# A War Story About Love

An episode of [TheThinkingAtheist](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/412308695), 30 Dec 2025, 1 h 00 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/mgln.ai/e/711/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/68847200/podcast848_warstoryaboutlove.mp3

Do you believe in Christmas miracles? Seth Andrews ties a true event from the early 20th Century to the critical challenges of today. This presentation will (hopefully) leave you entertained and encouraged. VIDEO of the speech. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/thethinkingatheist--3270347/support.

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: Understand the thinking atheist. It's not a person, it's a symbol,
[0:09] Speaker 1: an idea.
[0:10] Speaker 2: The population of atheists this country is going through.
[0:13] Speaker 1: The rule, rejecting faith, pursuing knowledge, challenging the sacred. If
[0:18] Speaker 1: I tell the truth, it's because I tell the truth,
[0:22] Speaker 1: not because.
[0:22] Speaker 2: I put my hand on a book and made a.
[0:24] Speaker 1: Wish and working together for a more rational world.
[0:29] Speaker 2: Take the risk of thinking. Feel so much more happiness.
[0:32] Speaker 3: Truth, Fusian wisdom will come to you that way.
[0:35] Speaker 1: Assume nothing, question everything, and start thinking. This is the
[0:43] Speaker 1: Thinking Atheist podcast hosted by Seth Andrews.
[0:56] Speaker 3: You can almost always tell about my headspace, my frame
[0:59] Speaker 3: of MI based on the tone of the speeches that
[1:02] Speaker 3: I give from the stage. I mean, just scroll back
[1:05] Speaker 3: through a fifteen year archive of I don't know how
[1:07] Speaker 3: many presentations. And sometimes I'm hopeful and sometimes I'm cynical.
[1:13] Speaker 3: Sometimes I'm optimistic, and sometimes I'm pessimistic and sometimes both.
[1:19] Speaker 3: And I think that probably best describes what you're about
[1:22] Speaker 3: to hear. But it's appropriate to the Christmas holiday. There's
[1:25] Speaker 3: kind of a Christmas theme embedded. There is a video
[1:28] Speaker 3: version of this that has about one hundred and ten
[1:32] Speaker 3: slides or more. You can go back and watch it
[1:34] Speaker 3: the YouTube link in the description box, but it plays
[1:38] Speaker 3: just fine as audio, so you can listen and watch
[1:41] Speaker 3: and do whatever. And I hope you walk away from
[1:45] Speaker 3: this somewhat encouraged and maybe even inspired. Recorded October twenty
[1:52] Speaker 3: fifth in Albuquerque for the Humanist Society of New Mexico,
[1:55] Speaker 3: my presentation A War Story about Love. I'm so glad
[2:10] Speaker 3: you're here today, and I thank you. It's an honor
[2:13] Speaker 3: to be in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Pretty country in the
[2:16] Speaker 3: month of October, gorgeous. We went up the tram yesterday,
[2:23] Speaker 3: you know, totally tourist thing to do, and I asked
[2:28] Speaker 3: the worker there, I said, does anyone ever freak out,
[2:32] Speaker 3: hit the deck or lose their minds?
[2:33] Speaker 2: And they said all the time.
[2:37] Speaker 3: Apparently someone went all the way to the top and
[2:39] Speaker 3: was so traumatized that they walked the trail all the
[2:43] Speaker 3: way down the mountain. But I was talking to Paul,
[2:46] Speaker 3: and he said, you know, like a couple of decades ago,
[2:49] Speaker 3: some people got stranded on the tram. This is a
[2:53] Speaker 3: common story for you guys. I'm not telling you anything,
[2:55] Speaker 3: but he had.
[2:56] Speaker 2: Just told me that story.
[2:57] Speaker 3: We were getting ready to board the tram.
[3:01] Speaker 2: And as a joke.
[3:02] Speaker 3: I looked at the strangers around me and I said,
[3:06] Speaker 3: I just want you all to know that if we
[3:08] Speaker 3: get stranded up there, you're welcome to use me as
[3:11] Speaker 3: an alternate food source. And they looked at me so
[3:18] Speaker 3: awkwardly until they laughed. I'm going to tell you a
[3:26] Speaker 3: story today. Many of you have heard it. I don't
[3:29] Speaker 3: know if you've heard it in this way. At the
[3:32] Speaker 3: beginning of the twentieth century, World War One was raging
[3:38] Speaker 3: across Europe's Western and Eastern fronts, Allied forces facing off
[3:42] Speaker 3: against enemy forces and a meat grinder of conflict that
[3:47] Speaker 3: would ultimately end the lives of tens of millions of people. Now,
[3:54] Speaker 3: in the context of the battlefield, we understand why fighting
[3:58] Speaker 3: forces need a authorady figures. They need commanders, admirals, generals, sergeants.
[4:04] Speaker 3: If there weren't firm directives given by directors, you know,
[4:08] Speaker 3: there weren't chains of command, it would be chaos. But
[4:13] Speaker 3: on one cold December night in nineteen fourteen, miserable soldiers
[4:19] Speaker 3: in opposing trenches stopped listening to authority. Instead, they listened
[4:26] Speaker 3: to each other and to themselves, and this became an
[4:30] Speaker 3: encounter that historians talk about more than one hundred years later.
[4:38] Speaker 3: Is there such a thing as a war story about love?
[4:42] Speaker 3: I think maybe the better word here is empathy. But
[4:46] Speaker 3: I like the way love sounds. I like the way
[4:48] Speaker 3: it rolls off the tongue. So roll with me here,
[4:50] Speaker 3: love empathy. I'm going to interchange those. I was surprised
[4:55] Speaker 3: when I heard this story. Before today is over, you.
[4:58] Speaker 2: Might be surprised as as well.
[5:00] Speaker 3: It might make you think and wonder and perhaps even hope.
[5:05] Speaker 3: And don't we need hope in this day and age.
[5:09] Speaker 3: I recently released a speech about the human tendency to
[5:15] Speaker 3: gravitate to and defer to authority figures, specifically authoritarians, And
[5:22] Speaker 3: I'm interested in how a majority, often representing tens of
[5:26] Speaker 3: millions of human beings, don't realize that they have power,
[5:30] Speaker 3: specifically the power to say no. And man, when we
[5:35] Speaker 3: surrender that power, don't horrible things go down?
[5:39] Speaker 2: Right?
[5:41] Speaker 3: The late British philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote these words back
[5:45] Speaker 3: in nineteen oh three. He said, if power is bad
[5:48] Speaker 3: as it seems to be, let us reject it from
[5:50] Speaker 3: our hearts. In this lies man's true freedom and determination
[5:55] Speaker 3: to worship only the God created.
[5:58] Speaker 2: By our own love of the good.
[6:02] Speaker 3: Now, before I get to my war story about love,
[6:06] Speaker 3: let me cover some familiar territory. In my last presentation,
[6:11] Speaker 3: I was talking about the authoritarian Benito Mussolini. He engaged
[6:14] Speaker 3: in his own power grab back in nineteen twenty two.
[6:18] Speaker 3: He was imposing, he was charismatic, and he established a
[6:22] Speaker 3: new political entity, the fasci italianid Combetimento, the Italian fighting bands.
[6:30] Speaker 3: Of course, Fasci is drawn from the word fascio. That's
[6:33] Speaker 3: where we get the term fascism, the ancient symbol of
[6:38] Speaker 3: authority with an axe that is supported by Styx and
[6:42] Speaker 3: guests who got to be the axe? Mussolini he rose
[6:48] Speaker 3: to power on the platform that he would remove the
[6:51] Speaker 3: undesirables and restore national greatness.
[6:55] Speaker 2: Does that sound familiar?
[6:59] Speaker 3: All he needed was a police state, right, give me
[7:03] Speaker 3: the power to do it, Give me unchecked power, and
[7:08] Speaker 3: I will accomplish this for you. And it would take many,
[7:10] Speaker 3: many years and millions of deaths before the people finally
[7:14] Speaker 3: rose up and shut him down. His authoritarian rule ended
[7:19] Speaker 3: in disgrace, defeat, and eventually his own execution.
[7:24] Speaker 2: But I want to come back to the symbol.
[7:27] Speaker 3: This fascio symbol from ancient times the fortified acts, representing
[7:33] Speaker 3: the authority to rule, reward, and even punish. And this
[7:39] Speaker 3: symbol has been used in various ways throughout the centuries,
[7:42] Speaker 3: with various meanings and interpretations domination, liberation. You might be
[7:49] Speaker 3: surprised to see this symbol on display in our own
[7:53] Speaker 3: House of Representatives. It's funny. I saw the congressional halls
[7:57] Speaker 3: my whole life. I never noticed those, but they're there.
[8:01] Speaker 3: The interpretation is said to represent the power of the
[8:05] Speaker 3: authority of the United States House of Representatives. But there
[8:08] Speaker 3: are important discussions about whether or not this should be
[8:12] Speaker 3: a symbol hanging in our halls of power. How many
[8:16] Speaker 3: deadly actions in our history have been propped up by
[8:20] Speaker 3: the everyday common people for lack of the better way
[8:23] Speaker 3: of saying. For decades, Joseph Stalin reigned terror on his
[8:28] Speaker 3: own people, the Russian people, and he preached about dangerous
[8:33] Speaker 3: and traitorous dissenters, those who hated their country, and he
[8:38] Speaker 3: had them tried and often executed. He was an absolute authority,
[8:45] Speaker 3: and yet over one hundred and eighty million citizens lived
[8:48] Speaker 3: in Russia at that time.
[8:50] Speaker 2: He was just one man.
[8:53] Speaker 3: It's so strange. Kim Il sung, founder of North Korea.
[8:58] Speaker 3: He remains an authority, terry in power even in death.
[9:03] Speaker 3: His dynasty was and is treated as divine. He's a divinity,
[9:08] Speaker 3: He's a god. Watch the citizen's bow. Under these giant
[9:13] Speaker 3: effigies you can see Kim Il sung and Kim Jong Ill.
[9:17] Speaker 3: Notice how towering they are imposing, looming over the tiny
[9:22] Speaker 3: commoners beneath them. This is not an accident. This is messaging.
[9:30] Speaker 3: There is no escaping. They're all seeing eyes. Even on
[9:33] Speaker 3: the walls of private homes. Throughout North Korea, every building
[9:39] Speaker 3: required to display portraits of the Deer Leaders. You must
[9:44] Speaker 3: pay homage to the gods. In fact, there are inspections.
[9:47] Speaker 3: Sometimes people will come into your house and they'll white
[9:50] Speaker 3: glove to make sure that they aren't dusty or askew,
[9:53] Speaker 3: to make sure they're properly displayed to honor the dear leaders.
[9:57] Speaker 3: I think about twenty six million North Koreans who are
[10:01] Speaker 3: right now living in fear for their lives, and I
[10:06] Speaker 3: imagine in my brain what could happen, What might happen
[10:10] Speaker 3: if they all woke from their slumber, or they all
[10:14] Speaker 3: felt that liberation and they could rise up and join
[10:18] Speaker 3: humanity beyond the guard towers and the barbed wire and
[10:22] Speaker 3: the concentration camps. Now, I understand that many of these
[10:25] Speaker 3: people are not given the luxury of being able to
[10:28] Speaker 3: do that because the country has been militarized and it's
[10:33] Speaker 3: a life and death thing. They don't have the billion
[10:37] Speaker 3: dollar weaponry. They don't have the tanks and the soldiers
[10:39] Speaker 3: and the guns and the bullets, and so for them
[10:42] Speaker 3: it's simply not practical. Maybe they're waiting for their moment.
[10:46] Speaker 3: They're an underground of people yearning to be free. I
[10:49] Speaker 3: do understand that. But still I think about people and
[10:52] Speaker 3: their true power in terms of numbers, and what might
[10:56] Speaker 3: happen if all of those millions rose up together at
[11:01] Speaker 3: so I think about these rank and file Russian soldiers
[11:04] Speaker 3: in Ukraine. They don't give a rats ass if Putin
[11:08] Speaker 3: gets more real estate.
[11:10] Speaker 2: Yeah, they don't care. They don't have a dog in
[11:12] Speaker 2: that fight.
[11:12] Speaker 3: I mean, there may be some people who are true believers,
[11:15] Speaker 3: but how many of these people are literally under Putin's gun?
[11:20] Speaker 3: And what if even half of those seven hundred thousand
[11:24] Speaker 3: soldiers in Ukraine bucked the system that threatened to kill
[11:29] Speaker 3: them and the supposed enemy.
[11:31] Speaker 2: What might happen. What if.
[11:36] Speaker 3: Even the over sixty percent of Russian citizens who say
[11:38] Speaker 3: they support Putin's assault on Ukraine admit they don't really
[11:42] Speaker 3: understand what his goals are. Ah, we don't know what
[11:45] Speaker 3: he's trying to accomplish. They're following authority. And imagine if
[11:52] Speaker 3: they put down their national flags and they stopped following
[11:55] Speaker 3: the king and met the men and women and children
[11:59] Speaker 3: being targeted by Russian bullets and bombs by the millions.
[12:03] Speaker 3: I wonder if they could not demand an end.
[12:06] Speaker 2: To the madness. It's a dream.
[12:11] Speaker 3: We know that at least ten thousand Russians in uniform
[12:15] Speaker 3: have tried to desert. The courts in Russia are packed
[12:19] Speaker 3: with a wall cases. Morale on the ground is terrible.
[12:26] Speaker 3: These people feel trapped under one man's rule, one man
[12:31] Speaker 3: supported by the many. Do they understand their true power?
[12:38] Speaker 3: Especially when our favorite stories are stories are rebellion? I mean,
[12:42] Speaker 3: what's the easy one star Wars? Who are the heroes
[12:47] Speaker 3: in Star Wars?
[12:48] Speaker 2: The rebellion?
[12:50] Speaker 3: Who does the emperor want to crush the rebellion?
[12:54] Speaker 2: The rebellion must be crushed.
[12:56] Speaker 3: I don't know why I just gave him that accent,
[12:59] Speaker 3: but I did, because that's what bad guys sound like.
[13:05] Speaker 3: The American perception of evil apparently is slavic or something.
[13:09] Speaker 2: I don't know what that is. Sorry, my fault.
[13:14] Speaker 3: The plucky hero underdogs are rising up against the evil
[13:19] Speaker 3: power of the Emperor. You got to wonder what the
[13:25] Speaker 3: Death Star staffers were saying at the water cooler when
[13:28] Speaker 3: the boss was ranting he's out there torturing and murdering.
[13:33] Speaker 3: You know, the stormtroopers and the people running the Death Star,
[13:37] Speaker 3: They're like, oh God, what are we going to do?
[13:39] Speaker 3: This guy's out of control. I just want to take
[13:41] Speaker 3: my paycheck.
[13:42] Speaker 2: And go, oh my god. I don't know.
[13:43] Speaker 3: I mean, this is not going to come out. Well,
[13:45] Speaker 3: what happens if the rebels fly a ship and blow
[13:48] Speaker 3: up our I don't know what's going to happen. Literally,
[13:50] Speaker 3: I think many may have bowed in fear. They were
[13:53] Speaker 3: just trying to survive. Some shrugged and looked the other way.
[14:01] Speaker 3: Some would rather be a pet than cattle, so they
[14:05] Speaker 3: accepted the leash.
[14:08] Speaker 2: Maybe some were impressed.
[14:10] Speaker 3: You know what, if he's that awesome, if he's that powerful,
[14:12] Speaker 3: good for him. Be strong enough to conquer. That's my
[14:16] Speaker 3: team right there. I'm a winner. At all costs, and
[14:19] Speaker 3: I want to be on the team of the winner.
[14:20] Speaker 3: Maybe they loved it. Social Darwinism, if you will, you know,
[14:25] Speaker 3: if you can be the victor, you deserve the spoils.
[14:28] Speaker 3: We've heard a lot of that kind of messaging today.
[14:30] Speaker 3: The strong must crush the weak. Social Darwinism is a
[14:34] Speaker 3: bad riff on natural selection and survival of the fittest.
[14:38] Speaker 3: The thinking is the week are being filtered out of
[14:41] Speaker 3: the societal gene pool.
[14:44] Speaker 2: The week are a.
[14:45] Speaker 3: Drain, they're a distraction, they're pathetic, and they're pretty much
[14:49] Speaker 3: just in the way. This country has long romanticized figures
[14:57] Speaker 3: like General George Patten.
[14:58] Speaker 2: He kicked ass and he took names. He walked the.
[15:02] Speaker 3: Lines with those ivory handled pistols at each side, you know,
[15:06] Speaker 3: in March of nineteen forty five at the Rhine River
[15:09] Speaker 3: in Germany, he terminated in the water. He was marking territory. Right,
[15:13] Speaker 3: the winners will piss on the losers. Now, given the
[15:18] Speaker 3: Nazi threat and what we had all been through, I'm
[15:21] Speaker 3: not saying this was right or wrong, but Patten proved
[15:24] Speaker 3: problematic as he sort of bravadoed that alpha male persona
[15:30] Speaker 3: compassion consideration empathy. He saw those things as not strength
[15:36] Speaker 3: but weakness. As portrayed in the famous George C. Scott movie,
[15:41] Speaker 3: Patten slapped two shell shocked officers. He did not recognize
[15:47] Speaker 3: or accept that there was such a thing as PTSD
[15:50] Speaker 3: trauma breakdown. What he saw was weakness, losers. Those slaps
[15:56] Speaker 3: cost him a rebuke from President Eisenhower and damaged his career.
[16:00] Speaker 3: But I can think of a whole bunch of people
[16:02] Speaker 3: who admire this kind of thing, right. Suck it up, snowflake.
[16:06] Speaker 3: Be strong, Crush the weak. That's what strength is. That's
[16:10] Speaker 3: what victors do. Many of us had real concerns about
[16:15] Speaker 3: social Darwinism when Trump himself declared only the weak will fail.
[16:23] Speaker 3: Even though I'm not myself a Christian, I have to
[16:25] Speaker 3: wonder how that claim jibs with the best teachings of
[16:29] Speaker 3: Jesus Christ. And I think this is a fair question.
[16:35] Speaker 3: Be devoted to one another in love, Honor one another
[16:37] Speaker 3: above yourselves and everything give thanks God is love. Let
[16:41] Speaker 3: all that you do be done in love. Blessed are
[16:44] Speaker 3: the meek. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted forgiving one another,
[16:50] Speaker 3: Be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger,
[16:56] Speaker 3: and other Bible examples a soft answer turns of way wrath.
[17:00] Speaker 3: Don't take revenge, don't love money, be humble and gentle, don't.
[17:06] Speaker 2: Lie, and on and on and on.
[17:09] Speaker 3: Don't bully, don't lust, don't cheat on your spouse, don't steal.
[17:17] Speaker 3: If we don't lead with love, what might we become?
[17:21] Speaker 3: I think we might become what we have seen much
[17:23] Speaker 3: of our country become a culture of celebrated cruelty, demonstrating
[17:31] Speaker 3: a callous indifference to or pleasure in causing pain and suffering.
[17:39] Speaker 3: Psychologist and journalist Brian Resnik sums it up like this.
[17:42] Speaker 3: He said, dehumanization is a mental loophole that lets us
[17:46] Speaker 3: harm other people. How often have we seen humans dehumanized
[17:53] Speaker 3: to justify their mistreatment? How many authoritarians have sent false
[17:59] Speaker 3: narratives about them and demanded their mistreatment in the eyes
[18:06] Speaker 3: of the dismissive, cold, bigoted, and cruel. Immigrants documented or
[18:11] Speaker 3: otherwise are not human beings, often escaping tremendous suffering, in danger,
[18:17] Speaker 3: just trying to survive. Now they're vilified as parasites, pushers, predators.
[18:26] Speaker 3: Many churches are thankfully an open tent for people of
[18:30] Speaker 3: all orientations, but in fundamentalist circles. Gay people are sodomites,
[18:36] Speaker 3: deemed wicked by both God and men. Trans people have
[18:40] Speaker 3: been a convenient villain of our times. Not good people
[18:44] Speaker 3: who are trying to navigate a complex gender journey with authenticity,
[18:49] Speaker 3: just trying to live their lives in safety. They're called
[18:53] Speaker 3: bathroom stalkers who are hunting our children culture of indifference, fear,
[19:01] Speaker 3: and cruelty. Murdered school children are ignored, while ar fifteens
[19:07] Speaker 3: enjoy protection. The poor are too weak and pathetic to
[19:13] Speaker 3: not be poor. Christian's own Bibles, which say to show
[19:22] Speaker 3: hospitality to the stranger, to give justice to the foreigner,
[19:26] Speaker 3: to act with love, because you never know when you
[19:30] Speaker 3: just might be entertaining angels. Many people hold to those convictions,
[19:35] Speaker 3: but an alarming many do not. Now, you and I
[19:41] Speaker 3: will often usually instinctively favor our in group, our tribe first,
[19:47] Speaker 3: and it's understandable and reasonable. It's a reflection of our
[19:52] Speaker 3: own evolution as the human primate. You favor your in
[19:55] Speaker 3: group while being often distrustful of, or in some ways
[19:59] Speaker 3: law out the out group. Sometimes we destroy the outgroup
[20:04] Speaker 3: right because this evolutionarily meant that we were more likely
[20:09] Speaker 3: to survive and pass on our genes. Primitive at the time,
[20:14] Speaker 3: but effective in groups made us more efficient. We could
[20:20] Speaker 3: procure more, we could grow more, we could accomplish more
[20:23] Speaker 3: potential enemies who might attack us. Not necessarily we didn't
[20:27] Speaker 3: know for sure, but they might be dangerous. They might
[20:29] Speaker 3: attack us well, they might think again before attacking all
[20:34] Speaker 3: of us as a consolidated group. And of course, the
[20:38] Speaker 3: bigger and stronger we were, the more we.
[20:40] Speaker 2: Could use that power for our own benefit.
[20:45] Speaker 3: Tribalism can be a good thing. We're surrounded by it.
[20:51] Speaker 3: One of the more fun examples of sports teams now.
[20:55] Speaker 3: In my home state, a big rivalry used to be
[20:58] Speaker 3: the Oklahoma Universe versus Oklahoma State University. Right, the Red
[21:03] Speaker 3: versus the Orange. These two aren't in the same conference anymore.
[21:09] Speaker 3: So the game, which was called Bedlam. It was so
[21:12] Speaker 3: anticipated we called it the Bedlam Game every year, and
[21:16] Speaker 3: that that showdown was so hotly anticipated, everybody would just
[21:20] Speaker 3: ramp up. The news reports would be all about it.
[21:23] Speaker 3: We'd make jokes about the opponents, we'd gripe about hometown referees,
[21:27] Speaker 3: defend the colors.
[21:28] Speaker 2: We cheer and jeer every play.
[21:31] Speaker 3: Fans were divided into tribe one or tribe two unless
[21:37] Speaker 3: an Oklahoma team played Texas. Oh oh, wait a minute,
[21:44] Speaker 3: Wait a minute. Now it's the Oklahoma tribe versus the
[21:49] Speaker 3: Texas tribe. Oh yeah, two rivals banned together against a
[21:55] Speaker 3: common enemy.
[21:58] Speaker 2: Now I don't.
[21:58] Speaker 3: Follow football watch the Super Bowl for fun, but I mean,
[22:01] Speaker 3: I get it right. We all have our favorite pastimes.
[22:04] Speaker 3: We often cheer our favorite players. Sports I think can
[22:07] Speaker 3: be a nice distraction as much as anything else, you know,
[22:10] Speaker 3: collecting stams, video games, whatever you know. But still it's tribalism.
[22:16] Speaker 3: Sometimes things get so intense. I stumbled upon this two
[22:19] Speaker 3: thousand and seven documentary about this longtime rival between Michigan
[22:23] Speaker 3: and Ohio State.
[22:26] Speaker 2: Those people hate each other. There's a Michigan guy over here.
[22:35] Speaker 3: We're going to need some sort of intervention before it
[22:37] Speaker 3: gets serious. And because of our tribal tendencies, a fan
[22:44] Speaker 3: from either team could watch the same game but walk
[22:47] Speaker 3: away with a totally different perspective, a different experience. They
[22:51] Speaker 3: saw a different game. Interesting psychology. I think how many
[22:58] Speaker 3: times have we heard a music fan say this, you're
[23:00] Speaker 3: being such man. My brand of music's better. Metal is
[23:06] Speaker 3: the best. Nah, No, eighties music's the best. In the
[23:10] Speaker 3: classical country music. We even see subtribes. You know, are
[23:16] Speaker 3: you this decade? Are you soft rock?
[23:18] Speaker 2: Hard rock? You know? Punk rock? Whatever?
[23:24] Speaker 3: Clubs, tribes, cultures, I get it. What do Taylor Swift
[23:29] Speaker 3: fans call themselves Swifties?
[23:32] Speaker 2: Right, they're part of a group.
[23:35] Speaker 3: I actually really admire Taylor Swift and what she's accomplished.
[23:38] Speaker 3: I don't really follow her music, but I get it
[23:40] Speaker 3: in group solidarity that's based on a single rallying point,
[23:44] Speaker 3: a person, genre, whatever. Here's a fun debate. Are you
[23:51] Speaker 3: a DC person or are you a Marvel person?
[23:54] Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah?
[23:56] Speaker 3: And of course some of us are like, well why
[23:57] Speaker 3: not both?
[23:58] Speaker 2: Why is this a contest? I just go where you want,
[24:01] Speaker 2: love what you love. Who cares?
[24:02] Speaker 3: But there are some people, I mean, go on the internet. Really,
[24:05] Speaker 3: it's thunderdome out there. Political parties are all about tribalism,
[24:12] Speaker 3: and I think this is necessary because our political families
[24:16] Speaker 3: should reflect our value, shouldn't they. But we're still grouping
[24:21] Speaker 3: ourselves based on those values. What are nations if not tribes?
[24:27] Speaker 3: Where the home country then there are the other or
[24:31] Speaker 3: away the foreign countries. Sometimes national interest and even national
[24:35] Speaker 3: pride can be great for organization. Safety, community, a feeling
[24:40] Speaker 3: a family to get things done.
[24:42] Speaker 2: But also it can spill.
[24:43] Speaker 3: Into something that is isolating and dehumanizing. Are we thinking
[24:47] Speaker 3: our fellow human beings who happen to live in other places?
[24:51] Speaker 3: Or are we thinking about the inferior other? How often
[24:56] Speaker 3: are national flags more than just benign identify and they
[25:00] Speaker 3: become these sort of sacred totems for tribal loyalty and
[25:05] Speaker 3: claimed territory. They're dividers that keep us far away from
[25:09] Speaker 3: each other. Religions of the world. What are they if
[25:15] Speaker 3: not tribes. Each has their own communities, leaders' ideologies, beliefs,
[25:21] Speaker 3: codes of conduct, whatever. And you can see tribal fragmentation
[25:25] Speaker 3: with each individual religion, and then you can see splinter
[25:30] Speaker 3: tribes within each denominational tribe. The Southern Baptists reject the
[25:34] Speaker 3: American Baptists who separate from the cooperative Baptists to teach
[25:38] Speaker 3: a better doctrine than the independent, free will and Reformed Baptists, etc.
[25:44] Speaker 2: Etc.
[25:44] Speaker 3: Until this one denomination, the Baptist Church becomes a comedy
[25:49] Speaker 3: of splinter cells fighting about doctrinal purity. And don't kid
[25:57] Speaker 3: yourself that atheists are immune from all this stuff. We
[26:02] Speaker 3: as human beings are not above superiority complexes, tribal tendencies,
[26:09] Speaker 3: reductive thinking, and just being awful to people.
[26:12] Speaker 2: We're not immune, We're not above it.
[26:14] Speaker 3: The atheist meme verse is loaded with all kinds of
[26:19] Speaker 3: tragic othering when it comes to Christians, Muslims, people of
[26:24] Speaker 3: the other political party, etc. I'm not making an equivalence argument.
[26:27] Speaker 3: Don't jump out of your chairs at me, but let
[26:29] Speaker 3: me give you a couple of examples. All right, I
[26:32] Speaker 3: saw this one floating around. Sundays are peaceful because the
[26:35] Speaker 3: most evil.
[26:36] Speaker 2: People are at church? Are you kidding me? Really?
[26:44] Speaker 3: Are you kidding me? It's so tragically wrong. It's destructive,
[26:48] Speaker 3: it's unhelpful, it's cruel.
[26:51] Speaker 2: Here's another one. This has been around forever.
[26:54] Speaker 3: Atheist a thoughtful, honest, ethical, intelligent, skeptical thinker.
[26:59] Speaker 2: Oh I wish this was true.
[27:02] Speaker 3: Oh I wish it was true. Atheism the non belief
[27:08] Speaker 3: in gods. I don't buy it. I'm not saying there
[27:12] Speaker 3: is no god, there could never be a god. I'm
[27:14] Speaker 3: not making a declarative statement. It has almost nothing to
[27:17] Speaker 3: do with my value system as a secular humanist. It's
[27:21] Speaker 3: just atheist. I'm atheist. I don't believe in a God.
[27:26] Speaker 3: I have met in my travels flat Earth atheists Chicago, Illinois.
[27:33] Speaker 3: I met a flat I swear my head almost exploded
[27:38] Speaker 3: off of my neck.
[27:38] Speaker 2: I was what.
[27:41] Speaker 3: Anti vaccine atheists, homeopathy using atheists, alien conspiracy atheists. I've
[27:51] Speaker 3: met inhumane, nasty, toxic, tribal atheists who have been saying
[27:56] Speaker 3: horribly incorrect things about anyone and everyone religious. I've heard
[28:05] Speaker 3: some people make this connection. Even casual Christians enable Christian nationalists,
[28:11] Speaker 3: which is often a culture infected with racist crashing the
[28:14] Speaker 3: capital chambers to fortify white power. As such, then Christians,
[28:19] Speaker 3: even the most casual, are Nazis. And this ignores so
[28:26] Speaker 3: many devout Christians who are humanists. We disagree on some theology,
[28:32] Speaker 3: we can have those discussions, but at the end of
[28:34] Speaker 3: the day, it's all about our value system.
[28:36] Speaker 2: What do we care about.
[28:39] Speaker 3: Christians who have joined the fight, standing with us for
[28:43] Speaker 3: democracy and decency. This is my friend Amanda Tyler. She
[28:46] Speaker 3: is the executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee. She
[28:50] Speaker 3: founded Christians Against Christian Nationalism. She fights daily to restore
[28:58] Speaker 3: and protect equality and safety for LGBT people, immigrants, Americans
[29:05] Speaker 3: across the color and culture spectrum. I think she's working
[29:09] Speaker 3: a bit outside the Bible to practice a kind of
[29:12] Speaker 3: evolved personalized faith. Yes, has she had to cherry pick
[29:16] Speaker 3: a few things, Okay, as she jumped over some of
[29:18] Speaker 3: the more inconvenient verses. We can have that conversation and
[29:22] Speaker 3: we have. But more important to me, despite the fact
[29:26] Speaker 3: that she's religious, is that she wants peace, equality, safety, humanity.
[29:30] Speaker 2: I'm in she's my people.
[29:35] Speaker 3: The organization itself, Christians against Christian Nationalism, is remarkable. It's
[29:39] Speaker 3: a remarkably diverse assembly of reverenced pastors, bishops, religious leaders.
[29:46] Speaker 3: These are good people working alongside us to be on
[29:52] Speaker 3: the right side of history when it comes to secular
[29:55] Speaker 3: government and freedom, battling the cancer of cruelty in this
[29:59] Speaker 3: world world Fine, God believers, Okay, your clergy, fine.
[30:07] Speaker 2: But in the overall, in.
[30:09] Speaker 3: This instance, these people and I have much more in
[30:12] Speaker 3: common than we have in disagreement, and I think that's important.
[30:18] Speaker 2: Are they stupid? Are they evil? Are they Nazis?
[30:23] Speaker 3: Are we instead connected by something more important, which is
[30:27] Speaker 3: a shared humanity. This guy's name is Pastor John Pavlovitz.
[30:33] Speaker 3: He's a Christian. Yes, he and I have had disagreements
[30:37] Speaker 3: about his interpretation of the Bible.
[30:40] Speaker 2: We've had our disagreements.
[30:42] Speaker 3: You know, in his world, Jesus would never have condemned homosexuals.
[30:46] Speaker 3: And I'm like, have you read the book of whatever
[30:49] Speaker 3: Old and New Testament? We start actually in Leviticus and
[30:52] Speaker 3: we crawl through the But fine, fine, his Jesus would
[30:56] Speaker 3: not be anything but a god of love.
[30:57] Speaker 2: Okay, I'll take that. I'll take that. He's a humanist. First.
[31:05] Speaker 3: This is doctor Christen Dumain. She's a theology professor, a
[31:10] Speaker 3: devout Christian. She dismantles Christian nationalism. She published a book
[31:15] Speaker 3: called Jesus and John Wayne, How White Evangelicals corrupted a
[31:19] Speaker 3: faith and fractured a nation. She condemns the white evangelical
[31:26] Speaker 3: steamroller that is crushing the United States.
[31:30] Speaker 2: I've interviewed her on the show. She's amazing.
[31:35] Speaker 3: I know some atheists who would immediately see her theology
[31:39] Speaker 3: degree and they would outgroup her without a blink. What
[31:44] Speaker 3: a tragic waste that would be. How often have we
[31:49] Speaker 3: marked the hard lines between us and them when we
[31:53] Speaker 3: might have more in common, more of a shared humanity
[31:56] Speaker 3: than we ever had in a disagreement.
[32:00] Speaker 2: Bibilism it can activate.
[32:01] Speaker 3: The best and sometimes the worst angels of our nature.
[32:05] Speaker 3: You know, that evolutionary leftover which so easily splinters us
[32:10] Speaker 3: and causes us to declare others inhuman, draws us into
[32:18] Speaker 3: a rallying point around maybe a savior figure, a tribal elder.
[32:26] Speaker 3: We draw and redraw our lines of territory. We claim ownership,
[32:31] Speaker 3: sometimes even divine right. Crush the subhumans. They don't deserve
[32:39] Speaker 3: what we're going to get or what we already have.
[32:43] Speaker 3: The humanization, the mental loophole that lets us harm other people.
[32:51] Speaker 3: We see militaries do this with the enemy. It's understandable
[32:55] Speaker 3: why they do. It's shooting, knifing, or bombing an inhuman
[32:59] Speaker 3: thing is a hell of a lot easier than doing
[33:02] Speaker 3: it to a flesh and blood person. I interviewed this guy.
[33:05] Speaker 3: He is a Vietnam veteran, John Musgrave. He was featured
[33:08] Speaker 3: in the Ken Burns documentary, a ten part series about
[33:11] Speaker 3: the Vietnam War, which is fascinating. It is probably the
[33:15] Speaker 3: best layout of that conflict that I have ever seen.
[33:20] Speaker 3: John Musgrave was featured.
[33:22] Speaker 2: He told his.
[33:23] Speaker 3: Story and I reached out to him afterward and I said,
[33:27] Speaker 3: you don't know me from Adam, but would you come
[33:29] Speaker 3: on my show and talk about what happened.
[33:31] Speaker 2: He was horribly wounded. They thought he was going to die.
[33:34] Speaker 3: He did survive, and he became a protester against the
[33:38] Speaker 3: Vietnam War. He was one of those guys at the
[33:41] Speaker 3: beginning he was like, my country right or wrong. And
[33:43] Speaker 3: he became someone who was out there marching saying.
[33:46] Speaker 2: This is unjust.
[33:49] Speaker 3: And he spoke about an instance, an example of something
[33:52] Speaker 3: that happened when he was out in the field before
[33:54] Speaker 3: he was injured. He killed an NVA soldier. He killed
[33:58] Speaker 3: an enemy soldier, and he was right there, so close
[34:02] Speaker 3: to it, and it shook him to his core. It
[34:08] Speaker 3: was so traumatizing. He really couldn't process it. He was
[34:12] Speaker 3: having a hard time dealing with it. It just there's
[34:16] Speaker 3: not language to describe how horribly it affected him. But
[34:22] Speaker 3: after seeing one of his own men step on a
[34:24] Speaker 3: land mine, he made a deal with the devil. His words,
[34:29] Speaker 3: I said, I will never kill another human being as
[34:33] Speaker 3: long as I'm in Vietnam. However, I will waste as
[34:36] Speaker 3: many gooks as I can find. I'll wax as many
[34:39] Speaker 3: dinks as i can find. I'll smoke as many zips
[34:43] Speaker 3: as I can find, but I ain't going to kill anybody.
[34:48] Speaker 3: Turn a subject into an object. It's racism one oh one.
[34:57] Speaker 3: Turn a subject into an object, and it makes them
[35:00] Speaker 3: easier to destroy. Human beings have done.
[35:05] Speaker 2: This to each other since forever.
[35:08] Speaker 3: And why have so many humans on both sides, on
[35:12] Speaker 3: all sides allowed themselves to be pawns in a power
[35:16] Speaker 3: game that's run by a privileged and often corrupt few.
[35:23] Speaker 3: I recently revisited this film two thousand and five movie
[35:26] Speaker 3: called V four. Vendetta was based on a graphic novel
[35:29] Speaker 3: by Alan Moore and David Loy, and the protagonist V
[35:33] Speaker 3: is wearing the guy Fawke's mask. He was horribly abused
[35:36] Speaker 3: and tortured by a fascist regime, and then he rose
[35:40] Speaker 3: up to wage his own personal revolution. And we can
[35:43] Speaker 3: debate the politics of the film, but I'm more interested
[35:47] Speaker 3: in the fascist state that is portrayed in both the
[35:49] Speaker 3: graphic novel and the movie. I remember I watched it
[35:52] Speaker 3: first when I'm still a Christian. I hadn't come out
[35:54] Speaker 3: of the faith yet, and I was somewhat appalled by
[35:58] Speaker 3: the line that was in it. It said people's shouldn't
[36:00] Speaker 3: be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of
[36:03] Speaker 3: their people. And I remember being very uncomfortable with that.
[36:09] Speaker 3: Sounded somehow like a betrayal, very unpatriotic, But on my
[36:15] Speaker 3: revisit of the film, it sounded much more true when
[36:18] Speaker 3: I couldn't stop thinking about this guy. This looks suspiciously
[36:23] Speaker 3: like the official presidential portrait that came down last year.
[36:27] Speaker 2: Did you guys see that?
[36:28] Speaker 3: The imposing stare High Chancellor Adam Suttler an amalgam of
[36:33] Speaker 3: dictators throughout history, preaching his Holy War narrative. He demanded
[36:38] Speaker 3: absolute allegiance and obedience, and he meeted out Gestapo violence
[36:43] Speaker 3: on all dissenders.
[36:46] Speaker 2: He was the oligarch.
[36:47] Speaker 3: He controlled all the media, he surveilled his population, and
[36:51] Speaker 3: he promised national greatness and the crushing of the evil enemy.
[36:58] Speaker 3: Using terms and faith linked to a cross symbol. Jingoistic
[37:06] Speaker 3: messages reinforced the righteous slogan England prevails and the shadow
[37:12] Speaker 3: of authoritarianism. V was the wrench in the works, the
[37:16] Speaker 3: fly in the ointment. He was the ultimate spoiler. The
[37:22] Speaker 3: plan was radical, blow up the symbol of the fascist regime,
[37:26] Speaker 3: bomb the Parliament building. Now I'm not endorsing anything like that.
[37:31] Speaker 3: I'm not endorsing any violence or anything like that. Right,
[37:34] Speaker 3: But I'm interested in that plot line and the actual line.
[37:39] Speaker 3: Governments should be afraid of their people, the power of
[37:44] Speaker 3: the people. In the film, there is this conveniently happy
[37:49] Speaker 3: ending where the entire population of London joins v in
[37:53] Speaker 3: this fearless and defiant stand against the man, the literal
[37:57] Speaker 3: man puppeteering the whole system. You know, he would have
[38:01] Speaker 3: or could have easily been sort of flicked out of
[38:03] Speaker 3: the Chancellor's chair by even a small focused resistance. Why
[38:08] Speaker 3: did he remain in power for so long? The people
[38:13] Speaker 3: had been lulled into a sleep, a deep slumber, or
[38:17] Speaker 3: maybe resignation. Maybe they were followers. They just wanted to
[38:22] Speaker 3: be told who to love, who to hate, what to think,
[38:26] Speaker 3: what to do, especially if someone claims divine right, God
[38:30] Speaker 3: gave me the power right. How often have authoritarians weaponized
[38:34] Speaker 3: God speak, terrifying people into submission and then promising that
[38:39] Speaker 3: I will make you safe and I will make you great.
[38:45] Speaker 3: King Henry the Eighth ushered in the divine right of kings,
[38:49] Speaker 3: invoking religion to establish himself as the head of the
[38:53] Speaker 3: Church of England.
[38:54] Speaker 2: My will is God's will.
[38:56] Speaker 3: Disobey me, you might as well be disobeying the almighty?
[39:00] Speaker 3: Is that que the power consolidation, the persecution of declared enemies,
[39:06] Speaker 3: rewritten laws, torture, execution, including the beheading of one of
[39:11] Speaker 3: his own wives.
[39:11] Speaker 2: But he was just one man.
[39:16] Speaker 3: King Leopold, the second second King of the Belgians in
[39:21] Speaker 3: the late nineteenth century, responsible for all kinds of heinous stuff, slavery, torture, kidnapping,
[39:28] Speaker 3: the murder of millions. And I imagine a scenario where
[39:33] Speaker 3: those who were suffering under his reign would unify at
[39:37] Speaker 3: once and rise up. They raised their own humanity against
[39:41] Speaker 3: his inhumanity.
[39:43] Speaker 2: I know it's a fantasy.
[39:44] Speaker 3: It maybe even be simple minded to think in this way,
[39:48] Speaker 3: but that's how my brain operates, right. The machines of
[39:51] Speaker 3: oppression have so many gears.
[39:54] Speaker 2: What if all those gears decided to stop moving the machine.
[40:00] Speaker 3: There were several plots from within Germany to take out Hitler,
[40:04] Speaker 3: another tyrant who stoked terror, propagandized the country, and promised
[40:09] Speaker 3: national greatness.
[40:10] Speaker 2: Eighty million Germans, eighty million, one man.
[40:17] Speaker 3: My brain wrestles with the psychology of tyrants and those
[40:20] Speaker 3: under them.
[40:21] Speaker 2: It's hard to process it.
[40:24] Speaker 3: Anybody see the nineteen eighty eight John Carpenter film called
[40:28] Speaker 3: They Live. It's a kind of an on the nose
[40:31] Speaker 3: commentary on free market capitalism. Lase a fair, unchecked, unfettered capitalism, oligarchy,
[40:38] Speaker 3: manipulation of people who've become thus sheeple. They're just living
[40:42] Speaker 3: their lives, distracted, lulled, and cold. The system is threatened
[40:46] Speaker 3: if the people start to think for themselves and resist
[40:49] Speaker 3: the system. So behind all of the billboards and in
[40:53] Speaker 3: every page of every book, hidden underneath what we think
[40:56] Speaker 3: is actual content, are these words sleep obey, those types
[41:02] Speaker 3: of things lulling people into a subservience. Yet how much
[41:09] Speaker 3: progress has come through resistance? Brave resistance, often messy, unpopular, dangerous,
[41:17] Speaker 3: pain in the ass resistance where the rising many defy
[41:21] Speaker 3: the few. During the civil rights movement of the fifties
[41:25] Speaker 3: and sixties, those in power were preaching God wants us
[41:29] Speaker 3: segregated America first, or white America first. But good people
[41:36] Speaker 3: resisted against the shouts and threats and danger. Defiant in
[41:41] Speaker 3: the best sense of the word, not allowing anyone else
[41:45] Speaker 3: to strip anyone else of their humanity, their quality, their
[41:48] Speaker 3: own individual authority. With a landmark Supreme Court decision, of
[41:55] Speaker 3: nineteen fifty four, Brown Versus Board of Education, segregation was
[41:59] Speaker 3: to declared unconstitutional.
[42:02] Speaker 2: Now it was the High.
[42:03] Speaker 3: Court that ruled, but it was everyday people who stood
[42:08] Speaker 3: defiantly and created that pressure to help smash the barrier
[42:12] Speaker 3: between minority children and their promising future.
[42:19] Speaker 2: Wasn't all that long.
[42:19] Speaker 3: Ago in American history that men happily assumed the authority
[42:23] Speaker 3: over a woman. You know what, little lady, I'll do
[42:27] Speaker 3: the thinking around here, I'll do the working and the achieving,
[42:32] Speaker 3: and I'll vote. I'll vote. I represent this family with
[42:35] Speaker 3: my vote. Even the founding fathers didn't allow women into
[42:41] Speaker 3: the halls of power. Their thinking was patriarchy is patriotism.
[42:47] Speaker 3: It's also God's will. According to the Bible. We all
[42:50] Speaker 3: know that scripture out of First Timothy. I do not
[42:52] Speaker 3: allow a woman to teach or to have authority over
[42:55] Speaker 3: a man. Instead, she is to remain quiet. But American
[43:00] Speaker 3: women rose up in the early twentieth century.
[43:03] Speaker 2: They resisted.
[43:04] Speaker 3: The brave activists of the suffrage movement organized and activated
[43:09] Speaker 3: to fight injustice, to demand fairness and equalize the man's world,
[43:16] Speaker 3: resulting in the nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
[43:20] Speaker 3: in August of nineteen twenty the right of citizens of
[43:24] Speaker 3: the United States to vote shall not be denied or
[43:27] Speaker 3: abridged by the United States or by any state on
[43:31] Speaker 3: account of sex. Misogyny has not gone away, has it?
[43:38] Speaker 3: But twentieth century women knocked down sexist barriers to the
[43:42] Speaker 3: ballot box, barriers that were installed by authority that's returning
[43:51] Speaker 3: from Vietnam.
[43:52] Speaker 2: To protests, they were threatened.
[43:53] Speaker 3: They were called on American, you hate America, your traders,
[43:58] Speaker 3: your heretics, your judas. Many were even physically assaulted as
[44:02] Speaker 3: they rose up to stand against the folly of that war.
[44:07] Speaker 3: The highest offices of government and their minions called these
[44:10] Speaker 3: people the betrayers of their country, and yet they marched forward.
[44:17] Speaker 2: Invoking God.
[44:18] Speaker 3: Famous religious bigot Jerry Folwell, along with others like him,
[44:23] Speaker 3: Anita Bryant, etc. Said gay people were dangerous reprobates seeking
[44:28] Speaker 3: a modern sodom and gomorrah.
[44:31] Speaker 2: We heard a lot of this in the eighties and nineties.
[44:33] Speaker 3: Sadly, we hear a lot of it today. Homosexuals blamed
[44:37] Speaker 3: for everything from pedophilia to the AIDS virus to.
[44:42] Speaker 2: The attacks of nine to eleven.
[44:46] Speaker 3: Those in power said that society had no obligation to
[44:50] Speaker 3: serve non heterosexuals. You want healthcare, you want a job,
[44:55] Speaker 3: you want to get married.
[44:56] Speaker 2: Would you like us to bake you a cake? Sorry,
[45:00] Speaker 2: you don't have those rights. Yet, millions formed a resistance.
[45:07] Speaker 3: They stood up, and they continue to stand up for
[45:10] Speaker 3: LGBT equality, gender equality, racial equality, human equality, and that
[45:17] Speaker 3: resistance continues bravely against the bigots. Today, women across the
[45:24] Speaker 3: Middle East are putting their lives on the line against
[45:27] Speaker 3: Islamic oppressors. The Iran Revolution is a great example. They're saying, fine,
[45:34] Speaker 3: you can arrest us, you can torture us, you can
[45:36] Speaker 3: even kill us, but you do not own us. Remarkable
[45:41] Speaker 3: courage for a cause that deserves a lot more attention
[45:45] Speaker 3: in the Western world. The recent No Kings protesters sent
[45:51] Speaker 3: a strong message by the millions, messages plural. Really, we
[45:57] Speaker 3: are not a dictatorship. Cruelty is a cancer. Love over hate.
[46:02] Speaker 3: For the crime of descent, they we have been labeled
[46:06] Speaker 3: a hate America movement. We're also somehow paid actors being
[46:12] Speaker 3: compensated by George Soros. I haven't received my check. I'm
[46:16] Speaker 3: very disappointed. Does anyone here received that cash?
[46:20] Speaker 2: App Venmo Soros?
[46:22] Speaker 3: Hello, have you guys seen the protesters in the frog
[46:26] Speaker 3: costumes out in Portland. I love that sort of refutation
[46:32] Speaker 3: of the hate with good humor and goodwill. I called
[46:35] Speaker 3: them Amphibitifa.
[46:37] Speaker 2: It just makes me laugh. I released the speech.
[46:44] Speaker 3: Last year called dissent is Our Duty, and I don't
[46:49] Speaker 3: just mean descent against oligarchy and oppression. I mean descent
[46:53] Speaker 3: from authority with a capital A on almost every level,
[46:58] Speaker 3: starting from within our own walls.
[47:02] Speaker 2: How many controlling.
[47:04] Speaker 3: Families and families are tribes with tribal leaders. How many
[47:08] Speaker 3: controlling families claimed authority over you and said we raised you,
[47:16] Speaker 3: we'll define you. I was talking earlier today about how
[47:21] Speaker 3: parents will often say, you know what, you can grow
[47:23] Speaker 3: up to be anything you want to be in this world,
[47:26] Speaker 3: and then they commit a ton of their resources to
[47:28] Speaker 3: limiting your options, don't They often for the most noble
[47:32] Speaker 3: of reasons. They want to protect you and they want
[47:34] Speaker 3: to see you survive and thrive. But it's like, Oh,
[47:36] Speaker 3: don't date that person, don't marry that person, don't go
[47:42] Speaker 3: to that church, don't change denominations, don't leave the church,
[47:45] Speaker 3: don't go to this college, don't have this career, don't
[47:48] Speaker 3: vote for that candidate. Don't don't right, and you chose
[47:54] Speaker 3: to listen to yourself. You said, no, I've got my
[47:57] Speaker 3: own position, I've got a value system, I'm going to
[47:59] Speaker 3: be true to I'm going to be me. Pastors and
[48:02] Speaker 3: priests so often give commands from the pulpits and their
[48:05] Speaker 3: high platforms, and they invoke God's authority and then their
[48:09] Speaker 3: own authority over everybody else. And yet you say, no, no, no,
[48:15] Speaker 3: I'm smart enough, and I have enough value, and I'm
[48:18] Speaker 3: centered enough to be able to realize that you're not
[48:21] Speaker 3: going to tell me how to think or who to be.
[48:25] Speaker 3: Nationalists say, line up or get out, the authority of
[48:30] Speaker 3: the state, love of the motherland or the fatherland, line up, salute,
[48:37] Speaker 3: pledge your allegiance. Protest is treason, so affirm us, support us,
[48:45] Speaker 3: agree with this, or get out.
[48:49] Speaker 2: But you stay and you fight for what's right. It's remarkable.
[48:56] Speaker 3: There is such power in recognizing our own valid voices.
[49:00] Speaker 2: You know, to say you.
[49:01] Speaker 3: Cannot, you will not govern me. You're not going to
[49:04] Speaker 3: manipulate me. You're not going to make me hate or
[49:07] Speaker 3: hurt somebody else. You can shout all you want, you
[49:10] Speaker 3: can throw Bible verses at me all the want, you
[49:12] Speaker 3: can cry trador. All you want, you can claim your kingship,
[49:16] Speaker 3: divine right, demand my obedience. My tribe is the human tribe.
[49:23] Speaker 3: My convictions are my own and they are precious. My
[49:26] Speaker 3: allegiance is to my values. I will bet everybody in
[49:33] Speaker 3: this room has a story about breaking out of some
[49:37] Speaker 3: kind of high control situation. Some authority figure, someone who
[49:43] Speaker 3: claimed authority tried to put you in a cookie cutter,
[49:47] Speaker 3: and often with great trauma, you bust it out. You said,
[49:51] Speaker 3: screw it, Damn the consequences. It's my life. Despite the challenge,
[50:00] Speaker 3: you were true to your authentic self and you are free.
[50:05] Speaker 3: And we imagine what if everybody could be that free,
[50:11] Speaker 3: Which brings me back to where I begin. That story
[50:15] Speaker 3: in our history books, that human moment in an inhumane situation,
[50:20] Speaker 3: the war story about empathy, the war story about love. Now,
[50:28] Speaker 3: I'm not making a commentary about whether or not the
[50:31] Speaker 3: First World War was necessary, right, the stand against tyranny
[50:35] Speaker 3: often requires bloody conflict. That's just a necessary truth. But
[50:40] Speaker 3: I want to show you what happened on that one
[50:42] Speaker 3: night in nineteen fourteen when everyday soldiers briefly stepped out
[50:47] Speaker 3: of the shadow of authority and they found a few
[50:49] Speaker 3: precious seconds of humanity.
[50:52] Speaker 2: World War One.
[50:53] Speaker 3: It began in July of nineteen fourteen France, Russia, Britain
[50:57] Speaker 3: and the US, and then eventually it joining forces against Germany, Austria, Hungary,
[51:04] Speaker 3: Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire. That conflict would last four
[51:08] Speaker 3: years and kill millions of people. The Western Front was
[51:13] Speaker 3: a line of trench warfare that stretched from the English
[51:17] Speaker 3: Channel in the north to the Swiss Alps in the south.
[51:20] Speaker 3: It was four hundred and seventy five miles long, running
[51:24] Speaker 3: through much of Belgium and northern France. Trench warfare brought
[51:30] Speaker 3: its own special brand of suffering trench warfare. Opposing armies
[51:35] Speaker 3: digging in like ticks. They're shielded by sandbags and barbed wire.
[51:40] Speaker 3: They attacked, they counterattacked, They try to find ways to advance.
[51:44] Speaker 3: The space between them known as no man's land. Those
[51:49] Speaker 3: trenches were a cold hell of deep mud, wet cigarettes,
[51:55] Speaker 3: sleeping standing up off and against the sidewall. Because you
[51:58] Speaker 3: couldn't lie down in two or three feet of water.
[52:01] Speaker 3: There was the risk of trench foot and that could
[52:03] Speaker 3: cost you a limb. Combat beyond the trenches was a
[52:08] Speaker 3: meat grinder.
[52:09] Speaker 2: Oh it is so easy to see.
[52:10] Speaker 3: Why many of these standoffs resulted in stalemates. They were exhausting, physically,
[52:16] Speaker 3: exhausting emotionally. Christmas Eve, nineteen fourteen, the war was only
[52:21] Speaker 3: five months old. There was another cold night behind those
[52:26] Speaker 3: mud walls along a thirty mile stretch of trench controlled
[52:31] Speaker 3: by the British Expeditionary Force. Many thought the war was
[52:34] Speaker 3: going to be over already. They thought, oh, the war
[52:36] Speaker 3: will be over by Christmas.
[52:37] Speaker 2: Piece of Kate.
[52:40] Speaker 3: Well, with hundreds of thousands dead, stalemates everywhere, no victory
[52:44] Speaker 3: in sight on both the Allied and the Central power sides.
[52:48] Speaker 3: Morale was literally below ground. Bruce Bearn's father was an
[52:55] Speaker 3: Allied captain and a machine gunner, and he would go
[52:58] Speaker 3: on to become author and a cartoonist, and he was
[53:02] Speaker 3: like his fellow soldiers. He was down in there, shivering
[53:04] Speaker 3: in the muck that Christmas Eve, and he would go
[53:07] Speaker 3: on to chronicle what happened next. Around ten o'clock at night,
[53:12] Speaker 3: the Allied soldiers heard a noise coming from the enemy trenches,
[53:19] Speaker 3: and at first they couldn't quite make it out, but
[53:22] Speaker 3: then they recognized the sound. It was the sound of
[53:27] Speaker 3: the singing of Christmas carols. Who knows what song they
[53:31] Speaker 3: were singing deck the hall, Silent knights hark, the herald
[53:35] Speaker 3: angels sing. But in a magical moment, the British troops
[53:41] Speaker 3: in their own trenches joined in, opposing armies with hundreds
[53:47] Speaker 3: of feet between them, suddenly united in song. Captain Baron's
[53:55] Speaker 3: father would go on to report that a German soldier
[53:57] Speaker 3: suddenly shouted out in English, come over, join us. A
[54:03] Speaker 3: British soldier responded, I'm not going over there. You come
[54:07] Speaker 3: halfway and we'll meet halfway. And what happened next became
[54:13] Speaker 3: a Christmas miracle. The armies of both sides got out
[54:19] Speaker 3: of their trenches, walked into no man's land and shook
[54:22] Speaker 3: hands in peace, not his enemies, but as men, human
[54:28] Speaker 3: beings who had suddenly been united in song. No shouts
[54:34] Speaker 3: in anger, no bullets, no bombs, only warm smiles and goodwill.
[54:39] Speaker 3: Baron's father would write these words about that day, and
[54:41] Speaker 3: I quote there was not an atom of hate on
[54:45] Speaker 3: either side. Another British soldier, a guy named John Ferguson,
[54:52] Speaker 3: would chronicle that moment by saying, here we were laughing
[54:55] Speaker 3: and chatting to men whom only a few hours before
[54:59] Speaker 3: we were trying to kill. The men did their best
[55:04] Speaker 3: to talk to each other through the language barrier. They
[55:07] Speaker 3: exchanged cigarettes and bottles of liquor. They showed photos of
[55:12] Speaker 3: their families back home. They ask about sports teams, speaking
[55:19] Speaker 3: of sports. In some places, the two camps improvised soccer matches,
[55:24] Speaker 3: with maybe one hundred troops or more joining in. Each
[55:30] Speaker 3: side allowed the other side to collect their dead in
[55:33] Speaker 3: an atmosphere of reverence and respect, honoring those who had
[55:38] Speaker 3: fallen by giving them a chance of some kind of
[55:40] Speaker 3: proper burial or remembrance. These men, for those precious moments,
[55:48] Speaker 3: were not acting under authority, unless you account the authority
[55:52] Speaker 3: that they gave to themselves the permission to be a
[55:55] Speaker 3: human being. First, I think of that John Lennon.
[55:58] Speaker 2: Song, right.
[55:59] Speaker 3: Imagine, if there's no countries, it isn't hard to do.
[56:05] Speaker 3: This phenomenon was happening in other places, all the way
[56:08] Speaker 3: up and down the Western and in parts of the
[56:11] Speaker 3: Eastern Front that divided suddenly united on a Christmas.
[56:14] Speaker 2: Eve in nineteen fourteen.
[56:17] Speaker 3: Until commanders on both sides heard about this truce, they
[56:25] Speaker 3: were furious. They demanded that the men immediately separate and
[56:30] Speaker 3: return to fighting. They said, if this happens again, there
[56:33] Speaker 3: will be consequences. Germans would be executed, British soldiers court martialed.
[56:42] Speaker 3: But even then, after that moment, many soldiers couldn't bring
[56:45] Speaker 3: themselves to pull the trigger. They couldn't fire on the
[56:49] Speaker 3: people that they had just met. They would eventually get
[56:53] Speaker 3: replaced and far more obeyed authority, and they returned to
[56:58] Speaker 3: their lines. They again began waging war against those they
[57:02] Speaker 3: had befriended only moments before. I can't even imagine what
[57:08] Speaker 3: that must have been like. There are memorials to that day,
[57:15] Speaker 3: including this one in Staffordshire, England. It's an effigy of
[57:18] Speaker 3: the handshakes from the battlefield. Here's one in Belgium, two
[57:23] Speaker 3: soldiers shaking hands over a soccer ball on Christmas Eve.
[57:27] Speaker 2: Peace on Earth.
[57:29] Speaker 3: Goodwill toward men, goodwill toward everybody. I'll finish today by
[57:37] Speaker 3: quoting one of the great writers and thinkers of the
[57:40] Speaker 3: late nineteenth century, Robert green Ingersoll, who wrote these words
[57:44] Speaker 3: back in eighteen eighty four.
[57:45] Speaker 2: He said, love is the only beau on life. Stark clout.
[57:51] Speaker 2: It is the morning in the evening star.
[57:54] Speaker 3: It shines upon the babe and sheds its radiance on
[57:57] Speaker 3: the quiet tomb. It is the mother of art, inspirer
[58:02] Speaker 3: of poet, patriot and philosopher. It is the air and
[58:07] Speaker 3: light of every heart, builder of every home, kindler of
[58:10] Speaker 3: every fire on every hearth. It was the first to
[58:14] Speaker 3: dream of immortality. It fills the world with melody, for
[58:18] Speaker 3: music is the voice of love. Love is the magician,
[58:24] Speaker 3: the enchanter that changes worthless things to joy and makes
[58:27] Speaker 3: royal kings and queens of common clay. It is the
[58:32] Speaker 3: perfume of that wondrous flower, the heart. And without that
[58:38] Speaker 3: sacred passion, that divine swoon, we are less than beasts.
[58:42] Speaker 3: But with it Earth is heaven, and we are gods.
[58:49] Speaker 3: You and I care because it matters. We grieve over
[58:56] Speaker 3: injustice because it matters, trying to spread love over hate
[59:01] Speaker 3: because it matters. We resist because it matters, and because
[59:05] Speaker 3: we must our Yesterday and today have shown us that
[59:10] Speaker 3: we have the power. At the very least, we have
[59:13] Speaker 3: the potential to have the power. When you and I
[59:18] Speaker 3: see each other as fragile, beautiful, precious travelers in this world,
[59:23] Speaker 3: and we refuse to let anybody anywhere tear us away
[59:27] Speaker 3: from our hearts, our values, our convictions, and each other.
[59:32] Speaker 3: Then we recognize the best parts of what it means
[59:36] Speaker 3: to be a human being. Thank you for having me today.
[59:43] Speaker 3: It's been a tremendous honor to.
[59:44] Speaker 2: Speak with you.
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