WEBVTT 00:00:01.300 --> 00:00:03.319 My friends, welcome to the Sheep Gets Sheared 00:00:03.319 --> 00:00:05.839 podcast. I'm your host, Austin Creed. And my 00:00:05.839 --> 00:00:08.240 friends, I have a question for you today on the 00:00:08.240 --> 00:00:14.199 show. Do you think religion benefits society? 00:00:15.140 --> 00:00:17.559 Now you might wonder, Austin, where did you get 00:00:17.559 --> 00:00:21.399 this question from? This is a very. Unnormal 00:00:21.399 --> 00:00:23.719 question. And I would argue, well, I would say 00:00:23.719 --> 00:00:28.079 it's actually very important. Number one, religion. 00:00:28.539 --> 00:00:30.399 It's done a lot of good, in my opinion, and it's 00:00:30.399 --> 00:00:32.259 also done a lot of bad. First of all, we have 00:00:32.259 --> 00:00:35.840 to define what we're talking about. What is religion? 00:00:36.780 --> 00:00:39.899 Well, religion you could say is defined by spiritual 00:00:39.899 --> 00:00:42.799 beliefs. You could say it's defined by the rites, 00:00:43.039 --> 00:00:46.240 aka the actions, the ceremonies that people undertake 00:00:46.240 --> 00:00:51.100 in the name of their belief system. But when 00:00:51.100 --> 00:00:54.020 you look at how religion has affected the world, 00:00:54.759 --> 00:00:58.210 atheists argue that religion is a problem. In 00:00:58.210 --> 00:01:00.710 fact, one of the most notorious atheists, Karl 00:01:00.710 --> 00:01:03.250 Marx and Frederick Engels, they went as far as 00:01:03.250 --> 00:01:07.010 to say that religion was an opium or a painkiller 00:01:07.010 --> 00:01:11.069 for the masses to numb themselves. Now, you know, 00:01:11.209 --> 00:01:12.709 as weird as it might sound, I don't agree with 00:01:12.709 --> 00:01:15.049 Karl Marx or Frederick Engels on a whole lot, 00:01:15.310 --> 00:01:19.370 and I don't agree in so much as I believe that 00:01:19.370 --> 00:01:22.730 that is the truth. I would say, though, that 00:01:22.730 --> 00:01:25.290 there's an interesting case to be made for such 00:01:25.290 --> 00:01:28.849 a thing. Now, I won't tell you immediately where 00:01:28.849 --> 00:01:30.510 I stand on the issue because then it's going 00:01:30.510 --> 00:01:33.150 to turn the whole conversation into a bias. But 00:01:33.150 --> 00:01:36.930 what I will tell you is in my opinion, religion 00:01:36.930 --> 00:01:40.609 is incredibly important for children. Now, when 00:01:40.609 --> 00:01:43.489 I'm not a parent myself, I have some friends 00:01:43.489 --> 00:01:47.530 who are parents and new parents, fledgling parents 00:01:47.530 --> 00:01:51.189 who are newer. I know with young children and 00:01:51.189 --> 00:01:54.530 I've noticed that if you look I'm not an anthropologist 00:01:54.530 --> 00:01:56.670 by any stretch, but when you look at how religious 00:01:56.670 --> 00:02:00.510 beliefs, spiritual beliefs, whether it's paganistic 00:02:00.510 --> 00:02:04.849 practices, an Abrahamic religion, East Asian 00:02:04.849 --> 00:02:07.870 religions, whatever have you, there's some kind 00:02:07.870 --> 00:02:11.590 of overall moral code, a code of ethics, if you 00:02:11.590 --> 00:02:14.490 will, that people are supposed to follow. As 00:02:14.490 --> 00:02:16.949 adults, it's usually the law that people follow, 00:02:17.150 --> 00:02:19.090 whether it's the law of their country. But a 00:02:19.090 --> 00:02:24.780 lot of people build upon that. in so far as religious 00:02:24.780 --> 00:02:29.080 law is concerned. Now, when it comes to religion, 00:02:29.439 --> 00:02:32.360 we have two different kinds of religion. One 00:02:32.360 --> 00:02:35.639 is religion incorporated. What is religion incorporated? 00:02:36.080 --> 00:02:39.039 Religion incorporated is, well, it's what it 00:02:39.039 --> 00:02:42.560 sounds. Incorporation is a business. So religion 00:02:42.560 --> 00:02:45.180 incorporated is just what you might surmise. 00:02:45.219 --> 00:02:48.099 It is a business. It is about money. You look 00:02:48.099 --> 00:02:51.520 at, for example, the Mormon church. Mormon Church 00:02:51.520 --> 00:02:54.340 is one of the most rich institutions in the world. 00:02:55.419 --> 00:02:58.139 Why? Because money is kicked up to the top. It's 00:02:58.139 --> 00:03:01.740 like a Ponzi scheme, in my opinion. In the same 00:03:01.740 --> 00:03:03.240 way that the Catholic Church, you look at the 00:03:03.240 --> 00:03:06.000 Vatican. The Vatican over the last 2 ,000 years 00:03:06.000 --> 00:03:08.439 has aggrandized quite a bit of power and money 00:03:08.439 --> 00:03:11.240 and influence in the Vatican. You could argue 00:03:11.240 --> 00:03:14.400 that Rome itself never actually died. It just 00:03:14.400 --> 00:03:18.599 converted from a monarchy to a theocracy. I could 00:03:18.599 --> 00:03:21.340 argue that case, and some people do. But when 00:03:21.340 --> 00:03:24.240 you look at religion itself, there is the religion 00:03:24.240 --> 00:03:26.580 incorporated part of it, and then there is the 00:03:26.580 --> 00:03:29.900 actual physical beliefs that people hold on an 00:03:29.900 --> 00:03:33.840 individual level. For example, there are so many 00:03:33.840 --> 00:03:36.139 different sects, and when I say sects, I don't 00:03:36.139 --> 00:03:40.020 mean sex, S -E -X, I mean S -E -C -T, as in different 00:03:40.020 --> 00:03:43.439 denominations or branches of the overall trunk 00:03:43.439 --> 00:03:47.770 of the tree of the religion. That is how the 00:03:47.770 --> 00:03:50.590 system works now. There's a lot of different 00:03:50.590 --> 00:03:54.750 kind of shoot -off beliefs on an overall different 00:03:54.750 --> 00:03:57.509 There's fundamental core values and then there 00:03:57.509 --> 00:04:00.050 are other things that people say are not so essential 00:04:00.050 --> 00:04:05.810 and they argue over it, but Religion is complicated 00:04:05.810 --> 00:04:08.430 because its effect on mankind is equivalent to 00:04:08.430 --> 00:04:11.909 a drug, which is why I bring up Karl Marx and 00:04:11.909 --> 00:04:13.990 Frederick Engels. I am NOT a communist. In fact, 00:04:14.069 --> 00:04:16.509 I'm one of the most anti -communist people you'll 00:04:16.509 --> 00:04:19.209 ever meet in your life. I despise communism. 00:04:19.970 --> 00:04:21.810 Everywhere that communism has ever been tried, 00:04:22.209 --> 00:04:25.089 a mountain of skulls is not too far behind. I 00:04:25.089 --> 00:04:27.569 grew up in Cambodia when I was in eighth grade. 00:04:27.709 --> 00:04:30.870 I lived there for a year, and I got to see how 00:04:30.870 --> 00:04:33.089 the effects of Pol Pot, if you don't know who 00:04:33.089 --> 00:04:37.079 he is, look him up. He was the dictator of Cambodia 00:04:37.079 --> 00:04:39.800 who tried communism and what he left behind was 00:04:39.800 --> 00:04:42.639 a mountain of skulls. And I got to see its effect 00:04:42.639 --> 00:04:45.540 on the nation. You can look up Vietnam, the Vietnam 00:04:45.540 --> 00:04:48.019 war. The reason we were there was to prevent 00:04:48.019 --> 00:04:50.939 the spread of communism. You can look at China 00:04:50.939 --> 00:04:55.079 and how its effect on the world is not, is not 00:04:55.079 --> 00:04:59.000 one of prosperity and the positioning of the 00:04:59.000 --> 00:05:01.959 individual's freedom. It's more about the collective. 00:05:03.200 --> 00:05:06.439 the people's party under the guise of rubber 00:05:06.439 --> 00:05:09.300 stunning the people when all it's about is every 00:05:09.300 --> 00:05:11.639 other civilization or government on the planet, 00:05:11.660 --> 00:05:14.620 which is for the rich by the rich and to benefit 00:05:14.620 --> 00:05:17.860 the rich. That's every government ever. I know 00:05:17.860 --> 00:05:19.779 you don't want to think that. I know you don't 00:05:19.779 --> 00:05:22.019 like to hear that, but that's the truth. In fact, 00:05:22.019 --> 00:05:25.540 if you read the federalist papers, one published, 00:05:25.720 --> 00:05:28.720 I, oh gosh, I don't remember the physical one. 00:05:28.720 --> 00:05:31.920 It was the one by James Madison. where he argued 00:05:31.920 --> 00:05:35.019 that governments would not be necessary if the 00:05:35.019 --> 00:05:41.279 individual were one of virtue. If people were 00:05:41.279 --> 00:05:43.420 virtuous, there would be no need for government. 00:05:44.680 --> 00:05:46.920 And the purpose of government was to prevent 00:05:46.920 --> 00:05:51.620 marauders, aka raiders, rapists, thieves, etc. 00:05:51.959 --> 00:05:55.100 from stealing and taking what was belonging to 00:05:55.100 --> 00:05:57.879 the rich. So the rich aggrandized their power 00:05:57.879 --> 00:05:59.839 with other rich people and they said, hey, you 00:05:59.839 --> 00:06:03.339 know what? We can either fend off these brigands 00:06:03.339 --> 00:06:06.779 individually or we could consolidate a certain 00:06:06.779 --> 00:06:09.560 amount of our wealth together and prevent others 00:06:09.560 --> 00:06:12.379 from taking it from us or competing against us 00:06:12.379 --> 00:06:16.519 in plain English. That is what a government was 00:06:16.519 --> 00:06:21.259 designed and is still designed to do. Now, it's 00:06:21.259 --> 00:06:24.959 not as obvious as it once was, meaning that back 00:06:24.959 --> 00:06:27.959 in the day there were the people on top and there 00:06:27.959 --> 00:06:30.939 were the peasants. The modern equivalent today 00:06:30.939 --> 00:06:33.019 would be the fact that you look at places like 00:06:33.019 --> 00:06:36.319 Palestine, for example, where the guys who run 00:06:36.319 --> 00:06:38.740 that are like the bears, the princely class in 00:06:38.740 --> 00:06:40.620 the Arabic world. And then there's the peasant 00:06:40.620 --> 00:06:43.620 class of people who ride around in Lamborghinis 00:06:43.620 --> 00:06:46.740 and fly and golf streams. And then people who 00:06:46.740 --> 00:06:51.040 ride on donkeys and barely have one goat. But 00:06:51.040 --> 00:06:53.459 in America, what separates us is the male class. 00:06:54.079 --> 00:06:57.550 That's what makes us unique. And so when we get 00:06:57.550 --> 00:07:00.410 to religion, you have to understand that religion 00:07:00.410 --> 00:07:04.089 and politics, you can't really ever pull them 00:07:04.089 --> 00:07:06.670 apart. They're very glued together. They're tied 00:07:06.670 --> 00:07:09.350 to the same post, if you will. So when we talk 00:07:09.350 --> 00:07:12.649 about religion and how its effect on people is 00:07:12.649 --> 00:07:15.490 measured, it's measured in every facet of their 00:07:15.490 --> 00:07:18.589 life. It affects their thinking, which it affects 00:07:18.589 --> 00:07:22.350 their actions. See, the problem is when you take 00:07:22.350 --> 00:07:24.569 atheism, which people say that atheism is not 00:07:24.569 --> 00:07:26.850 a religion. Of course it is. It's the religion 00:07:26.850 --> 00:07:30.490 of the individual. It's the aggrandizement of 00:07:30.490 --> 00:07:34.029 the self, the esteem of the self in the place 00:07:34.029 --> 00:07:37.750 of God. Or in a case of communism, the government, 00:07:37.829 --> 00:07:40.170 because government takes the place of God and 00:07:40.170 --> 00:07:43.089 totalitarian regimes, whether it be fascism, 00:07:43.370 --> 00:07:46.689 whether it be communism, whether it be Nazism. 00:07:47.089 --> 00:07:50.370 But the Jewish, by the way, Nazism is not a fascist 00:07:50.370 --> 00:07:52.689 bird by definition movement in case you didn't 00:07:52.689 --> 00:07:55.579 know. It stands for national socialism, but I'm 00:07:55.579 --> 00:07:58.100 not going to go down the the Nazi rabbit hole, 00:07:58.100 --> 00:08:01.980 please. And thank you. I don't want to get sidetracked 00:08:01.980 --> 00:08:05.680 by that. It's not the theme of the show. The 00:08:05.680 --> 00:08:09.800 topic of the show is is religion beneficial to 00:08:09.800 --> 00:08:14.519 society? I would say in general terms, it depends 00:08:14.519 --> 00:08:18.019 on the religion because. When you look at religion 00:08:18.019 --> 00:08:20.699 and how it's practiced by a lot of fundamentalist 00:08:20.699 --> 00:08:23.379 Muslims. Now let's make one thing perfectly clear. 00:08:23.720 --> 00:08:29.939 I don't hate people who are Islamic. Okay. I 00:08:29.939 --> 00:08:33.220 hate I don't quote Winston Churchill. It is the 00:08:33.220 --> 00:08:36.559 influence of the religion is as dangerous as 00:08:36.559 --> 00:08:41.679 hydrophobia in a dog. And if we're not for the 00:08:41.679 --> 00:08:44.620 fact that the West is nurturing the strong arms 00:08:44.620 --> 00:08:48.120 of science. Western civilization would fall. 00:08:49.279 --> 00:08:53.659 As did ancient row. That's what Winston Churchill 00:08:53.659 --> 00:08:58.139 wrote back before he was. Thrown aside by the 00:08:58.139 --> 00:09:01.980 UK, speaking of the UK, oh my God, I cannot believe 00:09:01.980 --> 00:09:04.179 what the United Kingdom has become. The United 00:09:04.179 --> 00:09:07.019 Kingdom went from being the empire of, you know, 00:09:07.019 --> 00:09:10.139 the Sun never sets empire to a laughing stock. 00:09:10.399 --> 00:09:13.419 Basically, Saudi Britannia is what Britain is 00:09:13.419 --> 00:09:17.120 today. Britain is so. backwards they've gone 00:09:17.120 --> 00:09:19.460 through an entire life cycle as a country they 00:09:19.460 --> 00:09:22.200 went from an imperialistic power to now they're 00:09:22.200 --> 00:09:25.500 imploding by importing a bunch of illegal legal 00:09:25.500 --> 00:09:29.720 and illegal aliens who will never adopt the British 00:09:29.720 --> 00:09:32.440 values never adopt the history and learn the 00:09:32.440 --> 00:09:35.720 history of Britain they care only in the sufficiency 00:09:35.720 --> 00:09:38.559 of the Quran and they'll ban people like Michael 00:09:38.559 --> 00:09:43.460 Savage from the country for free speech and they'll 00:09:43.460 --> 00:09:46.659 let people who say kill the king remain in Britain 00:09:46.659 --> 00:09:50.200 because they're scared of them. And if you don't 00:09:50.200 --> 00:09:52.419 believe me, go ahead and look it up for yourself. 00:09:54.720 --> 00:09:57.019 Because my friends, I know that a lot of people 00:09:57.019 --> 00:09:59.320 are very hyperbole, and they say that, oh, if 00:09:59.320 --> 00:10:01.080 so and so wins, I want to leave the country. 00:10:01.399 --> 00:10:03.879 America's over. There is no freedom of speech 00:10:03.879 --> 00:10:05.320 anywhere else on the planet. I don't know if 00:10:05.320 --> 00:10:08.259 you know that. In case you didn't know, freedom 00:10:08.259 --> 00:10:10.419 of speech is not common practice in any other 00:10:10.419 --> 00:10:12.759 country on earth. That's what makes America unique 00:10:12.759 --> 00:10:16.600 is that we have freedoms. And in other countries, 00:10:17.019 --> 00:10:20.919 they don't allow such things. They'll allow it 00:10:20.919 --> 00:10:23.779 as so much as it doesn't threaten or is not a 00:10:23.779 --> 00:10:27.279 perceived threat to the social order. They will 00:10:27.279 --> 00:10:31.220 not, they won't care. But free speech is not, 00:10:31.340 --> 00:10:36.200 you will have to protect, you know, benign speech. 00:10:36.940 --> 00:10:39.600 The whole free, protecting free speech is about 00:10:39.600 --> 00:10:42.840 protecting offensive speech. You don't need to 00:10:42.840 --> 00:10:46.179 protect speech that everybody agrees with. What 00:10:46.179 --> 00:10:48.000 do you need to protect about that? That's, that's 00:10:48.000 --> 00:10:50.779 normal. That's not, there's no need to defend 00:10:50.779 --> 00:10:53.980 that. So when it comes to religion, religion 00:10:53.980 --> 00:10:57.100 can have a positive effect on the human being, 00:10:57.100 --> 00:11:00.840 but can also be as Winston Churchill said, like 00:11:00.840 --> 00:11:05.179 hydrophobia in a dog in that it can distort your 00:11:05.179 --> 00:11:07.340 viewpoint. The part where you no longer think 00:11:07.340 --> 00:11:09.539 rationally, you think religiously, you don't 00:11:09.539 --> 00:11:12.320 have the mindset. of somebody who thinks with 00:11:12.320 --> 00:11:16.559 rational thinking and logical faculties you instead 00:11:16.559 --> 00:11:19.919 of focus on what somebody else said what somebody 00:11:19.919 --> 00:11:22.820 else's interpretation of the Bible or the Quran 00:11:22.820 --> 00:11:25.940 or the Torah is and instead or the religious 00:11:25.940 --> 00:11:28.779 teachings of Buddha or Hinduism or anything else 00:11:28.779 --> 00:11:31.820 it's or any other religion for that matter you 00:11:31.820 --> 00:11:36.039 forfeit your right to your own humanity in my 00:11:36.039 --> 00:11:38.879 opinion because no longer Are you focused on 00:11:38.879 --> 00:11:41.039 rational thought, which separates you from a 00:11:41.039 --> 00:11:44.419 monkey or a worm? You are instead focusing on 00:11:44.419 --> 00:11:48.580 what you think should and that is not accurate. 00:11:48.639 --> 00:11:51.419 I'll give you an example. One of the, one of 00:11:51.419 --> 00:11:53.360 the reasons I have, one of the reasons I don't 00:11:53.360 --> 00:11:56.759 like the modern Christian church is because they 00:11:56.759 --> 00:11:59.960 preach what should be instead of what actually 00:11:59.960 --> 00:12:03.980 is. I'll give you an example. You have pastors. 00:12:04.120 --> 00:12:07.700 Let's see. What's a good example. Oh God, the 00:12:07.700 --> 00:12:11.440 guy in Arizona, I'm blanking on his name. I'm 00:12:11.440 --> 00:12:12.980 blanking on the guy's name in Arizona who runs 00:12:12.980 --> 00:12:14.679 a church in Phoenix. I actually went to this 00:12:14.679 --> 00:12:18.179 guy's church. I forget his name. I went to his 00:12:18.179 --> 00:12:20.179 church while I was in college for a little bit. 00:12:20.360 --> 00:12:24.320 Anyways, these types will tell men, oh, just 00:12:24.320 --> 00:12:27.139 get married. Oh, just do it because you're sitting 00:12:27.139 --> 00:12:31.059 otherwise without giving you any context as to... 00:12:30.639 --> 00:12:33.240 how marriage has changed in the last two thousand 00:12:33.240 --> 00:12:36.340 years how marriage is not what it once was how 00:12:36.340 --> 00:12:41.779 the government now has its beak in the has its 00:12:41.779 --> 00:12:44.980 beak dipping into the saucer of marriage they 00:12:44.980 --> 00:12:46.779 won't tell you that because it's not convenient 00:12:46.779 --> 00:12:49.580 for them it's not convenient for their business 00:12:49.580 --> 00:12:53.659 practices because they must make money which 00:12:53.659 --> 00:12:57.539 is why i bring up religion incorporated you see 00:12:57.539 --> 00:13:01.070 how this all ties in Like I said, the individual 00:13:01.070 --> 00:13:03.549 believes can be totally fine. But when you go 00:13:03.549 --> 00:13:06.330 take a step farther and it's about money, you've 00:13:06.330 --> 00:13:09.710 lost me because now it's not about making people 00:13:09.710 --> 00:13:13.009 better or making society better. It's about making 00:13:13.009 --> 00:13:17.470 you money off of old school practices that don't 00:13:17.470 --> 00:13:21.669 hold up in the modern day. That's where you lose 00:13:21.669 --> 00:13:24.370 me. And I think that I'm not alone. I know, in 00:13:24.370 --> 00:13:26.629 fact, I'm not alone. A lot of you. However, they 00:13:26.629 --> 00:13:28.669 read my book or other people's books and you've 00:13:28.669 --> 00:13:32.409 come to realize, hey, religion is good. The influence 00:13:32.409 --> 00:13:35.289 of the religion is good sometimes, but a lot 00:13:35.289 --> 00:13:39.809 of times people will use borderline propaganda. 00:13:41.950 --> 00:13:45.649 And in pursuit of profit and in doing so, they 00:13:45.649 --> 00:13:48.789 forfeit their integrity. They forfeit their right 00:13:48.789 --> 00:13:52.149 to be seen as a rational man or rational woman 00:13:52.149 --> 00:13:54.570 in a. Instead, they are seen as somebody who 00:13:54.570 --> 00:13:58.250 was just there to make money. My friends, I got 00:13:58.250 --> 00:14:02.029 to head out. I will continue the subject at length 00:14:02.029 --> 00:14:05.250 another time. But for right now, I got to head 00:14:05.250 --> 00:14:08.669 out and I would just ask you to comment. What 00:14:08.669 --> 00:14:10.450 do you think about religion and its effect on 00:14:10.450 --> 00:14:13.809 society? I think it's incredibly pregnant when 00:14:13.809 --> 00:14:15.830 it comes to a question and it can birth a lot 00:14:15.830 --> 00:14:17.330 of different opinions. And you let me know what 00:14:17.330 --> 00:14:19.840 yours is in the comments below. or you can go 00:14:19.840 --> 00:14:21.879 to my ex page at sheep get sheared and leave 00:14:21.879 --> 00:14:24.720 me a dm or comment on any of my thousands of 00:14:24.720 --> 00:14:27.000 posts i've left on there take care i'm out of 00:14:27.000 --> 00:14:27.779 here peace