The Eric Metaxas Show - Eric and Chris

Episode Date: August 1, 2023

Eric spent three weeks in the beautiful country of Greece and is finally back state side to tell you all about it. 

Folks, welcome to the Eric Mataxis show, sponsored by Legacy Precious Metaxas. There's never been a better time to invest in precious metals. Visit legacy p.m.investments.com. That's legacy p.m. Investments.com. Welcome to the Eric Metaxis show. Would you consider yourself smart, insightful, precocious, astute, clever, wise beyond your years, and good at checking a cesareth for synonyms? Well, then you've come to the right place.

Here now is the handsome, attractive, striking, gorgeous and quite frankly, breathtaking Eric Matt, Texas. Hey, Chris. Hello. I'm back. Welcome back. How was your trip? You went around the world in 80 days, I believe. Not exactly,

but I am tan, and I wanted that to be the most important thing that I covered. I've been away for about three weeks, and the main thing that I did was work on my tan, and obviously I went to a clinic in Mexico and got hair plugs, and I wanted to. that to be all healed by now, but it got infected. And so that's why I'm wearing this wig. Yeah. The wig looks great.

Whoever did it. Well, it's the same old wig that I've always worn on this program. But I wanted the hair plugs to be ready now. But it just got, it was not a good clinic. It was. How do you say hair plugs in Mexican? I don't know. I don't know.

Okay. So I hope I'm joking. I really am tan because I was in Greece. And today, today is going to. to be a tough day. Today is like reentry, you know, like into the Earth's atmosphere because I've been away for quite a while. I needed this vacation. Now, if anybody who gets my email, if you subscribe to my email from Eric Mataxis.com, I have shared a lot and a lot of photos, a lot of crazy stuff that's happened in the last three weeks, which I want to share on this program. But if you've

gotten the emails, you've seen the photos. And that's, you know, I think the cliche that a picture is worth a thousand words is kind of true. Like there's some fun pictures. But most people who listen to this program don't follow me on Instagram and probably don't get the email. Now, of course, you can get that. It's free. It's no commercials.

Just go to Ericantaxus.com and we'll send you these emails once or twice a week with most of the interviews and stuff. But I shared a lot of this stuff, but I wanted to share on this program today, kind of where I've been. For people who don't get my emails or who haven't been following me on Instagram, which again, I think most people who listen to this as a radio programmer podcast, don't follow me in those ways. So the first thing I would add that this is kind of like, you know,

you have a friend's, the neighbors who go away on a trip and the cliches, they come back with, it used to be on the slides, and you would come over and they would show you their vacation photos. Yeah. And you'd be polite, but you really didn't want to sit through so many. But your trip was really actually very interesting. And I think your listeners actually do want to hear with it. So this is the audio version of that.

You know, you're exactly, well, listen, anybody who's read my book, Fish Out of Water, I don't think I say it in the book, but we had neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Wright. They passed away many years ago. But I remember they came back from a vacation and they invited the neighborhood kids over. This was like 1973, I think, maybe even 72. But they went on a vacation. They invited us over to see the slide. So that's what this is going to be like.

Now, let me start, instead of starting at the beginning, I'll start at the end. flew in from Athens yesterday. And I don't know about you, but like overseas travel. When you, when you get back, it's an 11-hour flight from Athens. We got back. We were totally fried. We were so fried last night that normally you'd want to stay up to a certain hour, but we couldn't do it. So we went to sleep way too early. Like I think I was in REM sleep by 630 last night, which means what? Which means I woke up at about 215 a.m. Today's right in time for an early morning breakfast. What do you do at 2.15 a.m.? Well, you try to pretend it's not 2.15 and you try to sleep a little longer, but your body won't go to sleep because you've had your sleep. So what I did is I turned on the TV and turned,

Turner Classic Movies is featuring in the middle of the night, Czech cinema from the 1960s. So I saw a 1963 film called something different. And it actually was amazing. I never thought I'd be talking about Czech cinema, new wave cinema from 1963 on this program. But it was actually bizarrely good. And what's the tone of these films?

Are they comedies? Are they romances? Action? What is it? This was a film by a woman director. And now, ladies and gentlemen, I am going to talk about my vacation in Greece and London and on the Queen Mary too with Suzanne. I'm going to talk about that in a minute. But I'm just telling you so last night we went to bed so early that I woke up so early that I didn't know what to do with myself.

Turn on the TV. And I'm watching Czech cinema, 1963. And it was a bad, it was really like, you know when you recognize a film when you basically say like, I know this is good. Like there were things about the direction of it that I thought this is next level. It was in some ways so bizarre. It was two stories. They kept cutting back and forth between them and they were not linked.

But one was about a gymnast. Am I really talking about this on the program? It was a gym. I'm all in. I'm intrigued. One was about a real gymnast. I can't think of her name right now. But she was a big deal gymnast.

She competed in the Olympics in 56. and 60. And her father was a gymnast, again, Czechoslovakian. And I got to tell you, they made an actual film with her. It was a film. It wasn't a documentary. So she's playing the role of a gymnast in the film, but it's like very intense and stuff.

And then they had this other story of a woman and her husband and their young kid. It was just just bizarrely compelling. and it wasn't meant to be funny, but it was just good. I think my problem is that when you come from Europe to America, you just, my body is not here yet. So I think this was a good. The name of the film is called Something Different, which the segment is. And the gymnast was Eva Basakova.

That's correct. He was the gold medalist. Go to the head of the class. So, yeah. But it's, that's half of the story. But it was filmed very interestingly. I mean, filming her routines and stuff as though it's part of like an actual movie versus a documentary film. Anyway, that's what I did in the middle of the night because you wake up in the middle of the night.

What do you do? I turn on to classic movies. And so I've been up for hours. I ran four miles in Central Park. Like basically I'm ready to go to bed now. And the show is just starting. So, okay, I want to tell the story of my vacation. We spent the last day, 10 or 11.

days in Greece. Before that, we were in England for four days. And before that, we were on the Queen Mary, too. Maybe I should start there. And I kind of, I feel like I've shared this on the program, but I think maybe I haven't shared this on the program. Who would know? Some people in the audience are like, yeah, Eric, you already shared this. Well, in case, it's new. It's new. In case he didn't, in case he didn't hear it, Suzanne and I for a 25th wedding anniversary, which was almost two years ago, we decided we needed to do something special. And we decided that we wanted to sail across the Atlantic on the Queen Mary 2. Now, the Queen Mary 2 is the only transatlantic ocean liner in the world.

I think I've said that on this program. You can get on cruise ships and whatever. This is not a cruise ship. It's a transatlantic ocean liner. It was built in 2004. the only transatlantic ocean liner in the world today. So it is able to sail the high seas under heavy, with really, really, you know, heavy weather and stuff.

Of course, we were sailing in July so that the weather was beautiful. But I don't know how to put it. It's a bizarre thing. I mean, we, you know, we jumped in an Uber and went to the Brooklyn Pier 12 in Brooklyn. And there is, it's basically the largest ship in the world. Actually, it's the second largest ship in the world. There's some, I think that there's a cruise ship that's technically larger. But it is monstrous.

It is like 1,100 feet long. It's absolutely gigantic. And to see this thing there and then to get on it, you know, it's like out of one of these movies that we've seen, because of course I'm a fan of old films and my parents came here on ships in the 50s. And so to get on a transatlantic ocean liner and realize we're going to be on this thing for seven days going across the ocean. It was unbelievable. So I want to tell the story of everything that happened there.

I want to talk about what happened in London, some cool stuff happening in London. And then I'm going to get to the Greece stuff. And I guess an hour two, I'll interview John Zmirak. So John Zmirak, of course, you know, in terms of reentry, he's my first choice, like John's Mirac. Yeah, he's basically like a human ocean liner. He is himself like an ocean line.

of humanity. So we're going to talk to John Smirik when we come back. But a lot of really crazy stuff to share. And so I'll just share an hour one today. But my guess is that I'm not going to get to the end of it. And then we'll play more of it tomorrow and then the next day. So stick around. I'm back. We're doing a campaign for food for the poor. Actually, I take that back. It begins today. Monday, July 31st. People will listen to this program know that we partner with food for the poor. they are total heroes. Food for the poor steps up because there is always, there are always hurricanes flooding other natural disasters at this time of year. So because of poverty or collapse infrastructure in a lot of these countries,

by the way, in case you didn't know, America's an amazing country, these other countries do not have a lot of infrastructure. So we need to step up, those of us who have the ability to step up. I want to encourage you to go to MetaxusTalk.com and give what you can. Let's get a good start. go to metaxis talk.com. Do what you can or just text Eric to 911-99. Please do this. Text Eric to 911-999 or phone [phone], Hope, 844-8663, Hope. I'd like to tell you about a stunning new movie called The Hiding Place.

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I was in Greece, England, but Suzanne and I began our trip celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary, which was two years ago, by getting on the Queen Mary 2 and sailing across the ocean. Now, I have to say the idea of being in the middle of the ocean, to some extent it was frightening to me, the thought of just being out in the middle of the ocean, but this boat is so big that it's like you're on land. I mean, it's that, it's just that big. So the weather was fine the whole time. You didn't really encounter any kind of big way. Well, we just hit one iceberg and the ship went down, but that just happened one time.

Actually, it's kind of funny you bring that up because Kinnard, which is the ocean liner, the company, they merged some years ago with the white star line. The white star line is the line of the Titanic. Wow. So this is the same company that gave you the Titanic in 1912. It's crazy they're still in business. You're like, what do you have to do to go out of business? I don't know. But I got to tell you every day.

So you're on this on this ship. And by the way, I recommend this. I'm going to be talking about this for weeks. I really recommend it to people because it is, it's just wonderful. I mean, first of all, it's not expensive. There's like every kind of price point. So if you go to the Queen Mary 2, you know, you can get, I mean, for very, very little, you can get like an inside cabin.

You can get a cabin with a window. You can get a cabin like deluxe. You can get whatever price point. And you are being carried across the ocean to England. And I mean, the price of an airline ticket, it's not really, it's cheaper or the same as an airline ticket. And you're being fed unbelievably well. the whole thing. I mean, I just, I've become a big fan of this kind of travel. And I may, well, it, it reminds me of those movies, you know, sort of those BBC, you know, murder mysteries or,

you know, sort of like, uh, Oriental, but I don't want to talk about that. It's kind of like the Orient Express. It's sort of like this, uh, older mode of travel that doesn't exist anymore, but there's still like a little bit of this, uh, you know, bread. No, no, it is, it is totally like that. First of all, in the past, people would say, how was the crossing? It was a rough crossing. It's a crossing. You're on this ship and you're crossing the Atlantic. You don't know what the weather is going to be like. Now, obviously, if it's in winter, the weather's going to be harsher.

But people have been doing this since time immemorial. So to actually participate in this crossing, in fact, the coolest thing, as we're leaving the harbor, like you go under the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, and it's this big festive thing. Everybody's on the upper deck kind of looking, you know, they're pulling the foghorn and you're going out. I saw a whale just off of Brooklyn. No joke. Just off of Pony Island, I saw, I was like, what? Did he have a slice of pizza?

How did you know? Yeah, he was dragging a slice of pizza down the subway steps. I'm serious. I saw a whale. Anyway, so then you go on your journey and then in your state room, because you're, you know, it's called a state room, in your little state room, there's a TV and you can click on the channel that shows you where you are on the journey, right? But what made it really bizarre, I don't know why they did this. You know, they're showing you where you are. And when they show

you, like, when they pull back and show you the, like the bigger shot of the Atlantic, they have this red dot and it says like HMS Titanic. So starly, they're indicating the spot where the Titanic went down. Now, I'm thinking, you know, if I'm trying to get people across the Atlantic, I don't want to remind them of the greatest maritime disaster in history. Is that, is that just me? Yeah, no, that's terrible. Did they have the Bermuda triangle on there too? Like the, you know, the hat trick of creepy. And toward the end, it said, here there be monsters and a picture of sea. I know, right? Well, I was thinking earlier, you said the line that, that, you know, merged with Coonard was the white, white, white star. The white star. That was the

Titanic, yeah. So I said, what are they going to have to do to, you know, go out of business these days? And I think if it had been in 2023 when they hit the iceberg, people would have been up in arms, the environmentalists. Oh, yeah, they'd go out of business. They'd go out of business. Well, anyway, it was delightful. And there's so much to say. First of all, there was a Christian fellowship. Sunday were kind of like, actually, here's a bizarre thing. Every day, because you're traveling across the ocean in the eastern direction. Every day at noon, the captain comes on and says, this is the ship's captain, blah, blah, blah, he gives you some details.

And he says, it is now noon and we're turning the ship's clock ahead one hour. It is now ships time 1 p.m. So you lose an hour every day, which is bizarre to have 23-hour days. I would really prefer 25-hour days. So I think the next time I want to come in the other direction. but there was a Christian Fellowship that you could go to at 9 a.m. I met some absolutely delightful people at the Christian Fellowship. There's ballroom dancing every night.

On deck seven, because there are 13 decks, you don't, like you get on an elevator, but you don't say, I want to get off at this floor. You say this is, you know, this is deck seven, deck 12. Deck seven, you're able to promenade around the entire ship. and it's a little bit over a third of a mile. And because I wasn't really tired enough at night, I thought I got to get in my exercise. So one day I ran five and a half miles in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

It was foggy and kind of cool. And there weren't a ton of people out there. But I ran five and a half miles, which was 15 laps around the ship. I ran a couple of other days, but not that far. But, I mean, it's so bizarre. Look, they have a gym. I worked out at the gym. They've got a million dining rooms. They've got a million activities. Every night, Suzanne and I, oh, it's, I forgot to say this. This is the old school part that I love. Every night, it's smart attire. You get, you get dressed up. You put on a jacket. Hey, dude, put on a jacket and probably a tie. Everybody gets dressed up. I mean, I mean, I guess you get the memo before you. They keel haul you. Do you know what? is to be keel hauled? I don't know. Yeah, many people don't even survive that.

They will keel haul you. The captain will keel haul you. If you do it twice or if your uniform's looking sloppy, you'll walk the plank. It's pretty tough. It's pretty tough. And also they decrease your rum rations for the remainder of the journey. That would get me right there. It's very tough.

No, but I'm not kidding. Every night you get dressed up, dinner is elegant. It really is so old school and so wonderful. So everybody's dressed up two nights of the seven. are black tie gala nights. So I had to bring a stinking tuxedo with all the accoutrement on the journey. Suzanne brought all these dresses and so we got all dressed up. One night they had 20s night.

So Suzanne, if people get my email, they saw the picture of Suzanne and me. I'm wearing my tuxedo and stuff. But it was just wonderful. Every night we'd go down to this bar. There's like a champagne bar and there's this other bar called the chart room. And we'd have a drink before dinner. It was really elegant. they had live music.

And I have never loved live music before. But this was like, I'm hooked on live music. It was absolutely amazing. Every night they had a different little, I mean, they had a lot of live music, but in this little bar that we would go to. It was usually elegant and delightful. And we would toast Georgie. Some people know just before a trip, we had to put down our suite. Georgie, our little dog, who wasn't quite 12 years old and the last year had health problems.

And that was really, I did share that on. the air. That was really tough for me, very tough. So every night we would toast Georgie and I'd get all choked up. And it really was, but it was a really sweet thing that Suzanne and I did every night before dinner. And then after dinner, you go down to the Queen's Room, which is basically ballroom dancing, this big room. And I thought, this is going to be fun, right? Everybody's dressed up. You go down there, but here's what really happened. You get down there and everybody's sitting around the edge of the dance floor. And the only people who get on the dance floor are people who are clearly experts in ballroom dancing. So if you don't actually know how to dance, like if you're not

good at it, you don't do it. You just don't dare get up there because everybody has their eyes trained on you. So we just didn't have the guts to get up there. You can't just get up there and like do a slow dance to, you know, stairway to heaven. This is like big band music and stuff. And all the people that were there where they're obviously going on these, you know, cruises or whatever because they're into the ballroom dancing. So that was kind of intimidating. And then every day they have tea in the Queens room. And we only did that once. But it starts right at 3.30. And it's very, the whole thing I got to say, it's very British because it is the canard line. This ship is actually, what's the term they use? But it's officially registered in Bermuda. But it has a very, very British flavor.

Most of the people on the ship are British, not all, but most of them are British as opposed to American. I mean, there were a number of Americans that we met. But every day they have tea. And right at 3.30, they had this kind of parade of all the waiters come out carrying the teapots. And they sort of parade out and people clap. It's really like out of another world. It was just delightful. But we want to do it again.

And I do recommend it. They're not paying me. They're not advertisers on this show. But I really recommend it. that the Queen Mary, too, it's just old school, it's beautiful. And as I say, it is affordable. There's like every price point. So it's really, it was just delightful.

All right, we're going to go to a break. When we come back, I'm going to tell you the rest of the story. I'm going to try to tell you the rest of the story. In our two, we have Johns Merak. Right. Lay back and observe the constellation. Every day we hear about another familiar brand selling out their customers and going woke.

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my Suzanne's and my journey on the Queen Mary too. It's just incredible. One day, they have these outdoor decks that you can like sunbathe on, but the weather was not such that you wanted to sunbathe. It was kind of cloudy, foggy, a little cool, unfortunately. But the last two days, we did a little of that. And it was beautiful. At one point, we're on this upper deck.

And I look up and I recognize the captain. He was kind of like making these rounds or whatever. And, uh, do you have mutton chops? that's when I'm imagining. Someone was insubordinate to him and he pulled out his sword and with the side of the sword beat the man. Wow. It was really brutal. British seamanship is something that just makes me uncomfortable.

But no, I may be kidding about that, but I'll tell you the truth, we did see the captain. And you realize, like, he's the celebrity of the ship. Like, everybody's like, that's the captain. He's like driving this monster thing. And it's cranking along. I mean, it's like, you know, it weighs like a billion pounds, literally. and it's cranking along at over 20 miles an hour. Like, how do you move this thing through the water at, you know, 22 miles?

It was incredible. But anyway, I'm trying to think there's anything else that I need to cover. But it just was absolutely delightful. I'll think of other stuff and I'll throw it in later. But we end up in Southampton, England. And I think I shared it on the program. There's a British actor named James Fox. his brother is Edward Fox.

They're both in their 80s. If you've ever watched British films from the 1960s to the present, they are in those films, many of them. James Fox is a delightful Christian, and he wrote me an email a couple of years ago that he'd enjoyed some of my books. He'd read my books. And we were emailing back and forth, and I said I'm coming to London. Now, his son, I think I shared this on the program, his son is Lawrence. Fox, who starred as Hunter in My Son Hunter, which was a film that we've talked about on this program.

Hunter, I'm sorry, Hunter. Lawrence James's son was also a big deal actor, but he said some stuff that the woke people totally canceled him, like three and a half years ago, completely canceled his career and everything. And he is such a hero, Lawrence Fox, that he decides, like, I'm not going to apologize. I'm not, I'm doubling down. So he's become more and more outspoken. And we had dinner with them in London.

And Lawrence Fox is a stinking hero. The man is an absolute hero. He ran for parliament recently. He didn't win. But it was, he ran for, for the mayor of London about two years ago, whatever. So he's gotten very involved politically. But the thing is, in our dinner, he was just sharing about how the conservatives, this is kind of like in America, right?

like you've got the MAGA folks that are really fighting. And then you've got these like people that you once thought were conservatives who are now, you know, Mitch McConnell and, you know, Kevin McCarthy and whoever else that you don't really feel like they're willing to fight. And I think that that's the case in spades in England. So there are two members in all of parliament. Parliament's like 600 members, right? there are only two people, or I'm sorry, probably one person, I can't think of his name, who is utterly heroic. Everybody else is kind of like, you know, what do we need to do to get

reelected? So it was utterly fascinating meeting Lawrence Fox. I follow him on Twitter and I retweet his stuff on Twitter, but total, total hero. And his father, of course, I don't think I mentioned this, said that he would pick us up from Southampton. This is like two and a half hours from London. He insisted. And I had one of the most delightful conversations of my life being driven to London with Suzanne by Lawrence Fox's father, James Fox, this amazing actor. Anybody who's seen a passage to India? Have you ever seen that film? Chris?

Oh, I haven't seen that film. No, shame on you. Who is in that? Maybe I started a long time ago. Was that? No, no. It's about 1983, but it stars James Fox. You know, this is 40 years ago.

But he's been in a million films. He was in a big film in 1970 with Mick Jagger. It was like some big film. But he's been in film since the 60s. The loneliness of the long distance runner was like 1962. But he's been in films all these years. So he insisted on picking us up. I thought, you can't do that.

You're like this big deal actor. One of the most gracious, delightful Christian gentlemen I have ever met in my life. But anyway, so we had dinner with him. Our time in London, by the way, I got to say, it's been a while since I've been in London. I forgot how much I loved England. Suzanne has relatives there. We actually did our honeymoon in London. No kidding.

Really? 27 years ago. Yeah. And Suzanne has relatives, you know, English relatives. And we had the most delightful time. And I, we stayed at the East India Club. And Douglas Murray, who when I had dinner with Jordan Peterson, Douglas Murray, said, where are you staying in London?

Because he's from there. And we said the East India Club. And he said, oh, I think it's a bit roping. no. And I thought a bit ropy, what do you mean by that? And I think he meant, you know, kind of like down at the heels or whatever. And it is a little bit, but it's so, it was so delightful to stay in this old English club. They had a stuffed hippopotamus right outside our bedroom. That's amazing. Or just the head, just the head. But it's like it's an old club. You know, you've got to get dressed for breakfast. There's kippers at breakfast. I mean, it was it was absolutely fantastic. In London, I have to say, I had forgotten. It's kind of an amazing city. I just thought New York has nothing on this place. Like, I don't know, maybe it was just where we work because we're hanging out near the Mayfair district.

But it was so, I don't know, just, it was delightful. And it made me realize that I need to get back to England. We'll probably do Socrates in the city there, do some Socrates events there. But it was absolutely delightful. I ran in Hyde Park. I did my running thing there. and then something crazy happened at the British Museum.

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Probably tomorrow I will get to the part about Greece, which, oh my gosh. I don't know where to begin. So much. Greece was so wonderful that being back here is almost physically painful. It was really, it was such a huge blessing. But I was saying about London that something happened in the British Museum. I'm not making this one up.

But being in London was so delightful. I thought I've got to get back there at least once a year because I've got friends there. And it was absolutely delightful. And I felt the same way about Greece. Being in Greece, I thought, what the heck? Like, I need to make sure that I'm here several weeks every year because so many relatives and friends and just people very close to my heart.

It was amazing. So I'll probably tell about that tomorrow. But just to finish up the British part, the English part, we're only there for four days. And oh, here's the cool thing. In most of the summer months, you can fly directly from London. to Cephalonia, which is phenomenal. You don't have to go through Athens,

which is kind of a hassle and so and so forth. So we ended up flying directly, of course, from London straight to Cephalonia, which is a dream. And I'll probably tell you about that, to tell everybody about that tomorrow because we got Johns Merrick an hour too. But at the British Museum, I said, I just want to go to the British Museum

because when I wrote my book, is atheism dead? The middle section is all about archaeology. And some of the stuff that I write about in Is Atheism Dead, some of those objects are in the British Museum. And I thought, I'm going to get to see these things that I've written about that I've never knew about before. And one of these things, there's a chapter in the book, I know if I have the book here, but there's a chapter of the book called the Black Obelisk that became a Golden Spike.

That's the chapter. And I write about how in the late 1840s, someone discovered in, I believe, what is today Iraq, in the sands, they discovered what's called a steel, S-T-E-L-E, an obelisk with images on all four sides of this obelisk. And when they discovered it, they realized this is a magnificent find. And so they crated it up and sent it on its journey, a three and a half year journey to get it back via ship to London. Kind of crazy that it took that long, but it took that long. So it gets to England to London. They put it in the middle of the British Museum and it becomes this cause-celebr. Everybody in Victorian society in early 1850s has to go see this thing because it's a megastews.

magnificent trophy, right? Well, that's the first part of the story. In 1851 or 52, some clergyman, Irish clergyman, goes to the British Museum to see this thing. And he happens to be someone who can read, I guess it is the Acadian cuneiform writing that's on this obelisk. And he goes there and he stands. amidst the crowds, reading, like looking over it, and he sees something that blows him away. So they're crowds looking at it, but he knows what it says. And he recognizes what it says that they had misinterpreted, because I guess when it came through Baghdad on its long journey, somebody who was an expert in this ancient language had interpreted it, but he'd missed this middle part.

And it refers to Jahu, this king in Israel. And so this clergyman suddenly realizes, I am looking at the first thing in the history of the world to have been discovered outside of the Bible that is referring to something inside the Bible, that is corroborating the Bible as history. So once that got known, once he made his discovery known, people completely freaked out and more and more people came. and it started this flood of, you know, treasure hunters going to the Middle East to find out what else can we find. And I write about that, obviously, in my book, is atheism dead? But I wanted to see this thing. So I went with Suzanne and our daughter, and we go there. And I'm looking at this thing.

And I'm looking with my own eyes. I'm really close to this, just finally looking at this thing. And I'm so excited. And suddenly I looked to my right. and there's a guy who looks familiar and he goes, are you Eric Metaxos? And I said, yeah. And it turns out to be this pastor from Prestonwood Baptist Church in Dallas,

where I've preached a number of times. Wow. I am blown away. That's bizarre. And next to him is Jack Graham, the lead pastor of Preston Wood, who is a friend of mine. I thought, this is insane. I'm looking at this black, the obelisk of Shelman Azar, and two friends pull up and we start talking.

So it was absolutely so delightful to connect with Pastor Jack Graham of Prestonwood in Dallas. You know, as I say, he's a friend. We went to Israel together a few years ago. But it was totally bizarre. It was absolutely bizarre and joyful. And Jeremiah Johnston is, he's an apologetics genius. Actually, we need to get him on this program. So I'm making a note to get Jeremiah Johnson on this.

program. But it was so incredible seeing friends in London and going to the Victorian Albert Museum and, you know, Hyde Park and just experiencing everything. But jumping into Pastor Jack Graham at the British Museum. I mean, there's so much there. I can't even tell you, the Rosetta Stone is there to look at the Rosetta Stone. And then, of course, what are called the Elgin Marbles are there. Now, this is kind of a touchy subject for me, because we went. to Athens, obviously, I'll talk about that tomorrow, but Lord Elgin took these sculptures from the Parthenon in, I guess it was the 1820s while it was still under the Turks, while Greece was under the Turks, and basically saw them off and hauled them back to London. So they're in the British

museum. They actually ought not to be there. They actually ought to be returned. The Elgin Marbles ought to be returned to Greece, to Athens. Athens has created this glorious Acropolis museum. It's not like it was in the past where you'd say, well, why should we give it back to them? What are they going to do with it? So this is something, I'll probably have people on this program talking about that in the future, but to look at the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum is just kind of weird thinking these things were carved for the Acropolis, like they were carved specifically for the Acropolis

and they were kind of, you know, hauled. the way. So it's kind of a bummer. Now, Eric, I would mention at the hotel in England, there were some stuffed hippos. Is it possible that those hippos had anything to do with stealing the marbles as hungry? You know, it's kind of weird you bring that up because the answer is a firm.

No. We'll be right back. Okay, we're back. Tomorrow, I'm going to tell the story of our trip in Greece. Unbelievable stuff. Wild horses are involved in the story. I'm not making this up. Wild horses, two submarines. I'm not making this up. Crazy crazy stuff.

But I'll save that for tomorrow. We're going to go to John Smirak an hour two today. Talking to John Smirak. Can't wait to talk. Can't wait to talk to John Smirak. But, Chris, I don't know if you realize in the month of August, which starts tomorrow. Yes, sir. I'm told.

we're doing a campaign for food for the poor. Actually, I take that back. It begins today. Monday, July 31st. People who listen to this program know that we partner with food for the poor. They are total heroes. And most people know we've been through like insane heat this summer, right? Well, heat is pretty bad.

In Greece, it was insane. But imagine going. going through a hurricane. Imagine being in a third world country and living through a hurricane. This is why we partner with food for the poor, okay? Because food for the poor, they serve, I guess 17 countries in the Caribbean, Latin American. They're going into a very bad season. So that's why we're doing this in August, starts today. Food for the poor steps up because there is always, there are always hurricanes flooding other natural disasters at this time of year. So because of poverty or collapse infrastructure in a lot of these countries, by the way, in case you

didn't know, America is an amazing country. These other countries do not have a lot of infrastructure. So we need to step up, those of us who have the ability to step up. So I want to say that if you can go to metaxis talk.com, please go to metaxis talk.com. We're going to be doing this all this month. I want to encourage you to go to metaxis talk.com and give what you can to food for the poor. this is actually I think we've got a clip here. This is the clip of a 39-year-old man who's trying to eke out a living at a garbage dump in Honduras, right? So there are people that are really suffering. Food for the Poor steps up to help these poorest of the poor emergency relief supplies, particularly in this coming month.

But let's play this clip of this man who's 39 years old. old and literally trying to eke out a living at a garbage dump in Honduras. Let's play that. For that the kids are being comfortable, pass them bien limpios and all. As I said, he wants to ask them to send help here so that they can have a home and so that the kids can be safe and be clean and because he has so many years to be squattering and still he doesn't have anything. It's unbelievable.

Folks, I just want to ask you, please go to Metaxus Talk.com. We do this periodically. We partner with somebody like Food for the Poor. We need to give, you know, out of our, we are wealthy compared to most people in the world. And the folks in these places are really suffering. Food for the Poor steps up. $100, if you can give $100, go to Metaxistock.com, provides an emergency kit that includes tarps, first aid, hygiene supplies, blankets.

If you can give $240, well, I don't want to get into that. We'll get into that throughout the month. But just go to metaxus talk.com, please. You can actually text the word Eric to 911-99. That's 911-999. Or you can call 844-8663-hope, 844-863 hope. We all have to have to give something to somebody. We understand that, right?

Those of us who've been blessed, we've got to give something. So I just want to encourage you in this month. We're going to be doing this. Let's get a good start. Go to metaxis talk.com. Do what you can. Or just text Eric to 911-999. Please do this.

Text Eric to 911-999 or phone [phone] Hope. 844-863 Hope. 8-4-863 Hope. And then.