#117 The Religion Business Part 2

0 (0s): The LD s Church is a top 100 investor in the top 100 stocks on the New York Stock Exchange 1 (7s): Doesn't play by the same rules, is not paying taxes. Theoretically, if you were to just keep scaling that out, there's no limit. 0 (15s): Their investment fund is so big and they make so much interest on the investment that they would never have to take a dollar in again from Tide, a dollar And only part of the interest they make on their money would fund the global church. 2 (31s): They just outbid Bill Gates. 0 (33s): It's a lot of these pastors who build these huge brands just when they die, they have their kids take over. You're passing billion dollar businesses off to your kids and in the pulpit you could say, it's not mine. Fuck yeah, it's yours. 1 (46s): 'cause if you talk about Christianity, like they come in 0 (48s): Hot. Yeah. It saddened me to see how dumb American Christians are. 1 (56s): So to get really like tinfoil Hattie and ominous. So we say that which church has the most private land in Florida and there was one other state, Illinois. Okay. So they have all this land that is separated from government, doesn't play by the same rules, is not paying taxes. Theoretically, if you were to just keep scaling that out, there's no limit. Correct. So then you would have a church that is now Correct. Kind of in charge of the country. Correct. In a way 2 (1m 25s): They just outbid Bill Gates on, I think it was a thousand, is it about a thousand acres in Washington 0 (1m 30s): State? No, 200,000, 2 (1m 31s): 200,000 acres in Washington state. 1 (1m 33s): So how is that? I would argue that it's so infused then there is no separation. Because if you do, let's say you amass all of this land and now you're influencing the markets and then these private companies and we're, 0 (1m 45s): Oh, so the LD s Church is a top 100 shareholder in the top 100 stocks on the New York time on, on the New York Stock Exchange. So lemme rephrase that. Lemme say that again. The LD s Church is a top 100 investor in the top 100 stocks on the New York Stock Exchange. 1 (2m 3s): And I would argue that those private businesses have more of an impact on the average American's daily life than government does. Right. Who's paying for government? Who's paying for these people to run? Yeah. Well that seems really enmeshed. 0 (2m 16s): I agree. So, so let's play that out even more. Yeah. So there, and I'm gonna take their side. I'm gonna play devil's advocate. Right. The LD s Church would say, wouldn't you want, and, and, and the Show talks about this, there's separation of church and state is, I won't say it's a myth, but it's, it doesn't exist because your moral codes, your moral codes and my moral codes dictate the way we vote. So church will always dictate state, but what you want is personal individualized morals and church to dictate state, not a corporation, a church corporation to dictate state. Because if you remember the, the Catholic church back in the day in the 14 hundreds, I don't really want an America to look like that. 0 (2m 60s): Right. Yeah. And you don't want the crusades to happen again. Yeah. And you don't like, like there's a lot of bad things that happen when a single church, a single entity, a single denomination or single faith takes over a government. So they would say, Hey you, we, it's good that we're, we're helping steer policy. But like I said, there's only a select few people that run that organization. Yeah. So it's not the people, it's not even the more like the, the, the congregants of the Mormon church that are dictating policy. It's the leadership and the leadership care about money and control. At the end of the day, it's money and control. And you should watch that new clip that we posted today. 'cause it is wild. Like if you just feel it, it's just as bad as Kenneth Copeland. 0 (3m 42s): Like, you will like to give us your money. 'cause we will keep your name on God's books. You know? And it's just like, Jesus, it's wild. 2 (3m 51s): Copeland was the, the the 18,000 square foot house that I was telling you about. That's Copeland's in the name of his church. But yeah, 1 (4m 1s): I mean, name a celebrity that has a main house that's that big. Most of them don't, most of them do not. Absolutely not. Maybe Oprah taxes. 0 (4m 9s): Well, and this is big one too. Taxes too is, well the big one too is, is they'll say, oh, it's not our house. Or Oh, it's not our airplanes or Oh, for Kenneth Copeland. It's not my oil fields, it's the churches. But it's like, dude, you run the church when you die. If, well, I don't think, I don't know if he has, 2 (4m 25s): I think he's, I think he has family in, in it, 0 (4m 28s): But, so it's called nepotism. It's, it's a lot of these pastors who build these huge brands just when they die, they have their kids take over. So it is yours, like it's not yours on paper, but you control the machine. So it is yours. Just like Joel Osteen, you know, his daughter runs worship and his son until recently worked in the church and Ed Young's half his kids work in the church. It's just Mark Driscoll's just brought his son in as a pastor. And I mean like, it's just like, what are you guys doing? You're passing a business off from generation to Billy Graham passed his off to Franklin Graham. And it's like you're passing billion dollar businesses off to your kids. 0 (5m 10s): And in the pulpit you could say, it's not mine. Fuck yeah, it's yours. What do you mean? 2 (5m 16s): Franklin's son is the number two. I mean he's the COO now of Samaritan's Purse. Yeah. Yeah. So you got three generations right there. And then he'll hand it off to his kids. Yep. 0 (5m 25s): Yeah. 1 (5m 25s): I saw out one pastor saying he was like really amped up as like most of them are 'cause it's all theatrics. But he's like, God wants me to have a $65 million jet. And then someone else, it was an African pastor Creflo Dollar. Yeah. And he was like, someone accused me of being worth 150 million. That is an insult. And I'm like the 2 (5m 45s): Audacity. Yeah. 1 (5m 47s): What? 0 (5m 47s): Yeah, 1 (5m 48s): What? 0 (5m 49s): Well, and when you, and, and so this is something that rubs me wrong. There's verses in, in the New Testament written by a guy named Paul. And Paul was wrote, wrote a lot of the New Testament books and, and he was this guy who was killing early Christians. Like he, he hated Christians. And then the story goes, he saw Jesus on the road, he got blinded and he had this massive conversion where he's like, I, he accepted Christ and he's going out throughout all of Palestine and, and ends up in Rome and he's preaching this gospel of, of Christ, right. And it's really powerful stories. And so he's trying to control and give, give structure to these small church home churches that he's starting. 0 (6m 31s): And we should talk about the definition of, of the original biblical definition of a church later. But he's starting these, these groups, these gatherings that are that, and they called it the way, so it's like, this is the way to live, like the way, and he goes, pastors or, or really itinerant rabbis deserve double honor. And so pastors today will stand on stage and be like, I deserve double honor. But I'm like, you look back at these early pastors, the Paul said, you cannot take anything with you except the sandals on your feet. And your robe don't even take money. Because what it did is it made you rely on the generosity of others as you spread your message. 0 (7m 14s): So you have these dudes not taking money, they only have one pair of sandals. They don't have a family, they don't have a home. They're literally itinerant. They're just wandering homeless people, basically spreading this, this new the way of Christ's way. And so he goes, they deserve double honor. Most of those fools died. They were either murdered, they rotted in jail, they were beheaded. Like they lived a very short, painful existence. And so what did Paul say? These men deserve double honor. Heck yeah, they do. Yeah. But I'm sorry. If you standing on a stage and you're worth 200 million bucks, I can't, even if I was in your position, those words, I would have so much fear of being struck by lightning. It goes, I deserve double honor. 0 (7m 55s): It's like, dude, yeah. How can you even compare yourself? But you would 2 (7m 58s): Be, I mean, you would believe that you would be protected from that 0 (8m 1s): Vengeance. Yeah. But so, but that's the thing though. They stand on that pole, that stage, and they say that we deserve double honor. And everybody in the pews goes, 1 (8m 9s): So they just don't know the history. 0 (8m 11s): They, this is gonna be really brutal. I would argue most Christians are so theologically weak and don't open their bibles that they are spoonfed whatever this pastor, that pastor wants to spoon feed him. So there's an interesting story. So we put a post out probably three weeks ago and I was frustrated and I was like, you know what, for all you people saying we're not showing the other side of the coins. We've sent out over 800 emails. No pastors are responding. So if you're a pastor, shoot us a dm. I'll take a call personally with you and we're gonna fly out and sit down with you. Over 250 pastors responded. It was the coolest thing ever. So one of 'em is from Germany and he's a German Methodist pastor. 0 (8m 54s): And in Germany to become a minister, it's, it's rigorous. And you have to go to seminary. You, you have to speak Latin Greek, he speaks German and English. So four languages. Genius guy. And he, and I'm like, so what brought you to America? 'cause he'd never lived in America. And he's like, I moved here six months ago 'cause my father was an American. He came over during the war, knocked up my mom, and you know, he's, he's died now. He's like, I wanna experience America. So I asked to transfer to a Methodist church in America. And he goes, and so I was like, this is really interesting. And so, because in Germany, if you want to give to your church, you give through your tax return. So there's literally a box where you check your denomination and then based off the, the, the taxation of that denomination, you pay the government, then the government pays the church. 0 (9m 39s): So talk about church and state. Still married Germany, is that, but so I'm like, what is the biggest aha moment you saw in an American church? And he said, when I first started preaching, I would preach something and I'd look up and everybody would be like, amen. And I would say, stop, sit down. Like question what I'm saying, actually open your Bible and see if what I'm saying is accurate. And he goes, Nathan, it it saddened me to see how dumb American Christians are. They don't care to like dive in. And that's a very broad, broad brush. But he's like, yeah, most people just took what I had to say as like God given fact. 0 (10m 21s): And, and the video we posted today, the title is Theology. You can't have Theology without Psychology. And so even though he's up there trying to preach the, the words from the Bible, his own interpretation of that is coming out. And he's like, the last time something like that happened where a whole group of people in mass took verbatim what a leader was saying, what happened, 1 (10m 47s): Jet 0 (10m 47s): Yeah. Genocide. Yeah. And so he's like, I, he's like, it terrifies me that Christians in America are so biblically illiterate now. And they just listen to what I think Billy Graham's a great guy. They listen to what Billy Graham said. They listen to what Joel Osteen says, cref low dollar Kenneth Copeland. And they take it as, as, as the message of Christ. And that's, that's the scary part to me. 1 (11m 11s): Well, I think what's confusing to me, I recently had an episode and we made a clip out of it where I was talking about like my spirituality and my understanding of the Old Testament and the New Testament and how there seems to be like a massive discrepancy in, in God itself. Like they, they seem like two different things. And I'm getting torn apart in the comment section. 'cause if you talk about Christianity, like they come in hot and I was like, how dare you think you are anyone to even question anything? Like you just need to take this. And I'm like, no, I, in the clip itself, I talk about like, one of the beautiful things about like, about the Jewish religion is that's the whole point, is wrestling with God. You're supposed to, you're not supposed to take everything. Yeah. 1 (11m 51s): And the way that I interpret this is gonna be totally different than how you do Yeah. And who's to say whose perspective is, is correct. You know what I mean? Yeah. But for some reason there is like a mass understanding that you're not supposed to interpret it. It's not for interpretation. Like that is what people will say that are like very ideological. And that seems a little bit scary because again, why am I taking your interpretation? Like, it's almost like before the Bible was translated, like you don't want people to know because then they have to think for themself. Correct. 0 (12m 18s): Well, there's a difference, which I got torn apart. I did a live stream with our biggest hater. Oh gosh. But I, I said that's brave. There's What's that? 1 (12m 26s): That's brave. Yeah. 0 (12m 28s): I I he ended up eating himself alive. But it took a while, sadly. But there's a, there's a like a, one of the, we'll call 'em founding fathers of the psychedelic rev revolution. A Alan Watts. I love his work just to make it makes me think. But he, he says this thing, there's a difference between belief and faith. And, and on that livestream, everybody's like, you don't, don't bring in that psychological jargon. And I'm like, well, we're all individual being emotional beings with our own thought process. So no matter what, we have to bring in psychology. Yeah. But belief is a belief in a, like presuppose pres presupposition of what you think is accurate. 0 (13m 14s): So like those Christians believe the 66 book canon, the Protestant canon of the Bible is the literal word of God. And then anything outside of that is, is an attack on their faith. Faith though is you're putting faith in this journey that it's going to lead you where you need to go. And so there's a big difference between belief and faith. And it, it, I didn't switch, flip that switch until my late twenties. I would say. Like I had belief in Christianity my whole life, but I didn't even know this thing called the apocrypha existed. And that that was an extra set of books in the Bible for the first 1800 years. 0 (13m 54s): And so when I heard about that, I was like, wait, what? There was books that were taken out of the Bible a couple hundred years ago. And so this 66 book Bible, like, is it the literal word of God? And once you start exploring it with this, with this idea of faith where I'm not scared where it's gonna lead me, the story becomes way more beautiful. And that's what you're doing, you know, you're exploring faith and exploring spirituality. And it's just sad that Christianity, Christians have become, and it goes back to the conversation about the German pastor. Christians have become so illiterate in regards to their theology, that they're just scared of anything that, that doesn't sound exactly like them. And that's, I painted with a very broad brush there. But it's like, that's the problem with current, the current like evangelical Christian, Christian is they're scared to debate and without just screaming, 2 (14m 42s): It's, it's scared to offend. Right? Like that's where the prosperity gospel kick kicks in, where we're just gonna talk about how everything's gonna be great and everything's gonna be good and what it takes to do that versus having some of those hard, uncomfortable discussions. And you get to a point where you're like, do you even really truly know what you're getting def defend? Like what, what you really truly know what you're defending. You're being defensive, but do you really know what you're, what you're standing up for? Yeah. 0 (15m 6s): Mm. 2 (15m 7s): And that's a, a whole other level. 1 (15m 10s): Yeah. The miracle, like the promising of miracles is also really interesting too. Because to piggyback off of that, you have someone that'll come up with an ailment and they're assuming that it, everything is supposed to be perfect. So you might have someone that's wheelchair bound or they're blind in one eye or whatever the case may be, and they're like, Jesus needs to heal me. But it's like, what if that is actually part of the process? Like what if it's not supposed to go away? And that sucks, of course. Like you wanna be in like full health, full capability. See, but like, it's like you're kind of missing the point. Like you, there's supposed to be trials and tri, tri tribulations and that's like what makes you stronger and gives you growth. And every, if everything is perfect, you're gonna be stagnant. So like maybe that is a gift in a weird way. 1 (15m 52s): Like your one eye that doesn't work is the gift. And the fact you don't see it and you keep paying this pastor $2,000 a month, like you are so lost. And I see that with identity and like putting the label on you. And like, it's not to take away the value of religion 'cause I think there is a lot of it. But I think that when you put a label on something, you kind of get calcified in that thing. So if it's I'm a Catholic or I'm Jewish, or I, whatever the thing might be, it's like now I can't wrestle with these ideas because now I am almost dogmatic in them For sure. So I mean, there's a lot of flexibility that I think that people are willing to strip away that label. And it's not to again, like take God out of the equation. I think that's important for most people to believe in something bigger than yourself. But like, I don't, I don't think letting someone else decide what that journey is. 1 (16m 36s): Makes sense. And I saw that you had Nie Nietzche on your reading list and I love him. Yeah. Like, I think he's amazing. And that one of the quotes that I just did for a solo episode, it's not out yet, but it was as for like the right way, the only way, the true way it does not exist. So when anyone is speaking for God, and this is what God says, and if you don't gimme money, you're off of his list. Run the other way for 0 (16m 59s): Sure. Yeah. 1 (16m 59s): Run the other 0 (16m 60s): Way. A hundred percent. Yeah. We explore some pretty cool topics in the, in the Show. We have a guy named Dan McClellan. And if you don't follow Dan on Instagram, you should, he's just a, he speaks Greek, Hebrew ancient Aramaic. And he's a, he's a Mormon, he's a practicing Mormon. So his story's really interesting. But I mean, like, he just annihilates pre these preconceived concepts of, of, you know, how people take the Bible and apply it to their life. And, and, and I think that for me, if I could encourage anybody listening that's, that reads the Bible, like try to do a pass through just with the lens of history. 0 (17m 40s): Don't try to say, how does this apply to me? Or man, what can I get out of it? Just say I I wanna read this book 'cause it's the greatest history book in the history of mankind. So read it from a historical lens. So when you're in Israel, read it through the lens of Moses or through the lens of his 12 sons. Or you know, when you're in, like when you're going through the kings, put yourself in the king, like in that king's position. And the prophets especially like, or put yourself in job's, shoes, it's like you realize everything's cultural, you know? So what's happening in these stories? Is it, it's cultural. Those mosaic laws. So this, this is a bender for me is when I realized the mosaic covenants in the Bible were not religious covenant covenants per se. 0 (18m 22s): They were legal covenants. And so when you like those, those tithes, you didn't pay tax on top of those tis those tides were your tax for society. Mm. You were paying for the poor, you were paying for festivals. Well, not paying, you were bringing animals for the poor. You ingrained for the poor. You were bringing animals and grain for the parties that you were throwing. And you got to guess what? Enjoy your own tithes. Like you were paying for the priest to upkeep the temple, or you were bringing them food, not paying, but you were bringing them food so they could eat it when they, when they've, there's a big one volunteered at the temple. So any pastor who says you, you know, they paid a Levitical tithe back in the day and you should pay us 10% because they paid the Levites 10%. 0 (19m 7s): Those Levites were volunteering. They weren't taking their salary 1 (19m 10s): Or a house stipend. 0 (19m 11s): Yeah. Or a housing stipend, or they weren't getting their cell phone paid for, or their car paid for. It's like, so that's what's crazy is when we look at the Bible and try to just map it over modern culture, that's when we have these weird collisions. But when you look at it in, in its proper place in history, and you try to dissect the beauty of the culture and then you can say, okay, what kind, what big like ethos structures of that mosaic covenant should pull through? Then you kind of pull the beauty outta that as opposed to getting dogmatic in, you know, stuck in your ways and stuck in these ah, 10%, you know, tithes. And it's, it is just, it's wild. 1 (19m 51s): Yeah. You see that a lot with things that used to be legal and now they're kind of being claimed as religious. So what I didn't know, I was started reading this book, it's called The Killing of the Witches, and it's really, really good. I it, I'm doing the audio book so it's like extra juicy, but it's basically how America was founded in the Puritans. And it was saying that, wait, 0 (20m 9s): You're doing the, like you're reading the audio book? No, I'm 1 (20m 10s): Not reading it. Oh. Oh no. Like no, that sounds confusing. I'm listening to the audio book. Okay. But I wish I was, that'd be kind of cool. But it, when the Puritans came here that there were only two, two religious, I guess acts you could say. And it was baptism and commun communion. That was it. And then all like marriage was 100% legal. It had nothing to do with the church. And then what I was always told I was raised Catholic was that that was entirely religious and that was like the whole thing when people were trying to create, you know, equal rights for gay people to get married, they're like, well this is a religious thing and God says man and woman. And I always thought that, but it turns out it wasn't religious. That was actually kind of new. It was always legal. That was a state ceremony that was never religious ceremony. 0 (20m 52s): Correct. Well, a a funny thing is the, the idea of tithing is not strictly Jewish and Christian. I didn't know that most cultures in those regions tithe you could be polytheistic and you'd still tithe. Hmm. There was a, there was a culture in Egypt at the same exact time. And if they, if they had to tithe, which remember just means a 10th, so they had to tithe 10% of their crops to their God every, every year. And then if they didn't have to trench in water, but rains fell to water it, they'd have to double tithe. So they'd have to give 20%. So tithing is not Jewish per se, or Christian per se. It's just, it was a, it was a cultural act, like an offering that was happening around all of Palestine, that whole region. 0 (21m 39s): So when people are like, oh, tithing's Christian, it's like, not it, it's not like you Yeah, it came from this, this mosaic covenant, but there's tons of cultures doing it. So Yeah. Christianity's kind of just taken a few things and ran one ran with it. Yeah. Well, but that's the thing is when you start exploring this as, as in the beauty and intricacy of it, I always say like, my faith has never been stronger. It's definitely my own now, but it's, it's never been stronger because I, for the Show in particular, I had to explore all of this. Yeah. So, and I've seen it with you too. Yeah, 2 (22m 12s): No, it's been quite, quite quite the transformation. But like you, you mentioned something earlier that was really cool. It's like if you're not afraid of what's in there, if you go from an angle of that, like if I read something in here, it's gonna change my life so much. Like, like not being scared of what, of what you're learning. Well 0 (22m 29s): And map that over to the Show. Right. This is where w gets cool. Okay. If our viewers aren't scared of the data we're presenting and they're like, and, and this is how the Show opens with Tom Price, who's a philosopher and theologian out of Oxford in England, is he's like, you gotta take off your biased glasses, so to speak and put 'em on the table and you need to watch the Show and learn all this. And at the end of it, you're gonna put your glasses on and hopefully the prescription's wrong and you gotta pop those lenses out and put revised better lenses in. Mm. And it's like, we don't need to fear the data and fear the details 'cause we're not questioning your faith. We're not questioning Christ, we're not trying to tear down your belief structures. Hopefully we can encourage faith a little bit, but the goal is to say, Hey, you guys give so generously and you're like, Christian, Christian Americans are the most generous people in the world. 0 (23m 19s): So it's like, instead of just giving haphazardly give with purpose and focus and you guys could change the world like overnight. Yeah. That's what's so cool with those 1 (23m 30s): Numbers. Absolutely. 0 (23m 31s): Yeah. 2 (23m 32s): Yeah. Absolutely. And and the, the whole thing with the, with the numbers and I I mentioned this earlier is like, I'm, I'm even questioning when people say we could solve world hunger for 40 billion or we can solve the top 10 global issues for X billion. It's, I mean, I even, I'm even questioning those because are those even like transparent figures? How much of that, how much per dollar actually goes to impact? So it's like questioning everything versus being told what you need to do or feel manipulated that you're not a good person if you don't do it and ask questions. And that was really cool what you said about the, the, the German pastor. But he's like, why are, is everyone shaking their head at me? 2 (24m 14s): You should question everything I say. Yeah. 1 (24m 16s): Well that goes back to the madness of crowds, which was also on your, your list. But literally your, your neuropsychology and chemistry changes once you're in a group of people. So you have these people that are fainting and it's not that they're not Yeah. Truly thinking that that's what's happening. But you're kind of being reinforced with this kind of group psychosis or placebo effect. And you have these poor people that are giving a lot of money to be healed or like, God forbid a sick child. Yeah. And you have the church taking it. And then the, there was this one, I, it was awful. This little boy ended up dying and the parents had come over from India and they donated all of this money and they, there was like this investigative journalist I was asking like, well, are you disappointed in the pastor? 1 (24m 59s): They're like, no, no, no. It was, it was my own fault and it was my karma. And it was, it goes for three linea lineages and that's why. So it was really my fault. I didn't believe enough or wow. You know, it was like this karmic resonance as to why it happened. And she goes, well where did you learn that? And she goes, he goes, the pastor. Yeah. At what point is it not fraud though? So again, it's like, it, it's not entirely like it's a reservation where they're not accountable at all to the government. Like, does that qualify as fraud? Because you're promising something that, you know, you can't deliver, you know, you can't deliver that. 0 (25m 32s): Well, that's the danger of religion, I think organized religion and there's a big danger to it. Like, to your point about the LD s Church and you know, you said put your tinfoil hat on. I don't think it's too farfetched to put that tinfoil hat on to be honest. If the, if the regulations don't change or if a ex, so we, I I, I've come to the conclusion there's only two solutions to the this problem. 'cause the nonprofit space has so much capital flushing through it and there's so much fraud and, and embezzlement and abuse to the system now that Philip Hackney, the former chief council of the IRS says it's gonna buckle. Mm. He's like, there's just so much abuse and the government has no control over it. Like, there's just no way to wrangle it. And so he is like, it's gonna buckle in some, you know, like any, like when you burn something down, things grow through the ashes, but it's like, do you want it to buckle or is there enough time to kind of push the brakes and say, Hey, there's solutions, but they can either be governmental or, or internal. 0 (26m 29s): And so that we're hoping that our, our solution, it's not the perfect solution, but it's gonna be a solution. And hopefully it brings enough accountability in that it, it kind of helps Right. The abuse in the system. And but to, to go back to that, you know, the LD s Church just think if they continue to buy up land and their, their investment fund is so big now, and I'm gonna spoil a, a big thing in the Show here. Their investment fund is so big and they make so much pro in interest on the investment that they would never have to take a dollar in again from tithe a dollar. And only part of the interest they make on their money would fund the global church. 0 (27m 13s): Wow. So let that sink in. They have 160 billion in cash. They make about 14 on average, between 10 and 14 billion a year in interest. The operations of their global church is 6.5 ish billion. So no one, no more no LD s Church. I'm not dis I'm or congregant, I'm not knocking your faith. I'm saying you could never give a dollar again and your church would thrive, flourish and thrive. But they still say, give us your 10%. And so it's, it, it's, that's so backwards that I can't, I can't So talk about abuse. It's like they've created such a machine that the machine just eats up everything. 1 (27m 52s): Yeah, I like that you guys are looking at technology and kind of more of the private and internal accountability versus government. 'cause I totally agree. Government messes most things up. Yeah. It would be kind of cool to see it kind of ran like a dao essentially. So you had like the congregation that had full visibility of everything and then also maybe like voting rights over where the resources are going and 0 (28m 14s): Well we call 'em. So, you know, a for-profit company or a publicly traded company is shareholders, you know, but nonprofits, we, we like to say they have stakeholders. So the stakeholders are the donors and those donors aren't tied into profits on the backend, but they're tied into the mission and direction of the organization. So those stakeholders have vested interest in the success of the mission. There you go. And it's like they, there should be voting rights and, and, and a lot of denominations do do that. Okay. And that's the sad part is denominations are dying and hemorrhaging members, but the non-denominational, non non-denominational spaces skyrocketing. And why is that? They got good music. They're putting on performances. 0 (28m 54s): They have Santa Claus flying in a sleigh overhead. You know, their, their children's care is like the best in the US and, and you know, they have good donuts and coffee and, you know, it's, it's become a show. And so naturally of course the the American consumer will go there, but it's like at what cost? 2 (29m 14s): I mean so much of it's Yeah. Like the production of It's astonishing. Yeah. 1 (29m 19s): It's, and if that's what you don't wanna do, I mean great, that music is super catchy. Great for sure. Like fireworks and light show all for it. But I think if you're going to do that, you have to be honest about what you're doing and it's a production, it's not a church. Yeah. And just pay the taxes like everyone else does and then we'll leave you alone. Yeah. But I think it's like the, just like the blatant dishonesty about all of it, that to me is the most irritating part. 'cause I don't care how, you know, intense. You wanna make your show by all means, go for it. But just pay your taxes then. 0 (29m 46s): Yeah. The sad part with the tough part is, you know, like we said, that church is really hard to define. So in the 1970s, they brought in these things, which Chris touched on associations or auxiliaries or conventions of churches. So now churches are absorbing nonprofits, secular nonprofits. And as they absorb these nonprofits, they flip 'em and register 'em as churches. And so once they register 'em as a church, that nonprofit no longer has to file a nine 90. And so you have churches buying out radio stations, TV networks. So they're literally conglomerates now scooping up these different entities, bringing them under their banner, and then none of them have to file tax or nine 90 with the IRS. And so now I can say my church, let's call it microphone church. 0 (30m 29s): I acquired Chris's table, table nonprofit. So I'm gonna bring his nonprofit under my fold and then I'm also gonna acquire your podcast 'cause it's so great. Right? So now all of us are churches and I want to tell my people that are giving to me, I wanna be able to say, I give 30% of my money away, so I'm gonna give 15% to Chris, 15 to you. And I say, I gave, we gave 30% away. Yeah. All it did was transfer to my other bank accounts. Yeah, 2 (30m 53s): Yeah. 1 (30m 53s): No way. 0 (30m 54s): That's what's happening. 1 (30m 55s): So, and also another alternative is just get rid of taxes for everyone else. Then 0 (31m 0s): I think as a guy, hey, I, you know what I mean, 1 (31m 2s): I'm, I'm for that solution. So you guys do it. I just wanna be able to do it too. Yeah. You know what I 2 (31m 6s): Mean? Yeah. I just think if there was a better balance between the nonprofits trying to solve the world's problems and the government trying to be the world police and there was a better balance there. I I, I, I, it's just, yeah, it's like government is trying to do everything they possibly can in the world. And it's like, come on. Like we've got people dying, people homeless people starving, people sick, and we're worried about every, everything else. And then you've got the nonprofits who could do something about it. 0 (31m 39s): But it goes back to social capital, right? It's, it's like, yeah, we need to the church, us as individuals, the government needs to focus on their social community. And if we, if we got back to that, I feel a lot of these problems would shake themselves out. It's like if the church focused on the 200 people in their congregate and their 10 mile radius, that would build that community up and ins, instead of focusing on the global, I, I wanna, I want, we wanna be big on social media and we wanna have 5,000 people watching our live streams. And we wanna do not focus on your community, just like the nonprofit focus on your community. Hey, US government, maybe focus on your social capital, which is the us you know, and if we went back to those communities, I think a lot of these big, the big fraud and abuse and environment would kind of just disappear. 0 (32m 24s): But who knows? 2 (32m 25s): And I, I believe that this, that this show that will be coming out at the end of the year is going to be the, the beginning of that turning point. And then the solution that we're creating is gonna evolve over just gonna be multiple versions of it over the years and partnering up with the community on it that we're, Nathan said something, it was like, Hey, like when, when originally when Jesus was on, on earth, right? Like his teaching was right here. And then over the time, you know, you had Paul and then you had everybody else. And then somehow we got like way over here and it's to turn what you use the river, the river flowing, right? 2 (33m 6s): Yeah. To turn, to start to get the river, the water to start flowing back the, the other way. And so I think that the education aspect of it and what we're doing's gonna be the start of that. And that's, that's exciting. Yeah. 0 (33m 17s): And again, we're not like, I wanna encourage faith, I wanna encourage your spiritual walk. Yeah. I wanna encourage yours my own, like, it's like, I feel like that's where we come alive and become good community members when we realize life's bigger than ourselves. But it's like at the same time we're gonna be pointing out very specific problems. And it all goes back to the legal tax code and guidelines. And so you can't hate on us for doing that. It's like, you know, every system needs reform. And I think that's a big note is government has to reform over and over, you know, like all school systems, hospitals, we always have to reform. 'cause if we're not reforming, we're gonna end up just becoming like the Vatican, which is now like a, you can walk through it and pay your fee and see their beautiful paintings and you leave, you know, that system's crumbling. 0 (34m 2s): And so if the, if the religious and non-profit sector does not reform, it's gonna crumble. I 2 (34m 7s): The just when I, when I see how expensive structures are in the religious world, I just shake my head. I mean, so much money goes to those like the temples. Right. Do you have any, like, any good, any good numbers or data on that? 0 (34m 22s): I think the Mormon church spent a billion on their temple in Rome. 1 (34m 26s): That's so surprising. 'cause when I think Mormon, I just think like a buggy and minimalism and 2 (34m 32s): You like a young, a young man on a mission Yeah. Dressed a certain way, knocking on doors on a bike. 1 (34m 37s): Simple guy. Yeah. Yeah. That's not, I would never have guessed that. Yeah. 0 (34m 41s): Yeah. Well, because they, they're actually like, I live in Utah. They're amazing people. Absolutely. And it's, it's, but the machine. Yeah. You know, when you have a, when you, if you're a for-profit company, you have to work for your profit. You have to sell a good profit because if someone outpaces you or outsells you, you die on the vine. But if you have a built-in revenue stream that you can forecast year over year, and as long as you don't change your model up, that revenue stream is consistent, what are you gonna naturally do? Like, you're just gonna build thicker walls, thicker insulation. You're gonna just create a machine that's impenetrable. And that's what the LD s Church has done is it's just a it's a, yeah. 0 (35m 23s): And I'm not, I look it, I I am not just knocking the LD s Church all, like when you look at the Vatican and, and why Martin Luther in the 15 hundreds demanded reform and he nailed those 95 theses to, to the wall of, of the cathedral. He, he was so angry with how the church was extracting money out of people. Like most of his theses, most of his 95 theses are about indulgences. And, and he, his my favorite indulgences, if you or or these or not theses, I think it's number 44 or 45, is he goes, if you are walking to your church or your temple or your, or your cathedral to buy an indulgence and you step over someone in need, you are going to incur the wrath of God. 0 (36m 9s): Wow. And it was so powerful because it's like, you, you're like, oh man, does this map back to the Bible? Yep. It checks out. You know, and, and so when you, when you look at why he was so angry, he was angry that the pope was building a Vatican in the basilica off the back of poor Germans money. So there's a great line that, that Martin Luther says. He goes, I can see them in Rome now drinking their fine Italian wines, laughing about all the stupid beer drinking Germans whose money's paid for it all. That's what, that's what Martin Luther says in one of his, in one of his writings. Wow. And so you map that idea over to the states and it's like the same thing when you, when you drive through Texas, what are the two biggest institutions you see? 0 (36m 52s): Churches and hospitals. It's like we've officially built an institution. And so I always say there was one Vatican and we had to tear that down. You had the Protestant Reformation. Well now we got 400,000 little mini Vaticans all over the US with the same business model as the Vatican. They're just small. You know, some might have 50 people, some might have 50,000, but they're just mini Vaticans where one person or a couple people control the strings of everybody's purses and wallets. So 4 (37m 21s): What's gonna happen with all the farmland? I 0 (37m 23s): Know. 1 (37m 23s): Lay out that one. 0 (37m 25s): I really wanna put a tin hat on. Do you got one? No, 1 (37m 27s): For sure. I hope I had this one, this girlfriend, she has like a crypto podcast, but she has a, a tinfoil crown. Nice. And she just puts it on when she goes like, anti-establishment. That's amazing. I need to get one of those. 2 (37m 39s): I didn't know. I didn't, I didn't know what that, what that meant when you initially said it. Oh, 1 (37m 42s): Tinfoil had, yeah. Oh yeah. It's just 'cause like it's people that are scared that they're being watched and radiation and all of the things. But honestly, most of the things that you say before you say, let me put my hat on, you get, it's like the Alex Jones thing. It's like, well how often is he? Right. It's usually like 86%. It's pretty 0 (37m 58s): Good. Yeah, for sure. Definitely. So I want to tell here about your, your your, like your spiritual journey. Like what, what, where, how, where did you come from? 1 (38m 7s): How did so all over the place? So Jewish by blood. Okay. My grandfather actually like, survived a camp. My mom decided to raise us Catholic. I don't know why. I guess her family was, and she said she wanted me to choose, but I didn't find out I was Jewish until I was an adult. So it was like, you didn't really give me a choice. And then my grandmother's Buddhist, 'cause my, my dad's side's Japanese. So like all of the things. So I've been presented so many different ways to look at God and spirituality and morality. And I feel like there's this myth that it's a one size fits all with all of the above. That morality even is universal. And it's obviously not true. I think it was Jamie Wheel, and I don't know if it was in his book Recapture the Rapture or if it was at a talk I went to, but he's like, just to prove that morality, like is a range. 1 (38m 54s): We say eating people is wrong. Right? Cannibalism is wrong. Well they're, that is alive and well in some parts of the world. And it is actually a part of like that person moving on to the next world. Obviously I don't agree, not at all. But I'd have to argue with someone else who says that I'm the crazy person. So I don't think, again, when it goes back to there's this one way to do it, that never really resonated with me. And I also am not the type of person to be told what to do. So the minute that you're like, this is what you're doing, I'm like, well, I'm gonna go over here and do so thing. So sometimes that's good. Sometimes it's kind of like bit me in the butt. Yeah. But yeah. All over. What about you guys? 0 (39m 27s): I, 1 (39m 28s): Spiritual journey? 2 (39m 30s): Yeah. I, I was raised, I was raised Catholic. I mean, my dad's from Lebanon, my mom's from Puerto Rico. And my dad was raised pretty much like in the orthodox type type church. And my mom, my mom was raised Catholic, then her family converted to like Protestant and I, I went to Catholic school growing up. And then I've just kind of like, I'm doing a ton of research on my, on my own right now and everything. And yeah, it's been, it's, it's been quite, quite, quite an eye-opening journey for me personally. Mm. 0 (40m 3s): Yeah. I was raising like, the standard quintessential megachurch, you know, my dad was the, the flying angel at Christmas. No way. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I sang in choir. I like kissed my first girl hiding in the pulpit. So like, we would always go to choir. So we sang like we, I was at church maybe four to five days a week. My parents were in choir. I sang in choir, we did AANAs. And so I kissed my first girl in the pulpit on the main stage, like, 'cause no one was in there. And we like snuck up there. We're sitting there, you know, so, but yeah, CC Christianity's in my blood. My brothers volunteer at their churches. And my brother-in-law was a, a full-time pastor. My uncle's a mission a 32 year missionary Kiev. And so like, it's in my blood, but my brother-in-law, who was a full-time pastor one night, we were just sitting around, he is like, Hey, I think I've, I've, I understand Paul in those early writings now. 0 (40m 57s): And he is like, I'm about to preach myself out of a job. And I was like, what do you mean? And he is like, I'm, I understand Paul now and I understand like the message of Christ and I I'm gonna preach myself out of a job. And he did, he quit his full-time pastorship and he got a job at Trader Joe's and started a home church. And yeah, it's like when you really look at the, the New Testament in that message of Christ, and then you walk into Joel Osteen's church, or you walk into even small churches, once you watch our show, you're gonna be like, I see the, I see how all of this, all of this, the building, the children's care, the that writing on the wall, everything is tied back to that 14 point checklist from the IRS everything. And so when you look at churches now, you go, this is a byproduct of US tax law. 0 (41m 43s): That's it. So this isn't the church, I don't know what this is. It's, it's not a church. It's not the original church. And when you, when you're able to swallow that pill, then that belief structure moves to faith. And you're like, okay, like let's turn on, let's turn on our adventure hat and you know, then it gets fun. Yeah. 2 (42m 1s): So go back to the, we were, we were talking earlier about like, when you go back to the source of Christianity, Jesus, and what was the definition of church and kind of what it, like, talk a little bit about what, what it's evolved to today. 0 (42m 16s): Yeah. So the original Greek term is ec. So if, if, if those words in the New Testament were actually Christ words, you know, and Christians believe they are, then he used the term Ecclesia to define his body in ec. And Greek literally translates to gathering. So if you were at the Coliseum and you went to the coliseum to watch some gladiators fight back in the day, you're like, I'm going to the ecla, I'm gathering at the Eccle like we're gathering here. And so it's just people coming together. It's not the physical location, it's nothing. Hmm. So if you, if you take Christ, 'cause if you're a professed Christian, you're gonna want to go back to his words. Right. That you, you wanna know your savior's words. That's it. You don't care what the pastor on stage is saying. 0 (42m 56s): It might sound nice, but you wanna know what he's ac what Christ actually said. So he said, you are my ec Isaiah, don't forsake the eccle Isaiah, don't forsake the gathering, the coming together of Christians and breaking bread and doing communion and, and, and encouraging and exhorting one each other one another. That's church encouragement and exhort. That's it. So, okay. If that's the church, if the real church, if the, and I, I would consider this right now church. Then what the three of us are doing is we're having, we're we're, we're gathering for church right now. 'cause we're talking about faith and spirituality. So if this is church, what is this table? What is the tv? What is, if you go to a bigger church, what is that worship band? 0 (43m 37s): What is the coffee bar? What is the parking, what is the landscaping? What is the childcare? What is the donuts? What is the, and you just keep stacking all that up. All of that is just cultural things we've built on top of the church. So, and this is the problem in America, in the world right now is we've lumped the two together. And so we can't, when you walk into a mega church, most people can't call the building what it is because they've lost the definition. And pastors have lost the definition too. So in our show, we've gotta rip all that cultural stuff off and we've gotta set 'em side by side. And once we're able to define Christ's real church, you can look at all this for what it is. And it's a business. 0 (44m 18s): It's a nonprofit business, but it's a business. And so who, what do you do with businesses? You gotta regulate 'em. Because if you don't regulate 'em, humans are gonna hear it. And so who wants to regulate this? The body, this gathering wants to regulate that. And once you're able to break those apart and you're able to say, Hey, the body needs to regulate this, this institution that we've built, this is where it gets fun. The biggest financial asset of Christians in, of Christianity in America is their real estate. Their real estate sits empty and unused 96% of the time. So if you see this as a business, you go, whoa, what a waste of business assets. Why don't we figure out how to utilize the business more? 0 (44m 59s): Why don't we figure out how to utilize the property? And here's what I love. Christians love to scream about abortion, right? And so, okay, instead of screaming about abortion, you know that $3 million children's care facility that you have open one day a week? Mm. Why don't you open it to single moms seven days a week? 1 (45m 15s): Whoa. Yeah. 0 (45m 16s): Why don't you start utilizing your assets as a business and milking those assets to the bone? Then Christians would look at Joel Lows and be like, Hey, screw your carpet, man. Bring these people in here. Let's use this building. It's an asset. And so that's where it gets 1 (45m 30s): Fun. I'm surprised that they didn't do it anyways though, because it's the whole point of giving and charity. And so it's, it's just carpet. 0 (45m 37s): It's a material thing. But I'll actually push back. Would a TV station want you to dirty their carpet? Well, 1 (45m 41s): For sure, definitely not. But the mattress got, what was his mattress? Match mattress Mac. Yeah. I mean that gentleman did, he didn't give a shit. Yeah. He 2 (45m 49s): Is a for profit, like his building and that he uses to generate profit and the actual products he sells had people who were, who became homeless, sleeping on what he sells. Wow. 0 (46m 2s): But you know, it goes back to the, like, ironically, the moral integrity of people, right. Americans need to grow spines again, you know, and we, and we can do that. We can grow spines and do it intelligently and articulately. You know, we're not barbarians with clubs running around anymore. It's like we can have civil conversations and talk. And that's the thing. I think that's, I think our silver lining might be that we're not bashing religion. Right. You know, or faith. It's like we're just saying, hey, you can utilize your resources. Right. Much better. 1 (46m 33s): Yeah. One of my friends was saying, principals aren't principles if they kind of crumble under any kind of pressure. And I think that's so true. So it's really easy to say that lying is wrong, stealing is wrong. Taking advantage, fraud, manipulation, all of these things. But then if you get really put to the task, you're like, well, I don't wanna lose my space in the community. I don't want my kids to get berated. I don't wanna lose my account. Whatever it is. Well that's not really a principle then. Yeah, yeah. 0 (46m 57s): It's very well said. Yeah. So we'll see. We'll come back in a year and, you know, see how everything's, see how the dust is settled after the Show and the app launches. Yeah. 1 (47m 5s): No, I wish you guys all the, all the best with everything. Can you tell people how they can support you timelines anywhere to find you all that good stuff? Like plug away? Yeah. 2 (47m 14s): The biggest way to support us is, so there's a few different ways. If you're a, a church, a nonprofit and want to, and want to connect and talk, talk about like the the solution side of things, please DM us. Best way to get ahold of us is, is on Instagram. Since we got permanently banned from TikTok and just d DM us, I would also the religion business website. And the biggest thing is, is we need help spread, spread in the word, like share, repost the content and get involved, get engaged in the dialogue and conversation. 'cause we're really trying to build a community that's a safe place for people to, to talk about this. 2 (47m 55s): And you don't have to agree with us, it's fine. Disagree with us all you want, but like, let's have the discussion. It's another thing. People are really afraid to talk. Like if there's a perceived disagreement, like, we're not gonna get along, we're gonna hate each other. It's like, come on, grow 0 (48m 10s): Up. Well just don't, don't revert to name calling. Yeah. You know, and I I I would just say if there's like, again, our biggest need is awareness. And so like, coming on your podcast, which is gonna become a church by the way, coming outta your podcast is huge. So if there's other podcasts that, that have reached that are interested in this subject, we would love to come on and talk. Yeah. It's, it's like we are trying to create a conversation and basically prep, prep the community in the nation for what's coming down the pipeline. Which it's, you know, it's gonna be a big, it's gonna be a big conversation. And so our goal is just awareness. 2 (48m 47s): Spread the word. 'cause we've been throttled. Yeah. I mean we obviously, I mentioned multiple times we got permanent bank, bank from TikTok. But even just on other social media platforms, our stuff will get reposted 800 to a thousand times and like less than 2% of non followers will actually get to see it. Yeah. It's like how did, how does that work? 1 (49m 9s): Yeah. And you're preaching the choir there. Yeah, I'm in the same boat. Yeah. Yeah. The same exact boat. It's frustrating. 0 (49m 14s): So, yeah. Yeah. I don't want, nevermind I'm not gonna go down that I don't, I don't want, I don't want, I don't wanna 2 (49m 19s): You might Yeah. Make it worse. Banned from 0 (49m 21s): That, from worse. From the only 2 (49m 22s): Ones we have left. Talk about 1 (49m 24s): We love you, mark. Yeah. Don't take our accounts. He's 2 (49m 28s): A jujitsu guy. Yeah, 1 (49m 29s): He is. Yeah. Yeah. I was waiting for that fight to actually happen, but I don't know if it's going to, I think the world was waiting. I would lot, oh, that 0 (49m 34s): Would've been 1 (49m 35s): Awesome at the Coliseum, the whole thing. Yeah. Yeah. Give the people what 2 (49m 39s): El lot, Elon's a lot bigger than Mark, but Mark's, Mark's younger, more nimble 1 (49m 43s): And put in the, this, well, I don't know if Elon's ever trained, right? Like he's new to 2 (49m 47s): It. He, he used to do some judo, but like, they have two totally different approaches to, to life. I mean, Elon works I 18 hours a day. He runs so many businesses and he's so heavily involved with 'em. Not to say Zuckerberg doesn't work, but like Zuckerberg has a lot more free, like part of his work is him doing his juujitsu, right? Like that's part of his brand, you know, whereas Elon puts a lot of time in his brand and a lot of what he, content that he puts out and posts that he puts out. So yeah, that would've been, yeah, that'd be, that'd be hilarious to watch. 1 (50m 24s): Well, this has been awesome guys. I'll make sure I link everything below so that everyone can find you and yeah. Luck. 0 (50m 29s): Thank you very much. Luck luck. This was awesome. Luck. Thank you, 2 (50m 31s): Candace. 1 (50m 32s): Yeah. Bye everybody. See 0 (50m 33s): You guys.