Faith and Society: A Biblical Perspective

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Money itself is not evil. The love of money is evil. And what does money denote? Power, influence, control. These are all things that lead through scripture that we can understand. And we live in a society where money is worshiped as gods, right? We. We have. We have lost our way as society to an extent right now where people have replaced actual God with many other forms of God. Bitcoin being one of them. Some people. To some people, bitcoin is a version of a God. It's something they idol worship. I do not I make that very clear. What bitcoin is, is a balancing of the scales. It's a creating of normality, a fair level playing field where if you want to earn bitcoin, you can earn bitcoin. You can mine it. If you want to buy it, you can buy it. If you want to spend it, you can spend it. But there's only a certain amount and it's all transparent. And that creates a balanced scale. [00:00:44] Speaker B: Hello, welcome to the money adjustment. I'm your host, Dr. Mark Kramer. Are you interested in what's moving markets and your money? [00:00:52] Speaker A: Bitcoin is now proof of money. Bitcoin is fu money, not fu. I'm rich and I can say F. No, it's about F. You cannot touch it. Right. Bitcoin is literally everything that fiat money is not. I like Michael Saylor's quote. He said, if you can remember 12 words, you become the money. [00:01:18] Speaker B: Can we leave? Should we leave our audience with that? Yeah. Become the money. Become the money for the audience. This is an appetizer. It's like, here's a little taste. Digest stuff. Makes sense. It's a digest. Yeah, it's a yes. Let's get started. We say in the bitcoin community, TikTok, next block. We know exactly how much bitcoin will be created today. [00:01:38] Speaker A: We know at what time approximately it will come. Everything about bitcoin is perfect math. Every day of your life, no matter how difficult it appeared, most of our difficulties in life are so surface level. When you start to realize the bigger agenda in the world, the bigger agenda with your life, just understand every day is. Honestly, I say this all the time. I try to tell my kids every day is a blessing. It's a gift. Use it wisely. Whether that's educating yourself, loving other people, helping someone in some way, shape or form, working harder at your own profession, trying to get better at it. Take every day as a blessing. Take every morning. You know, the one thing I kind of changed my life with about five years ago is I used to Be very grumpy in the morning. I was talking to my wife about this the other day before Finding faith. Now in the morning, I wake up, and I'm happy because I realize that God has this massive creation that's working right now. And if you look at the earth or the creation we live in, what an undertaking, right? To. To be able to manage all of this. And every day, he seems to have. The sun comes up every morning with or without me. He seems to bless me with breath in my lungs, the ability to think, the ability to speak, the ability to love. I get those things as a gift every day, and I don't want to waste a single one of them. And I don't advise any of you do that either. [00:02:47] Speaker B: I have to set my camera up now, like, over your face, because I don't know how to. Somewhere they change the software. So now I. I used to be able to, like, switch them so that I could look at the gu. But now I have it where it's just, like, a technical thing, so. Point is, I can't see your face. I can see your mouth and a little bit of your hair on the tops. When I'm editing, I'll be able to see. Oh, there you go. [00:03:12] Speaker A: I'm glad I still have hair. That's all I'm concerned with. [00:03:14] Speaker B: Yeah, well, don't get me started. [00:03:16] Speaker A: My dad was scared that would be scary at 32. So I made it to 49 with some hair. I'm pretty happy about that. [00:03:21] Speaker B: Oh, that's awesome. Oh, you're a young guy. 49. Yeah. [00:03:26] Speaker A: Nobody ever knows I'm 49, so that's good, I guess. [00:03:29] Speaker B: No, that's awesome. I would have pegged you younger. You look good. You look good. [00:03:34] Speaker A: Thanks, man. [00:03:34] Speaker B: Yeah, so I'm gonna orient, get us oriented here. I'll just start addressing the audience because that's a good place to start with the people who are listening. You know, I actually feel kind of silly that I don't do these live, because you guys are live every day on Bitcoin today. It's always live. There's hundreds of people listening. And you were talking about this today on Bitcoin Today, about how AI we're not even gonna be able to trust anything anymore almost if I don't think if it's happening in real time. So people watching this, I am a real person. This is happening in real time for Eric and I, and then hopefully we're touching on some subject matter which I think is gonna be interesting for the middle of the week. In that this is usually something we might reflect on once a week, especially on a Sunday where we're more in the natural rhythm of the headspace of the topic today. But today I have with me, I like to call you my friend, even though you're an online friend and we haven't met in person. But I interact with you a lot on X and I always have a good time with you because I tend to communicate a lot through GIFs. And I noticed that you threw a few out there. And I feel like you and I have like a nice gift rapport going on X. So that's fun for me. So I have my, my gift friend on today, Eric Rice. This is gonna be Eric's second time on the podcast and I'll give Eric just a brief chance to say hello and then I'll get us into the topic here. [00:05:04] Speaker A: Well, hello, gift friend. Yeah, it's a whole new category friend these days. Absolutely. We're friends. We'll meet at a conference or something here soon or if you're in Texas, happy to meet up and grab a steak. You should always get a steak in Texas. Best food in the world. [00:05:15] Speaker B: All right, cool. All right. For sure. Next time I'm in Texas, I'm going to hit you up and we'll get a steak. That'll be super cool. [00:05:21] Speaker A: Absolutely. [00:05:22] Speaker B: So the reason I have, I want to preface this for the audience because we're going to be. I wanted to give you some space to talk about something that I don't feel like big bitcoin today always gives you the full opportunity to delve in as deeply as maybe certainly myself and other audience members. I'm imagining that's why I'm doing this. Don't give you the opportunity to dive in as deeply as some people might be interested in hearing because it's not necessarily the format for such a topic. And I'm assuming that that whoever's listening now is going to see there's going to be a title associated with this. And because of the title, if they're clicking and listening, there's already some anticipation of what we're going to be talk about today. And there'll be like something in the beginning to some juicy clip from the conversation. We're about to have to get get people in the right mindset for this. But it's been about nine months since you and I have spoken and the last time you were on, you really left an impression on me. And we wound up getting into just slightly into the topic of I don't even want to say religion because religion. As soon as you say religion, that might be a turn off to some people. And let's. I want to keep this. I like the term biblical because I think biblical is something that even if you're just a historian buff, there's a lot of history there and you could go back, there's a lot of literature and the deeper that I dive into the Bible, I have not. I'm older than you, not that much older, but I'm older than you and I've read a lot of books, hundreds and hundreds of books, but I have never read the Bible. And after our. [00:07:03] Speaker A: Now. You're reading it now though, right? [00:07:04] Speaker B: I am reading it now and I'm loving it. So just to give people background on this, I'm going to try not to talk too much because I was like, I really want to let Eric run with this because this is going to be your baby because you have knowledge on the subject. But just to let people orient them to why I'm interested and why I have you on here is because nine months ago I wouldn't have even called myself a Christian. And even today, and I know we've talked about this term, let's let maybe even move past the term so people don't get hung up on some of the ideology of this. But you said a disciple of a master. It's Jesus Christ was a master and he had disciples and they weren't called Christians at the time. So and for me, without getting too much back into my background because you have a little bit of my history from the last time. But my mother is, is, was of Muslim descent. My father was of Jewish descent. I grew up kind of in an open spirited home. My mother told me to respect all religions and love all people. And so that was my mindset into that whole world. But I've always been spiritually, I would consider myself spiritually oriented and I studied like you had mentioned, different Eastern philosophies and I kind of for a lot of my adult life landed on Taoism just because I felt like that was the least stringent psychologically hurdle wise for people to adopt. It's just kind of the way, just kind of go with the way. And so that was somewhat satisfying to me. But there was something about there's some way that you speak and, and Christian people who I admire. And again I, I'm using the term just to. Just because it's easy to use. But on our last episode you said like you don't even necessarily, you're not hung up on that term again, we're talking about people that are interested students to learn from people who are masters. And so I short story long, right. I started going to church with my wife about a year ago and we really started because of my daughter. My daughter got interested in going to church and at first my wife and I were actually a little bit concerned. And I think people get like, oh, there's a lot of people who have strong feelings about the church one way or the other. And even people that go to church have strong feelings about certain types of churches. So like there's a lot of layers to this. And I think I'm really, I'm really like trying to parse this out for the listener who may not be of this particular religious belief. And so again, not again. Maybe I'm saying this for the first time. I was re listening to some of our conversation the last time in preparation for this. And what I landed on was the question that was left in my mind after something that you had said. And now I want to give you more space to say it. And I'm probably going to be editing a lot of what I'm saying out so people can just hear what you have to say. But what it is is you landed on. There are biblical ties to bitcoin. [00:10:06] Speaker A: I have strong faith in Christ. I don't hide that from anyone. I have a great church that's about a mile from my house. Got very lucky. It's a biblical only church, no religion. So I tell people all the time, I don't care if you go to church. We are the church. I am not a church person. I was not raised Christian either. I was raised fairly pagan, to be honest with you. I went on a spiritual journey for years and I looked into yogis and I talked to daoists and I talked to Buddhists. And at the end of the day, what I found out was fascinating. When I would interview these people, I said, what's the ultimate goal of your religion? And they all said to obtain Christ consciousness. Every one of them, they all want Christ consciousness. So I started looking into that. The teachings of Christ are universal. They're a universal way to live your life. The interesting thing that you mentioned is condemnation. I think that's the biggest fault of mankind at this time. I even hate the word Christian. We were called to be disciples, which is a disciplined follower of a master, just like with every, every other spiritual following. And in that, in that practice, I don't judge people. It doesn't matter to me. I want you to Be successful. And I want you to be happy. I think you may have a different opinion than I do, and that's fantastic. And I may, I may absolutely hate what you're investing in, but I'm still going to love you. The biggest missing word of our society today is one that is very prevalent in the teachings of Christ and the biblical church. The word grace, Mark, is missing from our society more than anything. Give people grace. Don't condemn them because they think differently. If you condemn them for believing that lie, they're never going to listen to the truth. They're going to dig in the. Dig in even deeper. The line in the sand will get a shovel instead of a finger. I think we need to give people grace and that's what's missing. That's why at the end of the day, people don't realize it's not Republican versus Democrat, it's not Muslim versus Christian, which is what they want, by the way, that would create the great Third World War. It's not those things. It's sovereignty versus tyrants. That's it. It's sovereignty. It's those who desire to be free versus those who desire your freedom. And we are all politically aligned. Unless you're in Washington D.C. or in one of the oligarchy's pockets, we are all aligned. We all want to live a simple life. We want to be able to worship our God. We want to be able to love and raise our family friction free with the normal problems of life, not these extended issues of life life and that we want to have a peaceful existence and love our neighbor like we want to do that. Human beings inherently want to have camaraderie, brotherhood, sisterhood and love. We all desire that. But from the moment we fall out of our mother's womb, we're in enemy territory, being bombarded with darkness and sin and all these other things. And it's the challenge of life like that is literally the challenge that Christ laid out. I send you as innocent as a dove amongst the wolves. Like that's earth. So you want to find other doves. You want to fend off the wolves. And there are wolves and there are doves. And I think at the end of the day, Mark, we see this a lot in bitcoin crypto. Bitcoin versus microstrategy. There's an old saying that the tree of freedom from time to time has to be watered with the blood of patriots and tyrants, right? And we don't understand that sacrifice for freedom anymore. And that's kind of the war that we're in right now. So we condemn people for spending their bitcoin. We condemn people for not buying their bitcoin. We condemn people for buying altogether coins. Like, listen, some people have made money in this stuff. [00:13:21] Speaker B: I don't. [00:13:22] Speaker A: I don't care what other people do. I care if they're happy, and I care if they're free. And bitcoin happens to be the number one pathway that I've noticed in my life to freedom and happiness because I don't really care much about politics. If anything, I'm more like the two grumpy old guys in the Muppet show, you know, screaming down, screaming down from the. From the balcony of saying, you guys are watching an absolute theater and taking it seriously. The outcomes were determined 20 years ago. It's just playing out in political theater now. You think this show was educational? Yes. It'll drive people to read books. So there are biblical ties to this, especially to bitcoin, by the way. Such an interesting biblical tie. [00:13:58] Speaker B: So I asked you a book to read and you offered a book. I'm not promoting anything here. I'm not sponsored. But the book you. You put out there, again, I'm kind of jumping ahead of myself here. But it was like, thank. It was called thank God for Bitcoin. And so I'm imagining, since you referred me to that book, that you are drawing some of what you're going to be talk about today from there, as well as whatever sources you have. And you accurately said, the Bible's another good source to go to if you want to understand these concepts. And this is. I am not a proverb. A person who like quotes proverbs. I have a very challenging time just quoting things in general. But I thought for this particular conversation, this is the most applicable. This is one of the more applicable ones that I could find. And it's a proverb that. And it goes, a false balance is an abomination to God, but a just weight is his delight. [00:14:56] Speaker A: Yes. [00:14:57] Speaker B: And so let's lean in. Let's start with that. [00:15:00] Speaker A: Yeah. So how old is your daughter? That's great that she wanted to go to church. [00:15:04] Speaker B: She is in college. She just. She's going to be turning 21. [00:15:08] Speaker A: Wow. See, there's. There's a definite movement of younger people wanting to go to church. Now, the one thing I advise everybody who is wanting to go to church, and it's, you know, Mark, the whole. The whole world rotates on a Hegelian dialectic. There is always this good cop, bad cop agenda. Agendas are already Placed ahead of time. And they just have to manipulate the audience, the people to get the agenda achieved. And one of the, one of the things that's happened over the last, call it a hundred years is the secularization of society. So a hundred years ago we had Bibles in school. Ten commandments were taught. The different tables of the commandments are, you know, like, don't lie. Right. The basic tenets, don't lie, don't steal, don't kill, don't covet your neighbor. Don't covet, don't, don't want things you don't have. Right. Like those, those are very simple philosophies that should be governed. But we've seen this over secularization of society, almost a demonic influence on society and that almost because the world is demonic by nature. People who haven't read the Bible don't understand that, that the devil is the God of this world, like Satan is the God of this world. We are sent here to, to, you know, be as innocent as doves amongst the ravenous wolves. And, and that environment is not very easy to understand. It took me 40 plus years to, to truly understand that. That's, you know, we always say that's just the way the world works. But do we really know how the world really works? We don't. What we do know is that we live in a constant system of unbalanced scales. They're all unbalanced. Everything is top weighted. You look at money. We just had a great conversation on, on spaces today about central banks and how some people say central banks are necessary. And my question wasn't, I didn't state back and say, I asked, tell me why. Like, tell me what they do that balances the scales. And it doesn't. All it does is tilt the scale to one side or the other. So then you have this development of these unleveled scales where one side now has what the root of all evil becomes in humanity, which is the love of money. Money itself is not evil. The love of money is evil. And what does money denote? Power, influence, control. These are all things that lead through scripture that we can understand. And we live in a society where money is worshiped as gods, right? We, we have, we have lost our way as society to an extent right now where people have replaced actual God with many other forms of God. Bitcoin being one of them. Some people, to some people, Bitcoin is a version of a God. It's something they idol worship. I do not I make that very clear. What Bitcoin is, is A balancing of the scales. It's a creating of normality, a fair level playing field where if you want to earn bitcoin, you can earn bitcoin. You can mine it. If you want to buy it, you can buy it. If you want to spend it, you can spend it. But there's only a certain amount, and it's all transparent. And that creates a balanced scale. Like that is a really important thing. Plus, it's unconfiscatable. So some guy who doesn't like what you have to say on social media can't take it from you. And that's happening now. That's the main reason I got into bitcoin is because I've already been through all that stuff, and I don't speak egregiously or aggressively ever. It's just not in my nature. I'm a very calm deliverer of news. And that seems to infuriate people a lot more than the Alex Jones pounding their fists on a table. Because I don't believe for a second that he lost his organization. I don't believe for a second any of that stuff happened. But it is a good narrative that pushes you in the right direction. So we have this influence right now, this secular society, unbalanced scales, this massive leaning towards, you know, you got to get ahead this. Be frank with you. A Jesuit terminology of the the end justifies the means. That is literally from the Jesuit order, that that is what our society has become. This ruthless environment of get money or don't. And the youth, about 10 years ago, that was really the youthful model. Like you look at videos, it was all about getting money. Now you're seeing this movement back to church, which also has its dangers. So I advise everybody who is in this movement, first of all, amen, and God bless you. I hope that your journey on faith is incredible, and I hope that you find a great church home. I have a great church. I speak against churches all the time. I speak against my own while I'm there. And they know it. I get looked at in the front row when they're giving sermons, like, is it okay here? And they're fantastic. I love. I love the guys there. The pastors are amazing. Those are actually few and far between these days, unfortunately, that is, there are more apostate churches today than there are actual biblical teachers. And what a church should be is a place of gathering for believers. And that is a beautiful thing. No matter if the church is apostate or not. Other people who believe, but the youth need to read scripture. People need to read Scripture. Unfortunately, what's happening right now is spirituality is the term you use. I call it faith. Faith is a very personal thing, has nothing to do with writings in a book or buildings. You know, the Protestant reformers and Protestantism has its issues, Catholicism has major issues. They all have major issues. Let's be honest. Like all these religions, man made contortions of faith have their issues because they're made by man. But faith is an interpersonal relationship between you and God, between you and Jesus Christ. And nothing can take that from you. It's the one thing in the world that can't be taken from you. Everything else can be. And when we find people who are seeking that type of faith, ultimately they turn to places where they believe they'll get more knowledge. And that's what churches become, is a, as a repository of knowledge. You have people who are literally professional Christians. They are paid to be Christians. They go to colleges to learn the standardized philosophy or interpretation of Scripture, which may or may not be correct in many different areas. But what happens, what I believe is happening right now is a great delusion is being cast upon the earth. And Christianity is very at the very center of it. And I think that what happens is you have a lot of people who go to church, they take what the, what the preacher's interpretation of scripture is as gospel without testing it. The Bible tells you many, many, many times, very important things are very redundant in the Bible. First and foremost, it says like 6, 15 to 17 times. I haven't been able to nail it down. It says 15 to 17 times in the Bible, do not veer right or do not veer left, but walk the narrow road. Well, what is our society all about? Oh, you leftist. Oh, you must be on the right. Everything is non biblical. So living a biblical life or a life of faith is extremely challenging in today's world. And it requires a tremendous amount of patience and knowledge. So when we see these movements like the government, like everybody in our government right now is praising God, saying prayers. I don't, I'm not here to challenge whether they're people of faith. What I'm here to do is to, to ask people of faith to do what the Bereans did, to like lay claim to the fact that the fruits actually show the results of the circumcision of the heart. So if we're not paying attention to the fruits, we're going to be like Nicki Minaj is a great example. Right here's a lady who literally said she's possessed by a Demon named Roman, who now professes to be a Christian in the White House. Like, this is how delusions are cast. Using religion as a weapon. And that's just a fact. And this has been going on for thousands of years. This isn't anything new. Following Christ, which in the early days was called the way Christianity weren't called Christians. We didn't have churches. The word church actually just means ecclesia in Greek. So the original Septuagint, the version of the Bible that was published first was written in Greek. And the word for church was ecclesia. Ecclesia in Greece in Greek means a gathering. That's what it means. Just a gathering doesn't mean an institution. You know, tithing is a whole other story. People look at like, I gotta give money to the church. Well, original tithing was designed for families in your local area that were starving in times of famine. You were giving away first fruits of a, of a harvest so it could be held by the church to disperse to local families in times of famine. Tithing now for many churches is, I need a better LED screen. I need, I need another statue of Mary. I need, you know, whatever it may be. Very, very far away from the original version of Christianity, which was the apostles and their followers after the death of Christ in the book of Acts, it was called the Way. They were called followers of the way. They weren't called Christians. They didn't have a church. They sold off all their earthly possessions. They worked together to make sure every one of them had everything that they needed. And they preached the gospel all day long. That's what they did. And preaching the gospel is a difficult thing, as most people know. It's a turn off to a lot of people right away. I don't do it. I'm not a preacher, I'm not a pastor. I'm not any form of, you know, formalized man made religion. I am a follower of Jesus Christ who loves other people unconditionally, even if they hate me, even if they despise me, even if they have a different religion. In most cases, I feel like kind of a lone wolf in that capacity because we're taught to hate Muslims or to hate Jewish people or to hate all these other people. I still can't find in the Bible where Jesus Christ told us to hate anyone. We see this massive movement now of the youth, young men, especially after Charlie Kirk. What happened with Charlie Kirk? You're starting to see this major movement of young men reviving the idea of the Crusades. We need Crusades again. We got to get rid of all these be. Show me in the Bible one time. Just show me one time. One sentence of Jesus Christ saying, I want you to go forth and convert nations by at the end of a gun. It's not how it works. It's not how it happens. Generally. Generally we see this movement with young people that they're seeking religion, not seeking faith. Faith is hard. You know, faith is an understanding of your own sin and your own faults and dying the death of the flesh and living in the spirit. It's an extremely difficult thing to do that we all fail at Mark. Like, there's not a single perfect Christian on earth. We're all sinners. And first and foremost, it's difficult for people to admit that, to, like, look in the mirror and go, I'm. I'm a flawed sinner. And it doesn't take more than two hours of reflection, right? We've all done something in the last two hours of our day. We're like, I'm not so proud of that. Maybe I could get better at it. But I love hearing the stories of young people going back to church. I just advise your daughter wholeheartedly to go through the journey of the Bible and not just to read the book. Book read the things you don't want to read. Lineages are important. I went to a. I was an athlete, so I got, you know, I got recruited by a Catholic high school. I'd never been to a church before in my life. I was baptized as a baby Presbyterian. My parents never went to a church. They just said, let's go, which is also not biblical. Baptism is a matter of the heart, when your faith is set and you proclaim it in public. But I remember growing up and going like, I don't know any of this stuff. So I had to read the Bible. We had theology classes. We had to understand the Bible, but we understood the Bible in the Catholic interpretation. We didn't understand the Bible in God's interpretation. And it took me years to figure that out. Now, when you read the Bible, there's going to be a lot of things. I want to give some. Some tips. Read context, read history. History and the Bible speak the same language. They really do. You know, historicism is a. Is a philosophy that died out, like, 30 years ago. It's being revived incredibly right now. I would certainly consider myself. My eschatology would be historicist. I look at God's prophecy, I look at history overlaid, and I can clearly see all the things that people are proclaiming are wrong because either have a past version or a futurist version. Instead of just looking at like God's sovereign, he said things will happen. And if you look at history, you can see a lot of them have already happened. They're not going to happen in the future. They didn't happen in the past. And many happen in the past. But people get caught up in that. So read the context, read the lineages, understand who is the bloodline of who and why. Those bloodlines are important. But every book, book by book, as you read it, read one book at a time and study the context. What is the history that they're teaching? What is the spiritual component that they're teaching? The New Testament is almost completely a story of spiritual. It's a spirit told story. The Old Testament is very much historical. So I don't understand how historicism becomes this weird thing. It's only because it tells the truth and reveals who's actually the good guy and bad guy on earth, which is a long standing 500 year war of the Protestant Reformation. But when you really look at the context and you take it in context, you get this whole new understanding of what God is trying to tell you individually, by the way. And the more you read scripture, the more you read God's word, the more you're developing, developing a vocabulary for him to speak through your life. Like you can't really understand. I still remember, you know, I'm from a city, so I'm a Chicago kid and I get abs. I used to get absolutely torn up angry in traffic. It used to make me so mad just sitting there in my car. And you know, and then I started looking, then I started reading scripture and I'm like, wow, what a fool was I like, patience is like a number one virtue of someone with faith. Like just these little tiny things. But you don't have that in your repertoire to a point where you can reference it unless you're reading scripture contextually, right? So I'm going to offer that advice to you right now. And of course you have my contact information. If you have questions, call me. That's what a church is supposed to be is other believers helping other believers. Not a pulpit of centralized control and narrative interpretation. So I do, I will be bold in speaking that I go and also say it's okay to go to church. Just read the Bible. If you read the Bible and you understand scripture and you're looking at it interpretively the right way, you're going to find out whether your church is good or bad. But if you don't have that basic level of discernment, you will certainly be led astray. Great quote from a man with a checkered past. I will say this Charles Spurgeon, one of the, one of the most well known Protestant preachers of all time, checkered past, fully believe he was a freemason, by the way, but he has a great, a great line. He says, discern determinant is not knowing the difference between right and wrong. It's knowing the difference between right and almost right. And the devil trips you up with almost right because it's almost right. So I should believe it. But if it's almost right, it's entirely wrong. And that's where people get tripped up. And that's how religion gets used as a weapon because most people don't have that baseline to understand what's almost right. It's easy to know what's right and wrong. Like it's very easy. Like we shouldn't be, you know, chopping off genitals of children, okay? Like, that's obvious evil. That's obvious evil. We shouldn't be killing innocent people in foreign lands for no reason other than somebody getting rid. That's obvious evil. It's the tricky things, right? It's like AI is the ultimate test of right and almost right. Like humanity is going through is it good, is it bad? It's both. It's both at the same time that can be true. A good and bad exist simultaneously in a world of duality that God created good and evil. And you know, our solution is, well, we have to get the right people using it. Well, how do we know the right people? I mean, it's right and almost right on a consistent basis that we live through. Does that make sense to you, Mark? [00:28:57] Speaker B: It all makes sense to me. I hope it makes sense to the people that are listening to this. I'll tell you what was stirred up into me while I was listening to you speak, as you said. And this has been my experience thus far as someone new to reading the Bible. So you gave some good tips of how to approach this journey if you're someone that chooses to partake in it. And I've always been a fan of deep history. I, I listened. I don't know if you've ever heard of the master courses. They, it was a series that was offered and they had lecturers. It was like university type study. And one of the courses was called Big History. So it was looking at your life in the lens of like a historical lens. So I really enjoy that. And in terms of Practicality. And this will be, you know, you can give me your take. You're here to give me your take. One of the daunting things. And I remember we were on a spaces together, and Gary was talking about, there's so many books, I don't even know where to start there. Which one's the right one? And so. And I was empathetic to him as someone who's kind of on this journey also kind of figuring out where to go. I'm fortunate. My. My wife was raised Catholic, and she was. She has that similar interesting kind of perspective where she's like, the way I was raised and taught isn't what I'm feeling now. And how we go to church isn't the same type of experience. Like, we want to study, we want to learn, we want to deepen our faith, and we deepen our faith through what we're. Not necessarily what we're doing in. To use the word communion, but the gathering, but also what we're doing individually in terms of actually reading the text. Text and asking questions. And so I hadn't even thought to read the Bible only because I saw it as some other. I have a laundry list of books that I would love to read that I can't get to. And then to think to throw the Bible on top of that, I was like, oh, man, I'm just gonna have to get the Cliff Notes. But the reality is, is once I took off a small bite, I started. I was like, all right, well, a lot of. I hear a lot of people say, start with the New Testament. So I was like, okay, I'll start with the New Testament. And so then there are the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. This is. And my wife said, oh, I kind of remember hearing that as a kid, but I never went through and actually read it. And we're kind of learning this together as we go. And I. This is like, where the. The nerdy part of me comes in. I'm like, wait a minute. These guys weren't all disciples of Jesus. One author was a disciple of a disciple, and he was actually. Arguably, I'm not the scholar, but I like to hear what the scholars have to say. He wrote the first. This is a term that I heard. It's a synoptic view, meaning there's multiple people telling of a certain time period, which also gives it credibility. So, like you said, when you start looking through a historical lens, it's interesting to understand these things. Not like, oh, do you believe in the Bible? It's like, that's not, that's not even a good question because there's too much there to parse through and learning about when things were written and how they were written and how these books started to, to come together. Because originally they didn't come out as books. They were written on scrolls. These authors were writing on scrolls. So when I started to get this context and then I, and then I realized, oh, they're, they're telling the same story of this person from different, of different vantage points, which also gives it a little bit more credibility and merit. I don't in my head go, was Jesus Christ a real person or not a real person? I look at it now from a historical lens and, and see through the Bible, there were four different people in this same time period in a close proximity to the same time period telling of these stories that must have been, if nothing else, told, but also firsthand witness. Like Matthew was a disciple, so he actually had a firsthand witness of the miracles of Christ. And then like I said, Mark had a different vantage point because as far as I understand, he was writing, he was a disciple of Peter. So he was writing from what he was learning from Peter. And then Luke was even like a next generation of this. This. Yes, he was. Exactly. So I'm like. And it's interesting because he has a kind of a doctor's lens when he looks at it. So when he talks about the miracles, he talks like a doctor would talk from that time period. And to add like another layer to this is I'm reading the King James Version, so it's in Old English. [00:33:55] Speaker A: Oh, so do you know that that language, the King James Bible was written for fifth graders. So this is an interesting fifth graders. So you can look at the dumbing down of society since the 1600s. So it was literally written for fifth grade education. And now it's a very difficult language. I read the Geneva and the King James and I think the Geneva has. I read all the versions, so I read the Septuagint. I don't know if you can see behind me, my bookshelf. I have about five different translations behind me. The one you can see in the, in the screen, that's a Geneva Bible from 1560. So with a couple original pages, actually. But it is fascinating to look at the translations and understand that that when the King James Bible was written, it was written for people with a fifth grade education. And now doctors have a difficult time. It takes a while to translate. Right, I'll send you a couple of books that help you translate old English into modern language and speeds it up a little bit. [00:34:52] Speaker B: You know what? And in terms of the speeding it up, this is what I actually enjoy about it because I read thousands of pages of medical records per day. I am like very intensive. I tell my wife I would love to read for fun. That would be a luxury. But I read so much during the day that it becomes challenging for me me to read outside of my regular work. And so one of the things that I like about reading the Bible in Old English is it does challenge me to slow down and it challenges me to use my brain in a different way. So I. It is a different type of way to process this information. It's funny now that you said it was written for someone in fifth grade or like. Did you say fifth grade or five year old old? [00:35:35] Speaker A: Fifth grade. [00:35:36] Speaker B: Fifth grade. Okay. So yeah, I guess a five year old's not reading large texts of any kind. [00:35:42] Speaker A: No. [00:35:43] Speaker B: That gives it another interesting context. But even these like this historical reference, like the King James Bible was written in the 1600s. So now we're already talking 1600 years after the fact. And so that's where things start to, you can see where people. It's interpreted and you know, this wasn't the original meaning and all of these kind of things. I haven't gotten to the point to what you're talking about where I'm reading different versions of it. My wife is reading a different version and she's the one who, she's the one who gave me the King James version. She said, I saw this one. It's got kind of a hard feeling. Yes. Yeah. No, it's awesome because she kind of had it stashed me. She's like, oh, you should start reading the Bible. I just watched my wife get up early in the morning and she was starting to do her own Bible study and she was reading the Bible and really getting into it and just I didn't think to do it just because I just didn't see how it was going to fit into my schedule. And we were going to church and like you said, I don't have a lot of experience with a lot of different churches. I know the church that I'm going to now, they have multiple locations and I've been to their multiple locations and they have multiple people that give sermons. So they have a lead pastor, but they also have multiple people give sermons. So I love that because it's not one guy on the pulpit telling you the way it is. It is a collective of people giving you interpretations and they Bring it to how it fits into your life practically today, but also going back to the history of it and trying to give you context for what was happening during that time period, which I love. So. So I do feel like I'm back in school where I'm getting the information as if the sermon was a lecture. And then I'm doing my independent study and I'm going, and I'm. And I'm looking at the Bible so casually. One day after listening, I was like, this is fascinating. I. And it had to do with the gospels. And I was like, you know, I think I want to read the Gospel. And my wife's like, I have this for you. I had it in this drawer. I was like kind of thinking that you might like this one and I told you about it, but. But it's leather bound. I don't mean to be blasphemous, because it's funny. It's like when you start talking about it in this way, it's like, I'm not trying to make it a novelty, but. But in a world where everything's so digital and technical and most of what I do, even this is like there's so many layers between you and I in terms of technology, but just to have a leather bound Bible in my hand. And so what I do at night is I just have my reading light and I open up and it's just such a nice way to end the day and to reflect on this story. And I'm thinking to myself now with the Bible, this could keep me busy until the end of my days because there's so much to digest. There's so many really. There's so many books in the Bible, so many versions of the Bible, so many ways to hear the story. And I just love that because it's a form of time travel too. Back to a period before we were today and to your point, life wasn't great. Evil has always existed. These problems aren't new to us. They just look different back then. But you see the, it's like humanity. You see the humanity in it and how. Wow. Even through thousands of years, this book, this, this collection of work has stood the test of time. Because it was. Because there has to be some truth to it. There had to be something that could be seen through generation and generation and evaluated over time that it hasn't lost its merit. [00:39:14] Speaker A: Well, the story of the Bible is, is truly the hero's journey. And you look at the, the ones who wrote what they saw, you can reference it on guys like Josephus who were a tremendous Jewish historian at the time of Christ. So he was very active and very accurate in history until about 101. Josephus is something I always recommend who are deep in history. But before I get into what I'm going to say, let me rewind by saying faith is not your understanding of theology. There are plenty of souls that will be saved at the resurrection who understood nothing of theology, who only believed in Jesus Christ and tried to live their lives in his image and tried to reduce the amount of sin that they commit and, and, and, and, and, and live a life that Christ taught. So it is a matter of the heart, not the head. The head reinforces the heart heart when it's done properly. So getting knowledge of theology is not crucial to faith. There are plenty of people who can't read on planet Earth right now who, who, who God loves. God loves all of us. He just wants you to turn back to him, away from the ways of the world. But it's, it's fascinating to watch this because we have all these especially like the bitcoin community or crypto communities, communities of all times today it's all become this gnostic version of what the Bible actually says, says. So it's either a contradiction of like oh there's so many trans, these are translations, these aren't rewrites, they're translations. Many of them are, are incorrect. Many of them are intentionally deceitful. I can say that after having read probably 60 different translations now. And I read the Bible because for me it's a way of, of trying to find the truth. Like Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life like. It is important to seek truth and speak truth at all times. But the Bible itself is a fascinating story. 66 books, 40 authors, three different continents over about a 1700 year period, all telling the same story. That's spirit led literature, right? So people look at it as a book. And it is, guys, it is a book. It's certainly a book. But God nominated people throughout history to speak on his behalf or to relay his message. They were nominated by God. So what did mankind do? The history of the Bible is fascinating. It took, you know, we didn't have a Bible for about 300 years. The Catholic Church claims credit for the Bible. That's certainly not true. The early church fathers were as flawed as human beings as you can find. They were not perfect. Many of them were Hellenically influenced pagan converts. They were Jewish converts. They were convoluting different man made religions into one thing. Scripture is scripture and we have different interpretations. Like people are now talking about the Book of Enoch, which I absolutely love. It's a great book. It is certainly not scripture, but it is a great book. By the way, there are two Enochs in the Bible. One was good, one was bad. And you have to surface through these things, but you don't know that unless you've read Scripture. Scripture. Now the history of the Bible is fascinating. The Catholic Church banned the Bible. They banned the Bible and like around 1200 A.D. they banned the Bible. The Protestant Reformation occurred because there were Catholic monks and Catholic priests who were serving the Catholic Church, which was the only church that existed until 1517 that noticed the indulgences that they, they created a story on Purgatory which absolutely traces roots back to man made creation a thousand years after the Bible was written. Written. And they noticed that people that the church was extorting people like give me some money today to the church and we'll make sure that your relative isn't imperative. We'll go ahead and promote them up into heaven because that's what it says in Scripture, right? So they were getting away with these things. And these monks, the Protestant reformers looked back and said this isn't what it says in scripture at all. In fact, this is completely opposite of scripture. You've banned it. And the only books that are allowed to be seen of holy Scriptures were written in Latin that no one understood except for the clergy energy. So the, the kickoff of the war I think we're going through right now, which has always been spiritual. We always talk about Iran or Russia. Everything is a spiritual warfare war for your mind and your heart. That's what it's always been. Unless you're a soldier on the field. It's always for your mind and your heart. This traces back to the mere fact that in 1540 Bibles were being translated through the printing press into local languages. Now you would think this would be a great thing for people, but the people who were printing these translated versions of the Bible from Latin to German, Latin to English, Latin to French, they were being burned at the stake. They were being chased down like rats, hunted like, like an animal and killed for betraying the, the Catholic Church. That is an absolute historical fact. The Catholic apologist will say that it was because they were heretics. Well, I don't know how you call someone a heretic for translating Latin to English and sharing God's word with those who couldn't read Latin. Latin, but that's the world we live in. So the one thing you have to understand is that discernment comes from somewhere. Like our understanding of right and almost right or our understanding of right and wrong come from somewhere. It's a learned behavior. There is intuition. Like human beings know that killing someone else for no reason is absolutely wrong. Like, we certainly know that. And these are tenants of God, tenants of faith, tenants of basic humanity. But in the end, we have Scripture that helps us refine the small things in the life, the little tiny things. Should I be mad in traffic? No. Shouldn't be right. Should I, Should I hate someone because they have different beliefs? No, you shouldn't. You should actually live a good life. And they will ask you, like, why are you so calm? Why do you have so much happiness and joy in this moment? You should be angry. Well, because I already understand what the world is. So let's go through the Bible really quick. The differences between the kind of modern version. There's a great meme that goes around in like the. I consider myself biblical. There's. There's the Sola scriptura. People that, like it's the Bible alone is where Solafita. All these different, different. I don't proclaim any of these groups at all. I am just a follower of Christ and a flawed human being. And all I want is for the. For the truth to be known and I want for people's souls to be saved. That's it. Pretty simple, guy. But the world tells us a few things, right? God runs the world. That's not what it says in Scripture. It says that Satan runs this world. So step one is understanding that. The Bible tells us we are living in the realm of Satan. We are living in the realm of evil. Right? Number one. Number two, the world tells you to follow your heart, right? Follow your heart. Whatever's in your heart, Mark, you know, you should do what's in your heart, shouldn't you? Isn't that what the world tells you? Well, scripture tells you that our hearts are inherently wicked and deceitful and that we should be following God. We should be following Jesus and his teachings, not our own heart, because they will lead us astray. How many times has following your heart ended up in complete catastrophe in your life, right? [00:45:25] Speaker B: More than once, for sure. [00:45:27] Speaker A: And the third and most relevant in today's world, the basic understanding of scripture. This is the devil's dominion. Don't follow your heart, follow Christ. And the third, that right now is so bastardized in our society, things don't get better until Jesus returns. That's what the Bible says. And history proves this over and over again. But we keep hearing about golden ages. We keep hearing about sovereignty. We keep hearing about multipolar freedom and liberation throughout the world world. I can overlay that with scripture and end times eschatology to show you that the devil is the most cunning creature that God ever created. And he doesn't scare you with horns. He doesn't appear as this disgustingly obviously evil thing. He appears as an angel of light. Speaking alternative gospels. And our world falls victim to these basic tenets of the world. The Bible also tells you if the world loves you, God doesn't like because our world is deceptive. It is Satan's world, where we're taught to follow our heart deceitfulness, and that we're taught that things will get better over time with or without God. That's not true. That's not what the Bible says in a very basic overview. So when we're looking at biblical tenets and how this, why all this matters and how it ties into finances or technology really doesn't, and there's really nothing that we can do to say that like this was created by God. The alternative conversation is everything was created by God. And that's true. The book of Isaiah states that God says that I am both the darkness and the light, and I control both for my own purposes. So people will look at things like sin. Like, why is there sin in the world if God is here? Well, God created Satan. Satan influences and tempts you as an angel of light. He says, just a little pornography won't hurt you. It's better than cheating on your wife, isn't it? You know, just a little lie. They'll feel better, right? They'll love you. The world will love you if you just tell a little lie. I would rather the world hate me for telling the truth than the world love me for telling me lie. And I can say that faithfully that that's grounded in scripture. So when we look at the differences between a biblical lifestyle, which I'm not preaching that I'm perfect. I actually, I think I've probably said here a thousand times, I'm a flawed sinner. I'm a broken human being, and I make mistakes every day. And hopefully the best I can do is to be accountable for my mistakes, apologize for my mistakes, and get better. That's the best we can do. That's. That's as close to perfection as a human being will get. And I am far from that. Even. Even. But when we look at the way the world lives and the way the Bible Teaches. And we look at the degradation of society over time. Degradation of society. People look at this as some dystopian nightmare that was caused by, you know, Jews or communists or liberals or whatever the twist is. It's all caused by Satan. Like, we. You hear this term a lot. Oh, it's a spiritual war. It's good versus evil. No one really understands what that means. These are taglines that people are using, right? Christ is king is another one. Christ is king. Well, that's a Jesuit terminology that came from the Catholic Church to justify crusades in many different instances, justifying the killing of other people who believe something different. Now, do I believe that Muslims or anyone. No, I don't believe they have it right at all. But I believe that they're also flawed, broken human beings that could use a little kindness, love, and truth. And that ultimately they will, if God elected them to find the truth, that they will come to the light. And if they don't, you know, Jesus told us to knock on a door. If no one answers, knock on another. We move on, right? There's too much, like, Forcible. I've got to have a great conversion rate to Christianity, get them to my church and have them listen to my pastor and buy the books that they sell and go to the men's conferences and wear the T shirt. How many women right now, Mark, this is like, one of the fascinating things. How many women do you see right now? There's a great picture came out of Mar a Lago the other day. This lady comes out, boobs hanging out of her. Her. Right out of her blouse, barely barely covering the parts where you'd consider it nudity and a skimpy skirt. But she's wearing a cross. So it brings up one of these great topics. So my best friend and my business partner love he and his family. He has six kids and his middle daughter. They were in the garage talking. They're moving to Tennessee. And they were in the garage packing and getting stuff ready. And we just got back from church. He called me immediately because he knew I'd get a kick out of it. But his daughter came up to he and his wife and said, mom, Mom. Is every person that goes to church Christian? And she looked at him, she goes, I'm standing in a garage. Does that mean I'm a car? Right. Like, really think about it. So, like, there's this difference between, you know, an American Christian, which, if you understood eschatology from the path of history, you would understand that America plays a vital role in the beast System. It's very easily identifiable as the second beast of revelation, false prophet. Very, very identifiable. So we have this American Christianity. Like south park did a. Like, south park is a truth engine of many areas and entertaining. But south park has this episode about, like, the principal or the. The Christian teacher, whatever the. Whatever he is normally like this, this, you know, hard nut teacher, gym teacher. And he, like, over the weekend he became Christian. So he did the exact same things he was doing the week before, but now he did it because he's Christian and he wears a cross. So he must be Christian. Christian. He must be a follower of Jesus. Well, the T shirt you wear, the necklace. Like, I wear a cross necklace under my shirt. I wear it every day. I don't feel the need to broadcast to people who I am. I would rather they see. I would rather they see who I follow in the words that I speak and the actions that I take. That was what I. What I prefer. There's nothing wrong with wearing a cross, certainly. I've. I don't know, I probably have 10 T shirts that have scripture on them or a cross. Like, of course I want to broadcast what I believe. Believe. But at the same time, wearing a T shirt. Standing in church doesn't make you a Christian, just like standing in a garage doesn't make you a car. Because you're part of an organized religion group. In many cases they're just institutions, and in some cases they're cults. Because you belong to one of these member groups does not mean you've had a circumcision of the heart. And this is spoken about in the Bible over and over about false converts, false teachers, false prophets, false illusions, false golden ages in Thessalonians that lead into complete disaster. Many things that I would not have been prepared for, for, or known about had I not read scripture and understood history. Had I not challenged the status quo of history and aligned it with biblical prophecy, I would have no comfort in this moment in time, this moment in history, because I think this moment in history is much different than most people think. I'll be happy to do that. If you have about seven more hours, we can talk. But it is a. I already. [00:51:47] Speaker B: I'm anticipating our next episode already. [00:51:50] Speaker A: Well, I'm going to do the YouTube is finally allowing me to speak live. I can go live again. Again. Oh, awesome. So it's fascinating that I wasn't allowed to go live for a year and that every about six or seven days, all of my subscribers get unhooked. So when I put a video out they don't get an email. There's no email saying, Eric has a new video I have to like. So I'm giving it a month, taking a month off from podcasting. And when I come back on Lives, I'm going to be doing exactly 60 minute episodes on dedicated topics, just teaching, no more conversations. I'll certainly have interviews because I have a great network of people that tell the truth and some of them need challenging on their truth. And I think that's good for everyone. Everyone. But I think there's a lot of education that needs to occur right now because I see religion being weaponized to create theocracies under the, under the disguise of a democracy. And I think that that is happening right in front of our face. I think that people are being lassoed into a false light. The world was so dark, if we look at the dialectic, it was so dark. And now there's a little inkling of light. And you know, because Pete Hegseth said a, you know, a Pulp Fiction prayer for everyone, like, it must be, we must. We gotta go to church. Church, Gotta go to church. Most of these churches are all of the. Every single church on planet earth is filled with broken, flawed sinners, every one of them. And if you expect them to be perfect in God's eyes, that are not going to be. There's plenty of good churches out there. But I advise you to read scripture. And before you read scripture and understand scripture to verify and have discernment on your church, I advise you to forget all of that and get into prayer and have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Like that is the most important facet that people, people get deep into scripture history, all this other stuff, which I love. I wouldn't be here if I didn't know he was real. If I wasn't on my knees for six weeks in my bedroom apologizing to Jesus, somebody asked me, eric, what would you say if you met Jesus Christ today? The first thing that I said was, I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I didn't believe. I'm sorry that I used my head over my heart. I'm sorry that I had too much pride to pray to you. I'm sorry that I spoke falsely of you not understanding how you were working in my life. And having that personal relationship with God is the basis of faith. Everything else comes afterward. So if you have that personal relationship, Scripture becomes easy to read, like it's something you want to do every day. But before I had real faith, God, I hated it. I hated reading scripture. I hated theology class in high school. I hated all that stuff because it was just another chore I had to do. And it almost felt like God was punishing me, like giving me stuff. Why don't. You don't have to read scripture to understand God's real. You have a child. How do you think that happened? Do you really think that there's some, you know, like we just made matter out of nothing, that somehow that flash of light that occurred at inception, which is a provable thing, is not God delivering a soul through a vessel or a gateway from heaven called women who actually produce souls on earth on behalf of God? Like, do you think that that just happened? Happens to stance you're going to see this big movement of people of faith. I don't use the word Christian, but of people of faith who have deep understanding of modern science, technology, literature, history, that are going to be making a move in the next three to four years. Coming to you with real biblical truth. Now, in the old days, they had a bunch of, you know, idiots that were speaking on behalf of Christ and we had these, you know, apostate Pastor Joel Olsteen is. I don't want to get into Joel steam, but there's plenty of apostate false teachers, heretics that are out there right now with this vision. Now there's a new crop of those heretics coming in. There's a whole new crop of them that are, that are experts at almost. Right. But you will see if the Bible is correct and if history is correct, that people who are speaking actual biblical truth and calling out this false light leading that we're seeing right now. We're probably going to end up in jails, but it's just a different crop of people, people that actually understand what's happening right now because we're following God's word in the middle of the most secular movement in history. From secularism into religion now into religion is good because ultimately it leads into faith. And when we have people of faith, you know, you really don't need governments. Right. Like that. But that's not going to happen. That, that doesn't happen in God's prophecy until Christ returns. You see how the, how the dialectic will be played forever. It's pretty fascinating. [00:56:01] Speaker B: It is fascinating. And I, and I do see where it's going to play. I think about a lot of things that you say. That's why I like having you on. I just think you're a really smart, sharp guy and I agree and follow most of what you say. I hear you say this about things like AI, like you're not a Luddite. You're not aloof to where things are going. And so, like, there's not this false sense of idealism in terms of what's going to happen. And I think even when you say that Satan rules the world and there's like this. I don't know if you use these words, but this is how I think of it. Like a calling back. God is always there. And if. And Satan is. And there's a dominant force that's always there as well. And you're like. For me personally, and not being able to articulate it as well as I'd like to, like, it's that falling back on God and Jesus, like, knowing that I am. I do have a. I feel strange saying these things because like I said nine months ago, I wouldn't have been saying these things. No, it's that I go to Jesus Christ. [00:57:07] Speaker A: I've been there too. [00:57:08] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. And I feel like people have. So I talk to people. I'm like, okay, this isn't kind of bringing it back to Bitcoin. It's a similar type of. For whatever attracts you into the teachings, whether it be the teachings of Christ or the white paper, whatever draws you in. If you're a thinking person, if you're a. Or if you have faith and you go, I. I feel like I minimalize it when I say these things, but go deeper down the rabbit hole and you. You spend some time and you put some effort in. It doesn't even have to be effort. Like, I, I think if I found this to be a choreograph, I wouldn't be doing it. Not to say that it doesn't require some degree of will and some degree of like, letting go of my ego. So, like, I look back on the past and I would have seen someone like myself or someone like. Especially someone like you. And I think we. We just prejudge and we say, oh, there. There's like a simple mindedness to them. Oh, yeah, you're gonna talk to some imaginary person that doesn't. Is not there. And some holy. Like some gross. That's also not there. But. [00:58:17] Speaker A: Or. And the Holy Ghost is absolutely there all the time. [00:58:21] Speaker B: Yeah. I feel like I heard you say this and I've heard other people say it, and it's like I've always been someone of faith and I've landed in different places and nothing quite took me. I feel strange saying these things. I can say it comfortably to you, but I also know there's an audience. So I try to be sensitive to these two dynamics that are at play. But I heard you say you've studied a lot of people, you've gone through a lot of different teachings, and they all kind of fall back onto Christ consciousness. And I think of my own experience, and I'm like, yeah, I have to say I have a very similar experience where they talk about Christ consciousness. Why Christ conscious? What was it about Christ that made that consciousness the one that we should strive towards? Even though. And this is something I'm coming to terms with, too, even though I will never tame it, I accept that I'm a sinner. I'm more comfortable now than I've ever been by not trying to put myself in some kind of ideology for my ego, that I'm more important than I actually am. And so knowing that there was a man that died for our sins, that died for the sins of man, the ones that preceded and into the future thousands of years so far, there's something about that one that that moment registers. I'm assuming you've had similar experiences, which is why we're. We're talking and having this conversation. It's transformative. There's no other way to say it. And until you do it, you. You know, it's just two guys talking. And you're going to be in your world thinking whatever you're thinking. If someone's listening to this and they've gotten this far, they either have enough faith in you or they have, like, enough belief that they. They're like, okay, I don't think this person's going to take me down a road that isn't what at least they believe is healthy for me to go down or in my spiritual best interest, or however you want to say it. And again, you're not a pastor, and I'm not. I'm definitely not a pastor, and I'm not leading anybody down any particular road. But we have traveled roads and we have landed somewhere through different. Through different journeys. And you're much further along. Like, I love hearing. I love hearing from you because it gives more context to kind of where I'm at, understanding the differences. [01:00:40] Speaker A: Well, let me say this. [01:00:42] Speaker B: All right, go ahead. Because I tend to get too excited. I'm like, wow, I'm, like, derailing here. [01:00:45] Speaker A: All right. Yeah, the phrase further along is wrong. Okay? We're all on the same journey. We're just at different points in the journey. It's all the same journey. It's all a walk of faith. There's no one who's perfect. There's no one who understands it all. Those who claim to understand it all are probably false teachers number one. But we're all in the same place. We're put on this earth with the Genesis curse of death. Like right? We were, we were cursed from the beginning because of sin. So we have this Genesis curse that occurs in our life where we're going to die. And what we need to do is learn as much as we can in the middle, which requires making mistakes, which requires being vulnerable, which requires being broken and acknowledging that you're broken and understanding you can't put yourself back together. That's a fallacy of man. It's, it's people of faith. Like the, the. You read the things in the Bible that people did. These are people who are not again nominated by God. God. So what did man do? They created denominations. Like really think of the word denomination. Words matter. So you know the. I've been down these roads, you know, I've been. I studied Taoism, I studied Buddhism, I studied Hinduism. I've studied absolutely everything. I hired a full time intuit into one of my companies, a shaman who brought me, ironically brought me closer because every time that we would meditate, I would go into a position of prayer. Prayer. I've always believed in God. Since I was a child, I've believed in God. I remember as a little kid I had a. We were really stupid story mark. But I was at a birthday party, I think I was like 5 years old or something. My mom told. I don't remember it because I was a kid, but five years old. Back when I was a kid where we lived like cakes used to have peanuts on the side of it like on the frosting. Used to have before peanut allergies were a thing cakes that commonly had peanuts. Peanuts. So I. Nobody the cake was being guarded and my being a little sinner, I wanted to steal some of the cake. So I ran by, finger swiped, took the frosting, ate it and then I tripped and a peanut got lodged in my, my lung. And I didn't want to get in trouble for swiping my finger on the cake because everyone was now talking about who swiped their finger on the cake while I was turning blue in a corner. So my parents realized it took me to the hospital. The, the doctor actually said he's got a few more minutes before he's dead. My parents put him up against the wall. He went in, everything's fine, I'm here today. But in the middle of it, I guess you know, I don't remember saying this, but my mom told me that she was scared when I woke up. And I said, don't worry about it, Mom. God has me handled. I don't remember saying that. That's what she told me as a kid. And by the way, my mom was a believer without a Bible. We didn't. I don't recall as a child having a Bible in my home, but she consistently told me how real Jesus is. We didn't go to church. We didn't do anything. I was raised, raised. Like I said in our last day, I was raised fairly pagan, right? Like, I had a lot of Greek mysticism influence in my life. These are all traditions and rituals and things that man creates. God overrides all of that. God is a sovereign being. God's word will always come to fruition. It always has throughout history. And his promise for your life is written throughout the entire Bible. So if you don't know what you've been promised, you haven't read the Scriptures, then life becomes stressful. And when it becomes stressful, you become emotional. When you become emotional, you become sinful. So these are. And emotions are blessings, right? Like, God absolutely created emotional beings within us to be able to express the one thing that he has for his creation, which is love. Like, and everything teaches that. You can go to a yogi, a shaman, anyone, they're teaching love. They're all teaching love. And at the end of all my conversations and years of study, that would. What is the ultimate goal of, of Buddhism, of Taoism, Any of them. And you can take. You could actually look at Buddhism and look at the Gospel of Thomas that was removed from the Bible because it's not believed to be Scripture. But it's very similar philosophy. It's Thomas talking to Jesus on a log, asking him how to meditate to God. So it's very similar. But if you look at these people saying we're trying to achieve Christ consciousness, and my common retort to them because I'm just a logical human being, was, why not just follow Christ like you're trying. Like, if I'm trying to achieve, you know, Hulk Hogan consciousness, maybe I should go meet Hulk Hogan, right? Like, maybe I should say hi to him. It just was illogical for me to think so. That's how man bifurcates. I don't want to give my ego, my will over to someone else. But we are all God's creation, and those in belief are God's children. And as a child of God, you have a mission on Earth, which is to preach the gospel about his wonderful creation in you. And personal testimony are the most impactful thing. Maybe I'll share mine. I did mine on a. I've done it one time. I've done my. Because I guess once you die of flesh like I don't. I'm not, I'm not a very important person. I'm, I'm a 49 year old dad of two. I, I, I own a little business. I work for a decent sized company. At the same time I try to help as many people. I'm irrelevant. There is no one in history who's going to remember Eric Rice 100 years from now. It's never going to happen. And it's fine, fine. It's a good thing I'm not here for that. I want them to remember the actions of a man 2000 years ago. That when you, when you, when you get to the point to understand that your personal history is part of God's history. That you're blessed to be part of a kingdom greater than yourself that isn't owned by a single individual. That could never, they, they may, they may enslave your body, but they will never control your mind or your soul. That's freedom. That's freedom in that breath of fresh air that you get from that you start to realize that these journeys that we go on in life, life and, and, and mine started very early. Like in my early 20s. I was searching, I was always looking for esoteric mystery, religion, knowledge. I've studied all the occult stuff you can im. I actually found Christ studying the occult. Like I was trying to figure out this is the God's honest truth. I was trying to figure out why people harm children. Like once you wake up like this Epstein stuff, first of all, I think I have a whole different opinion on that. But when you, the Epstein thing for people, it wakes up like oh my God, people actually rape children and do worse than that. I was trying to figure out why. And I'm reading these occult doctrines years and years ago. And the one thing like they weren't scared of God. They blasphemed God daily. They were scared of the name Jesus and they put it in their doctrines. I've been to, you know, exorcisms is what you call, what they're commonly called. But I've been to these sessions and invoking the name of Christ. Why are there five documented cases of aliens abducting people and the aliens disappearing when the victim proclaims the name Jesus? Like these are mysteries. That's the other thing, Mark, the journey of faith is a beautiful mystery. So the Bible says my people perish for lack of knowledge, which many will translate them to saying because they haven't read the Scriptures. But it could just be knowledge that pertains to your own salvation. Right? Like they die for knowledge has a broad view, but the reality is the Bible is a beautiful mystery. And people who are very heady, hopping into faith, they get wrapped up in, I have to understand, I have to understand God who. God says, if you saw me, you would burst into flames. Like we are not worthy of seeing. Or the yogi teachings of consciousness, this ultimate layer of consciousness, vibration. All, all this, you're explaining God, okay? You're explaining God with scientific language wrapped around it. And this has been going, Gnosticism, New age philosophy, Luciferianism, this stuff predates, it predates Christ, it predates Noah, it predates everything. You know, we're, we're here. We think that our lives are so special and so pertinent to the rest of everyone else that we must maximize our returns on Earth. Earth, right? Like we're, you're a doctor, we're both investors. So what are we trying to do? We're trying to maximize our return on our own existence. That's what it comes down to. How do I use every minute to make my life better? Now? The faith of, of Christ is so much different from everywhere else because it's. How do I make everyone else's life better at my own cost? How do I lay down my life for those that I love to lead them closer to the heart of God? God. Like these are teachings that are so obscure to most man made religions or demonically made religions over time. And many of them are. One fascinating research when you get through the New Testament is to understand what Paul is saying when he says Satan appears as an angel of light. And then to research how many other religions that exist today, where the founder of the religion was approached by an angel of light proclaiming a different gospel. Like it's almost like predated saying, wow, watch out for these apostasies that come in the future. Like there's so much to it. But the beautiful mystery of faith is just understanding that things happen. God led the way and you're just here for whatever purpose. And then the art of surrender, totally contrary to almost every form of religion known to man, especially many forms of Christianity, including Catholicism at most. Like there's, we gotta do this and I have to do this, that and the other. You know, God doesn't care what you do. God is not. God is a. God is a. I'm a monarchy. I believe God is sovereign and there's nothing I can do to change what happens. Whereas a synergist believes, you know, like, like Candace Owen's been covering Frankus for a long time. Improperly, by the way. A lot of stuff she's leaving out. But Frankus believed that the more sin they committed, the faster Christ would return. So they called themselves Christian in certain circles. Like, I believe that Jesus will return, but we have to commit as much sin as possible in order to get there. Like, man contorts scripture so much that it becomes appalling to many. And it. And it's a tool of the devil to do that, because it's so appalling to many that they'll never even search out God himself. The beautiful part of Christianity, if you want to call it that, is the fact that we need no intermediary. There's no idol, there's no statue, there's no ritual we need to do. I can literally, right now, while I'm talking to you, pray to God in my mind. And he can hear, hear me. And he has responded to me many times. I see a lot of these posts on, on X. Like, you know, does. I don't pray, but does prayer. Of course, prayer works. People wouldn't have been doing it for 2,000 years. Does it provide miracles in front of you? Can I pray to God to part the Red Sea? Probably not. But can I pray to God that my children are healthy, they're protected, and they are miraculously, somehow. Can I pray to God? I mean, I. Literally, one of my worst times in my life, I prayed to God for an exact compensation. Allow me to make this much using my. My skills and talents. Three days later, I was called by a recruiter. I got a job that paid exactly that. So. And that's where a lot of this journey began for me. So, you know, prayer, relationship with relation is greater than religion. If anyone wants to take away anything from what I have to say, relation is greater than religion, theology, and your perfect understanding of scripture will not get you to have heaven. Unfortunately, it will not. There are so many people who know way more than I do about scripture that live horrible lives, horrible lives and sin constantly, but they understand scripture and history very well. These are tools that we use to deepen our faith, to deepen our relationship, because there is no faith without relationship. If you just understand words on a book in history that's happened, that's not faith, that's knowledge. That's good. That's a good thing, man. That's such a good thing. But is it faith? Faith is understanding that every moment that I have on this earth is a blessing. And it's a blessing in service. How can I be of service to other people? To lead them closer to the truth. To lead them closer to the heart of God. To lead them further away from following me. This term. Follower. I'm a follower. I follow. Don't follow me. Please don't follow me. Follow him, please. Don't follow me. I'm gonna. I'm. I'm a human being. I'm gonna lead you astray at some point. Point. It's just human nature. Follow him. If I'm a conduit to get you to follow him, that's the best blessing I can have. But we have to. We have to be able to separate understanding of theology and deepening of faith. Now, will understanding of theology deepen your faith? Absolutely. A thousand times over. But do you need a deep understanding of theology to live in faith? No. You need to understand the basics of what Jesus taught. You need to have the circumcision of the heart, the changing, like you said. It feels weird to say this now. Boy, do I understand that. If you would have told Mark, if you would have told me in 2018, 2019, that I would be on a podcast right now talking about God and Bitcoin, I would have laughed at you in the face. If you would have told me that I run a men's ministry with a dozen men who are leading incredible lives, and all I do is teach history and scripture. And now I'm at a point where they're teaching every week. I'm learning from them Scripture, the word of. I would have laughed you out of the building. Building. When that first happened, I mean, I used to run a prayer group on Telegram, and I started it because I said, hey, you know, I'm a man of faith. Muslims pray at noon every day. Why don't we pray at noon? So I started a prayer group. I said, hey, I'm going to pray at noon if anybody wants to listen to me. And I remember being home, walking by my wife in the house. She goes, where are you going? I go, I'm going to go pray online. And she looked at me like I was the weirdest person. Which happens, like, once again a week. If you're in this household, you would understand that. But, you know, she looked at me like I was so weird. And I go, don't worry. No one's going to hear it. It's going to be terrible. I thought I had to like be a professional prayer person to pray. It's the worst prayer. I don't know if I do it right or wrong. No one does, you know. Jesus gave you an outline. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be like. You can memorize those words, but what is he telling you? He's telling you to acknowledge God. Hallowed be thy name. My creator, who loves me, who built me for a purpose, who brought. Who birthed me on earth for some reason, you know, may thy kingdom come, Thy will be done. He's saying, thy will, not my will. I can't pray for my will. Like, people think prayers are a genie in a bottle. By the way, the word genie comes from the word jin. And a jin is a demon in Islamic eschatology. So a genie in a bottle is Satan granting you earthly wishes. So how many movies are made about how magical and cool genies in a bottle are because you get your earthly wishes, but you die with no salvation? Like, it's so twisted, Mark, when you really think about the. It just shows you that the devil has dominion over this earth and over the hearts and minds of so many. Does that make sense? [01:15:07] Speaker B: No, that does. And it gets like, yeah, I can. I can hear my. Once you start to see you expose yourself to these things and you curtains pull back and you see things a certain way, it's almost a meme online too. They say, oh, once I tell you this, you're never gonna look at this thing the same way again. And so when I hear the last thing that you said, that's kind of where my mind went with it. I love having you on. I really appreciate that you took the time to do this. I think there's so much. Your vocabulary too. Like, there was a couple times I was like, I gotta ask him what that word actually means. Like you used. I can't even say it. Like, esk. Something with. It was an ology. Eschatology. [01:15:51] Speaker A: Eschatology, yeah. [01:15:52] Speaker B: What is eschatology? [01:15:54] Speaker A: It's understanding of the end. No, it's just understanding of the interpretation of the end times. So it's, you know, you have prophetic futurists, which I can do a 10 hour episode on the history of that and where that came from. But you have people who believe, like we have to build the third temple and all this other. That's their understanding of eschatology, of end times. Prophet prophecy. [01:16:14] Speaker B: Okay. [01:16:15] Speaker A: Synergism, monergism. Are probably words you're not familiar with. Also, monergism is like, I'm a monergist. I believe God is in control of everything. It doesn't matter what I do. A synergist believes that the things that I do will induce God to make a change. And you see a lot of false eschatology involving synergism, right? Like Israel has to do this and we have to do this, otherwise Jesus won't come back. Jesus is coming back whether you want him to or not. And I'm not on the planning committee, I'm on the welcoming committee. [01:16:42] Speaker B: Committee. [01:16:42] Speaker A: I have no idea when that'll happen. If it happens in my life, great. If it doesn't, I'll be resurrected. Resurrected after death with everyone else. [01:16:49] Speaker B: You know, you said this earlier and my head went to the same place and I'm almost scared to. Because I think you're right. I think each of a lot of what you said we could delve into for hours on each particular topic. But the last thing you just said, with Jesus coming back, like, my mind thinks to myself more metaphysically in the sense of a. An awareness of Jesus. Like Jesus is present now because I talked to him, I believe Jesus. So in that sense, Jesus has returned. So when you say he's coming back and I'm going to be ready for him, do you see a moment where we actually see a visceral body of Christ return to the earth 2000 years after the fact, or. [01:17:38] Speaker A: I do believe that. I also believe that the beautiful mystery of the Bible is the fact that you're also correct. Correct. So after Jesus ascended, he went to sit at the right hand of God. Now Jesus and God are the same person. That's the beautiful mystery of the Trinity, because people always say, well, there isn't. There's three gods. There's. There's the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. They're all one God. It's our interpretation and how they're used. The Spirit is floating, it's accessible. Like the New Age. People will call it the ether, Right? So they will call the Holy Spirit the ether. They will give it a different name because they believe that they're in control or they discovered it. The reality is that after a century, after crucifixion, there's an empty tomb. Christ returns. He proves himself to the doubters, especially Thomas and his half brother James, with scars on his hands. I'm. I'm real, but I'm also returning to the Father. So he's sitting at the right hand of God while God is putting his enemies under his feet. That is what's happening in the church age. This 2000 year period. People say, oh, the end times is starting now. The end times began at the empty tomb as Jesus stated they did. So they talk about persecution. There was an persecution of Christians continues today. Last century, 160 million Christians lost their lives to tyrants. 160 million people over a hundred years lost their life for belief in Jesus Christ. The tribulation is a 2,000 year, maybe 3,000 year run. We've been hated from the early days. The Jews killed us first, then the Romans killed us, then they teamed up to kill us the same time. Then you have Nero, you have all these other things, things. But when you look at eschatology, which is interpretation of the end times, you have people who believe none of that has happened and you have people who believe it all already happened. So you have what's called preterism. So preterists believe that Jesus Christ was speaking literal and not speaking at two things at the same time. And it's a whole different conversation. One of my good friends on earth is one of the most prominent preterists in the world. I love him to pieces, but I will and I won't give his name. Some people who might watch this will probably, probably know who he is. But I will say this. When I broke down eschatology and said, who's the little horn prophecy of Daniel? Who's the beast? Who's the first beast? The second beast, the mortal wound, mystery. Babylon, the whore of Babylon. When you identify these things through history, they're very easy to see and they're right in front of your face. He interprets them differently. That's his eschatology. A preterist believes that Jesus Christ was here. He said, I'll return in this generation. Then you have Jerusalem, you have Josephus, who said, I saw strange weather events above Jerusalem, but only Jerusalem saw it, not the rest of the world. There's no recorded history of Jesus christ returning in 70 AD. The preterists believe that that happened. I can trace preterist eschatology back to a Jesuit operative of the Catholic Church easily. Like, it's not even hard to do. Because at the time where that eschatology was created, the entire world was using historicism to validate eschatology, to say, oh, it's pretty easy to see the Pope is the little horn prophecy of Daniel. And it's provable in 50,000 different ways ways. But they can't have that happen. So they Bring in, I think it was Manuel Lacunza to write Preterism. And then you have Francisco Ribera, another Jesuit operative, pretending to be a Jewish rabbi, writing letters, creating futuristic prophecy that none of this has happened at all. Nothing. No, there hasn't been. Any of God's prophecy has not been fulfilled at all in World War II or any of these other events, or in the French Revolution or the arresting of the Pope in 1789. None of that is relevant. Relevant. This will all happen sometime in the future. And that's where Christian Zionism comes from. It's called prophetic futurism. Both of these eschatologies were lightly sprinkled on the world and. But they became prevalent after the Protestant Reformation of 1517 and exploded in the 1800s. So all of this stuff is relatively new when you. When you're looking at eschatology by itself. But the one thing that is apparent during the church age, Jesus Christ is king. He is ruling from hell Heaven. His enemies are being identified and placed under his feet by God, and he will return for the resurrection of the dead. That is absolutely going to happen. Whether I see it with my own physical living eyes or not is completely up to him. But I will die at some point, and I will either live eternally and not experience death, or I will die and I will be resurrected upon his official return. [01:21:43] Speaker B: I do not want to make light of this. I do not want to make light of this. And I. Like I said, there's a lot. Some of what you're saying is just over my head because I can't follow everything because I don't have the history for it. And I'm guessing some audience members can follow a lot, and maybe some are like me and they can't, which is totally okay. [01:22:06] Speaker A: And some are totally hating me right now, and that's okay. I love you. [01:22:09] Speaker B: I never. Yeah, it's funny, I always hear you say that, and I never. I never. I personally never feel that way. Way. But now I'm really. This is where I really struggle because I'm like. In my head, I'm like, where do you think are you going to be at a. And again, I'm going to say this lightly, but I don't mean to make light of it, but it's like, are you going to go to, like, a bitcoin conference? And then Jesus is going to be walking through the hallways of. Do you know what I'm saying? Because you're like, I hope I see it and I believe it. And I'm like, okay. He wants to see it. But I'm like, how do you imagine the seeing of this? I've asked you hard questions before, like, you know, how do you, you're like, if I imagine this utopian future, this is how I imagine it. But I don't think that's what's going to happen. But I'm hearing you with conviction say to me that maybe, maybe not in your lifetime, but maybe in your lifetime you're going to see it. And I'm like, well, you're going to see what? Like how do you see it? [01:23:04] Speaker A: I don't know. [01:23:05] Speaker B: Yeah, it's can't even imagine. [01:23:07] Speaker A: Imagine. Yeah, so, so like there's stuff in, in, in scripture that identifies. So you also have this theory of, you know, that came from the same, you know, early 1600s philosophers and Jesuit operatives infiltrating Protestantism. This is just a historical fact. But you have this idea of pre tribulation rapture, right? I'm sure you've heard that term before. Where this tribute, where this in the future, this tribulation begins, where Christians are being persecuted, which has happened for 2000 years, but all of a sudden it just magically happens. But before that happens, God's elect will be called up into heaven and just get to watch it. Or they're called up halfway through the tribulation, or they're called up after the tribulation. These are all interpretations that are can be debated all day long. The Bible says that when Jesus returns, we will meet him in the air. That's what the Bible says. So there is a rapture, but it happens while he's returning. I don't envision how it happens. That's not how I again I'm not on the planning committee, I'm on the welcoming committee. I'm prepared to welcome Jesus with open army arms. But what I view end times for is realizing that the times we live in right now, I'm not saying it's the end times, but they, they correlate to scripture more than any other time in human history. For example Revelation, which Revelation cannot be understood in a silo. You must read Daniel, you that core. Daniel got the in in my view, in many interpreters view, he got a prelim of Revelation. So parts of the vision of Revelation that John got on Padmos island were with Daniel. So Daniel second Thessalonians, Matthew 24 and Revelation are kind of the four part series of what the end times would be. Now we don't know what happens during that timeframe because they're prophetic so they're warnings. You're giving warning signs of the possible return. That's what you have. And the time that we live in now correlates in many different ways. I'm sure you see on Twitter, AI is the mark of the beast. No, it's not, actually. It's an enforcement tool of the mark of the beast. It will be an enforcement tool. We've never been this close to complete control of our finances. And more importantly, the thing I talk about that almost no one does with AI, our minds. Our minds will be completely controlled. So if we enter this, you know, utopian society of knowing, having to work. Elon Musk said no one will have to work. You'll play video games all day. You'll get high universal basic income. And that sounds amazing to people who've been beaten over the head with high gas prices, inflation, taxes, and have nothing. It's how the dialectic works. You beat him down, then you give him Satan's next treat. Just like you give your dog did the wrong thing, you're punished. Do the right thing, you get a treat. So coming to the false light, you'll get a treat. That treat is relaxation. But without work, there's no purpose. Without effort, there is no reward. Rewards are fallacies. So this coming age, I think AI is used in two ways. Number one, it's an enforcement tool that's biblically for the enforcement system of the beast. The beast says, you will not buy or sell without a mark on your head or hand. Well, some people interpret the Bible literally. The New Testament is a spiritual book that is interpreted wrong literally, which is why you still have the chosen people conversation in, in Israel. But if you look at what it says, head and hand is used three other times in the Bible to denote belief or action. So the mark of the beast, the. The mark will be on their head. In their belief of the system or their actions taken as part of the system. AI and digital currency, centralized digital currency creates the perfect mark of the beast enforcement system. But the mark of the beast itself will be a spiritual mark. It will be something that acknowledges a false God. Because in the end, Christ God gave dominion to devil over the earth. And in revelations, the world. Are they scared of the beast, Beast? Are they terrified? Do they hate the beast? No. It says the world marvels or wonders after the beast, meaning that people will be worshiping the devil, thinking it's God. That is what scripture says. That is not Eric Rice interpretation. That is what scripture says. So the mark of the beast in eschatology Would be something spiritual that is believed or partaken in for the ability to buy and sell. Sell. Right. So like you have to break these things down in my estimation. And this will be. This is not just me, by the way. There's a whole movement of people like this. I believe that it'll be enforced. Sunday laws from the time of Constantine. In the Bible there are ten commandments. Of the ten commandments, nine of them say thou shalt or thou shalt not. One of them says remember, remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. Why would God tell a group of Hebrews and Israelites. Hebrews more specifically, why would he tell a group of Hebrew Levitical Hebrews? They weren't Jews. The word Jew didn't exist until the tribe of Judah came about. They weren't Jews, they were Hebrews. Levitical. Practicing Levitical practices from. From the Torah. The first five books of the Bible which were told before. Why would God tell them to remember something that they adherently practiced religiously? And now you're starting to see these conversations pop up. You're starting to see it everywhere. The Sabbath comes from the book of Genesis. God built the world and man in six days and rested on the seventh. The seventh is commonly known as Saturday in three. In the three hundreds, Constantine, a pagan before converting, enforced Sunday worship laws. The early church fathers and people argue early church fathers move the. No, read all the documents. Not just martyr who hated Jews. Read all the early church fathers and you will find out. This was a big discussion. Man changed the Lord's day from Saturday to Sunday. That's fact. Like there's no other way around that. So now we're starting to see these. The influx of Project 2025, the Heritage foundation, all this stuff. They're moving towards creating Sunday laws which already exist in many states, but they're calling it a day of rest. I go to church on Sunday, but I rest on Saturday. And I'm not what's called a Seventh Day Adventist. Because there is a practicing group of Christians who also have massive flaws in their understanding great eschatology. And they still acknowledge rest on Saturday. You should worship God every day of the week. Every day worship God, but rest on Saturday. So I think that ultimately, whether it's in our lifetime or the next, that there will be this enforcement system that acknowledges this day of rest that people will interpret as the day of rest that God promoted. But why did God say remember the Sabbath and keep it holy and then never change it throughout history? Only men changed it throughout history. I think that's probably going to have something to do with it. And there's a lot of people out there, researchers like me, who say that that's probably the best guess we would have at what the mark of the beast could be something totally different. But I see that happening already with law changes. So I can see that movement towards this Gnostic New Atlantis, Francis Bacon version of, of Rosicrucian Christianity. I can see all that stuff developing right before our eyes. But remember the mark of the beast. It's not going to be a ph mark on your head or your hand. It's going to be do you believe or partake in this system of a false God and acknowledge it, or call and believe that you're praising Jesus? That is, that is what the end times would end up looking like. And by the way, it wouldn't end up looking like this dystopian liberal left wing nonsense. They're preaching us this New World Order. The New World Order will not be Jewish. It will certainly not be liberal or communist. It will absolutely be institutionalized ecumenical Christianity as a theocracy. That is what the Bible foretells. It tells us that they will use Christianity, a false light of Christianity, to appease the masses and get them to worship it and create comfort and create luxury. You know, so when you hear this Golden Age, read first Thessalonians, tell me how that Golden Age turned out. Like it turns out as that's the beginning of the fall into the beast system. So that's why I'm, I'm kind of hell bent on these things or heaven bent on these things. I should say heaven bent to, to, to, to help people get deeper in their own interpretation of Scripture, but share mine as well, because God only knows that term comes from. What does this mean? God only knows. But in the end, the way that the, the, the vision that John had for Revelation is direct communication with Christ even, it doesn't allude to a world where at the end of time that it's scary and we're all in prison. It says that we're eating and drinking and giving in marriage. Meaning times are good, we have plenty of food, plenty of drink, we're marrying our daughters off in love. All these things happen at a moment of comfort, which is all based on Dec. Deception. So I always tell people be wary of that. Like when people are telling you this scary, we're entering the New World Order, like that's happening right now. But the New World Order, there's just like every other dialectic, there was a fake scary one put out there for years and years and years. But watch where we're going. The man of sin will sit on top of the throne again and lead the world calling himself Christ. That is exactly how the world ends. [01:32:02] Speaker B: Wow, that is just heaven. Heavy. I just think it's heavy. That's, that's my word. Going to like Michael J. Fox. Wow, that's heavy. Doc. Have you done a podcast with Simon Dixon? Have you two. I know you've done spaces together for sure. But my mind was going to some of what he talks about and when he uses Christianity, he talks about it in a somewhat mechanical way and he puts it into. Because I think what you triggered this as you were talking about theocracy for the state. Like it's, we're going to, it's going. It's not. Again, we kind of come to this word Christianity and it's, it's. I think it's a strong word that means a lot of different things to people now that like hearing you and I just hearing you talk about it and kind of how my even hesitation to say it sometimes is because I. It's like one of those emotionally evoked in some ways God is not even his emotion even, even that has. People can interpret that in a lot of different ways. [01:32:59] Speaker A: Yeah. I did a, I did a three hour interview with Assignment. [01:33:03] Speaker B: Okay. [01:33:03] Speaker A: And we covered some of these things. One thing like one. Yeah. One area we vehemently disagree with and I'll disagree with anybody online about this. You see this meme all the time and it show. Or I guess it's a meme and it shows this hierarchy of power. Right. It says, oh, the, the, the, the, the crown of, of England controls the world and they control the Vatican and the Jews control the V completely. I just went to the Vatican. Okay. So every Catholic who's, who's, who's going to come at me in this statement. I went to the Vatican. It's, it is a pagan temple. It is filled with pagan ideology, pagan statues, the pine cone of Nimrod. And in fact we hired the most expensive Vatican tour guide. Most expensive we can find an actual city of Vatican resident who works directly for the Pope, who told us that in the Sistine Chapel they painted Michelangelo, painted the face of Apollo on the body of Jesus. That is absolute blasphemous. Yeah, but they say that it's not. But she told me it's not. She said it's not because Jew, Christian, Muslim, they're all the same, same God. And they said that we're God. She said that I'm God, which is a Gnostic. So are you a Gnostic or an ecumenical? So that for me was wide, like very, very much verification that my philosophy is going to come to fruition that they're going to create this ecumenical false light religion where all the stuff same, we're all the same, we worship the same. I know your God appeared as an angel of light and that ours says that that's how the devil misleads you. But we're all the same because Abrahams are linking, linking peace here. And I think that you're going to see a tremendous amount of Jewish conversion to Catholicism. I think you're going to see a lot of Muslims convert to Catholicism. I think that history denotes this. I think that an ecumenical one world religion is the ultimate controlling vehicle for a technocratic state. [01:34:50] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's the Simon part is where there is a control with that type of concentrated theology. I mean, maybe theology isn't the right word, but it's. [01:35:03] Speaker A: Ecumenism is the word that he's lacking. But like the, you know, the. There is. Everyone talks about Israel like, you know, there's this whole nation state designed for a religion which actually isn't a religion. It's a race. And they're not, most of them aren't even, even Israelites or Hebrews. They're basically Western Europeans or Eastern Europeans or Ashkenazi Jews. Most of them. They're not actually from that land. Not the argument. But everyone argues about that, but they never talk about the other nation state called the Vatican City that is its own nation dedicated to a religion. Why is that? Why does only one of those two get all the press and yet the other one gets more donations from governments all around the world, including Japan, that has the lowest cash Catholic population on planet Earth. Billions of dollars go to the Vatican. When I went through the Vatican tour, I'm going to do a whole episode on this, by the way, and it's going to probably get me killed. [01:35:54] Speaker B: Don't say that. [01:35:55] Speaker A: But I mean I have pictures and to prove all the stuff and yeah, yeah, I, it's interesting to see that. Like I'm walking through the Vatican and the tour guide is like, oh, you see this beautiful statue that cost $100 million to restore or get from Egypt or of a pagan God in the middle, middle of like she used the word Jesus six times in four hours. It was not about Jesus. It was about this history of how the Pope is an emperor who conquers land and takes their tributes. It is an empire and no one talks about that empire. I love Catholics, by the way. If you're Catholic, you're watching this. I love you to pieces. I know. I know that you're following Christ. I think all churches are apostate. The Bible speaks to this. The Bible speaks that in the end, institutional religion will be used as a weapon to create this ecumenical one world religion religion that you marvel after and you wonder after while the devil is stealing your soul. It's just the way things are. Absolutely love people, but institutions of all types have almost no grounding in God's work. Let's just put it that way. Almost no grounding. [01:36:53] Speaker B: I. I'm gonna just another guy in a hoodie. Eric Rice. Unleashed. Unleashed. I wanted to give you. I think when again, I started the introduction this way. Listening to on spaces for the audience. I'm assuming a lot of people who listen to my podcast, which isn't very many, but the people that do are drawn from the bitcoin today spaces because that's where I tune in and listen. And I don't participate as much because I'm not going to get into why I don't. I don't articulate myself the way that I imagine that I would like to articulate myself. And I'm usually working, so it's something that I typically have on in the background. So I'm not in a space where I can easily just jump on and. And have these conversations. But you, you're a regular speaker on there today. You were a co host on there. I have a feeling you're going to be back on there. You also are going to be doing your live, which is going to be incredible. So that'll be super fun to listen to. And I know, I think at this point you probably have a backlog of episodes that you could do. I just thought I'm like, there's like a hundred episodes in here. You, you. Then I say unleashed. Because I'm kind of. I'm like with you. I'm with you. I'm with. All of a sudden I'm like when I do my own editing for the podcast. So I'm imagining myself editing this and then I'm going to be having a dictionary by my side. So I'm looking through the dictionary and I'm going to. And sometimes I did this on the one that I did with Tomer where he was explaining the shot 256 and I tried to like, put up images and tried to facilitate the audience. Like, I wouldn't even. I would spend. This would be a 10 hour long episode if I tried to give some context text for. You're just such a kudos to you and I know you're not looking for praise in this regard but you're just such a wealth of knowledge and and you deeply care about these things and I think that's what comes off when you talk about them. You're very passionate and you're, you're, you're not confrontational but there is opportunity for discussion and you definitely are the kind of person that welcomes that I've heard you. I know with Dave Weisberger like I could almost feel the hunger like I need to get in the ring with Dave and we need to hash these things out because Dave is also very bright, well educated band and you guys have differing viewpoints on things and you those are the, those are the opportunities to really kind of hash things out and see where the truth lies. Only expecting to have you on for like an hour and we are an hour and 40 minutes. I love good. I love Liz and Tuesdays are recording days. [01:39:30] Speaker A: I get them out of the office. Me too. [01:39:33] Speaker B: No, that's perfect. And I'm glad I had you on and I'm so happy you took the time to do this and and I do look forward to having you on again. I genuine. You talk about followers like I don't particularly follow. I know what you mean. I like I don't know who's following me or why. I'm not necessarily following. I'm just listening for things that are sound, insightful and truthful and something that I could help me in my own journey and have other people's. You know help other people and you certainly offer that in spades. It's just abundant in terms of and I hear it I started talking about this earlier. I hear it when I hear you on spaces and I know when it comes to the context of more these again it's just the to the terms that we use but these faith based topics there's not always the room to really spread your wings and go into the depth that you are capable of going into. So I will be interesting to see because I'm gonna I I had a three minute clip. I posted it last night on X just to kind of call you out and get you for this. But I sent it to you and whether I don't care if you watched it or not it was you talking. I didn't so yeah yeah social media as much as I can you talking. So it's like you're just going to Sit there. I definitely didn't watch it then so like. But I'm going to include that because I wanted to give kind of this feeling of an ongoing conversation because that's what really. That's what it really is for me. So this is like to be continued with you at some later point in time when the opportunity present on another recording day in the not too distant future. Eric, any parting words? I know you said the thing about relation, like people should, should if they take anything away, it's about relation and not religion. I thought that was a good message. Final words. [01:41:28] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean every, every day of your life, no matter how difficult it appeared, most of our difficulties in life are, are so surface level. When you start to realize the bigger agenda in the world, the bigger agenda with your. Your life. Just understand every day is. Honestly, I say this all the time. I try to tell my kids every day is a blessing. It's a gift. Use it wisely. Whether that's educating yourself, loving other people, helping someone in some way, shape or form, working harder at your own profession, trying to get better at it. Take every day as a blessing. Take every morning. You know, one thing I kind of changed my life with about five years ago is I used to be very grumpy in the morning. I was talking to my wife about this the other day before finding faith. Now in the morning I wake up and I. I'm happy because I realize that, you know, God has this massive creation that's working right now. And if you look at the earth or the creation we live in, what an undertaking, right? To be able to manage all of this. And every day he seems to have. The sun comes up every morning with or without me. He seems to bless me with breath in my lungs, the ability to think, the ability to speak, the ability to love. I get those things as a gift every day. And I don't want to waste a single one of them. And I don't advise any of you do that, that either. I've been through a lot of death in my life. I've been through, I've seen it all. I've seen people dying of cancer, being shot to death. I've been through all of those things. Those people don't have a chance to do the things that we do to serve God's kingdom, to create a better world, to get a deeper understanding and a deeper relationship with him before we spend eternity. Every one of them is a blessing. Every one of them is a gift. And just acknowledge in the middle of all that stuff, there is A sovereign God who saw fit to create you for a purpose. And every day is searching and achieving that purpose that he gave you. Other than that, life is very simple. Very simple. And God bless you all. Thank you for having me on, Mark. Appreciate it. [01:43:08] Speaker B: I love it. Eric, it's such a pleasure to have you on. And like I said, I hope we can continue this conversation. I know that we will continue this conversation. And for people listening, I don't know, it's hard to imagine that you didn't hear something that stirred you in some way listening to this. Even if it stirred you in an angry way and if it stirred you in an angry way, those are opportunities to self reflect and be like, what about that is bothersome to you? Because those are the opportunities for growth and we can all learn from that. Thanks again for coming on and everybody else we'll see on the next episode. And thanks Eric. You stick on. I'll talk to you for a minute or two and then, and then, then we'll take it from there. I don't know how the edit's going to be. We'll clean the edit in the end. But yeah, man, that was, that was awesome. You're so fun because I know you have the step inside you, but you and I could also go online and, and just we could meme it out and I love how you just post like office gifts and, and the other day, what was it the one from. It's. It was the. It was from that movie. Gosh, I'm gonna forget the actor. And he's huge. They're two. Pedro Pascal was the meme that you use, but it was like the opposing. And I love it. I'm just like, all right, we're looking. And then I don't know if it was a debt one. I know you, you tend to post those like we're like trillion dollar trillion. We're moving towards TR really fast and. Or debt to GDP. [01:44:39] Speaker A: But yeah, man, yeah, 102%. That was the post. Just him going ha. Like laughing in the car. [01:44:45] Speaker B: Yes. [01:44:46] Speaker A: Because that kind of, that's kind of my philosophy right now is like I don't get too involved. He did heated discussions on the economy are stupid right now. Like our economy is stupid. Everything that's happening is stupid. And it's all being done to let us into a false light be system. I mean that, that is very obvious. [01:45:00] Speaker B: I think of what you say. It's, it's theatrical. Like we're watching theater and we're watching these things play out. And I Love that. Because I know you're passionate, I know you're passionate, but you're also level headed and you're, you're also thoughtful about other people and you don't let your passion override. And I notice this when you host, you're very thoughtful of the different guests that come on and different speakers. So, yeah, thanks for coming on and doing this with me. Like you always say, I don't know why you have me on Mark. I'm not that, like, I'm even a smaller fish in that world in that regard. And I'm like, I don't know why people come on. I'm always happy when people are going to take a little bit of time [01:45:40] Speaker A: and you never know. I was in, where was I at? I was in Portland at my hotel and there was a guy for a bitcoin conference and this guy was not a bitcoiner, but he recognized me in the lobby from being on Breaking History. So I did a whole three hour episode on the Jesuit order on Breaking History, which I haven't even done on my own podcast. And this guy was like, I, I saw you on with Gordon on that show and I was like, wow, that's kind of cool. I didn't know that. And I'll have meetings with people all the time here and they're like, like, I don't know who they are and they don't, like, like my numbers are very small. I don't have a big podcast. I, I certainly could if I sold out. And I was just every day, you know, licking Trump's boots or demeaning Trump. But I just try to call balls and strikes, which is not like a big media thing. Right. But I've had many people come up to me and in meetings and be like, you know, it kind of reminds me of that episode you did with like Patrick Henningson or something. I'm like, you saw that, you know, like, yeah, I remember you said this. And I'm like, man, that's crazy. I had no idea. Like, it's just for that. I mean, I just kind of look at it as if we're going to have this AI system. I want the AI to know what I stand for and that's why I record stuff is just, you know, there's a historical marker of my opinions of my conversations because I'm not going to be here forever and my kids can listen to this stuff later. I think what I'm going to do though, either today or tomorrow, I'm going to dig up my testimony. I Did a three hour testimony on a very tiny podcast called Godcast. And this guy who did it, I mean, I think he had like 18 subscribers or something. And he kept reaching out to me and reaching out to me. He was on my prayer group every day on Telegram. And like I had a big telegram channel of real people, not bots, thoughts. And I just gave it up. Like, it's just, it's just a horrifically bad. It's completely infiltrated by intelligence people and QAnon stuff. And it just wasn't. I wasn't doing. Wasn't serving me or God anymore. And he just DM'd me every day for like six months. Like, hey, give your testimony, give your testimony. Nobody cares about my testimony, man. Like, I know it says in the Bible, and I'll be happy to give a brief 2 minute 1 to someone. He's like, no, I want to know your whole story story. And I'm like, all right, dude. Like you, you've put in the persistence. I'm a nobody. You're a nobody. Nobody's ever going to hear this. That guy, like 8000 view, like, listens to it on a thing that had like a maybe, maybe 60. And it was a good. It was, you know, three. I broke down four times. I. I almost canceled it like that. I remember the day it happened, I was in my bedroom on a laptop. I thought it was going to be Zoom, but it was just audio video. And I called him like an hour before, or three hours before, two hours before, an hour before. And I tried to cancel and he kept saying, don't let your fear get in the way of sharing the word. This random guy. Never met this guy in my life. And he just kind of drew more stuff out of me throughout this conversation. And you start to realize God does stuff you don't pay attention to until you're forced to recall it. And I've just never shared it again because I've always tried to. You know, I still don't think anybody cares about my testimony, but I may do it just as an exercise of faith. Faith that the Bible does tell us that our testimonies have an impact on other people's lives. And a complete one, a full one, a couple hours long, of, you know, people being murdered and addictions and all this other crazy stuff, these are the stories I think people need to hear. So I'll probably put that out there and I'll give you credit for pushing me in that direction, because I haven't thought about it. That was like 40 or three years ago. Four years ago. I haven't even thought about it since then. [01:49:03] Speaker B: Yeah. You saying this, I'm like, I'm gonna have to check out that podcast. Would you say it was the God. Godcast. [01:49:08] Speaker A: Godcast. [01:49:09] Speaker B: Like, really searching, search it down. [01:49:12] Speaker A: Yeah. It's super tiny. [01:49:14] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, you're beyond a gift friend for me. I. I really. There's something about you. Yeah. I really appreciate you and. And yeah, I. I'll see you online. I'll. I look forward to the next time. We just. We're just giving back and forth and. Yeah, right. I know. I love it, man. Enjoy the rest of your day. Thank you so much for doing this. And it's always a pleasure, Eric, really. [01:49:40] Speaker A: Always. Always. And you recorded it? Terrence told me to remind you to record it, but I saw the recording going up top the whole time. [01:49:45] Speaker B: You know, it's funny that you say, I was looking down and I almost thought in my head, I was like, oh, I should tell him it wasn't recording. But it was, so I. I'll hit stop. Just hang on. Hang tight for, like a minute. Thank you for watching this episode of the Money Adjustment. If you want more, like comment and subscribe, you can follow me on X at Mark Kramer until the next episode. Stay healthy and wealthy.