Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 1428 | ‘The Odyssey’ Saw Our A.I. Problem Coming 3,000 Years Ago

Episode Date: September 25, 2026

Artificial intelligence, robots, and the possibility of technological collapse launch the guys into a surprisingly ancient question: What happens when something that promises comfort and convenience starts controlling us instead? Al, Zach, Christian, and John Luke turn to The Odyssey to examine Odysseus’ battles with temptation, pleasure, security, and the pull to abandon his responsibilities for an easier life. They connect Homer’s warnings to modern porn culture, marriage, fidelity, and the danger of choosing fantasy over what is real. The guys ultimately contrast Odysseus’ search for wisdom, forgiveness, and a way home with the hope Christianity offers through Christ. In this episode: John 17:3; James 4:17 Today’s conversation is about Lesson 3 & 4 of The Odyssey taught by Hillsdale Professor Dr. Benedict Whalen. Take the course with us at no cost to you!  More about The Odyssey: The Odyssey tells the tale of the cunning and crafty hero of the Trojan War on his journey home. After ten years of war, Odysseus faces another ten years of fantastic temptations, deadly monsters, treacherous seas, and impious men. Meanwhile, Ithaca is threatened by suitors who plague his wife and plunder his wealth. When Odysseus reaches home, he must slay the suitors, test the loyalty of his friends and family, and restore order to his marriage and his kingdom. Join Dr. Benedict Whalen as he explores themes of love, marriage, kingship, duty, and piety. Encounter Homer's epic, which displays the full human experience. In a world of uncertainty, Odysseus charts a path towards peace through perseverance, prudence, and justice.  Join Odysseus on his fantastic journey home from Troy in Homer’s unrivaled story. Sign up at ⁠http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/ Check out At Home with Phil Robertson, nearly 800 episodes of Phil's unfiltered wisdom, humor, and biblical truth, available for free for the first time! Get it on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and anywhere you listen to podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/at-home-with-phil-robertson/id1835224621 Listen to Not Yet Now with Zach Dasher on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or anywhere you get podcasts. Chapters 00:00 A.I., Robots & Apocalypse 05:08 America’s EMP Vulnerability 10:07 ‘The Odyssey’ on A.I. & Wisdom 13:36 Odysseus Faces Temptation 17:02 Porn Culture & Fantasy 21:43 Choosing Fidelity Over Comfort 27:04 Wealth, Security & Starting Over 32:14 Where Human Virtue Falls Short 36:25 Odysseus the Manipulator 40:15 Suffering, Pride & Forgiveness 44:38 How Christ Changes the Ending - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? Well, welcome back to the Unashamed podcast. Here we are again. It's Friday, Hillsdale, Friday with Hillsdale, and we're taking these courses for free. We're right now taking the Odyssey. So I felt like I'm almost kind of back in college because I actually took a, I took an English class that had a little bit of this in it. I didn't take a full class on this, though. So this is a full class just on the Odyssey. so you can take it for free with us at Unashamperhillsdale.com and I know John Luke, I know you're getting into it because I'm getting like late night text from John Luke about different fantasy books.

Am I reading them? And you sent me one. He said, are you read, what was the book? Hyperion. Hyperion. He said, has you read high text? Because I'm not in this.

No, this is a private text. Have you read Hyperion? And at first I was like, oh, it must be something like in the wheelhouse with theology, philosophy. And I looked at that by like, I haven't read that. What made you ask me that?

Because we never connected because you were on the road and I never called you back. I know, because I said, call me. I'm driving. And you said, how long are you being in the car? I said 15 minutes and just no response. Yeah, Zach said, I'm too busy for 15 minutes. Uh-huh. It was probably, we call that getting zacked.

Yeah. You know, you got zacked. I thought, it wasn't even late. I thought he might be at church because it was a Wednesday night. It was. I was at church. I assumed you were at House Church. Yeah, I gave you the benefit of the doubt.

forgot to call you back when everybody left. I wasn't, though. I was driving in the car. No, it's about a, it's about theology. It's about AI. It's about the end times. It's about temptation, the Antichrist. It's just, it's got, it's all the things you're into.

That's what I ask. Is it like, is it like, Faint, predestination? Oh gosh, it's got it all in there. It's got it all. Yeah. I'll probably have some thoughts on that. That's licking his lips right now.

You will have thoughts. That's what I'm saying. You will have thoughts on it. It's a good fiction book written in like the, I think it was in the 90s. Talking about artificial intelligence in the 90s? Oh, it's exactly what, like, I think where we're going. Interesting. Yeah.

I mean. Christian, you need to go back and watch the Terminator series. This A.S. We've been fearing this for decades. I know that. I know that. That's my biggest fear, by the way, is with the AI explosion. And she don't get so mad when I talk about this, by the way.

I can't even, I literally cannot talk about it anymore at the house. She doesn't listen to our podcast. It's okay. No, she doesn't listen to this. But my biggest fear is the Terminator. Like, these robots, they're going to have robots. And then I read that paper by Bill Gates. And that's one of the things that he was predicting, was like these robots that are going to be, I mean,

and then Elon's talking about how many, We're going to have tons of robots that are going to outnumber humans. And that's the part that scares me. No, once you read Hyperion, it's way worse. What could happen with AI is way worse than robots? I'm going to, this is what I want to develop is a little handheld EMP. Mm-hmm. You guys know what that is?

Yeah. Yeah, it's like shuts everything down. It's an electronic magnetic pulse. If you watch, there's a show where they can hit it. It's just on all the, everything, But if you have an EMP, then if the robots are coming for you, you could hit the button and it just disables all robots. Yeah.

And in a typical, like a specific area. Unless they build ferity cages in the robots, then I don't know. I haven't got a solution for me. Let's run the idea through chat, GPT, and see what it tells us. No, I don't see. Everything you run through chat. That's how they'll build their defenses right there. Grab it all your stuff, man.

I've never thought about robots taking over the world. Maybe I'm just... Maybe I'm the outlier. There's a lot... Look, I'll tell you this. There's a lot of people that I talk to that I would not... That have not typically been the doomsday prepper types.

And they're talking about a coming apocalypse, and I'm like, what are you... What do you say? One of them, we all know, I won't say his name here, but he actually wrote a book that he's going to be releasing soon. and he sent me a copy of about the coming collapse. And he deals with a lot of this stuff.

So I mean, I think there's things that are on the horizon. So I would like to read the book because I think sometimes you, you know, you read, you can read literature from the past that somewhat like, that people see these things before they happen. And people have been talking about artificial intelligence for a long time now. This is not something new, you know. Remember the Jim's out? Well, the interesting thing is, too, that you.

the very things, but people were so addicted as a culture to electronic things that run everything in our lives, if all of a sudden we had to get rid of that, it's going to create the same kind of chaos on the other side, which, Zach, that's the thesis for a series of books I read from an Arthur up in Black Mountain, up in your area that was a, I think he's a professor at Montreed or used to be, but he wrote this really engaging. And the whole thing there was the, I think it was the North Koreans or somebody like set off an EMP that like kill the whole country electronically overnight. And it sends everything into the chaos. So it's like it's almost like we're looking at chaos either way. You know, you're either addicted to it, which our culture certainly is. And you could, you know, how would you do without it?

Which you guys kind of experienced that for, I don't know, a few weeks, right? After the hurricane couple years ago. I thought about that. Yeah, that book, the series of books, it was. books that was called One Second After. Right? Is that what you're talking about? Yeah.

I had lunch with the author because he teaches at Montreat. And then there's a movie coming out about this. And I actually got to the screens and see a rough cut, director's cut of that a few months ago. Based on the books? It's based on the book. It takes care. Oh, wow. It's good.

The books are very entertaining, but scary. I like we're talking about. They're super scary. Well, this might shock you. But so in 2016, I believe, Governor Jindal was, I think he was Governor in Louisiana, so it may not have been 2016. Whenever he was the governor, he appointed me to the Louisiana Innovation Council, which is a lot of like kind of the technology players in the state of Louisiana. At the time, I had a company, we were doing cybersecurity and kind of like information technology, staff, augmentation. All that means is we would staff IT consultants, high-level IT consultants at companies.

And so I got invited to this event. It was a small group. It was at the University of Louisiana, Lafayette. And it was the congressional task force, the congressional EMP task force. that Congress had essentially commissioned to assess the threat of an EMP attack. A lot of it was in that book that you mentioned, but how vulnerable are we to an EMP attack where what would it do to our infrastructure and what would happen?

And so I went down there to Louisiana or to Lafayette for this meeting. And it was like all day. It was like a dinner that night and we had meetings the next day. And I'm kind of like a fly on the wall. I'm just there kind of networking. part of this council. And they were presenting the information. So they had like a former UN ambassador. They had a representative, I think, from the FBI, CIA, they were all there. And all this, a lot of this stuff got decommissioned or declassified in 2008. But they were, man, when they kind of presented the full case, I mean, I left there like, this is very scary because we're very vulnerable.

because what they were saying, if you take a nuclear device and you detonate it 30 kilometers, I think it was like 30 kilometers in the atmosphere above Kansas, then it would wipe out all of the circuitry, like anything that's like computer base,

it would just fry all these, all these components and computers, and it would just create mass chaos. And so, yeah, it was really, really kind of eye-opening. And that's the kind of thing I think with AI, that it is a thing. threat, you know, cyber attacks, things like that that are happening are going to happen,

you know, bank fraud. I mean, the possibilities are just endless. It's just so scary. But we do belong to a kingdom that can't be shaken or destroyed. There you go. The rock that turned into a mountain that filled the entire earth. That's what we're a part of. But I tell you who wasn't worried about A.I.

Zay. Who's that? Homer. Homer didn't care. And Odysseus. And Odysseus. They weren't. I was wondering how are we going to tie that in.

I was thinking as attractive as AI is to some people, you know, Calypso is almost like that form of AI. It's like it seems good. It seems, you know, there's nothing better than it. But truthfully, all Odysseus wants is wisdom. And ultimately, there is no wisdom in AI. Like there was no wisdom in Calypso. Oh, that's a good tie-in for sure. That's a good tie in there.

Thank you. Let me give you this CS. I didn't practice that. I want to give you a C.S. Lewis quote. just to, if you are worried about that, and I think it does kind of tie in. He wrote this at the height of war to where, you know, who knew what was going to happen, right?

I mean, he wrote this and, or maybe he didn't write it. Let's see, I don't know when he wrote it, actually. It was, he may have wrote it. I think he may have written it after that. So on living in an atomic age. So this probably would have been in the 80s. He said, if we're going to, if we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb. You could insert artificial intelligence there. Let that bomb come when it finds

us doing sensible and human things, praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts, not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies. A microbe can do that, but they need not dominate our minds. So that's the word right there. And I do think Odessius, he kind of embodied that. Because if you look at this story here, I mean, it does seem overwhelmingly, the odds seem against him getting home. You know what I mean?

It's like every time he turns around, you're not getting out of this one. So in this lecture, we're doing three and four. One of you guys give us kind of an overview of where we're kind of the story twists and turns in lecture three. I like that. I like that. Let's see how the story twists and turns, because Odysseus is the man of twist and turns, but John Lucas is the best one to give us the synopsis of where we're at.

Yeah, so he, the first couple chapters, books in the book, is about Telemachus and Penelope and their household, and it sets up the whole thing that Odysseus is gone. They don't know if he's alive or not. Penelope and Telemachus are back home, trying to deal with the suitors. Telemachus goes. Sparta to meet Nestor and the rest of them, or the other guys who are in the war, to, like,

hear about Odysseus and they're, like, tell him stories about him. Then we get to lecture 3 and 4, and we're introduced to Odysseus. And we find him that he is on this island with Calypso, and she's basically, like, holding him there as, like, a sex slave. And he is giving him everything you wants and like all the stuff. In the movies, there's another, there's another part that we haven't gotten to in the books yet. And that's like with the lois flower. And in the movie, they combined Calypso and the lotus flowers. And like she was keeping there with like the drug. And that's why he was saying. But in the book, there's like two separate things. So we get to the first, we get to Calypso. And this is like two where

like I think that the story um well it really kind of begins but it really shifts more towards from like okay here's just like an event like things that are happening to this is the struggles of mankind

like I think that one of the themes that Homer um is doing one of the things that Homer is doing throughout the whole book is like what are these temptations that all men or all people like deal with and odysseus goes to these different islands and each island like represents like a different temptation for him and temptation for us um in calypso is this first one and the temptation there is uh beauty and so

which we'll talk about all of this but well i guess that's a recap and we'll get your thoughts and we'll keep going well i mean think about like because he's obviously in in both of these lectures he's confronted with kind of I would say unbridled pleasure and maybe overwhelming comfort and immortality. And immortality.

Yeah, yeah, that's a big one. He is offered immortality with calypsis. And, you know, it's not like, I mean, he said sex slave, but I mean, it's, he's kind of under the delusion while he's there. It's not, I mean, I mean, obviously he's,

at least from the movie, I don't remember, John, like you mentioned the calypso. I mean, the, what was the plant, the lotus flower?

Uh-huh. And in the movie, like, he's eating the lotus. And that's kind of the thing that lulls him into the, into this. But it's,

you see him. I mean, there is a pull to, for him to want to stay there. You know, it's kind of an interesting question. I think, like,

what, like, what would, what would lead a person to say no? Mm-hmm. to ultimate pleasure. immortality in this sense and then later

comfort and riches, you know what I mean? I think that's the sense of like John Luke framed it beautifully is this sense of the inner man of any of us. I do think Homer's got the broader question here because there's like,

I mean, Odysseus is wanting to go home because that's where his family is. I mean, like that's the ultimate pull. And I thought it was ironic that after all he had done, and I think the professor mentioned this, that like all the things he had done and all the great victories and, you know, the kind of man he was. And yet the opening scene, the first time we see him in this book, he's just crying like a child because, you know, he wants to go home. And so there's that pull. But then there's all these other factors, as we said.

And it makes me think, Zach, about our study in James. Because James, frames frames the same thing that Homer did. It's this idea of kind of two kinds of wisdom. You have the thing that is right and the thing that is good and the thing that morally you know you should be doing. And yet you've got this other side that's always pulling. And that's the kind of that inner man struggle that we see here. And I think it's very apropos for what any person goes through when tempted by something that seems so great. which, you know, we talk about this along the podcast because we have a lot of young men that listen to us. That's what a pornography is. I mean, it's the nymph. It's the idea that this is attractive and better, but it always ends fruitless.

It ends with guilt. It ends will make you feel icky and not good. Why is that? Because it's not right. And it's not real. It's something that's fake. And so I think that's a good picture you see in what's kind of going on with Odysesis, during this process and he's been there seven years.

Yeah. Well, even like what you just said, the thing that, the thing for him that made him want to go back to his, to his house with Penelope was her wisdom. And he said some translations, you know, say cunning. And he did not find that in Calypso. And I think, yeah, I think the pornography is a brilliant comparison there of like, yeah, it's this thing that you convince yourself, it's a fantasy. But it's not.

It's, you know, something pleasurable potentially in a moment. But in the end, it leads you unsatisfied, and there is no ultimate wisdom in it, which is why I think, I think that's a cool comparison between Calypso and that. It's that, yes, it might seem pleasurable. It might seem like something you desire, but there's no real sustenance there, and there's no real wisdom behind it. Yeah, that's exactly what I was going to say, comparing Calypso to porn. I think that, like, when Odysseus gets to the island,

he's, I'm sure that he's, like, taken in by it, and you kind of kind of get this idea that, like, he wanted to stay and he saw Calypso and you saw the beauty of the island. It's like this, like, amazing thing. And then after however many years he was there, it just, it started making it feel sick. And he's like, this is just, this is not real. And it's that temptation. And that's what Calypso kind of puts it to him at the end is like, you can stay here with me and have this eternal me as an eternal beauty. I'll never change. I'll always look the same. I'm the most beautiful person ever. You've got the land. I'll give you everything you could ever want as far as, you know, lust goes on this kind of like natural, idyllic island. Or you can go home to your wife and to your

responsibilities and he says, no, I love my wife Penelope because of her mind. Like I know her body's getting older, but her mind is the same. And there's like real stuff. Yeah. That was one of the temptations is like, you know, your wife's probably aged. You've been here a while. She's not the same form. She doesn't have the same body that she had then. So she's appealing to the basement level, kind of the more superficiality.

And that was a great, great connection point on the porn culture, because that is what, I mean, even thinking about the lotus flower, which obviously wasn't in this lecture. but the movie I mean you can't help reference the movie because we all just watched it but he's he's like eating this and it's like numbing him from reality

which is what porn and the porn culture does it like numbs you from like reality and so what she offers him is not eternal life she offers an immortality and there's a big difference between like what Christ offers us is eternal life defined as a relationship

knowledge of him. John 173, he says eternal life is this to know the one true God in Jesus Christ, the son whom he sent. So it's not just existing forever. What she was saying is you can exist in this state with me forever, but you're never leaving this island. Right. You're never getting off this island if I give you immortality, which I would argue this is probably a definition of hell, you know, to be confined to that, to be compound to that forever. But there's a, There's a story that has been told of these Eskimos, the way they would, I've told it on the podcast years ago, because I heard a pastor talk about it, but it's the way they would catch the wolves, and they would take a knife,

and they would dip it in blood, and then they would freeze it. And then they would dip it in blood and freeze it, dip it in blood and freeze it. It'd be like a popsicle of blood, and they would stick these, like knives or these spears or whatever, these blades in the snow. And these dogs, these wild animals, these wolves would smell the blood and they would come up and they would start to lick the blade. And then they would, and it would taste so good to them. But over time, as they're licking the blood off the blade, their tongue gets numb because

it's frozen. Well, then they start licking and their tongue is numb. So it's slicing their tongue. And they're bleeding all over the place. And then they smell their own blood. and their appetite gets even more, and not realizing the entire time that they've been desensitized

the very thing that is actually killing them. And I think that's kind of what's happening here and it's like this lotus flower, this intoxication. It's to lull you. It's to get you into this false sense of pleasure. It's superficiality. And what Odysseus eventually chooses,

to your point, John Luke, is something that is more akin to fidelity. This is the woman I share my life with. This is the woman, Penelope, that I share my story with. Yeah, she may not have the same body she had at 20 years old, but you know what?

This is my wife, and he takes the one thing that she is superior in, which is wisdom, and then a juxtaposes that to the situation he's in. And I just want to say this, that it's interesting

that even these Greek mythology, give us kind of like, this is like the fundamental truth about what we're all looking for. That does give you the answer of how to actually fulfill that. That only comes through Christ, but it does at least present the dilemma that we're all in, and it also presents the ideal. Like we're attracted to Odysseus because he's a man who says, I'm not going to, I'm not going to choose the porn. I want the real thing. I want the fidelity. You know, Christ gives us a real answer for that, by the way. But I find it encouraging, that in the Greek mythologies

that some of these universal truths about humanity, like we see these are ideals that we all say, that's good. Yeah, that's a good thing. And he even gets there, so when he leaves the island, John Lucas right, these islands are everything that's happening out of these series of tests and temptations, you'll see if he's really going to do the right thing

in his quest homeward. But you know, he goes back to the same theme. Well, first of all, I love that Homer uses when he hides out under the two olive trees, he's the idea is one is fruitful and strong and the other one is you know not so much and the idea that's him again that's this duality of man and and he's hiding out and sleeping underneath these two things when he's awakened by the princess on the beach but he basically has the same conversation with her because you know at first he's all scary looking you know and he made a big

deal about kind of him coming back into a polite society you know but looking like a wild man which again, that's how any of us would be if we'd come out of some worldly situation that we've been involved in and now we're trying to work away back in. But he has a beautiful speech about the oneness of marriage and two becoming one. And his whole conversation with her, which, of course, he's flattering her trying to get to the palace to get home. But he's really speaking a lot of truth into that moment. And of course, she's already said something or thought in her mind about him. And then later the parents do too. And so, It's just, it's another temptation for him, but he's still harking on the right message.

And I just find that fascinating because as a person who's spent my whole life working to maintain a marriage, you understand as you get older and the wisdom is there, the marriage gets better and stronger, not weaker. It's because it's not driven by flesh. It's driven by something much deeper. And so I think we see that, you know, this is through all these trials. And that is something remarkable, you know, and something worth. imitating. Yeah, and so if you're not listening to the lecture to reading, where he leaves the

island of Calypso and then, or she lets him go, and he decides he needs to leave. And kind of the end of him leaving when he's saying no, I have to go home. She kind of tells him like, if you leave, you're going to have like a bunch of hardship. It's going to be super difficult for you. So he's choosing, like, now I'm going to continue my journey, even though it's going to be hard. Then there's like a shipwreck and he ends up on this island of the Fascians. Which isn't Calypso and Poseidon related in the mythology stuff?

Yeah, Calypso is like kind of like Poseidon's daughter, sort of, but... So did he shipwreck him because he was mad that he didn't take the deal? Yeah, yeah, yeah,

Poseidon doesn't like... Said overlooking. Yeah, no, no, that's part of it. Yeah, I mean, Poseidon is against Odysseus, yeah. The Facians, the Faecians. The Faecians.

Faecians. Faecians. Fashens. So then he lands on the the fashian shores, and he's naked, and then he goes up to meet these. He's on the, he's on the shore, which I love this whole segment. So he wakes up naked, and he sees all these, like, my mind, like, teenage age girls, like all out playing on the beach.

And he covers, it says he covers himself, and before he goes out, like, he covers his private parts, but then he stalks out like a mountain lion. And I thought that's such like the duality of like man. And like you see kind of his like conflict here because he covers himself and modesty as like a good person should. But then he's like compelled by his urges to like go out there and like speak to them. So he's just like he wants he's a good person, but he also has these urges and he's struggling. And then he meets them and then he gives that speech that Al just said. Which is really powerful.

I want you to take the course with us for free. It makes a lot more sense if you're watching with us. So you can, you know, see this and read as well, because like they said, it's very readable. You can take the courses for free at unashamed for Hillsdale.com. Yes, so he goes from a place to where, you know, I'm pretty sure it said that the island was beautiful, but it was more untamed, at least with Calypso. So, yeah, Calypso's island was untamed. It was untamed, but it was still natural beauty.

Yeah. And she promises immortality, and now he shows up to a place that's beautiful. So it's almost like, I feel like, I feel like, the temptation's almost getting harder, maybe, would you say? Yeah. Because Clipso, and then you have this one,

and it's like, you know, he goes on to be promised, you know, the king's daughter, abundant riches, and this place is beautiful. It's like gold,

gold ornate stuff everywhere. And I was kind of confused when I was talking about the dogs were like gold too. I don't know if that was like real dogs or if it was like a statue. Yeah, I don't know if it was like saying

that the dogs were like plated in gold or something. Yeah. Yeah, you see him. He shows up and, you know, it talks about he was, he didn't know if he should go up and beg, you know, at her knees or if he should be more, you know, kind of more prudent. Yeah, I thought that was a, what was it saying? It was a, not a, a, a suppient or a, what was the conflicting thing it was talking about?

He was trying to figure out, oh, yeah, yeah, it was a sepient or the, I don't know. I mean, there's that line. He's like, should he be a beggar or should he go as like a king? Yeah. And he chooses to go as... That's the suppliant. A suppliant.

Yeah. A suppliant is a vulnerable person who, like, asked for protection. Yeah. Well, it's kind of the, I mean, it's so funny, a lot of the temptations I've experienced my own life have been around kind of the, yeah, the lust, right, or the pleasure. Like, that's one, like, probably the more superficial thing. And I think that that's one, that one, at least for me, is like over time, I've had more victory over that as I've aged, mainly because of what Al talked about of just experiencing intimacy with Jill on a level that now I'm like, man, like the, what I value about Jill after 25 years of marriage is not what I valued about Jill after five years of marriage of that history, that story that we've lived in together that we've gone through stuff.

I'm like, to me, like having to do that over with anybody, like you, like, I'm like, no, like, Jill is my life. And so, but the other side of it is the security aspect of it. And I think, you know, this, this, the second, uh, lecture where he finds himself at is more, that's the temptation that you can, like, this is a kingdom that's kind of set. It's doing well. He probably understands on some level of what he's, walking into if he if he even makes it back home much less i mean that's that's the thing of that

that don't think the that we talked about but like he's not guaranteed to make it home even right so we think well he gets home and maybe his wife has aged oh well she has aged and maybe the maybe the kingdom is suffering he's lost his wealth and power whatever well for all yeah i mean for all he knows she could be with someone else and telemachus could be dead i mean like there's i feel like yeah there's endless possibilities of what his kingdom could be like when he returns. But one of the things I thought that that Homer does is he paints the picture of what you would describe as that of this almost Edenic, you know, picture. It's just going back to the Garden of Eden.

And so you've got this lush, beautiful thing. All he's got to do is forget who he was and become someone different. Because at this point, already, they don't even know his name and who he is. and they've offered him the beautiful princes that he's already seen. And I mean, so literally he can start a whole new life as a different person. But again, inside is that really who he is? And the answer is no. And I think that's a great picture for us because even as great as the garden was,

it wasn't enough for them to do the right thing and have this relationship with God. I mean, literally to have a hand-in-hand relationship with God in a beautiful place where there was nothing that hurt your crops or hurt you and everything was perfect and beautiful. But there was that inner temptation can be overwhelming for people. So that's the idea. And so I love the idea. That's what makes him heroic to me and what we've gotten so far is he keeps going back to the basics of who he really is. And also we know from, of course, the other, because this is a sequel, that he's been very, he's almost got PTSD by everything

that happened, you know, in the earlier story. And so he's also dealing with that. And so, you know, it reminded me of when 9-11 happened. And, you know, that day, I was, I was in school at the time. I mean, I was preaching too, but I was taking some courses. And so I had just worked out and I was at the activity center. And as soon as it happened, and I knew we were under attack and, man, it was scary. And, you know, all the stuff we talked about early.

Is this it? Is this when we're going to, you know, we're going to have this war. I just wanted to go home. Like I called Lisa and I was like, I'm cutting class. Let's get the girls out of school. Let's just go home. And that's the way it is. I feel like that's the way he is. And he's been through all this stuff, 10 years, you know, with this war situation. What he saw was terrible and brutal. And now he's seven years removed again in this like fake, false situation. And now he's on the next island. And it's just like, get me home. You know, So, I mean, I feel like I've, you know,

since some of what he's dealing with just as a man. And you just want that surrounding that comfort. Like, that's what you get when you have a home. That's what's real. And when things are difficult, that's what you tend to want to go to. Yeah, because in the Garden of Eden, you know, that's good point that,

like, what's different between that and what's going to experience in the new heaven and the new earth is that in the garden, Adam and Eve were sinless, but they were not perfected. And there's a big difference there. The perfection comes through a victorious Christ. So Christ has to be victorious and reigning. And so we're made perfect actually through the victory of the resurrection. But you see the dilemma, the human dilemma is all throughout the Greek mythologies.

You also see where they fall flat in Homer's like, you know, he's trying to hold these ideas. yields up as like these these are great virtues these are things that you should all you know aspire to but it there's not really the means uh to to pull it off you know what i mean what uh it's yeah this is the way you should live this is the way of of fidelity that's better but it's like but but it's only in christianity that the that we have provided the means to actually embody some of these um things that odesseus has you know what i mean like i mean that's why i think it's so these characters like Odessius are they're larger than life.

Like nobody can act. I mean, if you really think about it, nobody can actually do what he did. Like, it's impossible. I mean, he is, no one can survive like this. This is like not humanly possible. So he's kind of like in between this God and he's almost like a demigod. Yeah, I mean, and he's in between because they're trying to figure out how do we hold these ideals

up and give a picture of it? Well, you know, how do we, that we can attain that level of bravery and courage and integrity and all the things. And the Christian story is different and that Christ actually comes down and embodies. It becomes one of us. And they're like, oh, this is how you do it. You do it three. I think to your point is that the overarching, from the Greek perspective, was the law of hospitality was such a big thing that keeps coming up over and over again.

But it was like, see, this is the ultimate virtue. but not really because that's the same thing that got all the suitors living in the house for the last, higher many years. So you can't find it through human means, which was part of the issues that the Greeks were having in wrestling with this. Because they're manipulating the situation

in being opportunistic. It was like... What's like you just said, it does fall flags, that you have Athena as counseling Odysseus to go talk to the queen, whose name means prayed for, and she's telling him that, you know, that she will interlock your passage on the way home. And the only way he does that is by, like you said, manipulating

the story. And it's like, we serve a God that can't be manipulated and who we actually pray for, or who we actually pray to knows what we're going through. And that's the comfort aspect of it, is that you can't, you can't outwit or outsmart or manipulate God. And in this situation, he's being counseled to go talk to the woman whose name means prayed for, and this is the woman who you go prayed to. And it's like, but there's no comfort in it knowing that you can just manipulate her. That's good. In that case, then, what's the difference between the suitors and Odessius is that he's actually good at manipulating? Like, he's good at flattery.

So you listen to him, oh, we love him because he's good at this deception. the others aren't. It's obvious. They can't pull it off. And so what happens in that world in Homer's world is that it's utilitarian. We celebrate him because it works, not because it's necessarily good. But he is. He's flattering the king. He's flattering the queen. He's flattering the daughter. All in the same setting. He's extremely cunning and quick-witted. And he's anticipating with their objections, he's like four steps ahead of him. He's been, what is it, 40 chess, and he's moving the pieces around. And it's working.

And so we're like, yes, it's working, and we like that. And considerably, we kind of want that. And then you're right. And in the Christian story, you're not manipulating God at all. It's about submission falling to your knees. You don't manipulate our God. One, it's not possible. Two, that's the problem when you try to do that.

Yeah, two more notes I wrote down from this section. Well, the first, like, the kind of, like, sin that I kind of put this on was, like, the sin of, like, slothfulness, if you want to use that terminology, or, like, laziness. Like, we've kind of already said this, but the offer here in the Efficient Kingdom is you can shirk all of your responsibilities and just live a, like, good life here, like, comfortable life. You can marry the princess. It can be easy. You can do other things. And all you have to do is just, like you said, just forget who you are. Just stay here.

But that thing that he overcome, which I think we've all experienced that to some level in the sense of like we feel like God's called us to something. Or there's something that we know we can do. But it's like it's going to be hard. When we know all I have to do is just not do it. I can just take the easier option instead of like having responsibility for the things. that I have responsibility for. He's already made promises to Penelope. He has this kingdom.

There's people waiting for him. And he's like, the struggle is like, do I go back to that or I just take the easy route out? And then he, and I think he is struggling with this because whenever they sing the songs about him, yeah, I was confused at this part. Like, so did they know about, so they knew about the story of Troy

and who had this. was? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Because everybody did. Everyone did. I mean, yeah, everyone knew because it was such a big story, which was interesting. I wanted to say this, before you moved to that last point, because to me, that's a great finishing

point for the whole thing, because it's very strong. But I thought about James 417. We're studying James in the regular unashamed on what you just said. And James says he concludes this section about people that don't have a trust in God. So, you know, they keep going to

something else, and there's all these different things that are trusting it, he said, anyone then who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it sins. And, you know, that's been called before the sin of omission versus the sins of commission that we normally see in the Bible. But I think that really shapes what you just described about Odysseus is the idea that he knows he's not some other person. He knows who he is. He knows what he's supposed to do.

He knows he's driven to go home. So that's one of the things we do respect about him. Zach is right. The other things that, you know, the craftiness, all the other things is like, well, you know, but this is something that's good. But he's actually trying to do the right thing. And I think that does lead into this last piece that you were about to describe when when he asked for the song to be sung.

And I'm assuming he asked it so he would get the, what is it, the Cleos, the glory would come out. And then he would make the big reveal about who he was. because that's kind of the cliffhanger for the end of this lecture. But instead, it just shatters him, you know, and then he's back to the blubbering mess that we saw at the beginning in the moment. But it also, to me, shows, because I think the word he used was his suffering has led him to understand the suffering of others. And I wrote that down. That was the quote that the professor made in the lecture.

And I think there's so much truth in that. And this, again, is a huge biblical thing because, Zach, you talked about the only way we come is through Christ. And the Bible's very clear that the Christ came to suffer and die, not just to die, but to suffer and die. And that's how we understood us the best is the suffering nature of men. And so I think that this song thing and the Bard thing, I think it started out with again something for personal glory. But in the in the moment of the personal glory, he realized how many people suffered at his own hand and his own conniving. because, I mean, they slaughtered a lot of people.

Yeah. And you just don't walk away from that. You just don't, nobody does. I mean, warriors don't today. They just, you know, that's something that violates us just as a person made in the image of God. It's hard to take the lives of other people, even in a righteous cause. I mean, it's just because we're designed to live and we're made in God's image. So I do think you see that moment here.

One of the big contrast between, and I can't help with contrast. It's not really in the scope of probably what we were commissioned. to do with this with this what we're going to do is the contrast and to Christianity because these mythologies there's a lot of mythologies out there and so how do how do they stand against christ in the story of odysseus and we know the end of particularly if you've watched the movie recently which most people have he does not retain his kingship in fact he he lives the rest of his life out in exile. What Christ does is Christ, his victory actually ends in his kingship that will last forever, and he brings the exiles to him. And so it's a totally different ending that

you would never see coming, but I think it makes the point that it's not just about the suffering, it's also about the vindication of the suffering in Christ that you see. And in this story, I think it's a very human story. I actually do. I think that Homer hits at a lot of what we're dealing with as humans. And I think that his answer is a very human answer to our problems and to our issues. Well, I mean, this is, you know, like what they talked about, almost 3,000 years ago. And this, what would the part that John Xx better go into, this is right after they hold like a competition and games and he wins this whole thing.

So they end up throwing him a feast, which is when this part comes out. up. But yeah, that's what I'm saying. You see Paul talk about it in the New Testament of, you know, the games and people, how they train their bodies. And this is even goes back even further. So I think it's cool that you see this idea of, yeah, like, you know, men in particular have been doing competitions and games. And, you know, I mean, he throws a disc the furthest. And it's just funny to think about, like, we still do stuff like that today. We're still literally doing that. Yeah, literally that, throwing a disc. Yeah. And he threw it the first. And he threw it the furthest of all the men on the island. And so they throw them this feast and this celebration,

which is when they get into this song that they sing. Yeah, it's funny to think about the Olympics. Like, we're still have the Olympics. Yeah. This is like the beginning of it. We're still doing it. Well, I think that kind of goes into like pride. And I mean, he's, he found pride in the things that he's done and things that have accomplished. And he was kind of looking for salvation because of the things that he had done and what he could do, like salvation himself. And so then they tell a story, and then he grieves, when he hears and realizes, you know,

the depravity of who he is and the damage he's done. And that's one of the things I wrote down is, like, he's looking for forgiveness, he's looking for repentance, and like where can the man find that? And for us, that's Christ. In the books, in the end, he ended up, he, that forgiveness,

comes through Penelope, basically, where he's like, how can I be, how can I still be a king whenever I've done all this wrong and done all this stuff? And he's like looking for a salvation almost like through her. Well, but for us, like that we found that salvation and that repentance and that ability to move on and not forget the past, but there's no that we have sinned and falling short and done damage and find forgiveness and are actually able to repent and then go a new direction and then do good works. That's good. Now, that's well put, Tom Luke. And I think especially when you see in the Greek mythology and the culture of what we're dealing with in the story, when you have gods that can't forgive, I mean, he's fighting against one of them the whole time

in the story who can't forgive him. And then you have another that's there to try to help him to find something. When the gods are competing between forgiveness and unforgiveness, you have no answer because you're just in a constant battle. And so I think that's part of what you see. And you're right. I think the idea of, you know, monotheistic God that has to be a God who can forgive. And of course, that's exactly what our story is. So I do think that's what makes it uniquely different. But at the same time, we can relate to that. Because Zach, we were talking about quite a bit of, we've been talking about the book of Daniel recently because of the the movie Daniel in the Fiery Furnace, which we highly recommend that you see it,

because the idea is that that statue that was dreamed by Nebuchadnezzar and then described by Daniel, I mean, the civilization that was there in the statue, which would be later for them and Daniel, is this Greek culture that we're talking about, is the idea that that would be one of those civilizations that had wisdom and strength and, you know, was a part of this idea that was leading up to the ultimate kingdom, which came in Christ, you know, being that bottom on the Romans during those days, the king. And so I do think that's what makes all this relevant. Because a lot of times I know you listen to this podcast and you're like, well, why would I even care about Homer's Odyssey or any of that stuff? Well, it all feeds into the ultimate realization in Christ, which is why we are making those. comparisons and the looks because this is all the mythology and the story here may be fictitious, but the Greek culture was very real.

And what they brought was very real. And they even have a huge impact on our Western mindset and our thinking and how we do government and all of it. So it is relevant. As long as you can look through the story and see the ultimate story, I think, that's behind it. We want you to be sure and take the courses with us for free at unashamed for Hillsdale.com. That was good. It is relevant. Well, I'll just end with that, that it is relevant for how we operate today. And these aren't just myths that had no significant impact on human history. These are myths that help shape the story that we live in today. And so I think our job as Christians is to understand them. And then how do we bring Christ into all of this and show how Christ actually is the fulfillment of all things?

He is preeminent. He is the first and last. He is the alpha, the omega, beginning, the end. He's all of it. But it is good to understand the history of how we, you know, why do we think the way we think? How do we get there? And this is part of, part of that story. All right.

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