From War to Wisdom - Church Historian Kristian Mirabile

beyond excited to introduce a modern day Renaissance man, a national place winner in bodybuilding, one of the most well read individuals I've ever met and also a former member of the armed forces, Christian Rably. Welcome into Forever Forward, man. Thank you. Thank you. One reason I'm really excited to have you on is you followed quite a non-traditional path. I'm somebody that's kind of followed the road most traveled. You followed the road less traveled. Yeah. And ultimately that road led you to the Middle East, the end of high school to Afghanistan. What went on?

Pretty much joined the military right out of high school. I really wanted to get into aerospace propulsion maintenance. Like I wanted to be a pilot really bad. Like I always had like high hopes, kind of big dreams, you know? And I saw college as slower, I think. And that's one of the reasons why I like didn't want to do it. I don't know. I saw the ability to move outside of that. I also didn't really try super hard in high school. And so my grades weren't good, you know? So I was definitely limited in the options, you know? But I always wanted to be in the military since I was a little kid. So I kind of like always just knew I was going to do that anyway.

I wanted to go Marines, but my parents convinced me to talk to all the branches first. Ended up hearing it phrased differently by the Air Force in a way I liked more. So I went with Air Force. You had kind of a unique role in the Air Force, I want to say. At least a role that I wasn't aware exists. So I'm curious, can you talk a little bit about what you did specifically for the Air Force? Because I feel like it's kind of niche. I scored well on the ASFAB so I could choose whatever jobs I wanted. And they pretty much let you choose when you sign up as a junior, which I did.

Like you choose five jobs and you're guaranteed one of those five jobs. The last on the list was firefighting I didn't expect to do it. My recruiter was a firefighter. It's what I ultimately ended up getting But what I wanted to do is be pilot really bad, you know, so all my other jobs were related to that I guess God had other plans. I got a call. Hey, you're gonna be a firefighter. I was like, okay I'm gonna be a firefighter, you know, I don't even know that that job exists. Yeah, where did that take you and where were you initially stationed? So I stationed at the Air Force Academy in Colorado

I did training in Texas first and then I got stationed at the Air Force Academy. spent like three years there. I got out of my contract early because I was young and dumb and you know, got in a little trouble, but it wasn't that bad or anything. And my commander was like, dude, like you're a good kid. Like we think you're going to do better outside. And so pretty much got out of my contract early with no real downside at all. got a general discharge. It goes honorable, general, less than honorable. And then.

Forever Forward (02:23.499)
dishonorable discharge. So general is the only difference is that I just don't get my college paid for it, which isn't a big deal. But the thing is right after I got out, I had a good friend from training in firefighting who managed to get a job at the embassy in Afghanistan while he's out. And he gave me a call and he's like, Hey, I heard you're out of the military. I can get you a job at the embassy in Afghanistan if you want. You just have to like, you know, get a couple of certifications real quick and pass the test and get a secret clearance. yeah.

I mean, it's pretty unbelievable and you were stationed in Kabul, Afghanistan, which I think everybody knows and as we all should have those images seared into our brain of the withdrawal there. What was your day to day like in Afghanistan? What were the types of things that you were actually doing? I mean, you know, I'm hesitant. I don't want to say too much because I know I'm like not supposed to talk about a lot. I'm not really sure where the boundaries are and haven't talked to anyone. I've been out for a long time, you know, and I haven't been. I was there like pretty much all three 2018.

Like right like a year before everything happened year year and a half before everything happened But I was just a firefighter and I've like I don't want to say anything close to official You know what mean? But I'll say like while I was there like day to day was pretty much just you know Checking out the trucks you do a briefing in the morning. Check out the trucks make sure everything's safe You know, you have to know the place stay up to date on your training on your certifications all that kind of stuff You know, but we were mostly there for

earthquakes, helicopter crashes, and bombs. You know, that was like our primary thing. So we focused a lot on like tree staying up to date with like triage, you know, so like if a helicopter crashes, like what do you do? I won't even probe because I'm sure this is above my my clearance level, but I do want to say thank you. mean, I can imagine that's not an easy job. And you've probably been in situations that most of us probably would not know the first thing to do in the training was good. The training was hard, you know, for sure. They definitely trained us.

very well, know, just being a firefighter in the Air Force, just get a lot, you get a lot more certifications than you do on the outside. takes like in a shorter amount of time. Typically, you know, it's, you get like airport rescue firefighter certified, like, which is, it's cool. It's a cool thing to say, you know what I mean? But do I ever use it? Like how often are planes crashing around? You know what I mean? I mean, but it is cool. It's, one of those things where you get good at, like you calm down and stress, you know, like, like when, when it gets really stressful when the house is on fire, I calm down now.

Forever Forward (04:37.195)
Which is an interesting feeling. such a unique skill dude. I just bug out 24-7. So that's extremely unique and I feel like once you've been in situations like the ones you've probably been in, everything else feels a little bit easier. can imagine. Yeah, but I'll say what happened to me was like I ended up getting really restless when it's like calm. If it's like calm and peaceful for a while, I had to learn how to like be okay with calm and not think something was wrong. Maybe you always feel like a little on edge. I feel like something should be going wrong right now and it's not. Yeah.

Yeah, they like kind of train you to like always be like ready, you know Well look after you left, I know that you went into personal training and fitness has been a massive part of your life for a long time So can you just talk a bit about how important fitness has been to you and what it was like to be a personal trainer? Having trained over if i'm not mistaken, thousand clients. Yeah for sure over the over the years for sure So to save my life dude, I love fitness. It's amazing. I think it's like I I say this to my clients a lot and I think it sums up how I feel about it and other things

in a large way, which is that like, I feel like you can categorize life into like three major sex, three major ways you can look at it or groups, right? There's things that are negative reinforcement loops that take more energy than you put in, right? So like vapes, right? Like perfect example. Drinking. Drinking, drugs, like all your vices typically for sure. And then you have most things which are just transactional, right? They give their equal transaction, right? Ideally. And then ideally we have positive reinforcement loops.

know, things that actually give you back more energy than you put in, right? Gardening is an example of that. It like gives you more energy than you actually put in, right? Certain like relationships can be an example of that if they're good relationships, friendships, right? Things like that. They should be mutual and they grow for both people. so... That is so well said and I completely agree. Yeah, and then fitness is one of those. The more energy you put into it, the more it gives back, right? And there's a few...

There's very few true positive reinforcement loops that exist in the world. so like, you know, I think that alone is just like, it's like investing in stocks or something over time. It's the same thing, you know, but it's your body, it's your vessel to do everything else. Like your body is your vehicle for action in the world. Well, one thing that I think is remarkable about your journey in fitness is that this is more than a hobby for you. I mean, this was borderline of professions. Can you talk about what it was like to be a professional body builder?

Forever Forward (06:55.729)
and what the life of somebody like that actually looks like on the day to day? Yeah, so when I left, I got really into bodybuilding and like made the decision that I wanted to get into bodybuilding when I was in Afghanistan, because I worked out a lot when I was in Afghanistan. There's like really nothing else to do.

I mean, I wrestled through high school, right, with you, right? So I started then, right? But I'd already been lifting for six, seven years, something like that. Decided to get into bodybuilding, decided to move to California, where that's like really like the center of bodybuilding. And I had a good friend from the military who lived in Orange County, so that kind of gave me a really good landing spot. The daily life, sucks. I mean, what I quickly learned was that it's suffering, yeah. The judges reward suffering, you know what mean? And they can tell who like really...

put the work in because like when you're at a deficit for a really long period of time, like being at a deficit when you're lower in body fat is a stronger hunger feeling than when you're higher in body fat. Interesting. like me sitting here today, if I feel like I'm hungry versus maybe when you felt you were hungry, they are, they are different feelings. Yeah. A 500 calorie deficit or let's say a thousand calorie deficit in the day at 20 % body fat is different than at 4 % body fat or 6 % body fat.

Especially when you've been doing it for a long time and so I always say that I think bodybuilding is actually one of the hardest sports because you do just as much training as Any other sport but you do it with no food So you literally force yourself to suffer probably more than almost any other sport. Honestly, probably more than any other sport Yeah, I'd say besides maybe like martial arts. I'd put martial arts over it. Maybe you know like UFC Do you think that the end result meaning your physique and being able to have those photos taken of you be on that stage?

Did it justify the suffering or did it not make sense for you at a certain point? No, you what you realize is it's delayed gratification. And that was one of the reasons why I liked the sport so much was because I realized it was like the most manifest way that I could conquer, you know, my issues with delayed gratification. Cause I felt like growing up, I was very ADD kind of kid that struggles with instant gratification.

Forever Forward (08:52.511)
Absolutely. And so this was like the sport of delayed gratification. I can imagine the discipline that something like that instills in you. Yeah, for sure. You know, and I think the military definitely helped with that and like wrestling. think wrestling did a good job. Yeah, I've had out of body exp- and look, I like I wasn't even that good, right? But I've had like out of body experiences in wrestling rooms, right? Where it's like really sweaty. You're wearing a trash bag trying to lose weight. It's like a it's like a hell on earth. yeah. What I love, you know, even more than all of this about you and what I've come to learn over

is that despite you being like this, you know, masculine dude and this like physical force of nature, you are so exceptionally well-read. And especially in one area that I think is becoming more more prevalent today, but I think a lot of people are curious about but don't know a lot about. And that's actually the history of the church. And that's what I want to spend some time talking about today because I'm somebody who is curious but under-informed.

Let's put it that way. But you have read a lot on this, including a lot of source material. So let's just start here, man. Like, what got you interested, not only in like religion, but in the actual history of the institution itself? Yeah, well, so my dad's a priest, right? So I kind of have that very specific upbringing, right? And my older brother is a physics teacher, my little... and he's working on his master's in divinity right now.

So he's like going through all this stuff too, right? And then my little brother has a bachelor's in biblical studies from Gordon, which is like 20 minutes from Harvard or something. It's like a really, really good school too. like I really like my family is like very hyper intellectual. So I grew up talking about this stuff, like debate about all of this, like was very, very common in my family. And my dad was really good about like not shying away from hard questions. He had a very clear philosophy of I'd rather.

teach you how to be a Christian in the world than, you know, hide you from the world. And so he's like, like, the world is how it is. And he's real, he gets how life is, you know, he didn't exactly have like the easiest upbringing at all, you know, and is very much a self-made man. so like, have a ton of respect for my dad, like, you know, more than anyone. That was the kind of almost frustrating thing growing up was that like my dad and my mom, you know, they balanced each other out really well, but my dad was so rational all the time with how he like laid down.

Forever Forward (11:04.119)
parental guidance, however you want to call it. But yeah, my dad was so rational about everything that it was like, I knew he was right all the time. So it's like, wanted to rebel, you know what mean? But he was like so good at like showing me that like it wasn't the right train of thought. And so like, was great. I had a great dad, you know what mean? And I was blessed, absolutely blessed to have that. So like, it was hard for me to rebel against the church. And whenever people would talk like super negative about the institution or anything, it's like, I have this great example. So 100%, I'm sure that like,

If people talk about the church, you'd be like, look at this example of somebody in my life that kind of in my mind, almost like represents the church in my life. this is, you know what I mean? And this is to me, like a good role model. This is something that I like. But it definitely did present a struggle, which was that like, how am I supposed to know if I truly believe in Christianity or if I just like really respect my dad? What an internal debate that must have been for you at the time.

Is this just me loving my father or is there something more here that's like bigger than us? am I supposed to know? And so like at a certain point, like pretty much right when I moved to California, this actually kind of lands us really well. I didn't really get it for a little bit and I hadn't put as much thought into it think as I thought I did. And I was like, dad, I don't really consider myself Christian. I'm just going to like party really hard. So I like- I feel like California will do that too. Yeah, for sure. And so like, I loved the rave scene and like going to raves and stuff like that.

that into party drugs and stuff, had some crazy experiences there for sure, which for some reason, like that's a whole long story, but shot me right back to Jesus. you know, I never had the strong angst against it. Like the typical, like I grew up with a lot of like asking my dad hard questions about the church and then he'd have a great answer for it. And I'd be like, okay. So like stuff about like, the Vatican and like, like all this other weird stuff. Like I get...

kind of what's going on there and there are some real issues with the Vatican and things that have happened in the past. It's not like it's perfect, you know? And it's not like the history of the church is perfect, you know? There's definitely been imperfect people doing it, you know, who are Christians. Like, I'm not perfect, that's the whole thing, you know? No one's perfect, right? And so at what point did you start, like, taking this really seriously? Like, at what point did you decide, okay, I need to actually dive into this, you know, in a way that I haven't before? Well, so I think what happened to me...

Forever Forward (13:25.345)
because I had such a specific upbringing, maybe God kind of like used this outside of normal thing of psychedelics to kind of push me back and show me, really put in my face like, the spiritual world is real. Well, I want to hear about this because you've had experiences that not everybody has had. And so I'm very curious what you mean I've just done way too much acid, so yeah. It feels to me like you've...

You've had experiences with the spiritual realm. But I've had sober experiences, do you what mean? And I've kind of undermined myself saying that and opening it up that way because my childhood was full of a lot of really weird spiritual experiences in my family all the time. Spiritual experience was not something that I wasn't awake to at all. I grew up with an understanding of a spirit world and everything like that. was just I did psychedelics and I was like, I can see it. You know what I mean? Which is different.

But like, you know, I weird stories. Like, you know, my dog got run over when I was in like high school. He's a little Pomeranian. He got run over by both wheels of an SUV. My dad carries him into the backyard, prays over him. And then he starts like, and like they were all sure he was dead. And I know this kind of sounds sad, but it's going to get happy in a second. They brought him into the back. They start praying over him. And then my dad like kind of says this big part of the prayer, like in the name of Jesus, like get up.

And then my dog opens his eyes, starts moving his eyes around, licking his lips, trying to fix his back, and his back was all like, you know, like, not my goodness. And he starts trying to fix his back and stuff, like trying to get up, can't get up. Anyway, they bring him to the vet, and they do a bunch of scans and everything, and they go, he has one broken leg. And that was it. my goodness. That's it? Yeah. And then he lived to be 14.

That is a real life example of what somebody would call a mirror. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I believe in miracles. And then my dad has stories throughout his whole experience as a priest of all these little weird things. And so I grew up with hearing all these little stories and stuff. And I trust my dad. He's not a bullshit kind of guy at all. He's a very rational, scientifically minded, loves neuroscience. He knows his stuff. He's a smart guy.

Forever Forward (15:33.421)
It's so, it's funny man, so as you look back on the readings you've done in the history of the church, like are there any certain periods of time or certain individuals that you find really interesting to learn about or speak about? The first 500 years. What kind of happened? You know, right after Jesus, know, so Jesus gets crucified, you know, they put him into the tomb, three days go by, they come back, they find the tomb empty, they find the cloth, right, that's important because I'm going come back to that. I don't know if you've ever heard of the Shroud of Torin?

Of course I've heard of the Shred of Torrin. That in my mind, big mic drop from God. And where is it right now? Where is it? I'm going to mess that up. But it is preserved. Because I think it bounces around. I was recently at the Vatican. I went to Rome. And I was in St. Peter's Basilica. they have several. I think they have a piece of the cross. I think they have maybe the spear that was used to poke Jesus when he was being crucified.

And so they have several actual items from that day and I thought they may have had that as well, but I know it bounces around. it's dude. It's no it's all laid out. It's you can see where it is It's it's not hidden, but it was a coveted item for a while Especially during like the Crusades and stuff a lot of relics were destroyed during those times on purpose

Like the True Cross is a great example of that. We used to have the full True Cross. The cross that Jesus was crucified on. they carried it around. never knew that. Yeah, they carried it around in battle. Like during the Crusades era. That is so badass. Yeah, yeah. But it was destroyed? Yeah, they lost the battle at one point. It's sad, but yeah. But there's still some pieces that survived. So you can find pieces. There's certain people and places that have pieces of the True Cross.

It's funny, like people debate, they're like, Jesus wasn't real or whatever. It's like, no serious historical historian debates that he was a real person, crucified, buried. No one debates that. No, no, no, no. I think that's a well-known fact. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you have the cascading events that happened afterwards. So then it's a grassroots change in authority in the biggest empire of the world, in the Roman Empire. You're exactly right.

Forever Forward (17:46.549)
Right? And so like you have Christianity just spreading by word of mouth, essentially, and miracles, because there's a lot of miracles that were going on. But the next couple hundred years was a very bad time where a lot of Christians were eventually pretty much like tortured and killed. The Romans used to like put on this public sacrifices. Yeah. You'd have to do public sacrifices and like bring something to sacrifice and you'd get marked if you did your sacrifice.

And so if you weren't marked for doing your public sacrifice, then you'd get pulled in by the authorities. And then they'd ask you why you're not marked, why didn't you do your sacrifice? And you'd have to say, I'm a Christian. But like, pretty much during that time before Christianity was made legal, it was persecuted super heavily, right? And so like, all those people were tortured. And there's like crazy miracles that you can read about, like stuff that happened, like a lot of weird stuff. You can read a bunch of books. There's a lot of people who like...

just won't read anything other than the Bible, which I think is funny, personally. Well, that's actually funny. Let me just say, I'm one of those people, not by choice, deliberately, but because that's kind of all that I know. Like, OK, what Christian text should I read? It's that. But it sounds to me, and one thing I've learned from you is there's so much outside of that. There's so much. That like is so useful to the faith that if you don't know about it, you're doing yourself a disservice by not being able to contextualize this stuff. Yeah. The Bible was...

the authority, right? But where did that authority come from? Like you're giving it authority, who put it together? Right? The church existed for 300 years, 350 years before the Bible existed. And then the Bible was, everyone was writing to each other. A lot of stuff was happening. You had the Jewish war from, you know, 70 to 100 AD or whatever. had like, and then you had like all these persecutions. You had a bunch of stuff going on, right? And it was really a big upheaval and shift of frame on like how people viewed the world.

Right? And I personally, I would put all that on Pentecost. Right? when Jesus, like, so he starts appearing to everyone, he appears to the 500, right? Different people right after. then he's talking to one of the disciples. I forget which one. But right before he goes up into the sky, he says, the spirit of truth is with you. Right? That's Pentecost. Right? The Holy Spirit is with you. Right? I'll be back. But you know, you have the Holy Spirit.

Forever Forward (20:00.981)
So people take that like in the modern day, like when they're just reading the Bible, they use that essentially to say, make a solo script or argument that like the spirit of truth is given to all faithful believers. So the body that the church is all faithful believers, right? And it's not the institution. That's their major claim against Catholicism. So this is now we're talking Protestant Reformation. So I'm jumping forward a bunch. have this grassroots change of frame, right? In the populace, which is because...

Jesus says, have the spirit of truth with you, right? My word is truth. We now have words and moral code to say is objective and universally real because it came from God himself, proven by all the miracles and the prophecies, et cetera, you know, from the Old Testament. So he meets all these criteria.

right, to be the Messiah in a lot of ways, not exactly how they expect, and then uses all these instances of interactions with people, of demonstrations of faith, of demonstrations of lack of faith, to essentially make like a bucket of all the possible moral interactions essentially, and then give the proper response to all of them.

And so he's not only does he say it. He also does it. Yeah, he's yeah, exactly. He's like giving practicality like actually he's the word, right? He is literally God's word made flesh. And so it's literally everything he's doing. Everything he's saying is literally like God's word interaction interacting with like us. So like the whole point of Christianity is that Jesus is the is the key that unlocks all the doors everywhere properly. Or you check the door and it opens it if it's supposed to it closes it if it's not.

And it's the master key, it's the master perfect key. I think people are hesitant to read other people in that era outside of the Bible because they don't see it as Jesus. Like what's the point? I need to be just spending all my time reading what Jesus said. Which I agree is great. I personally like history. I don't think you need to like understand exactly what happened in the first 300 years or exactly what happened in the Crusades to be a Christian necessarily.

Forever Forward (21:59.501)
Like I think you can just read the Bible and be a good Christian, you know, and understand it and stuff. But I do think that God wanted a community and that's why he had the Last Supper. Perfect example of that. Like I think people completely miss the utility of the church and what the church functioned as for most of, for especially the first thousand years. Because a lot of people when they're critiquing the church and the history of the church, they're critiquing the last thousand years and primarily Catholicism and everything that happened with Catholicism.

But Catholicism and Orthodoxy broke off in 1054, right? And so there's the great schism between the Orthodox and Catholic. The church was one unified church with no denominational separations for the first thousand years. And you have all these ecumenical councils where you have all these bishops from different areas coming together, talking about what they're teaching, and then debating on specific questions that come up from the people, how the words interacting with the religions of the area that they're interacting with.

Hey, these people are saying this stuff. What do we say about it? And then at these ecumenical councils, you have people that have very, very close ties to the apostles, right? They're only like a generation away, right? So true. Some of them, like their grandparents, they literally knew them or were them. And exactly. So you have like, you know, all these people who have overlapping lives, you know, who knew the apostles and knew this stuff. And you're only like three, four generations over the course of like, can stretch that of like, I met him when I was young. And then I know this person when I'm old, who's young.

And you can do that and you have like, you only need like three people and you span 300 years, right? Or almost, right? And so it's like, like people forget like that that's not that much time, you know? And they think it's like completely lost. And it's like, you're not even looking at anything that was written then. And the other thing is when you start to read these people and like take the time to actually read a book from 300, right? Is it's like, they were smart. They were really smart. Like you're sitting on your phone watching reels all day.

Like, you know what I mean? And like Netflix and shit, these guys, all they did was read and write. And so like they're really smart. You know what I mean? Like we have this thing, this fallacy of thinking that like, you know, the farther back we go, the dumber they are. It's like, yeah, no. You know, what I would argue, and this is kind of my own idea, is that like, Plato is starting to wrestle with this idea of objectivity. Right. And we really didn't have any strong philosophical rigor.

Forever Forward (24:23.061)
or framework to make objective universal claims, like about the universe, right? I would be willing to bet that if you went back to like Plato's era, like if you made any, if you tried to make any objective claims about the whole world or how everything worked or something like that, like you'd be laughed at. Ha ha, who are you? This man thinks he's Adonis, you know, like this man thinks he's Hercules, right? Nowadays we can point to papers. I can point to peer review. I can point to the scientific method.

And those things are saying, hey, there's an objective outside world that's informing the subjective that we can measure and replicate and agree on. And then that's what object permanence is. you're going to deny that, you're just denying object permanence, which is literally one of the first things you develop as a baby. And so it's like people making this moral subjectivity argument. to me, it's like, OK, you're making a universal statement saying that morality can be subjective.

And your point of view on that would be, can't be. It can't be. we have an objective framework to view it through. Well, what I would really say is both exist. There's such thing as a subjective perspective and there's such thing as an objective reality. And you're just, always operating on limited information relative to the entire universe. But the universe informs the subjective and gives you data to analyze, compartmentalize and act on. It's a, it's, it's, it's a bounce.

It's a wave like this, right? And then people make the mistake of thinking that like, you know, because I have an effect on the world, you know what mean? Or like, because all I have is the limited data I have, the only conclusions I could possibly make are within the bounds of that that I don't know. Or that I think I know. Of that's what's subjective. Completely understood. And so if you're saying that morality is subjective or that these things are subjective and that's all there is, you're just denying everything you don't know. Which is a fairly naive...

worldview. It's called narcissism if I'm gonna be real. Okay. Yeah. Roger that. And I wonder that you know what mean? And like that's and so like it's that's why I like push against a little bit and and that's why like that's literally the whole Bible is like the the Old Testament is God saying hey like there's such thing as good and bad objectively and that's why it's very harsh in the Old Testament. God's like no you know like like bad.

Forever Forward (26:46.273)
You know, I think some people, you know, take certain qualms with those parts of the Bible. And I think they say he's being too harsh. This, you know, a just loving God would not do these things. What would be your rebuttal to an argument like that? I think that God is proportionately ambiguous to the agnostic as their agnosticism. If I want space from God, God's going to give me space. If I want to do this thing, God's going to let me do the thing. Now.

Is my will gonna maybe interact with your will and your will can be conflicting of mine and righteous, right? And then is God gonna demute, like make you overcome me? Probably, I would hope so. And that's why all the good stories are stories of good conquering evil. But God gave us free will, you know I mean? So that we're not just robots, you know what mean? Like that's our most God-like quality that we share with him. When we're made in God's image, it's because, you know, we're given free will and the ability to create and produce, you know?

out of out of nothing, right? I can just think of I can think of you know, art and create art, you know I've heard an argument made such that if God threw a stone and the stone was conscious imagine humans then the stone itself might not realize that it was thrown by God because it came into consciousness after it was thrown it has the illusion of free will but it's not actually moving in a way that it sets out to move. What would your argument be against something like that? Okay, this actually kind of connects to what I just said, which is that like

No matter what, okay, I can create art, but I'm using paint. I didn't make paint. Like, I didn't make the ground. know what mean? Like, I'm working within the laws of nature that God gave, but God didn't create the laws of nature in a way that limits my free will, ultimately. I would say there are boundaries to free will, but I wouldn't say, you know, like, in the sense that I literally can't just stretch my arm out 12 feet.

You know what I mean? Right. There are bounds to this. Obviously there are bounds to things, right? And that's how we classify anything in the first place. And so like there's bounds to things. And so, you know, I, but I have free will within those bounds. I can choose to go get up and go to the gym tomorrow. You know what I mean? Or I can choose not to. And then that has an effect. The cool thing is that God made our body both really sensitive and really resilient at the same time, which is real and complex.

Forever Forward (29:08.021)
So like those three things balancing, you almost never find all three of those together in nature, right? Resilient, complex, and sensitive. So it can intake different types of information at large and small frequencies. Think of a computer with sensors, right? But now we're, I want more sensitivity. I can't think of a rock doing all those things, but I can think of a computer doing all those things. I had to move complexity up. now resiliency is down, right? Because I moved away from the rock.

Right. And so you get to play with those three things, resiliency, complexity, and sensitivity. And then you can have a system that's growing in those three things or shrinking in those three things. And all three of those could be growing or shrinking. And that could be three times. was going to ask, are those mutually exclusive or no, they can all grow in No, they can all, but like, I'm just, but like the bigger changes you're going to make, the more you're also playing with like frequency and rarity, you know what I mean? Just based on, this is just observations, right? This is just me looking at rocks and looking at tables and

the energy that it takes to like I have to put a lot more energy into something that's more of those three things and then that energy can come in the form of time that energy can come in the form of you know money which is condensed time and so I've heard that before and it is true right the exchange of money really is nothing more than the exchange of of time I would say like time and and influence yeah so I this is fascinating to me some of it is some of it over my head right

Yeah, no, you're not. I don't I don't like money at all. I don't care about money at all. Like I wish I liked money more, but I don't. Dude, I'm jealous. Well, it's hard to it's hard to not at least care about money when you live in New York City and you have to pay like, you know, extortionate prices for everything. mean, I'm in Orange County. You definitely got to be like good at something to survive out here, you know. Yeah. Well, there you go. But everyone out here is so money oriented. It's kind of like I don't need to make a million dollars, you know, like I don't need to, you know.

I'm perfectly I'd much rather have a happy family, you know that and well that's pay bills and not have to worry about food You know that is an extremely refreshing perspective and one that I'm happy to have had on the show because I feel like at least I'm for you know specifically with respect to like my own social media feeds like That's not necessarily a message that I see being pushed actively today I feel like I see the opposite being pushed to me which is grind build wealth have a legacy do this and that that you know and and I want to do all those things but I also I'm trying much harder to just

Forever Forward (31:31.117)
Fall back on the idea that like I don't necessarily have to be a billionaire to live a righteous life one of I think I looked at some point was I I looked at what all of the Top top winners in any field did after they won and what were the results what they do after they won? So it's like all the bodybuilders like what they do after they won five times like now where do they put that energy? That's something it's like okay now I've won I've gained all this experience like what do you choose to do when you have all the experience you won you did everything and then they usually get a lot simpler

or they like become some multi-billionaire in like a bunch of different, you know, fields or whatever. And they like just continue that growth, you know, exponentially, something like that. But I think, but a lot of them get a lot simpler. It's one of those two. And I don't know. I'd feel like growing up in Connecticut, like around a lot of old money, I saw a lot of rich people who weren't happy and I had a great family life and like, didn't have that money. like, like I was like, well, then that's not, you know, the thing I need to worry that That can't be the sole thing. Yeah. Yeah. No.

And then I really like resonated with the Christian idea of fullness of life instead of like happiness, you know, like the Can you explain what that means just just so I can understand what you mean by that? Fullness of life. It's like, you know, you see those I've seen like, you know, kind of cheesy memes around or something where it's like, you know, stop and smell the roses and like it's like all the simple things, right? It's like the best way I think I could put it or the way I think about it personally is it's like a not taking for granted all the different ranges of emotion and human experiences people can have you have

are that's tragic and super sad, but it's like the best film ever. And it's like, you know, and like it's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. Like there's a reason that's a saying. I read this really good book called, Suffering and Evil in Early Christian Thought, which was like going through how like the early church thought about suffering and evil and how there was like a right and a wrong frame or perspective on like how to approach.

different bad things that can happen. And their reference, and this is keep in mind, a time when they're heavily persecuted. So everyone's getting murdered. Like everyone's like getting families torn apart. Like, you know, to be tortured, you know, just for being Christian, right? This is like definitely a thing. Then you have writings from these people talking about how great God is, you know? Even despite those other things. Yeah.

Forever Forward (33:43.659)
and they're dying with a smile on their face and stuff. Like there's all these accounts of them being like laughing and making jokes while they're like burning alive and stuff because they're like, ha ha, like God is good. I'm going to heaven dude. Like their faith was strong, man. Like you gotta think like if that was the, in my mind, if that was how strong their faith was, like if those stories are true and there's just too many of them to discount, you know, there's just way too many books on this topic. And like inside the church, like, like the amount of old dudes I've met who've have like a hundred times more books read than I have on the subject and like,

Like to me, like I'm such a rabbit hole person, you know, like I love rabbit holes. that's why I like the body again is another one. Cause it's like such a rabbit hole. You could like learn so much about it. The church is such a rabbit hole, dude. Like you can just, there's so much. like when you realize that like not everyone was bad and like you also realize that when you write it, it's like they're putting so much effort in their writing to like be as precisely loving as possible and like really figure out like, what is it with people that

creates evil like like they're just trying so hard to tackle that problem. You know what mean? It's like you when you actually read them instead of like just listening to someone else talk about it. It's like, dude, like this guy like this really thinking about this. fascinating that you've gone back to the source material. Yeah. You don't read accounts, you know, you don't you don't hear this word of mouth from others. You actually like read what these people from 300, 400, 600 actually wrote themselves because these these texts are preserved if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, very well. Very well.

Like people will debate And are they translated into modern English or is this something very hard for you to like decipher? like that's a really common like misnomer like, you know, people say like all the translations are bad, dude. Like we have millions of manuscripts, millions. And we have hundreds of thousands translated. We have the Septuagint, which is, you know, a Greek Old Testament, pretty much like the Greek Old Testament that was, I think it has both Greek and Hebrew in it. So it like translates it.

We just have so much dude, like if you actually, like no one really debates this stuff. Like you'll hear internet comment trolls and stuff talking about it and stuff. just like, go bring up like any of these authors, like bring up UCBS or bring up St. Maximus or Ignatius or Arrhenius or Athanasius or something like that. St. Basil, St. Gregory of Nicaea. Bring up any of these people and they go, and then there's this archeological discoveries that have come out in the last like 30 years and 40 years that have like strengthened like their cities that we didn't know.

Forever Forward (36:07.689)
that we thought were myth that we found out were real because they were in the Bible. Like we thought they were mythical cities in the Bible. Like they were just fables. And then we found the remains and we're like, this is actually a real city. And it like matches up perfectly in the timeline. know, like I never, I see, I never knew that we found, found, pretty sure we're, know where Sodom and Gomorrah is now. And there's literally like sulfur bar balls in the ground everywhere. Like there's so much stuff, dude, that it's like, like, and then, and then on top of that, that's the logical side of

And then there's the very real emotional and spiritual and personal side of it where I know how I used to see things and how I used to see the world and understanding how Christ went about things and what happened, what that led to and how it shifted thought at the highest levels of philosophy from before and after and how it echoed into history. You know what I mean?

And then just the stories are beautiful, man. It's like about God loving you so much that he doesn't want you to go to hell for the shit you did. You know what mean? And you know what you did. know what I mean? Everyone knows. Everyone's done shitty stuff. And it's like, and if you're gonna just walk around saying you've never done anything shitty or like, I'll just say you haven't been granular about it. You haven't looked that hard. I mean, maybe you're wonderful person. Awesome.

I don't think that God is like, this is one place I think God's stray a little bit from like traditional, like Orthodox teaching, which would be that like, I think God is very merciful is, I think merciful is a very small word in reality. know what I mean? And like, he's actually a lot more merciful than we think, you know? And I like to make this analogy. It's like, imagine, like if I asked you if I could punch you in the face as hard as I could right now, like,

Full swing like as hard as I possibly could you'd probably say no, right? would for sure say no Yeah, yeah, if I said I'd give you a million dollars afterwards May I would be more inclined to say yes hundred million dollars a hundred billion dollars. I would say absolutely Yeah, exactly. Okay. Like I think we underestimate how good God is and like relative to the pain we go through and the the experiences we can have and I think we also I think we blame God a lot, you know to me and on things that we do

Forever Forward (38:31.989)
you know, with our free will that we asked for. I asked, you know, for separation from God. That means I asked to not know what the right thing is at a moment, you know, so that I could see myself as the sole judge of what's good and bad. That is so unbelievably well said. I think the word merciful is a loaded word, and I think it might get interpreted in the wrong way because mercy doesn't always look like immediately getting what you ask for. Exactly. Or being immediately forgiven for something that you've done.

We forget that we're mind, body and soul. We're not just a body. We're eternal beings. I really believe that. Like, I really believe that, that we are an eternal soul and that we have the wrong perspective a lot and that we're thinking of things. And that was one of the largest things Jesus was talking about was like, you guys are thinking of things like you're, like, this is all that matters and that you have no generations after you and you don't have people around you that are affected by your actions. And, you know, your actions don't...

make perturbations in the world that are negative and more far-reaching than you see. And so it's like, you know, he's trying to communicate that. I think we, lot of our pain is in that frame, you know? And I think that can sound cold and I get that. I understand, you know? But in a way, I think it allows space for new. I completely understand what you're saying. Yeah. And that's, you know,

That could be beautiful. me personally, I don't think I could ask everyone to do this where they're sitting right now. But like, I trust God in those things that I don't see. You know what mean? And I think that's one of the things I've just like put into, I've tried to practice in my thought patterns and like, my life a lot more over the last few years is like, especially after like, of like recovering from doing too much acid and everything that took a little bit.

I feel great now. I'm honestly in one of the best head spaces I've been in now for a couple years. God. Sober and all that kind of stuff. Well, let me ask you this. And here's an area where I'd love to put a fine point on and maybe start to drive this to something that's even so relevant to people today. Because I feel like especially so in 2024. Tell me if you would agree or disagree, but I feel like more than ever people are facing

Forever Forward (40:45.997)
What I would call a crisis of meaning and a crisis of purpose and I don't know if that's driven by a lack of faith or The overstimulation that we get but would you agree that you know today? People are having a harder time connecting to something deeper than themselves than maybe they ever have Absolutely. I mean like a I think having a frame at least of like something bigger than yourself is really important Right, and I don't think the government should be that

Yeah, well for some people it is. Yeah, but you know, I think in part it's a lack of mentors, you know, I don't think there's been a lot of mentors for our generation, for younger kids like who are older really stepped up and you know, said put their foot down said no bad. I don't think there's been enough of that. And I also think dopamine is a real problem. I think we're genuinely in a more toxic environment literally than we were 50 years ago as a country. I think that

That's one of the, I'm like not a big Trump guy to be honest. Like I don't love the cult of personality. I'll meme it hard. Like I think it's really funny to joke about Trump and like, you know, be like super conservative over the top. It's mostly a meme to me. Like generally I'm actually like way more like really reality. I'm like way more down the middle in my mind. I think on most things, except for like a couple of things I'm I definitely need a bit more right for sure, but I'm not a huge Trump guy. I don't really trust him a hundred percent. He's been too close to all the other sticky people for too long.

You know that I'm not just gonna like wipe him clean, you know for no reason but I do hope RFK does a good job You know, I'm really hoping RFK is and also just like royalty family You know what I mean? And like just get I a lot of people share that fear But I also think there's a lot of hope from people that like hey, we're gonna have some actual change There's some good people for like USDA and stuff like that, you know I like who we put in for the USDA and like I do think the FDA and all those

Like the USDA they need to be redone because they aren't working as they're supposed to right now And they need to be redone. This is like how do they do it? Right? I'm still waiting for him to do it. Well, you know, I Don't want him to tear it down and then you know, just put up other bad people, know, that would suck So like I'm still waiting for them to do this all well, you know A lot of people promise a lot on campaigns and we'll see how it actually turns out Yeah, but I do feel like there has been some like

Forever Forward (43:08.269)
there it feels to me like there is a somewhat of a cultural Renaissance happening right now. And it does feel like we are trending as a nation slightly back towards faith and back towards some of the values that maybe we lost. And I don't think that should be politicized. I feel like that should exist external to left or right. And actually, yeah, I can relate that to the church a lot actually, because I think people criticize tradition.

a lot, you know, as it's like old ways and stuff like that. But I think the whole point of tradition is giving you something rock solid that lasts and is stable in hard times. Right. And it's and it's when hard times come and there's a lot more chaos that people return to tradition and a stable, repetitive, you know, structure full of symbols that represent the core of the culture. that's what I felt like I was, you I feel like you're speaking right to me because that's what I personally felt like, you know, when faith was not a part of my life at all.

I felt like I was lacking that foundation. Like when things were getting rocky, even like with this show, like I really had nothing existentially to lean on as like, fundamentally like this is my rock. Yeah. I think we're communal beings, dude. And that's why church is important. People criticize the church and they say my faith is mine alone. That's okay. I don't think that's the worst thing ever, but I also think that humans are communal beings. And, you know, I've had some really sad days where I went to church and I bawled my eyes out at church and there's nowhere else that I'd rather cry.

And like, and I felt that in that moment, you know, and like that stuck with me, you know, and it's like, think like that community, that bedrock, maybe I don't hang out with them all the time. You know I mean? Or something like that. And maybe I don't think they're like the coolest always, you know? But do I know that I can show up there and cry my eyes out when my girlfriend breaks up with me or something? Absolutely.

That's got to be one of the most important safe spaces that anybody could possibly have. It's a community of people that believe, you know, that believe together and that share space and worship. And you go and you get reminded of ultimate hope and God conquering death and all these other people before you who've gone through other hard things, you know, because the history is a very important part of the church, especially the traditional or, you know, the apostolic church, you know. I want to ask you this, man, and maybe as we start to close, I think this is a really important question that

Forever Forward (45:27.541)
I could not think of a better person to ask than you on this. And I'm curious to hear your opinion. I hear a lot of people telling me that they are faithful but not religious. And I wonder what your general opinion is on that. What does that mean? And why are people hesitant to say that they prescribe to a religion? Let's say in this case Christianity, like why don't people want to buy in, but they seem to dip their toe into the idea that there's something bigger out there. They just don't want to name it. Yeah. Well, I think that a lot of that has to do with kind of

some of the abuse of power by the Catholic Church over time, you know, which is very real and has definitely happened, you know? And so then they see religion as these overarching institutions that have been legalistic and domineering and tyrannical and stuff like that. And there have definitely been periods of that. I would definitely say that's not the historical church at large globally. You know what mean? I agree. People put too much fault on the whole thing and Jesus and all that on just some things that the Catholic Church did, you know?

over a few hundred, over a couple hundred years in a certain part of the globe, right? And so there's that. then, so people don't want to like say I'm religious and then, you know, spirituality, think everyone can kind of like agree, you know, that there's some sort of spiritual reality to the universe, you know, but my dad always said that religion is just practiced spirituality, you know? And so if you practice a spirituality, you're religious. You just don't know what religion you are.

Technically so in a way these two things are like kind of one in the same Yeah, like you if you're gonna be spiritual like you like it's kind of like a funny turn like too funny to say that you're spiritual not religious It's like okay. Well, do you practice for spirituality? No, then okay, whatever if you do then it's like then you just like technically like it's not like you invented that dude like this is a conversation that's been going on for thousands of years like you're not the first person to think of whatever you're thinking of religiously, know, and so like someone's named it already someone's done it, you know

Like you're not you you know and I think there's a lot of people like just starting to get into this and like there's some people who talk about it and whatever but like You know people think they're saying a stuff and they're just not you know like so many of these were like Debated in the first few hundred years and have they been definitively have they and it sounds like they've been answered They've been debated very very well You know to the point where no one brings it up anymore for a thousand years or whatever or maybe it takes like 600 years for someone to be like hey what if we thought about it this way, you know, but like

Forever Forward (47:50.285)
Yeah, yeah, yeah completely bro Look, I actually I actually want to close on this and this is kind of off topic But it's actually kind of not and I'm really curious to hear a take on it super topical something I've never talked about on the show before aliens Okay, this connects right this this does connect and and so I'm curious what your general take is on the existence of let's say extraterrestrials and If that conflicts with your own faith well

I definitely lean on the side of it being a spiritual thing, you know? What we're experiencing or what everyone's talking about. think that in terms of like UFOs and UAPs and stuff like that, I think a lot of that's our own. Exactly. To be honest, I think we figured out antigravity in like the 60s or 70s and it went black right after the Manhattan Project. I don't know if you've ever heard of the Philadelphia experiment. No, I haven't, but I'd love to learn about it should look up the Philadelphia experiment. So pretty much they were like,

The government was trying to work on cloaking for the Navy ships. And the story goes, the ship completely disappeared from the port it was on. And it was like a battleship. Like it was a big ship, you know? Disappears. And then sometime later, like 30 minutes later or something like that, reappears on the other side of the bay with all the crew members melted inside the doors, like melted into the walls. Everyone was dead. And then there's a guy who...

This is a guy who survived, like gave a story and said that pretty much like that he went into the future. He met people. sent him back. was when? What year was this in? I forget. I think this is the, I want to say the fifties or something. It's after nukes. It's after we developed the nuke. There was a lot of research that went into anti-gravity after they developed the sciences for nukes. And then all of that suddenly went black and they stopped researching it. They're like, nothing here.

Nevermind. Let's think about all this stuff. your theory is that it was solved and then it swept and I'm getting this from other people. It's not like I have inside knowledge on this. You know what I mean? But I think that clicks. That makes sense to me. Because I like math. I've had an interest in math for a long time. My older brother's a physics teacher. I've read a couple books on the history of math and stuff like that. so I'm not totally unaware. I don't have the best math grammar. But I think it checks out.

Forever Forward (50:16.397)
But yeah, so the Philadelphia experiment's really wild. And I think, so I think that, and then I believe in Roswell, I think that was real. I think we've been in contact for a long time and then some of it's ours, some of it's theirs. think, but I think what's been going on lately, like all the stuff in Florida, like at the mall and the other crash behind that. Did you see the video of the crash? I know the crash you're talking about. Yeah, did you see the video of the spooky thing behind the fence?

Yes, yeah. Yeah, I think that's think that stuff's real Yeah, 100 % but the funny thing is all of them stop they halt at the name of Jesus, you know, and I Yeah, yeah Really? Yeah, there's a lot of reports of this. Yeah Yeah, like and in the like official files of like the stuff that's coming out for all this UAP stuff too not a lot of people are talking about this unless they're already Christian just happen to be in this niche, but like

They've mentioned that like any like there's been people who've been like, Jesus like they say Jesus But they like Christians and they kind of say it real and then like the thing will halt or stop You know you bring a nuanced perspective to this entire discussion to where you're aware of the criticisms You're aware of the quote-unquote devil's advocate. Yeah, right. No pun intended But you also recognize that there's enough historical evidence and personal experience and spiritual happenings to very much justify a belief Yeah, honestly, I don't think you can convince me otherwise at this point

Like, it's not like a debate in my mind whatsoever anymore. And honestly, why would you want to be convinced? I know you don't personally, but in my opinion, wouldn't you rather have the view that there is a God? In a way, it's definitely a much safer perspective to have, but it also asks more of you if you're going to take it seriously. It's a great point. And it's not like it's something you can take lightly. If you really want to be somebody that claims to be a faith of the Christian faith, this is something that you have to take seriously.

God is God, and that's big. Well, I think there couldn't be anything better to end on, man. I just want to thank you so much for jumping on. This is a discussion unlike I've ever had on the show, and I cannot wait for people to see this because I think discussions like these need to be had more often. And so I'm deeply grateful for you to for jumping on and sharing a little bit of your life. yeah. I love her. Thank you for having me on is awesome.