The Eric Metaxas Show - Noami Wolf

Episode Date: January 19, 2022

Noami Wolf is back to finish her conversation about Covid vaccination mandates and the somewhat sorry state of the nation, in general.

to the Eric McTaxis show with your host, Eric Mettaxas. Holy cow, Albin, we're back. We're back in the beautiful TBN studios. And I just want to tell you, folks, we have a couple of guests today. Oh, boy. How do you describe these people? I'm calling it a Yaleie reunion. Well, that's the whole thing, is that there are maybe a half a dozen people who graduated from Yale in the last decades who have a sensible view of the universe.

and obviously I am two of those Yalys, and then another one would be Naomi Wolf, another one would be John Smirak. They will be my guest in a moment. Naomi Wolf was in my class at Yale. She's a liberal feminist who has been heroic in these dark days of the Republic. So I'm excited to talk to Naomi,

and then we'll talk to John Smirak. We recorded the segment with John Smirak yesterday, day. And he has, I don't know, what do they call it, Omicron or whatever. And while he was doing the interview, his ivermectin, which his actual horse pills, was delivered to him. The doorbells, you'll see, because he can't get it. His doctor can't get it because doctors are being prevented by the deep state and Satan from prescribing things that could help you. So he had to get it from a vet. So you don't want to miss John Smirak. Okay. Yes. Albin, are you ready? I'm ready. We've got a couple things to share with the group. Folks, I hope you're listening carefully. First of all, I want to say that my friend Albin Sadar, also known as my producer or sidekick Albin Sadar, who's actually you're sitting right here. Oh, there I am. Yeah. You write essays now and again. It's pretty rare. And I think people forget that you have something to say. And you've just,

said it at American greatness. So people need to go to Am greatness, AM greatness, American greatness, and read your article, a mostly peaceful insurrection. It is unfortunately important. And what you say in there is that January 6th was the, it was basically the Democrats, it's not just the Democrats, it's worse than just the Democrats, it's the deep state, it's the three-letter agencies, the FBI. everyone who's serving Satan in our generation, evidently decided that they would pull something really evil on January 6th and try to discredit good Americans. And it's very ugly.

So you've written about it. And actually, I've posted it all over my social media if people follow me there. Yeah. And I'm already working on the follow-up article that's going to be... Really? Yeah. Yeah.

You know, the devil's biggest truth. trick is to convince people they didn't exist. Well, the Democrats' biggest trick was to convince people that the election wasn't stolen. So we're going to look at that. I've got two dozen reasons that you can, it's common sense you can look and say. I think, I don't know. Where do we go with this? I think many people are convinced the election was stolen.

If you're convinced that's the case and you don't talk about it, you're a bum. You're a coward. If you don't think it really was stolen, well, that's another story. But there are plenty people that they know, they saw what they saw. And I think that it's incumbent on those on the other side to show that it didn't happen. When they just tell you to shut up, that's unacceptable, folks. In America, that is not acceptable. There's nothing more sacred than our elections, nothing.

And the optics, the way people just basically said, shut up, we can't talk about this. oh, it's been disproven in 60 court cases. No, that is actually not true. The cowardly judges refused to look at it. I think that people in America must demand clarity on these kinds of things, and I think the left has gotten so ugly. It's very hard for me to believe that this is happening in America, but we're certainly not going to shut up about it,

and you mustn't either. It's like a game show. Prove me wrong. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay, so tomorrow we're talking to Nick Searcy. Oh, boy, yeah. Who's made a film called Capital Punishment, Capital T-O-L, Capital Punishment about January 6th.

I saw it yesterday. I almost have no words. It is, I hope every American will see it. I hope every journalist will see it. I hope everybody that thinks January 6th was an insurrection will see it. People's lives are being destroyed. And if you don't care about that, you know, you really, you ought to care about it. Capital Punishment, the movie.

And Larry Taunton also has an article that talks about a personal, you know, story, personal stories. Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, the truth is going to come out about January 6th. And I just have to say, the people who did that, and I mean the people who perpetrated this great lie that there was an insurrection by Trump supporters and white nationalists, those people need to be brought to justice. And we should not rest until they're brought to justice. It's a just unprecedentedly grievous attack on the United States of America. And of course, they are saying, no, no, no, what the insurrectionist did, was a grievous attack in America. Well, there was no insurrection. And I think we're going to, we're just going to keep talking about this just to make people squirm. Because this is justice.

The folks who did this have to be brought to justice. Anyway, okay. Okay. We were going to talk about Nutrimetics. Yes, we should. I was in, where was I, Florida recently. Tampa. And the folks at Neutrametics, Tim Eaton and one of his colleagues, John, said,

Eric, we want to fly to meet you. And I thought, fly? You're going to fly to meet me? Because they're on the other side of Florida. So they flew, and we had lunch together. And I just cannot get over how amazing they are, what they're doing is. I said, I have to talk about this on the year because it's not just you go to neutromedics.com, use the code, Eric, you get some products. Yes, I hope you will do that.

But when you understand who these guys are, first of all, when they said, we're going to fly to meet you, realized the head of the organization, Tim Eaton, the way he created Neutermetics, he was a pilot in the Amazon jungles, a missionary pilot. So he knows how to fly planes. So for him, flying across Florida, you know, that's like no big deal, you know. And he landed on the top of a building. It was very impressive. Just kidding. Next time he's going to use a plane, too, because he's a pilot. That's right. He's a pilot. He should use a plane, really, just for safety. But lunch must have been a lot of good supplements. You must be the healthiest guy.

Well, we had an amazing conversation. I mean, I have had health issues for decades, you know, rather serious health issues. I was born with four arms. And that's not true. But I've had serious health issues. And we were talking about it. And you realize that what Nutrimetics does is next level. They are big deal.

So it's not just by vitamin D, vitamin C and all this stuff from them, although you should. And they give 50% of their profit to missions. To third world missions. But they're just extraordinary, and we have to have them back, continue the conversation with them. But use the code, Eric, when you go to nutrometics.com to get your vitamin C, vitamin D, magnesium. Melatonin.

Melatonin. Well, all that good stuff. And speaking of sponsors of the program, you should also use the code Eric when you go to mypillow.com and my store.com. If you want to get My Books, you can get them at good prices using the discount code Eric at my store.com. And you can get an American Eagle frying pan. That's not true. But if you go to MyStore.com, you will see that there are the coochiest products there.

I mean, I don't know. I just, I won't go into it. But all kinds of products at MyStore.com. I have to say that, I think I mentioned it yesterday, the bank that handles most. of what Mike Lindell does. It's called Minnesota Bank and Trust. Is that right? I just looked it up.

Minnesota Bank and Trust had decided to get political and cancel Mike Lindell. Folks, this is ugly. I mentioned this yesterday. When this kind of stuff happens, you have to understand you're not living in a healthy culture.

When people disagree with you and then they decide to crush you, to cancel you, say, you can't do banking here. You can't eat in this restaurant. This is not a business. America. And so please support our friend Mike Lundel, mystore.com, mypillow.com. In any event, we'll be right back with Naomi Wolf. And so please help you.

Them with your knees. They seek the trick of before they can die. Teach your parents well. Hey there, folks. Have you ever looked for a business podcast? You're into business, but you also like to be entertained. So you're looking for a funny business podcast. Well, some of them try to be funny. They're just not funny, which is a problem. I think I have the answer for you. If you like business news and current events with the side of actual comedy, you want to listen to, I can't say this is a straight face. It's called IP Frequently. The host, Sir David, and Brad, IP Frequently Solid Business Advice that Leans Right, conservative, comes with 80s music and current events. They're calling it the unicorn of business podcasts. Is that a good thing? If it's funny, it is a good thing.

They're also calling it the holy grail of business podcasts. Subscribe to IP Frequently and stay up to date on their weekly stream of episodes wherever you get your podcasts. Go to IPfrequently.com. That's IPfrequently.com. Folks, it's the Eric Metax's show. I want to continue my conversation with Naomi Wolf from a little bit earlier. Naomi, you were saying so many important things. And I guess let me respond to what I think you were saying,

and you can respond to my response. But what you were saying with which I agree is that, When you're undergraduates, as we were at Yale, there's a time to explore the other side of things. There's a time to be made aware, for example, of the dangers of a certain kind of patriotism or of inequalities in a culture. Like, that's healthy. And I would say that that's American. It's beautiful. But what I, what my thesis in a way, and in my new book is atheism dead, I attack it from a,

a different angle, but it's the same thesis. It's that we got caught in a certain narrative. In other words, the narrative was, you know, the worst thing that could ever happen is the McCarthy hearings in the 1950s. And we kind of acted as though things can only go wrong in that direction. The worst thing that can happen is you can get trapped in a loveless marriage with a semi-abusive husband, marriage, bad, be careful. We never sung the saying the praises of a beautiful sense of patriotism or why marriage is a good, beautiful thing, why family, motherhood, fatherhood are beautiful things. We kind of acted as though, no, no, no, we need to warn people because I know some stories

of how that went wrong. And we really got caught stuck in that narrative, in that gear. And I think we're dealing with that now. I think the cultural elites, the folks we went to school with, got caught up in a world where being secular and kind of sneering or looking with a jaundiced eye at people of faith, that was just the acceptable norm. And people got stuck in that. And so all of the magazines that are read by the cultural elites, whether it's the New Yorker or the Atlantic and all the newspapers, whatever, they're populated by people who think that way and who have. haven't been trained to be more open-minded. And I think that's kind of why we are here,

why we have a journalistic class that has abdicated their roles as truth-tellers. Yeah, wow, 100%. I mean, if it had been purely organic in an open forum, the way a university is supposed to be, or the way an intellectual kind of stratum of magazines and newspapers are supposed to be in a free society, you're absolutely right. There would be back and forth, you know,

people saying, communism is great, people saying capitalism is great, people saying, you know, the religion has these failings, people saying, and yet it has these strengths. But that's not what we got, right? And I'm now looking back, and this is so painful and awful, but I really am, you know, kind of horrified that what was constructed was kind of a carapace of attitudes that we were all supposed to put on. And now I'm experiencing it at 59 or whatever. I was like, well, wait a minute, you know, maybe these vaccines should finish their clinical trials before everyone lines up to shun people and discriminate against them. And I got ejected from what has become a kind of

monoculture. And the monoculture is getting more and more rigid. And I'm so astonished and it's so painful to find that all the conversations I'm having right now where people are saying, you know, I don't agree with everything you say, but I really respect. your freedom to say it. It's all conservatives and libertarians. You know, virtually no one on the left who are my tribe is saying right now, Naomi, I really, you know, disagree with you, but thank goodness we live in a country where we can air our views. And again, taking a kind of 30,000 foot view, and I hope this is not kind of insider baseball, but looking back on what we were supposed to conclude intellectually over the last 30 years, it was.

really does come down to America sucks. You know, the family sucks. Men really are terrible. Women aren't so great either. You know, religion is terrible. Capitalism is only terrible. And all that's left is kind of where we're at, such fertile ground for tyranny to take hold or for an adversary like the CCP to kind of take over.

You know, we all have to collude with the hive mind. and the hive mind will eject and shun and shame people in like a CCP-style struggle session. And the only thing that is okay is pharma and the Democratic Party and medicine, as long as it's big medicine. And what my, you know, what the New York Times tells me is okay. Like this is such, how did such broad-minded people become so narrow in what they are allowed to think and do? And bring right back to what we were saying before, that is a demonic place where people are marching lockstep, even intellectually. Well, I think it's interesting because I do, I mean, what you're saying underscores my thinking that we got caught in a narrative. In other words, we kind of acted as though, oh, the 50s, Eisenhower, white picket fence.

It's so repressive, man. And so we go into the 60s and we get stuck in the 60s because that's the boomer generation and they kind of, you know, took over the world. And so you get stuck in a world where all the stories, the movies, the TV programs, everything is being told from this point of view that's hostile to every good thing that maybe went wrong in one way or the other. And so, you know, you only see films, you know, lionizing Dalton Trumbo. You're never going to see a film, you know, that that celebrates the other side of the story that talks about people being crushed by communism and how selfish Americans looking the other way, allowed their lives to be crushed on the other side of the world.

You know, we seem to hear those stories over and over, and it goes along with, and you know this, obviously in the 60s, the sexual revolution. It's kind of like we bought into a new orthodoxy that was in this perpetual state of adolescent rebellion against the man or mommy and daddy or something like that. And so we're still hating Reagan or Ronald or or Rush Limbaugh or something like that. It's kind of become, you know, who we are or who our elites are, but we are seeing how it goes wrong. I mean, what it really makes me think of is that for one thing, that way of thinking allowed us to take our eyes off the ball, that we have to teach what American-style freedom is. In other words, it seems that for two centuries, we celebrated America in a healthy way. we celebrated our heroes who sacrificed their lives and so on and so forth for something good

and beautiful. And we ceased to teach that. And so it's only into that vacuum that this ignorance really can bear the fruit that it's bearing because why would people be open to Marxist ideas if they had any inkling of how that could go wrong or why we would fight against it, you know, 250 years ago? Absolutely. And the more and more work that's being done uncovering the economic ties between the CCP and Hollywood, for instance, the more things really, I mean, I'm persuaded by, you know, by my husband, who's been a big influence on me who spent 12 years in military intelligence and understands how we propagandize other countries. I'm persuaded by evidence he's shown me masses of evidence that the Chinese Communist Party is basically buying up our institutions of influence this country and including Marxist or un-American ideals. And you know, you don't have to take the, and I know that's a sweeping statement, but think about Christmas.

Okay, I'm Jewish. But I remember when I was little in the 60s, I was conscious, early 70s. And Christmas was magical because Christians were celebrating. the birth of a baby Messiah. And I don't have, the beauty of this country is I don't have to be Christian, but I can enjoy the fact that people around me are practicing their faith, celebrating their faith traditions. The Constitution prevents that from being imposed on me.

But it was an absolutely magical time. And I remember Christmas carols everywhere, like traditional Christmas carols in my childhood. And now, and I've been aware of this, like year by year, it's like silly ones, you know, Santa kissed mom, you know, and was naughty, or, you know, reindeer ones. Or, and now it's, like, totally, like, totally secular. You know, you don't hear a single, you know, maybe it's like Elton John or it's, you know, but not a single actually Christian Christmas Carol mentioning, you know, Jesus. And I miss that, and I'm Jewish, right?

And I think that that takes actually a lot of, a lot of influencing to shift a culture like that. I'll just mention one other thing, the American flag, right? I remember when it was flying everywhere, you would see American flags, they were pristine, you had to treat that, you know, there were kind of rules and regulations about how you fold the American flag, how you treat it. And then I began to notice about 10 years ago that representations of the American flag were always dirty and tattered. And, you know, over and over and over, and you just never saw a beautiful American flag. And now I'm noticing that President Biden has omitted, and I was the white. of a White House speechwriter and a consultant to a presidential campaigner or vice president,

I know how a presidential speech is supposed to end. It's supposed to end. God bless our troops, if that's the subject. And God bless the United States of America. He cut that. He never says it, right? He never says it. So that's, you know, as someone who knows how messaging campaigns unfold, that takes thought, right?

To be smirch and undermine and devise. This is huge. What you're saying is huge. We'll be right back, folks. Continue the conversation with Naomi Wolf. You won't go away. So I won't tell you not to. In case you haven't been paying attention, the Biden administration has caused a financial crisis and they have no clue how to fix it. Oil prices have skyrocketed. And when oil prices go up, the cost of transportation and shipping spikes, leading the prices of goods to rise. And when we're already seeing record inflation, that's the last thing we need. Our economy is in trouble and you need to take steps to protect yourself. If all your money is tied up in stocks, bonds, and traditional markets, you are vulnerable. Gold is one of the best ways to protect your retirement. No matter what happens, you own your gold. It is real, it is physical, it's always been valuable since the dawn of time.

Legacy precious metals is the company I trust for investing in gold. They can help you roll your retirement account into a gold-backed IRA where you still own the physical gold. They can also ship gold and precious metal safely and securely to your house. Call Legacy at 866-528-1903 or visit them online at LegacyPMinvestments.com. Look out. It comes tomorrow. That's when I have to choose. Hey there, folks, talking to Naomi Wolf at The Airman Taxis Show.

Naomi, you're saying so many important things. But I think this is part of my horror at the United States. the evangelical church in America, because I think that when you're facing this kind of, you know, whether it's evil or just harmful, it has always been the role of the church to stand against it, to speak out against it. But many, not many who listen to this program, but many who say that I'm an evangelical Christian, they've said, well, I don't want to get political. I don't want to criticize Biden for taking that out or for this kind of messaging or that messaging. I don't want to be, I'm not supposed to be political. And I think if you do not understand how these things work, if you don't understand what happens to a culture that forgets God, you're a fool and you're a handmaiden of terror. Things are going to get very bad if you don't understand the role that leaders play when they say things like God bless America, God bless our troops, that serves a purpose. And then who are we as a people if we don't say,

that our rights come from God, not from some committee. So these are fundamental things. And I simply think that in our lifetimes, the elites in Hollywood and in the academy, they've taken their eyes off of this ball and they've pushed one narrative forward and we are now seeing the fruit of it. My hope is that it's so bad that there are people waking up.

And I do believe that there are people out there waking up and understanding that we didn't know that it would get here. What's going on? Yeah. I mean, just a caution on that. I always want to be careful being a religious minority. It is really important that our country supports space for people to speak freely about God. But I think it's also really important that we have the right not to. I mean, it's dangerous way. I completely agree with that. I mean, there's no question that I agree with that. In fact, I would say my Christian faith compels me to say the same thing. So I don't I don't mean that. I don't mean that. I just mean there's some kind of signaling and there's something that's going on. Or look, I don't mean to interrupt so completely here. But to me, it is because our government is founded on these biblical ideas of the sanctity of the individual and the freedom of the individual that gives us religious liberty, meaning the right for people to say,

I dissent. I don't believe in God. I'm an atheist. That to me comes out of a biblical worldview. ironically. And so when you denigrate the biblical worldview, you're basically, or you're basically leading to a world where, where there is no dissent, where it's a monolithic way of seeing. I would say when you are forced to denigrate the biblical worldview, or don't let people have the freedom to champion a biblical worldview. But let me chime in with where I totally agree

with you. And I think people are waking up to this. And I'm just struggling to kind of, face it myself because it's huge. I mean, we were taught that, you know, the Bible is a kind of cute artifact of history, the Hebrew Bible, and that the Christian Bible is, you know, a cultural thing that Christians believe. It's becoming pretty clear to me that West, the target of these horrible demonic mandates is the West, right? And Western values. And Western values are grounded in the monotheistic traditions in Judaism and Christianity. And even though, and let's remember that Jefferson and a lot of his colleagues were deists, right, they were challenging the way the orthodoxy of Christianity at the time.

Nonetheless, I think we have to kind of wake up in a hurry and realize that everything that allowed our lives to be sacred essentially came from a four millennia long conversation about what is man's relationship and woman's relationship to God. And what does that lead to in the law in human rights? All of the things that descended to us, you know, as secular human rights, were the result of a conversation by the Hebrews and then later by joined by Christians and I would say joined by Muslims later still to codify the ethics that were very unusual and weird at the time that they were introduced, right?

when everyone was enslaving everyone and stoning their, you know, adulteress daughter to death and so on. You know, all of our human rights norms in the West, all of our notions of freedom derived from that conversation. And so when we cut off or dismiss or besmirch or censor respect for and curiosity about that conversation that descends from Jews and Christians and Muslims, we're really lost and we're easy to manipulate and to strip freedoms from. So that's what I would say about that. And I want to share, if I may, two quick dreams that kind of show what we're on the verge of losing. Do I have a moment? Absolutely.

So once I had it. May I? Yeah, of course. Yeah. No question. Please continue. Because Will Schwabby, who, Will Swabby class native ours, who's whom I love, who's now a wonderful writer, warned me when we were undergraduates. No one wants to hear anyone else's dreams.

Yes. I once worked for Will Schwabie briefly. in 1985. And let me just say, I think you might be wrong about this. But yeah, I'm, I'm, we've only got 40 seconds left in this segment, but when we come back. But share what you can before we go to the break. So just super fast. I once dreamt that I was visiting hell and it was simply the absence of God. There was nothing else happening. No fire, no flames, just no God. And then I had a more recent dream and it was heaven. And it was literally, I was heaven on earth. It was literally the way we used to as parents gather for cookies and juice with our little kids in a school,

you know, at a parent's event, like no fear, no phopias, you know, kids allowed to touch and play and communicate. And that that was God, right? That God was present. And we've lost it, you know, through these policies that divide us from each other and don't let us connect with each other at all. Well, we're going to come back for a final segment with Naomi Wolf. fascinating, fascinating. Thank you. Hey, folks, I've got to tell you a secret about relief factor that the father, son, owners, Pete and Seth Talbot have never made a big deal about, but I think it is a big deal. I really do. They sell the three-week quick start pack for just 1995 to anyone struggling from pain,

like neck, shoulder, back, hip, or knee pain, 1995, about a dollar a day. But what they haven't broadcasted much is that every time they sell a three-week quick start, they lose money. In fact, they don't even break even until about four to five months after. If you keep ordering it, friends, that's huge. People don't keep ordering Relief Factor month after month if it doesn't work. So yes, Pete and Seth are literally on a mission to help as many people as possible deal with their pain. They really do put their money where their mouths are. So if you're in pain from exercise or even just getting older or to the three week quick start for 1995. Let's see if we can get you at a pain too. Go to relieffactor.com. Relieffactor.com or call 800, 500, 838. 8, 500, 500, 8384 relieffactor.com. I use it. It works. Folks, I'm talking to Naomi Wolf, and we've stooped to sharing our dreams with each other. Naomi, what has happened to us?

We never used to be like this. We used to talk about deconstruction and stuff like that. No, seriously, I laugh because I totally welcome. Not only do I welcome this, it thrills me that you'd feel the freedom to do that. And look, it's important to say that when people are talking about dreams, they're different kinds of dreams. There's some dreams that, you know, I had too much. cheese before I went to sleep and anxiety dreams.

But there are some dreams I've had at least two in my life that rise to another level that seem somehow genuinely significant. Did the two dreams that you're sharing, one about being in hell and the other about being in heaven, did they seem at the time to be significant or did they just seem like dreams? I mean, how do they seem to? I mean, well, I know what you mean. And that's why I love your book, To Shet of Water, so much. that you describe one of those dreams so beautifully, that's kind of a transcendental dream.

And, you know, Jung would say would agree with you. Some dreams are really from your higher self or the collective unconscious and others are just like, yeah, an anxiety dream or, you know, an indigestion dream and so on. And they're different. I think you can feel that they're different. They did seem significant, but not like, oh, my God, I'm having a, you know, a Virgil type experience, just more like pay attention. And I guess the reason I bring them up right now is that I think a lot of people, if there is an awakening and people's response to my essay on Substack about God, does, you know, they are saying that they see a lot of people kind of waking up and looking for God in these times because of this evil.

But I think that what we're realizing, having been locked in our homes, driven to communicate through electronics, forbidden to hug or worship or kiss, I think a lot of us are realizing that was God. Like we, as someone said, we had it all, you know, and it was in each other. It was like heaven on earth. Or I like the expression that Jesus uses the kingdom of heaven, you know. Maybe it's just like us being nice to each other. I mean, maybe literally that is the kingdom of heaven, us being able to embrace, to connect, to worship, together, to feed each other. You know, the Jewish focus on Sabbath and breaking, you know, breaking bread together, having a meal together. All those things may be forbidden in the last two years for a reason because that's where we experience God in our day.

lives. Well, I mean, that's all beautiful. And I think to add to it, we have to say that if people just think life is about being nice or God is about being nice, you understand that there are, in fact, wicked forces at war with those beautiful ideas and these beautiful things. And that we have to pay a price, and people have paid the ultimate price to fight so that we could have these things. The Nazis, wiped out millions of people and many Americans have died to preserve these basic things that many of us, and again, I think it goes along with what we've been talking about, people of our generation, in a sense, have been so spoiled, so blessed that we've taken these things for granted. We have forgotten that things can go wildly, dramatically wrong in this other direction.

We didn't think things could go wrong in this direction. We only thought that they could go wrong in this direction. And the reality is that we are in a spiritual battle and that, you know, whether you believe in a literal heaven or hell, I mean, I certainly do. But the point is that this is a spiritual battle when you have kids. You know, you don't need to be an outspoken, declared a Christian or Bible believer to know that there's something beautiful. and sacred about a child. And these are things that I think you see them as you grow older, but then you realize that there are forces that want to say, no, no, no, there is no God, there's nothing transcendent. We emerged out of the primordial suit by accident. And all of that

is just, you know, built into you by evolution, all those feelings and all it. They're totally meaningless. But I think most of us know, no, they're not meaningless. There's something there. and maybe it's when those things are taken away that I realized that there was something there and that there's something more than just something, that it's kind of leading me to think about God. Where can people find this article that you wrote, by the way? I want to be clear before we go. Oh, it's on Naomi Wolf's Substack, my new substack, and also on Daily Cloud. So, you know, I think the discussion about those who believe we emerged out of primordial soup,

and those who don't is an important one. And it was waged in good faith in the middle of the 19th century. Agreed. Agreed. Serious discussions about that. But I think when you were talking, I realized one of the things we were encouraged at Yale and subsequently in the left elite to make fun of

was the idea that anyone could believe in Satan or the devil, right? That was one of those ignorant, redneck, you know, low-life beliefs. that sophisticated people didn't believe in. And I keep thinking, Chesterston's, you know, the greatest trick Satan accomplished was to persuade people that he didn't exist.

And again, coming from a Jewish perspective, we don't have that developed idea of Satan, as I mentioned. But we do have a discourse about dark forces, and we do have a figure called the accuser in Job.

And, you know, absolutely, up until, like, the post-war period, rabbis wrestled with, you know, Yetzer-haha, Oh, which means the bad inclination and yet sort of Tov, the good inclination. And, you know, absolutely there were dark forces and we understood that. So it's, I guess it's really interesting to me that the kind of focus, like who's allowed to speak, right?

Intellectuals who are skeptical or atheistic have more cultural cachet in our world. They get published more easily. They get taken more seriously, you know, than intellectuals who are like, Ah, you know, maybe there is this pull toward the divine. And I just can't help thinking about all those writers who were represented by, you know, my former agent and who many of them, you know, that group was funded by Jeffrey Epstein, right? One of the most demonic guys alive. And they were, they were, you know, I think of Richard Dawkins. You know, God bless him.

I know him. But he is the ultimate intellectual in our culture. and he's the ultimate intellectual because he's all about God doesn't exist. Well, do you have four more minutes? Can we keep you to the next segment? Are you okay? Okay. I just was going to say that I couldn't bear to read Dawkins' books or Hitchens' books

just because they struck me as being just pure vitriol and anecdotal, you know, unworthy of their intellects, basically. And in writing my new book, I was forced to read some of their stuff. and I was confirmed in my thinking that they are, you can be brilliant in one field and be foolish in another. I mean, Freud's Moses and monotheism proves that. There's certain people that they're out of their depth. But what they write sells a lot of books. We'll be right back.

Final segment with Naomi Wolfe. Hey, folks, I'm talking to Naomi Wolf. Naomi, thanks for your time. I just want to say, you know, we're talking about the big questions. And I think that is the thing that while we were at Yale, I think it was friends. on not just to talk about the devil. It's like this medieval thing we make fun of or to talk about people who believe in God. You know, they're always, you know, wild-eyed, religious fanatics. But the very idea that we should talk about the big questions, what is the meaning of life. That was also

sneered at as though only stupid people, you know, who live in Middle America would talk about that. We know that life has no meaning and we're going to make the best of it with our arch, Rye, jokes and with our success and we're too smart to get sucked into conversations about meaning. That's for suckers. I think that was part of the subtext as well. And I think it doesn't serve you well beyond the undergraduate period. But here we are. I totally agree with you.

I do want to be sure to caution one thing. How can I put this? Please don't be offended. But I think that the believing side also. created a perfect storm for this because, you know, they're on the believing side sometimes, and I found this with my discussions with my Orthodox Jewish friends, but certainly with, you know, very, very fundamentalist Christian friends. There can be rigidity in orthodoxy there. There can be judgment. The numbers of times people have told me you can't know God unless you go through Jesus

Christ, which honestly I find kind of not very Christ-like to say, you know, it's not very inclusive. It's not very respectful. the harsh approach to Islam, you know, there's a lot of, I mean, the kind of certain obtusenesses in the believing community allowed a construction of a posture that we were definitely taught that if you're smart and critical, you don't go through that door, which I look, I don't mean to surprise you, but not only am I not offended, I agree with you. And I've seen it.

And I have not seen that kind of theological hidebound lockstep until I became a Christian. And then I was exposed to it, and I thought, my goodness, I grew up in a world where everybody's secular. And so to me, anybody wants to talk about God, that's all good. And then you'd find people in that world doing some of this stuff we're talking about, shunning you if you dared to question this or question that. Or, you know, or maybe also what it is is that they're, they, I think that they make an idol of theology. In other words, they're less worshiping God than theology. theology, and it's all about theology, and, you know, theology is a good thing, but if you worship it, you will die. And so, yeah, no, I've seen that, too. There's no, there's no question. I think that's the larger

conversation we're having. You can go wrong in any direction, but beware that you can go wrong in any direction. And if you think that secularism is safe, you will eventually realize it's not. Not so safe. I mean, may I end on a really happy note, which is I'm really attracted intellectually to Jesus as a rabbi. I think if you just take a lot of his words, you know, as a Jew, I'm just saying as a Jew, like out of the theological context, not to offend anyone, that's a guy who really was willing to talk and listen to anyone and welcome anyone on their faith journey at any level they were, finding them wherever they were. I can't imagine him saying you have to do it just this way, or I'm going to reject you. Well, that, I mean, that opens up a larger conversation,

but a good and important conversation. Because I do think that when somebody says, let's say Jesus is the only way to the Father, right? Even that, you want to say, okay, and what do you mean by that? You mean, you mean I have to say the specific prayer or I have to do this or that? Being able to talk about what one means by that or what that might mean, a lot of people don't want to have that conversation. Just to join Naomi to catch up a little bit.

I want to encourage people to check you out. And they can find you at Daily Clout, I guess. And you have a place at Substack. Great to be with you. Thank you so much, Naomi. Thank you so much, Eric. It's always wonderful to talk to you.