The Bryce Crawford Podcast - Debating Adam 22 About Jesus (EP 86)

Episode Date: March 10, 2025

In this highly anticipated episode, Bryce sits down with Adam22 to talk about Christianity, the reliability of Jesus Christ, Morality, physical intimacy and more!

You didn't even grill me about the porn shit yet. I think that's why people cheat is because I watch porn. I feel like I would probably cheat without. I don't know if you're on the wet dream team, but I did that before I ever met. And it was like, oh, shit. Before we get into this amazing episode with Adam 22, I've got a huge announcement for y'all. We were doing our second live podcast show ever in my hometown, Atlanta, Georgia, on May 18th. Guys, go get your tickets at jesus in the street.org slash tickets.

Get them now. It's going to be a powerful night of worship. And I believe God has a specific word in store for the room on May 18. So go get your tickets at Jesus in the street. Dot or slash tickets. Come to the hometown show in Atlanta on May 18th. Love you guys. Get your tickets and enjoy the episode with Adam 22.

What's going on guys? Welcome back to another episode of the Bryce Crawford podcast. I'm Bryson. Today, the guest that everyone has been asking for. We got Adam 22 on. What's going on? Adam, thanks for coming back on. You guys don't know, but we had recorded an episode,

the whole reason everyone's looking for it we didn't bamboozle you guys we record a full episode and then we lost all the footage and so it was so embarrassing i felt so bad like sending you a voice memo and you you posted a picture of us on ticot and it got like a million likes which really kind of blew my mind and then i was reading the the comments and i was like whoa like bryce actually has cultivated a pretty positive audience especially when you consider that i'm kind of on the total opposite end of the spectrum of what your audience would be into, I was reading through it. And I'm like, man, like, it's kind of crazy how many people are excited to see us talk. So I couldn't blow it off and not do it again because I figured I got to do it for the people. Let's go. Well, thanks for coming

back on. Guys, yeah, I just, I love you a lot. Our last conversation, I just had like a lot of respect for you and everything we talked about. So I know we're going to probably rehash some stuff back there, but I still want you to give a little bit of background of like where you came from and how no jumpers started and things like that before we dive into everything that we'll talk about. Right. So, I mean, I'm from Nashville, New Hampshire, which is a small suburb of Boston, about like 45 minutes outside Boston, and grew up pretty normal. My parents, my mom was a librarian. My dad was a social worker. I got a younger sister, she's three years younger than me. And I was pretty much just like an angry, sort of troubled kid. I started riding BMX bikes, though, when I was like 12 or 13. And that pretty

much like became my whole life at that point and uh rode BMX bikes for like 10 years until I was 22 and then I started this BMX website called the come up and that within like a year just basically became like the biggest BMX website and did that for about 10 years and then in my early 30s I was living out in LA by this point I had a bike shop downtown LA and basically like was around a lot of underground rappers as a result of just going to close. and parties and stuff like that and just sort of started interviewing some soundcloud rappers and all of a sudden sound cloud rap became huge and that kind of was just my entry point into the game and now I've been running no jumper for just about 10 years and I interview a whole plethora of

different rappers and all kinds of different personalities and then I also do a podcast with my wife called Plug Talks, a porn podcast where we interview a different girl every week and then sleep with her on camera. So presumably a large percentage of your audience is not terribly in favor of that, but that's basically what I got going on. Yeah, sweet. And I told you last time, but I've known about no jumper for like a long time. I mean, I feel like that's like one of the, you know, podcasts, I feel like I've become super popular like in the last like couple years, but you've been in the game for a long time. Yeah, I started interviewing rappers in like 2013 or 2014 and then, or excuse me, BMX riders in 2013 and 2014 and then BN.

X-Riders or rappers in 2015 and yeah it has been kind of insane because I had so much anxiety and stress associated with getting into doing podcasting I was just kind of scared to be on camera didn't know if I was going to be good at it or whatever and it just seemed like this huge undertaking and now it feels like people just start podcast like if you're a influencer or whatever just start a podcast it's all good it's no big deal so it's like it's kind of crazy to see go from this very fringe thing where I remember when I started it was all all the comments were like you seriously think I'm going to watch an hour and a half of you talking to this guy and now everybody seems to grasp that that's normal so yeah I feel like I've shifted more from music away

from music to podcasts for some reason which is like it's so weird but like I like it who's been your favorite guests you've ever interviewed man I mean the obvious one to me is xxxxentacian just because I somehow struck the lottery and just in 2016 just did an interview with him when he realistically was like almost nobody had like a couple songs with a million plays on SoundCloud but it was like way before he ended up exploding and it was like very soon after that that he really blew up and so that kind of gave me the vantage point of like oh this is how powerful this podcasting stuff could be because you interviewed somebody in the very very early stage of his career and then you know a year later, six months later, he's like this huge name and I had every different rapper and manager

like tapping in with me and I didn't know what to say or what to do. All these labels tapping in with me and just like I basically like because of that interview, I went from a regular guy who had like a cool little thing going on to like, oh no, this is serious. Like everybody taking me serious in the music game and everything like that. So that, you know, when I talk to people, it's kind of like sometimes they're YouTubers and they're like, how do I get to where you're at? And I'm like, honestly, you got to just keep playing the game and you'll just find these occasions of these things that just pop up that'll be so much bigger. Like you could do a thousand interviews and then there could be one that moves your career ahead more than the other thousand that you did. And you just

got to get in there and just keep going and find these opportunities, I guess. Dang, that's so cool. I feel like, I feel like that would have been a hard guest to get on when he was big. Yeah, because he never did anything with anybody besides he did no jumper and then he did some random radio interview when he got out of a jail at one point. And then he was on some live streams with me and act after that. But for the most part, yeah, he was like he was very anti-interview. And yeah, I interviewed like a million people like after they kind of got famous. But there's something special about that one because I just had like the one blueprint for who he was before he became like rich and famous, you know?

Yeah, for sure. Dang, that's super special. Well, everyone knows we're going to talk about Christianity and things like that. I know what last time you wore a shirt that we thought was funny when you came here. I did have Osama bin Laden on my shirt at that moment. And I think I said something about how like I'm totally cool with the version of religion that you guys represent. But I do happen to have a shirt on with a picture of, you know, the extent to which I think like religious beliefs can be harmful. obviously that's kind of complicated but yeah for sure yeah well I'm excited we can have just like a raw

you know we're gonna have a raw honestly you could say whatever you want about perspectives views whatever like you don't have to hold back like I just want to know like kind of how you feel about everything but I definitely know that there's like a lot of there's a lot of clips about you and Christianity on the internet and from what I can tell there you're in a lot of opposition or like you have a lot of pushback towards Christianity I guess you could say What's your biggest issue with Christianity that you just don't like? I think my main thing with Christianity is I just don't believe it's true. I don't believe that Jesus is the son of God.

I don't believe that the Bible is anything more than just, you know, a series of lessons that probably should just be taken that way. I mean, when I was a kid, I was really raised in like a Christian household and my parents made me go to church all the time. And even as a real young kid, I had this almost like physical resentment towards going into that environment. I just kind of like sense that it wasn't for me from a really young age. But then as I started to get older, I started to realize that a lot of people weren't really as serious as I was about it in the sense that like I looked at the teachings of the Bible that I was learning about in Sunday school or whatever.

Even though I didn't, I wasn't like particularly thrilled about the church experience. I still felt like, okay, I should be trying to figure out what this is all about. about and as time goes on and I started to realize like oh all the other kids that I am going to Sunday school with aren't as serious about this or they don't think like I remember having a conversation with a friend of mine who was basically like you know saying something about wanting to have sex with this girl and I remember being like okay but you're not married like we go to church like like you can't do that right and he was like what no of course I would still do it and I'm like oh so we both go to

church but I'm over here assuming that we got to take the gospel literally and then I remember when I was like 13 one of my friends just like introduced me to the satanic Bible which is by no means the entry point to atheism that I would recommend for anybody because it's kind of goofy and ridiculous and it's from like 80 years ago or whatever but I remember reading it and just being like oh okay like this is where I'm at like I don't believe in God I don't think any of this stuff is true and I actually think that you can live a completely moral and, you know, pristine life without the Bible. And ever since then, yeah, I turned my back on it. And it's actually kind of weird because I feel like even though they've never admitted it to this day,

I think that I kind of turned to my parents, atheists too, because I would just always be presenting them with the newest religious argument that I read online. Because this is like the very early days of the internet where I'd be looking up stuff about atheism. all the time. And I think it kind of got to my parents because when I really think about it, I haven't heard them really mention anything regarding religion in the last 20 years or so, even though if they were here right now, they would say, like, you didn't convince us us of anything. Like, of course not. Like, you know, like, but I do think that I had a bit of that impact on my parents too. Yeah. So your entry point to atheism was the Satanic Bible. But when you read it, you were like, I agree with this more than I do, the Christian perspective of the

worldview. I agreed with the part that this was anti-Christianity or anti-religion, doesn't believe in God. That part I agreed with, if you actually go read the Satanic Bible, it's filled with all this sort of goofy, like, witchcraft type stuff. And, you know, but, and it was written a long time ago, so I got to give them a little bit of grace, but, and it was very influential on a lot of people, but for sure not, you know, the definitive guide to how to live a great life. But definitely, like, kind of hit me at the time where I needed something to kind of show me like, oh, there's a lot of other people out there living different lifestyles and composing their moral code from, you know, a lot of different stuff aside from just the Bible, which I grew up with.

Do you think any religion could be true? Do you think that there could be one that is true or are you just totally against any of them being true? No, for sure. I think like it's possible. Like if I were, I guess what you're asking is like, do you think that there is a religion that incorporates the supernatural or something along those lines

because, you know, for sure, like, when I've read about, like, you know, secular humanistic religions, that's a lot closer to what I believe. I just don't even really feel the need to put a name on it. You know, I remember being a young kid and, like, my dad got locked up in the feds

for like a year when I was, like, 12, and he was basically on trial and in the media dealing with these charges because I'm in, like, a small town where it's like that kind of stuff. It was like a mail fraud. charge basically he was like accused of using his role in the local government he was an alderman which is really like kind of a small time role in uh in politics locally and then he also worked

at this construction company helping them get jobs and stuff like that and he was basically accused of like using his role in government to help get um jobs for his business or whatever he ends up taking a plea deal doing a year and uh i just remember during that time period my mom really leaning on the church and like you know the church being a big part of like what kept her sane and yeah mentally well during that time period and I remember my mom explaining to me that that was why she knew that religion was for her and I said to her I'm like mom you could have got that out of a bowling league like the fact that you had a bunch of people who were supporting you and emotionally sort of lifting you up that's awesome but that has nothing to do with whether what's in

this book is true or not. Now, I'm not like a religious scholar and there's a lot of, you know, people who really make it their thing to debate Christianity and to be able to sort of debunk the Bible, whatever. I don't really get into all that. That's like kind of above my pay grade. It's like that's actually why it's kind of funny even doing these conversations with you this being the second one because it's like I don't really even talk about religion. Like a huge percentage of the people that I do podcasts with and people that I interview and everything,

they are Christian. Yeah. To me, it doesn't seem like they take it serious in any meaningful way. Like, they'll tell you that they pray, but I never really see them. You know, we'll be having a conversation in which to me, if you were religious, it would seem like, okay, this is the point where you're going to start talking about God, and it doesn't really come up. I feel like to a lot of people in hip hop, it's like impossible to imagine being like outwardly a non-believer.

I actually know multiple people in hip-hop who are atheists. but would never say it publicly because it's so looked down upon in the black community and hip hop to like be anti-religious. I see what you're saying. Dang, do you so do you want, would you want God to be real if he was real? Um, probably not the God in the Bible. I feel like the God in the Bible seems like he's kind of a, you know, not not the person that I would expect to be the greatest supernatural ruler of the universe. But I guess if I could create a world in which there was a God who was basically like a judge, like the primary, he's like the one man's supreme court of what's right and wrong in the

universe. And if you could kind of constantly go to him and say, hey, like, you know, I have this dilemma and I'm not sure what I should do. Can you tell me how I should go about this? That sounds very useful. Like, you know, but yeah, I think it's kind of on. human beings to figure that stuff out for themselves in a variety of ways. But if I could do that, yeah, or if there was a supreme God where I could say like,

hey, this dude is pure evil, you should, you know, orchestrate a scenario in which he spends the rest of his life in jail or whatever. I mean, that would be useful. But, I mean, that's not really how most people who are religious think that works either. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you mentioned earlier you were talking about morality, how like you felt like that you could live a good moral life outside of Christianity when you were talking to your buddy. and that's how it unfolded.

So where do you think you get, where do you think people get their standard of morality from? I mean, I think it just takes an objective analysis of the world and the kind of world that you want to live in. I remember last time we did this interview, and I promise I won't just say that over and over throughout this whole interview because it's going to be a tough thing.

But I remember we talked about like moral relativism which is basically like the idea that every different culture has their own idea of what's right and wrong. that people from our culture have no business telling another culture like, hey, this is messed up, this is wrong. And I don't agree with that at all. I think that, you know, the pursuit of understanding what the good life is is very much something that can be applicable to everyone. And I think that, you know, for instance, all over the world, there's female genital mutilation taking place, which is basically like, you know, young girls, their fathers or their

families will essentially have their vagina sewn up upon birth or at some point when they're very, very young. And that's basically to ensure that they stay a virgin throughout their life. And this produces, you know, a ton of like horrible health effects. And I could go into even more detail about how disgusting the process is. And obviously, I think that's just completely wrong and disgusting. And I think you can say that objectively about our society. If you were to find some rogue actor that was doing that, it would be just as a thing. disgusting but also you could look at other cultures and it's not to say that like you know Europeans or Americans or white people have everything figured out and there's these

savage tribes of people all over the world or doing the other thing you know I don't think it doesn't have to be viewed as like our culture as a whole being superior but I definitely think that you know you can take a look at what other people have going on and be objective about it yeah so I think I think you and I could agree that there is a from what you're saying that there is a standard of truth but I guess you know I would get my standard of truth from the god of Christianity where do you get your standard of truth from is what I'm asking um so I read a lot of different authors philosophers people who talk about you know what the good life is and and kind of debate those things internally or have conversations with people about that sort of stuff about what right and wrong is for me it's like that kind of thing is so simple in a way like the the idea of like you know the example I just used is like yeah it's bad to cut your daughter's vagina off that's pretty easy for me to deduce that that's all bad but uh you know i i feel like those kind of conversations like you know i'll even give you an example

there's like a uh podcaster a female podcast or i saw her at an event a couple months ago and i just like off the top of my head the first thing i thought of to mention to her was like a video i had just seen basically that was very very negative to her and i i just mentioned you I mentioned it like to her right away. I'm like, God, I just saw this video like about you. It was crazy. Like, did you see that? And I could see it in her eyes right there that she knew what I was talking about

and I heard her feelings. And then I brought it up to my wife and she just said to me like, well, you probably shouldn't put that out, right? And I hadn't thought about that until that moment. Up until that moment my mind had solely been on like having a viral clip, viral moment. And she said like, you know, you don't have anything against her. would you why would you bring that up like you know that that's for sure like she's going to feel bad about people seeing that and you're going to look like a jerk as a result and I thought oh like

that is a good point I'm so glad that I have you in my life to check me when I'm sort of riding this tide of ego of like oh I'm going to get this viral clip out and she sort of said that and you know right there that's just like a little chunk of you know deciding what was the right or moral thing to do in that moment and obviously I get it wrong frequently and sure but yeah I think that that you know even with someone like my wife who's not you know a philosopher she's not trained to have these sort of conversations I think anybody can kind of sort out what they think is right or wrong yeah yeah I see what you're saying I feel like everyone has like a nature built inside of them but I think that that nature comes from God and then aside from like the moral system that's built

into us I think that the sinful nature we're just born into corny Christianity everyone's born with a sinful nature how like when I was four years old right I remember I was was on a trampoline with my buddy and I had like a plastic Pirates of the Caribbean sword and I just smacked him in the face with it right like hit him no one taught me to do that I just did it and like you know you know what I mean I just heard him without like no one teaching me that and so that was in me and I recognize that but also the standard and so I guess like even from an extreme thing because we can talk about like the the female general mutilation we can talk about um you know underage prostitution in foreign countries we can talk about all this grand stuff but even if you go down to a T of

like if you punched me in the face and I punch you back in the face, Jesus would say, don't do that. But literally last night we're playing basketball and two of my friends are chirping at each other. And this random guy that was playing with this was like, yo, you better catch a fade with him. So even he was like, well, this is how we settle things. You guys just fight it out. And so even that is embedded in culture, whereas Jesus would say like actually don't do that. And, you know, even that was the challenge at the time.

this is in like Matthew chapter 6 where Jesus is given like one of his most famous sermons and he says uh you know society says an eye for an eye like if you hit me i hate you harder back but he says if someone hits you on the cheek turn and give them the other cheek basically presenting this idea of not repaying evil with evil which is so hard in today's society like i can get so heated and things like that and i bet you can't too because we're all human like i do that but but having that ideology challenge me i don't know i guess when i took on the moral standard of the the viable, it made me live a fuller richer life. It wasn't like God being a cosmic buzzkill in my no. Yeah. I mean the like catch a fade thing is crazy because I know a lot of people where that's

kind of like how their mind works or it's like if we have a serious enough disagreement or if you've disrespected me to such an intense extent, then we should actually physically fight because that's the only way that we're going to get over this tension between each other, which to me is crazy. I don't really understand it. I've never been the type of person who felt like I had to like fight with my friends in order to like get through some stuff. You know, for sure I've gotten in fights with my friends over the years. But I always thought it was like a pretty regrettable decision. And it's like if somebody is capable of disrespecting me to such an extent that I feel like the only way that I'm going to feel better about this exchange is if we

actually just throw hands, I don't even think that's like a person that I want in my life or a conversation that needs to be had. I don't think that that really makes a lot of sense to me. I do understand that like two people can be so close like with brothers. I see this all the time. People are related or they'll end up feeling like they have to fight to get over something. For me, that's just kind of foreign, you know, like I'm a podcaster. I feel like if I'm going to, if we're having a war of words, I should be willing to lose

this war of words if that's where it's going, not like have to switch it over to like, well, we're going to move past talking to fighting now because, you know, like, what if I'm friends with Mike Tyson? You know, he's going to beat me up 100 times out of 100. It's like, that doesn't prove anything. He could still be 100% wrong in the argument. It's like just because he is capable of beating me up, doesn't say anything about it. You know, it's like, and in comparison, you know, I have a kid like my daughter. Yes, if we decided that me and my daughter needed to fight to solve. Yeah, I mean, that's like, that's not taught teaching her anything about the world that I would want to teach her, if anything.

You know, you see that with kids all the time, like you were saying, where they just, they'll smack each other in the face. My daughter's four. Her and her cousin, who's also four, she'll punch her in the face or smack her upside the head if she tries to take her toy. And it's like, you know, you see that right there or when you see it that like one kid will try to hoard the toys and like take all the toys and put them to the side. Like, no, these are mine.

Like you see these sort of like billionaire instincts that like a lot of. of adults sort of express where like the desire to commit violence to get your way or to um you know to be selfish like these are things that like you have to unlearn as a kid because that's kind of like human nature to be this like really greedy shitty shitty version of a person in order to uh you know be the most uh you know dominant in a society and you kind of have to like i've had people try to to argue that to me before that human beings that their nature is inherently good and I do think that it takes some some coding some reprogramming in order to make people actually act like that like people don't really come out of the womb and and that's how I understand Christianity honestly is that

I look at Christianity as like a very early version of man's attempt that understanding the world around them and creating a coherent moral code at a time in which moon being full was probably this like really shocking thing now we i could literally i was chat gpt right now like why is like what's going on with the moon why does the moon look different all the time or like you know there was an earthquake last night yep i'm able to perceive that earthquake as just being something that takes place occasionally uh and and and not you know being mystified by it but you can imagine at the time that the bible was put together that the world probably seemed unbelievably scary whereas right now the world seems scary in its own right but also like fairly easy to like

understand in comparison yeah no i understand exactly what you're saying um we've definitely adapted in society to where we can understand things a little bit more not like over hyper spiritualized things i guess you could say there's a verse and proverbs i don't know the exact quotation but he basically king solomon supposed to be like the wisest guy ever he said there's a way that seems right to a man but in the end it leads to death And I can relate to that in a sense where I feel like whenever Bryce tries to handle things Bryce's way, I end up doing more damage than actual good. Or when I try to like white knuckle, I call it white knuckling or like muscle in my way through things.

Like if I've got a problem in my life, I try to fix it myself or out of my own knowledge and own strength. And what you just said about recoding your brain is literally what the Bible tells us. There's a verse in Romans 12 where he says, do not be conformed to this world. But Paul writes Romans, he says, don't do exactly what everyone else is doing. but he says be transformed by renewing your mind you literally have to change the way that you think like literally that's what he's doing so like yes there's a sense that the bible and like what jesus teaches and his morality this morality that the bible resents is something you do have to recode because then now it's not like after reading the bible i go dang i shouldn't just go

hit my friend in the face with a sword even though i'm 21 years old i shouldn't do that or last night at basketball oh this kid's chirping man chirp in me i shouldn't go catch a fade with this kid I should just take a second think and calm down. It's just a basketball game. You know what I mean? So I really cleaned on to that because I feel like when I reflect on my own life, I feel like I do more damage than good when I try to fix things out of my own strength. Don't get me wrong.

Like I think there is some good to people. Like I've definitely done good things out of my own strength, in quotation marks. Because human beings also are the ones who've invented the same rationale that we're talking about, which is like to come up with a coherent moral. code and to, you know, come up with something like the Bible or to come up with, you know, all the different belief systems that basically allow people to live moral lives. You know, human beings invent those too. But I think like our primary instinct is to basically solve all of our problems through force, violence, whatever it may be. And, uh, yeah, that's, that's like,

you know, when I think back to being a kid, when I think about being 16 or 18 or whatever, it's like the world seemed very scary and strange. And I, uh, yeah, that's, that's like, that's like, that's, I was doing a lot more contemplating of what was right and what I should be doing to live the best existence. And when I think about my life now, it feels like everything is solved in a much more specific way in the sense that like, you know, rarely am I like grasping at like the right way to handle a situation because I just feel like I've so much more life experience that now I'm kind of just like playing the game of life consistently. now I know what I'm doing with my life whereas when I was 16 or 18 I was trying to figure out like what is what am I going to be what is my life yeah and at that time even though I'm talking about myself understanding that I was an atheist from like you know 13 still felt like there was a lot more questions that went along with that even though I was a as a grown man now it just feels like a lot yeah a lot more simple yeah I mean with this actually comes from like a sincere place in my heart like with all respect like I feel like as I get older, I have more of a motivation to believe in something. I love Jesus. I've been a Christian since I'm 17.

But the more I get older, I love the fact that I believe in something. For you, you label yourself as an atheist. You're like, I don't really believe in anything. I don't care to believe in anything. I mean, I mean, like, do you? I don't know. I kind of asked you earlier, but like, do you want to? Like, you know, I feel like as I get older, I love that I have faith in something.

and it motivates me. I mean, like right now, as you get older, God forbid something happens. Timer ends tonight. What do you think happens? So I don't think about what happens when you die. I think that as human beings, nobody has ever really died and then came back.

I know people like die and come back like on the emergency room table and situations like that. But it's not the same thing. It's not exactly the same. And I feel like, it's almost kind of silly for people to contemplate what happens after you die because we just have no real way of knowing. And so, you know, I do think that religion is kind of like the ultimate comfort blanket,

safety blanket that makes you feel better about everything because it gives you this, this understanding of what is going to happen to you after you die. I just think that it's mostly people just kind of making stuff up and improvising and really talking a lot about what they think should happen when you die or what would be cool. Like I always have this sort of fantasy that I'm going to die and then I'm going to sit in a movie theater and I'm going to watch this extremely long in-depth movie about my life and I'm going to relive all of these critical decision points and I'm going to get to see how cute I was as a kid and I'm going to get to whatever.

Like in my head that would make sense but also it just seems like this is clearly like tailored to what I would like to be the situation. if I were to die. And I don't think that it really makes all that much sense that, like, you know, because I don't think most of us think that that's what happens to animals. You know, I think when my cat died, my cat died. And that was the end of the road. And it was one of the hardest things I ever had to go through.

But, you know, the cat dies and that's just how life goes. And, you know, I think about that a lot of times with my dog. I'm like nuts over one of my dogs. The other one's all right. But my one dog, Ralphie, you know, I just think about that. Like, God, I'm going to be so sad in like 10 years when you die. And I know that's coming. And it doesn't stop me from loving you right now.

But I don't, to me, it just seems like wishful thinking to just assume that there's something after that. Yeah. I respect. I have other atheist friends as well. And I respect them. To me, I feel like it takes more faith for me to be an atheist than it does for me to be a Christian in my perspective. I feel like it, I feel like at least for me trying not, I guess, well, maybe you're not trying. is genuinely how you feel. But for me, I feel like if I was trying to be an atheist, it would

take more of me to try to not believe in anything than for me to search out what evidence is the most reliable. I don't know if I told you this last time we talked, but like I can't fully prove to you that God is real. I can't fully prove to you that Jesus is real and I can't fully prove to you that he's God. But I feel like out of everything across the board on religion, there's more evidence that Christianity is the most reliable than anything across the board. That's why I decided to put my faith and trust in Jesus. Aside from what I feel, the reliability, I mean, it's just totally different than everything. We kind of talked about like Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, like, I have friends in all these religions,

but they're working for everything. They're working to enlightenment. My Muslim friends are working to please Allah. And every time I talk to them, they have no idea where they're going, even though they're some of the most respectable in the sense of they give alms to the poor, they pray five times. They pray more than most Christians do. They believe more about Jesus than most Christians do. They give more alms to the poor and help poor people more than Christians do.

So I can respect that aspect of Islam. But even them, they don't know where they're going. And all of these things, you've got to work, work, work, work. And my story is I was going to take my life when I was 17 years old because I had a broken heart, depression, and anxiety. And a bunch of people told me, you need religious structure in your life, Bryce, to fix your life. And so I looked into everything because I went to a private Christian school, but I kind of hated God. and I had a bad taste in my mouth with pastors because these pastors would tell me what to do with my life,

but then I would see them doing the total opposite of what they were telling me to do. And like people were cheating on their wives. And it was like super hypocritical. And I looked into it. And none of this stuff helped me because all of them you had to work to perfection. And I was so broken inside. I thought if I'm this broken and I can't even fix in this wicked world to fix my broken heart, how could I ever work to perfection?

It seemed impossible. And I wanted to take my life. But that's the other reason why I love about Jesus, because out of every labeled religion, Jesus Christ is the only God that humbles himself and comes down and meets the broken people where they're at. Whether it instead of a broken person working to get his approval, God looks down and says,

I love these people so much. I'm going to humble myself and become a human. A God that exists outside of time, outside of space, intervenes into time and space, takes on flesh. He lives this perfect life. So now the moral code of the Bible,

is achievable because I watch someone show me how to do it instead of just tell me how to do it and expect me to do it without showing me. And then because it's like the justice system, you murder someone, you go to jail, my sin and wickedness, my sinful nature, I deserve death and separation. But Jesus goes, I'm actually going to die for you. I'm going to take the punishment for you. I'm going to cancel the debt. And that's the forgiveness aspect. Like if you punch me, instead of repaying evil and I forgive you, I'm canceling the debt of what you just did to me. In the same way, Jesus is like, everything you've ever done wrong in your life, I'm canceling the debt right now by dying for it. And then I'm defeating the very thing that separates you from me. And so instead of like,

like, yes, like sure religion, I think yes, like I understand what you mean by a safety blanket. But to me, it's deeper than that. Like out of all these religions, it's so evident that Jesus wants like friendship with, with me and you. Like even though he's God and he's created every human being and there's a bunch of people that he's got to tend to, he's still like somehow. wants to be so intentional and intimate with me the same way he like views you and I even thought for myself like I think every human being is done wrong maybe wrong in their own ways I've never murdered anyone I've never stolen from a bank I've never you know whatever so my wrong may be my wrong may be and I always thought that I couldn't I thought that I always couldn't like

work I thought that God never wanted me because that was my perception we live in this world like where if you don't scratch my back, then I'm not going to scratch yours. Everything's transactional. And then Jesus brings this idea of unconditional love despite how you feel about me. Jesus says, I'm going to love you despite how you feel about me.

And so I just thought that like I had to kind of clean myself up before I came to God. But I didn't experience God's love for the first time until I was at my most broken state. That's just my big appeal to it. And I can't deny. I have my doubts. I think everyone has doubts.

Like one of the most famous Christian, like theologian people ever. He got diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. I don't know if you know anything about that, but there's pretty much nothing you can do about pancreatic cancer. Like it's like just the clocks taken, basically. And at that moment, he was like, all right, I got a lot of doubts right now. This famous Christian guy, he was like, I just have to make sure that Jesus really raised from the dead. Because if Jesus really did raise from the dead, then he's the truth.

and then he died confidently, like, this really is the truth. And so anyways, I just say all that to say. Like, you know, I don't think that I don't know exactly how Christianity has been presented to you all across the board. Like, I know I've seen clips of people trying to talk to you here, here, and there. And, you know, that's great. But, but, like, I think it's just so interesting how Christianity keeps being a topic of conversation to you in some way, shape, or form.

Like, yes, it's a laborer. religion, but outside of that, you look at Jesus and all the religious people, he's like, okay, you've got the wrong idea about why I'm here. Like, they're trying to get him to follow the law, but then, you know, the moral code. We could go back to the moral code, but then Jesus summarizes the entire moral code under this one truth of love the Lord your God with your whole heart, soul, mind, and strength. He basically just says, you're going to live a morally sound life according to God, according to the moral standard. If you just love me, that's it like it's it's mind-blown but how does that even make sense like how does

I don't know like like it's a nice idea that like all you have to do is love God and that that's going to like basically be the solution for everything in your life from my perspective it's like when I think about how a logical God would behave the last thing that a all-powerful being would need would basically be like for the the subject the people in his kingdom to express their love for him like why why is that even a consideration like to me that's and i go back to this like logical god thing a lot which is like if there was a god what would be the most logical way for him to act because if he really is perfect then we should basically be able to sort of deduce what god would want and and somebody said that to me very early on which is basically like well

atheism is great because realistically if you get to the gates of heaven and if a logical god is sitting there and he asks you why didn't you spend your life worshiping me all you could have to say is well i tried you know i tried to convince myself and i wasn't able to believe and now i'm at the gates of heaven so i guess i do believe but realistically like i don't think that you made it clear enough to me throughout my life because i think that a lot of people apparently have been swayed, but I wasn't. And I don't think that a logical God could hold that against you. And I don't understand why an all-powerful God would really care at all about his people loving him. Like, what does that even mean? What is it to love a person or a being that you never see or interact with in any way, aside from like maybe sometimes feeling like

your prayers are being answered or something like that? That never really added up to me. Yeah. I mean, think, I mean, you know, it's like the heaven and hell thing. Like, why is that a thing? You know, why does God send people to hell? God does not send people to hell. People send people to hell. And what I mean by that is hell is both a justice system and a choice in the sense that you mentioned earlier, like, if there is no God, Mother Teresa and Hitler are both in the same place. But Hitler could be in heaven too. All he has to do is love God and apologize and, and repent, right? Well, it's like a little, like yes and no, like I can kind of explain that. But if there is no God, we have to understand that Hitler and Mother Teresa are in the same place. And to me, it's like,

okay, well, then, you know, Hitler needs to be held accountable for the mass genocide and all these other people, you know, the Jeffrey Dahmer's, all these people. So anyways, so that's, that's hell's a justice system, right? You murder someone, you go on trial, you deserve the punishment. Great. And that's what I was mentioning about Jesus earlier is Jesus's death on the cross. There, there has to to be blood. There has to be a payment for the wrongdoing that's done. But because Jesus is God and he's perfect, he can pay for everything. But the Bible's very clear that you have to put faith and trust that he paid the price. So in the sense that it's a justice system, we're held accountable for our sins. God makes the payment. But it's also a choice in the sense that, I mean, you could say, well,

God hasn't revealed himself to us. Well, Jesus Christ did 2,000 years ago, claimed to be God very clearly, I believe. And there was one week. where these people were literally putting palm leaves on the ground it's a historical event they call palm sunday they're praising jesus as he's riding a donkey calling him the messiah the savior of the world a week later those same people are nailing him to a cross asking for him to be crucified and they're asking for a rapist a murderer and a rebel to be released from prison the same people that were just praising him so we could go on the argument of like there's even a point of the bible where these people were like uh jesus give us a sign give us a sign and he looks to them he's like you wicked

generation like I've given you plenty of signs he's like the sign I give you is the sign of Jonah and he says just as Jonah was in the belly of the whale for three days so will the son of man be in the belly of the earth for three days and come again he was literally in a in fancy terms metaphorical terms saying I'm going to die for three days and then I'm going to defeat death so he was telling him that's going to be your sign when I raised from the death that I'm really I really am who I say I am and I was watching some religious debates prior to this and I actually found out which I didn't know that most or at least a very large percentage of biblical scholars don't actually believe that the resurrection literally happened. You don't think so. Well, apparently like most biblical

scholars don't, which is, I mean, it is hard to believe. It is like, you know, that that really is like the one magic trick that if that's true, then, okay, this whole religion kind of hinges on that, right? Like, I don't think that there's much to debate or discuss if you don't believe in that. But I found out while getting ready for this and watching some debates that actually that's like heavily contested by Christians. Well, this is why I believe that he did raise from the dead. When he rose from the dead, there was a 40-day period where Jesus appeared to over 500 people. It's not like a spiritual being raised from dead. Like in his physical fleshly body, he's raised from the dead. 500 people saw this guy over 40, 40-day time period in the flesh. And then he ascended into heaven in front of a group of

people. Some people were like, oh, these people are drunk and hallucinating. It was super early in the morning when they did that. And back in Jewish culture, that was just not a thing that occurred. So we can wipe that out of the thing. Number two, mass hallucination does not happen. That is like a very rare thing. If not, does not happen. No one was on drugs when this happened. And a buttload of people saw this guy ascend into heaven. Okay? So we're looking at that. And then my third thing is, all of these apostles and followers of Christ died for the fact that he raised from the debt. they didn't die for the fact that oh he lived and died there's there's more evidence that jesus christ was a real dude than alexander the great there was the same amount of evidence that

jesus christ was a real guy back in that time period for that culture that caesar was a real guy caesar was a popular figure in the roman government there was just as much evidence for jesus as there was for caesar so we can't deny that he wasn't a real person it's just was he got did he really raise from the dead and uh and i believe that i mean if you got guys dying for of this stuff. I feel like if you weren't as confident in the fact that he rose from the dead, the guys that claimed to have seen him face to face, if they weren't as confident, they wouldn't have died for it. And I mean, the upside down and cross on your face. Peter was like, crucify me upside down because I'm not worthy to be crucified standing up. He was willing to die

for the fact that Jesus raised from the dead. That blows my mind. So like, yes, I mean, we need to understand these truths, but I also feel like the same way that the church appealed to your mom and her time of crisis when your dad was in jail and your family was going through it and she said, well, this is why, you know, like I understand, that's not just the sole reason why someone should just believe in a religion. But it also doesn't shock me that that was appealing to your mom because there's so much transactional things. And you have to understand in that position, that vulnerable position for your mom, there's really nothing that your mom in that position can give to them. They're just constantly overflowing her with love and, and, and, come.

And like sure you can find that in a bowling link like to an extent But like this idea of no strings attached unconditional love I'm just gonna serve you whether you never speak to me again or not That's just something that the Bible teaches that I just don't see displayed through any other religion or people group And the Bible there's this one there's one verse in Romans where it says the goodness of God brings man to repentance That's why I also have an issue with these street preachers that hold up signs with pitchforks It's like you're gonna burn in hell if you're this this or that it's like sure there is biblical truth to that but but like no one's going to turn from their ways i've noticed like the me like it took time for me to slowly start giving things up that the bible was like an

opposition to the way i was living and and people that i that i've walked with it's like when i tell them hey stop doing this thing they don't really understand why to do it that's why i like feel for you when all these christians get mad at you on how you live your life i'm not mad because you you don't believe in Jesus. So what he says about stuff really doesn't, you don't care about. So it's like I don't understand why these people get mad at you. Like what you were saying about how you can't just tell people that something

is wrong. You got to explain it. You got to make it make sense to them. I have a lot of experience with that in recent memory with my kid because it's like, you just realize very quickly, even at four years old, why do I need to brush my teeth right now? If you say because I say so or because I'm the grown up and I'm in charge, It doesn't really do much to convince your kid.

And really you don't want to raise the kind of kid who's just going to hear somebody say because I say so. You're sort of like asking for them to be the type of person who becomes a victim who gets taken advantage of if that's all the logic that they need in order to decide how they want to act. You have to say, listen, your cousin has cavities. They take a drill. They drill into your teeth. You know how much you hated going to the dentist the other day?

Picture with them drilling into your teeth. That's what's going to happen if you don't brush your teeth right now. or if you don't let me brush your teeth. You know, so it's like you have to be able to logically make sense of things in order. Like I'm imagining you probably telling your friends like, hey, vaping, drinking alcohol, these things are not godly. You shouldn't be doing these things. But to me, it not being godly is probably not really enough of an argument.

I would go with the health argument or the if you drink, you're much more likely to sin or to live a dangerous lifestyle for sure. Like, you know, I've seen that throughout my life. I used to drink all the time now and drink it all. and I look at it as like a huge waste of energy that I actually spent any time in my life doing that. But yeah, I mean, like one thing that stands out to me, and I hear your story about you going through this experience

in which you prayed to God and you basically like solved your problems that you were dealing with with anxiety and everything like that. And I can't help but feel, no offense, that it's kind of narcissistic because I feel like so many people throughout time and history have been praying to God. And the vast majority of them,

I feel like it probably didn't do a whole lot for them. And, you know, really like, you were kind of, like, you're lucky to have been raised in a world in which the religion that you were raised with is one that generally has, you know, positive impacts on people's lives. Like, you could have been in India and you would, been born in India and you wouldn't even know what Christianity was.

The same way that me and you, when we talk about Islam and it's pretty easy for us to kind of not disrespectfully laugh at it, but to sort of scoff at some of the claims or whatever, it's kind of easy for us to feel that way because we didn't grow up with it. To me, I look at religion like, you know, choosing what football team you're into, which is like almost every single person likes the football team that they grew up around or the basketball team or baseball team or whatever. And as a result, you know, they look at Cowboys fans if you grew up out here. Like, they're kind of crazy. But the reality is is that the football team that you grew up around

is no more moral or virtuous than the football team from people who live 10 or 15 hours away. And I think that, you know, realistically, like, it's just, I feel like your worldview is kind of like, it centers yourself in the universe so much because the reality is, is that all these kids growing up in the majority of the world that aren't growing up with Christian worldviews,

it's just zero percent chance that they would have become religious in the first place. And I know we talked about last time that you don't actually think that little kids are going to hell because they didn't grow up around, you know, Christian influences and everything. But at the same time, it does feel like that's kind of where that logic leads you because, you know, most people don't have the benefit of growing up with the same worldview as you. And most people, when they pray, nothing really comes from it. Like I'm sure as much as it changed your life, most people who do that, it doesn't change their life. Yeah, for sure.

I mean, I think, I guess I think the religion thing first. Like, I mean, you've got Muslims in Gaza. Now, if you go over in the Middle East, almost all of them are raised Muslim. Like there's, if not every single family. And they're devout and they're pretty hardcore in it. If one of them decided to be Christian, they probably have a very hard life. Yes, extremely hard life. Probably a short life.

Because what they're. getting from the Muslim community is compassion, community, friendship. And so in their mind, they're losing all of that. So if you present Christianity to them, you have to offer them the very thing that they're losing, which is compassion, friendship in Jesus, community with other believers. But there were Muslims, hundreds of Muslims in Gaza that had the same dream about Jesus Christ. And they all converted to Christianity. One dream. So I don't doubt that God can't move in these things. And I acknowledge, I'm very blessed to have been a raised in a country where you can believe whatever you want,

without, pretty much without like any physical attacks or things like that. And, and I understand I went to a Christian school, but I think I also have to acknowledge, like, I was deeply aware of the hypocrisy that was going on around me. And it made me really bitter. And close people in my life that would tell me that they loved God. And then I would watch very specific things going down that made me deeply, hey, whatever this God they're serving,

is is a total hypocrite because they are doing the total opposite of what they're telling me to do. And I acknowledge that. And I understand, like something that I really wrestle with is I prayed and asked God to take away my anxiety and impression, and he did. And then I have friends that I have prayed for for God to take away their anxiety and nothing happens. And I don't understand why. Do I think God can heal everyone?

Yes. Does he heal everyone? No. I don't know why. But I think the wisdom of God could be literally taking away someone's anxiety. or I do think the wisdom of God could be God giving doctors the correct wisdom to prescribe the right amount of anxiety medication to help cope people's anxiety. I think that's the wisdom of God too. And so there's this interesting part where Paul, he's like supposed to be a legend of Christianity.

He writes about this thorn in his flesh and it's basically this thing that he can't shake off. It's not clarified if it was like a spiritual thing or if it was like a sin issue that he couldn't stop doing. And he's complaining about how there's this one thing. thing in his life that he can't shake off and it's bothering him. But then at the very end of this passage, he says, but this thorn in my flesh, it keeps me humble and reliant on God. And so I can't speak to everyone's situation. I can't say, well, just because God takes away this thing, well, God's keeping it there and this isn't that. I don't know, because then there's also these verses that say, you know, if you will seek me and find me, if you seek me with your whole heart,

are people really crying out to God because they're just doing it to do it? Or are people really crying out because their heart is hungry and desperate and things like that. Or maybe for people that are Christian that are trying to follow God, but they're asking God to take away something and it's not taken away, maybe God's not taking it away because if God took that thing away, they would stop going to God. I don't know. I don't know the circumstances. So I can't give like a full answer on that. And I do recognize that I've very blessed and very fortunate to grow up in a society where I can choose and really follow what I believe and without repercussions. But there are those instances where the Muslims in Gaza have dreams and things like that. We chose to go to a Hindu festival, the festival

of the chariots, where everyone there's Hindu and we're the only Christians, and we're challenging Hindus on their beliefs. They probably weren't expecting any Christian to come up to them and talk to, you know, maybe they saw people pitch forks and signs, but they probably weren't expecting someone to come up to them and have a respectful conversation and go, hey, why do you believe what you believe. And well, this is why I believe what I believe. And this is why I think my life has purpose and things like that and challenge them and pray for them and things like that. And so I guess that's, you know, there's some things I just can't wrap my mind around and I don't have full answers to you. But I mean, even in those hard times, like there's things in my life that I pray and ask God to

take away and he hasn't taken away. And I don't know why. And it makes me angry and it makes me frustrated. And there's times where my prayers are like, God, I'm freaking pissed right now. Some people would get so upset for me saying, oh, you're a Christian, and you tell God that you're pissed right now? Absolutely, I do, because I'm a human being and I have emotions. But it's crazy how, like, even when I'm frustrated and pissed, God wants me to tell him. Even though he's all knowing, the fact that I express to him that I'm frustrated or I'm happy or I'm sad in any moment when I pray, he loves it because it makes it intimate. It makes it personal. And I'm actually coming to him. There's this verse where it says, do not be anxious about anything, but with prayer,

and supplication. Supplication is like literally asking God to do something specific about a situation. God, I'm frustrated about this right now. I need you to do something. God loves it when I tell him how I feel about it. And so I fully don't understand why he doesn't take things away all the time. But I love that he doesn't get mad at me when I'm mad about my situations or when I'm sad or when I'm happy.

He likes to know it all. And again, that's what I love. Like I don't think the Muslims would agree with being mad at God about something. They would say, well, you can't get mad at him. You just got to let it be. Right. I said, no. God likes it when you're mad. I'm a human being with feelings. You're a human being with feelings. And just because I'm mad, it doesn't mean I'm right about what I'm mad about, but God likes the fact that I'm telling him how I feel. Especially a God who has, in my view, not necessarily made it so easy to believe in him. Like, I'm sure somebody like you would say, God doesn't

announce himself to the world so clearly because he wants it to be a little bit of a challenge for, you to believe in him. Like he wants you to have to really have faith in order to believe him in him, which to me is a little confusing because I feel like when you're reading the Bible, there's so many overt acts that it seems like God was just kind of presenting himself to people all the time. And then when I look at my life, you know, I guess I've had like a handful of experiences that maybe felt like, wow, like what just happened was so statistically unlikely to have played out the way that it did and these people were spared in such a way that that's kind of shocking and that almost makes me feel like wow that almost feels like god

revealing himself to me but then i've also had other situations like a lot of them where you know i've seen you know shootings where people like died right in front of me where i was like oh like if that guy had showed up to this party five minutes later he wouldn't have seen those people and he wouldn't have got killed. And that just happened just pure probability. And, um, you know, I, I feel like for me, it just seems like if God really, if it really was so important that we all believe in God, that we, he would probably make it a little bit more obvious to us. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think, I totally understand how you feel that. I could say, well, I think it has made it obvious. You know, we go back and forth on that. But I think that Jesus Christ through creation,

we can look at this house and say, well, it wasn't here yesterday, but it's here today. be like there's a maker. We can look at things, intricacy, order, detail, the fact that flowers have photosynthesis and that the universe just doesn't, the only thing that comes from nothing is nothing. Like something has to come from something.

And so like all these things we can look in that. The suffering of the world breaks my heart. I don't understand all of it. But when I look at suffering, I go, what can I compare this suffering to that's going to make me love God even more? Well, the fact that God loved us enough to suffer with us.

because we look at Christ who claimed to be God who said, I'm not just going to be a guy that tells everyone how to live it and expect them to do it, but he comes. Jesus himself said, I didn't come to be served, but to serve. I came to show you how to do it. He serves. And then he suffers too.

And so what we have to understand is it oftentimes, like, I bet you felt this way before. I'm going through things right now that no one understands what I'm going through. Like, to whatever degree, aside from the shootings, aside from everything. Like, I'm going through something and no one else understands. I felt that way before about some things. Well, Jesus would say, I understand how you feel because as God, I took all suffering to the cross, all physical suffering, all mental suffering, all sin struggles, all everything. So if anyone's going to understand how Adam feels and how Bryce feels, it's me, Jesus Christ.

Because there's this moment in the Garden of Gethsemini where it says that Jesus Christ himself was sweating drops of blood. And I believe that that is a literal representation of Jesus was feeling in his fleshly body, the weight of all suffering past, present, and future that he's about to take. to the cross. And I think it's just such a powerful thing to understand. You know, it's like, well, you know, if God is good, he would have intervened. Well, we live in a world of free will where those guys that did the shootings, you know, well, if they read the Bible, they probably wouldn't do it, but they had the choice to make the decisions. And so, like, we live in this suffering wicked world and these people can make free decisions, but God provides the antidote in Christ. And so, yes, essentially, like, if that person who committed this mass shooting,

they're in jail, and for some reason, one day, they wake up and they go, dang, I wish I didn't do that. And that was awful. And wait, those were human beings. Well, in his eyes, that guy in that moment when he was shooting, he probably didn't think human beings were valuable. So he's like, I'm just going to go do this erroneous act because they're not valuable. And I think I'm more valuable than then. So I'm just going to go take that, you know, whatever his motive may be. But there has to be a part of him that didn't think that they were valuable. Well, what makes me and you valuable? That's what, how does God think that Adam and Bryce are valuable.

And I use the example. My pastor's told me this one time. If you go to T.J. Max, I don't know if your wife shops at T.J. Max. My mom shops at T.J. Max. She's more of a fashion of a Shian person. Okay. Okay. I could respect that.

Well, my mom shops at T.J. Max. And if you go to Macy's, there'd be a fur coat for $100 at Macy's that ended up in T.J. Max. It's $19.99 at T. And the reason it got downgraded was because people didn't think it was valuable enough to pay $100 for at Macy's. so it got to the retail store for 1999. And so my thing is, what is the price tag that God puts on my life? His own life. God thought that I was valuable enough to be humble himself and put his life on the line for me.

And that's the price tag he puts on everyone. But he could do that for anybody, right? And I feel like most people don't really get their prayers answered or like, you know, I remember like as a young kid, like a lot of people sort of like conflate karma and like all religious beliefs, like the idea that if you do bad things, things, then bad things will happen to you. And if you do good things, good things will happen to you. When I was like 14, my grandma died. And she was like the sweetest person I ever known in my life. And she got cancer and she was like 80 or something. So it wasn't really all that surprising.

And, uh, you know, I remember just looking at and being like, well, she, as far as I could tell, never did a damn thing to anybody. Meanwhile, I know a lot of people who seem to be of, you know, horrible, moral character who seem like they're doing quite well for themselves in life. Now, granted, some people might not be doing as well behind the scenes as they appear publicly or whatever. But, you know, I just think, like, the idea that, that, you know, your actions are directly related to what happens to you in life. Like, I've seen just over and over and over that that's not necessarily true. And I feel like I'm kind of constantly drawn back to that where the idea that, like, if you ask God, if you live a good life and you ask God to help you, that he will. will seems to me like no.

It's quite often that's not going to be the case at all. Yeah, well, I think like if we ask God to help us, he will. But there's also action steps on our part to take. Like I can't just be like, like I can't tell my teacher help me with my project and then my teacher do the whole project for me. I'm not going to learn what I'm supposed to learn. Like there's some action steps for me to do. And so like like with the people that are living a bad life, but they, you know, they got

the money. They got the house. They're living an outwardly good life. I don't think God is just blessing them for living a bad life. I don't think that's the case at all. The Bible says that we're saved by faith, trusting that what Jesus did on the cross was enough for us to be united with him

in heaven, have friendship with God. But then there's this verse that says faith without works is dead. That does not mean that we have to work our way to get God to love us. But it's like, I don't do things because I have to for God. I do things because I want to. Same way I listen to my dad. I listen to my dad because I love him,

not because I have to. And so what he's saying is like, this is why I tell people, you can tell someone really believes in Jesus Christ, if their life looks different before they claim to have followed Christ to after they have claimed to follow Christ. Because Christ makes a very clear distinction of lifestyle and things like that. And so, like, I'm not going to say someone is or isn't a Christian, but the Bible says, look at their fruit. Look at the fruit that they're bearing on their tree.

Do they love their neighbors? Do they love their enemies? Are they slow to anger, quick to speak? Do they have love, joy, peace, patience, kindness? I'm a human eye. I don't always have that 24-7. but if you look from a zoomed-out perspective, what's the fruit on their tree? And so, like, I think that is like what the fruit on someone's tree is what determines the genuity of their faith.

And following Christ and things like that. Because, like, what I was saying, like, if you really do follow Christ, you're going to start listening to what he says. If you really believe Jesus is God that you're going to say, whoa, hold on a second. I don't care what Bryce thinks. That's what discipline is. like stopping what Bryce wants to do now for what I really want to do in the future, who I really want to be in the future. I'm going to stop what I'm doing now and go,

what does Jesus Christ think about what I'm doing right now? And that's why I, I used to struggle with my temper a lot. And I realized, like, if I got mad, Adam's not making me lose my temper, I'm giving you the power to make me lose my temper. So I actually don't have to lose my temper. Same thing last night.

If someone packs me at the three point line, I don't have to get heated about it. I'm not going to give that thing the power to make me lose my temper. So I'm going to have joy and peace and patience and think, take patience to slow down for a second and show out. It's not that deep. These fruits are just examples of Christ because that's who he was. And that's what I also love too about Jesus Christ. It's like Jesus calls people out of the lifestyle of their living.

He hung out with the sinners, the tax collectors, the people that the religious people were like, what are you doing? He hung out with those people. But when the religious people came around, like there's a moment where Jesus has a dinner. at Matthew's house with all these sinners and tax collectors. So the rich sinners, the guys that took advantage of their own people for money and selfish gain, the sinners, which would be the people that disobeyed the moral law. That's what they called the sinners in that time. He's hanging out with them.

And the religious people thought that the Messiah, the Savior of the world, that guy was going to be the guy that wouldn't hang out with those people. That was going to tell them to stop living, the pitchfork and sign. They thought the Messiah was going to be like pitchfork and sign, turn or burn kind of thing. But Jesus says that the healthy don't need a doctor, a sick do. And so when the religious people come around, you don't ever see Jesus going, yo, where's the back door?

Let me get out of here. That's what I love about him. He's like, no, these are my people, man. Not because I approve of what they're doing, but how are they going to know what to do if I don't explain to them what they're doing is wrong? On top of that, how am I going to show them? And that's the fruit of his life.

It's like he shows us how to do it. And so that's why I love the church coming around your mom. Because they're not just telling her, hey, believe in Jesus or you're going to go to hell. They're actually showing. them what Jesus has done in their life. Those people would not have shown up to your mom, I believe, if Jesus hadn't done something in their life, if they didn't believe it. Realistically, I think probably the biggest X factor was just the fact that they were, this is the religion that they

were brought up in. They don't really know any other religion. This is, you know, and granted, it's like they probably get a lot out of it, you know, being part of that. Although I do look at my mom and it's like, she was going through this very hard part of her life and she really leaned on religion. and then in comparison the last 20 years of her life have been pretty chill in comparison and I see her basing her life around reading and going to Broadway plays and she's really into movies and her friends and she moves to Southern California and she joins a book group right away and she's you know when I look at her life I'm like oh this is an example of how somebody could live a healthy happy secular life and you know I see that with both

her and my mom. And it is kind of surprising to have seen them go through that transition without ever really acknowledging that at any point they turned their back on religion, which is really, I kind of look at my parents, like the way I look at a lot of the people in hip hop who I don't see as being terribly religious, but they do want to continue to specify that they are because it just feels like an important part. Like to a lot of people saying, I'm an atheist is basically equivalent to saying, I, am immoral and evil and I don't think that there is an objective right or wrong and a lot of people

believe that by being an atheist that it would be acceptable for you to be a horrible person and for most people I know who are atheists it's like the total opposite that if anything this is part of their search for greater meaning and trying to figure out what the right way to live your life is yeah I definitely there is this negative connotation like for some reason people think atheists are all atheists are immoral and not good people like Adam and me even saying the the the satanic bible thing to a lot of people like atheists equals satan worshipper yeah and people ask me all the time like yeah so like you worship Satan and i'm like no i don't believe in Satan certainly i don't worship them yeah yeah for sure and at the time that off camera are kicking it with you and just chatting like

dude you're a good dude and the way that you've prioritized your family i invited you to chill this other day and you're like dude i got to hang with my family i respect that and And I think that anyone can be a good person outside of Christianity. But I think this is my challenge, aside from being a good person, if you're living to be a good person, at some point you're going to get tired. What do you mean? Tired of trying to be a good person? Absolutely.

Because I can't just work to be a good person forever. I mean, that's so draining because working to be a good person technically means showing unconditional love. But what's the strength of your unconditional love? Just your own willpower. And every human being's willpower, it decreases over time. The older you get, or just from the morning, you're the, you're the, you're the, sharpest in the morning and throughout your day your willpower decreases. So it's like my motivating factor

is not being a good person. It's loving Jesus and realizing because Jesus says, love God, love people. Quick summary. Love God, love people. Love your neighbor as yourself. It's not saying be selfish. It's saying when you see yourself the way that God sees you, then you understand that God sees you just as valuable as every other human being. So it's easier to love and serve other people when you realize they have the same value as you. Not, well, the homeless man is worse than me because he's on the home and every homeless person's a beggar. We're always taught to turn away the homeless guy. Everyone, that's how I was, like, no offense to my parents,

but that's how I was raised. Don't interact with the homeless guy. Don't give that guy five bucks. Every homeless guy begs. I've talked to plenty of homeless guys that don't want anything for me. Like seriously, it's super interesting. And so like, seriously, like that's, it's like, I don't want to be drained.

And that's where I was drained when I came to my wits in of, I can't even fix the hole of my heart. How could I work to please this God or reach enlightenment here or this, and that? When it was like, God did all the work for me. And when I put my faith and trust in him, I trust that he really is God and what he says is true. That motivates me.

His love for me, what he did on the cross, motivates me to turn away from these things and love people and serve people and love my enemies and pray for my enemies and things like that. Like I had a bully from the fourth grade all through high school in Christian school. Yeah, he hated my guts for some reason. I don't know why.

And then he left our school and then dropped out and then got involved in gang stuff and was like just selling drugs and stabbing people and things like that and all this other stuff. And so anyways, I became a Christian. I was three months new. And I had him on Snapchat, and he had posted something about Islam,

about how he claimed he was a Muslim now. And so I just swiped up, hadn't talked to him in a long time, and I said, hey, man, you should check out Jesus. And he starts cussing me out. And then I said, hey, let's just get lunch, man. Let's just catch up, see how you're doing. We can talk about this stuff if you want. He was so angry at him.

He said, if you show up to lunch, I'm going to kill you. Now, this meant a lot to me because I knew how he was living. And I knew this wasn't just some, oh, you know, he's going to kill me. Like, he wasn't living with his parents anymore. He was mobbing with gangs. And I was freaking out a little bit because I was like, this guy's going to hurt me. Well, I show up and we get there, and he falls in my arms crying. Wow.

Adam, because he was lost and hurting and he was trying everything to do. Sounds like it. Yeah. And so I say that to say, how was I able to love my bully who bullied me from fourth grade through high school, never had a nice thing to say about me. The time I reached out to him after he left our high school, had even worse things to say about me to the point where he was like, I'll take your life for you.

How was I able to do that? Definitely not on my own willpower, I don't think. And even if someone's in total opposition, and this is why I'm getting at Adam, and this is why I want to tell you, I don't think you're valuable for what you can do for me. I think you're valuable because I think every human being is made in the image of God. And so I'm not having this conversation with you

because I think I'm greater than you. I don't know everything. I'm not smart. Like, I'm not like a theologian. I can't really go into the, oh, well,

this is why the Bible is this either. I'm not that guy. I'm a super simple guy. But I think you're valuable because you're made in the image of God. The same way I think my friend was, my bully was. I thought he was valuable

because he was made in the image of God. And I think that's what motivates me to love people and serve people and challenge people. Was that dude all right, long run? Do you know what happened to him? Yeah, he's good.

We keep in touch every now and then. We'll like text here and there and then he'll ghost me for like nine months and then we'll text again. But he's doing good for the most part from what I know. We're in a time period where he hasn't talked to me in a long time. So I'll reach out to him and he'll leave me on red. And then we'll go back and forth.

I've had some friends over the years where they do that. They don't talk to you for nine months. And then they hit you up and you realize like, oh, that was a fentanyl binge period of their life. And then they start talking to you again once they come back to real life. And that's always kind of extreme to real. And then I have one guy in particular I'm thinking of where I didn't talk to him for a couple

years assumed he was doing horrible. And then I hit him up and he was like, oh, no, man, how are you doing? I'm doing great. And I was like, no, that's awesome. Maybe I should have reached out a few times throughout this few year period. Right, right. Yeah, you just never know how people are doing. A lot of people treat God like that.

They treat him like a lifeline. Like, oh, well, my life's going like crap. You know, I'm doing this. But the Bible says in Psalm 23 that God is a good shepherd, which means he wants to be with us at the peak of our life and at the lowest of our lows. God wants to be with us through at all. And so instead of like, you know, same way, kind of he, we, we kind of, we kind of, we kind of, we kind of, we kind of, we kind of, we kind of talk here and there, you know, things like that. It's like, you know, he doesn't want friendship just in the lows. He wants friendship and everything.

And I think that's, it's like, that's, that's part of, like, LA has this reputation for everybody being very self-serving and, and, and, you know, people only have relationships to people who can help them in their career. and it's kind of like easy to understand for me why it is like that because I feel like this is a place where it's so dense population-wise and also obviously I'm lucky enough to just have a giant social network that on any given night I could probably think of like a hundred people or like a couple hundred people that I could just hit up have a phone call with face time call go over their house chill with them talk see how they're doing etc and And that, and instead I choose to do that with like essentially nobody. Yeah.

In part because, you know, I've kind of just structured my life around working and then family and I try to be as binary as possible. You know, people always ask me why I don't ride BMX bike still. And I'm like, I just got two modes now. I got being a dad and then I got working. And it's like, it's hard for me to get back into that mind state of like, oh, no, I'm going to just go hang out of the skate park, even if I have friends that might want to go to the skate park and stuff like that.

but in comparison if you live in a tiny town like you know if like if i had stayed in the town where i grew up i would probably have you know like the same five to ten like good friends from high school and we would probably still kick it meet up talk about our lives etc if anything i've had this opposite problem where i've just met so many people so many people i've interviewed over the years when i think about it i'm like that is an awesome person right there why have I not hit them up and talk to them in the last four years? Probably because I'm just so busy and so many different things going on. I don't feel like I need somebody to just chat with.

And that's really unfortunate. That's part of what I kind of resent about having taken on this life as a podcaster. Where like when I think about in 2010 when I was just a BMX rider, I might have had, you know, a couple hundred friends and I would stay in touch with them. And I knew them like very, very well. It's just the BMX community is like a little family like that. And now it's like I've kind of gotten to this point where I'm like, I might be interviewing a couple hundred people every year.

And it just is so unbelievably hard to even like keep them straight in my brain. I really kind of resent that. And that's like the one thing. Like I feel like before I became quote unquote famous, I was so much better just talking to people. If I would just be around people, I would just have these like in-depth long, winding conversations with people, which is basically doing a podcast.

And somehow through like the level of attention that I get from people. And like I really learned this because my period of like blossoming into a person who was very, very well known was while my store was on Melrose. So it's like I saw it take place where I used to be able to stand out in front of the store and it would be all good. And then like fast forward a year or two. And it's like I can't even go hang out in front of the store because I'm going to have like, you know, dozens of people walking up on me and want.

And they interact with you in such a transactional way. They want to take a photo. They want to tell you about their music. They want to, you know, it really kind of like mess me up for years and years. And it wasn't until I was able to really fully take a step back from that sort of like constantly living in the public eye space that I was able to sort of get away from that and sort of realize like how crazy what I had been dealing with for the last few years was. That's hard. That's hard to feel like you're only worth what people. want from you. And I think like, yeah, just know like, like that's the love that Christ has for you.

No strings attached. Like, I love Adam for just who he is. And like, I love you for you. That's what Jesus says about you. And like, if you ever come to a point where you're just like, I want to cry out to Jesus or like I want to try this Jesus thing or just know like Jesus is going to go, well, that's it. Nope, it's off the table because you took too long at him. Like imagine if Jesus was on the cross and he's sitting up there and then he jumps down he's like I've had enough you guys are a bunch of bozos there's going to be a bunch of you guys that don't turn to me this is stupid this is false this is a bunch of baloney I'm done with this because you guys have taken too long and so a lot of you guys are never going to come to me it's like no that's actually not what jesus does he stays up there he says the bible

says for the joy set before him he endured the suffering of the cross meaning like you were the joy meaning like it's on the table the gift is here it's for you he loves you and And if you, if you attempt to seek it and experience it, I would bet money on the table that it would transform your life. I bet it'd be interesting. And so, yeah, I just, I think that's like such a sweet thing to know that like, even if you feel a lot of people, which I bet it has, I've treated you transactional. I could agree with that. I bet this happened. Like, he's not transactional with you.

He's like, yeah, just it's on the table. I love you. That's it. That's pretty wild. That's pretty wild. But thanks for coming back on and doing another convoy with us. No, no doubt. Well, we're not done, are we?

Yeah, I mean, they said... They just give you the word? We could definitely do like another half hour. No problem, right? You want to keep going? Yeah, let's go. Let's go. Let's do it.

You didn't even grill me about the porn shit yet. It wasn't much of a grilling last time, but you know, I feel like there's got to be some stuff on the table here that the fans are going to feel like they want to hear a dress. Well, that's what everyone wants to know. And I wanted you to know my heart because I do want to come around to it. we can talk about it now, but like, I guess my biggest, it's kind of what I said earlier, people grill the crap out of you for it, but it just doesn't shock me because you don't care

about Christ. So when people get mad at you for it, I'm just like, well, I can't get mad at at Adam for doing this because he doesn't care about Christ. So like, you know, to Christians are making like a whole big thing about it, but obviously I disagree with you. But, but, you know, people get so mad at you. I'm like, well, he doesn't believe in God, so you can't get mad. My thing, too, though, is like, I know people who are just that do porn. And I think from their perspective, it's very easy for me to understand their rationale, which is basically like, you know, people desire watching other people have sex. This is something that's like hardwired into us. The same reason why you want to have sex with somebody is the same reason why

you have a fascination with seeing people have sex. From the perspective of like a religious porn content creator, it's like if there's, if a person and, you know, if various people are taking part in consensual behavior on camera, what's the harm in them doing so? If anything, I feel like there's probably a lot of, I mean, I see these guys face to face when you go to the porn conventions and everything where it's like there's a lot of people who probably would be struggling in life if they didn't have access to porn, where it's like this is something that gives them some meaning. And I say that having seen, you know, when you see Angela White at a porn,

convention and she's got a line around the building to take a picture with her and get her to sign a piece of paper or whatever and there's dudes who fly all over the world in the country to wait in line to be able to like say hi to her and everything you realize that like this isn't so different than like a comic book convention or any other kind of fandom you know and from my perspective it's like especially me and my wife you know we are in a happy loving relationship and we sleep with other people on camera I don't think that there's anything immoral or wrong about sleeping with other people or having threesomes or whatever it is on camera. And I also don't think that there's anything wrong with partaking in the transaction of essentially selling that content to other people. So to me, even if I were to convert to Christianity tomorrow, I don't think that there's any part of me that would want to stop doing porn.

I don't really even see how the two are related. Sure. Yeah. So last time we talked, you said that you looked at you looked at, You first got introduced to porn through magazines. You found something. And then you said, you found something in a bag?

What'd you find in a bag? How did you first start watching porn? Let's reiterate the question. When I was a kid, we didn't have the internet. So it's like there was a couple of different times. There was actually a park right near where I grew up. That was called Greeley Park.

And a couple different times I would see shady things going on in this park. And the one time, like I kicked a bag. Me and my friend were walking through this park. And I kicked a bag a bunch of times. and a sex toy essentially like fell out of this bag that I was kicking and I had never seen anything like this so as a kid I'm like 10 years old I'm like what the hell you know blew my mind and then it came out in the newspaper years later that like oh this park is the gay hookup park aka like dudes would meet up in the woods and do their thing or whatever and uh there's a couple

other times I remember like I had a friend who found like probably a stack of 20 porno magazines in the woods and he would like keep him in this plastic container in the woods and and we would like ride our bikes over there and look at them sometimes. But yeah, that was kind of like how I got introduced to it. And then obviously the internet kind of kicks off when I'm like 12 or 13. And then it kind of, you know, even at that time to see like a single image of porn online was a bit of a challenge to like download it or whatever. And then I always had like what I would call a healthy relationship with it in the sense that I always felt like masturbating was kind of like a stress reliever. that was generally pretty useful in my life,

in the sense of like, you know, if you're going to school and you've got all this sexual, you know, energy and tension built up in your body, you know, if you could masturbate and it takes you, you know, four minutes and it goes away, I've always felt like that was a pretty good thing.

And even like going on a date with a girl, I feel like it's a bad idea to go on a date with a girl if you've got all this sexual energy built up in yourself. You know, I'm a big fan of masturbation as like a mental health device to basically make yourself cool off a little bit mentally. And still I feel like I have that kind of relationship with it

where it's like, you know, a lot of times I'll just do it before I go to bed. It takes me five minutes. I feel a little bit more chilled out, laid back, boom, I fall asleep like a baby. And when I, sometimes I'll talk to girls, especially girls who do like live streaming, camming type stuff and they'll tell me these sort of bizarre stories

about guys that are in their fan base and how they, are masturbating you like many times per day. And I'm like, whoa, that is, I could see how that could have a hugely negative impact on that person's life. Chances are, this person is not living a very healthy lifestyle as a result of the fact that he's pleasuring himself this many hours a day. But I never really felt even close to that.

And even like, I have a friend who a couple of years ago, he was like 21 and he was a bit of a nerd and he had never slept with a woman. And not that makes you a nerd, but he just had never, he's not religious or anything, but he had just never really had a girlfriend or anything like that. And he ends up getting into a position to sleep with a woman for the first time. And he basically like was so adjusted to masturbating to relatively, you know, extreme porn. Probably not that extreme, but you know, multiple people having sex with each other on camera and all this sort of stuff. And once he got in the position to actually sleep with this girl, he couldn't.

you know, get hard or like bring himself to do it. And he came to me for advice. And I remember like telling him like you, you really need to reset your brain. You know, like this is not, you've taken something that to me is relatively healthy or innocuous. And you've taken it to such an extent that you like, you know, it's messing you up. And there's like protocols online for like what you could do if you really are trying to do that hard reset, like including like, you know, it might be too hard for certain people to just go cold turkey and completely stop masturbating but

you know how about you just look at a picture of a woman maybe that could be enough because that'll at least get you into the mind state of like I think to a lot of dudes it's like if they only masturbate to orgies or threesomes foursums etc they're unable to then like perform when they just have one woman in front of them which to me is crazy it's hard for me to understand that

because to me the sleeping with one woman in real life like holy shit this is the greatest thing i could imagine in life like this is such an amazing thing it never gets old it's actually like the one thing in life pleasure wise i guess that just never really gets like less interesting to me but i've always felt like i had a healthy relationship with it and i feel like probably the ideal relationship for the average young dude out there is not to completely turn away from masturbating it's because your body will do it for you i don't know if you're on the wet dream team but I did that before I ever masturbated and it was like oh

like that me as a kid just realizing like oh even if I don't do this like it's going to happen which is was kind of shocking to me as a kid well there's a lot we got to talk about and all that first thing I says the reason why I asked again how you started you said about 10 years old maybe you said 10 to 12 8 8 to 12 something like that is when you kick it around the bag and then you guys found the magazines. I told you last time I got it I got shown my first porn thing when I was in the fifth or sixth grade um on the beach I was shark fishing never forget and then I got addicted to porn from that moment until I was 17 I haven't watched porn since I became a Christian right the reason I said that was because you never forget how you're introduced I feel you never

forget how you're introduced the same way like with uh I'm taking things to the extreme alcoholics a drug addicts, they never forget the first time they drink a drink. They never forget the first time they took drugs. And the reason I said that is because my perspective would be, I don't think porn is healthy at all, consumption or things like that. So I brought that up because it doesn't shock me that you remember your first thing. Because I remember my first, I literally got showed it in a meme. It was a meme, but it was like straight porn on a meme.

And someone showed it to me on the beach while I was shark fishing. And then it caused me to go into a spiral. And to be honest, that's what I thought love was. I was so love sick my whole life. I've been on this quest for love. What is what love? What is love? And a lot of people would define love as sex, pleasure, things like that.

Whereas now I think that God is the definition of love. And I think God defines what love is. God defines what sex is. Sex is a gift from God, but in a different connotation and things like that in regards. So things like that, I guess just like, I don't know what that lady's name was that you mentioned about the porn convention. and she's got a line wrapped around, whatever. Whether they admit it or not,

there has to be some part of their conscience where they wonder if that's all their worth is how they're perceived in their body, how their body is, not even just from a one's perspective, a man's perspective. So I know this guy named Joshua Broome, you know who this guy is?

Sounds really familiar. He used to be a really famous porn star. There's this clip of him where he's like, this isn't a beach, this is a bathtub. It was like a super famous meme. And he won a bunch of porn awards back in the day and all this other stuff. Most of his friends in porn are dead.

Most of them took their own life. And it was super intense and things like that. And the reason I say this is because I think if people are alone and they get honest with themselves, they may not be you because I know you say you have a different perspective, but I think if people are alone and they get honest with themselves, there's got to be a part of them that question, is this all I'm worth? Is this the only way people are going to see me? Like imagine if that guy flew across the world and they show up in this convention,

they get in the line and they get there and that lady is standing there fully clothed. How disappointed would that guy be? I don't think it's really about like her being naked. She's probably a cleavage showing or whatever like that. She's probably wearing something risky, you know, like like flaunting, right? But they could also go on their phone and spend about five minutes on Google and find videos of her doing like the most extreme shit for free too. You know, it's not really about that. It's like I would compare it to like me and my wife, I don't think we really go through that at all because to us it's like we know what our life is.

we know what's important to us. Doing porn is really just like it would be like the way that a baseball player probably feels at a convention. They're signing autographs. They're taking pictures. Maybe they're getting paid a little bit from each person or whatever. It's probably obvious right now. I've never been to a baseball

convention, but I've heard about how it works and everything. But it's like those people who are coming through the line, do they really care about you as a human being or like how your mental health is or whatever? Probably not so much. They look at you as like an icon, a famous person, whatever. And you You get used to that being in the public eye over and over and over,

you realize that you just straight up have value to people based on your achievements or the content that you've created or whatever, the same way that when people come up to me and take photos, it's like, you know, it can feel good. It feels good, but it's also like I know that a big part of this doesn't really have anything to do with me. It's the fact that they've watched a lot of my interviews over the years just because I've made myself useful.

I've found a way to create content that means something to people. And there always will be that one moment where I realize like, oh, this guy watches porn. Like this guy is a porn fan as opposed to like most people who come up to me. It's like a rap fan thing or like an interview thing. So it's like for me, that's kind of like easy to wrap my head around. But I mean, yeah, it's like a lot of people. I don't think the average porn star is really all that, you know, has a hard time dealing with it. If anything, you know, somebody like Angela White who I mentioned, when I talked to her,

she seems so unbelievably thankful to even just be living this life where she gets to make kind of a crazy amount of money off of doing stuff that she pretty much enjoys doing on camera. I would say most of what she does on camera is not stuff that she's in any way conflicted about. She's mostly going to work and having a good time and seems like she's very happy in her private life. And like you can sort of cherry pick porn stars and find a handful of people who've had a really bad experience with this and everything. I do feel like that's changed massively because we now live in the OnlyFans era where most of these girls are their own boss. You'll have somebody like Lana Rhodes or Mia Khalifa who kind of resents the time that they spent in the adult industry. Notably, they kind of

got into the game and got out of the game right before OnlyFans became the default way that most of these people make a living. Because, you know, they like famously, Mia Khalifa will say like, I did all these scenes and I only made like 12 grand or 20 grand or whatever doing all this crazy stuff a lot of like if she had started in the only fans era she would have been making like many hundreds of thousands of dollars per month and owned her own stuff been able to do exactly what she wanted and not anything more or less um so like i've personally seen that change in the adult world massively where it's gone from like the girls just kind of having to show up and sign on the dotted line and do the scene that was instructed that day and a lot of that would be them doing stuff that they didn't

really feel all that thrilled about to where it's at now where most of the girls I know they're living pretty good lives very tiny percentage of them have you know drug issues or seem like they're generally unhappy like if anything when I see like 10 20 of these girls in a room they've seemed extremely well adjusted to me and even with the dudes mostly the same thing like I don't really know porn people who are like addicted to drugs like that once in a while i'll hear about something or i'll find out about something and i have you know to be totally transparent i have lost a few girls that i was close with over the years and it's mostly drugs you know occasionally they take their own life or whatever but i'm talking why do you think they turn to drugs because it's laa and everybody does

drugs you think that might be the only reason they turn to drugs because i i think that's that's i can't assume so i'm not i'm not putting like this is why they did that right but this is why i'm I think the porn convention is different than the sports convention. The porn is offering a different type of pleasure to a person than sports will do. And so that's what I'm getting at is like these girls and these guys are only valuable because they're making the consumer feel some type of way that sports can't make them feel, that Pokemon can't make them feel. But I think if you go to a sporting event, it does seem like people are getting like an unbelievable rush.

And like the way that a great basketball player makes these people feel. feel when they feel like they are the Lakers. Like if something good happens to the Lakers, that is something good happening to me. I know a lot of people who watch sports and it seems like that's kind of it. But as far as the drug thing, it's like, you know, I'm also in the rap game. A gigantic percentage of people in the rap game are either like hardcore drug addicts or at least fuck around. And they, you know, they drink a little bit of lean, they pop of Percosa, they smoke weed all day,

whatever. And like, I say that to differentiate the two because I know all. a lot of people who like have like a low key drug regimen that they're kind of doing or even if if you think weed is like a bad drug or alcohol or whatever it's like I know so many people who that's just how they get through the day is that they're smoking and drinking like a significant portion of the day I see the risk in it and everything like that but I also don't think like like you know when I think about the girls that I know who have died from drug abuse and stuff most of it wasn't even intentional at all it's just the fact that they you know it's dangerous to do drugs

in 2025. There's a lot of fentanyl going around. It is dangerous. It is pretty crazy. Like if I hadn't chosen to quit doing Coke and Xanax and all the stuff I used to mess around with back in the day, for sure, I would have probably decided to quit just because of what a minefield that stuff is these days. Sure. For sure. Yeah. So I think like with the, you know, again, I can't put a label on it, but I could argue, what if we don't know because unfortunately those people aren't here so with us, but like what if they were just trying to feel something? You know, the value, of these people that are doing the scenes, the porn screens, the things like that, the value that the consumer is labeling them is the pleasure that they're offering them. So hypothetically, like I could

argue that if this person, and again, I could go so many different routes with this, but these people are going to get older. They're going to get old. They're going to get wrinkly. And that's why, again, I don't think you should date and marry someone because they're hot quotation marks, because they're attractive. There's no depth to that. You can't do that. So it's like, then what are they worth. They were only valuable in the eyes of people because they offered them some sexual pleasure on a screen and they made them feel some type of way and oh now they're old and they can't do it anymore. So, oh, I'm just not worth anyone and nobody wants to know me and I'm not valuable in anyone's eyes. So I think that goes back again to what makes someone valuable that they're made in

the image of God. So it's not what you offer me. It's not how you make me feel. But it's that you're valuable because you're just made in the image of God. And so when I look at when I look at the standard of what the Bible says about sex, I've never had sex before. And so with the The Bible says that a man and a woman shall come together and become one flesh, right? So the sex is not only this physical act and gift from God in marriage. When you're married, sex is a gift from God that you can enjoy with the person that you've made a covenant to. It's an act of worship towards God when you're honoring him in the covenant marriage. But there's a spiritual aspect of you're binding yourself with someone in that way.

It's the most closest intimate form you can get to someone, right? but but if you're if you're doing it with so many people right and and this is a challenge i mean this with the utmost respect i don't mean this in a disrespectful way um i want to know what the ring means to you on your hand when you sleep with other people as well or when your wife sleeps with other people as well what does the ring mean to you and what does your sex life mean to you when you know that you're when your wife knows that you're with other people and you're and your wife's with other people knowing that um i don't mean that in any disrespect It's genuinely, I'm genuinely curious.

I mean, to me, it just represents that I'm 100% committed emotionally and, you know, anything beyond that to the life that me and my wife are building together. Like, to me, you know, I did like an orgy scene the other day. And it was like five girls that I'm actually friends with to varying degrees. But a lot of these girls are girls that have hung out around, you know, dozens and dozens of times. We're really cool. We follow each other on social. media like talking the DMs everything like that zero percent of it is like any kind of like weird sexual vibe or whatever but at the same time I'm totally attracted to them and doing this orgy

you know I'm able to like go into that environment sort of switch over into this like different character and I'm sleeping with five six girls including my wife at the same time and there's there's other dudes in the scene as well and to me it's like you know if anything it's very liberating to be to like enjoy that kind of scenario and to make content out of it where it's like I know so many rich dudes rich and famous dudes who day in day out they're doing all kinds of stuff to either cheat on their wife girlfriend whatever or to just sort of like maximize the amount of sex that they're having on a consistent basis and I'm talking everything from buying sections in the club to buying designer clothes to keep these girls happy to all kinds of other stuff.

not to mention just taking risks. You know, one time, like, famously, there was a picture that came out of Chris Brown, and he was laying on a, like, mattress with no sheets on it in, like, a garage. And it was, like, super obvious that he had just, like, met this, like, hood rat chick on Instagram or something and just pulled up

and was hanging out, it was presumably sleeping with her. And, like, he's just, like, hanging out in this garage. And I remember seeing that and just being, like, bro, this is how addicted to the P-word, a lot of guys are that even somebody like him who's got a million. of dollars and he's famous and everything. He still finds himself in a garage and the hood just because he wanted to sleep with this girl.

And like in comparison to that, me being able to get my, my wiggles out and just be able to have a good time with these girls and to make content out of it and to be able to, you know, afford to live a good life off of it. You know, it's hard for me to see the downside of it when, you know, I feel like everybody involved in the adult industry that I've worked with. that I have relationships with and stuff. They're very much like they have a healthy mentality about it. And I do know that, you know, there's sex trafficking.

There's, you know, I've never encountered anybody who sounded like they had any real involvement with that dark side of the industry. But for me, there's something very freeing about being able to have this sort of isolated space in which you could do freaky your stuff and make content out of it and enjoy yourself like that. And to me, it's like I understand why, to the fans, this is very exhilarating because, you know, most of them are people who aren't physically confident enough or like people wouldn't want to see them do it or they don't have any interest in doing it or whatever. So they kind of are able to take their everyday life. They work at Walmart for eight hours and then they go home and maybe they enjoy themselves for 10 minutes to this kind of content.

And to me, it just like totally makes sense. and almost everybody I know in this world has like a very healthy relationship with it. And you mentioned like these people are going to get old and wrinkly. Like for sure. Like I'm not a huge fan of it, but I'm interested in bodybuilding. And I always find it kind of fascinating that you see these guys and they look like gods on stage. They're just, you know, absolutely rib muscles pouring out everywhere, veins sticking out of them. They're 400 pounds of just sheer muscle.

And then you see them a couple years after they stopped competing. and they look pretty crappy. You know, the muscles deflate. They get off testosterone and et cetera. And like all of a sudden they just, it's just not the same. But they still have people coming up to him wanting to take pictures with them everything because like to a bodybuilding fan,

Ronnie Coleman when he's 60 years old and he kind of looks like crap is like still, they have a huge amount of respect for what he did in his life, the same way that you go to these conventions and you can see people like Sarah Jay or whoever who's like super late in her career. obviously her heyday was 20, 30 years ago. And, you know, it's still like, believe it or not, the porn community, the actual performers is a real community. You know, it's like even when you go to the awards show and you see all these people and they're honoring people who lost their lives that year and you see all these people cheering for each other and everything. And it's like, it's just, it's a lot less dark than I think a lot of people assume when they're looking at the adult world from the outside.

And, you know, it's like there are people who have bad experiences and there's people who, you know, like obviously are, there is a certain group of people where doing porn is basically like their last resort. Like this is the last thing that they're capable of doing. Like if you're like a really bad, well, I don't want to say like a really bad drug either because if it was showing physically, you probably wouldn't be able to get work. But I've known girls who was like, that's kind of like, oh, they're bad. the drugs and like porn is kind of like what they're doing because they realistically probably couldn't do anything else to me that's like 1% and and those people usually are like very much on the outer rim of this kind of stuff because you know I've been on a million porn sets and I'd never seen anybody do drugs sure well I think I think you could say in any small tight-knit

community that oh well it's not as dark in the community you do the same thing with like a colt the cult could be like oh yeah it's not super dark and then everybody else's like what are you doing bro you know what i mean and so i think like if you zoom out and take a broad perspective of porn right i think there's a lot more negatives and positives to it in my opinion i think that's why people cheat is because i watch porn because here's here's like i feel like i would probably cheat without porn okay but okay good good okay so i think i think so here's why i think when when people cheat because their definition of love is the feeling i get and if you're not giving me the feeling of butterflies and excitement in this rush of dopamine, then I'm not going to choose to show up.

And because you don't make me excited, I'm not choosing to show up in the highs or the lows. And now I'm questioning the choice I made for you. Whereas the Bible would say, this is reversed. Love is a choice. I choose to love Jesus. So because I choose to love Jesus, I show up in the highs and the lows with Jesus, no conditions. But because I show up, no matter the conditions, it stirs my affections for him. I think in the same way, when I make a commitment to someone, this is why I think sex and love is so,

special. When I choose to love my girlfriend, I want to marry my girlfriend one day. I choose to love her, despite how hard life gets, despite how great life gets, I'm going to choose to show up for. And because I choose to show up for, you understand, like there's days where, you know, excitement and feelings aren't always there. But when you choose to show up for that person, those moments, it stirs the affections for them. And so I recognize, like, I recognize that. I've never had sex before. And hopefully, Lord willing, one day I'm going to get married. And I'm not going to know what I'm doing it. And I think that's okay. I think it's a beautiful thing that I've saved myself for the person I'm committing to and then I'm going to learn and grow and adapt with that person

I've made a commitment to. But from a broad perspective, like if that's like people watch porn and they go, oh, this is exciting. And I think porn offers this perspective of sex that's just not real. I think porn creates a fantasy that is just not realistic and then people expect this is what sex to be like. And then they get there and then they bomb, blow up a bunch of relationships that they've got because their perspective of sex and love has been twisted because of porn. If you are watching porn and thinking that this is like a step-by-step guide to what sex is like, for sure, you're going to be disappointed in much the same way that I think, like, if you train MMA and you think that the UFC is what getting in a fight is like,

you're going to be let down. In the real world, a fight oftentimes involves more than one person beating the crap out of a single person and it involves weapons and it involves hair pulling and eye gouging, all this kind of stuff. Like, you know, I don't think, if anything, I think that the porn world and really like society as a whole should be more specific about that to tell kids like, hey, this, just because this is what people do in porn because it's the thing that looks the best on camera. I can tell you sex positions that people do in porn that almost nobody does in the real world. Like actually literally nobody does in the real world because they're just kind of painful, kind of weird, kind of awkward. But they look really cool on camera. and I think that, you know, that kind of thing.

I've had guys tell me like, hey, I had sex with this girl and I did this and she was super freaked out. And me having to be like, bruh, like, you can't just do that with a girl and just assume that she's going to be on board with that. I know that you've probably seen that in a lot of different porn films. But the average girl is not expecting you to do that for sure. That's the kind of thing that you should have a conversation about beforehand or whatever. or like, I think that's something that the porn world should probably be more clear about with people for sure. Sure.

I think it, I think it just paints that picture, right? And so for people. So another thing you said earlier was like you think that there's a healthy view of masturbation, right, and testosterone and things like that. Well, in my perspective, why couldn't you just redirect the testosterone to the gym? Right. So last night I played basketball for three hours. And I'm just like physically tired, right?

And so, like, there was, I just, like, want to go to sleep, you know, whereas I feel like nighttime, like I said earlier, the human willpower decreases over time. And a lot of people that I know that struggle with watching porn and masturbation from a Christian perspective, they do it at nighttime. Well, why couldn't they just redirect it in the gym? Like what you're saying? Well, it feels good to get this testosterone out. Well, I could redirect that testosterone at the gym for like 45 minutes to two hours. And then I'd be pretty dead said. Then I wouldn't need to do that.

And so the Bible says that a fruit of the spirit. a fruit of the Holy Spirit living inside of you and giving you strength is self-control. And I think that is a super crucial aspect to not only just regular life, but like sexual urges. Because you can't, you're a human being and you have to like, as a human being

from zoomed out from religion or Christianity, you have to acknowledge the fact that people have sex drives, but to be able to redirect the sex drive from this, but to be able to have self-control through the spirit of God to say, I'm going to redirect my test. Osirone now to the gym because I love God and I believe God has made sex, this beautiful thing, and a covenantal marriage for one man and one woman to do this thing. And so I'm just not going to do

this now or even now. Like, I bet you would understand too, like from a broad perspective, girls care how guys see them. Now imagine in a marriage if a girl is trying so hard to make their husband love them by dressing up and putting her on makeup and then finding out that their husband is watching porn. They would probably be devastated knowing that their husband is more attracted to girls on a screen than their actual wife. Whereas the husband can have self-control to say, I'm actually not going to watch porn, I'm attracted to my wife and I love my wife

and I'm going to show up for her. And I just think it's super unrealistic to kind of like create this thing of like, like sex is this world view and this and this lifestyle. Like I can't get behind. I think there's just more to life than sex. I think sex is enjoyable in marriage. I think it's a gift.

But I think to take that outside of this covenant of marriage and this enjoyable thing that you do with a person and you make a commitment to, and it's an act of intimacy, according to the Bible, making it an intimate act that you do with someone, dishing that out to multiple people, to me, devalues the intimacy aspect of it. I just think porn is a fantasy, and people should, if they're going to partake in it, like, use it that way.

In the sense, like, I had a girlfriend when I was really young when I was, like, 21, and her dad, her mom caught her dad looking at porn, and she basically initiated a, divorce as a result of this. And I remember being so shocked because it's like, you know, he could have cheated on you. He could have like done all kinds of stuff. Instead he's like

sitting there on the computer for 10 minutes like taking care of himself and like you know, it's a fantasy for women to think that a man is only going to be attracted to one person. And I think that me and my wife like I know a lot of couples that are like really jealous that they're like at each other's throats about about looking at people.

I know a dude who like, you know, I've seen him and his girl on live stream getting this huge argument because he literally just looked at a girl who had her boobs out in Vegas. Like, you know, he just looked and they got in this huge argument about it. And in comparison, my wife can like watch me have sex with another girl right in front of her and be cool with it and like understand the pleasure that I'm getting from it and it doesn't bother her, which is like, I'm not suggesting that everybody should become so callous that they could, you know, have those kind of experiences and feel nothing.

but I do think that that is something that probably makes our relationship more likely to survive in the long run, just the fact that we don't have these little jealous things, you know, that we could be watching a TV show and she could say something about how the main actor is handsome. And it doesn't trigger me in my brain in the way that I know that a lot of guys might be bothered by that kind of thing. If anything, I feel like that the porn thing has made our relationship a lot more stealthy because we just sort of like a lot of that that stuff just seems so silly to us like you know if if my wife saw the the top 10 girls that I've masturbated to in the last couple years she would probably be surprised by certain additions but she would also you know it's like ultimately she knows that this

isn't that serious and it's just that's me engaging in a fantasy for five minutes out of the day and that it's not really anything for her to be worried about which well I think I don't think it's jealousy I think intimacy is valuable. right so if if i'm gonna be honest like if i caught my wife if i was married i caught my wife watching porn it would make me not want to be with her if i'm being totally honest with you and here's why it's because if the very thing that we get to do in a marriage is have sex and enjoy this thing and then you're withholding that from me and finding an avenue somewhere else finding the sense of pleasure pleasuring yourself to something that you're watching on the screen versus finding it with

the person that you've made a covenant marriage to, my intimacy isn't valuable to you anymore. And so therefore it makes me not want to be with you. And so I can understand why people could see that. But then you also have to understand like your worldview is different than my worldview. So you're like, well, it's not a big deal to me. But it is a big deal to me because I think intimacy is valuable. And I don't dish it out to anyone.

And this is what I'm getting out. I want to be careful because some people, I don't want to bash people that have had sex in the past. Like I believe if you come to Jesus Christ, he offered, forgiveness and you can wipe the slate clean as if you've never done it before and you can wait. I'm not saying that Jesus makes you a virgin again, but Jesus gives you this perspective where I'm going to wait till marriage now for my husband. I made mistakes in the past, but I'm going to wait now. I think like that's the redemption that happens there. There is redemption. There is forgiveness. There is grace. But but like my intimacy is valuable and and it's it's for the person I made a

commitment to and so for me to say, well, you know, well, you know, my my significant other, they're just not doing it for me. So I need to find a way that makes me feel excited and please myself. Well, you're not making me feel excited, but porn is going to make me feel excited. So I'm going to go watch some scenes and, you know, and pleasure myself. Like, man, I'm just like totally disregarding the beautiful sex that I can have in a marriage to say, not that valuable to me. This is more valuable to me than what you're offering to me.

And this is what I think the healthiest definition of sex is. What I've talked to healthy married couples, Christian married couples, they say the best sex is when both parties try to out-serve each other, where the man is trying to make the woman feel good. I'm getting really intense right now, and the woman is trying to make the man feel good. That's the best sex is when you try to out-serve each other, right? Any sex outside of marriage is selfish,

because it's about how you're supposed to feel. And if I, even in marriage, I think it can be sinful in the sense that if I went into marriage in sex, as in I'm going to make myself feel good, then I would be using my wife for myself. And I don't think that's okay at all, because then that's going to make my wife not enjoy this gift from God in this covenantal

marriage aspect. And so that's why masturbation and porn is like such a big thing. It's because like, oh, well, I got to blow off some steam. Why do you have to blow off some steam? Well, because I need to feel good. I need to get rid of this pressure. I need to do this. And then it becomes a selfish act rather than, all right, I got this testosterone build up.

Let me go hit the gym really quick. I don't think that's as one to one as you might be portraying it, though. For sure, like, I don't think like if I'm really, really horny, I could probably like workout for a couple hours and still feel that exact same way. And part of it too is like, you know, on Saturday night, I think I'm going to go out on a limb and say Saturday night was the last time I masturbated, which absolutely nobody watching this needs to know that. But we were super tired from hanging out with the kid, doing family stuff all day. My wife, as soon as she gets done putting the kid down to bed with me, she gets on her laptop and she's working on

answering emails, doing all this kind of stuff for hours and hours and hours. I went and I masturbated before I went to bed, it would have been weird for me to be like, yo, like, I know you're like working really hard and you're exhausted and you're tired and you just want to go to bed, but can we have sex right now just because I want to? In that situation, I feel like me masturbating is like by far the most compassionate version of me getting what I want or what I need in order to go to bed right there because she's clearly not in the mentality that she wants to. Like we're just not on the same page energy wise right there.

So I didn't even suggest it or try. And I saw that like a real extreme version of that when we had a kid because it's like, you know, obviously, I mean, they tell you to have sex a lot while you're, while she's pregnant because it'll basically like spur the kid coming out at some point, not like physically, but like I guess having sex is good for having the kid on time and everything like that. But then even after that, it's like she has the kid, guess what? She don't want to sleep with you for a couple months or like a month after that because it's like, especially she had a C-section. So she's all bandaged up here and everything like that, whatever. But it's like during that time period, I can honestly say I probably masturbated more than any other time of my adult life because my wife wasn't really in the proper shape to be doing that in the first place. And I don't want to bother when she's dealing with an infant all the time and stuff like that. And so it's like I feel like masturbation is actually like a very beneficial, useful tool for a young man's mental health.

And I'm going to include myself in young men, even though I'm 41. But to me, it's like, it's a lot better to sort of remove that element of sexual frustration in this relatively simple way rather than to just sort of carry around that sexual tension inside of yourself that I feel like is ultimately not productive. Sure. So that's where I would say the self-control comes in, right? That the love is the choice more than the feeling I'm getting like, dang, my wife's tired, you know, whatever.

But instead of like taking care of all, well, I got this feeling. so I need to blow off some steam right now. It's just actually, hold on. Like, what if instead of it being like a necessity, it's just become a habit? You know, what if it's just become a habit? It's like, why do you take some self-control and, you know, like, I don't know the physical repercussions, you know, maybe I'll hurt or whatever that may be or I'll be, you know, whatever, uncomfortable for a little bit.

But like, I'm just going to like choose to love my wife and I'm going to say, you know, and I love my wife. So I got self-control. And I think that's the whole marriage thing, going through the nine months of pregnancy and then the time after you get, because there's like a time period, like you said, where they're not allowed to, you know, have sex. It's like, well, I've just got self-control. Like, I'll wait anything for you because I love you more than this thing. This thing's a gift, right? But I love you more than this feeling, this rush, this, this sexist thing. And so just when I do like the cost

benefit analysis in my head, it's like me masturbating. There's no cost. There's no negative that comes from it. And then the benefit is that I feel a little better. Now, granted, like, every drug has this effect. where like the first time you take, the first time we keep it super simple. The first time you smoke a cigarette, you get a head rush, you feel kind of good.

It feels like, you know, you get like a significant experience out of smoking a cigarette that you probably, once you've been smoking for a year, you don't really feel anymore. You still crave a cigarette,

but it doesn't really benefit you in the same way. It's really just kind of makes you feel normal. And masturbating is kind of like that too, where it's like, you know, once you get into the habit of doing it on a consistent basis, every night or whenever it is, it stops really being as much of a,

you know, stress reliever so much as it's making you just sort of feel normal, which is just kind of like a risk associated with that. And especially when it comes like hard drugs or whatever, and I'm putting masturbation in the same bucket as all these other sort of vices that, including ones that I think are really dangerous as opposed to masturbating,

which I think is like way less dangerous. Well, you could say masturbation's a vice because it is an outlet for people to let loose. And so that's why I'm like, Oh, you know, I just think, I think that there's other things that you could outlet this testosterone because you could say, oh, it's just a sexual urge. But if you really dial it down, it's testosterone, right? And so we could like, where could we redirect it?

I keep using the gym as an analysis because that's just where you had no testosterone, you would not care to masturbate. So, yeah, it is kind of equivalent in a way. Yeah, yeah. I think the last thing I want to talk about, and we talked about it a little bit last time. And again, I think this is where I get down to like this moral compass with you. As I asked you last time, would you want your daughter to do what you and your wife do? So no, because I feel like I want her to be better than us.

And when I look at our careers, I feel like we kind of got into doing the adult stuff in part because it just seemed obvious to us. It was easy for us. It was like something we were clearly comfortable doing. A lot of times I look at girls who become. influencers now or whatever, and they don't really see the benefit of it. Like when I went to the porn convention a couple months ago, it was like all the hottest girls that I met while I was there,

either do porn with their boyfriend or they just, you know, take cute photos and they don't do porn. It's like that option just seems like way more obvious than it seemed to me back then. That being said, a lot of the girls I know who do porn or only fans or whatever, like somebody like Ruby Rose, this girl makes an absurd amount of money. every month, she posts like bikini photos on her only fans, you know, little booty photos or whatever,

like basically stuff that is pretty on par with like what you would see on Instagram. And she seems perfectly happy. I don't think that there's any kind of like negative mental toll that having an Instagram is or an only fan is taking on her. So, you know, definitely I would not encourage my kid to do that. I'm going to keep it out of her eyes or her knowing anything about it for as long as possible. But, you know, ultimately if it came down to it and she wanted advice or she wanted to know what it was all about, at some point I'm sure I'm going to be forced to have a real conversation with her about why me and her mom decided to get into it, why I think at the very least that she should wait until she's much more adult, you know, like obviously legally you could do it at 18. It's kind of weird to me when I realize that so many girls I know, like started doing it right when they were 18 because I know that it does close.

a lot of doors for you. Like, you know, you're just not going to be able to be a teacher if you've done porn and it's all over a porn hub or whatever. You know, it's like really, there's like a lot of things that are just kind of off the table once you go into the adult line of work. So it's like, it's kind of complicated because it's like on one hand, I see so many of these girls just having like really good lives from doing porn and that they seem 100% happy and they don't have to put up with any bullshit and they're making a lot of money.

and everything like that. But at the same time, when I think about what I want my kid to do with their life, I think about doing these private school tours. And there's girls who are like 17, 18, talking to us about what they learned in the school or whatever. And girls are talking to me about how they wrote a book

while they're in high school. And they, like, you know, did this science experiment and all this. Obviously, you would want your kid to go into that kind of like more lofty world. But at the same time, you know, like, if she wanted to do that once she got older I wouldn't really be in the place to stop her anyway like by the time that she was legally able to she would also be able to legally ignore whatever advice

I was giving to her I mean I do have a friend who his he's very famous and his daughter doesn't have an only fans but when I look at it I'm like oh I bet that he's I bet he's like actually giving her money to not start an only fans because I think it would be embarrassing for him or his social network or whatever. But when I look at her, I'm shocked that she hasn't started one yet.

She's like 20 or whatever. And I think that is kind of like crazy situation that some people might end up in at this point in their life where doing OnlyFans is so normalized. You've got to keep in mind too that for every couple like us who's doing all the crazy shit you can think of sexually, there's a Ruby Rose who's like posting booty photos. I'm pretty sure you could like be on her only fans, pay for every single thing offered you in the DMs,

and you're still never going to see a nipple. So it's like, it's kind of hard for me to even put what she's doing on only fans in the same category as what me and my wife are doing on only fans. Sure. But yeah, I mean, you know, I'm not really worried about it either. Well, I think the general response would be if you ask me how I'm doing, oh, I'm good. I think everybody does that. But I think if you, maybe with that girl in particular, the girl, it's like, oh, you know, I don't do anything but post what I'd post on Instagram. I mean, maybe if you had a private one-on-one deep conversation with.

with them maybe they would say yeah i'm not doing good you never really know how someone's really doing until they get really vulnerable and honest with you but i appreciate your honesty i think if we stay logically consistent with well i wouldn't want my daughter to do this if you do continue to do it but you feel that way about your daughter technically you're non-verbally endorsing the behavior right and so even though you feel this way and you're like well you know i wouldn't want you to do this and things like that and she still does it, what you do is like unintentionally setting an example for things to do. So like there were things that my parents said growing up that I just like never wanted to do.

But then I've seen it naturally come out of me. And I'm like, why did it come? Well, it's like why I didn't want to do those things. But it's just because I've watched it happen so much that it just naturally happened in my behavior and my character. And now I'm like, I acknowledge that it came out of me. I'm going to try to fix this things like that.

Now I know that's totally different than career. But I just feel like if we stayed concerned. wouldn't that make you want to not do it? Well, but it's like the same thing as like smoking weed. Like I go very out of my way to make sure that my kid does not ever see me smoking weed, right? But at some point, she's probably going to realize if I don't quit before she becomes cognizant of that sort of thing.

She's probably going to see that and she's going to have this realization the same way that she realized that like we told her alcohol is bad. And then at some point she realizes like, oh, when we go to the family get together that some significant portion of the family is drinking alcohol. You know, it's like, I am not longing for the day that she realizes that I smoke weed because that's going to be the moment where she realizes like, oh, this might be bad. Smoking is bad, but that doesn't mean that my dad is bad just because he does it or whatever. And, you know, I think like ultimately at the end of the day, there's some stuff that's just

grownups can do certain things that kids can't, you know? it would be very, very bad if my kid drove a car, but she sees me drive a car all the time. You know, it's like a horror movie. It's like unbelievably inappropriate for a kid, but I can watch a horror movie. I can listen to music that has tons of swearing in it. I don't think that my kid should be listening to music

that has swearing in it. We drove to school today. I dropped her off. We were listening to Dolly Pardon. It's like, you know, it's like there's just, there's a lot of stuff that's kid-oriented and a lot of stuff that's adult-oriented. And honestly, even if it wasn't for the point,

thing, I would be dealing with this sort of thing just from no jumper because, you know, an average episode of no jumper, you're going to see people drinking, smoking, swearing, talking about violence, talking about sex, talking about everything. And that's the kind of podcast that I'm comfortable doing where I don't want anything to be off the table. I don't tell people to hold back. Whatever you want to tell me, it's on the table. But, you know, it's like ultimately at some point my kid and I are going to have to have

that kind of conversation for sure. Yeah. I mean, and again, that's this conversation. we're having a raw conversation about something that not a lot of people would be willing to talk about on the internet right now in a in a in like a public setting but you know i feel like having no jumper where it's a space of like nothing's off the table talk about versus the other podcaster you do where it's like strictly porn and then strictly sex and then you do it afterwards for for like entertainment on only fans wherever you guys post it like like like i feel like that is taking it to another level of extreme where it's like okay i think that that that is very important to me of like, okay, if this is how you feel about your daughter, right, then I think it's a universal thing that every parent's like, well, I want my kid to be better than me. But how can we expect our kids to be better than us if we don't try to set an example to be better from? And I don't mean that as excusing what we do. I just mean like when my dad would tell me, well, I just want

you to be better than me and this, this is this area. Well, it's definitely encouraging me to watch my dad try to be better in those areas for me to be better in that area. myself, you know what I mean, or be successful in this. And so, like, um, you know, I, you know, there's, there's money and this isn't that, all that. But again, this goes deeper than just the porn thing. And this is why I hate that people honed on you. And that's why I was hesitant to talk to you about it. But I'm glad we got to talk about it. It's like, what's my purpose outside of money? Like, who is Adam outside of money? No jumper. Porn. Only fans. Your awesome wife. You're awesome kid. Who's Adam outside of that? What's my purpose? Am I,

okay without any of this. I think that is what's deeper to me. And when I, when I go, okay, who's Bryce outside of a podcast? Who's Bryce outside of social media? Who's Bryce outside of his friends, his girlfriend, his family? Who's Bryce outside of that? And if Bryce's identity is, oh man, if I had nothing but Jesus, right? And this is coming from a Christian perspective. If I had nothing but Jesus, would I be okay without ever having sex because I'd never be married if I only had Jesus? Would I be okay with not having friends because Jesus would be my only friend. Would I be okay with out a podcast because the only person I'd be talking to is Jesus. And I know that could be taken to a stream, but if I can be secure in who I am outside of everything that I steward, then it strengthens me

to steward things in a different way. And I think the only way we can progress in society and, you know, fix identity and come to a conclusion is if we have these conversations, like, I love you and I think you're awesome. And that's why I invited you to Chili's because I was like, yeah, I just want to kick it. Like outside of like whether we disagree on religion and disagree on morals, like we can still be friends and we can still hang out. We don't have to hate each other.

And things like that, whether we disagree. And, you know, I may have more conversations with you. Like, hey, I'd challenge you here, here, here. But like, at the end of the day, like, who is Adam outside of everything he's got? And if that identity is in the things that you have, then you'll never be fulfilled unless. you do those things. Whereas if my identity is in who Christ says I am and I'm valuable because he made me in his image and God loves me for who I am and I love God, then it doesn't matter what

happens to the podcast, my friends, my relationship, my family. It's like I'm secure. I've got the foundation. And I think that's what I kind of want to end on is there's this story in the Bible where Jesus says, you build your house on the rock versus the sand. He says if you build your house on the sand, the waves are going to come up, the storms, and it's going to wash away your foundation, your house is going to fall apart. But if you build your house on the rock, the storms will come, the wind will come, the waves will come, but your house will stand firm on the rock. And so it's, what is the foundation of my life and my purpose? And when I believe my foundation is Christ and not the things that I do, then I'm able to stand stable. When times get harder, because the reality is,

times you're going to get hard. You know, there's going to be seasons where you make a lot of money, and there's going to be seasons where money's, money's not as much that month. There's going to be seasons where family's doing great. There's going to be seasons when family's not doing great. There's going to be seasons when no jumper is successful. There's going to be seasons when no jumper is not as successful in the moment. It's like, who am I outside of the numbers, the money, the fame, the people.

And that's why I had such a heart for you when you were like, yeah, it's kind of hard feeling transactional because I'm like, dang, when I know that I don't have to do anything to get God to love me, he just loves me, that makes me feel secure in him. And I think that's like my ultimate challenge to you, outside of the porn talk, outside of the sex talk, outside of the religion talk is like, who is Adam outside of everything?

Yeah, I've been thinking about it for a couple of minutes now. I mean, when I look at myself, it's like, I'm a person who has so much energy and passion to put out there into whatever I do. That's kind of gone in the direction of content creation and like podcasting has kind of become the direction because I feel like it's the best way for me to produce the most content or to have that relationship with the audience. I can't tell you how much happiness I get out to just read in the comments on everything I put out. Even this one, I'll be reading the comments and that's going to be super interesting to me.

Beyond that, beyond content creation, I just think I'm somebody who at this point in my life, I just have a huge amount of respect for the family dynamic. and that's something I'm super excited about. We might be cooking another one up soon, which I'm super hyped on. But yeah, I mean, honestly, that is kind of a weird thing about it to just realize that if it wasn't content creation, if it wasn't podcasting,

it would be something else. Because for all those years, it was nothing but BMX day in, day out, just me riding around with my friends, just enjoying life, just being outside. And I, you know, I miss that to a certain extent because life was really kind of simple during that time period.

But, you know, yeah, I feel like for me, in terms of, like, who I am, I'm just a person who's obsessed with making content and trying to, you know, do the best job that I can in terms of making stuff. And then in addition to that, it's like you have this other layer, which is just basically family. Yeah. And that's really the only two things that I give a shit about, you know. Yeah.

Yeah, thanks for saying that. Yeah, I'm just stoked because I think, like, this is, I just think it's so wild how like out of everything people challenge you the most on Christianity. And I don't think that's a coincidence. I don't think that's a coincidence at all. I think it's powerful and awesome. And I hope you enjoyed this conversation. I enjoyed it.

You're so fun to talk to. Even better the second time around. Yeah, this is fun. Let me, could I pray for you before we end? Let's run it. Is that cool? Let's do it. Yeah, Jesus.

Thank you so much for this day, God. Thank you for Adam. Thanks for allowing us to have another conversation, even though our last one we lost the footage. It was still great. God, I just pray for Adam. I pray that you continue to send people his way to show him your heart, God. Show him that you love him and that you see him. God, I just ask that if you encounter Adam in dreams and visions,

could you reveal yourself to him in many different ways that allows him to start drawing near to you and going, okay, maybe this thing could be real. And ultimately, God, would you continue to show him your love? Thank you, Jesus for Adam. Thank you for this conversation. We love you. And I bless Adam in Jesus' name. Amen.

Appreciate it, man. Guys, thank you so much for watching and tuning into these episodes. Guys, if you love watching and listening to these episodes, aside from following us along on Instagram, TikTok, Spotify, YouTube, I want to ask you guys, would you guys consider partnering with our ministry financially? Your guys' radical generosity is actually what continues to fuel and produce these podcast episodes and our evangelism videos. So if you guys feel a burden to support this ministry,

reach lost souls with the gospel through digital and in-person ministry, go to Jesus in the street.org, pray and ask God, how should I partner with Bryce and their ministry and Jesus in the street ministry? Should I partner with them in prayer? Should I partner with them in finances? Should I partner with them in support? Whatever it may be, pray and ask God,

how should I support Jesus in the street ministry? Love you guys. See you guys next week for the next episode.