"In the long run we're all dead, and whatever we did here and now won't matter" This is hubris, on the part of an intellectual who is willing to believe that just because he can't know something, it isn't important. We cannot KNOW whether -- or which -- of our actions in the here and now will affect the future. Think about Pip's kindness towards Magwich in "Great Expectations". Think about the Devastators at the Battle of Midway. Think about the "three-penny-nail" poem. Consider the possible causal links between butterflies and typhoons. The laws of our universe cause events to unfold and emerge, in ways that are utterly unpredictable except by an infinite intellect. This means EVERYTHING has a chance of having practically infinite meaning.

I like Richard and Vervaeke is really good form. Thank you both.

Thanks guys!

It occurs to me that JV and JBP are something like conduits of (and articulators of) certain essential components of The Word. The Word is God, but God isn't *just* The Word. In a way, even The Word isn't *just* The Word as explored by JV and JBP and such. The best blacksmith can be the worst swordsman. In fact, the best blacksmith can be a devout pacifist.

Napoleon is well-remembered, by anyone with anything like an education. The debate about whether he was a good guy or a bad guy is a meaningful one, and explores a lot of profound concepts.

Perhaps for Jesus to be of ultimate value, He would have to be real transjectively, subjectively, and objectively. That is, perhaps He is real omnijectively.

So Vervake here in his proposal is pretty set with Al Hararis´propossals or am I wrong? It worries me in how Harari comes near to the crowds from Davos Mythological “needs”. I think in how such crowds have been physically fed with the learning from UK´s experience to manipulate public opinion (Tavistock); as well as the way US learned from it. I would appreciate a comment on how their proposals differ.

Was it also the birth of the recognition of social technologies. As an abstract idea, that has exploded. But it’s also something we rarely identify objectively, as to our relationship to the real way “ social technologies” affect us . Many are obviously exploring that now, but because of its non material base, the forming of a new non material language for those technologies also have to expand and there is a danger that they expand “badly” and that we may have limited time for that in the real world consequences.

John brings up Moby Dick and L Ron Hubbard is interjected ???😢😢😢😢😢😢😢

15:41 you gotta love Paul’s echoing laugh

"Do we need religion still?" Considering the depth and richness of Christianity, I don't think anyone knows what we're losing if we throw it away. At least, not until it's gone. One hint we have is that traditionally Christian families have a HUGE fertility advantage over secular ones. There are probably a dozen reasons for this, and that's part of my point. A government "program" or a narrowly-crafted Rationalist philosophy (because ALL Rationalist philosophies are by nature narrow) have not been, and cannot be, able to address all those dozen reasons.

17:35 “Meaning” like gravity

44:00 John is looking for the practice of a vision quest.

Maundrell is amazing. He says that "people can name more Star Trek characters than Apollo astronauts" (which certainly wasn't true during the Apollo media blitz of 1966 when the niche genre TV show came out) but then blithely skips over WHY that chiasmus occurred. The mythic dimension of the Rational (intriguingly, of half-alien heritage) arguing with the Intuitive (fascinatingly, an old man so inflexible they called him "Bones") before the arbiter of the Executive (who was as young as a man in his prime can be, like Kennedy and other WW2 vets) is something I'm sure Campbell would have recognized if he'd given it any thought. D**n, but didn't that first show get some things right, though? Humans are drawn to the depths of psychology in mythology. That's how Jordan Peterson puts buts in the seats with his Biblical lectures.

34:12 - So then we would expect the meaning-of-life benefits of religion to be greater in religious traditions that emphasize ritual over belief, correct? i.e. Orthodox Christianity vs low church Protestantism

Works if art are commonly submitted to the test of time. And the longer it lasts the better it is judged to be. We also talk of timeless wisdom. Didn't somebody once end a poem with the phrase 'goodness is timeless'? (In fact it was Auden.)

27:40 this was the wrong way to answer if you don’t want to be turned into a holy man.

"The utterly meaningless phrase, 'spiritual but not religious'" It means you enjoy listening to an orchestra tune up, but you don't actually like music.

If Taoism is so good at achieving the goals and avoiding the concerns, then why isn't Vervaeke proposing it as the answer?

The God replacement for our culture right now is romantic relationships which is one of the great mistakes our culture is making… 😮

Vervaeke is so close. Spirituality is a step above atheism, but below true belief and he is overestimating how much the will and power of God helps to keep people into their religions. All believers have experienced the true presence and love of God so the myths can be believed trying to make it up and have the same results is an exercise on futility.

"The 'god' part may be irrelevant in the community-built rituals" Except these will tear themselves apart without shared purpose and ideals. So no, the god (or idol) is critical. And there is no other God like Christ, as defined (revealed) in the Gospels.

Nietzsche's "Death of God" only led to a god of death, in the 20th century. We should understand what Nietzsche meant, but we should never allow that to prevent us from reacting with disgust to his entire worldview.

"How do we participate in the construction of a myth?" Participate in an honest process of liking, sharing, subscribing, and commenting on KZfaq? If we're all supposed to do this collectively, just doing your bit is doing all that's necessary.

A Christian response to JV's apprehension due to "two worlds mythology": Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. *On earth* as in heaven. You will know them by their fruits. In so far as you've done such for the least of these, you've done for me. Be a proper steward with the little and be trusted with the much. All that being said, that's increasingly not Christianity as witnessed in the world today. Much of Christianity now seems other-world-focused to the neglect of this world. But perhaps we need not throw out the kingdom with the bathwater.

If you have to believe it in order to give a religion its emotional power, can we of the secular age ever do so with a straight face ever again?

this is an adamant video only because of Pr. Maundrell, I never liked Vervaeke, never once.

First 👸 👸 👸

"Religion is a set of propositions" "The Dao which can be spoken of is not the Dao" "A set of propositions" is an extremely narrow and reductionist way to look at anything. In some important cases it works. However, looking at Christianity that way is extremely misleading. Consider first the complexity of the Bible, second its concordances, third the commentaries and sermons based on it, fourth the entire history of the world and every person in it -- do I need to go farther before I persuade you that a conscious Rational reduction is impossible, and the only thing that might have a chance of success is the (deprecated) intuitive sense? Although that can be insufficient too, when it doesn't comport with the principles. My parents and my grandparents lived more Christian lives in more Christian communities. Their lives were better than mine, in easily identifiable ways. When others complain about their lives, it's not hard to see how the un-Christian nature of their priorities and the priorities of the culture around them, led to the problems they're complaining about. It's also not hard to see how and why their secular solutions fail. We've torn down Chesterton's gates all over our lands. Our situation has not improved.

"Jesus is real in the domain of myth" Jesus stepped into this world and His actions and story embodied the mythic. He was simultaneously real/literal, and real/mythic. How else do you expect God to be? Think about the way Jesus' nature is described by Himself and the apostles, not to mention all the theologians pondering the Second Person of the Trinity.