The Sean McDowell Show - Why Todd McFarlane Denies God (But “Loves” Spider-Man, His Family, and Life)

Episode Date: September 9, 2025

Todd McFarlane is a legend in the comic world—co-creator of Venom, record-breaking Spider-Man artist, and the mind behind Spawn. But what does he really think about God? In this candid conversation, Todd opens up about his journey, his doubts, and why he once said, “I will never believe in God.” We also dive into creativity, comics, and the deeper questions behind the stories that shape culture. *Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA (https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf) *USE Discount Code [SMDCERTDISC] for 25% off the BIOLA APOLOGETICS CERTIFICATE program (https://bit.ly/3AzfPFM) *See our fully online UNDERGRAD DEGREE in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics: (https://bit.ly/448STKK) FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter: https://x.com/Sean_McDowell TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sean_mcdowell?lang=en Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmcdowell/ Website: https://seanmcdowell.org Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

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Do you respect Jesus? I don't think he is this. So what's the rule? I play sports. I play sports. This is another reason I can't go there because nobody's told me how the rulebook works. Let me come back to the rule book. All I'm saying is when we say, yeah, I did that.

Why does he need me to bend the knee? He doesn't need you to do. Okay. Then why does he punish me for not doing it then? Anything. You said you're going to your grave, not believe in a God. It's a never. It's a never.

It's a never. Can't go there. Here's why I can't go there. Todd McFarlane is one of the most successful and influential comic book creators over the past half century. Creating both Venom and Spawn. Co-creator. Venom. A venom.

Co-creator. Transforming the storyline and artistry of Spider-Man in the 1990s when I started collecting. Created McFarlane Toys, one of the top action figure manufacturers in the U.S. Your collector of record-breaking baseballs, which is fascinating. A devoted father. and husband married your high school sweetheart. I married my high school sweetheart as well. I thought that was kind of fun.

Okay. And you're an atheist, which will particularly interest my audience. Oh, that's cool. We'll come back to some of that. We're going to spoil your beliefs about God, the afterlife, the supernatural. I want to start with your backstory, but first off, honestly. Okay, and before we get gone, can I just add, don't be shy in this interview, right? Because I think I watched the interview with you and Rob or something.

Yep. And one of your comments was that somebody said, I wish you had pushed him a little bit more, right? So push. Okay. Right? Today, today's a push. I got, I'm good. I got thick skin. I'm good. Like, let's make this. I don't want one comment to go, Sean, you didn't push him enough, right? Okay. That's it. Fair enough. All right. You call it at the beginning. I love it. We'll jump in there and we'll get to that. Sure, sure. First thing I do, I just want to personally thank you because I love, I started, with Spider-Man in the early 90s. And the way you drew Spider-Man, I bought this issue 300,

just like it right off the newsstand, just captivated me the amount of joy you brought me. I brought my sons today. Yeah, I met them earlier. Yeah. So you brought more joy than I can even calculate. So I just want to start by saying, thanks for what you doing, for who you are.

Well, I appreciate that, Sean. Let me tell you, though, that what you're saying was the exact same thing that happened to me when I was collecting and buying, right? Like I was being inspired on a lot of different level by books that I was buying, and the person drawing it was thousands of miles away. They were never going to meet me.

I never met any of them. They had no idea that this work that they're doing in their room by themselves was impacting people. So it's always interesting when you do it, because I relate to it, not from like, oh, thank you, you know, because my 15 minutes of fame has lasted too long, but I'm going, I get it because if I hadn't met some of the people I wish I could have, I would have said the same thing, right?

That they were paying it forward and not knowing it. And so we're all doing it in an odd way, right? And the things that people thank me for, I have to tell you to some extent, they were for selfish reasons, right? I was in a room, isolate it and I needed to entertain myself. And so I wasn't thinking of anybody else at that moment when I was drawn other than me getting through the grind of a 12 to 16 hour day, work day, five, six days a week, right?

Just getting the work done. Luckily, whatever it was it was entertaining me went on to entertain other people. There was the luck. There is the luck that came in that piece of my evolution. Well, I appreciate that humility about. out of the fact is that you created it we got a lot of joy so thanks for doing it sure let's let's start with your family tell me a little about your family grown up kind of who they were and how they shaped you um dad still alive 90 90 years old um is the man that I would like to be remembered as

right he's just a good when when I was younger and I go hey who's like if you can be if you be one person, but like it was always dad, right? It was always that. Not a slight to mom, but it was, it was that. He was hardworking. I thought he was honest. I thought he was fair-minded. And I rarely heard him criticize people.

He just went about his day and he was joyful. And he thought that making people smile was sort of part of what we should be doing. And he would show me real simple ways to do it. Just say hi to somebody when they're walking by, right? Tap on the window, give a wave, whatever. So, because my kids would do that. They go, dad, how come you say hi to everybody? You walk by, right? They don't know that it was your dad. Yeah, it was dad, right? It's like, well, why not? The answer is like, why not? Right. Like, somebody's walking by, the golden rule, right? Hey, how are you doing? They don't want to respond back. I don't get to control that. But it's just like, hey, how you don't? How's it going? Good.

So he was good. Mom, she was a homemaker. She had at the beginning, three boys. I have a brother a year younger, a brother, year older, and me. Now, I think any mom that has three male children that close at some point should get some kind of national recognition. I agree. Because I think it's exhausting. I think it's exhausting.

boys running around going crazy energy whatever i think mom's worst part of the year was summer break i got all three of them for how long and we were in california so it was three months uh at that part of california orange county and uh and then eventually moved up to san jose um and then later 10 years later had a uh a sister that came along she's out in burbank um so and my mom. She, she was mom, right? She was good. And she passed away during the pandemic, right? One of those stories, again, don't begrudge anybody. I assume everybody was doing what they wanted, but we couldn't get to the hospital. They weren't allowing visitors. And so, you know those stories where people were passing away alone? It's painful. Yeah. So, but, but again, it was, that was just where everybody

was at, right? And so she's no longer here. And then my in-laws, both of them are gone, too. So dad's the only one hanging tough right now. My dad's 86, and similarly, he's my hero. Take more from him from anybody else. And I do little things. The older I get, I'm like, that comes from my dad, like even small things, like you described saying hi. What is it, what is it about comics that you love? Now, I've heard you say you use the term love, you reserve it. So you can qualify this however you want to, either passionate about what you like. What is it about love, use whatever word you want to for comics? I like them a lot.

We'll just stay there. I like them a lot, right? Like in dumb and dumber. And you're right. And it's a silly thing. We all have our little quirks. My quirk is I do. I reserve the word love for my wife and my children.

And everything's house sort of go, like, because I can't. use the sentence. I love pickles. I can't use it. And I know when I have this conversation with people in my own family, you know, I'm going to. So somebody walks in, you've met them for three seconds. You go, oh, I love your dress. You just threw that work.

Like, you love me and you love the stranger's dress. And three, I've given you 50 years. But what everybody will always say is, Todd. It's a different kind of love. I'm with you. I understand it. Then from my perspective, use a different word. Fair enough.

Don't use the same word that somebody is giving you decades and decades of their devotion to. That you just go, I'm going to equate it to pickles. Right? Can't do it. So what do I... Before you tell me why you love or not love, deep people care about, like a lot, comics. My dad, if I said when I was a kid, I loved pizza, he'd go, you like pizza, you love your mom. That's it.

That's the same thing. That's the idea he's getting up. We just get into goofy things in our head. That's a fair distinction. Tell us why you deeply like comics. I'll tell you why I deeply like comic books, because I think it's a medium. And I didn't know this.

Why? Again, let's just sort of back up a little bit. The definition of art that I agree with is for people. I don't know what art is, but I know what I like. Like, you don't have to explain to people why some kind of art moves you and one doesn't. If I take 10 people and I go to the museum and there's a gallery going of paintings and I say go stand in front of the painting that you think is the best, moves you the most, whatever it is. Go stand and if you're going to take one home, go stand in

front of it. They might stand in front of, I'm sure, 10 different paintings and none of them are wrong. It's right for them, right? So art is just, I like it. And we shouldn't have to really sort of, people shouldn't have to explain why they like art. So for me, but as I got older, the one component that I sort of understood intellectually was that it was a combination of words and pictures. And that's not really true. It's not true for novels. That's just all words. TV and movies are pictures, right? And the words are being spoken, so you're not reading it, right? And so that combo of words and pictures is sort of unique to comic strips in the old days and comic books. So I think it's just its own sort of neat form of art over there, right?

I better be the director, the writer, the actor, the special effects person all at once when I'm putting it all together. And that one image mixed with those words has to convey what is in my head as much as possible. Otherwise, it becomes a sort of a confusion to the person at the other end. Do you have an opinion on whether beauty, which a lot of art is about, is subjective or is objective? And what I mean by that is this is what philosophers debate in terms of beauty. Because you describe, like, somebody being at, say, an art place, an art museum, that piece moved to me, fine, this piece moves somebody else. But if someone's like a piece of dirt moves me and Michelangelo moves me, is it like,

you know what, if you're not moved by Michelangelo, something's not functioning right inside of you. That's beautiful. Do you have an opinion on that? I do, and here's what I would say. I think it's both. And here's what, like, art, just the act, just the look, just the visual of art,

I think is completely subjective. How you then use that art past that. So for us in a comic book, I need you to pick up this cover. I need you to pick up this book. I need you to buy this item. So how do I entice you? And now we're getting away from the subjective.

We're actually trying to manipulate to some extent. It's called marketing. And you put it together and then you start using, if you have it, you start using data points. And you start going, okay, when I do these five things, we seem to get a bump. And when I do these other five things, people don't care. So you start understanding a little bit about,

at that current time, and here's the frustrating thing, John, that data shifts because it can be trends and fads and the swapping out of the audience as they age out and new people come in. So you're constantly regressing because everything's a calculated guess at best. And so that's it. So when you put it together, the choice of me using, in this case, green, that was calculated, right? So again, whether somebody goes, oh, green's my favorite color, that wasn't why I was doing it. I was doing it for a specific reason, right? The big bombastic of what's on the page, that's up to the reader themselves to go, I like it or I don't like it, right?

But we have to hook you at least, let's just stay with Congress, we have to hook you here on the country. It's interesting. They always go, don't judge a book by its cover. You know that thing mom tells you? I know. Of course. What are you talking about? Of course we do that.

We do it all the time. And in comic books, 100%. This is 100%. Totally. Those are two of my favorite covers. I ask about beauty because one of the reasons many philosophers put forth for the existence of God is like beauty that's built into the world. So if it's subjective, then it's just something that's entirely preference. If it's objective, like it's in the world itself, it would seemingly point towards maybe a painter.

So like I look at a waterfall or a mountain, I'm like, that's beautiful within itself. Sure. And if somebody doesn't recognize that, most of us would say, I'm not sure they're functioning correctly by not seeing that beauty, which to me points towards something transcendent. How do you see it? I think I'm going to guess for everybody. Like the beauty is around us every day.

It's just a matter of whether we want to give it credit, right? So you're right. I can sit on a beach and watch the old. ocean break, right? And it's serene and it's calming and it's soothing and I can do it for hours, right? I can take a song, my wife can't do this, but I can take a song when I'm writing and put it on a loop and I can listen to it 200 times in a row while I'm writing, right? Because it just gets me into a zone or whatever else. So I yeah, I mean, we like, marketing wise, we like to try and tell the world what beauty is, especially for the female form, right? And I think it's aggravating to some extent. I agree.

I think it's done a lot of harm to the expectations of young women. But beauty's in the eye of the beholder, right? Right? That's like, shoot, I think my wife's the most beautiful woman on the planet. I don't need anybody else to agree with that. I'm good. I'm good. good with my observation of that. It might not be true, but it's an observation. I'm good with it. So one more point in this, because you're artists, and then we'll keep moving on. It was interesting to use the term credit.

Like when I look at the world and I look, I live near the beach in Southern Orange County. I'll go look at the waves. Same thing. It's like, man, that is beautiful. Yeah. Look at the mountains here in Southern California. Look at a waterfall. Look at certain pieces of art.

Just like I give you credit for making this art, I look at the world and I go, man, I give God credit for that because there didn't have to be sunset, there didn't have to be beautiful oceans. You obviously do it differently. Yeah, I do. Just say, so when you say give it credit, what do you mean by that? I'm saying give credit that exists. Like, it's right there.

If you look at it, your own family's right there, right? Don't take them for granted, I guess, is the thing. Don't take things for granted. So, yes, I enjoy probably a lot of the same beauty you do. The difference, the difference probably, and we'll dive into it a little bit deeper, the difference between you and I, I don't have any want or need to know the origin of that beauty. I'm disinterested in that piece, right? So I can just enjoy the beauty for the sake of the beauty that day, going cool.

So where's a tree come from? Don't know. I can look at trees all day long. Don't need to know more than that. And I enjoy looking at trees. All right. We'll come back to that. What makes you different?

Why have you had so much success in different realms? And a lot of people don't know you play Division I, baseball, aspirations to play professionally. So you've had success in like maybe left brain and right brain areas. What makes Todd McFarlane different? All right. I'm going to disavow that. I'm going to disavow it.

I don't think I am different. I think I'm just Todd. This is the piece. This is the piece. that and again, it's always interesting when you do interviews because you have to really sort of psychoanalyse yourself. Most people during the day don't. They just live their life, right?

Sean, I can tell you with 100% honesty, there's never been a day in my memory. If I close my mind, I go back as far as I can, which is about kindergarten. I have clear recollection of the kindergarten. I don't have a single recollection of not being the way that I am. so and I'm gonna I'm gonna assume my mom not here but I know if she was she would have backed it up that I only can go back to five from from zero to five she would have gone oh yeah oh yeah I think I think this is just me out of the womb it's just the DNA it's personality obviously environment sort of shifts and does things around you but personality I it's the for me Sean

it's the one thing when I was younger and I'm talking about my 20 these 30s, it was the one piece I didn't give enough weight to, personality. Because some people are aggressive, extroverts, introverts, passive, conservative, like all these words we come up with. Some of it can be taught. Some of it can be taught. But inherently, it's personalities, and it's the one thing that I've gotten older that I now give a lot of weight to. I can create the blueprint. I can take the horse. I can drag the horse to the water. I can even shove the horse's head in the water. If the horse doesn't want to drink, nothing I can do about it. So when I used to coach at a high level, every year I sort of say the same thing to the parents.

Parents, look, there's three things I can't teach your kid. Can't teach them to throw harder. You can coach them up a little bit, but I mean, they either have or they don't. Can't teach them to run faster. Again, that's just inherent. I can get them, if they're average, I'll get them above average. But they're never going to be Hussein Bolt. And it's the last piece, the one you and mom and dad, you don't want to accept it.

I can't get your kid to care. They either love what they're doing. They're either going to work hard. They either hear for a reason that like just like or they're going through the motions. And no matter how many lectures I give,

it's either there or it's not. You keep thinking they're going to grow into it. I promise you they won't. I promise you they won't. They're either fire eaters and they chew glass. My daughter is one of them, right? It takes after, oh man, or they don't. And I've got children, my son and my wife, they're not glass eaters, which is okay.

Yeah, it's just different. I'm not even saying one's, I don't advocate one over the other. I'm just going personality, fact. actors into life in a bigger way than I had imagined when I was a young man. Fair enough. So you came out of the womb, competitive, driven, creative, risk-taking. And with two brothers? They just, they just, it multiplied. What are you talking about? Some combination of nature and nature. Everything with the competition. When you've got two brothers, everything's a competition. Let's go. Yep. One of things, there's a lot of things I think you

have in common, but I talk a lot about my wife and I talk a lot about my kids. Hence I brought two of my boys today. Yes, I got to meet them. They're good. And they're great kids. And I love them. And I would use that word in the way that you described. How did becoming a father change you, your worldview, the trajectory of your life? Wow. I don't know if I made notes at that point. Here's, here's I do know this. And again, not to diminish. And I'll get back to your question. Sure. Having my first child, my first daughter named cyan, named after color blue. After the character, yeah?

No, after color, wow, no. Oh. After the color blue. You named the character after her, after the color. Color blue, which is part of printing, because my dad was in the printing business. Okay. Right? The four colors are black, yellow, magenta, and cyan. Cyan is blue.

Magenta is what people would call red. But the official term is yellow, black, cyan, and magenta. So we named our daughter, cyan. Anyway, I knew I was going to be a, father and that's when I left Marvel Comics. Right. And part of it was because what had sort of precipitated me getting to that point. And here's the piece, the unknown.

I'd never been a father. I didn't know what it was going to be. I didn't know how much time I was going to take. I knew nothing. So I went, all right, here's a good of time as I need to make a bit of a life chance. because I was going into the unknown and we'll just see where it takes it. So the plan was at that point because I had had this odd moment, which was the, you know, the straw breaking the camel's back.

And I said I quit. I'm done. Oh, by the way, my daughter's going to be born here. Was that the juggernaut story? Okay, we can come back to that. But my daughter's going to be born in a couple weeks. I'm going to finish his book. I'm done.

That was, and that was the last book I ever drew. my daughter came two days early from what the doctor and I'm always amazed how close the doctors can get but she came two days early so I wasn't done because I'm really good at deadlines I'm okay I'm finished on this day my daughter's going to be born the next day everything's going to be cool she came two days early so I went up to the hospital everything was cool I had to finish those last two pages if you and if you look I'm I know it nobody else knows but the last two pages I did was a double page spread which is two pages put together had the juggernaut on it, he's in it, and then he's bending over, there's a lot of destructions, a bent over post, and it's, I think, whatever, 42nd Street and Cyan.

Right, that was the names of the street. And I colored them in cyan blue. So my daughter's one day old, and I go, what? Okay, I'm going to put her name in my last comic book and put it on there. But being a dad, the piece that was the scary part, and hopefully you can relate to it, is knowing, like, The scariest moment for me in being a parent was with our first child, and they give you the baby, and they let you leave the hospital. 100%. And now, like, you're looking at your wife, because she has the same.

Yeah. And first off, you're going, do we have the baby strapped in right? So you're already starting the process. And you're going, this baby is completely dependent upon us, and we have no playbook. all right let's just see how long this goes right so i get like that it it literally is dependent upon our decision making good bad or indifferent and it was like all right time to start paying attention to a lot of things in the world that you didn't pay attention to when it was just you on your own and or you and your wife or your significant other when it was just you're carefree right here we go so

That's it. Just being, having to, sad, I think what it is for me, I just had to mature. And for a guy with my personality, that was a bit of a steeper hill than my wife who came a lot more natural. Which is part of the purpose of parenting, arguably, to mature us. I remember the moment, not when they hand me the baby, but when we, because they, you know, put my son 21 years ago into the car seat, like, okay, we're driving home, we can do that. We walked in the house. We're like, what do we do? I remember that like it was yesterday.

And you just take one step at a time and you figure it out. Yeah. Now, can I add one thing about parents, just if there's any young kids here? Because I think they miss a little bit because I missed it when my parents were trying to do it to me. Is that when they try to give you advice at times or they do it, you're just like, especially when you're teenagers, you get a little ornery. And I did. I was the most obstinate teenager they're wrong. what I found out later what they were trying to do

and what my wife and I tried to do is not to paint the future for them, not to tell them what's right and wrong, but to block the dead ends behind us. I'm old enough, my wife's old enough to know, we know where the dead ends are. So if my kids come and they say, hey, dad, I'd like to be president of the United States.

I can't help them with that, really. I've never been the president. Don't know how that works. Here's what I can help you with. I can tell you how not to be the president of the United States. If you want to go down that alley and you want to be a wife-beater and you want to be a drug addict and you want to be a couple other things, I promise you, you will never be the president in the United States, right?

So turn around the future is that direction. And I think that's all good people try to do, especially parents, is we're just blocking the places where you and I have driven over potholes, and we know there's potholes there. and just like, turn around, you go find your future. You don't want to go there. I promise you a son-daughter. Like, that's a, that's a wasted direction. Go and do the best you can.

So that's it. So we're not trying to define your life. We're just trying to prevent some unneeded time and a little bit of pain at times, emotions that are not necessary. Because we went through it. We went through the fires. That's a good word. I love it.

Now, I'm going to sidetrack for some. second here. It's just going to bug me. I'm going to wake up at midnight and think about it. He said there's a marketing story behind why Spott was written green. What's the reasoning why it's, or drawn green as opposed to some other color? Two, two real simple ones. And again, let me tell you, don't overthink stuff. I always tell my, my, my employees will tell you, I'm always saying, stop overthinking it, right? Like, I can tell you that rarely in my life has my gut been wrong. instincts are amazingly accurate.

When we let the brain and the heart get in the way, right? That's when we start getting goofy. Number one, I knew he's going to have a big red cape. Okay. Right? And then I knew he was going to have green power. So I go, okay, I want to do something that's complimentary. Why?

Just so that I'm not distracting people with three different things. I don't want to put a color here that is either going to compete with the red. Like if I use purple or blue, I don't want to use a darker color. I need something that's going to come out and pop. and oh by the way since I knew it was going to be green and red Christmas colors people recognize Christmas colors right like what are you talking about like that quick so there at least the color palette sometimes I'll use sports color palettes right going well that's a Denver Broncos blue and orange right like you just you pick colors that people recognize yellow green oh okay that's Green Bay Packers that's Oakland A's that's like there's a lot of sports team that use that so things that people recognize and oh by the way white would have worked strikingly while here because big corporations, Fortune 500 corporations have done data that says the easiest read of anything on a billboard or on a label, red background, white letters. They've got data that backs it up.

And if they try any other one, that's the one that people go to. Why? I don't know. Maybe it's just the most pretty to look at, whatever. But it's clear. For me, when I'm doing art on the outside, I need, I have what I call a three-second rule or the mom rule, whatever one you, which is I go, mom, one, two, three. What did you see? Shouldn't have to be accurate, but she needs to be in the ballpark. And she needs to go,

it looked like there was a dinosaur and some people running and it looks like it was called spam or something, whatever. Like I'm going, good, she got those three pieces, right? I constantly, anybody out there do yourself a favor one day, look at billboards. I constantly, I constantly, look at billboards. I think 95% of billboards are horrible because you can't read them. They don't pass the mom quickly. They don't, because I

I'm looking the whole time. I'm actually trying to read it. I'm in the passion industry. I'm trying to read it. And I'm like, I don't even know what they're selling. You wasted your money. I don't even know what you're selling. The best billboards I've seen and they're there is the one that says, 96.5,

half the billboard. soft rock. That's a San Diego station. Let's go. But I'm just saying in two seconds you go soft rock on I6 FM. I don't like soft rock. Then don't buy it, but you know it that quick. And here's the flaw too of things where sometimes I get credit in my career that I'd go, why? If I had a billboard company, every time somebody's done it a billboard, I'd make it, show it to me at six inches wide.

Because do this trick, ladies and gentlemen. Next time you drive by a billboard, take your finger, your thumb and your middle finger, and expand your fingers to the point of where the maximum size of that thing is. I promise you, even when it's at your side window, it won't be more than the width that you can spread your fingers. It will never be more than seven inches big. I don't know why they're trying to look at it on a computer and trying to design something. They're thinking about it as being 25, 40 feet. intellectually, which is what it is, the human eye is only going to see it at seven inches.

Designed something that reads at seven inches and then go from there. But that's me. We're getting into art theory, but go. No, I love it. Good stuff. I'm curious how much you put yourself in your characters. And some things that jumped out to me is in episode four, he describes Spawn as an atheist, and then again in a later character.

He either played baseball or has interest in baseball. He's got family values. Jack Kirby said this appeared in. the at the end of the Fantastic Four movie. He said, if you look at my characters, you find me. No matter... Need a daily spark of hope and direction? Let the Daily Bible app from Salem Media be that spark.

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Share inspiring messages with loved ones right from the app. Feel God's presence in every notification. Search for Daily Bible app on Google Play and begin your day with hope, purpose, and peace. What kind of character you create or assume, a little of yourself must remain there. So kind of two-part question. How much do you put yourself or your friends and your characters? and is there any character that at least is the closest to Todd McFarley? Shoot, this is easy, dude.

I try as much to put people that I've either met, whether they're strangers, momentary, friends, whatever. I mean, we have to come up with hundreds and hundreds of characters over decades of a career. So, look, I haven't invented anything new. I just take what I've seen in my life and I just distill it and put it in and put it in there. But if you're asking the other question, Spawn is me, period. Out. Like, look, there are a couple things.

Location, location, location, and stick to what you know, right? I stick to what I know, who I know. I know Todd. I am an expert on him and no other human being on the planet, not even my wife, right? So, yeah, so I go, okay, so it becomes real easy then, Sean. I just go, okay, if I was spawn and I was that guy, And I've added some things that are not me, right? Like I was never in the military and whatever else and all those other things.

Sure. So I just go, I go, what would I do in this moment? And then I get him, I get him to react in those moments, which is why some of the early stuff he did was sort of personal to him, right? There's one time he needs to go get some information early in the game and then he takes somebody. And then before he leaves, he takes the guy and he says, go pay your alimony. Right? like how dare you how dare you he didn't I didn't write this but how dare you have children and abandon them and not pay your wife to support your children right

again he just left he didn't do anything more than that just hoping he'd scare the guy into being a man right like that's your duty right like come on man step up so and that the character that the spawned character laments about the most In the book is his ex-wife. Her name's Wanda. My wife's name Wanda. Not an accident. Of course.

The baby that they have is Sian. My first daughter, Sian, not an accident, right? So I don't know. Terry Fitzgerald, I saw. Yeah. So like, look at, at some point, it's your book. This is the great thing about doing something that you do on your own in your own time with your own money.

Is that you get to do whatever you want. And to some extent, nobody gets any input. This is the great freedom. of I just and like people come up to me now we're up to I just sent issue 368 to the printers yesterday

and I know a lot of my peers think I'm a crazy man because they like go I do 20 issues like Todd what are you doing like Robert Kirkman who invented the walking dead an invincible huge fan

I got it so I remember having a conversation with Robert and he quit he canceled the walking dead I think at issue 193 I'm like, why would you go to 200? Come on, you can get this anniversary. And he's like, Todd, I wanted to quit 70 issues ago. He goes, and he knew I was getting close to 300. He goes, if I had to do another 110 issues, I'd put a poker in my eye.

Like, I'm not built like you, I don't know what you do. Here's why it works for me. And again, this is personality. Yeah, that's fair. I deal with a world in which there are agendas, especially from adults, which is why I adore children. I just hang out and why I try to be immature because I just like that they don't have agendas.

But I can have sort of a really bad day dealing with corporation, dealing with people who have power over me, dealing with this. Because again, if I'm making a toy of Superman, they get to dictate to me, not the other way around. And so all these things I'm doing with,

but at the end of the day, I've got this shining light besides my family, my wife. I got this shining light in my career, and it's called Spawn. And it's standing there with this light glowing down on it, and it just says, you can do whatever you want with that. And you don't have to get anybody's permission today, Todd. Go. And so for people who think that doing 350 issues of Spawn has been an effort, it's the opposite. It actually has been good medicine for a guy like me. I need this book in my life because I need certain things for my personal comfort.

This book has been one of those. So creatively. So you describe Al Simmons as basically being you. And that makes sense that you could write storylines and react out of instinct based on who you are. You also describe some of the storylines as like certain characters, people who abandon their family. and you're kind of making a moral point, like, how dare you? How much do you weave in your books, like how you see the world, ideas about how society should be better, versus entertainment? Is it one or the other? Is it both? How do you balance those?

Yeah, it is a balance, Sean. It is. I don't think that anybody should get preachy in entertainment, but it's, impossible not to bring your own personal biases to what you that are things that you either believe or don't believe in or whatever else and you put them in and you try to do it for me I try to do it in a way that it's as entertaining as possible that's the balance and if you if you if you go too far one way or the other you risk losing a certain portion of the audience but but let's talk about just for a minute if I can deviate here. Sure. I don't need, and there's been a big, big misconception for a lot of people with a lot of people

who try to sell stuff, but for me, let's just stay with me because that's all I can talk to you today about, is I don't need everybody to like or agree with what it is that I'm doing. That's never been the goal. The goal has been, can I get enough people to enjoy it? so that I can make a living so that I can do it again tomorrow. And if I can figure out that trick, and it's been 40 years now, I've had a 40-year career, and maybe I've got enough momentum.

If I pay attention, I might be able to basically go to my grave being creative and being able to control that creativity that's in there. So I need enough. And so the question isn't that what I do, I check with the audience. I never check with the audience. Let me just be clear.

I never check with the audience. No, no, no, I don't. Because the audience is already telling me by the sales. They're already voting. They're already giving me their comment. I did these three things, sales doubled. I did these three things sales went in half. I have to be smart enough to be able to simulate

what of those pieces may have actually been the up or the down of those sales. and try to either stay away from it in the future or replicate it and try and see if you can get another bounce another day. So on the comic book, on the comic book front, I'm trying to write, because what am I gonna do? I mean, I've created, somebody told me the other day they did it count, there's 2,100 characters in the Spon comic book in the last 30 years.

Some of them are just doctors, lawyers, cops, whatever. Like, they're not all superhero. But every time you write a character, and here's the thing that's always weird for people, they don't understand, you have to actually sort of try and put yourself in their position. So, if I'm writing a serial killer, I try to get into that as deep as I can.

And sometimes people go, they look at me side-eye, and they're going, Todd, like, what, like, what do you? And I'm like, I'm not, whole sec, I'm not advocating to be a serial killer. Of course. But if I'm writing a serial killer, better be convincing.

It's the same exercise as when I do, a doctor. I'm not advocating for people to be doctors, right? I'm just saying it better be a convincing doctor when I'm writing them. And so all I can do is go, okay, if I was a doctor in my limited knowledge, or I ask people, how would I get there? So I just do it. Obviously, I can't ask about serial killer, so you just make it up, right? You go, if I was serial killer. And that's the piece. I think they're going, Todd, you're thinking about this way, way, way, way too much. So anyway, so I put, I put, maybe some, maybe a lot. I don't know, I guess it depends on people's definition of what a lot is of my personal thoughts. Okay, the whole concept, let's just

talk about the whole concept of spawn, right, as a whole, right? It's got this giant heaven, hell element to it, right? Which is weird. Could people like, what? You're an Athew? Well, of course, I think it has to be a guy like me because somebody who is really devout would, I think, second guess themselves. I think they would overthink it. I think. think they would go to bed, wondering. I don't believe I'm doing any blast from me because I don't prescribe to that piece of it. So, of course, it has to be me. So I go, okay, let's go. Al Simmons is just saying, and he's basically me, just saying, a pox on both your houses. Heaven and hell, be gone. We're flawed. We're human. You want to give us true free will. Get a

out of the way. Let us live our flawed lives as we see fit. Go. But they, but they don't. Obviously in my book, they don't. And so he's always in a constant sort of push and tug of both of them. And just so we know, in, in the book that I write, they're sort of the same thing just in different clothing, right? I always say it in my book, the difference is one just has a better PR firm, right? Just like one. But when you get down to the checklist, they both have the exact same goals, right? I would argue the same thing here in our real world. The goals are the same. So he's just saying, go, let us just be free. Let us just be free. That's all we want. He now knows that's impossible because he's seen it with his own eyes in the book. So now the question is,

and it's a tough one, because it would be me, a guy who disavowed all this forever, would go, wow. So there is something. The problem with him in the book is it's not what got taught in Sunday school. And that's where he's just like, oh, all right, now we've got to, I've got to keep up and I've got to recalculate all this on the fly because there can be, this may seem weird, there can be good demons and bad angels, right? It's this weird theology that I've created in my own book.

I can tell you how it works. But anyway, that's it. So his whole thing is just, we're flawed. Let us have true free will. Leave us alone. That's the freest you can make us. Leave us alone. Temptation.

Take temptation away. If Al wants heaven and hell to go away and you're Al, it sounds like you're saying a world without God. and the church and belief in the after life would be a better world. Is that fair? No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying...

Okay, tell me your same. No, no, no. What I'm saying is let people come to whatever it is that makes sense for them instead of creating the roadmap. And because the roadmap, once you start creating a roadmap, then that's where the gray matter and some of the chinks and the armor begin to come along the roadmap. way, right? That you just go, oh, now there's a blueprint. Now there's, now there's a rulebook

that we have to follow. Oh, I see. So now we've got to follow it. Now we don't have free will. We got to, there's this rule. That's not free will. Okay, fine. So now we start getting, we start narrowing people instead of going, people can let themselves narrow. Let them self narrow, let them come up with it. And again, I'm guessing that it would probably start all over again. an honest they shun. People would go and do it. Let me see if I can give you an epiphany. And I've never had that many.

But I did have one epiphany. So there's religion, and then you, I don't even know what you called me. There's atheists. Whatever is at the other extreme. No, no, no, no. You're misstating it. There's atheism.

And then there's like, go four miles. Keep going four miles? That's Todd. Like, I am so far away from the other end. it is like, again, do I think it's better or worse? No, it's good for me. I'm not advocating it for any other human being, not even my own children. I'm just going, I'm Todd. I have dominion over one life, me. This is how I choose to be. Everybody else, I'm with you, like the golden rule, good for you. I'll give you an epiphany, though. I was with my daughter. She was at med school,

and she was doing it in Israel, right? And she was living in the second biggest town city in Israel. It's called Bersheba, right? There's Tel Aviv, everybody knows Tel Aviv. Second biggest one is Bersheva. Bersheva is in the desert. I spent 30 years in Phoenix, Arizona, so I know the desert. And I went to go visit her one day, and then she said,

hey, dad, let's go to Jordan and let's go look at the sculptures, right? The sand sculptures that are there in Petra. I'm like, yeah, okay, cool. I have to tell you, Sean, I couldn't believe what I saw between Bersheva and the Jordan border. I live in a desert, and I felt like I was driving on the moon. There were times where it was devoid, it seemed to me, of life. I was on another planet. at least we've got cactuses in Phoenix

and then here's where the epiphany came I went oh my god so some young woman 2,000 years ago with three children between the ages of 1 and 4 had to cross this desert Vegas odds tell me three of those four children

will pass away before she gets to the other end and probably all four. All four. Because there's nothing out there, Sean. There's nothing out there. But she's trying to find a better life for her kids. And as she's holding her last child, taking his last breath, she has two choices.

She can either believe in something more than that moment and have hope. And that's what I think, is at its core, that one word, hope. Or, so you can believe in what I have, asher to ashes, dust to dust, you never seen your kids again. Between those two, I actually get it. And if I was there 2,000 years ago, I might have created religion myself, right?

Because hope is a generous thing to give somebody. So I understand religion at its core. That's it, because that woman asked, to say, I've never seen these kids have only had for a couple years. That's horrifying to me, to think. Give her some hope. Give her some hope. So we've got mechanisms to give people hope. Good. Nothing wrong with it. Nothing wrong with it. Cini religion offers hope, but it's actually about truth. Is it true or not? So if it's not true, then it's false hope. If it's really true, it gives genuine hope. Like that's the basic question.

Yeah. So you can argue about the truth of it. We can put that to the side for now. and talk about it a little bit and a little bit later. In that instance, I don't think we need to burden that woman with it at that point. I think we just have to give her the peace of mind, the peace of mind that this isn't as good as it gets. For her at that moment, if this is as good as it gets, wow, that's crummy life. That's a crummy life, right? My kids don't make it past five. I'm probably going to die at 23 myself.

I might not even make it out of the desert here. So I get, I get it, I get the clinging of it. What from my perspective has happened is the, the sense of hope is now turned into trying to say that it's also true. And that's, that's when you lose me. That P, oh, we crossed over a line. I check out, I don't, we all have brains. I consider them to be computers. I have different wiring and switches than you, right?

You and I turn some on or off, or I might not even have the switches or vice versa. So as curious as I may be to you and your audience, can I also say you guys are equally curious to me because I can't do what you do and you can't do what I do. I would really like some day to be able to just body swap, to just go, how does that work? Because I can't turn certain things off, Sean.

I can't. And you might go and go, how does that? is he not? Like it would be an interesting experiment to go, oh, that's interesting. That's cool. I don't know. It would be a good experiment, but it's never going to happen. So I have to live with one simple fact. The name's Todd only rhymes with God. That's all I got. I got me. I got me. I get to control me. Okay. So the question about hope and truth. There's a difference between the lady losing her child's and the dramatic scenario laid out. Fair enough. I think a lot of what she would conclude at that state would be things that she's brought to it from before, right?

Like she's lived a certain life and she has certain expectations whether she believes in God or not. Or her environment, right. The environment she was in. Sure, a host of factors. So if I hear you correctly, it sounds like you're saying you think religion is invented and it was some created. We needed hope, invented religion to fulfill that hope. Nothing wrong with that. Is that fair?

Yeah, nothing wrong with that. Again, I don't think people, I think 97, 98% of people don't act with malice. I think people do stuff, it might not work out, but people do stuff with good intent, right? So good intent, like I applaud good intent. Like, let's go. And then along the way, we see it in businesses, we see it in family interaction stuff, things sometimes get misinterpreted and distorted and whatever else. Here's, I think, a flaw that we have as adults.

when we're having conversation, you and I may have to do it a little bit here. I think we have to define certain words. Fair enough. Because there's too many subjective words when people are talking. And I think the problem that we have is adults at times that we're using our definition of a word and putting it on another person who grew up and has a different definition and it's not the same. So let's just talk about a couple of easy ones.

Big, smart, fast, you know, intelligent. Like you and I can go, if we're going to have a debate on any one of the those topics. Let's define first what big is to you. Tall. Sure. Is it, so some people, anybody over five, ten's tall. Not somebody else? No, you've got to be seven, six. So you have to define it. You have to define it because this is the piece I tell people I go, you actually think that human being you're talking to has lived the same experience as you. It's not true. If I was born in Alabama, I concede right now. I would probably think differently. Not better or worse, I would think differently.

Why? Born in Alabama. And there's a structure and an environment that's around me that's going to form certain thoughts. And if I was born in India or Pakistan, I would have even another sort of thought process. I can see it, right? I didn't. I grew up in whatever was the life that I've lived with what's around me, and that's sort of how I've distilled the world for me personally. So let me come back to the idea.

I think there's a lot of things in religion that makes sense that they're invented. I think we could point towards some. One of the reasons I'm a Christian, because I think there are certain factors that nobody in their right mind would invent. Things like the Trinity. Why would you invent that God is triune, for starters? Like it's difficult to understand. It stretches the mind.

Things like your... Wow. Sean. You haven't read some of my comic books then. Come on. You're selling yourself way, way short. Okay. If you think that stuff in the Bible is good stuff, like, dude, I'll come up with 10 times.

There's been a thousand people. We can come up. We can come up with crazy all day long, man. Okay, so there's difference between crazy. Not crazy. I mean, cool ideas. I'm sorry, my bad. But that assumes of Trinity is a cool idea that somebody's inventing.

My point is that's just one example. I would say things like the idea of a savior that comes, who's crucified shamefully, was the complete opposite of expectations. and would be the worst kind of marketing in a sense conceivable. Teachings of Jesus, like if you just look at a woman lustfully or have an angry thought, you are guilty of adultery or murder. There are certain things that are less than intuitive and not just crazy built in a Christianity. If you're going to make up a religion, die to yourself daily.

It's like, that's not exactly getting followers. If you want to be first, be last. So that's one of the things at least gives me pause to assume that it's just invented for hope. Give me your thoughts. You just said something that actually put a smile on my face. And so I'm going to applaud you for it because I can say that I've had conversations before with other people and they don't. You at least gave the phrase gives me pause. in all honesty

Sean when I've had any sort of meaningful conversation with somebody that's really like just go to 99.9% there and leave at least that much doubt just give me that but I run into unfortunately

people who go it's 100% it's true there is no doubt this and that's I can't go there And here's why I can't, here's why I can't go there. I'm just going to just use the reasoning and rational that I have right here. It can't be true because we're here thousands of years later with human beings,

and there is not one God. Like if there is empirical truth to anybody's God, not yours, anybody's, anybody's, anybody's on the planet. Empirical truth, and let's define empirical. The definition of empirical truth is that every, human being would come to the same result. 2 plus 2 for every human being is 4. The bump between our two eyes, once you define it, is a nose. And if you put your hand in fire long enough, unprotected, it will burn.

There are empirical things that exist that are out there. Okay. Which means that if there was any empirical truth to anybody's God, at any time in history, there would only be one religion on this entire planet because we'd all come to the same conclusion. We haven't and we don't, so we have to start with the premise I do that there's no empirical truth.

Okay, if you agree with me on that definition, then we can go from there and break it down. Should we talk about that first before you want further? So I understand what is meant by empirical evidence, like pointing towards two plus two equaling four or some physical burning that took place, ow, that hurts. But I would argue, I think this,

I would have a different view of what it means to be human and the cost of following God, like believing 2 plus 2 equals 4 costs nothing. Right, we agree with that. It's obvious, helps us flourish, realizing that doesn't hurt, it's obvious keep your hand away from a fire to function. But when it comes to God,

now it's like you've got to die to yourself, you've got to repent of your sins. So just like you said, you can have motivation to believe in God. You need hope. There can be a lot of motivation to not believe in God. And I don't have a clue where you stand in this, but a number of people, even like all this huxley agnostic somewhere maybe close to atheist, is like, we revolted against Christianity because of the way we wanted to live our lives.

So there's going to be psychological motivation on all sides. And I think I would, number one, I would say I think there's really good evidence for God. but let me frame it. Before I come back to this. Let me respond to it. Okay. I agree with you. In what sense?

Everything you just said. Here's what, but it's not provable what you just said. That's the piece. That's the line. So it's like, so I get yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. But it's not provable what you just said. So it's like there's no, it's the proof part that then falls apart. And we know because we're, nobody's been able to prove it.

we know that to be the fact that's sitting here. Because here's an interesting thing, Sean, and then I'll let you go, have your question. It's an interesting, from my point of view, and this is where, because again, this is why I wish people could switch. People say, why don't you believe in God? Right? It's an easy go-to question, right? I think it's the wrong question for me.

I think the question is, why do you? My short answer is math. Math. Zero. Empirical evidence. Zero. Okay. Now you go and you tell me why you believe 100% of something that's zero, but go. And it's weird that I'm the odd guy, given that I believe in the zero. It's just because there's no proof. That's why. Like, there's no proof. Empirical proof. There's zero of it. You keep trying to tell me that it's 100% true when it's zero. So I don't know. why I'm the oddball in this question, but I asked the question in reverse. Why, like, why do you believe in the 100%? You don't. You actually said doubt. So good on you. But I know people to believe in the 100% when it's a zero. I agree with you. I think there's 100% of people. There's people who say 100% God doesn't exist. And I go, that's nonsense. I need no 100%. Oh no. 100% God does exist. Some people might believe that. That's not me. So you're talking about,

just so we're clear to your, here's my answer almost every big question. I don't know. That's more agnostic then which is fair that's fine so when we talk about proof i'm not talking about like two plus two equals four we can prove that definitively 100% show it most things in life like a court of law is not prove 100 it's like beyond a reasonable doubt where does the data point to so for me as a whole when i look at the world then we could talk about some of the pieces of evidence i find compelling you can give me your two cents but i'm not saying do i have 100% that this is the case. I look at the world and go, what makes the best sense of how we're here and our moral sense and the origin of life and the fine-tuning the universe and the math?

What makes the most sense? For you. That's what I mean. Well, not so when you say by you. No, for you. We each have to assess this, of course, through a certain grid, right? We analyze, but not for me. I'm talking about what's true in the world. Again, if we had a court case, you wouldn't say, well, it's a person guilty or not for you. you'd say, well, where does the evidence point? Is the person guilty or innocent? Do we have sufficient evidence, not 100% proof, to point towards that person being guilty or at least not guilty?

So it's not about certainty for me. I would, any Christians who say it's about that, like you, I would have a hard time with that as well. So the question is like, are there things in the world that point towards God? And I, in fact, I'd love to get into it a little, and just get your sense on this. I recently interviewed 100 apologists, Christians who are defending the Christian faith. So these are professors, scientists,

philosophers, theologians, historians. And I asked them this question. I said, what do you think is the single best piece of evidence that God exists? And I got dozens and dozens of answers, but a few of them kind of fit into

bigger categories. Does that make sense? Yeah. And I did like a six, seven minute video on this. Some were unique arguments. Like if you actually said beauty points towards God, we hinted at that earlier. But two of the top ones, I love your take on. One of them is what's called the moral argument.

And if I can, the way I thought about this is I've read Spawn a lot of your comics. There's good and evil. There's justice and injustice. There's revenge and love. These are moral categories. That all exist at pre-examine. Bible, correct. Okay, so for the record, I don't ground my morality in the Bible. That's a separate question. Many people on your side do, though. I don't. I actually think most don't ground it in the

Bible. We would say the Bible expresses it, but it's not what the rounds is. Have you heard this one, though? This is an interesting one too. Is, well, then where do you get your morals, Todd? What? Like, so I just want, so again, I think it's the wrong question. Okay, so that's the wrong question. Let me push back for fun on this one, because you told me to push back. The question is not, where do you get your morals? That's not the question. No, no, no. But I've had people ask that question.

And that's like the people with certainty, that's the wrong question. Yeah, yeah, it is the wrong question. So the right question is if things like, I think the right question is if there's good and evil, justice and injustice, revenge and love, which seemed to be objective moral categories. I mean, you talk about Spawn, for example, one of the characters, Al Simmons, looks at a child abuser, pedophile, or even just a dad who abandons his children. kid and is like, how dare you do that? You've done something wrong, like objectively wrong. As an atheist, if you're four miles beyond spirituality, not where do you get your morals, but how do you count for justice and injustice, good and evil, actually being features of the universe? It's inherent. Looking for a simple way to stay rooted in God's word every day,

the Daily Bible Devotion app by Salem Media gives you morning and evening devotional. designed to encourage, inspire, and keep you connected with scripture. Plus, you'll enjoy daily Bible trivia and humor, a fun way to learn and share a smile while growing in your faith. Get the Daily Bible Devotion app for free on both iOS and Android. Start and end your day with God's Word. Search for the Daily Bible Devotion app in the App Store or Google Play Store and download it today. It's inherent.

I think 97% of people inherently are good. I think people come out of the wound. not acting evil, I think they're just inherently good. You think walks on our front door, stop people from entering our houses. Every door, on every neighborhood, I could get into a house in five seconds. We just are good people and we do things inherently good. Why? For me, not for any kind of gift.

And the gift for most people is the afterlife. I don't need that. It's like, it's because it's just the inherent now. right thing to do. It may still, I don't mean to simplify it that much, but there's a Christmas song, and I think it's got a great line in it. Be good for goodness sake. You don't need any other reason to be good other than just be good because, like, it's natural.

It's way natural, more natural to be good than it is to not. I think you've got to work at being nasty, right, being a bad person. I think that's way too much work. It's way easier to smile and say nice things to people and be charming. And I think this is what gives me my hope is that every, I think most of us, 98% of us are just at our core, just good people. I think we're good people, right? So in part, let me push back to what I think the real question is.

The question is not how do we know right and wrong? I think you're right that it's inherent within us. Now you might say that comes from evolution. I might say God, why aren't into us? That's a separate question. We agree that we have inherent sense of right. wrong, but when you say be good for goodness sake, I seems to imply that there's such a thing as good within itself.

And we each get to define that. We each individually get to define it. Then it's subjective. That would be a relativistic ethic. Correct. So if you have a subjective morality, why shame the father who abandon his kids? He goes, Todd, that's how I think is good. That's what I don't do.

Why are you shaming? That's just your subjective preference. Correct. So you don't think it's wrong for a father to abandon his kids within itself? No, I think I, no, I, do I, if you're asking, do I, at times pass judgment on people? Of course I do. Of course I do. I'm as flawed as any other human being.

I try to limit it. I try to limit it to disrespectful people. I try. Now again, who's disrespectful? Todd's definition. Everything is always going to be my definition of it. Why? because it's the only person I get to basically control.

So yes. So in that case, somebody can make an argument going, hey, here's the reasons why the dad didn't pay alimony and he left his kids. Like, fine. You can make it. You can make it. Like, so I just have my definitions of certain things that, to me,

I just go, no. So why forgive an adulterer? No. No, I won't. Why? Why? Oh, this is easy. Do you know many lies?

you have to tell. And each time you tell a lie as an adult, you know you're lying. And theoretically, in the basic of like what's sort of right and wrong, telling a lie to your family, your friends, or somebody so that you can go do something that gives you personal pleasure and you do that for two years, you told thousands of lies. That means you did something knowingly sort of wrong a thousand times and you kept doing it.

That's different than somebody who maybe got drunk one time and ran somebody over. That was a one-time thing. I've got a lot more latitude, oddly, for that person than somebody who's repetitive in the wrong. And knowing as an adult, come on, man, as an adult, I give a certain level to adults. I expect, I personally expect a certain decorum from adults at times. and I think we lead and give bad examples to the youth with our behavior as adults. Shame on us. Shame on us at times.

So it sounds like you're willing to shame certain people. I'm not criticizing you that. I think some people should actually. I'm not here to shame them. I'm saying if I was in charge, if I was in charge, if you changed it to God, not Todd, then I would have, I'd have different rules. I'd have different rules. Okay, so let's come back to that.

What I'm trying to get at is if there's, a real thing like justice and injustice, or if it's all just subjective and opinion. And I'm sensing a certain tension. It isn't. It isn't because we have lost. Let me clarify, and then you come back. So there's a certain tension between,

it sounds like you're saying, I don't want to judge certain people because that would be a wrong thing to do. We shouldn't do that. But there's also really strong condemnations within the comic book, and I agree with it, murderers, pedophiles. Like, if it's all subject,

then they're not actually doing anything wrong. They just had their own opinions about reality. You don't like it, but it's not wrong. Right. So it seems to me that an atheist has one of two options. I can tell them if I'm wrong. They could say, yeah, there's real right and wrong. Love, justice, injustice.

There's a way we should live built into the world, but then they're having to explain right and wrong without there being a God. Or the atheist goes, yeah, there's not. God, it's all subjective. It's a matter of opinion. It's God. It's somebody else. But when that falls,

then you can't literally say any behavior, even the most egregious stuff we could think in, that you rightly condemn in your comic books, is actually wrong. That's what I think the tension is. And for me, it's wrong for that person, though. Sheldon, you're missing it.

It's wrong for that person. So let's stay with it. The struggle for Al Simmons in this comic book isn't that he has the answers, quite the opposite. It's who are you, Al Simmons, spawn, to even met out these decisions. Who are you? You're not judge, jury, and executioner here, but gave you the right. You start playing that game, Al Simmons.

You become a de facto quasi-god yourself, the thing that you're trying to fight against. And that's the struggle. The struggle is going, oh, so how do I do this and not become like them? And the answer is that's the journey of this character. That's the journey of us as human beings. We constantly are trying to find balance and struggle to come up with these ideas that make sense for us and don't interfere, hopefully, with the peace and the paths of other. people we get there. But if I start asserting, what I don't do is I don't assert it on anybody.

I don't assert it on anybody. I don't have the authority. I don't have the power. If you want to make me the king of the state, shoot, I'll change it. Once you lost tomorrow. Yes. I get to make it in my name. Shoot, tomorrow. I don't have that authority. If I've got one regret, if I've got one regret, I don't live with regret, if I got one regret, it said I wasn't born 2,000 years ago or 1,500 years ago. Because when you had a dispute and you felt strong and your convictions were at your core, the way you resolved it was you take a blade and I take a blade. And one of us doesn't walk away.

We don't get that anymore. We don't get that anymore. There's no honor killing and defending your rights. Right. Fair enough. Right. Because there's too many things that people can hide behind now today, right? Corporate backing, lawyers, suing, doing this, taking market shares away from all this other silly stuff.

And it's like, you feel that strong? Let's go out to the field, right? But it's like, ah, like that's it. I just like, oh, man, I should never watch Braveheart. Because I just like, oh, man, I missed out. So here's the way I look at and then we'll move on from this. There's a difference between somebody you saying you have the authority to make a law, like a legal law, and there being a moral law.

Now, our legal law should reflect a higher moral law. Or those legal laws are all just prudential. and were coming up with them and they could have been differently. Spawn seems to operate in a world in which there are certain moral laws. Like he kills and then he feels bad about it at times. But then another time he kills a character who's a pedophile and we're all like, yeah, he did the right thing. So what to me makes brilliant about the character is he's trying to figure out who he is.

He's trying to understand what it kind of means to be a hero and do what's right and all the things that he love. But that only makes sense in a character. a world in which there's right and wrong. Sacrifice means something. He ought to be a good father. So all I'm getting at is the root question is, if I can frame this, in a materialistic world, which we start with the particles, like you said in that interview with David Das Malci, and it was interesting, dust to dust, ashes to ashes. That's it. I mean, four miles beyond the spiritual person. Where do these seemingly spiritual things come from like, love and justice that aren't material.

Right. And you sure seem to live your life and write in your comic books as if there's a real right and wrong and real justice and injustice. I don't understand. Not where your beliefs come from, but how that fits within the world. Or are you literally saying justice and injustice right and wrong are completely subjective? To some degree they are. And then we live in societies that basically control some of those, right, which is the laws and the norms of society around us.

You don't get to just, everybody doesn't get to just do whatever they want because you get chaos at that point, right? You're not going to have any sort of organized community and growth in that. So the question then for each of the individuals is, can I live within the confines of whatever the government is, a society it is? and there's plenty of other countries. If you don't, if you have the time and effort and money, you can make the move if you want. Some people don't have that luxury, as you know, Sean, which is sort of the plate of poor people.

So I am not advocating or anything. I'm just saying from Todd's point of view, I'm not saying that anybody has to agree with any of it. I'm not doing, I'm not giving a lesson. I'm here in the entertainment business. I'm just entertaining. I'm just doing it. I'm not writing a book.

I'm not writing a book of laws that basically says, I believe in something because Todd told me to, right? Those are more scripture stuff. Why don't you like that person? Wow, it says here in the Bible. And like, oh, man, that's, that's, that, like, but besides that somebody told you, why don't you personally like it? And it keeps circling.

It keeps circling back to the same thing. And I'm like, oh, man, I don't know. It's, it's difficult. I'm going to say something that may seem offensive. And that's okay, because let me just say that at its core, at its super core, is offensive to me, and I'll tell you why in the moment. Well, let's get to it. I'll tell you why it's offensive.

Tell me. Because every, because it's good. and here's the blind spot. I think you guys have blind spots. We all do. But here's where I think religious people have a blind spot. You seem like a good guy.

I'll use an example. You're here. You seem like a good guy. It seemed like you're reasonable. You've got good family. You've got whatever else. But you would hear to something. I could invite you over for a barbecue. We could have a good laugh or whatever else. Anytime, by the way. I'll show up just for the record. But here's the piece that just

is always buzzing right there. At the end of the day, if I don't adhere to the belief that you do, my children burn and you're okay with that. Either you're okay with it personally or you bend the knee

to somebody who is okay with that. That's the insult because there is nothing you or your family or your children could do, that I wish harm upon them ever, ever. And yet I know hell awaits them if they don't do this thing, and they're okay with that.

As they're eating my burger, they're okay with my five-year-old frying. That's the piece that you guys, I wish you could get into my head, is the insult, the blind spot for a guy like me. never do that in reverse to you ever so if i can it sounds like you're saying that's immoral and it's wrong objectively to send somebody to hell like that's an objective oh you don't i would never wish ill on your family so it's just personal subjective you wouldn't wish ill but you don't think it's morally wrong for god to do that like sounds like you're taking moral issue with a god who would do such a thing. No, I don't. I don't take an issue with God because I don't believe he exists. I don't

take any issue with that. I take issue with the people who implemented. You're one of the implementations. So, okay, cool. And I understand it. And there's the hope part. And I get it. And then it gets to that point. And I go, oh, and they're okay with my family getting burnt. That's cool. What could they do in reverse that I would ever want that on them? I can't imagine. I don't even know what it is, but you guys, you guys do you, you guys do you, right? There are certain lines that get crossed, and this is the switching on and the switching on, right? I don't believe in miracles. I don't believe in miracles.

Can we come back to miracles? Yeah, sure. Sure. So do you think hell biblically is physical or people are burning? I don't exist. It doesn't exist. From what Christians believe, you think we believe that hell is a physical burning. place. I believe the gnashing of teeth and sort of, it's basically the worst possible thing you guys can

come up with, right? So there's the lines that are in there. So I could come up with stuff that would curdle your toes of what I think the worst possible fate could be for your children. I would never say it out loud. So I was only asking you to describe it as burning. And I don't think hell is a physical burning place like a God who's torturing us. And I also say I'm not okay with it. wouldn't you say, oh, I'm at a barbecue, I'm okay with your family burning. That's a part of the calling that we believe that there is a God, there's a moral order. We're accountable to him. But if my children, my family, but if we don't adhere to the rule, then we get punished.

That's the piece. Like, look at, I like the Diamondbacks. You may be a Los Angeles Dodgers fan. I don't get it. I disagree. Oh, Red Sox. Okay, I'm a Yankee fan. That's even better.

Oh. So I'm a Yankee fan. You're Red So. I don't get it. I think you're crazy, but I don't wish harm on you for not being a Yankee fan for not believing what I believe in. You do you and hopefully we'll beat you in the playoffs every single year. I don't need you to be a Yankee fan and I don't wish harm on you for not being a Yankee

fan. I'm going to be a Yankee fan. You be a Red Sox fan and I hope we beat you every single time. Okay, fair enough. So when you say wish harm, I don't. wish harm on I know anybody I don't want anybody I understand that right so I don't wish but but the guy you advocate for it's in the scripture which is I've been told is perfect so it's like it's in there you don't get to this is the cafeteria Christian cafeteria Catholic part of it you don't get to like

or maybe you do it actually they all do you just sort of pick and choose sort of oh I'm not picking and choosing I'm not pulling out right but there's there in between picking and choosing and wishing it upon so you don't wish it the guy upstairs does in the teaching well it depends on what you mean by wishing it in the in the christian story god has made us to be in relationship if we don't follow his rules we get punished so it's not so much about following his rules we get punished sure so god has so the story so the story would be that god made us for relationship with him so we can know god and we can know others that's the purpose of life according to but everybody doesn't get in though

Everybody doesn't get in. Let me take a step back. So I agree with that. But what does God wish? Says in 2nd, Peter 3.9, God wishes that we would turn from evil and turn towards repentance and be saved. That's God's desire.

Right. That's God's wish. Right. You said earlier... But he could fix that. But he could fix that. I don't understand. Okay.

Okay, maybe. Let me come back to that. You said at the beginning, why doesn't God just give us free will and let us choose and let us live? That's exactly, in a sense, what the Christian story says. God didn't make us robots.

What's the free will? Free will is we have choice. It allows you to believe or not believe. So let's talk about the choice. Let's talk because I think this is another blind spot. We'll get back to it. Before we get there, at the root of the Christian stories, that there's a God who's made us to know him and to know others.

And some ways what's powerful about that is you talk about the most important thing to you is relationship, your wife and your kids. That's what you deserve love for. Christianity would say life is about relationship. It's with God and it's with others. But to be in relationship with a holy God, we have to enter into on, you might say God's terms, so to speak, why? Why?

Why? Why? Because God is holy. Why? That's the peace. Oh, man. Oh, man. That's the peace.

Why the ego God? I wish. I actually hope, can I tell you, Sean? Sure. I hope I am dead wrong. I hope I am dead wrong. I hope someday I get to meet this maker of yours. Because I'm going to have a conversation with this person. And at the end, I got to tell you, Sean, even if somehow he says, Todd, I know you're, I know, I know, I know you.

I've known you since, I know this is how you. Come on in. I'm not going in. There's nothing that could. get me to go into his glee club. Nothing. Ever. What do you think his glee club is like in people doing there?

I'm going to come up with rules. If you don't adhere to my rule, you're not good enough for me. The God of love has now got a criteria. If he was as good as you guys said, that would be like a 7-Eleven and that thing would be open 24 hours a day. Come in, come all, warts and all.

Come on. I understand, Todd, you were a crazy dude. I understand it, but I knew it. Why? Because I am God, and I knew what you were going to be. This is the bizarre thing about me. Either God knows the future, he doesn't. Right? So this, huh? Yeah, I agree. Either he knows or he doesn't. He doesn't. So simple question. God came down. Could he drive a stick shift? I don't know. Either no, or yes. Okay. If the answer is yes, to me, we've got a problem. Because then he knew, he knew me. He knew the moment he made me. He knew what I was going to do. He still put me into existence.

He still knew I was going to be me. He still knew my thoughts. He still knows I'm going to my grave, never given him a single second of existence. And then he's going to sit there and then that's where I get to have the odd conversation. I just want to understand this, Biggie. You made me. I didn't. I didn't ask to get born.

You made me. I got born. you knew I was going to be Todd because you made Todd. You wired Todd. I didn't wire me. You wired Todd. The world wired it. But again, you made all that stuff too.

So you knew the future. And now you actually knew this day was coming where I was going to be standing in front of you. And now I'm going downstairs because I am exactly to 100% specks of what you knew I was going to be in advance. You did this. You made this. So you want to punish me. This is on you. I had nothing to do with this one. Right? Like, I'm you. So go ahead. This is a weird thing to me. But you do you, Biggie. Okay. So think about it this way. You've been married to your wife, Wanda, for a long time. 40 years. We just celebrated our 40th anniversary. Forty years. Congrats. Just had our 25th, my wife and I. Congrats. Thank you. Obviously, there's some differences here in this analogy, but there's certain things and rules you have to do to be in a relationship with somebody.

And if you don't do it, you can't be in a relationship with your wife. A lot of things. And you've talked about being faithful to her and not looking at others in a commendable way. I totally agree with that. But there's laws and rules you have to follow to have a successful, meaningful love relationship. And if you break those, the relationship is done. Now you describe God as being ego. So what's the rule?

Well, okay, so let me take a step back. I play sports. I play sports. This is another reason I can't go there because nobody's told me how the rulebook works. Okay, so let me come back to the rule book. I go to 10 people. Well, let me come back to the rule book. All I'm saying is when we say God is egotistical.

If I said, hey, you have skills to do art and I want to give you credit for this art, you're not egotistical to go, thank you. Why does he need? Why does he need me to bend a knee? He doesn't need you. Okay, then why does he punish me for not doing it then? Anything. Why?

But if I don't do it, I get punished. There's the circular piece. He doesn't need me to bend a knee, but if I don't bend the knee, I get punished. My children get punished. Somebody gets punished. In part, God doesn't need anything. All right? And by the way, you said you're going to your grave, not believing in God.

Maybe. No, it's a never. It's a never. Okay. It's a never. Okay, so sounds like you might have. I'll give you another. I'll give you another never. This is a cliche when people say never say never, I'll give you another cliche. I will never steal an elephant from a zoo, fly in a helicopter, go to Pakistan and drop it on the heads of three children that are bathing in a river. I promise you I will never do that too. Now you can say never say never taught. I promise you I'll never do that too. I'm going to my grave like this. Like I'm going to my grave like this. Okay. I mean, that's fine. I think you have free will. You can make those decisions. I don't have free. That's a con, but go ahead.

Okay, so let's come back to, we can come back to the free will. And the miracles. Would you say, would you say you've had a good life? Oh, good one. A great one. Great one. Like you love life. I love life. I love it again. If you could do it again, you rewind the cliff. I love life. I love life to the fullest. And you know why maybe I love it maybe so much? Because to me, there's nothing afterwards. I have to sponge this up, Sean.

This is like, for me, this is it. This is my heaven. This is my heaven today. I go, because this is it. This is all the things. You get the five senses. I get to hold my wife's hand. I get to hug my child.

This is it. I go, wow. I don't want eternity. I don't want eternity. Okay, so again, another one we could come back to. I would if eternity is the way that I actually. think the Christian tradition teaches. So the very things we value most in this life, relationships and people, that's what heaven is about, knowing God and knowing others.

So we, I'm just telling you what the Christian tradition is. For them. For Christians, for them. That's what I believe. That's what we understand. Right. I got it. I don't need, I don't, right, got it. And so God's, I'll let you have that. I don't need any of it. So yeah, that's fine. So I'm just, I'm going to explain what I think the Christian tradition teaches if you reject it. Totally fine. I don't need it. I don't reject it. I don't reject it. I don't have a want for it. Okay. And I know that, I know that's hard for people to comprehend. I understand. I actually even understand it. What? Why wouldn't you want to be with your children forever? Why wouldn't you want to see your family?

Like, I get all of it. I get, it seems odd. I'll, I'll tell you why. Because right now, I do have my five senses and nobody has ever, ever proven. And it's unprovable that there is going to be the five senses thereafter. I also don't want to get in debate that somebody's clouds bigger than somebody else's. So I don't really want to get into, oh, my gosh, you've got to deal with humans again, right? Like we have enough agendas. What's the agenda when we get up there? So if we have cognizant thought, all the flaws of humanity comes back to it. But even more torturous to me is that we don't have the five senses.

And I do not get to hug my children again. If you told me I had to spend eternity and never hug my child again, you know what that is called to me? Hell. So you think Heaven is just like in my children? material. I don't know what heaven is. What Christians believe. Because Christians, I'm just telling you what we believe. And I could go into some of the evidence if it interested you why I think this is true. But is there cognizant thought? Is there what? Cognizant thought. Yeah. There's thinking immaterial. And there's physical bodies. That's in part Jesus's resurrection, defeating death. And the new heavens and new earth will be physical.

So my only point about that is it wouldn't be egotistical for me to say, hey, you drew that? That's amazing. Good for you. You go, thanks. Well, if there's a God, if he gave you every breath and life and the ability to have senses, the ability to be here and do the amazing artwork that you've given, which I told you've been a gift to myself and to others, there's a sense where like, wow, just like I rightfully said thank you to you at the beginning, it makes sense if there's a God that made all this possible in your amazing life. if there were such a God, wouldn't it make sense to be like,

wow, thank you for this life, for my wife, people that I know. No, no, you still would disagree. No, even if the God. No. Okay. And I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why. I don't care about me at that point.

I would ask a bigger question. I don't care that I got a good life. I don't care that he put me in front of a wife that I spent my entire life with. I don't care about that. I got bigger questions. Why? Did you who created everything?

They keep telling me how good you are. Why did you not put drinking water everywhere where people were going to be? You knew they needed to drink. You were the one that made that. You knew the need to drink. You made that. You knew the science that they need the water. You made that.

And you stuck them in places without, drinking water or rich soil. And here's my anger at this point. You invented water. You invented soil. You could have put it everywhere. And you chose either not to, knowing that they were going to then starve to death with the things that you already invented. You just forgot to put them in the right spots. I don't want to be part of something where I think I'm smarter than the leader. I, if you'd give me your ability, Biggie, I would have put water everywhere. And I would have put rich soil so that those people could eat. I don't care what you did for me. I care about humanity at its core.

And I think you missed a couple easy ones. And you invented it all. Shame on you. Need a daily spark of hope and direction? Let the Daily Bible app from Salem Media be that spark. This free Android app delivers an uplifting verse each morning, plus reading plans, devotions, and trusted podcasts from leaders like Joyce Meyer and Rick Warren.

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right from the app. Feel God's presence in every notification. Search for Daily Bible app on Google Play and begin your day with hope, purpose, and peace. That's the peace, Sean, that I just like. Who cares about Todd? So I get it. So problem with...

evil and suffering is it's a big one and i i understand and it's curable and it's curable if you're gone well it's curable if you're gone it will be at some point god is going to come back and make sense of things let me take a step back i did just hold class on this i feel like i'd love to sit down and just flesh out problem of evil and suffering but every worldview has to make sense of why there's evil and suffering in the world and so on your worldview you said earlier this is just todd's view There's no objective morality and that you got very amped about God for being shame on him, immoral, in just, arguably, because of the world he's created. Hold on, let me just clarify.

Because he knew people were going to die and he did it anyways. So my only point is that's a moral condemnation of God. And yet in your own system, you said everything is subjective. So why God allows evil and suffering and how Christianity responds to it is a very important topic, and we could go down that road. But I'm simply saying earlier you said morality subjective, this is just taught. John, here's what I get to do with you. Let me clarify, but then you're clearly saying God is out of bounds, done things wrong, done things immoral.

That assumes a kind of moral standard by which you're judging God, or if it's just on the flip hand, if it's just your... Sean, you need to get into my head. I'm judging a guy that I've been told my entire life can do anything. Okay. But he didn't. Forgot to put the water where people could drink it. Why make the rest of infinity?

Why do you go? Why is that wrong, Todd? Why is that wrong for God to have done that? By what standard are you judging God and saying he should have acted differently? That's the piece that I'm getting at. I understand the weight of your question, and we can talk about that. What is a Christian response? Indoor response, Buddhist response.

I'm just simply saying, you're making strong. Would you have liked to have had God put drinking water everywhere for people for the last 4,000 years? Would you have liked that? Okay, so that's. Of your God. Would you have liked that? If he could have done it, if he could have done it. Okay, so here's my point.

If this is just about likes and dislikes, it doesn't matter what I like and not like it. If this is just Sean and this is just Todd and there's subjective little realms, I go, yeah, I like there not to be water. You go, yeah, I like there to be water. Unless there's some standard or way of real justice and humans actually have value and there's right and wrong in the universe, then it's just likes and dislikes. And it doesn't matter. It's like chocolate versus vanilla. You like chocolate, I like vanilla. Where's God culpable in all of this?

Okay, so culpability is a moral term that assumes there's right and wrong. I'm trying to get at how you have right and wrong in a subjective world without God. That's what's not being answered within your system, although I'm fully conceding, that why God doesn't do this, those are sticky, difficult questions that need to be addressed. But the standpoint you're criticizing this assumes certain things that your worldview doesn't give permission to do so. Two things. One, human value. Like, why does he give water to human beings?

Where do human beings even get value that we should give any care about them in an atheistic, materialistic universe? And second, we're still judging God. We're putting God in the seat by a moral standard. I am. And if it's your subjective preference and mind, it doesn't matter. I am dying of starvation. I will put a moral standard on that to anybody. Yes.

Okay, good. We're making progress then. So morality is not subjective. For me. It's objective. I said I will. I will put that subject moral value on everybody. Okay.

So if I said I want to. I cannot sit here in any good conscience and try, wow. And try an excuse. that mistake. You're trying to give me an answer why it's okay or mysterious as to why millions of human beings have starved in the world and that somehow there's a deeper meaning to it when all you could have done was gone water. Okay, so I'm actually not trying to give a reason why. There are what are called theodices, which is ways Christianity makes sense of the suffering, evil in the world. We could go down that route. I'm asking a more basic foundational question, which is how we even

put God in a position. We judge him morally. Why kids have any value and why it's wrong to not care for kids. So again, let me just let me state as clear as I can. That assumes children have objective value. And I totally agree with you that they do. We're on the same page there. I agree with you that we shouldn't harm kids totally agree with you i just don't see how that beginning point makes sense if you have a materialistic universe and correct me if the story's wrong in the beginning was nothing matter popped into existence evolved through some blind purposeless chance process arrives at today we might have feelings that we should do one thing and not the other thing but those feelings aren't grounded in a reality of things like justice and injustice and right and wrong, which are spiritual categories.

They're not physical. Where does that come from? But it doesn't, this is another interesting bit of a blind spot here too, is that, and again, my answer to everything is pretty much, I don't know. But a lot of times to come back then is, well, if you can't prove it, Todd, then it must have been this. So let me just give a value to God. We'll call it a unicorn.

The conversation goes like this. Well, prove to me that the unicorn doesn't exist, Todd. First off, I'm not. I'm not here to disprove anything. I'm just saying I'm Todd. I have a proof. I have my beliefs. Everybody else have yours.

God bless you. Cool. Everybody do it, whatever. But the conversation can't be. All we have is a brain, gives us reasoning and rationale. And so that's all, I've only got the tool that I have been given. So I'm applying

those to it. But it can't be that it's like, we'll prove the God of which is unprovable. Why? Because there's no empirical evidence. It's a zero over there. I don't concede that, but keep going. There's no empirical evidence? I think there's, again, I don't think proof means certainty. I think there is evidence we haven't even got to outside of the moral law for the existence

of God, the resurrection of Jesus. That's compelling, not conclusive but compelling yeah no i'm with you on the compelling no i'm not here i'm going i've heard lots of compelling stuff like i said people bring it up to the 100 percent that's when you lose me right that's when i always get lost is that the line gets crossed we're on the same page of that so so we're there so for me i've had these conversations before people go well todd well then who invented the universe i don't know how did it kind of be i don't know i have no clue i'm a comic book dude So I do it. But the default is, well, if you can't prove it, it must have been the unicorn.

Yeah, but we just said that there's no empirical proof that there's a unicorn. And your fallback is that although there's no proof that there's a unicorn, that then, because I can't tell you how the universe was, it had to be the unicorn. It seems like a weird kabuki argument that doesn't make a lot of sense to me that it's like, so it must have been the thing that we have no proof on, must have made the thing that made everything. Wow. Okay. I can't go there, Sean. I just can't turn those levers. Okay, so fair. Let me just clarify. That's not the route that I would go. That's not the kind of argument that I would make. I would say something like this. So C.S. Lewis was an atheist for a while,

writer, Narnia series, et cetera, professor at Oxford. And he said, when he was an atheist, his problem with the world is that things seem so unjust. A little bit like you raised earlier. Why is they're rich? Why is they're poor? Why is there water and is there not water? He said, but then the thought dawned on me, if there is no God, where do we get things like injustice from? Injustice assumes a standard of justice. A bent stick assumes a standard of straightness. When we say something's wrong, we're assuming that something is right. So where's your justice come from? Okay, so there's an difference between like the law. I'm saying justice, the source of justice is that God is just in his very

character. These are not laws he invents. The source is not the Bible. It's the character of God himself is just, is holy, is loving. So since God is immaterial, it would make sense in the world that we believe in justice and injustice. We believe in things like love that are not material. And we believe in right and wrong, good and evil, and write stories that reflect we kind of think we live in a universe in which morality really reigns and is real. I'm not saying that proves God. I'm just simply saying this is a signpost. It doesn't prove God.

Let me frame how I look at it. I think this is a signpost pointing more towards God than materialism or an atheistic worldview. So if we really act and believe like there's a moral law and you rightly push back, I get it like why are these kids suffering why doesn't god do this that's a cry for justice that's built deep within us like that's unjust that assumes there's a standard of justice by which we can judge god that doesn't fit within a materialistic universe but if god is just and immaterial things are real and i guess the way i would frame it is if there's a moral law then there's a moral law

giver. That would be the best explanation of the moral law. Doesn't prove God. But I would say like beauty, if there's really beauty built into the world, that points towards an artist, just like the beauty of these covers, and I think they're objectively beautiful, that points towards an artist, same with the world, morality. Your cry towards me, and I get it, you're like, this is wrong, this is evil, this is unjust. And I go, Todd, I'm with you. But that assumes a standard of right and wrong that makes no sense in a materialistic universe. You're acting like there's a moral law, which means there's a moral law giver. At least that's the best explanation of it. I disagree. Okay. Tell me why. Why can't the world just be what we make of it each day? Well, then there's

not a moral law. It's just what we make of it. There are human beings here. We have a brain. We have intellect. And we make decisions. Our perceptions, our decisions control what happens every single day. Done. Done. Why is there have to be an origin for it? It doesn't have to be an origin for it. And that there is. So if we're just brains acting in the world, then certain things.

So when we say we're humans, that still raises the question, what does it mean to be human? Are we just body, just brain, or do we have a soul? I don't know. I think, oh, that's fair. Right.

So I think here's what I would say. I've only got what I've got. I'm a human. I can only think with a human brain. human thoughts. That's how I've got. I've got. I can't go up to any other tier. I only have to deal with what's in my toolbox. And what's in my toolbox is being a human being. That's all I've got today, Sean. And I and go, what makes the most sense for a guy like me is if there isn't any gods, not yours, anybody, it all makes sense. That actually makes the most sense.

Why then would people be cruel? why would people have agendas? Why would people do all of this? Because they're human and they're flawed and they're greedy. And it's like, okay, cool. And they do stuff. And we just do it. And why do we war?

Because I don't know. We've got a hundred reasons why we do everything. And here's the problem with us. Here's our flaw. Is that we can convince ourselves, myself included. We all have our biases. That our perceptions become our realities. And that's the flaw in all of us that we get blinders, all of us, of going, oh, I believe that to be true.

And I go and do it. Because nobody, it's hard for me to imagine, Sean, anybody acts without some cognizant thought, right? So I think you could go to a serial killer and say, why did you kill? And they would give you reasons. We don't have to agree with a single one of them. But they would actually go, well, here's why I did it. So they came up with a reasoning and a rationale. But having a reasoning and a rationale for all of it doesn't in and of itself basically excuse our behavior.

So if I go, huh, if there's nobody watching over us and nobody's paying attention and we're on our own, yeah, this all makes sense. This all makes sense. if there's something that's supposed to be bigger and all the religions say there's something bigger and they're just idly standing by for thousands of years and not putting water and food where it should be but we'll get to that another day and mosquitoes. I don't understand mosquitoes either.

That seems cruel. That seems for a guy like me, Sean, that just seems cruel. And the reason is, because all I'm doing, and here's my flaw, I'm going to give you my flaw. All I can do is think on those human terms and even more specifically taught human terms, which actually should be the scariest sentence I just said today. And I just sit back and go, man, if I was God or one of these gods, the theory of God, I would do things different.

I got to tell you, I would have done things. And so I can't go for the ride of somebody I don't respect, and I don't respect. and I don't respect that somehow you've got some sneaky answer, not you, but him, answer as to why you didn't have to feed the creatures you made.

Do you respect Jesus? The man? Yeah. Or the biblical thing. Like Jesus and God, they're all the same. So let's say... But a man, I've met lots of good people. The Christian understanding.

understanding, probably you would take issue. I don't think he is it. I don't think he is this. In the version that they've written, like the man, Jesus probably exists. I'm sure he was a good guy. So, try to do the best he could. Miracles, teachings, don't trust any of that.

No miracles. Okay. Here, here, here, here, you can get me to, you can get me to miracles this quick, right? This is easy. You get me to miracles this quick. Or I'll tell you one, I'll give you two, which is sort of silly.

You got a small town. It's got ten houses. And there's a bit of an earthquake and a boulder breaks off. It comes rolling down the hill fast as can be and it smashes headlong into that town. And it crushes nine out of the ten houses. And one is left untouched. No harm to it. There are a lot of people given that circumstance would go, oh my God, it's a miracle.

Cool. So why when the same thing happens when I'm out at the bowling alley And I throw that boulder right down the middle And I smash all ten of those pins and they go flying all over And one of them is left untouched Why isn't that a miracle? They called out an attempted spare the next time I bowl Why why physically when one thing happens

We don't even pay attention to it but another one we give an attribution to it of a miracle. But here's how you can get me to miracle. Can I talk about that one first before we talk about you getting there? Okay. No, go. Go. All I would say is how we identify a miracle is not just a chance,

one pin that stands up. It's a certain kind of event that resists or doesn't have a naturalistic explanation, and it's often the time and place that it happens. So the fact that I believe miracles happen, and could point towards some is a little different than a bowling alley or one just remained standing. We could talk about some of the criteria for miracles, but I don't know that that maps on to the kind of case that I would make is it.

It's like, so anyways. But tell me what would convince you, and then I've got a, I got another follow up for you. Okay, no, so this one would get me in 10 seconds. Okay. Amputate somebody's arm. Grow an arm back. Grow an arm back. You made the arm. You're the inventor of the arm. Most people when they come out of the womb have two of them. So somebody just got their arm cut off. Grow one arm. You usually give us two, but just grow one arm back. You'll have me. And yet there's no record of any of us seeing the arm come back. We attribute 20 kids falling down a well in one of them living. That's just odds and circumstances. That's like,

dropping 20 eggs, one of them doesn't break. This is just randomness, sadly randomness. Grow an arm. Go cut off two people's legs, get them to grow back. I'm with you. Keener, Craig Keener, New Testament Scholar, did a two-volume academic study of miracles. In 2010, I think it was, did a follow-up. And argues there's even cases that can be carefully documented of limbs and others

growing back. Now, the only reason I say that is there's actually pretty good evidence for miracles for those willing to look at it. You'll give you one example of a supernatural phenomenon. I've done extensive interviews with him. I think it's there. Now, if you're... Okay. This week, interestingly enough, had an agnostic friend of mine.

We were having coffee. And no interest in God. didn't seem he had his mind made up as firmly as you seem to, but had no interest in God didn't really matter to him when I brought up spiritual things. Rush to the hospital had surgery and describes to me, he goes, I died on the bed, was resuscitated back. He goes, I had an out-of-body experience and was able to look down at exactly the kinds of things that happened. and I came to it

and I said were you freaking out? He goes, no, it was calm, it was clear, I could hear things, I could see things. When I got out of it, I described to the surgeons what happened and they're like, how could you possibly know that? He was not seeking after God, he had no

interest in the supernatural and he goes, it seems like, you know, the universe is kind of looking out for me. And I said, well, if you describe the universe looking out for you, that sounds like a person, that sounds like a mind that's doing this. Like universes don't have minds, they don't look out for anybody.

He goes, okay, fair enough. I said, well, if it's looking out for you and keeping you alive, it sounds like this is a God who loves you and who cares about you. He goes, ah, I don't know if I'm quite ready to go there yet. I got to think about this. This is not somebody who didn't

believe in spiritual things, not looking for it, not an isolated case. There's over 500 cases of like peer-reviewed near-death experience of people seeing things and knowing things that could not have been seen or known in that kind of state.

That's the kind of thing that doesn't give me certainty, but gives me pause and says, maybe this body's not all there is. Maybe there is a soul that continues after, and it's empirical evidence in the sense you can still talk to and interview a ton of people I have on my channel. That's one line of evidence.

So to step back for me, I look at the existence of, say, the moral law we believe in justice and injustice, and just say, using my brain like you did, what makes the most sense that we act and live and breathe as if these things are real? I think there's really a moral law, hence there's a moral law giver. Look at things like near-death experiences. And I go, maybe we're more than just the body. There's something else going on here. That's a kind of empirical evidence.

And that's only two of like a ton I could roll through it. I wouldn't disagree with any of that. As a matter of fact, I've heard those same stories. I'm not, again, I'm not here to, like, I don't know what happens once we die. There could be a million possibility. We'll find out when we get there, you and I. We'll find out when we get there. But because somebody had a near-death experience or whatever else, again, doesn't go back to the unicorn.

Like, everything all of a sudden defaults. And it's not my argument, by the way. Oh, you go, God was watching out for you. That's the unicorn again. Like why? Why can it be another option? Why can't it be something not unicorn related at that moment? Why can't it just be, huh? So maybe the evidence says something else might be out there.

It doesn't mean that it advocates for anything that we know prior. It just means maybe something happens to us. Done. But everybody wants to go to their little, corner with it and go, aha, so that proves my thing. No, it proves that maybe potentially if it's proven anything or potentially proven anything is that it's not ashes to ashes dust to dust because people are coming up and saying that it's not, that there's more. But it doesn't then qualify any of the other theories that were there behind it. We keep going

back straight to that, to that in a straight line that there's no other possibility. There's no other possible other than the Big Bang theory and and anybody's around the globe god it's weird that nobody argues about anything like it's got to be like a million in between there's got to be a million possibility if we all get sort of thinking about it that there's other possibilities I don't know what they are I'm not smart enough I'm a kind of guy but I'm going it can't just be a or B this is weird science and religion argue it's either A or B that like there might be a whole alphabet. We don't know about. Nobody wants to argue the other letters in the alphabet because there's not a strong enough belief in that. So again, Sean, I'm not here to disavow anybody's

life experiences that are there. I'm just saying that at the end of the day, that experience with your friend doesn't then change the zero on my board. Doesn't change the zero. It doesn't change the zero. Okay. That's fine. It doesn't prove because that thought isn't the empirical of then everybody would come to the same result of what happened. So I agree with that, and I'm not here to change your mind, obviously. Your views, I have mine. Talk these through and... No, no, no.

So what I... Just a real clear, Sean. You're a good guy. I hope I'm okay. I'm not going to be as good as you. I'm okay. I don't know about that. I'm okay.

We're not... Changing isn't... I don't think it's any of our jobs to change anybody. Our job is to enjoy the colors of the rainbow that are, like people being different is a joy in my life. I actually find it to be joyful. I punish myself at times to go, man, I wish I could be more like that person or more like that person. I wish I knew more about that subject. I wish I knew more about that.

like that person's always got a smile on their face. That person's so giving, right? I just, like I go, I know I can't be like that, right? All the time. I just, and I admire a lot of things in the world. And my personal frustrations come when instead of trying to add to the color palette, we try to narrow at times the color palette with these sort of beliefs at times. of like this is sort of how we should be doing stuff over here instead of going live and let

live right like as long as they're not doing harm to you what do you care right like what like i don't understand now the internet has exacerbated this let me say oh i agree with that that the internet gives everybody an opinion i don't understand right it's weird to me why anybody cares who Taylor Swift is dating, right? Don't understand it. Why does it matter? I don't know. Here's how I wish, I'm going to give you a weird run.

Here's how I wish if I could pass a wand. I wish people live their life. I wish people live their life. Most people, like the way they shop at a grocery store. You walk in a grocery store. Thousands and thousands of things are presented to you. And you get to see them all. If you go up and down, because you've got to do your weekly shopping.

And you take your cart and you put in your cart what you personally enjoy and you think is a fair value and you think it's good and healthy or whatever it is for your family. You think this is the good stuff. This is what I want. And then you pay your bill and you walk out. What you don't do, what we don't do at a shopping one is go, could I see this store manager? Just for the record, I hate Brussels sprouts. And you've got a whole section of Brussels sprouts there. My children have to walk by the Brussels sprouts.

I hear they're terrible. I think they're terrible. I don't think they're healthy. How dare you have those things in the presence of my family? Instead, we don't do that. We don't do that. You know what we do? We just walk on by.

And we take what is good for us. And we leave. Need a daily spark of hope and direction? Let the Daily Bible app from Salem Media be that spark. This free Android app delivers an uplifting verse. each morning, plus reading plans, devotions, and trusted podcasts from leaders like Joyce Meyer and Rick Warren. Prefer to listen instead?

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My critics, Sean, I've only had one comeback to my critics, for the most part, for 40 years. And they say whatever they want to say, and they're allowed to have whatever opinion they want because they bought it. It's theirs. If they were in front of me, I would gently tap them on their shoulder, and I've done this to some. And the answer is always the same. if you don't like what I'm doing, then you should spend your time and money on things you personally enjoy.

I can't fix this for you. Yeah. Totally fair, I agree. This is the you thing. So just go get some stuff that you like. But I don't understand why you need to go to Internet and talk about, I've said it before in interviews, you may have heard me.

I have, yeah. I don't like Brusselsprout, but I don't go to Brusselsprout.com. and complain about him. I just don't consume it. I just don't consume it. So people that I perceive, that I judge, because I am as flawed as anybody else, Sean, I don't hang out with.

I don't blame you. It's done. And so I just go, here's, I'm ultimately in charge of my own personal happiness. And I get to make the choices that get me there. And if I'm doing things that aren't happy, then it's a weird one because I've had plenty of people come up to me

and they go my dad drives me crazy 50 year old people my dad drives me crazy why does he drive you crazy because whenever take the kids over he's mean and he's obnoxious to him which isn't fun

and I understand why and it's like well how long's you been doing this oh almost his whole life but for the last 20 years he's always mean to the kids I don't know at times I can be black and white

I think that there's two options at that point and I'm overly simplistic so whatever one don't visit your dad anymore it's an option but that's a hard one for people the other option is well I can't I can't cut my dad on my life no I understand that actually actually it makes me more sense then you've got to go in knowing exactly that that tiger has stripes so you've got to turn to your kids and go look at we're going to go see

grandpa he's probably going to say a couple nasty things to you just get ready for it let's go let's go and you just go it so when he does it you all win at each other and you go, she told you. I told your grandpa was going to do it. Remember we had a bet? Was he going to do it at minute five or minute 10? Jimmy wins. Make a game out of it then.

Instead of making it tense, just enjoy it. Enjoy it. Look at, I've got a mother-in-law that has dementia. And it's harsh. Family members, too. I get it. It's harsh. So all you can do, and her memory now is probably 30 seconds.

it's tight all you can do is just be in the moment for 30 and then if she asked the exact same question be in the moment for that 30 and you may have to answer the question i've done it i've have to answer the question 20 times but it's new to them every single time let's go i don't i don't use words like hey don't you remember i told you i don't do that i don't insult her she's got dementia and i don't go hey we've talked about this before i don't do any of it i just go this is groundhog day Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. And if I can't do that, then I shouldn't be visiting her or I keep my visits short. But I can do it. I can actually do it for hours, right? Like, oh, let's have a good time. Why? Because every time you give her the same information, if it's a happy memory, it puts a smile on their face and you go, wow, she got 40 smiles.

In a normal circumstance, she might have only smiled once because she would have remembered that information. But she got told that information 40 times. They got to smile 40 times. What's wrong with her? that. Not bad. I mean, obviously we wish you didn't have dementia. But here we go. So you, I don't know, at times you have to just make lemon aid out of the lemons that are dealt you, Sean. And that's, that's all we got. But those are personal decisions. And I, you and I, everybody, we have to find inner peace. I've got my things that give me inner peace, as odd as it may be for people. And I understand my oddness. Let me tell you. My mom scratched her head many times, Sean, about her own.

So she would have, if you would said, Shirley, her name was Shirley. If you would said, and she's not here, but if you said, Shirley, tell me about Todd. Here's what I know her first reaction would be. She would roll her eyes. That's great. She would go, because it would be the where to begin, where to begin with Todd. He has been in trouble since the first day. I have been on a first name basis with every principal at every school I've ever gone to.

Right? So, again, I'm not advocating anybody to be like me on any level, not even my children. I don't wish me on my children. I just know that the life I've lived, given the adversity I've had to go against, building my career and status quo that I've had to rail against, I've had to just build this Todd. And it works. It works for me.

I don't. Like I go to MBA. Sometimes I talk to MBA classes. And the first thing I do is I go, I'm not telling you how to make money. And they hate it. Sean, I got to tell you,

they hate it. Like 80% of them are sitting there and they throw their pencil down and they're going, bro, you're not going to tell us in 10 steps how to make a million bucks. What are we here for?

You know what I talk to them about for the most part? keep your integrity. I think it's the only thing that goes to your grave with you is your integrity, right? Money, that's fleeting, right? Like, it comes and go.

And oh, by the way, if you're going to be a douchebag, make sure you're making money for somebody, right? Because nobody hangs out with bad people, willingly. They only do it because, uh, he serves a purpose. And then you can see they're all like, and out of usually 100 people, in all honesty, but 100 people, I know I'm only talking to four because everybody else is already, baby sharks,

They're going to sell their soul. They're going to go to Wall Street, whatever. But sometimes I end it with this. I go, hey, thanks for having me. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. I was just going to go. There's a couple more things, and I'm going to go.

Appreciate your time. Let's just do a hypothetical here. You wake up tomorrow. You're not feeling very good. And by noon, you're feeling terrible. Do you make a phone call? They said, yeah, yeah, yeah, we can squeeze you in the doctor's office. You go to the doctor's office, go see the doc.

They take draws of blood. And they said they're going to run it out to the lab, run all the tests. you go in the lobby, you wait. So you go out there, get your phone, look on yourself for a while. 45 minutes later, Doc comes out. He's got a dead serious look on his face. And he comes and he says, I need you back in the room. You go back into the room with the doctor, and then he breaks it to you.

We ran all the test three times. You have an operable cancer. Modern medicine can do nothing for you. It's too late. you will be dead in three weeks. I'm sorry to have to deliver it to you. Now, I'm going to ask you two questions before I go. One, given that you know that to be a fact,

that you're going to be dead in three weeks, I'm going to assume everybody in this room has somebody they care about, deeply. And if you care for them, I'm going to assume they care for you too, just as deeply. but in three weeks that human being is going to be without you. Can you imagine the heartache and the pain and the grief that human being is going to go through? It's going to be trying. So my first question, if you could pick one person to help the one that you love the most,

to soft land, to just be there, to comfort them, to just be a shoulder, through that time when you're not going to be there. Who would that person be? I'll give you 15 seconds to think of them. And I do, Sean, I stand in silence for 15 seconds. And then I go, I'm now, before I go, I'm going to ask you my very last question. The person you just chose,

are they the richest person you know, or are they the best person that you know? Why not be that second person? You guys are chasing money, and when it mattered, you didn't go there. Not even you. Be good. Just be good. Somebody will always want you.

You can always be needed. Nothing wrong with that. It's not too far from some of the teachings of Jesus. No. About winning the world and losing your soul in many ways. There's some overlap about what matters. Hey, you've been super generous with your time, Todd. I'm going to just, in a minute, I'm going to ask you if I missed anything, anything else you want to throw in there.

But for people watching, I just implant an idea. If you ever want to just continue this conversation, I do it in a heartbeat. So, let me just throw something. Just hopefully, I haven't offended too many people here and whatever else, that I have to be this guy because the result of it that at times, and you sort of said at the beginning, oh, Todd, you did some things that I enjoy. it had to come from that same place, right? So let's just talk about, and you've heard it, the creation of venom, right? The creation of venom comes as a complete happy accident,

but it also is because of my rebellious attitude, right? So if it wasn't there, there may be no venom. I mean, it's true. So I'm a young artist. I finally catch my break. I prove my worth. I have a chance now to maybe, do a Spider-Man book, which is really a big deal in a young creator's career,

working at Marvel and DC. You get to do a character that your mom and dad have heard of. That's big. But he's wearing that black costume. And I just go, and here's the rebellion part. I think 99.9% of young kids who were trying to work for Marvel and want to do it would have just gone, when they said to me, we're going to give you the amazing Spider-Man,

would have said, oh, my gosh. Thank you. I'm phoned in, like, for sure. Out, out the door. Not taught. On one condition, I said. Like condition, they just gave you the goose that lays eggs on one condition. Got to get rid of that black costume.

I can't draw it. What are you talking about? I can't. I've been, this is me being a 10-year-old kid. Spider-Man, that's not Spider-Man. This isn't Spider-Man to me. I'm a 10-year-old kid. Not that you can't physically draw it, but in your mind,

who Spider-Man is shouldn't be wearing the black suit. No. People not tracking it. I work hard. I work hard to get to Spider-Man. It's like drawing Batman with polka-dots. I don't like, I'm going, come on, man, I gotta draw Spider-Man. And so it's like, let's just get him in the red and blue again, right, with the webbing and stuff.

And they're like, no, the editor-in-chief, Jim Shooter at that point. Editor-in-Chief and some of the other people, they like, they like the costume. And he came, the costume pre-existed in Star Wars, right? Or not Star Wars, Secret Wars, excuse me, Star Wars. Eight, right? George, George, Secret Wars, which was a comic book at Marvel. So, so, again, I was just,

I had an easy solution to it, Sean. Well, why don't we just take the costume up Peter Parker and put it on another, somebody else? We'll just, I'll vent another character. I was just like, here, this is easy. And then we can still have the costume, the black costume, and then we can have Peter Parker, and I can draw them the way I want to draw.

Done. And they thought about it and they went, okay, let's see the drawing. And so I went, okay, Secret Wars, that's taking place on another planet, aliens, okay. And so I drew that drawing to Venom, big alien-looking thing. And I handed it, and they signed off. Everybody was happy. Costume stayed.

We get another villain. Peter Parker comes. Everybody goes, whatever else, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We had no idea what we were about to unleash with that character. It's still being unleashed. It's still being unleashed. But I sit there and go, a normal employee, young trying to go there would have said yes ma'am yes sir thank you for put me on your

flagship book and walked out and and the like this is the piece that my mom would go of course he did right of course he put a condition on it that's my boy right like so sometimes it gets me in massive trouble which is why I was on a first name basis with the principal and other times you get these accidents of pushing against stuff and doing it. And it works. And I wish I could replicate it. I wish I knew what that formula was. I'd be doing it all the time.

I don't. So the two things that I know with 100% certainty. Okay. All right. Let's go. Death. We're all going to die and change. It's been coming since the dawn of man.

otherwise we'd be in caves and we dress different and we transport ourselves different. Change is always here and the thing that I've said before that I think is the greatest enemy for young people getting is the wall

the guardianship of status quo and status quo to me Sean is yesterday and I am so disinterested in yesterday. And I am so disinterested than yesterday because I always think, even at this ripe old age, that my best day is in front of me. It's either today or tomorrow.

And I hope I got another 40 years. And I probably will never achieve that holy grail I have in my head. But that's the thing that keeps going. And the yesterday part, right, is like, you can learn. You can learn a little bit because you find where the potholes are. This is why parents you block them. Yep. But yesterday is like changed.

So I did a Spider-Man that worked, and the only thing that bugs me is that my look of Spider-Man has now become the status quo somewhat over there. It has, yeah. And why, and they were railing against it the whole time. Why wouldn't you allow young people like your son to come in and go, show Todd and all these other Spider-Man artists. They didn't know what they were doing.

Go. Why wouldn't you encourage, like that? Because they might come up with something 10 times cooler. But instead, we find out ways to narrow. Look, we've got a disease, and I'm rambling, but we've got a disease called cancer. And you know how we try to solve it? You know how we try to solve cancer?

Even arguably today. But in the back, we've got this bad thing. It's called cancer. It's going to kill lots of us. We have a survival instinct. We'd like to get it fixed. So we've got to come out with a solution for it. But before we do that,

that because we've got to come up with as many answers we can to try and see if we can eradicate this thing. I'm going to need all the females in the room to leave because females, they can't be doctors, can they? And sometimes, depending where you're standing, the people in brown and black skin, we need you to leave the room too. And now we're going to solve the problem because this is who can be in the medical profession at certain times in the history of mankind. And this is the flaw of us that we're trying to solve a problem that will, that will be helpful to the entire world. And our first step is to narrow the possibilities instead of expanding the possibilities. This is to me, this is the color of the range. I like to expand. I like variety.

I like all the letters in the alphabet. I think it's, I think it's good. It's chicken noodle for my soul. So I'm a curious being and I like to see people find personal inner happiness any way they see fit. Well, you've certainly given some to myself and my two boys and plenty others. A lot of, we have dozens of comics and a bunch I bought in the early 90s when that came out. 92, right? Spont came out. Yeah, 1999, right, just after Youngblood. That's right. Rob, Rob, Rob came out.

Rob got that one off the stand too. Can I give a little props to Rob Lifel? Please, yeah. Because Rob Lefeld, as you know, he's like, he's on the other end of me. But we are dear friends, right? Rob Leifold. He talks very highly about you. He is a good, energetic man.

And that I always say like the moment that Image Comics, which is where Spawn comes from, we're the third biggest, right? Marvel DC, everybody knows that. Image is number three. If you ask, well, what's after that? It's always been us for 30 years. Jim Lee, who was the choir boy, we got picked up. We needed him, but I got to tell you, if there was no Rob Liefel, there would be no image.

We, he was, he was rocket fuel. That's good word for him. For this, for this endeavor. He was young. Look, I met Rob and he was in his teens, Sean. He was a kid. We were all kids. And so you can imagine how crazy, if you think we're crazy now as old men,

You should have seen us. Like it was, it was nuclear what we were because we were completely fearless, especially Rob and I. But Rob, I couldn't have done it alone. I couldn't have, if it was just me in the group, it would never work. Maybe even if it was Rob, whatever,

but we needed each other. Everybody played a part. And Rob Blyfeld, and I don't know where it comes from, and it came from his spirituality or not, I don't know where it came from, where that DNA came from. But I am thankful that it was there because we needed it. We all needed that.

And that's one of those colors that is like I'm good. I don't care how you bring it. Just bring it, be good people. And we're going to get along, right? Done. Love it. Those of you watching Rob Liefeld was on here talking about his faith. You mean by the other end of this perspective, he's gone to church for 20-some years, believes in God.

His dad was a pastor. And that story was interesting. Maybe the future we'd sit down with you and Rob. That would be entertaining. Would you? You'd be entertaining would be. That's like the understatement of the year. You would have to say, so tell me a little about yourself.

And then we would just blow those you. Oh, man, you wouldn't even know what hits you. Hey, don't mess up my spawn comic just for the record. By the way, if there's anybody on the planet that could mess up my spawn comic and I'd be like, I'm good. That's you, Todd. That's it. Hey, man, I have so many more thoughts.

Like when we started to jump into some of the evidence, I totally agree with you. It's not about certainty. I look at things like near-death experiences, and I go, okay, what does this suggest about what it means to be human? Maybe there's a soul. Maybe there's not just a body. Maybe there's an afterlife. Other things like the moral law suggests to me a moral law giver.

You mentioned the Big Bang, and may go, yeah, if the universe banged into existence, that suggests a cause outside of the universe that brought it into existence. Now, you and I would differ on some of those things. Yeah. But I would just say, to me, it's not a question. question of certainty. Are there certain signposts that point beyond this world to something supernatural? We differ there, but maybe at some point we'll...

But here's what I admire. Here's what I'm going to say that I admire about you and probably millions like you. I admire your loyalty. I'm a big advocate of loyalty. And so I admire the loyalty of people defending what they believe. is right for them. I think that's admirable. And so the slight gap, and I think there's a slight gap here,

is that, I get it. Somebody, I'll use a bad analogy, I'm a sports guy. Somebody thinks that the best baseball team ever, ever, ever, and they'll like, and they go. And I just admire that every year that they never waver, from that and they go. Got a commitment to it. It doesn't mean that it's true.

It doesn't mean that they even have any evidence to it. It just means that in their core, they believe it. And it's good for them. I'm with that. I'm always with. I'm with the people who just go, no, let's go. We're there. We're there.

The piece that that guy would cross over is if he just was to tell me that under no circumstances, that the Cubs are 100% the best team. I'm not going to have an argument on any intellectual way of any of the other. Then I'm like, oh, man, I was actually admiring you up to that point, right? Like, just be a Cubs fan to the death. That's cool. My brother was. But of course, just, you know, we're wrapping up here.

But not much is at stake with what we believe about our favorite sports team, but believe in about heaven and hell and eternity and those things have a lot more weight, obviously, than a baseball team would be. With that said... From your perspective, right. Well, yeah. Fair enough. We will leave it at that.

Todd, if you would... I mean, if someone had told me in eighth grade when I was collecting Spider-My comics and you captured me with the way that you drew him, we'd be sitting down here. And I think if I'm not mistaken, my teams here, that we had the longest conversation he gave me that time. I don't think I would have believed it.

So I've thoroughly enjoyed this. You haven't remotely offended anybody. My people who follow my channel are like going super interesting, go two more hours and talk about miracles in Jesus and Bible, all that stuff. I'm like, we are good. Oh, man. So you have been incredibly generous. Last really quickly, just tell something you're working on that you're excited about.

Um, I get excited about everything, but it's weird. But what are you doing, Todd? It's like conk books and toys and a little bit of Hollywood stuff. Like at some point, as you get older, you start walking the same rut a little bit. So I actually get way more enthusiasm watching the youth because it's like, what surprises are they going to sort of put upon us, right? But, yeah, I mean, we're marching towards issue 400 to spawn. The toys were always, we've just signed a couple of big licenses we're going to do. And we're still, we just made an offer to a director for the, you know, a new spawn movie.

Okay. So, but again, we've been talking about that for way too long. So I don't want to say anything about that publicly until we've got to. actually got the deal done and we're sort of we got a production date and then I then we can then I can talk about something that has evidence that are going no no we're going to make a movie I want to be able to say the contracts have been signed we're making something and now I can like give them something they can get excited about and then that's just going to blow up all the people that have been what I call in the bubble which is a comic book industry they've been collecting all those on comic books once you get

outside the bubble then all of a sudden it's like where's that come from oh from the comic all the sales, like all the books. It all ties. Your $5 books are going to go to $25 bucks. Your $25 books are going to go to $100, right? Like everything's going to, if the Spawn movie works and is successful, everybody go, I've got a box. It's like, so I'm trying to get it out of the bubble in a big meaningful way like

walking dead, not to that degree. Yeah, sure. But he got out of the bubble, right? Well, when it comes out, if you want to talk about it more and spread the word, I'd love to probe more into Spawn. All right. Todd, super generous with your time. We've got some personal books.

I have zero interest in selling them. I don't care. Given a couple of way, if you humor us and sign as many as you have time for, would be pretty fun. We'll do it. I appreciate the time today, Sean. Thanks, Todd. All right.

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