few pagans in paradise. Okay? So this is subversive because the rule is, unless you're a Christian, you can't go to paradise, you read Divine Comedy, there are some pagans in paradise, okay? Does that make sense?

Yes? Isn't offering herself some sort of suicide? and isn't that a sin? Yeah, the Catholic Church, for the Catholic Church, suicide is a sin. But these are the Hebrews. These are the Israelites. So this is a different cultural context. And it's not really, yeah.

Does that make sense? All right. Okay. So Carol, can we keep on going? Okay. Paradise, Conto 5. line 67, he should have said, I did a miss and not done worse by keeping faith. And you can find that same stupidity. So you see the paradox in the sentence, right? Doing worse by keeping faith.

How's not making sense, right? Keep on going. And you can find that same stupidity in the Greek's chief when her faith, when her fair faith made F.B. Genia grieve and made the wise and made the wise and the foolish weak for her when they heard tell of such a right. Okay, so this is also a really interesting story, okay? So she's saying that there are two really stupid people in this world. First is Jethah, the other is Agamanaana. So this is Trojan War and what starts with Trojan War of course is that Paris of Troy steals Helen of Sparta.

And so Helen is the most beautiful woman in the world and all the Greeks fight for Helen and it seems like a war is about to break out among the Greeks and so what the Greeks decided to do is you know what will just cast lots and whoever wins will marry Helen and everyone else is obligated to fight for Helen if someone still tries to steal Helen it doesn't make sense it's an oath before the gods and so Helen Mary's Menelaus, the brother of Agamannot, and the king of Sparta, then Perist steals Helen, and now the Greeks are obligated by this all to go and destroy Troy.

And this is what starts the Trojan War. And Agamaranon is the leader of the Greek army. So the Greeks assemble this huge fleet off the coast of Greece, and they're about to sell the Adriatic and war against Troy. The problem is that Agamemnon kills like a secret animal to Artemis, the goddess of the hunt. And Artemis gets angry and says, screw you, you Greeks aren't going anywhere. And she destroyed, so there's no more wind, okay? So the Greeks are stuck where they are. So Agamana is like, no, we need to go to Troy because of this oath to the gods.

And he talks to her problem and says, what can I do to restore the winds? And the prophet says, if you kill your daughter, Iphigenia, Artemis will be appeased, okay? So the Svigamanon kills Iphagina even though Ivegena is extremely popular among the people. And it's also like his daughter. Okay? So this was stupid.

And ultimately, if you know the story of the Greeks, what happens to Agamannon because he killed Iphagina? Do you guys know the story? Yeah, I think Iphigenized mother Clytemnestra revenged on Agamon. If your daughter were killed by your husband, what would you do? You'd probably go kill the guy, okay? Kandemestra plots this vengeance against Agamaranin, and so when Agamon comes home, Kratom Klamov kills him for killing Ipigenia. Okay? So, could have known this? Could Egadon have predicted this? Probably, okay? So this is why it's stupid. right okay so just i understand it's important to keep your vows to the gods but like what bishri's

saying is like use your brains people okay all right so jeffa was stupid agamana was stupid as well okay keep keep on reading uh carrol paradise canto five line 73 christians proceed with greater gravity Do not be like a feather at each wind, nor think that all immersions wash you clean. You have both Testaments, the old and new. You have the shepherd of the church to guide you. You need no more than this for your salvation. Okay. What is she saying here?

Okay. What is she saying here? Is she saying, okay, yes. It's important to keep your vows to God. But at the same time, use your brain. And how can you use your brain? You have both Testaments, the old and the new, and the shepherd of the church to guide you. You need no more than this for your salvation. This is very subversive. If I'm the Catholic church and I hear that, I'm pissed off. Why?

Don't need the priest. You don't need a priest, but what do you need? The Bible. You do understand? Okay, what are you not allowed to do at this time if you're Catholic? To read the Bible. Read the Bible by yourself. You're not allowed to do that. And what Donnie is saying is like, hey, if you really want to understand what is true, read the Bible for yourself. Okay, yes? So this is something I'm really confused about.

So first, you said that we should follow our intuition because our intuition comes from God. And then you said that we should use our brains. And then you said that we should read the Bible. However, if we presume that God is above all of this, if we presume that God does not need to make himself manifest in such things as the Bible or even the Catholic Church, then what is God? How should we get closer to God? Okay, all right.

So first, let's ask a question, okay? Have you read the Bible before? Okay. What's the problem of reading the Bible? There's loads of versions. Loads of versions. Loads of versions. It's pretty complicated, man. So what's the only way you can actually read the Bible? Use your intuition, man. You understand? Try reading the Bible using logic. Good luck with that one. Right? What's your contradiction here?

What funny is saying is, okay, yes, I understand that you made the, this to God and you want to know what to keep and what to what to break use your intuition how read the Bible listen to the priest okay once you have these two elements go to church listen to the priest read the Bible then this will be the path to your salvation so what he's really saying is use your own judgment use your intuition use your faith Yes? So what you are basically saying here, back to my inside outside metaphor. So what you're basically saying here is that we have to use our intuition,

but our intuition is not entirely of our own control because we cannot use our intuition to forgive ourselves of everything we have ever done. And therefore, our intuition is something outside of us. And therefore, God is a concrete existence somewhere outside of us. Okay. All right. So let's try to make this simple, okay? It might be wrong, but that's why I'm going to get some, okay?

Your intuition is ultimately your connection to the divine, to the universe, okay? Because like where does your intuition come from? It comes from the source. But there are ways in which to strengthen this connection, okay? Knowledge, reading, inquiry, debate, love, faith. Does that make sense? So live a life of love. faith, inquiry, preserve knowledge, and this will strengthen your intuition.

Because for Dante, science, intuition are not mutually exclusive. They are independent, they are codependent. Only with intuition can you truly be a scientist. Does that make sense, guys? All right, let's let's let's let's go on going girl. Paradise canto five, line 79. If evil greed would summon you elsewhere, be men and not like sheep gone mad, so that the Jew who lives among you not deride you. Do not act like the foolish, wantome lamb that leaves its mother's milk and heedless wants to war against and harm its very self. These words of Beatrice I hear transcribe, and then she turned, longing at the full to where the world is more alive with light. Her silence on the change and her

appearance imposed a silence on my avid mind, which now was ready to address new questions. And even as an arrow that has struck the mark before the bow cord comes to rest, so did we race to reach the second realm. When she had passed into that heaven's light, I saw my lady filled with so much gladness that at her joy the planet grew more bright. And if the planet changed and smiled, what then did I, who by my very nature, am given to every sort of change, become? As in a fish pool that is calm and clear, the fish draw close to anything that nears from outside if it seems to be their fair. Such were the far more than a thousand splendors I saw approaching us and each declared here now is one who will increase our loves.

And even as each shade approached one saw because of the bright radiance it set forth, the joyous with which that shade was filled. Consider, reader, what your mystery and need to know still more would be if, at this point, what I began did not go on. And you will, unassisted, feel how I longed so to hear those shades narrate their state as soon as they appeared before my eyes. O you born unto gladness, whom God's grace allows to see the thrones of eternal triumph before your war of life has ended. The light that kindles us is that same light which spreads

through all of heaven. Thus he would know us, state yourself as you may please. So did one of those pious spirits speak to me, and Beatrice then urged, speak, speak constantly. Trust them as you trust God. I see plainly how you have nested in your own light. See, you draw it from your eyes because it glistens even as you smile. But I do not know who you are or why, good soul.

Your rank is in a sphere concealed from mortals by another planet's rays. I said this as I stood turned toward the light that first addressed me, and at this it glowed more radiantly than it had before. Just as the sun, when heat has worn away, thick mist that moderate its rays conceals itself from sight through an excess of light. So did that holy form through excess gladness,

concealed himself from me within his rays, and so concealed concealed, he answered me even as the next canto is to say. Okay, all right. So what's happening, of course, is that Dunnian features are traveling through the cosmos. They're going from spear to spear. They are now in a new spear. And the person they meet is Justinian. Justinian was emperor of the Byzantine Empire, okay? The probably greatest emperor of the Byzantine Empire. And he will now talk about the history of Rome, which will read the next conto. question. There's a word here that shouldn't be in the divine comedy at all.

It's a really weird word. If you are Christian, if you're a practicing Christian, you hear this word and you basically shudder. You're like, what? It's like basically someone hitting you. What is this word? The word doesn't really belong. It should not be here. There's a word.

Four letters, guys. Four letter word that should not be in heaven. It makes absolutely no sense. What's the word? Holy. Holy. No, holy is a word that you would want in heaven, yes. Born?

Huh? Born? Born? No. There's a word that's like, what is it doing here in heaven? You're like, this is wrong. So it is, to me? Yes.

Thank you. God. What is going on here? You guys understand this? Yeah, you're like, you're a Christian. There's one God. And it is sacriot to say there is another God. There can only be one God.

What is you say? Beatrice says, speak, speak, confidently, trust them as you trust God. Beatrice says to Justinian, talk to Don. speak the truth, talk to them as you trust God. It's a really strange word, right? Does the gods here refer to like the Greek gods? I mean, I think yesterday we talked about how at the beginning of the contos, like Dante prayed to, for example, the Apollo and the Muses, even though he was like Christians.

Yeah, well, I mean, like, that can only be the, that can only be the reference. because Christianity is monotheistic, meaning just one god. The Greeks are politicistic, meaning many gods, right? So the idea I'm trying to convey is that there's a subversive quality, subversive quality to the divine comedy. You can choose to just read it as a Christian text, and quite honestly, most people do read it as Christian text. And I put this out because the next context,

we will, for Justinian, read the entire history of the Catholic Church, okay? From its beginnings in Rome to the Holy Roman Empire, okay? And that is the official chronology as presented by the Catholic Church. But what I'm trying to show you is that there are small things embedded throughout the text that subvert the traditional understanding of Christianity. It doesn't make sense, guys. And unless you read it deeply, you can't actually appreciate it.

Yes? We say this as a humanistic perspective. Like, we often say modern-day celebrities are called stars, right? And sometimes we say, gods of the literary canon, and sometimes we almost worship the grades in our history.

And can this be seen as this pioneer of the humanistic perspective that humans can be great in and of themselves, even those who are not great for religion, like pagans, like Archimedes. Exactly, okay? And what you say is the Renaissance, okay? What makes the Renaissance a revolution in human affairs is that, as you say, it celebrates the human spirit and how the human spirit can be a force for innovation and good in the universe. And this is a unique in Europe at this time. And it starts with Dante. It is Dante that launches the Renaissance as well as Mardin. It is Dante that promotes the idea of the individual that we take

for granted today, but which was revolutionary back in this time. Okay? So, so yes. All right. So we have another 20 minutes, but I want to talk about some ideas. Okay, so I don't want to give you an impression that our discussion is the end-on-be-all, that we've uncovered the truth. I want to go over into the limitations of a discussion. The first limitation, as you can appreciate, is this is written in Italian. We are reading in English because we don't speak Italian. This is a severe limitation because it prevents us from doing literary analysis. We can't study the words, we can't study the diction, the syntax.

Okay, and so it limits our true understanding of what Dante is trying to convey. It doesn't make sense. Unless you read this in Italian, it's impossible to truly decipher his meaning. That's important. And we've invited someone Italian to come read some passages for later in the workshop. Yeah, and that'll be great. But the point I'm trying to make it is like, unless you read it in Italian by yourself,

you never truly understand it, okay? Okay, that's point one. Point two is that we just this before, but in the divine common, there's a lot of numerology and mathematics. Because when you think about it, for Dante, mathematics is the underlying truth of the universe, okay? Mathematics, numerology is what provides a structure of the universe. And there's a lot of actually numerology and mathematics within the divine comedy.

The most basic example is a structure where it's 34 contos in inferno, 33, in Perkertory in 33 in Paradise. And also, like, if you look at the structure of the poem, it's three lines by three lines by three lines, okay? There's clearly a numerical significance to number three because of what? When you think three, what do you think? The Trinity, okay? You understand. Okay. So what Dante is doing is he is using mathematics in order to portray the divine structure all the universe to express its intent, sorry, its intentionality. Okay, it's a design.

So unless you really study the mathematics, it's, again, hard to understand the divine comedy. We're not going to do that because a lot of mathematics is an Italian, okay? The mathematics would also include syllables and the rhymes and all that. So we can't do the numerology as well. The third thing that we're missing, that's very important for divine comedy, is astrology. So at this time in history, astrology is science, right? you think that the movement of stars will determine the course of events. And if you read Divine Comedy, if you look at Paradise, obviously there's all astrology here, okay?

Obviously, the way that the stars have in position, the way that Don is looking at the stars from a certain angle, it's all significant. But I don't understand any of this stuff. So astrology is also very key. Then you have the symbology. So we looked at certain symbols last class. For example, the four circles and the three crosses. And we pointed out how you can have lots of rich discussions over the meaning of these symbols. There are lots of symbols scattered throughout divine comedy.

And obviously there's a lot of deep meaning under these symbols, but unless you actually study symbology, you don't know what they are. What Donnie is doing that's very important is that he's combining different traditions together, right? Not just the Christian tradition, but also the pagan tradition, also the Islamic tradition, the Gnostic tradition. There's also sorts of traditions that he's combined together in order to create the symbology, the imagery that underlies the divine comedy, okay? And the last element that we can't look at is the occult, okay?

Occult esoterism. What is the occult? The occult is basically talking to demons and angels, okay? And you actually know the occult. You will understand there's a lot of occult symbolism, a lot of occult references into the dying comedy. I don't know these references, so I cannot bring them out. Yes?

Personally, based on my understanding, I would argue that the original meaning of the word occult is actually the hidden and the occult can refer to more than angels and demons. In fact, if we're referring to that, we often refer to them using, for example, demonology. So the occult could also refer to other topics. Yeah, right. The culture just means what's hidden from us or what is esoteric, okay? Yes. But most people refer to it as just talking to demons and angels.

And clearly, Donny spends a lot of time talking to demons and angels. Right. So all, so, and the last thing I would say is just magic. Okay. Magic, uh, manifestation. So why I bring this out is like there is an entire universe in the divine comedy. We cannot access because of limitations of our language, because of limitations of our knowledge. So, um, even though we're having these rich discussions, appreciate that there's only a small fragment of the entirety of the Divine Comedy. And the entire purpose of this class is to encourage you to spend your entire lifetime studying the Divine Comedy. There's about 20 you in this classroom.

I guarantee you, if you would have spent the next 50 years studying Divine Comedy, each and every one of you would have a radically different interpretation. of divine comedy because some of you may learn Italian and go study numerology. Some of you may learn Italian and go study symbology, okay? In which case, you present a radically different conception of your understanding. Another way of saying this is, the divine comedy, what it really is, is the secret Bible of humanity. Right? The Bible is the major religious text. for most people in this world, but if you are an intellectual, if you are an inspiring writer, the divine comedy is what will guide you in your imaginations, okay? If you read the divine

comedy throughout the entire life, I guarantee you, you're going to be one of our greatest intellectuals, one of our greatest writers, greatest thinkers, because there's so much richness. Also, like if you actually read Divine Comedy and you study things like the Kabbalah, you know the Kabbalah comes from Divine Comedy, okay? This is something that we might discuss later on, but the Jewish Kabbalah is basically inspired by Divine Comedy. It's something that people don't recognize. But if you're a really smart person, you're really interested in the esoteric, in the occult, in magic, in God, then the divine comely is the best source material that you can have.

And again, I am just amazed at the level of accomplishment. I mean, it is, I think, certainly the greatest individual human achievement in history, far greater than Einstein or Newton. But also, I think that if we were to rank the Vincominy to other great achievements, the pyramids, the nuclear bomb, the computer, whatever, I still think the Vine Comedy is superior. Okay, that's my own feeling. Also, I will say that because I'm accessed to all this, okay, these six things I'm missing for my capacity to fully analyze the Vincominy, It also means we'll probably skip certain sections.

Does that make sense? Certain sections are heavy into the occult, astrology, and mathematics. And there's really no point for us to read it because, like, I don't understand what's going on. All right. Okay. So any questions about this? Yes? Do you remember the first time you read Divine Comedy and how it felt like?

Yeah, I had no idea what it was reading. I mean, I started reading the Divine Comedy about four years ago for the first time. I didn't read this at Yale. I think you have to get Italian to read Divine Comedy. I can't remember. And for the first, like, many, many months, I didn't understand anything, okay? Like, I would read the words, like, I don't understand what's going on, okay? I would watch videos.

I would watch, like, 100 hours of, like, videos explaining to me what Divine Comedy is. It made me even more confused, okay? Try, try it, try going to YouTube, try watching what these professors say about the comedy, it will just confuse you even more. And so I'm really, really frustrated, but I am, I have to teach this to my students. Okay, I'm teaching in high school, and I've taught Homer, I've taught Plato, and I'm like, I should teach Donda as well. So I'm like, oh my God, I'm going to, I am going to be a complete idiot, okay, but I really, really want to. want to teach this to my students because I really want to teach great books. And then one morning I wake up and it felt as though Dante walked into my dreams

and he gave me certain ideas and he said love. Okay, if you want to understand the mind comedy think about what love is. Think about what the meaning of love is and that will lead you to a right path. And then the divine comedy started to like open up to me. Like the words start to connect together. Okay. And it goes back to the idea of Picarda where if there's a will, there's a way where I for like four months felt completely hopeless. Like this is impossible.

This is just stupid. I can't understand what's going on. All these YouTube videos are making more confused. I felt hopeless. But when you really want it, the universe will respond. Maybe not the way you expect, maybe not in the way you want, but it will respond. It will guide you through the right path. Okay?

So it's only a question of will and desire. Yes? So something I would like to comment on, something that I noticed and I think is interesting, but understand what given it's time, is that, so in fantasy, like in fantasy fiction there are two types of magic there's hard magic and there's soft magic and hard magic is when you do something like one plus one and you expect it to equal to and soft magic is when you don't know will turn up magic just turns up when it needs to so i think dante's magic dante's uh satiricism is closer to soft magic than hard magic but it's already showing the

basic science of heart magic which i think is really interesting because in catholicism you cannot expect God to do anything. So Catholic magic or miracles is absolutely soft magic. However, as we evolved, as the disciplines of the Kabbalah, as the disciplines of cultism evolved, we gradually got ourselves some rituals. We got ritualism and that evolved into hard magic where we do something and we expect something to happen. Okay. I agree with that. Yeah. What I'll also say is that I really think divine comedy is the word of God. It's a universe speaking through Dante. And that's why I say it's perfect. I've not been able to find a flaw in the divine comedy. I mean, like, look at its beauty of its structure. Look at the beauty of its language.

Look at the, look at the economy of its ideas. We're able to take one sentence and have like hours and hours of discussions based on this. So, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I think it's going to be worth your while to spend the rest of your life studying the vine comedy. It is that good. And there is magic, definitely magic in this. And the more you study, the more you will discover. I cannot say this about the Bible.

I'm sorry. I've actually said the Bible. It is a complete mess, okay? If you actually said the Bible, you're like, what's going on here? but divine comedy, the poetry, makes it perfect, right? Because let's just say you're in the Middle Ages and you hear Dante recite poetry, right? What do you think? What are you thinking?

It's God, right? It's God taking possession of Dante and Donny's just reciting the poetry. Same thing if, you know, you go to a concert and you might have a favorite music. when the music is singing, you think it's the universe singing. It's God that's singing, right? It touches you that deeply. All right. Okay, so we come back from the break, we will go into the history of the Catholic Church. Okay? First we'll say the official history of the Catholic Church and then we will show I'll show you how Dante presents a new understanding of Jesus. Okay, all right. Any questions? Okay guys, so I will see you after the break. Okay.

What I'm going to do before we read Dante is I'm going to introduce the Catholic version of history. Okay, so the end point of history is Catholic Church because the Catholic Church is the manifestation of the Catholic Church. Because the Catholic Church is the manifestation of of God on earth. It is heaven on earth. So all the events that led Catholic Church were preordained. They were intended by God. Okay.

And the thing that starts history in which leads to Catholic Church is, of course, Rome. Rome. It is God's intention, it is God's will, that Rome conquer the world. world. So it starts off this very small, poor place in the Italian Peninsula, and it gradually expands outwards, and then it conquers the entire Mediterranean, right? It destroys Carthage, and the three pinnics wars, and now it controls most of the world spanning the Mediterranean, from Spain all the way to Egypt, all the way to Syria and the Levant. This is the Roman Empire. Now, during the course of the Roman Empire, a civil war breaks out.

And, of course, Julius Caesar will win this war, but he will become assassinated by Brutus and Cassius. And this will lead to the rise of Augustus Caesar. And after Arkansas Caesar dies, Tyler Caesar will come into Thailand. And as Dornelah Tiberius, Caesar, Christianity is born and it spreads, it's spreading throughout the Roman Empire. It's a miracle because in the beginning of the first hundred years, it's persecuted. It's a very French religion. But by about 200, years 300, it was a few hundred, it becomes official religion of the Roman Empire because of Constantine. And Constantine will decide to share.

to shift his capital from Rome to Constantinople, which is modern-day Istanbul. And this begins the Byzantine Empire, which is the Eastern Roman Empire. And the great empire of the Byzantine Empire is, of course, Justinian, who we are meeting, who we have met in my economy, and Justinian will narrate the story of Roman Empire, okay? basically like this. Now, as we know, the Roman Empire does split in half between the Western and the Eastern.

The Eastern Empire will fall to Turks in the 16th century, about 1,000 years later, but the Western Empire falls about the year 400, okay? And when it falls, Europe is broken into different kingdoms, different factions, and about there 800, Charlemagne of the Franks will unite all of Europe and creates something called the Holy Roman Empire Holy Roman Empire will last until who do you do you guys know your history who who destroys a holy Roman empire to me no that's the Roman Empire who destroys the Holy Roman Empire

did you guys know your history Napoleon yes Napoleon born apart so that's a long way okay this is this is this This is about 1800. So the Holy Roman Empire lasts for a long, long time. And from the perspective of Donvary Europeans, this is all the stability, the continuity, it's all because of the will of God. Okay? Now, over the course of this time, as I said, Christianity will develop. Okay?

And Christianity will come to replace the Holy Roman Empire as the most powerful force in the world. So it starts of course with the birth of Jesus in about 4 BC, okay? And then 33 is when he is crucified. And with his death, it will begin Christianity. What will happen is that Peter will become the first Bishop of Rome, basically the first Pope, okay? And then Paul will build the foundations of Christianity. the the we will meet both Peter and Paul in the life comedy not Jesus but Peter and Paul.

Then what happens is that Christianity spreads and it becomes official under Constantine. Okay, so now the Catholic Church is official now in 325 This is a simple council of Nicaea. Nakia is in Martin A Turkey, but because of Nicaea is a radical train point in Christian history because before every single place in Europe had its own distinct church that blended Christian elements with local pagan practice. The cousin like Kia attempt to standardize Christianity by resolving certain theological conflicts within the church. Okay, and there are quite a few major conflicts. The first major conflict is the nature

of Jesus. So everyone worships Jesus. That's why you're a Christian. But what was Jesus? There are some who said that Jesus was God incarnate, right? There's some who said Jesus was a man who was anointed by God to be his messenger. It was to extremes. And the solution that they came up with is that God is of men.

man and God. It's really important for you guys to appreciate. Jesus has a dual nature, both God and man, both divine and both human. What is this important? You had to have Jesus both as divine and as human. Why? Do you guys know why? You can't be like this guy's a man.

You can't be this guy's a guy. It has to be both why. Yes? Well, from a literary perspective, like we all like a main character we can relate to. And if Jesus was holy God, then we can't relate to him that much. And if he was wholly human, then, well, what business does he have doing all these nice things for us? Okay. There's actually a much more serious, yes? Because therefore he can save all the human.

by how by um salvation um okay so the main reason is the crucifix fiction right right doesn't make sense guys because of crucifixion so the idea is that sacrifice only makes sense if he could die you understand and he said god you're crucified him who cares that's nothing so he needed to have a human element in order for us sacrifice to be worthwhile, to be worthy of redeeming us. Okay? So that's one major theological debate. And quite honestly, it still goes on today. They're like literally hundreds and hundreds of different sects of Christianity arguing about this.

Okay? But the really big question is the relationship between God, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus. right because now we've affirmed that Jesus is God that's why we worship him that's what we're Christians but why are why does the God appear in the Bible and what is the Holy Spirit and what is Jesus

right? We worship between these three and historically there have been different explanations. They come from the key as important because it established the Holy Trinity okay the Holy Trinity the concept here is God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are separate, but one.

It doesn't make sense. They are both different, but the same at the same time. Okay? So because of Nicaa establishes the Holy Trinity. And quite honestly, most Christians were aghast at this idea. This started civil wars. This is what launched civil wars throughout the Christian world. Okay, but the Bison Empire enforced the Holy Trinity throughout.

And even today, there's still arguments about the Holy Trinity. Okay, so this is a custom of the Kia. With important ideas, keep in mind, because finding will discuss this about the divine comedy. Then we go to about 400. Why is this important? Because Rome falls. The barbarians, Visigoths, they overrun Rome. and if you're a Christian, you're like, this is a question of faith.

Because you were taught that Rome is heaven and earth. It's where the Catholic Church is. So why would God not protect Rome? And so at this time, the major Catholic the religion named Augustine, okay, he writes a book called City of God. In the city of God, what it argues is there are two cities in the world. There is Rome and there's Jerusalem. Rome is a seat of temporal power.

Jerusalem is a seat of spiritual power. Rome was meant to fall so that Jerusalem may rise. What is Jerusalem? Jerusalem is the Catholic Church. Okay? So, in other words, the Catholic Church is out of history. history. The Catholic Church does not care who is king. Because the Catholic Church doesn't care who is rich or who is poor. It doesn't matter. It's all temporal issues, earthly issues. What the Catholic Church cares about is who goes to heaven and why. Okay? So Carl Ardic Church establishes the separation between church and state where the church is out of history, beyond. history. It doesn't care who's king. This is why in here 800,

Shalermain is a problem because Shalomine wants to have the authority of Catholic church because he has become the new Roman emperor. The Pope grants it to him. The Pope anoints him emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, right? If you don't have holy in here, holy, then you need the church. So now the church becomes embedded in temple politics and this is what leads to Dante writing the divine comedy because he is angry at the fact that because the church has involved itself in temporal politics now of Europe is in factional politics right now you have two major seats of power the Holy Woman Empire that's the Catholic Church and they're

always fighting okay the Holy Woman Empire is fighting to figure out who the Pope that's not a temporary issue, that's not a worldly issue, the Vatican is fighting to install a friendly emperor in the Holy Roman Empire. Okay? This is happening for centuries. This is leading to wars throughout Europe. It's also leading to massive oppression, massive citizenship, the destruction of creativity in Europe. And this impels Dante to write to the black comedy to address a heart. of these histories okay so what don't is going to do is the first thing he's going to do is present

the official story of the Catholic church and then he's going to make some adjustments to it okay to reconcile the differences now some really important history that Dante will go into is Why did Jesus have to die? Okay? What was the point of the death of Jesus? And as you know, it was to redeem us from our original sin, right? At the beginning of time. God gave him a very simple order, very simple instruction,

do not eat that stupid fruit, okay? Anything else, but don't eat that fruit and they eat the fruit. And that's the original sin. And then we humans, because we disobey God, became lost, became evil. And it was Jesus who came to redeem us in the eyes of God. Right? And so that's why he was crucified. Now, if you read the Bible, what it tells you is that the Jews were responsible for the Jews.

death of Jesus. So now God has to avenge his only son. So what happens? In the year 70, the Romans destroy the second temple. And you know more in the history, that's what's led to a lot of problems today. Okay. But in the year 70, the Jews rebelled against the Romans. The Romans under Titus sent a huge army and they burned down the second temple. And this revenge for for the Jews betraying Jesus. And so if you're Christian, you learn this history. But obviously, this raises a lot of issues. Why did, why was murder, a murder of Jesus necessary to redeem us, right?

What does one wrong make right? That doesn't really make any sense. also why would God need to punish the Jews if this all part of the plan to begin with right the Jews did nothing wrong okay yes the Jews did betray Jesus but wasn't this part the plan to begin with the Jews were just doing their part so why did God have to punish the Jews okay so clearly there are issues with this history And this history is important because you know your European history, it's led to a lot of evil in Europe, right? For example, anti-Semitism in Europe.

So Dante feels compelled to reconcile this history and present in a way that we can appreciate and which will lead us closer to the monad to God. And that really is the genius of Dante, where he can take this complex, convoluted history and turn it into a philosophy for us to appreciate and for us to act upon, okay? Does that make sense? Any questions about this introduction before we read Dante? Yes? Um, so does Dante believe that Jesus is God or not? Does he like, to how many parts does he agree with the Catholic Church? Okay. Um, that's a really, um, that's a really, really good question and the answer is we'll never know because Dante is running out of time

in history where you could be killed for defying the Catholic Church for committing heresy. Okay so a lot of things he does it's going to be subtle it's going to be nuanced we'll never truly know his true feelings but if I had to guess um I would say that Dante in his interpretation of the Bible and in his interpretation of Jesus he felt that Jesus was a great spiritual leader who was divine in nature but so is Dante okay does that make sense so what what Donna would say is look I'm writing this poetry because God has taken possession of me in order to relay a message of humanity

And that's what he would probably say about Jesus as well, where Jesus is divine inspired to spread a message of hope and salvation to the people around him. Okay. Now, sorry, did you want to say something? I wanted to say something. Like the history you just presented earlier about Jesus' murder, so you speak, was it meant to be factual or was it meant to be biblical? So this is the official Catholic history. I'm not making a comment if this is true or false. I'm just saying this is what the Catholic Church teaches its followers.

Okay, okay, that's true. Am I right here? Okay, if you're Catholic and I get it wrong, please let me know. Okay? I present this to you because Justinian will say the same thing. Okay, but I'm putting this in simple terms so we understand what he's saying. And then Bonnie is going to argue against this. All right. Okay. So let's go back to Jesus. All right. So something to keep in mind about Jesus is, if you really want to understand that essence of Jesus, there is a part of the Bible that I think is peer poetry. It itself has to be divine inspired, just like the divine comedy. And I think we should read it together, okay? It's called the sermon on the moment.

the mouth okay so so so so Carol will read the sermon on the mouth okay just so we can understand who Jesus is and how he thinks we don't have to read all of it it's pretty long but we'll read a few paragraphs okay this is from the gospel of Matthew the NIV version blessed are the poor and spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

Blessed are the pure and heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Okay, all right, stop. So you can hear the poetry. You can hear the beauty and the truth. Now, this is very powerful. I think it moves every one of us today, okay?

Sometimes I just cry hearing this. But this is especially powerful 2,000 years ago when Jesus was alive. Why? Because the Roman Empire was really, really evil. The Roman Empire, the Pax Romanah, marked a time of tremendous inequality, where a few people had everything, and where most people were slaves. So in this time, what do you do? Well, if you revolt like Spartacus, they'll come and they'll crucify you and your family, right? You can try to rebel, but there's no point because it is the empire, it is everywhere, it is everything.

You can't possibly get become rich because all the wealth has been monopolized. Yes? I would have to say that while this is from a modern-day perspective true, I think it's a slightly anachronistic perspective because in the age of the Romans wealth equality was a thing that was taken was taken like as a granted in society and also Christianity is not free of its wealth in quality, especially after its legalization and And also, also, Roman slavery was not as widespread or as cruel as we think. Many Roman citizens would interslavery as a way to free themselves from their debt. So I'm saying that while all of this is true from a present day and from a Christian perspective, it is slightly anachronistic. Okay, so let me ask you this question. Let's just say that you are a young person living in the world today. The baby boomers have everything.

You went to school, now you have $100,000 in debt. And you have actually no job prospects. The best you can hope for is maybe to become a gig worker, right? Driving a Uber. You have no chance of getting married. You have no prospect of ever owning a home. How do you feel? How would you feel? I'd be pretty pissed.

Yeah? Again, I think this, well, this is absolutely true. This is absolutely true on present day and it highlights some of the most point in questions that we face in our present day. I think it's a slightly anachronistic perspective if we apply it to the Roman Empire. Okay, all right, fine. Okay, but I'm just saying that maybe a thousand years ago we'd be like, wow, young people in the year 2026 happen all, man. They have cars, they have computers, have air conditioning. They are, they must be the happiest young people ever in human history, right? You guys have porn in your computer.

Right? You guys can fly to Beijing and take this class. What are you complaining about? Well, I'm pretty sure the slaves back in the Roman times had a lot more to complain about than you guys, okay? All right? So even though, okay, well, maybe they weren't that bad off, relatively they felt hopeless. Okay, if you were a slave in the Roman period during this time, again, 9% of the population were either poor or slaves. You hated your life, right? And so what is your hope? Well, what Jesus is saying is,

you have been brainwashed. You have been indoctrary to believe that only wealth matters. Okay? Blessed are the poor. You are what who God truly, truly loves. Don't seek wealth. poverty. Poverty is the path to God. It's a message of hope. It's a message of salvation. It's also a message of liberation. The greatest revolution you can commit as an individual

is to recognize the humanity, the divinity in yourself, regardless of what people in authority tell you. Right? This is why this message is so powerful and it resonates. And that's why Christian, he's spread so far. Because it is a message that speaks to the human heart in a time of anguish. Okay? And this is a spirit, by the way, that Dante will try to remember

or conjure up in the divine comedy. Jesus was not an empire builder. He didn't care about the church. There was no Catholic church when he was around. He was part of a movement called the polar. Okay?

Have you guys learned this history? The poor. Okay? The poor. And the poor, this movement is basically, we give up material wealth. We will travel as beggars. And we will only accept charity. Okay, we won't accept money, but we'll accept food and lodging. And there's a very powerful passage in, was it Matthew? But like, basically, actually, it's in, it's in,

most of the Gospels, but a young man says to Jesus, I want to be like you. How can I follow you? And Jesus is like, do good works. And then the young man's like, no, no, I want to do more. And Jesus says, if you really want to be one of God, give up your wealth. And then the man says, I can't do that because I'm filthy rich, man. I have a lot of money. I'm not going to give up my wealth. And then Jesus says to others, truly, it is harder for a man to what was it?

Yeah, right, yeah. Yeah, go ahead. It's harder for the camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven. Exactly, okay? That is Jesus. That is the spirit of Jesus that Dante recognizes. And when Dante talks about St. Francis of Assisi,

right he will conjure up he will help us remember that this was the real Jesus a man who taught people the path to salvation is through your spirituality it is through kindness through generosity food love okay that is the Jesus that I think Dante understood yes it wasn't Dante aristocrats himself like someone who had power and money and stuff like sorry what's your point here well I mean if he wanted to be like Jesus then or like or spread his message and he didn't live exactly that life he lived life of like power right or like he was an aristocrat so first of all I mean Dante came from a good family but he was not an aristocrat by the standards of Florence okay also let me

ask you this question was Saint Francis of Assisi you know the man who became the founder of the Francis who gave him all wealth was he born rich or poor do you know guess he was very very rich his family was very very rich and that's why what he did was so significant right If you're born poor and you're like, I don't want money. Is that hard? But you're born rich and like, you know what? All my friends are rich.

I've born rich. But I'm going to give up all this money. That is an action that is truly inspired, right? It's truly divine. Yes? This isn't related to Jesus necessarily. So what Dante, what I think Dante is doing, I think it's actually pioneering.

It's actually an early version of Protestantism. So a kind of place where you return to God, where you return to Jesus instead of returning to the Catholic Church. So my personal opinion about the Catholic Church is that despite preaching the gospel of poverty, despite condemning having a lot of money and using it to do evil things, it actually enabled a lot of the power structures that allowed medieval European society to become so unequal and so feudal. So my point is that Dante is actually subtly pioneering this return to Jesus' own, values, bypassing the Catholic Church. Yes, okay. All right. So that's true, but something that you guys don't appreciate is there was always opposition towards the Catholic Church throughout history, you understand?

The Protestant movement was not new. It was always there. Okay, so there were two major oppositions to the church. Okay, the first argument is that the church is too worldly, meaning that these prelates, were these bishops were filthy filthy rich and like sorry but the apostles you know they swore to poverty jesus swore to poverty so that's betraying the church so throughout this history okay it's been covered up but throughout this history there were all these movements throughout europe that criticized the church forced corruption and who sought to return to a life of poverty Some of these movements, the church actually co-opted, right? So the Benedicts and the Dominicans and the Franciscans were co-opted by the church, but they came about because of their harsh criticism of church power and wealth.

Okay? And the second thing about the church was for Jesus taught, okay, this is really important. You read the Bible, he actually says this, but Jesus taught that we all have, a direct connection to God. Okay, that's what Jesus taught. The church says no, no, we are born in sin, therefore we have betrayed God, therefore we must now rely on the church to connect us back to God. Okay, but throughout most of this hit most of this time there were a lot of people who refused to accept this and the one major groups of course is called the cathars. I'm not sure you you know this history the cathars okay there are a lot of these um christian sects that

taught that we had a direct connection to god okay um and so they were suppressed this launched the alba jinzian crusade okay so this is really important for you guys to understand the positive movement was not a sudden revolution it was always there the project revolution was successful okay but throughout history at no point was there not opposition towards Catholic Church for these two reasons because the church was seen as corrupt and because the church denied direct access to God okay and this is something that Bronte will discuss at great death in the in the divine comedy doesn't make sense So one last thing that you guys need to know is in the year 1321, this is a year when Dante finished the line comedy.

And the moment he finished, like, I don't know, a few months later, he died. Okay? So basically, you can argue that he kept himself alive in order to finish the line comedy. And then when he finished it, he's like, my mission is done. I can now rest and be with God. But in the year 1321, at this time in history, the explanation for why Jesus had to die on the cross is radically different from today. Today, why do we think Jesus died on the cross? What's explanation?

To redeem us from our sins, right? Okay. Back then, the most popular explanation is something called the ransom theory. the ransom theory. And it goes like this. Who made us eat that fruit? Satan, right? This guy's as a serpent.

So when we ate that fruit, we turned away from God and became slaves to Satan. So now this is a problem. Because if God is to redeem us, he needs to pay a ransom to Satan. Right? Let me finish first, okay?

And so if you're God and you need to make a deal with Satan, what can you offer to Satan that would allow him to free us? The answer is his only son, okay? But Satan didn't recognize that the only son was so divine that he could resurrect. Okay, so Satan, so even though Jesus did go to hell, he was able to escape it as well. So at this time in history, this is the most popular explanation for why Jesus had to die on the cross as a ransom for our sins.

Okay? And over time, it becomes generalized to become he redeemed us from our sins. So this is the most popular theory at this time. And Dante will respond to this theory. Yes? So I think, again, I'm just picking out words, picking our hairs here, but I'm saying that Satan made us eat the fruit. Satan did not make us do anything.

Satan tempted us to eat the fruit, and we did it of our own free will. Because if Satan made us eat the fruit, and if we really became slaves to him, then Satan will be more powerful than God because he could subvert God's most holy, most precious gift, which is our free will, which doesn't make any sense. Right, yeah, okay, yeah, that's right. So we have our free will chose to become slaves to Satan. Does it make sense? Because when we became tempted by Satan, we turned away from God and became like Satan. Okay?

But that is assuming that Satan is as powerful as God and Satan has the right to receive the gift of our reward. Okay, so, so look, I'm not arguing about theology, okay? I'm not arguing about this idea. I'm just saying what people believe at this time and what the church taught at this time. because I need to explain to you why Dante is doing what he's doing okay okay I'm not gonna argue this is right or wrong I'm just saying this is what people believed at this time does that make sense guys okay all right so this is the background and so we're not gonna read Dante together okay and so for the first canto justini is this gonna tell us the history of the Catholic Church

beginning with Rome and keep in mind there are two things that upset Dante. The first is, why did Jesus have to die? Second is, why did God have to destroy the temple? Okay? All right. Can you read Carol, please? Paradise, Conto 6, from the beginning. After Constantine had turned the eagle counter to heaven's course, the course it took behind the ancient one who wed Lavinia. Okay, so Constantine, of force is a person who makes Christianity, the official religion of Rome, the eagle is the Roman empire itself, okay? The ego is the standard of the Roman empire. When you see the word eagle, it means the Roman empire. The ancient one who led Lavinia is Ineus, okay?

And in many ways, the divine comedy, it is a reimagination of Virgil's great epic poem, the Inniad. I'll discuss this next week, okay? But that's in background. Keep on going away? 100 years and more, the bird of God remained near Earth's borders, close to the peaks from which it first emerged. Beneath the shadow of the sacred wings, it ruled the world from hand to hand until that governing, changing, became my task. Caesar, I was and am Justinian, who, through the will of primal love, I feel, removed the vain and needless from the laws. but I grew, before I grew attentive to this labor, I held that but one nature and no more was Christ, and in that faith I was content. But then the blessed Agapetus, he who was chief shepherd with his words turned me to that faith which has truth and purity. I did believe him and now clearly see his faith, as you with contradictories can see that one is true and one is false.

As soon as my steps shared the church's path, God of his grace, inspired my high task as pleased him. I was fully drawn to that. And trusting to my Belisarius, my arms, I found a sign for me to rest from war. Heaven's right hand so favored him. Okay, so the background is this, okay? Justine is emperor of the Byzantine Empire, the Eastern Roman Empire. And at this point in history, the one empire is.

divided into the eastern half and the western half, okay? It's basically split in two. And because it's split in two, there are many different variants of Christianity. Most variants do not accept the Holy Trinity, okay? So Justinian goes on this holy crusade to conquer and unite all the Roman Empire and enforce the Holy Trinity on everyone. And he succeeds. And his general at this time was Belisarius. Okay, give on going. My answer to the question you first asked ends here, and yet the nature of this answer leads me to add a sequel, so that you may see with how much reason they attack the sacred standard, those who seem to act on its behalf and those opposing it. See what great virtue made that eagle worthy of reverence, beginning from that hour when palace died that it might gain a kingdom. You know that for 300 years and more, it lived in Alba, until at the end, three still fought, three still fought, contending for that standard.

You know how under seven kings it conquered its neighbors, its neighbors, and the year reaching from wrong Sabine women to Lucretius's grief. Okay, so the Sabine woman, Lucretia's suicide, this is all part of the early history of the Roman Republic, okay? You don't have time to go into this history, but what he's doing is summarizing the history of the Roman Republic, which then gives birth to the Roman Empire, okay? Keep on going. And what it did when carried by courageous Romans, who hurried to encounter Brennis, Pyrrhus, and other principates and cities.

Through this, Torquatus, Quinchius, who is named for his disheveled hair, the Desi and Febeye gained the fame I gladly honor. That standard brought the pride of Arabs low when they had followed Hannibal across those alpine rocks from which Po you descent. beneath that standards, Chipio, Pompeii, though young, triumphed, and to that hill beneath which you were born, that standard seemed most harsh. Then, near the time when heaven wished to bring all of the world to heaven's way, Serene, Caesar, as Rome had willed, took up that standard. And what it did from Var to Rhine was seen by the Isserre-Sown and Sen, and all the valley floors whose river is feet. the rhone and what it did once it had left Ravanaugh and left the Rubicon was such a flight as neither tongue nor writing can describe that standard let the legions on to Spain then toward

Dorado and it struck Farsalia so hard that the warm Nile could feel that hurt it saw again its source and tendros and simsimois and the place where Hector lies then roused itself the worst for Potholome. From Egypt, lightning like, it fell on Juba, and then it hurried to the west of you where it could hear the trumpet of Pompeii. Okay, so again, he's just reciting or just summarizing Roman history, where, and the point is, the tone is that it is all purdained by God.

The rise of Rome was so quick that it had to be divine. Then with Rome comes Julius Caesar, who will now birth to a Roman empire by conquering goal, by conquering everyone, basically. And it's all been preordained, okay? Nothing can stop it. Not the Carthaginians, not even civil war can stop God's plan. Because of what that standard did, with him who bore it next, Brutus and Cassius howl in hell, and grief seized Modena Perugia. Because of it, sad Cleopatra weeps still, as she fled that standard. From the asp, she drew a sudden and atrocious death.

And with that very bearer, it then reached the Red Sea shore, with him that emblem brought the world such peace that Janus' trine was shut. But what the standard that has made me speak had done before or then was yet to do throughout the mortal realm where it holds rule comes to seem faint and insignificant. If one with clear sight and pure sentiment sees what it did in the third Caesar's hand. Okay, so the third Caesar is Tiberius Caesar, right? The first is Julius Caesar, Augustus Caesar,

and the third is Tiberius Caesar. Tiberius Caesar is important because this is during the time of Jesus, right? Jesus is now working as a prophet during this time. Keep on going. For the true justice that inspires me granted to it in that next Caesar's hand, the glory of avenging his own. wrath. Now marvel here at what I show to you. Sorry, the glory of avenging his own wrap refers to

the crucifixion of Jesus, right? God is angry at us in order to dissipate his anger. He must sacrifice his only son, Jesus. Okay, this is what it refers to. Keep on going. Now marvel here at what I show to you with Titus afterward, it hurried toward avenging vengeance for the ancient sin. So Titus is the general that will destroy the Jewish rebellion and burn down the second temple. And this is, and the Catholic Church teaches people at this time that this is vengeance for the Jews' betrayal of Jesus. Keep on going. And when the Lombard tooth bid Holy Church, then Charlemagne under the eagle's wings, through victories he gained, brought help to her. Now you can judge those I condemned above and judge how much men have offended.

have become the origin of all your evils. For some oppose the universal emblem with yellow lilies. Others claim that emblem for party. It is hard to see who is worse. Let jibbolines pursue their undertakings beneath another sign. For those who sever this sign and justice are bad followers. Okay, so now what Justin is saying is that in this time, people have misused the legacy of the Roman Empire

to conduct their own wars for political gain. So I said before that with the birth of the Holy Roman Empire, the church becomes embroiled in European geopolitics. And this leads to wars throughout this period. Dante is forced into these wars, because right now in history, this is about the year 1300, the Ghibelins and the Gweldes are at war with each other.

The Gwelves support the Pope. The Ghibelins support the Holy Romanes support the Holy Roman. empire or the other way around, I can't remember it, okay? And what happens is the Guelves and Donnie's part of the Guelves, they defeat the Ghibolines and so the Guelves control Florence. And then what happens next of course is you guys know, the Guelves divided into two factions of blacks and the whites. And these are before the same political party and now they're fighting each other for power. And at first the whites when and exiled the black gloves, the black wells then stage a combat and then kick out the white

wells, which exiles Dante, okay? And what Donne is saying for Justinine is that this is all a corruption of the teachings of the church, okay? The church should not be involved in temporal politics. We should not be fighting for the legacy of Rome, okay? Keep on going. and let not this new Charles strike at it with his guelves, but let him fear the claws that stripped a more courageous lion of its hide. The sons have often wept for father's fault, and let the son not think that God will change the emblem of his force for Charles's lilies. This little planet is adorned with spirits whose acts were righteous,

but who acted for the honor and the fame that they would gain. and when desires tend toward earthly ends, then so deflected, rays of the true love mount toward the life above with lesser force. Okay, so again, this is essential idea in divine harmony. Okay, God is always calling to us. We always want to return to God,

but because of free will, we can choose where to direct our energies. If we direct our energies towards God, we become closer to God, but if we direct our energy towards power, earthly gain, materialism, then we will turn away from God and God will shine less brightly on us. Okay? Keep on going.

But part of our delight is measuring rewards against our merit, and we see that our rewards are neither less nor more. Thus does the living justice make so sweet the sentiments in us that we are free of any turning toward iniquity. Differing voices join to sound sweet music, so do the living. the different orders in our life renders sweet harmony among these fears. And in this very pearl, there also shines the light of Romeo, of one whose acts, though great and noble, met ungratefulness. And yet those Provenciles who schemed against him had little chance to laugh, for he who finds harm to himself and

others's righteous acts takes the wrong path. Of Raymond Beringer's four daughters, each became a queen, And this poor and a stranger, Romeo accomplished. Then Berengur was moved by vicious tongues to ask this just man for accounting, one who given ten gave Raymond five and seven. And Romeo the poor, the old, departed, and were the world to know the heart he had while begging, crust by crust, for his lifebred, it, though it praise him now would praise him more.

Okay, so this is very similar to the message of Jesus, okay? what Jesus taught as followers is all this wealth that we see in this world it's a false wealth it's nothing it's poverty the true wealth is with god so do what is right and you'll be awarded in heaven and that's what he's saying what donne is saying for justinian there was a man Romeo who was very much like Dante who was participating in these wars but because he told to do good, the people turned against him. And even though he suffered on earth, he was exile, he was impoverished, just like Dante. Ultimately, he was given a tremendous reward in heaven. Okay. So make your choice. You can either choose a life of wealth here and a

life of poverty up there or a life of poverty down here, not life of poverty up there. Okay. It's entirely your choice. It's your free will. Okay. All right. So what's happened is that we now know the official story of the Catholic Church, as told by Justinian. But again, this raises a question for Dante, which is, tell me exactly why Jesus had to kill myself again. It doesn't make any sense, okay? And what Beatrice is going to do is explain Jesus' sacrifice in a way that I think is the most powerful explanation ever. Okay, but before we start, does anyone here know why Jesus had to kill himself? First?

Yeah, you go first. Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I think Jesus is trying to cure himself just because he wants to show that he's not, he's really the son of God. Because some people keep doubt on him, and even the Judah, you know, the disciple, right, who just said that he just, you know, because of the silver coin. right he just tried to betray the Jesus maybe this is one to people know that he is the true God yeah and certain certain denominations teach this yes to prove that he is truly divine because he can

resurrect himself yes okay the sacrificing your own son has to be like the biggest representation of love and that's the love that God has towards us okay can you elaborate on that as in there's there's nothing harder the someone could do then sacrifice their own son, but the fact that God did it for us, to clean us from our sins, shows how much he loves us. Okay, but did he really sacrifice his son? Because Jesus didn't die, right? But he was willing to show us.

Okay, he showed us. Okay, yes, okay. That's actually Donna's explanation as well, yes? I have like two questions. The first one is that, uh, Jesus, sacrifice to prove that he is divine so if he proves that he is divine through a concrete thing like rising up from the dead then that's not that's not faith anymore is it that's just i saw him rise from the dead it's a fact and the second question is that god sacrificed his son

so uh as god's son jesus is both human and divine and because he is he is part human he has free will and therefore he can choose or not to be sacrificed so i I think maybe a more appropriate framing would be Jesus chose to sacrifice himself. God did not sacrifice anybody because God cannot take away that gift. Right. No, you're exactly right. No, no, you're right. Jesus did sacrifice himself.

It was his choice to sacrifice him. You're right, okay? But the idea is that Jesus and God are the same thing. Right. Okay, all right. So let's read this, okay? And this is a really powerful section. I want to make sure we appreciate the logic here, okay?

we can skip the first three lines because that's his Latin. Thus, even as he wheeled to his own music, I saw that substance sing, that spirit flame above whom double lights were twined, and he and his companions moved within their dance, and as if they were swift as sparks, they sped out of my sight because of sudden distance. I was perplexed, and to myself, I said,

Tell her, tell her, tell her the lady who can slake my thirst with her sweet drops. And yet the reverence that possesses all of me, even on hearing only bee and ice, had bowed my head. I seemed a man asleep. But Beatrice soon ended that, for she began to smile at me so brightly that even in fire a man would still feel glad. according to my never erring judgment, the question that perplexes you is how just vengeance can deserve just punishment. Okay, all right. Okay, this is a really important sentence, okay? What it means is God should be angry at us for betraying him, for eating the fruit when he told us not to, okay? This is just vengeance. He should be angry at us.

But why would it involve the sacrifice of his only son, right? Just punishment. Why should this man who is innocent, Jesus, have to sacrifice himself in order to appease God's anger at us? That doesn't make any sense, right? Okay? Keep on going. But I shall quickly free your mind from doubt and listen, carefully, the words I speak will bring the gift of a great truth in reach. Since he could not endure

the helpful curb on his willpower, the man who was not born, damning himself, damned all his progeny. Okay, stop. Who is this man? Yeah, it's Adam, obviously. Come on. Right. Okay, keep on going. For this, mankind lay sick in the abyss of a great error for long centuries, And so the Word of God willed descend to where the nature that was sundered from its maker was united to his person by the sole act of his eternal love. Okay, so now there's a separation between God and us. And the question is, how do you reconcile, right? There's anger now. God is angry at us, and we basically screwed up.

and we don't even know how to ask forgiveness, okay? So this is a schism, this is a separation. Okay, keep on going. Now set your sight on what derives from that. This nature, thus united to its maker, was good and pure, even as when created. But in itself, this nature had been banished from paradise because it turned aside from its own path,

from truth, from its own life. Okay, so we were born good, okay? And we know we're born good because in the Bible, it says that when God created man, God breathed the spark of life into us. Okay. So there's an essence of God within us. Therefore, we are born good. But because of free will, we can choose to do stupid thing. We can choose a path of evil.

And once you take a path of evil, what often happens is that becomes like a snowball, okay? rolling down and accumulating. So we do one stupid act, then we do another, then we do more evil, and it keeps on going. And we don't really know how to get back on the correct path. Okay, keep on going, Carol. Line 40, thus, if the penalty of the cross inflicted

is measured by the nature he assumed, no one has ever been so justly stung. Yet none was ever done so great or wrong. If we regard the person made to suffer, he who had gathered in himself that nature. Thus from one action issued differing things, God and the Jews were pleased by one same death, earth trembled for that death and heaven opened.

You need no longer find it difficult to understand when it is said that just vengeance was then avenged by a just court. But I now see your understanding tangled by thought on thought into a knot, from which with much desire your mind awaits release. You say, what I have heard is clear to me, but this is hidden from me. Why God ruled precisely this pathway for our redemption. Okay, right, okay. So this is the question, okay?

If you are God and you are infinite and eternal, why do you have to pick a particular way in which an innocent man, Jesus was punished? He could choose to be punished, but it seems unjust. Okay, it seems wrong. Okay, keep on going. Verse 58. Brother, this ordinance is buried from the eyes of everyone whose intellect has not matured within the flame of love.

Okay, so what's you saying here? This is really important is you don't understand because you don't love enough. If you become a parent and you love your child unconditionally, then you understand why God had to do what he did. God is eternal and infinite. There are a million solutions, and he picked the best possible solution. If it sounds stupid to us, if it sounds wrong to us, it's not his problem, it's our problem. It's because we don't understand love enough. Keep on going.

one. Nevertheless, since there is much attempting to find this point, but little understanding, I shall tell why that way was the most fitting. The godly goodness that has banished every envy from its own self, burns it itself, and sparkling so, it shows eternal beauties. All that derives directly from this goodness is everlasting, since the seal of goodness impresses an imprint that never alters. Whatever rains from it immediately is fully free for it is not constrained by any influence of other things even as it conforms to that goodness so does it please it more the sacred order that gleams in all things is most bright within those things most like itself the human

being has all these gifts but if it loses one then its nobility has been undone only man's sin annulls man's liberty makes him unlike the highest good so that in him the brightness of its light is dimmed. Okay, so you guys understand what he's saying. What Beatrice is saying is that God is perfect. God is pure love. God is all generosity, all forgiveness, all truth. And we're created his image.

And so we share all his qualities. The problem is we have free will and we are immature. sure. And the moment we choose to sin, we turn away from God and therefore we lose our divinity. And once we pick this path, we can only compound our own mistakes, our own evil. Okay, does that make sense? The moment we turn away from God by sinning, we're lost now. Okay, keep on going. verse a two and man cannot regain his dignity unless where sin left emptiness man fills that void with just amends for evil pleasure for when your nature sinned so totally within its seed then from these dignities just as from paradise that nature parted and they could never be regained if you consider carefully by any way that did not pass

across one of these forwards either through nothing other than his mercy God had to pardon man or of himself man had to proffer payment for his folly okay all right so okay what you're saying here is okay we screwed up and this is the worst thing that we could have done okay and now there only two ways to redemption the first way is if we make amends, okay? But there's a problem with that. What's a problem with that? How can we make amends for the original sin?

Okay, first of all, what is the original sin? Do you guys know what the original sin is? Yeah, go ahead first and then you, okay? We, from the knowledge. But what is that? What motivated us? Yes, and then you. Like, I know you know, okay, but yeah.

Go ahead. So basically like there was the garden of Eden and there was Satan he turned into a snake and he was like hey Eve eat this apple and Eve It wasn't an apple by the way, but but why do we do it? Why do we eat the fruit? Because we well the problem that God has with it is that we disobeyed him. He told us don't eat the fruit and we ate the fruit Why was he angry at disobedience? Sorry, go go ahead The fact that we want to become God Exactly. Okay, you understand. The problem was not disobedience. The problem was the serpent told Eve. You eat this food and you become like God.

Meaning we want to overthrow God. Okay, this is the original sin. Not the stupid fruit, okay? Who cares if you eat a fruit? The original sin is our hearts became evil. Our hearts became so evil and vicious that we wanted to kill God and become God ourselves. That is the issue. Yes? So where did it say that we want to kill God? Like this is this is monotheism, I know. But like where did you say we want to kill God? We want to be equal with God. That does not mean we have to kill him. Okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry, just like she said, the thing, you don't want to kill him. Just he can replace them. You can be like that. But not. Guys, guys, you don't understand something. When we are working in historical context,

you understand. at this time in history, what the Catholic Church teaches its followers, its flock, is that the original sin is our pride. Okay? This is historical fact. This started with the Bible, and in the Bible it literally says that the serpent tempted Eve to eat the fruit because it would make her like God. It's literally in the Bible in Genesis, okay? Then what Augustine, who will take this and say, the original sin is our pride.

And this becomes official doctrine of the church. Okay? You guys appreciate this. I'm not arguing with you, this is right around. They're saying this is what is historically true. And this is what Beatrice is saying. Okay. According to the doctrine of the church, we want to be like God.

And like, how can you make amends for that? You cannot make amends for that. You want to kill God. Okay? There's no way that you, there's no thing that you could do to appease God or make amends or redeem yourself. Because you did the worst thing possible in the universe. Okay? Excuse me?

The worst thing that you could do, yes. Okay? But the worst thing that humanity has ever done in the universe is just try to kill God. Okay. Verse 94. Now fix your eyes on the profundity of the eternal counsel. Heed as closely as you're able to, my reasoning. Man in his limits could not recompense.

For no obedience, no humility, he offered later could have been so deep that it could match the heights he meant to reach through disobedience. Man lacked the power to offer satisfaction by himself. Thus, there was need for God, through his own ways, to bring man back to life intact, I mean by one way or by both. But since a deed pleases its doer more, the more it shows the goodness of the heart from which it springs. The godly goodness that imprints the world was happy to proceed through both its ways to raise you up again. nor has there been nor will there be between the final night and the first day a chain of a chain of action so lofty and so magnificent as he enacted when he followed his two ways okay all right okay so this is beautiful okay but this is the logic the logic is we can't forgive ourselves so god must redeem us but god has to redeem us in a way that changes us for the better better. And so he has his son. The thing about his son is that it's a dual nature, right? Both man and God.

Okay. So the fact that a man in Jesus is going to redeem us will give well will help save us. Okay. Because now we are engaged in our own salvation for Jesus. It doesn't make sense, guys. Okay, keep on going. verse 115 for god showed greater generosity in giving his own self than that man might be able to rise than if he simply pardoned for every other means fell short of justice except the way whereby the son of god humbled himself when he became incarnate okay so there's a million solutions okay and god spent a thousand years two thousand years who knows thinking of the solution. And his answer is, well, first of all, I can't just forgive these guys.

They'll learn nothing. And I need them to do it themselves. But they're humans and they're kind of lame, so they can't do themselves. So the only solution is for the son of God to become man. Okay? That's the only solution. A million possible scenarios,

there's only one scenario that could possibly redeem us, and it's for the son of God to become man, and it's going to be sacrificed, okay? That's the only way forward. Come on going? First one to one. Now to give all your wishes full content, I go back to explain one point,

so that you two may see it plainly as I do. You say, I see that water, see that fire, and air and earth, and all that they compose come to corruption, and endure so briefly. All right, stop. Okay, all right. So what we're now is help us appreciate the genius of the sacrifice of Jesus, okay? So I'm going to give you a thought experiment.

The thought experiment is this. You are a mother or father, who cares? You're a parent, okay? And you have a daughter named Eve. and one day you bring home a dog, okay? And Eve asked you, do you love this dog more, or do you love me more? And we're like, we love you both.

Come on, man. Of course we love you both. And then Eve's like, okay, then Eve can't sleep because she's really disturbed by this question. Does my mother or father love me more or the dog more? Okay. So then she comes up with this solution to solve this problem, which is she kills a dog. Right?

She's like, I'm going to kill the dog. And that's going to show me if my parents love me more or love the dog more. Okay. Now, as the parent, you're completely screwed, okay? Because let's think about this. What do you do? You told Eve you love them both. You love both the dog and Eve, your daughter.

Your daughter's confused by this. And so she's like, well, I'm curious now who my parents really love. So I'm going to kill the dog and see what happens. Okay. And so what do you do? Maybe I would say that this dog is the dog I love most. and you're the daughter I love most. So if in that case...

Yeah, if in that case, the girl do not like to test it because she knows that he's the only one... No, the dog is dead. He's already dead. Yeah, so what do you do? I would... I mean, in the context of Jesus, you punish yourself in a way.

So they would see that what you did hurt them more. and so to forgive them, you have to punish yourself. Yeah, okay, okay. So that's the logic, okay? So like, because you're kind of screwed, okay? If you don't do anything, what's Eve gonna do next? Kill more animals, okay?

So you cannot do any, you cannot do nothing. You gotta be like, I forgive you, Eve. Oh, you're just a kid. Don't worry about it, okay? You have to do something, okay? But if you punish her, that proves to her, you love the dog more. Right? So anything you do, you're kind of screwed. So your only solution, okay, a million possibilities is you punish yourself. You hit yourself to show Eve, I have to punish you, but you punish yourself. And when she sees that, what does she think? She thinks, my father, my mother truly, truly loves me. And will she ever kill an animal again? No, okay? Because she's seen. what will happen if an animal dies, the parents will suffer. And so she's convinced by the love of the parent, and therefore she's now fully committed to loving her parents to the best of the ability, okay?

That's the logic behind the sacrifice of Jesus, to show all of us that God truly loves us so that we can now return to loving God. This is a reconciliation, okay? Does it make sense, guys? Yes? I think this is a very strange metaphor because if I was the parent, I would send Eve to therapy. Like, I think... You would send Eve to therapy.

Like, I think this is a very absolute situation. Like, it's either punishment or it's allowance. Like, why couldn't there be a middle? Why couldn't there be education in the middle? Okay. You send Eve to therapy. Okay. What does the therapist tell Eve?

I'm not a therapist, but therapy has been proven to work on a range of conditions, including sociopathie. Okay, but like, we're just doing as a foxburn, okay? All right. You know what? I'm gonna call the police. And the police are gonna come and arrest Eve. Oh, you know what, screw this, I'm gonna call the therapist. The therapist will come and solve this problem with me. Will this make the things worse or better? Why?

Well, the therapist would probably side with Eve and then they would like start to like call the dad a bad parent or something. No, no, no, what's the therapist gonna do? Have you guys been to a therapist? The therapist don't do that. They're gonna interrogate Eve and that's probably gonna make her very uncomfortable. So they'll probably, a therapist will probably make her take pills, okay? Yeah, right? And that's a punishment. in which case what what does it tell Eve about her parents her parents they don't love her man right they're like I don't do this crap I'm gonna send her a therapist yeah no I think that's to be honest I think in the

context of this metaphor that is a really irresponsible way of thinking because as a parent I am not a psychological expert and I do not have the resources to help my child and to help my child I have to give her I have to give my money and give my time to someone who is more licensed who is more qualified than I am to help my child you're you know what but your parents know you the best like your parents should be the ones that could help you not the random stranger like i mean doesn't work here in china bro i don't think this is really relevant i think that's the rational course of action Yeah, but the point is not about what's rational to do.

It's about, like, Eve is trapped in this dilemma where she believes that if you send me to therapy, if you punish me by just a little bit in any means, anyway, it shows to me that you don't love me. Yeah. That's her logic, you know, then you kind of, in her logic, you have, you know. But how is therapy a punishment? For her, it is a punishment. Whether you slap her, you scold her. I guarantee you.

that if you kill a dog and you go to therapy they're going to make you take pills i guarantee you okay and that may not be the best solution yes but as the parent do we take ease logic as as permanent do we do we accept that or do we do we need to kind of you know do something on our own behalf to kind of try to tweak that logic or change that logic i'm actually confused like how there must be something wrong with eve beforehand like your education right for her to be able to kill the dog this is just again again we need to you guys imagination right but i do look i do have kids so it's which is why this is particularly concerning for me like i would be the first guy to try to kind of sit down with eve and try to

understand where she comes from and then and then we go from there like maybe maybe you know Listen, I have three kids and any of them could pull this crap on on us. I mean like that's just how kids are I mean like I'm not saying my kids are going to do this but I'm saying like I can imagine them doing this thing doing this crap on me. Yeah, so I noticed that a lot of you have like issues with outsourcing help for your kids. Well, what I have to say is your kid needs food and your kids needs water right so as a parent, are you going to farm the food yourself and get the water from the river yourself because you want to do everything for your kid because you're the one who knows them best? Of course not. But I don't understand why you're convinced that a therapist knows exactly what he or she is doing.

I- I-I're convinced that a stranger with a PhD knows more about the child than you, the parent? Yes, I'm convinced that they know more than you. saying that they know everything I'm convinced that they know more about the child's behavior behavioral patterns than you do okay but then there's a question of risk right like the therapist has different skin in a game than you as the parent so naturally even though the therapist might might have the set of tools the application of those tools coupled with the risk you take as the parent to the kid i think in the end the parent it still falls on the parent okay are you okay

Are you okay with this scenario? Okay, let's just say God's like, you know what? I really shouldn't send my son to crucify himself. That's kind of stupid. I don't know, dude. I'll create this alien species, okay? That is infinitely wise. I'll have them calm and wooed over humanity. Are you okay with that? It depends on what way they're wooing over you. The thing about therapy that most people don't realize is that the therapist doesn't force you to believe anything. The therapist doesn't yell at you. The therapist asks you and they suddenly guide you towards something better.

They give you a choice. They give you your free will. They respect your free will. That's what a lot of people don't realize. Okay, so you and I are just having to disagree about therapists, okay? All right? Therapists don't actually, it doesn't matter, okay? All right, okay, but, but we're trying to explain the logic of Dante, right? And this is a really beautiful explanation. And I think it's a very convincing explanation for why Jesus had to die. Okay, it is not about redemption. It's not about justice or vengeance. It's really about inspiration and education, right? Because once we've seen and once we know that Jesus killed himself for our sins, it gives us a spiritual power and it makes us closer to God. And this is why this marks a radical turning point human history. Does that make sense, guys? Okay? Because before you ask yourself, why is it there are two billion Christians in the world? I'm not a Christian, by the way.

And why is it that everyone says that Christianity marks a radical turning point in human history? And now, Dante provides an answer, okay? Because the death of Jesus, the sacrifice of Jesus, is able to rekindle a spark in us that was once lost okay it's shown us closer to god before we were on the wrong path we were in a desert and we were lost and now we see the light and we're moving towards the light okay all right so do you guys understand the logic here all right any questions about this okay all right but you can also see and this is really important guys this beautiful also subverts Catholic theology. Okay? Do you understand? Because before Catholic theology was based on

vengeance and justice. Now it's based on love and sacrifice. Does that make sense, guys? Okay? Before the operating principle was one of fear of vengeance. Now it's just love. Now it's just love. everything happens because God loves us and that's why God had to be so careful and deliberate in his solution to this problem. Okay, got it? All right. Let's keep on reading. Verse 1-27, and yet these two were things created. If what has been said above is true, then these things never should be subject to corruption. Okay, all right. So the question is, if it is true that God is perfect, I think God does is perfect. Why does imperfection exist in the world? For example, our bodies, right? Our bodies are imperfect. We feel pain. We die. So why is there imperfection in the world?

one going verse 130 brother the angels in the pure country where you are now these may be said to be created as they are in all their being whereas the elements that you have mentioned as well as those things that are made from them receive their form from a creative power the matter they contain had been created just as within the stars that wheel about them the power to give form had been had been created the ray and motion of the holy lights draw forth the soul of every animal and plant from matter able to take form. But your life is breathed forth immediately by the chief good, who so enamors it of his own self that it desires him always. So reasoning, you also can deduce your resurrection. You need but remember the way in which your human flesh was fashioned when both of the first parents were created. Okay, all right. Okay.

So, why is there imperfection in the world? Why is it that plants wither and die? Why why is it that we wither and die? Why? If God is perfect, and everything God creates is perfect, then why is there imperfection in the world? Yes? If everything is perfect, there's no meaning. Okay, what does Dante say? I mean, Donnie tells us, okay? Yes?

Because of the original sin. Excuse me? Because of the original sin in the Garden of Eden when the humans sin. But that doesn't explain the plants and the animals and decay, yes? So God is perfect and he makes us imperfect. So therefore we can be better. Therefore, God God can be more perfect. Okay, all right. So what is it saying, okay, is that the, God's perfection, right?

Does God at a time to create the stone or the plant? Does he? Does he care? This table. Was this created by God? This table. What created this table? Yes.

And how did we create? this table from trees and what created trees? God created the trees? God created the trees? God created the small trees and then become a big tree, right? Seed. So God created the seeds. Okay. Right, so you guys understand? God create the laws of the universe, you understand? The laws of the universe is what gives rise to plants. Seeds like become trees, right? That's following the law of the universe. But it was God who create these laws of the universe, and then God lets these laws of the universe do what they do. Okay, do you understand?

So it's God who create the laws of physics who are governed by the loss of physics. Okay? How are we different from the other creations in the world? Okay. All the other creations in the world are governed by the laws of physics and biology and chemistry, okay? These laws are perfect. These things that are created are not perfect. We are different. How are we different?

Yes? We have consciousness and we have free will. So we can like direct our own fate and we can like suburb some laws that like animals are bound to for example like instincts. We can suppress instincts. Okay. Yes. But like I'm asking you how this happened. Right?

Because law, God creates the loss of the universe which then gives rise to everything, including us. But we're different from everything else, right? So how was this possible? Yes? Because we are made in the image of God, but all the other creatures aren't. And so we have his traits, I guess. Or we are most like him, so we have free will. Yeah, but how did you, how did your body come into being?

Does your body follow the loss of biology? Yes, it does, right? So what happened? Why are we different from animals or trees? Oh, yeah, maybe, okay. Yeah, according to the Bible, I remember it's Genesis. It said that the God who just do not like the human to eat the fruits, right? But the human just chose to eat to the wisdom fruit.

So it means that he betrayed God, right? Okay, guys, we're trying to read Dante, okay? Okay, it's like, let's read line 139 to the end again, okay? He tells you the answer. Just read it carefully. We'll read it first, okay? The rays and motion of the holy lights draw forth the soul of every animal and plant from matter able to take form. But your life is breathed forth immediately by the chief good,

who so enamors it of his own self that it desires him. always. So reasoning, you also can deduce your resurrection. You need but remember the way in which your human flesh was fashioned when both of the first parents were created. Okay. Why are we different from animals and trees? We have a soul. Excuse me? We have a soul. How do we know we have a soul? Yeah, it says here, guys, you have to read Dante, okay? Your life is breathed forth immediately by the chief good okay do you understand and how do we know this because it says so in the bible right how did god create adam do you guys know how did god create adam what is adam crafted by does and then what happens breathes into him and brings into god breathed into him and that's what gives adam life okay so in other words god

a part of himself in us. We call this a soul. And because God put a part of himself in us, what is our greatest aspiration? To desire him? To return to God, you understand? It's like, I give you my finger, okay? And like my finger is like, I would rather be part of a whole. Okay, so your finger is always desiring to return to him. Do you understand? Okay, so that's what this is saying. This is saying that God breathed himself into us. There's an aspect of God in us, and this aspect is always looking to return to God. At the same time, God is always calling for us to return to him.

Okay, and this is a fundamental logic of the universe. Everything we do is because we want to return to God, okay? It doesn't mean we know how to do so, but we want to do so. Right? Doesn't make sense? Then why do we need to live in the first place? Why do we need to live? Why did God create Adam? What does the Bible say?

Why did God create Adam? Wanted relationship. He was lonely, man. Yeah. You want to know himself. He was lonely. Right? Yes?

So I have a question. So according to this theoretical framework, like you have humans. and you have other life as in plant animals. So technically, planted animals are closer to God than we are because they live in perfect, almost blind obedience to God's natural laws. That is the laws of physics and the laws of biology, while we humans consistently defy these laws. No. That's the opposite of what I just said, yes?

None of them have souls. Okay, so God creates a universe. The universe is governed by these laws that he creates, okay? the laws of physics. This gives rise to everything, including evolution, which creates us, right? What makes us unique is God touched us. God put a part of himself into us. And this part of ourselves that we don't really know, the soul, what it always desires is return to the whole. We're apart, we want to return to the whole. Okay. Everything we do is because we desire to return to the whole. Okay? Does that make sense?

That's our greatest desire to return to the whole. We may not know it, we may be ignorant of it, but that's what we truly, truly aspire to. Okay? All right. So reasoning, you can deduce your own resurrection. You need but remember the way in which your human flesh was fashioned when both of the first parents were created. What does this mean? what's the message here? Yes? Go ahead.

So basically he was saying that both of the first parents referred to Adam and Eve, obviously, and basically he is restating that thing in Christianity where the soul is immortal. So if you can remember a time before, you're corrupt flesh, then you're immortal now. Yes, exactly, okay? Sorry, do you want to say something? Okay, so what this is saying is like, remember that you think you're a body. You think you're human, but what you are really is an aspect of God. That's what your soul is, an aspect of God. And that makes you eternal, okay?

So, in other words, you can't possibly die. You can only be reborn and be reborn, okay? So if this is the case, what's the purpose? of life, right? Because today you're taught that the purpose of purpose of life is to seek immortality, to live forever, to be wealthy, right? Don't die. But this is telling us, well, you were going to die anyway. Who cares? Then what's the purpose of life then? Yes? Somehow I believe life is just about being happy. Make yourself as happy as possible without harming other people but I'm pretty sure that this is a perspective that Dante

explicitly disagrees with Donnie say well he rejects the materialism of the Catholic Church obviously and basically he's the pilgrim Dante is alive here he is flesh and blood here and yet he is he is climbing up to heaven yeah yeah exactly he's up up up into heaven so basically what he's trying to say what I think he's trying to say is that oh we have to pursue not material pleasures but a spiritual good okay so anyone else what was the point of our existence oh yeah maybe because the god just try to come back so it just hope that people can bring him back because we're a part of them we're just like maybe signal or what he just

wait we to bring him back just like we make machine machine man right or rubber wolf sometimes bring out so so you're saying like God wants to come here Yeah, he will come back. Because he leave away, right? He will come back. So, just like he said, I will come back. If you trust me, and I will come back. I don't understand why God wants to come here. Okay, anyone else?

Yeah. I think in the last few lines, he kind of says that we want to desire him, so to know him and become like him, I guess. And just like even in paradise, you want to get closer to him, even in paradise. Yeah, but I'm saying how do you do that then? I guess to know him and be more like him or desire. I know, but I'm saying how, right? I think I think Dante would say the point of life is to love and to imagine.

New York imagination. Okay, so these things are the same thing. The goal is to love. Okay? Why would that be the most important thing you can do in life? Yeah? Because God is love. I understand that. God is love. But what's different?

But what's different between our world and his world? Why are we here? Because we're, I mean, according to Dante, like we have fragments of this love, right? If God is love, we are fragments of this love. And our journey for each and every one of us is to return to the source. So Okay, but then like, why not to kill yourself? Like right now?

No, you wouldn't be able to return to the source if you kill yourself. That's not, that will lead you also. Then how do you return to the source? To love, to amplify whatever that is within us, which is breathe into us in order to get closer to the source. Okay.

Anyone else? We should act in accordance with natural law. What is natural law? The morality that's set up by God. Okay, right. Try to be specific, okay? Yes? Did you have a...

Okay, all right. Anyone else? Yes? Maybe we should try to experience more. We should experience more because God can't experience as a human. as a human. Okay, all right.

Okay, so let's infam about this, okay? Everything God does is perfect. I think God does is for a perfect reason. He created this world, which is governed by perfect laws, but it's imperfect in that, well, there's evil, there's pain, there's hunger, there's agony, there's suffering. What's the point of all this? the point of all this? Why would you create a world like this? Yes? Well, if I didn't know about a whole baptism thing, I would say that we are here and we have to live a full life and we have to

live a good life because we have original sin and we have to redeem our souls, which are, after all, afflicted with original sin from the Adam and Eve business from original sin. But there's this whole baptism thing and therefore my explanation is no and void. Okay, all right. So an idea that you guys need to remember is that we don't have to redeem ourselves because Jesus already did it for us. You understand, okay? This is a major assumption of divine comedy. So now the question then is, if we're deemed, everything that is, everything that is done is for a purpose. Everything is, in the mind of God, everything he does is for a perfect reason. What is the purpose of this world that we live in? Maybe there's, you know, just like experiment.

How about we're leaving the two world. The one world is perfect world, just what God created. There's no misery, no thing, everything is perfect. But the other world is like us, where it may be just like how, you know, we're in agony and we're in despair. So maybe God has tried to test or try to make experiment, just like we put them rats into two mates, right, and try to find out if just give them the,

right the food and I like to circle around the maze so the right will try to knock down the door and try to find the food so maybe yes yes go ahead maybe because love is made perfect in pain and agony maybe like that way so it's can you explain like you cannot show or exercise or prove love without paying a price for it so then the other side of the coin is that you have to pay a price So you have to deal with some sort of ugly evil things to see what's beautiful maybe. Yeah, but I mean like, why would God do this? What's the point of this? Okay, all right.

Let me ask you this question. What is it that we have that God doesn't have? Flash, human body. Okay. Is that impressive? Mortality. Mortality, death. Yes.

Imperfection. Imperfection, yes. We can be evil, yes. Okay. Okay, let's now step back and think about what's happening, okay? Beatrice and Dante are together, right? What is the relationship? What is the relationship?

Teacher student. Exactly. It's a teacher student, right? Because Donny is asking questions and Beatrice is providing answers. Are Beatrice answers perfect? are they perfect? Are they the absolute truth? Yes, they are. Yeah, I understand you can argue with her, but I'm saying like in I'm saying that in the imperative in paradise of itself like Beatrice admitted that her her words are but an imperfect reflection of the truth like she is trying to communicate the truth

but she is doing it to Dante and Dante is not able to take the truth in his present form. Okay, all right, okay. Let's, okay, let's take it step by step, okay? First we've established that the relationship between Beatrice and Dante is teacher's student, okay? That's point one. Point two is, even though you could be right and like what Beatrice, how pictures expresses herself where Dante is imperfect, her understanding of the universe is perfect, correct, yes, because she represents God. Everything she says is perfect.

We may not understand what she says. Donnie may misinterpret what she says, but I think she says it's perfect. Okay, that's number two. Number three then is, what then is the point of teaching Dante? So that he can be the mouthpiece and tell people like a prophet. So, so historically. Can I answer? Yeah.

Well, Dante, the divine comedy is you go through hell first to get to heaven. So earth is hell. And you can learn from all the, you can learn. from all the materialistic things you can learn if they're good or not and then return to God yourself. But you have to go through inferno first. Okay. All right. So in the Bible, there is a book called Ezekiel.

Okay. Ezekiel, you can actually draw it up, okay? Okay. Right. So what was it? What was it? What's it at Google? How does Ezekiel receive the Word of God?

All right. So Ezekiel is a book of the Bible and he goes up to heaven and he goes up to heaven to receive the word of God just like Dante is receiving the word of God How does Ezekiel receive the word of God do you think? Okay, so A is stupid okay? No, no no no if you read the Bible, okay? How does Ezekiel literally receive the word of God? To me? Could speak to God he had a relationship with God? No, no, no. What God did was take the scrolls, right? The scrolls carry his message.

And then what did God do? He stuffed it into the mouth of Ezekiel. And Ezekiel literally ate it. You understand. If you want to make sure the prophet delivers the right message, you stuff it down his throat. You understand. So why is Beatrice was wasting all this time dealing with Dante?

Yes? What did Ezeko agree to have this stuff down his throat? So like Dante is going through this experience and not just have all of the information stuffed down his throat because the journey is what matters more than the information? Don't you think accuracy matters more? Like if God wants to deliver message to his people, Don't you think like accuracy matters, right?

I think it's not about like, is it, maybe it's the idea that it's not the end result or the accuracy. There's not a right answer, but it's the individual transformation and the individual journey that matters more. Why, though? I'm trying to figure this out, okay? I'm trying to figure, okay, like in Ezekiel, you can just stuff the message down in person's throat so that he never forgets it, okay? And he must quote it word for word, right? But not only does Dante, but not only does speech not stop anything down her throat, but what happens after Donde goes home.

Do you guys remember what happens after he goes home? He forgets a bunch of things. He forgets everything. Not everything. Basically everything, okay? This is like really weird to like forgot the other message to people. Let's pick a guy who I have to teach, and then he'll probably forget most of everything I teach, and he's going to go back and he's going to have to remember everything, okay?

This is a really silly way of doing things. But God is perfect. I mean, God does is for a reason. So what's the reason? So can it be that God wants us to utilize our one gift that he's given us, free will, to freely choose to be nearer to him, and we each have to take that trip or that process individually.

Dante can't take that trip for us. Okay. Yeah, that's correct, okay? So how can Dante deliver this message, or how can Dante help us go on this journey ourselves? By writing this book? Exactly. There you go. This is why this has to happen, okay?

What is it that we have, that God doesn't have? have. How is Donnie able to write this? We have a concept of space and time. So like... How did Donnie write this? Yes? Oh, I know. We don't know things. God is all knowing. God knows everything.

So we can... How did Donnie write in the Vimeony? Dante is channeling God. He channeled God, but it was for him, right? right so what did he do? One thing that he utilized the things that he was trying to preach against as in logic and rationalism what did he use to create this thing? Penciled...

Do you guys have it? Imagination? The imagination, you understand? What's it that we have that God cannot have? The imagination. What can God have imagination? He's perfect, you understand? If you're perfect, you understand? perfect, you know everything. You cannot fail. Therefore, you cannot have an imagination. Okay? That's why Beatrice cannot come to our world and communicate with us directly,

because she lacks the imagination to do so, right? That's the entire point of this journey. Dante must go through this journey himself in order to experience the truth of God, But then he must use his imagination in order to help us go on our own journey, and that is by writing divine comedy. The entire purpose of his visit to heaven was so that he could write the divine comedy. Okay? Basically, he's a journalist, and he's been invited to heaven to do some reporting and come back and then write in a very nice way so that we can all go on this journey ourselves.

Okay? That's why Dante had to go to heaven. That's why he had to write divine comedy, okay? So that we can, by ourselves, go on this journey to heaven and discover what God truly is. Does that make sense, guys? Again, everything God does is for a perfect reason. If you don't know it, it's because you're not thinking hard enough.

Okay? Yes? Okay, this might be pushing the point here, but if God is perfect and there's nothing that we have that he doesn't have, then how does we have imagination and he doesn't? Yeah, that's a good question. Why? What is that we have that God doesn't have? Oh, yeah. Maybe because God is invincible because God can live forever, but life is limited, so people have imagination because it would be limited, so you just always want to know more about. Yeah, exactly. Yes. But imagination isn't a skill that something you have, it's something that you lack. So if you already know everything, there's nothing to imagine.

But we can imagine because we have gaps in our thinking. Yeah, because our lives are limited, we want to transcend to higher realms or higher consciousness. That's why we imagine. Okay. Yeah. But the major point is that what Dhanai is saying is that, we humans are not lesser beings. We are co-equal with God. Even though if God has perfection, we have imagination. And so if you're God and you're trying to extend the boundaries of the universe, right? You're trying to create more things in the universe. You can't do so yourself

because you're perfection, okay? So you must use humanity. So everything that happens is for a divine purpose. You understand? And as you say, the reason we have the imagination is because we have bodies and our bodies can suffer, bodies can feel pain, bodies can die. And what excites the imagination is the fact that we can ask questions, we can make mistakes, we can not know, okay? Does that make sense? Yes. So we're going quantity over quality here, right? Because God could create anything he wants, but he is absolutely perfect. So he is tired of having to create everything and so he wants people to create more things that he couldn't think of, but these things are going to be imperfect because these people who create are going to be imperfect too.

Is that right? Okay, so let's just say you're God, okay, and you want to create a perfect world. And you do create a perfect world. What's the problem with that? It becomes eternal, right? What is eternity? Nation, nothing ever changes. Eternity is death.

You understand that? Eternity is death. So your only solution to life is infinity. Does that make sense? God is eternal. we are infinite. Love is eternal. The imagination is infinite. Okay. God is not capable of the imagination. Therefore, God had to create us. Okay. Doesn't make sense to you guys. Yeah. Well, actually, I think God maybe just want to us forever because in the Bible is that the people, they don't need to wear clothes. They're naked and they got surrounded by the light. They're in the light ball. So, I mean, they will, live forever but just because the people we just you know try maybe out of

curiosity so is a word by the snake so it just sitting right so just eat food and there's another tree instead of the tree with the fruit with the wisdom there's another tree that is the longevity but the people just choose to to pick the fruit on the wisdom okay okay yeah okay yes well I have a related questions So why haven't anybody else traveled to paradise and write a book just like Dante? Why there's billions of people that only Dante have went to Paradise and wrote a book? What's the answer? I don't know if I can answer a question, but I do, you know, just like maybe I was thinking of my dream that I can see something.

in my dream that I was saying how, and how people just feel suffered. But there's another place that I also saw in my dream is that people saying everything is for free. Everything is for free. So it's really chaotic. Maybe there's so many universes, some of the universe just, you know, people just like beast some of the universe. Why was there a Jesus? Why couldn't do we second Jesus? There was only one Jesus.

Why was there just one Jesus? someone else can't come and be another Jesus? Why not? Because Jesus is a facet of God and if we, if another Jesus comes in and also says, oh, we're going to redeem you with all your sins, then that's basically saying the first Jesus didn't do his job. So the first Jesus will be imperfect and that wouldn't be very nice. I wouldn't. Okay. Okay. So I think Dante was a messenger from God. Okay. So you asked a question earlier today. How did Dante, how was Dante able to do what he did?

Okay, so here's some facts about Dante. The man died without a country. He was in exile. He was living off the generosity of his patrons. And after he finished the divine comedy in 1321, he died a few months later. Okay, he didn't experience any fame. He was never paid for divine comedy. And as you can see, it is,

really hard. Okay, it's hard for us to read it, but imagine how hard it is to write it. But he was doing it about a particular reward. What was this reward for doing this? He was not famous in his time. He became famous later. In fact, while he was a lie, he was despised by his own people, the Florentines. In fact, the Catholic Church was so angry at him.

they actually wanted like to think of his body and burn him at the stake. Okay. So what motivated the man? How he was able to focus 20 years of his life on running something that may or may not have been burned by the Catholic Church that may or may not be read by people? Okay. And the only answer that I think makes sense is the moment he was born, he knew what his mission was. And for all this entire life, the divine comedy in his complete form appeared to him in certain fragments. And in his head, he kept on.

these different parts and then when he finally conceptualized the entirety of the divine comedy he then wrote it down okay and why I say this is okay I have problems understanding what more than men for 20 years to write the divine comedy but also like think about the impact of the divine comedy in our world not only is divine comedy the source for the Renaissance. It's also the source for the Protestant Reformation, the Revolution, the Enlightenment, Mardin itself. It changed the entire world by itself.

You're telling me this is all an accident. And you're telling me, oh, well, you know, he just got lucky. 20 years, every day, working his ass off to put this together, not knowing if it'll be read one day, one day and a hundred years after it is published, it forever changed to the world. It is recognized today as the most important literary achievement in human history. Today we read it and we can see its power, even though we are no longer part of his world, right? Even if you don't know any history, you can still read the divine comedy and feel its beauty, feel its power.

How is this possible? Unless this is all designed by God, unless Dante was a messenger of God himself. And he knew from an early age, this is his mission. And he structured his entire life throughout this mission. I don't know. Yes? Again, I think that's a very absolute perspective.

I think it actually diminishes the value of Dante and of the divine comedy as a humanist. So the Renaissance is characterized by its humanist. humanism, while it is not separate from the Catholic Church while it's still heavily influenced by religion, I think it's important to know that Dante was a great person and that he did not need a God to make his writing even greater. Similarly, we do not need a God to understand, to understand what Dante wrote, to appreciate it for its greatness. I think as humans, our value is enough. Okay, I don't disagree with what you say, okay?

But like, I want to emphasize certain points about this class. Okay, first of all, this is not an academic seminar. This is about intellectual speculation. It's about going on a journey like Dante went on his journey to figure out the structure, the secrets of the universe itself. That's point one. Point two is on this journey, it has to be a leap of faith, okay? You have to believe that this is divine. You have to believe this perfection.

You have to believe that when you enter the divine comity, you're an end. entering into the soul of the universe itself. And my argument to you is that if you take this leap of faith, if you open your heart, if you open your mind and you fully embrace divine comedy, you'll be transformed by it. Okay. And you know what? If it is not true, there's actually no harm to you, okay? But if I'm correct, this could be the most life transforming experience in your life.

So why not just take the risk? Put away your delusions or your beliefs about our world and fully embrace divinity. Okay? And I'm saying only by doing that, can you truly appreciate the divine comedy? Is that clear to you guys? Yeah.

Okay, okay, that's it for today. We'll continue tomorrow, okay?