I'm saying from your perspective, you should be more worried about getting people into
these universities, actually studying gender studies, so that you can have an intelligent
conversation on like the trans issues or gender roles and these type of things.
I feel like that's completely absent from this campus specifically and just in general.
Yeah, obviously if you come to my church, you're going to be devoid of progressive ideology
and you come to this campus, you're going to be devoid of many conservative viewpoints.
Many people say you go to college to become a liberal and then when you get a job you
become a conservative, and you know, I know where you're at in that cycle so far.
College is considered an institution of higher learning, where students are supposed to be
challenged, their ideas are questioned, and to become the best future leaders of our nation.
I decided to go to the University of Texas in Austin to find out what the best and brightest
of our state had to offer.
We hear that our institutions are being infiltrated with feminism, communism, liberalism, atheism,
but maybe they have better ideas.
I put them to the challenge to see if anyone could prove me wrong.
Hey, it's Pastor Shelley, we're at the University of Texas in Austin and we're talking to different
people about lots of different subjects.
The board I have here says that women should stay home.
It's a pretty controversial viewpoint, and before we get started I just want to ask,
what's your name?
Panchit.
And what classification or degree are you pursuing here?
Yeah, I'm a senior at UT, I'm studying business analytics.
Okay, what do you think about this sign that I have right here?
I want to hear more about your arguments for why you think women should stay at home, just
like flesh it out for me, a couple of big arguments.
I'll try to go real quick, so I believe this is in the context of a married couple where
the woman is not pursuing a career or a job, but rather she's staying home, raising children
and the man pays 100% of the bills.
My most important proof for this or belief for this is what the Bible says.
It says in Titus chapter 2 verse 3, the aged women likewise that they be in behavior as
we come with holiness, not false accusers, not given too much wine, teachers of good
things that they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love
their children, to be discreet, chase keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands
that the word of God be not blasphemed.
So the Bible says that they should be keepers at home.
If I look at 1 Timothy chapter number 5, it also says in verse 14, I will therefore that
the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion the adversary
to speak reproachfully, for some are already turned aside after Satan.
I believe that the feminist agenda today is a satanic agenda and it's destroying the home.
Women are going out and devaluing themselves by getting a job that doesn't pay them very
much whereas their value is so much more utilized, staying home, giving birth, breast
feeding, raising children, educating them and basically perpetuating our existence.
We need women to give birth to children so that the human species continues and I believe
that is in coordination with God's word and I also believe that women in the workplace
cause a lot of problems.
There's adultery, there's infidelity, there's divorce, I think the quality of work has diminished.
I think that there's all these discussions about maternity leave, the gender pay gap,
all these issues that we wouldn't have in society if women were just staying home, raising
families and I believe that's God's ideal for society.
It worked for several thousands of years and I believe it would still work today.
It's just that the devil has influenced our culture to turn away from him and it's going
to bring in communism and Marxism.
So that was a lot but I'm just trying to give you my perspective of why I disagree.
Okay, yeah, a couple of things to that.
First, I think today we're in a 2023 completely different world than what it was like 7,000
years ago and so I think that you can have the opinion that women should stay at home
or practicality wise, like there's absolutely no way you will be able to enforce that in
any capacity and I would also argue that a couple of things, right, so first when it
comes to women staying at home, if you're doing it on the basis of like women are the
most responsible for childbearing, I would say that the father also has an equal responsibility
there and that the most successful children, the most successful households are ones in
which they're both contributing to parenting the kids and especially in this economy in
which everything is a lot more expensive, healthcare is more expensive, education is
more expensive, housing is more expensive, it's almost a necessity that both parents
are earning money in this economy and for that reason, I really believe that both people
should be working but I also acknowledge the fact that taking care of a child is almost
like a full-time job in itself and so there is like a complicated way in which men and
women have to come together to figure out how to bear that responsibility together but
I think if you do a one side, only one part does the approach, only women do the approach,
not only are you doing the service to the family but you're also doing the service to
the kid especially for young men, they most of the time they need strong fathers in the
household not just to be working all the time but also to be present in their lives and
so if you were to actually, if the goal of this whole discussion is to create a better
society and if you have better educated kids and you have better kids with more and more
foundations, I would believe that you would need both the man and the father, sorry the
woman and the husband and the wife to both equally contribute to that household.
Now I understand what you're saying, of course like women have a, especially giving childbirth
in the first, especially in the beginning stages of a child's life, they should definitely
probably need to be more present than the man in those stages but like I'm a very strong
advocate for like paternity leave and for men taking an equal responsibility in that
household because I believe that leads to better outcomes and that's all I care about.
So you know, the children have to be raised by someone, right?
And if we put this premise that somehow the woman going out there and working is going
to raise better children, I fully reject the idea that having a stranger in a classroom
of 30 teaching students is going to somehow educate my child better than my wife working
one on one and being able to specialize on their particular needs and specifically even
my values and I can even bring in education things that the public school may not want
to bring into the curriculum as well.
Additionally, when it comes to the value of these children, you know, sometimes what we're
talking about the difference is maybe having a three car garage, everybody having a nice
vehicle, we eat out more often as opposed to maybe being in a smaller home, having less
valued cars, is that really going to change the character of a child if he has a smaller
house to live in?
Is that going to make him a worse person if he's getting more education from his mother
at home?
Well, like I said, I think it comes as an economic issue tied into this as well, right?
So if you're saying about the smaller car, smaller house, what I'm more worried about
is like healthcare, healthcare debt, education debt, housing debt that are issues plaguing
Americans at high levels today and so I believe that two, both parents should be earning money
in order to accommodate the society that we have today and so in terms of, it's not
a decision about three car garages, two car garages, it's a decision whether like you're
having debt in your house or you are able to sustain like a middle class type of lifestyle
which I think most Americans are striving towards and for your earlier point about education,
there's obviously aspects of education that have been done in the house, like I said the
moral foundation, the philosophy, those kind of things can definitely be done in the house
but most people aren't experts in every single domain of knowledge that is needed in order
to become a successful person in the real world.
For example, my mom might be really skilled in teaching arts but she's not skilled in
teaching science and both are foundational to having a complete education and so in order
for children to be able to get that whole comprehensive education to come and to contribute
to the world in a meaningful way, if you're advocating for like homeschooling for the
mom, I would say that you need more than just that and you would need like a whole comprehensive
like school system in order to properly educate a child and like I said, there's a whole bunch
of different ways in which men and women have to be creative today dealing with the job
demands and the way work is evolved throughout the society but I think that the present challenge
that we have is we want children to first of all like have strong moral foundations,
be educated, be able to contribute to the workforce and I strongly believe that if you
have two parents in the household equally contributed to parenting and also equally
contributing financially, that gives the best possibility in 2023 today, maybe like in 1700,
I would agree with your premise but in this society today with how expensive everything
is and especially how different society is than before, I think this is the best approach.
So I think that a couple points, number one, I don't think that the timeline matters at
all, I think it still works today, I feel like you made a self-refuting argument because
you said that you talked about the detriment of education debt but if the women are not
going to college and spending all this money wasted at college, then they wouldn't have
that debt in the first place, so I feel like it's a self-refuting argument, additionally
when we talk about the education in the home, I don't believe that women and men are inferior
intellectually, so I believe that you are capable of teaching a little kid how to read
and you're teaching kid first grade, third grade, fifth grade and even high school courses,
I think you could educate them, so I think also women would be in the same level of capacity
that they could teach every single form of education all the way up to high school that
they've learned themselves again to their students and that they're not getting an inferior
education because of the people that are going to a university here learning how to
teach kids, I fully reject the idea that a girl that comes here and learns a four year
degree and goes and educates my kids in a public school is fundamentally smarter or
has more intelligence than my wife at home, I personally believe that my wife actually
has more intelligence than the vast majority of graduates from this university and I fully
reject your idea that somehow me having my wife educate them at home versus the public
school changes the dynamic of whether or not I'm going to be involved in my child's life,
I believe that's the same, I'm going to be involved in their life, you know, I'm working
but I have to work either way, right?
I'm going to go...
You're providing for the whole thing, so not only you're providing for the, like I said,
in today's economy, it's not just about one person providing the income and you would
have to be making an exorbitant amount of money to provide a comfortable living for
your whole family in this year and so, like I said, you haven't talked about the argument
about why I believe that financially wise, like two parents are, having two parents earn
income is better than one and how that supports this.
Do you think $50,000 or $60,000 job today is an exorbitant amount of income?
I think $120,000 if two parents are earning income.
No, no, no, I'm saying $50,000, if $50,000 or $60,000 is an exorbitant amount of income,
yes or no?
No.
I know many people that are making that much money and their wife stays home because number
one, they don't have to go out to eat because she can cook the meals, he doesn't have to
pay for daycare, he doesn't have to pay for maybe even multiple vehicles driving around
all the time, so there's a lot of expenses associated with a woman going out in the workplace.
Additionally, they may not live in the nicest house that's in the area, right?
They may not have a house that someone that's making $120,000 could afford or a dual income
could afford but at the end of the day, is the house more important than the children
getting the best education, their mother spending more time with them, putting more
and investing into them, plus, I mean from a spiritual perspective, it's a case closed.
The Bible's crystal clear that women should stay home.
I'm just saying that it even defeats all of our arguments and to say that our country
is secular, I think that people should read just the Constitution of Texas because if
you just read the first line of the Constitution of Texas, it says that we're invoking Almighty
God at the very beginning of our document.
So to say that we're secular is to be kind of just stupid and ignorant of reality but
here's the fact, our country is a Christian nation and it was founded on Christian principles
and it worked then and I believe it would work now today.
I would love to have a longer conversation with you because you're actually giving me
a lot of things to talk about and discourse with but because of sake of time, I just want
to say what is your number one argument?
Let's just dial it in, right?
My premise is women should be staying home, if we have to just dial it in, what is your
one thing, what is your one idea?
Okay, so I'll say there's two aspects to my argument that makes the stronger point.
First is the financial argument, like I mentioned before, that in this year, I reject the premise
that it's just working, it'll work before, that means it'll work today, I reject that
premise completely.
I think today is a completely different economy to a completely different society than before.
So that's one of my arguments is financially wise, if the goal of this whole thing is to
create better children with moral foundations who are educated and contribute to the world,
I think having two parents contribute equally financially and also in the household will
give you the best chance of getting that outcome.
That's not going to guarantee it but it'll give you the best chance.
That's one argument.
The other argument I haven't brought up at all but I think it's very important is a free
will argument where it's just like we're saying that women should stay, women should do this,
women should do that.
At the end of the day, I believe that all people have equal ability to choose what they
want to do in their life and so it's like from a practicality standpoint, there's no
way to enforce a woman staying at home and also, to be completely honest, this culture
war that we're having right now is completely being dominated by progressives.
I would think that's the case and so the access to contraception, access to more opportunities
and access to education has made some of these changes irreversible and so if you're trying
to think practicality wise, what's the best way we can get to this goal, I think you're
going backwards by saying women should stay at home.
I think the right question to ask is how can we, dealing with the circumstances of today,
how can we have men and women cooperate in a way that produces the best children and
like I said, I believe that's what both of them are contributing equally.
So to answer a couple of your questions here, I agree with you that progressives are dominating
the culture war, mostly because I think that they have the power and influence of the media,
social media, censorship, these different things and yes, and the institutions.
And why do you think that is?
Well, I believe that Christians have basically turned away from God in our country and as
a result of that, they've gotten away from what the Bible actually says and the Bible
says professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.
So our institutions have become very foolish because they've rejected the premises of the
Bible and as a result of that, we've allowed nefarious groups to come in, infiltrate all
of these organizations at a high level and that they're forcing their ideology and their
religion upon us.
It's not a secret that the presidential cabinet for Joe Biden is almost all Jewish.
It's not a secret that pretty much all of Hollywood is dominated by people that are
Jewish.
It's not a secret that the banks are owned by Jewish individuals and pretty much if you
look at any institution, you can see that at the high level, there's been a major infiltration
of people that practice the religion of Judaism.
I believe that Judaism is a very satanic religion.
The Bible even says in Revelation chapters two and three that the Jews are the synagogue
of Satan and so I believe that because Christians have abandoned these high positions of authority
in government and in these institutions and simply they're not teaching what the Bible
says anymore, that we've allowed our society to decay and become more secularized.
We've become way more secularized, way more religions in our country than ever before,
whereas in times past, only one viewpoint was tolerated.
In fact, in Pennsylvania, it was enshrined in law that to build any position of government,
you had to profess faith in Jesus Christ.
That's a big difference than what we have today.
I have a question for you.
So let's just say you were president of America, right?
And we acknowledge that the situation right now, like we said, progressives are winning
the culture war.
What would be your policies that you would implement from like a societal perspective
to advance that essentially like your viewpoint?
What would you do policy wise, practicality, taking practicality into account to essentially
like fix the issue that you believe are wrong?
So I think that our government is actually designed very well.
The president has limited powers, so he's not a dictator, a monarch, so he can't just
sure.
Yeah.
Even, even in the case of the president, I think that you could still make a big difference,
but generally speaking, I think we should still be a constitutional republic.
I think we still need the constitution to be the law of the land, but I think that it
needs to be enshrined in the context of Christianity that we have to return back to the idea that
we can't have multiple ideologies.
Countries that are unified and are very strong in this world today are unified around a common
ideology.
I believe that multiple ideologies makes a nation weak and it makes it impossible to
move forward.
So whether you talk about Islam or a Chinese tradition or any, any ideology that is going
to make a country much stronger by having a unifying ideology rather than just saying
all viewpoints are accepted, all viewpoints are allowed, I believe that is because our
enemies want us to be destroyed and so they've tried to put this context into our culture,
which is not true, so as to weaken us and to destroy us.
I think that there is a very real threat to our country that people want to destroy this
country and want to destroy this nation and I think it comes through just basically destroying
that common foundation.
I do not believe people should be forced to go to church.
I do not believe people should be forced to be Christian.
I believe that when we talk about positions of government and when it comes to the laws
of the land, they should be based on the Bible.
That's how it was for the first several hundred years of American history and I believe that's
why America became the great nation that it is today.
So I believe that we need to return to those same premises.
We have a couple amendments that have been added that should have never been added like
the 14th amendment needs to be modified, but I do think as the president, the most important
thing is to have a call back to this nation and say, hey, people that are Christian need
to be Christian again.
We need to get back to the King James Bible.
We need to believe God's word and if we just simply enforced the laws on the books today,
the country would be radically different.
We have monopolies with Google and YouTube.
That's a monopoly.
We have monopolies with Facebook and Instagram.
These are supposed to be broken up.
There's too much censorship.
The first amendment is being basically demolished today and I believe that the first amendment
was not being infringed.
The truth of what I'm saying would ring true and people would resonate with it and realize
what I'm saying and it would change the culture dramatically.
I think if people became Christian again, it would change the culture dramatically and
I never would want to have a law saying women have to stay home.
I think it is free will, but I think that we should show them why the Bible and logic
proves that this is the best outcome.
One thing that's really important is if women were staying home and just having as many
babies as they could, we would have a growth rate that's much higher than we do today,
making our nation stronger, more labor force and you can't argue that more people wouldn't
potentially bring more good into our society and that is a victim of the career path of
women today.
That's one of the main things.
There would be more babies today and when I look at my children in the face, to say
that I would rather have more money or a bigger house than have that soul is just atrocious
to me.
I love every single child that I have and I want to have as many as I can and I want
everyone else to have that same joy and I believe God wants us to be fruitful and multiply.
This principle of women coming to the university and getting a job is definitely diminishing
the human population and so I think that is a big detriment to our society and our country
as a whole.
Interesting.
There's a lot to respond there.
Tons of stuff.
I'm trying to think of exactly one point.
I think so one thing is like, I want to say something about the secularization of society,
right?
Have you ever heard of Friedrich Nietzsche?
Have you heard of this guy?
I've heard his name.
I'm not real familiar.
Yeah, I'm not familiar with him.
That's the way he's teaching.
He's a philosopher.
He basically had this profound argument, not even maybe 150 years ago.
He said God is dead, right?
And the reason he said that is because...
But he's dead and I have a Bible right here.
No, no, no.
I agree.
But would you not agree that the spirit of God is dying, like you even admit it, because
of the nefarious institutions and because of all these different things, the presence
even serve proclaimed Christians.
There's not so many of them that are actually true to the ideology, even nowadays.
You see people here.
There are lots of people who claim their faith of one thing or the other, but their actions
don't represent that faith at all.
And I would say that's the majority of people.
So what I'm basically arguing is what the reality of the situation is versus what the
idealistic situation, what you're aspiring towards.
What I'm saying is that if you want to make, like that's why I asked you specifically on
the policy change you would infringe on America to advance your agenda, because I don't personally
see a way in which some of the roles in which society has evolved, I believe is irreversible.
And I don't think that there's a way in which you can bring God back.
Now I will say this, there is a void that is in...
One of the reasons why I think we have a mental health epidemic in our country today is that
because I feel like there's a void of...
There's an atomization of society, and then there's a void of what that God used to fill,
what religion used to fill is no longer there, and it's up to us to figure out how we fill
that void.
But at the same time, I believe that the answer is not going back in time to what used to
work before, it's creating new solutions for the realities that we're dealing with today
that have never been...
The circumstances of today have never been experienced before.
And so that's why I'm basically making the argument on your essential point about we
have to return to what was good, and I'm basically saying I understand that you want to return
there, but I would say that because of how society has changed so much, that you have
to be practical in what you can actually achieve.
And so if you're trying to say you want women to stay at home, most of the women here, if
you talk to that, 99% of them are going to completely reject that philosophy completely.
They're not even going to listen to you, right?
And so you have to pallet the message in a way that actually incites change, and I don't
think conservatives have done a good job of that at all, and I would say that the other
reason why they're losing the culture war as well is because of universities.
And I remember you were talking with the other guy before, Juan, about how there's no point
of going to education or getting a gender studies degree or anything like that.
A lot of degrees are scams, essentially, right?
What I would essentially say to that is because these fields are progressive-dominated, they're
dominated by people with progressive viewpoints, universities are where some of the culture
is founded, some of the culture is perpetuated through the universities, and because there's
no conservative viewpoint in these institutions, because conservatives don't believe there's
any value in these degrees, and there might not be as much economic value, but in terms
of advancing the culture, if you have to say that, as a conservative, there has been
no representation of conservative viewpoints in any of these institutions, and that's the
reason why I believe that this society is going this way.
And I personally, I'm a progressive person, so I like that, but I'm saying from your perspective,
you should be more worried about getting people into these universities, actually studying
gender studies, so that you can have an intelligent conversation on the trans issues or gender
roles and these type of things.
I feel like that's completely absent from this campus specifically, and just in general.
Yeah, obviously, if you come to my church, you're going to be devoid of progressive ideology,
and you come to this campus, you're going to be devoid of many conservative viewpoints.
Many people say you go to college to become a liberal, and then when you get a job, you
become a conservative, and I know where you're at in that cycle so far.
But at the end of the day, you said God is dead, here's the thing, God's very much alive.
This is still the number one book.
And people today.
This is the number one book in human history, this is the most read book, this is the most
studied book, and additionally, I can walk out of someone's door that does not believe
what this says, and in 15 minutes completely change their mind and they become a Christian,
because God is very much alive, his spirit is alive, and even if the whole creation rejects
him, it doesn't change his existence, it doesn't change his power or magnitude, the Bible has
power today, and it can change people's lives.
I believe the only way to get any kind of change is to expose them to the Bible and
to the word of God.
I agree with you that a sign like this or showing me this campus is not going to necessarily
change a lot of people's minds, many people are already very closed minded, but I think
it could potentially plant a seed in their mind to say, you know what, I don't agree
with that, but I want to figure out why I don't agree with that, and it may cause them
to go on a journey to seek the truth, and I believe anybody that does seek the truth
will find the truth.
I believe the Bible is the truth.
Don't you think there's different truths though?
No.
People have different religions, people have different viewpoints, and these truths are
completely unique to, for example, I was raised Hindu, right?
And so there's certain truths that we believe that are completely contradictory to a Christian
belief or an Islamic belief.
Does that make my belief wrong, or does that make your belief wrong to me?
I think it's all subjective at the end of the day, so I feel like it's hard to say there's
one objective truth in this society, especially, like I said, acknowledging the fact that America
is a multicultural society.
One thing I also want to say about the birthrate stuff, right?
The way we're supplying the birthrate is through immigration, and that's the way we should
do it, because bringing in different viewpoints, I believe, strengthens our country instead
of devising, and that's what our country's been based upon for hundreds of years.
Most presidents would probably agree with me, but continuing on with what I said before,
actually, you can go for it.
Go for it.
Well, here's the thing.
I do believe that Hinduism is not true.
I believe that the Bible is true objectively, and that the Hinduism is not.
There's different contradictory beliefs, right?
So, for example, in Hinduism, they don't believe in hell.
They don't believe in hell.
They have this concept of karma, right, which is completely different, and this concept
of eternal bliss, which is similar to heaven, but they believe in souls that reincarnate,
which completely, in Christianity, it's one soul, it's not a cycle, and so those two things
are not compatible.
Yeah, I agree.
That's what I'm saying.
I believe that what I'm saying is true, and what Hinduism teaches is false, right?
Right, but I would say the same thing.
Right.
How can we reconcile those differences?
There's no way to reconcile.
There's no way to determine an objective truth.
Well, I would say that we both can't be right, so I think that if you understand the diversity
in religion, we could both be wrong.
One could be right, but we can't both be right.
I think we're both wrong, though.
We could both be wrong, and I understand that that's a possible scenario, but what's not
possible is both being right, because Jesus Christ said, I am the way, the truth, and
the life.
No man cometh unto the Father but by me, so he made Christianity exclusive.
That can't be true, and also the teachings of Hinduism also be true.
And they're also developed in completely different aspects of society.
I think religions make a lot of sense when you put it in the context of the time they
are written, but like I said, the whole point of what I'm saying is that what you're trying
to argue is that there is an objective truth that we should aspire to, and that we should
try to filter that message onto, like if I'm representing your argument correctly, that
there is objective truth that's given by this book, that we can filter through society and
through the laws and policies.
What I'm saying is that in this, 2023, we have so many different religions in America,
so many different viewpoints and philosophies, a lot of people are atheistic or agnostic,
and so if your goal is to try to filter your message through as many people as possible,
what I'll say is that nobody will agree on objective truth, and we could all be wrong,
but I don't think it's fair to say one is right and one is wrong at all.
I think you can only say none of us is wrong, all of us are wrong, and that because of that
fact itself, I think it makes it very hard to say that because, I think it's hard to
say the objective truth, therefore, because there's no objective truth, it's hard to say
that you should do this because of that, because if you talk to a Hindu and say that women
should stay in their home, they might have a completely different viewpoint on that,
and from their religion.
There's no way to reconcile that besides God said this, God said that, and so I feel
like if you want to actually make change, if the purpose of practical improvement in
society, we have to deal with the constraints we're dealing with right now, and the constraints
we're dealing with right now, it is a godless society, most people in America, if they do
believe in God, they don't believe in it fully with their hearts, I'm sure you probably see
most Christians in these campuses or just in general are not fully in the ideology itself,
and I see the same thing with Hinduism, I see the same thing with most religions actually,
and so I feel like it's hard to say that you can claim an objective truth and try to filter
that message down, when the real purpose is to be looking at things from a non-religious
perspective, thinking of things from an economic, societal, and moral perspective, and try to
do it that way, that's why I was making the arguments back to the why women should stay
at home, from a more economic slash practical point of view that leads to the best outcomes.
Well I believe that there's 50 million Baptists in America, and additionally if you look at
just Evangelicals.
Baptists are actually Baptists though, let's be honest.
I mean obviously they're not necessarily practicing their faith very well, I would agree with
that, but to say we're a godless society I think is a strange claim, because I think
that there's a lot of religion in America, not even necessarily Christianity that exists
in our society.
I want to kind of ask this question, because you mentioned that you're Hindu, or, okay
you were, okay, let's just say based on your understanding of Hinduism, because you understand
it better than I do, and my viewpoint of Christianity, do you really believe that our
society can be strong, having multiple, completely diverse ideologies as a whole, and that we
could agree on things like women's roles in society, when we have completely different
religious backgrounds, or do you think it's kind of a situation where we're going to always
have this division, and we're going to be weaker as a result of it?
Yeah, so I think it's about the progression of civilization, right, so obviously when
resources were scarce, and people were more ideologically centered, so you had more strong
groups of communities that were very strong together, in those specific times, yes, there
was very little compatibility between two different ideologies per se, and that's why
there was a lot of warfare associated with religion.
But what I would say now is that we progress to a point where we have advances in medical
technology and science, and most people are not living the same lifestyle of scarce resources
as we were maybe a couple hundred years ago, so therefore, like I said, dealing with the
circumstances today, most of the decisions that have to deal with running society, and
you can take any example, like for example, what should be produced as an economy, you
don't have to use God in any bit of that, you don't have to use religion in any aspect
of economic ability whatsoever, that's mostly determined by geographic location, the type
of people that you have, and your education level in that specific country, or a specific
location.
Other issues when it comes to societal and moral obligations, that's where I think religion
can have an influence, but I really believe that the way we have it set up right now is
like the way it should be, which is different people can cohabitate together and live in
a fruitful society, since 95% of the decisions that are important don't need religion at
all in those conversations, and the 5% that do, we can just agree to disagree.
And then we live that way, and that's how society has remained harmonious, and I feel
like America, one of the things, I don't like the anti-American agenda all the time, I think
one of the things that America has done really well, is we have the only country, or only
civilization in the world's history, that has successfully melted different cultures
and ingratiated into one common identity, and yes there are differences and we have
distinct cultures, but I think that's what brings, that's what actually brings so much
value to America.
People from all across the world always want to come to America, and not just because of
the economic opportunity, but also because they know there will be some Indians here,
like Chinese people know there will be some Asian people here, people in Europe they know
there will be some Europeans here.
Different cultures have made their livings in these areas, and have cohabitated peacefully
for generations, and I don't have any reason to believe that just because we have religious
differences or ideological differences, first of all I personally believe most people just
don't really spend too much time thinking about it, so it's not on their mind, like
I said I don't really, most people are even that religious in extent, and if they are
I don't even think it's that true.
But let's just say, even if they were, I feel like most decisions don't need religion at
all baked into it, and the ones that do come down to the law making, for example the abortion
issue is where religion would come into, and it is a contentious topic, but those are few
and far between, and most of the issues that we're dealing with as a country today have
nothing to do with religion, and we can almost take religion out of society for those specific
issues.
And then when it's necessary, then there will be clashes of ideology, but I think the utilitarian
viewpoint of trying to do the best for the most amount of people is typically always
the best approach in those situations, rather than going from a religious perspective, given
that people will vehemently disagree if you go from a religious perspective, if you make
a policy based on Christian principle, you'll have an uproar from Islam and from Muslim
people and from Hindus and from other denominations, and the same way if you make a policy based
on a Hindu principle, it will be completely rejected by all the things.
And I also think that within a location that also determines it too, like we have a federal
type of government in which we have delegation to local authorities to make their society
better for themselves, we try to cede authority for the states and their own communities to
make decisions on that.
So like if a community, for example, has like 100% Christian population, by all means, if
they all agree in a democratic way to make policies based on Christianity, that makes
perfect sense, right?
And if you have a...
Just to ask, do you think that's what happened in America initially?
And initially there was...
Initially, are you talking about the founding of the country?
Yeah, the colonies and entering into the Declaration of Independence and becoming a sovereign country.
Do you think all of those periods in time, they were generally Christian and bringing
in Christian laws?
They were generally Christian people, but I really believe that the foundational principles
on which this country was founded on was based on enlightenment principles from philosophers
like John Locke, who you can see is writing all over the Constitution.
And people like these made arguments for secular societies, like John Locke literally
has a whole essay that Thomas Jefferson was paraphrasing when he was writing the Declaration
of Independence for why we need our own secular society, and it's in the Constitution as well.
So you think that this country is a sec...
It was based on secular principles.
That's your understanding of history.
I think it's a mix.
I think it's a country made by Christian men, but also with the ideal, the aspiration of
what we're trying to achieve in America, is a secular society that can acknowledge
that all different types of people can come to America and live peacefully.
That's what the visions of the founding fathers had.
It's very clearly in the text.
You can see it in the Federalist Papers.
You can see the Declaration of Independence.
You can see it in the Constitution.
It's all over there.
And you can even see it in the documents that they cite, like I said, like John Locke, for
example, or I forgot, I think it's Hume, or yeah, one of the people.
So I want to say I fully disagree with you, and I think that you have a very limited view
of history, which is kind of tainting your view, because here's the thing, if we look
at America, we have colonists coming here and having basically no infrastructure.
There's very, very little infrastructure built by the Native Americans, okay?
And so we have a country that, you know, let's just say 400 years ago, 350 years ago, approximately,
when the colonists are coming and settling in America.
This is by no stretch of the imagination a superpower in the world today.
We have many other cultures, many other civilizations all across the world that are far more advanced,
far more technology, far more infrastructure, all of Europe.
You really think that there was more roads in America in the 1600s.
I'm saying in the 1600s, that almost every country had more infrastructure, more people,
more resources, more advancement.
They were ahead of the curve as far as civilization as a whole.
I mean, America was founded by British colonies, so some of the infrastructure that was present
in Britain also filtrated to the U.S., for example.
Sure, but wait a minute, doesn't Australia and South America also have that same advantage?
No, because Australia was founded as a prison colony in the beginning, so they had a completely
different history.
South Africa, not as knowledgeable, so I can't really speak on them as well, but we're talking
about America specifically, right?
America was founded by British colonies, but it was also founded by different cultures
that came, and the Native Americans-
In the 1600s?
In the 1600s, yeah.
It was the British colonies coming, like the charter for-
What other countries are settling here?
Spain settled here in the 1500s.
In Florida, St. Augustine is the oldest city in America, it's in Florida.
Was there Hindus, Muslims, Jews?
No, no, no.
They came later.
So it's pretty much mostly just Christians, maybe some Catholics.
The founding fathers were not Christian, they were deists.
Yeah, that's a good point.
They were deists.
In the state of Pennsylvania, okay, prior to the Constitution, and after the Constitution,
had a law that no one could serve in any political office, government, sheriff, deputy without
professing faith in Jesus Christ.
Am I supposed to believe that is a secular law?
Oh, of course it's not, it's not a secular law at all, but what I-
In the state of Georgia, you could not be Catholic.
It was illegal to practice Catholicism in the state of Georgia in its initial charter.
Additionally, in the laws of Connecticut of 1673, all the capital punishment laws were
given strictly from the Bible.
If I look at the Constitution of Texas today, it says very clearly in the first line that
they're giving reverence to God Almighty, which is not an ambiguous term.
It's definitely an attribute to the Christian God.
I would say this, before you answer, if I look at history, it's pretty clear that the
American colonies are starting off behind every other civilization, and at some point
America became a superpower.
At some point America exceeded all other countries as far as economic, military, and in many
different ways.
And I believe that our country, you can't say that it wasn't based on Christian principles,
because that's the facts for sure.
The Christian principles that were enshrined in our laws, evidence of the fact that our
nation was founded upon Christian principles, our nation had a vast majority of its population
being Christians, and it's really only in the last 50 years or so that we've seen an
explosion of other kinds of religions, a lot more secularization of the culture, and we
see the fruit of this initial explosion is not necessarily improving our country, but
we've seen a lot of problems.
We've seen an increase in debt, we've seen an increase in crime, we've seen population
declines, we've seen a lot of declines that I would say are negative in society, and I
think that for some people they look at America and say they want to enjoy it, but they're
not enjoying it from the last 50 years of history, they're enjoying it from the last
350 years of history.
And so I think that it's very clear that if we were actually going to have a successful
society, it would have to be based on Christian principles.
These Christian principles that founded this nation gave us the success, gave us the prosperity
that we have today, and that the failed ideologies of other countries coming over here are still
not going to work.
If we bring in Hinduism, Islam, if we bring in the Chinese tradition, if we bring in atheism
or any of these other ideas, they will fail, they will destroy our culture, they will destroy
our country, and this has happened over and over and over again.
There's plenty of times in history where nations have risen and fallen and collapsed, and I
believe that when you look at this premise, when we talk about women staying home, that
this is always at the tail end of a civilization.
In the decline of a civilization, we have women going out in the workplace, going and
doing these different things.
Even Spain already had a civil war, where the progressives were trying to take over
and they were bringing in their type of ideology, they had a war with the conservatives, conservatives
won that war, and I believe that today we're headed towards war.
Not because I want it, not because you want it, I believe that we have irreconcilable
differences on the premise that we can't as a country believe every single religion, someone
is basically going to be too offended by that, whether that's the Christians, whether that's
the non-Christians, I think that there's going to unfortunately be too much of a division
and that we can't have that unity, and that ultimately our country will be destroyed without
having a common ideology.
The Bible says a house divided cannot stand, and I believe fully that Hinduism and Christianity
cannot build a society together.
Currently we can co-exist in the sense that we can have conversations and we can talk
and we have our society, but it can't last forever that there's going to come a point
in time where one's going to kind of dominate the other, right?
Whether that's atheism, Hinduism, Islam, or whatever.
Someone's going to win the ideological war, or the entire nation will collapse and someone
else will come in and force their ideology upon us.
The Roman Empire eventually collapsed and the barbarians and other people came in and
took over their society.
I mean the Roman Empire basically had most of the entire world conquered at one point
and was flourishing, they had great coliseums, their architecture was amazing, but they're
not here anymore, right?
Why are they not here?
Were they not progressing fast enough?
Or do you think that...
There's a whole lot of reasons.
I mean I think each history, historical example you give has its own context that supplies
explanation, and I don't think you can say from here like because this nation was built
upon some, like of course the men who made this nation, a good majority of them are Christian.
I'll of course acknowledge that's a historical fact, but like you said, like there's different,
they had different philosophical viewpoints that were coming from non-Christian backgrounds.
Like I said, the John Locke's, that's a completely founding...
Look, I'll concede that there's a handful of people that were not very Christian in
the founding of our nation.
Thomas Jefferson was not saved, he was not a Christian, he wrote his own version of the
Bible.
Sure, he may have been involved in that decision process, but he's not single-handedly creating
the United States of America, he's just one of the men involved in our country.
So let's just say secular, there's like on one end you have a fully religious society
on one side of the spectrum, on the other end you have a fully secularized society,
right?
What America aspires to is, and from the founding documents, what I would say America is aspired
to is a secularized society.
Not fully on the spectrum, but closer to this end of the spectrum than that end of the spectrum.
That's what America...
That's revisionist history.
The colonists left Europe because they had state-run churches.
So the Catholic Church and the Church of England forced their viewpoint of Christianity on
the pilgrims and on the colonists, and they wanted to flee that, and they wanted to have
their own churches established based on their own principles and their own faith.
As a result of that, they wanted to have a separation where the government could no longer
tell them which church they were supposed to have.
The pope had an extreme amount of authority over the government, and they were basically
joined together, where the church and the state were kind of looked at as one.
They wanted to have this separation where you were not forced to go to a particular church.
Their view, though, was not to bring in secularity, or to bring in atheism, or to bring in other
religions, it was...
It's basically trying to take away religion, abstract themselves from ideology and religion,
and Christian...
It's the government without a religious basis.
For example, if you go to Saudi Arabia, that is not a secular society.
They have Islamic law, basically, in charge of the policies.
But in other areas, in other countries, if somebody says a policy is secular, that means
that the policy doesn't have any religious basis to why that policy is being enacted.
And I agree with that premise.
I'm saying the laws of our land were based on the Bible.
No, no, no.
They were based on secular principles.
For example, I'll give you a great example of limited government, right?
In the beginning of America, we had these things called, I forgot exactly, but when
America first got its independence, we were 13 fragmented states, and there was a huge
argument against a powerful central authority of a government, because they were so...
It was almost like a trauma from when the British were controlling every aspect of the
country's lives, that they wanted a government in which that was so limited, and it almost
didn't function.
In fact, the first version of the United States did not even work.
It was completely fragmented, 13 different nations, it didn't have a unified military,
wasn't able to get currency, and so that was a foundational principle.
Nothing to do with religion.
How authoritative your government is, is a central aspect of defining what your governmental
system is.
Nothing to do with religion.
So that's an example of, I guess, secular...
You don't think that someone could understand the importance of limited government from
a religious viewpoint?
The Bible has its government set up, and it has judges, and it's supposed to be limited.
That's the whole Catholic Church was ruling most of society, the pope was ruling most
of society in Europe between the medieval ages.
And so what I'm basically saying is this, right?
In America today, we are aspiring towards secular ideals.
So we make policies that are secular, and the ones that are actually not secular are
looked down upon.
Like, for example, when people make abortion bans based off the basis of religion.
I think you can make a stronger argument on the scientific basis, but when you make people
get extremely upset in America on religious policies, why?
It's because in America, we're making policies based off secularism.
That's a foundational principle of this country.
And like I said, there are...
What would be your proof text?
What's enshrined in law that says that we need to be secular?
What would be your...
Give me a verse.
The First Amendment is enshrining secularity in our society.
Freedom of religion, which means that that's a foundational part of freedom to speak whatever
you believe in this country, the fact that we're able to speak right now.
And you think that that's secular?
Of course it's secular.
So it's identifying...
It's talking about religion, that I have the right to practice religion is something that's
abstracting itself from religion.
If it was religious, it wouldn't be freedom of religion, it would be the Christian religion.
Because it is secular, that's why it says freedom of religion and that everybody can
practice their own viewpoint.
That's why people...
Like, there was even a huge divide in America between Catholics and Protestants.
Americans used to be more Protestant based, and they would attack Catholics in different
communities.
Yeah.
For your point, the establishment clause says that the...
He says this is my law.
Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion.
So here's the thing, if I have 13 colonies or 13 states, however you want to word that,
and we need to join together to fight off a foreign invader, and so we have to get some
general consensus.
You brought up how they had a very limited government.
It makes sense that that certain organization is not going to start dictating what church
people have to go to, what kind of speech they're going to have, and so they have a
limited government set up so that we can just basically, hey, we agree that we have a military,
we agree we have to pay taxes, we agree we have these few basic principles, and we're
abstracting ourselves from that.
That doesn't mean that the states themselves don't have laws based on the Bible, that the
individuals there aren't being ruled in a religious type society.
It's just saying the federal government as its own entity is not supposed to be religious
because they don't want the federal government to be religious.
That doesn't mean that the people and the states and the lives that they live aren't
based on religious law, based on the Bible, and to say that we're secular is a fundamental
mis-categorization of what the purpose of the limited federal government is.
I don't want my car to be religious.
I want my car to just drive me to work, right?
So I want my car to, like, if I do some sin to turn off the car or something like that,
I want my car to just drive, right?
So when it comes to the literal federal government, I agree that some of the principles are based
on abstracting themselves from identifying religious principles.
But it was always in the premise and the context of religion and Christianity being the predominant
faith of this land, and they did not want to allow atheism or other religions to enter
into this country, but they simply did because people have revised history, have a misunderstanding
of the principles of our country.
And what made America great was not allowing multiple religions to come here and all co-exist.
It was all Christian, and it's only recently that we have an explosion of multiple religions.
Do you really believe there was a lot of Hindus in America in the 1600s, 1700s, 1800s?
No, but I completely reject that premise.
I feel like the diversification of America and the fact that we have, like, for example,
I'm here, right, and the fact that we have different viewpoints across different societies
is actually what gives us the strength.
Like I said, from an immigration point of view, it's what allows people, people want
to come here not just for the economic opportunity, but it's also because this is a diverse society.
You're not going to be surrounded by one type of people, you're going to be surrounded by
many different types of people, and we all have figured out a way to live peacefully
together.
And so I feel like the strength of our country-
Do you think that our country is really peaceful right now?
I mean, do you have a war right now?
Yeah.
The genocide of the indigenous people, what about the enslavement of the African people?
Well, regardless of that, I feel like, irrespective of where we're in a culture war, right, we
don't have violence between that many types of ideologies per se.
What we do have is economic and systemic issues that perpetuate crime in different areas of
our society, and those also don't have to do with religion.
But let me come back to this, when you say we need to bring back Christian principles,
I want to know how you would exactly do that, because I'm trying to, like I said from the
very beginning, we're living in 2023, and we're living in a society where, like I said,
is not as religious as before.
So if it's your goal, right, and you want to bring back religion in society, how are
you going to accomplish that without any authoritative power?
In terms of the culture war, essentially, how are you trying to fight that?
Sure.
I think that if I visit an Islamic country, I can go there and I can visit, but you know
what I can't do?
I can't attack their religion or proselytize their people or try to convert them away from
Islam.
So I think it should be similar, and the same premises that we had in America.
The best ideology should win.
I think that our country has to basically just agree that we're Christian, generally
speaking, and that our laws, our laws of our states should be able to reflect that of the
Bible.
And specifically, that's already how it's set up.
Today, right now, there's nothing stopping the state of Texas from adopting laws that
are based on the premises of the Bible, and all agreeing that we're going to live generally
to what the Bible teaches.
And I think if we just enforced those laws, that everything would take care of itself.
I'm not against different cultures, I'm not against different people groups.
I think that anybody should be able to visit here, but what I don't believe is that we
can coexist.
It's the creation of ideology.
Yeah, I don't think that we can have multiple religions and be a successful society in the
long term.
You can have a short-term experiment where it's going okay or you're not noticing the
ramifications of that situation.
But I believe that as a society, we have to basically build our society, our cars, our
houses, our roads, our education systems, all based on some ideological principles.
And when you don't have commonality in these issues, then you're going to have issues, okay?
Wait, wait, one second, 95% of the situations in which people are making decisions, there's
no religion in any of it, right?
So like, for example, if I'm in a situation...
What about, how about which bathroom to use?
Do you think that that has any implication based on ideology or religion?
I mean, ideology, yes, but not religion.
So if I have my little daughter and I want to send her in the bathroom, but there's a
guy who says he's a girl and he wants to go in that bathroom, you don't think that that
causes any kind of an issue or conflict in society?
I mean, that's a whole different issue that we can get into about the bathrooms and other
things.
My personal stance is...
You're saying that there's no part of our infrastructure society that's based on religion
and I'm saying that everything has some basis in viewpoint, right?
Majority of the decisions that matter in society do not require religion.
There are, like I said, if you do the pie chart, 90 to 95% of decisions that we make
in society and individuals have nothing to do with religion whatsoever.
Okay, wait a minute.
So in the United States, alcohol used to be illegal at one point in time, birth control
used to be illegal at one point, divorce used to be illegal at one point, murder was punished,
divorce was illegal, it wasn't not granted, there was no fault divorce came in California
in like the 70s or something, you can fact check that, but essentially the morality of
our country has changed.
Whether that's for the better or the worse, I'm just acknowledging the fact that there's
been major changes to the laws, how people govern themselves.
There used to not be a possibility of a woman just deciding she doesn't like her husband
and just divorce him and now he has to pay alimony and child support, regardless of his
own will and causing men to basically become depressed and commit suicide as a result of
that.
That has a lot to do with your religious perspective.
I think that everything goes back to your ultimate ideology, whether you're atheist,
secular, whether you're Hindu, whether you're Buddhist, whether you're Christian, it's
going to shape your perspective, it's going to shape your viewpoints, it's going to shape
the laws of the land and so it's impossible to have a society that is going to be Christian,
Buddhist, Hindu, atheist all together and us to agree on laws, be unified and rally
together.
We're right now fighting over bathrooms, we're fighting over just all kinds of things that
are really basic in principle.
We're fighting over how to even use pronouns, we don't even know how to use the English
language right now as a result of these diversity of ideas and I'm saying how can our society
progress when we can't even decide which pronouns to use, we can't even decide which bathroom
to use, we don't even know if women should stay home or not, all of these principles
are decaying the society, they're not progressing the society economically, financially, spiritually
or any of these ways.
I believe that we would have to pick something in order to move forward.
The way our society is headed is a crash course and whether or not you agree with me on what
we think the outcome should be, I believe we're headed in a crash course and of course
I'm going to advocate for what I believe is the best outcome or the best direction to
head.
I believe our country should enshrine Christianity as the overarching general ideology of the
country and that our laws should be based on the Bible and I think that is exactly how
America was founded, I think that's why it was successful and I think that's why a lot
of people won't even come here today is because of the success and blessing that God gave
this nation for originally being based on those principles.
If India's principles of Hinduism were so great then I would think everybody would want
to travel there.
If the principles of Islam were so great, I think everybody would want to travel there
and move there.
If the principles of Judaism were so great, everyone would want to travel there.
If the ideas of Mao and of communism were so great, I think people would just love to
go to North Korea, would love to go to China, but you know why people want to come to America?
It's because of Christianity.
It's because of the Bible and it's because of the freedoms that we've been granted by
Christianity.
There's so many more Christian countries in the world than America, 100 percent, I guess
not even the competition.
But why does everybody want to come to America?
Why don't we go to Spain?
Spain has a way higher rate of Christianity and Europe, they have way higher rates.
It's Catholic.
It's not Christian.
Okay, well Catholic is a denomination in Christianity.
Here's the thing, America was founded because it wanted to get away from Catholicism, so
you totally misunderstood the whole premise.
Wait, are there Protestants in Europe as well?
The Church of England and the Catholic Church.
Have you said there are more Protestant countries in America?
We were more Christian.
No, no, right now.
Right now.
Are there more Protestant countries in America?
Of course there are.
I don't know how we would measure that.
There's a lot of people in quantity by Protestant here.
There's so many different ways.
If you were to say that-
What country has just sheer number of volume?
I was going to ask you, the volume of Protestants, yeah, but again, if the nation says, hey,
we're all Greek Orthodox or we're all this denomination, that doesn't mean that they
all really are.
Just like if we said, hey, today America's Christian, not always a Christian.
America, because of Christian values, I would say that there's like 20 other countries in
the world that do Christian values so much more justice than America, and so those people
would rather go to those countries than this.
People come to America for a couple reasons.
One is because of economic opportunity and we have a really-
Because of the Bible.
No, not because of the Bible.
It's because of-
Because of God's blessing.
No, no, no.
It's because of our emphasis on our founders of individuality and concept of limited government
interfering with an individual's life.
We aspire for a meritocracy where people from zero can go up to 100.
That's what the American dream is, and so that's one of the-
That's capitalism, which is a principle based on the Bible.
That is not a principle based on the Bible, but we can keep going.
Yes, the Bible says it has no cap on you increasing your capital or potential.
The government doesn't limit it.
Capitalism was formed in the 17 to 18-
Does Hinduism teach capitalism?
They have a-
Yes, they have a-
They're very socialist.
No, no, no, no, no, no they're not.
They're not.
Like I said, they're socialists.
In fact, if you studied Hinduism, they're different castes.
Is Islam capitalism?
Islam has some capitalistic elements too.
Go to Saudi Arabia.
There's multiple businesses all across the world.
Of course, there's some state run and they have more authoritative, like the difference
between capitalism and a different system is like how much government involvement is
in it.
What I'm basically trying to say is that America is not founded upon religious values.
It was founded upon secular values and an ideal to aspire for individuals to come from
zero to go to a hundred and for people to live coexist peacefully together, and so that's
like the whole challenge of America.
We have set out this journey as a country to find ways for different people to coexist
peacefully and you're basically saying that I'd rather different people not be here.
What I would rather say is-
I'm not saying different people.
I'm saying different ideologies.
What I would say the aspect of America that makes it so unique and makes it like one of
the best civilizations to ever exist is the fact that we've been able to successfully
integrate multiple different ideologies in a way that we're not the best country on earth
because of Christian values, we're the best country on earth because of the diversification
of people that we have and the strength in numbers that we have of different types of
people.
See, we're going full circle at this point because I really appreciate your conversation,
Jonathan.
You should check us out.
We can give you a card or something.