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Wild Stories from the Bible: What the Church Never Talks About

Episode 80 · 1 July 2026 · 1 hr 4 min

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Weird Bible Stories the Church Never Talks About

Weird Bible stories, like bears mauling 42 children, a medium summoning the dead, and David sending a man to die so he could take his wife, rarely come up on Sunday. Randy Lorensen, Dr. John Oberg and Anthony Marino bring back former priest Kristian Jaloway for Part 3. They ask why these strange Bible stories are in scripture, and how the Old Covenant vs. the New Covenant changes the way to read them.

What happens when you stop treating the Bible like a sanitized children’s book and actually read the wild parts?

In this episode of Tales of Abundance, Randy Lorensen, Dr. John Oberg, Anthony Marino, and returning guest Kristian Jaloway dig into the stories from the Bible that almost never get discussed in church. From chopped-up bodies and civil war to necromancy, kings with hundreds of wives, bears mauling children, and David sending a man to die so he could take his wife, this conversation explores the uncomfortable, bizarre, and deeply human material that many believers never wrestle with directly.

The bigger question is not just why these stories are in the Bible, but what we are supposed to do with them. The group explores whether the Bible has a marketing problem or whether the church does, how the “Sunday school version” of Christianity leaves out much of the tension and strangeness of the actual text, and why certainty can sometimes be the enemy of spiritual growth.

They also get into the Old Covenant vs the New Covenant, whether Christianity changed the moral framework around violence, how people cherry-pick scripture to justify what they already want to believe, and whether organized religion has sometimes functioned more as a tool of control than transformation. It is a thoughtful, provocative conversation about faith, power, morality, mystery, and the parts of scripture most people skip past.

If you have ever wondered why the Bible contains such strange stories, what they really mean, or why the church avoids talking about them, this episode is for you.

Strange Bible Stories, Old Covenant vs. New Covenant, and David and Bathsheba

What you'll discover:

  • The craziest Bible stories: Lot and the cave, the bears and the 42 children, Saul and the witch of Endor
  • Old Covenant vs. New Covenant, and how Jesus changed the moral framework
  • How the Bible was formed, and why tradition came before scripture
  • David and Bathsheba, "thou shalt not kill" and whether Christians can justify violence
  • Why scripture gets used to support almost any agenda, and whether organized religion is a tool of control
  • In the Abundance Briefing: a study of 10,000 millionaires, lasers connecting AI in space, propaganda and government limits on AI

Timestamps

  • [00:00] Kristian Jaloway returns for part 3
  • [00:11] Why the Bible is far wilder than most people realize
  • [00:39] The Bible as screenplay: magic, betrayal, war, ghosts, and political intrigue
  • [01:34] Lot, Sodom, and the disturbing cave story after the escape
  • [03:21] The prophet, the bald joke, and the bears that maul 42 children
  • [05:53] Old Covenant vs New Covenant
  • [06:12] How Jesus changed the moral framework
  • [09:42] Why were these stories included in the first place?
  • [11:05] How the Bible was formed and why tradition mattered before scripture
  • [15:48] Saul, witches, necromancy, and summoning the dead
  • [19:58] David, Bathsheba, and the murder behind the throne
  • [23:50] “Thou shalt not kill” and the hypocrisy of war
  • [26:48] Can Christians justify violence?
  • [29:15] Jesus says buy a sword… then says put it away
  • [31:01] Why scripture can be used to support almost any agenda
  • [33:43] Is organized religion a tool for control?
  • [37:34] Good, evil, and why people resist gray areas
  • [39:53] Thoughts vs actions, and what Jesus actually raised the standard to
  • [45:53] Certainty, ambiguity, and why wrestling may be the point
  • [47:52] Why this conversation needs a part 4
  • [48:02] Break — Sponsor: AG1
  • [48:56] Abundance Briefing — Dave Ramsey's study of 10,000 millionaires
  • [52:16] The Wealthy Barber, Thomas Stanley, and maximizing your doubling periods
  • [55:34] SpaceX buys Mesh Optical Technologies: lasers to connect AI in space
  • [57:32] When people leave to build their own thing, and staying on good terms
  • [59:18] Propaganda vs. good information
  • [1:00:17] Restricted AI model releases and government limits on AI
  • [1:02:58] Censored China-based AI and bias concerns
  • [1:03:54] Wrap-up

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About Kristian Jaloway

Kristian Jaloway is a cradle Catholic and former priest who now works as a leadership advisor alongside the Church. This is his third appearance on Tales of Abundance, after Episode 39 (faith, miracles and giants) and Episode 60 (the Book of Revelation). Part 4 continues in Episode 81.

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Related episodes

Meet the hosts: Randy Lorensen · Dr. John Oberg · Anthony Marino

Transcript

A full transcript is below. It was generated automatically from the episode audio, so expect some spelling errors in names and terms.

[00:01] Abundance. We have back for the third time one of our most popular guests. His episodes always do great, Kristian Jaloway. Welcome, Kristian. — Thank you. It's great to be back with you guys. — All right. Well, as always, I have lots of crazy questions. You're you're my spiritual adviser or my spiritual uh I don't know. I ask you lots of lots of crazy things. You know, I grew up in a church. The three of you are all grew up Catholic. I grew up Lutheran. But you know that it was it was church, it was hymns, it was Sunday school, it was community, it was be kind, love your neighbor, don't lie. But then when I start going into these Bible things, so that's what the church talks about. It's wild. Like the Bible is full of some wild, wild stuff that nobody really talks about. So you know, a couple of things. A man gives his girlfriend to a mob to save himself. She dies. He cuts her body into 12 pieces and mails them across the country to start a civil war. You know, in another story, a king has 700 wives, 300 concubines, uses demons to build the most sacred temple in the world. Right? If somebody took this stuff and pitched it as a screenplay, you would think it was a Marvel thing, right? I mean, it's full of magic and intrigue and betrayal and affairs and, you know, war, genocide, political ghosts, magic, heroes, villains, you know, and one of the questions I'm going to ask you later is, does the Bible have a marketing problem or does the church have a marketing problem? But I just want to start with when you think of wild stories from the Bible, what do you think of?

[01:34] — Yeah, man, you're right. There there are so many. You know, there's mo mostly in the Old Testament. So, I actually you gave me a little bit of a sneak peek into some of these questions. So, I went back and looked and uh I've got my Bible here. So, in Genesis, the whole you remember the whole story of Sodom and Gomorrah, right? So, Sodom is this horrible wicked place and God says, "Okay, I'm going to destroy them." Abraham's like, "Well, can you find one good person, etc., etc." He finally he finally founds one just person and he actually decides God decides to destroy the city but save the guy who's Lot. His name is Lot. So anyways they flee the city. The whole thing of his wife actually looks back at the burning city and turns to a pillar of salt. Not super fun to start with. But then the crazy story is they go up and start they so he's living with his two daughters up in this cave in the mountains and they assume they're the last people on earth and so his daughters actually get him drunk sleep with him have they both get pregnant and have children one named Moab who's the the founder of the Moabitete tribe which is an ancient people and the other one had a son named Benam Benami I think the the father of the Ammonites. And so incest, intrigue, you know, and and this is and these people are now part of the of God's people on earth. I mean, later they're important people in the Bible. And so it's just Yeah, I agree with you.

[03:06] There's crazy stories that we don't think about and certainly not decent enough to talk about at Sunday school or, you know, clean enough that a pastor is going to bring him up on Sunday in his in his homaly. Like not not not what you typically hear about. And yet the Bible is full of that kind of stuff. — Well, like one of, you know, there's a prophet gets mocked. A prophet gets mocked by children, right, for being bald. All right. So, I I feel this guy's pain. But anyway, he curses them and two bears come out and maul the for maul 42 — Like, that's a story in the Bible. Like, what is that story doing there? Like, why I mean, a what is it doing there? And I and followup question, why is that kind of stuff not brought up in church? — Yeah, I think I think for you know the the obvious reason it's not brought up is it's just hard to deal with. Like how do you how do you reconcile that? One one by the way like I think we've created this version of the Bible and this version of Christianity in particular that's like very Sunday school appropriate. you know, it's all flowers and butterflies and all like Jesus is this figure that's like, you know, not to not to call out Anthony here, but like a kind of hippie, nice, funloving guy. And like that's not really what you get if you read the whole Bible or even just the parts on Jesus. Like he he went and overturned the tables, you know, in the, you know, in Jerusalem, right, in the Holy of Holies, in the temple. So, not the Holy of Holies, but in the temple. So, I think we get into this this our version of what we want it to be like and just emphasize those aspects instead of looking at the whole thing that are that's harder to deal with. Like I I took that one about the the mauling and you can look at different commentators and things and see like is there a way to justify it maybe the way which by the way there's there's people who study this and look at the ancient texts and the language and look at the original languages and you know whether it was Hebrew or Greek for the New Testament etc. And like there is a lot you can study because there's a lot lost in translation over time. So, you do need to go back and do those things. And you can see, you know, maybe it was more like a teenage gang kind of thing.

[05:22] There's 42 teenagers mocking this guy who's, you know, whatever the reason is cuz he's bald. It could be dangerous. So, you know, and then he actually prays to God. He curses them, which, you know, maybe maybe just a final bill, maybe not, but it's God who sends the bears to then maul the kids. So you're like, "Okay, I can kind of see a different angle in that interpretation of it as well." And at the same time, this is pretty bad stuff. Like this is this is evil stuff. Is wasn't there kind of a change in the rules though with the new covenant? Like there was a there was a way things worked before the new covenant and the new covenant came and kind of reset to a different set of — Explain that, John. John, explain the new covenant versus the old covenant. So — I'm I'm gonna let Christian explain. He's gonna be much better at that than I — Okay. We we we brought this up a little bit in one of the first podcasts I think on this topic because yes like the rule or the the given moral code so to speak before Moses was pretty brutal and it was roughly like you know one of my cousins gets hurt I I hurt seven of yours. So is 7 to1 on the ratio of more evil than good and it's basically tribal warfare which we still see in parts of the world. I mean, and I think like our tendency as humans goes that direction if we don't have a higher moral code. So Moses comes along and receives the ten commandments and all that and the moral code gets changed to one to one, eye for an eye or tooth for a tooth, which sounds brutal compared to today's reality, but it probably if you go to places in in Africa like you know or even heck in first world countries like that could be an improvement, right? And then Jesus brings the new covenant. So the old covenant had its rules and and systems and moral code and Jesus comes and says no you have to forgive your enemies not never heard of before and so yes there's been a progression in the moral code and if you look at the old testament compared to the New Testament particularly the book of judges uh which is where that one comes up and a lot of these things about the judges is the book in the old testament where there was no king in Israel and basically is showing like what does it look like without a king without a god like It's it's it's mayhem. It's bad. So, there has been a progression in that moral code. And today, we kind of look back and judge them even just a few years ago, right? I mean, you look at like United States, right? Slavery was common for most of the world's history. And yet, now that we've realized kind of as a collective, that slavery is a bad thing. We look back and judge those people by today's standards, not always trying to put ourselves in their shoes at their time. Which is kind of funny.

[08:08] This just is an antidote, but last night my little one of my 5-year-old is like, "Daddy, treat me like a slave." And I'm like, "What are you talking about?" But he had never heard of a slave and some they're studying something and he's like I think he thought it was just going to be a funny game. And I'm, of course, I'm like, how how do I do that in a nice way to 5-year-old and like it was just a funny moment as a dad, but it did definitely made me think about these things. Like he he has no idea what it's really like, right? He's just studying So my real takeaway from all this old covenant, new covenant is a few weeks ago, Anthony made a bold joke about me. So I'm I should have God curse him or ask pray to God to curse him so the bears come him. That's my takeaway. — But it's really, it's funny you say that. I think that's a lot of people's takeaway is they go back to whichever part of the Bible they think is the part that fits that that their sentiment in the moment, the way that they want to play the rules of the game. But the rules of the game for Christians have changed. You don't get to choose which timeline you're on. Like we're we're in we're in a period that is set out if you're a Christian by God. And so you don't get to go backwards to other places because it feels good in the moment. I think it's a historical account and it's important that we understand history so we don't go back there. But that's that's that's a tough one even for a lot of Christians, right?

[09:34] — I don't want I don't want — I know but but sometimes sometimes we all want an eye for an eye and a tooth for tooth, right? I think that's you know I think that's it's just true. — You know my training uh is always to ask you know why, right? What in the ask the why question five times. So, Christian uh talked to us at at a lunch recently and I learned that uh the Bible wasn't official until 400 AD or so. So, I know you're talking about these wild stories, Randy, you know, kings and magic and genocide and so forth. And the question in my mind is why were these stories put in there in the first place? What was the what was the the genesis of it all? Why why would these scholars who looked at all the ancient texts and there was you know hundreds of prophets you know micro religions and micro communities and different places as the earth was expanding its population and different cultures were reforming. Why did they why did they choose what they chose?

[10:38] what was behind not just the the crazy stories or the or the ugly stories, but you know all everything else that's in there. What's — it it seems in congruous to have, you know, thou shalt not kill and then have all these stories about, you know, the genocide and things like that, you know. So, I'm I'm you know, you know, I'm a bit of a skeptic, if you will, and and I kind of call this the, you know, historical fiction. You know, the Bible is historical fiction, but I would still want to know why. And — I I have my opinions of it, but I would love to hear from Christian to to have him kind of inform me and take me off my — We'll see if I can do it. I think yeah the most interesting thing I've had this conversation right with with lots of different types of Christians and after the reformation the the majority of Christians I don't mean the majority but you know they followed Luther and then Calvin and kind of that branch of Christianity of the reformed Christian churches took the Bible as their sole source of truth soleless scriptor they say so but um there there's an inherent contradiction there because if you go and say well where does the Bible say that the Bible is the only source of truth for Christians. It it doesn't there there is no place. And so when you look at how Christianity or how the Bible both Old Testament but definitely in the New Testament came to be, it's a it really came about through tradition first. So in other words, the the spoken passed on traditions and stories of this people who believed, you know, and whether it was the Old Testament, the the Jewish tribes that were following after Abraham and you know, the journeying in the in the desert for 40 years and all those things were all traditions that were oral traditions, which is consistent with history. like I mean you know when was the the the the printing press wasn't invented until you know much much later um and oral you know traditions were the norm and written traditions were very hard to maintain it was papurus and materials were very hard to you know translate and books were extremely expensive so you had these monks in the middle ages copying down versions of the Bible and we know there were a lot of errors in that as much as they tried to do it faithfully I'm sure there were just human mistakes and um and then translating again we already said that from one language to another. So all that being said, I think that messiness can on one hand lead us to say, "Okay, it's just all fiction." Or on the other hand, I think there's another option to look at it under faith or in the light of faith and say, "Actually, it it kind of makes sense." Like God uses humanity with all of our messiness and imperfections to teach us about what it means to really be a human, about who God is. And and that's the church. And the church is still extremely messy today. I mean messy is an understatement, right? I mean, Pope John uh Benedict actually one point I remember I was there in Rome um outside the coliseum when they do the way of the cross on Good Friday and remember Christ steps along to getting killed and he said it was a brutal statement but in Spanish it was or in Italian it was something like he he spoke about the dirtiness of the church but the word he described it was like that nasty gunk you get in your sink like down underneath where you can never get to clean out you It's like that was the the junk and the gunk that he described in the church and he knew it. I mean he was in Rome, he was the pope. He got all the reports and stuff and all the abuse crisis we were going through at that time was was was horrible and still is. So all that being said, the the formation in the books of the Bible um especially the four gospels Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were were not written well except for Matthew who was an apostle. So he was with Jesus.

[14:44] The other ones were written by people who were friends of the apostles. So um and there's lots of different interpretations on this and opinions and historic you know historic uh historical research has different opinions but but it definitely came through that and then the church found okay these are the books that comply with that tradition and these are ones that don't. And so there was a big debate whether there should have been just one scripture, right? One one gospel instead of four because they're all kind of especially the first three, the synoptics they're called, Matthew, Mark, and Luke are all kind of just variations on the same basic stories. John was written a little bit later and had kind of a more theological approach. So his was written for a different audience and kind of different focus, but it is it is interesting. And I mean, we could get into the details of each one, but it's not a simple easy process, and I think there's different ways to look at, you know, both how it happened, but also why it happened that way.

[15:48] So, all right, I'm a long ways from a a biblical scholar, but in my research, let's go. I'm going back to magic. You know, King Saul, right? He was God's first choice as king. He banned all magic and necromancy across the land. Then he secretly went out or went to a witch to summon the ghost of a dead prophet. It worked. Samuel wrote that the ghost appears, gets angry, predict Saul's death, and the next day he dies, right? So, this is kind of where Anthony like why is it in there? But I don't know like like I just think about that. I think about like what do we do with that, right? like like we're supposed to believe all these things in the Bible, but here we're talking about magic and necromancy and it working and there's other stuff where Solomon, you know, you and I have talked about casting spells or curses again and God is making a whole army, you know, incapacitated. Like what what are we supposed to do with that kind of stuff? Man, that's a great question. I you know, part of it is like we have to wrestle with it. I mean, even stuff that seems pretty benign, like I I meet with a group of families on a pretty pretty regular basis and we talk about this stuff and we just take a a scripture passage and and talk about it and pray about it. And you know, a lot of times there's like, wow, I forgot that was in there. What does that mean? You know, what does that mean originally like when they wrote it, but what does it mean for me today as well? Um, and we were talking about one actually just a couple days ago that was about you have to love God more than your family. And we're like, gosh, that's brutal. I mean, as parents, like, do I really love God more than my kids? And then, you know, it kind of struck me because we were getting ready to go to church the next day and I was like, I think we actually make that decision every single time we decide to take our kids to church because they complain so much. Like if I just loved my kids just like straight out and more than God. I would not be taking them to church. I was like this is a clear decision. We think God is more important. We're going to still drag them to church and try to get them to behave. And so anyways, but u but all you know then the Old Testament is still much harder, right? and those kinds of things. Like I in one in one one version of that or one understanding of that would be you know he went against because when he did that he did get um the who was the Saul right the dead prophet to come back and the witch who he went to actually was kind of shocked. It says she was in terror. So, she wasn't I don't think expecting it to happen, but God probably made it happen. Like, I think ghosts are real. I mean, if you believe in life after death, you can't really say that ghosts aren't real now, how they act and all those things. Like, you believe in angels, you believe in dead people who are not fully dead, right? Why wouldn't ghosts be possible? Now, that's probably not I don't think that's quite what it looks like in the movies. probably.

[18:57] But his ghost comes back and he tells him basically like, "Yeah, I I'm already dead and because you're doing all this stuff you shouldn't be, you know, you magic and yet you're endors, you know, using magic to get what you want, you're going to die tomorrow." And he does. So, pretty brutal answer. And and I think, you know, our job isn't really to like get it or understand it. I think that's kind of a false idea of like if only I knew more. I could somehow like control God or control the Bible or stuff like that. I I'm I'm kind of afraid of people who think they know too much about the Bible. And I I'm actually kind of afraid of who I used to be when I was preaching different things. I was like so sure about different things. I'm I'm much more open-minded now today because I think it's actually a safer place to be. Like you got to wrestle with these things and I I don't know all the answers. I mean, this is this is the Bible in the church over thousands of years. How am I supposed to know exactly what it's supposed to mean? So, all right, let's go. Saul is replaced then by King David. But during King David, and and again, I I think the Bible calls him a man after God's own heart. But before he was king, he was raiding villages, killing everyone so they couldn't report him and lying to foreign kings about it.

[20:17] I don't know. How is that the guy, right? Like like how is that God's chosen? Like isn't that I mean I mean kind of the same thing, right? Like where this is after the Ten Commandments. There's a whole bunch of commandments being broken there. — Yeah. Yeah. Well, and and he's punished for it. So, but he's but he's the king is not taken away from him. And so then it says the uh his punishment is actually passed down to generations later, which is interesting. But the, you know, all the good things he does, I don't think are eliminated because of the evil he does, which is a hard lesson. And also, yeah, like even God's chosen can go astray. Like you can be you can be doing really well. You can be having the perfect life and you've got to still pay attention. like things can you know if you let yourself I mean actually that's an interesting one because it says there's a line there where it starts that that part of the Bible where it says in the spring at the time the kings go to war blah blah blah then he sees Beth Sheeba bathing etc. So, he's not doing his duty. His job, which is kind of weird, too, but that that was the normal thing in the Old Testament. It was like in the springtime, you know, winter's over, we get our troops together, and we go we go to war. That's just what they did. But he doesn't do his duty. He's not leading the army. He's staying home in the castle having a good time while he sends his his army off to do battle.

[21:53] — Yeah. I mean the Stea thing like he sends her husband to war so basically he can die and he can steal her away right I mean — after right after after he brings her over and of course what is what's she going to say the king calls for you you go right and then he sleeps with her she gets pregnant when he finds out then he tries to eliminate her husband by sending him into the like the thickest part of the battle it doesn't work oh no sorry he he calls for her husband to come from the battlefield and have like a time you time off, but he refuses because he wants to do his duty. So, he refuses to go into his wife. He's like sleeps on his front porch basically and then goes back to the battle, which is even another like gut-wrenching David, you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing. Then he sends secret messengers to say, "Yeah, we're going to go and attack, have him in the front line, and everybody pull back and let him get killed." And so then the then the prophet comes and calls him out and says, "Hey," you know, gives him the story to kind of tell him what happened.

[22:58] He's like, "I will kill that man." It's like, "It's you who did this, right?" So, it it's it's fascinating. I mean, you know, for me, I think of it like, how am I doing God's will or where am I in in accord with the plan and where do I still screw up? You know, thankfully, I've never killed somebody in that way. if I were king, how do I know I wouldn't? I mean, I I wrestle with this politically speaking. You look at different political parties and different wars and things are like, I don't know how to justify that. I mean, I'm glad I'm not in their shoes. I don't have to. But it's really hard. I mean, to try to justify any kind of violence when you compare it to the Bible. If you take the Old Testament, it's easy to justify. There's violence everywhere. It's a normal thing. you look at the New Testament, it's much harder to justify — So, even even with that, I want to go deeper here. This is this is one that you and I have talked about two or three times. You know, the whole thou shalt not kill, right? That's one of the ten commandments. And I guess maybe my presumption is wrong, but I think of the ten commandments the way we talk about core values, right? Like those are kind of like a lot of core values of the church, the same way a company has core values. And thou shalt not kill is really about as clear as it could be. I don't know how anybody can misconstrue that. Yet people have used the church and the Bible to you know promote wars, genocide, all kinds of stuff over the years. Like how do Christians I don't know. I mean I just see hypocrisy here.

[24:35] So what says you? Yeah, it it's, you know, the the the basic commandment is super clear. You know, it gets messy really quickly as soon as you start to try to apply it. And I think people start very quickly start finding excuses or not maybe excuses is maybe too harsh a term, but like what do you do if you're living in, you know, again in the United States, we don't really feel this much, but what if you work? If you're living, you know, you're the father of the family. Somebody breaks into your house and wants to rape your family, you know, your kids, your wife, and steal everything, like what do you do? And and some people the answer is that's your job as a Christian to do nothing and just pray for them. And others like, well, I think it's justifiable even based on the on the commandments to defend your family even with lethal force. This was actually the reason by the way that the early Christians became started getting became a persecuted group because when when the Romans came to destroy Jerusalem, the early Christians, this was right after the uh after Jesus's death shortly after the early Christians actually took the took the Pacific route like they said and lived in the desert until the the battles were the war was over and then went back to Jerusalem. And the Jewish, you know, their Jewish brethren because they were all Jews at that point, right?

[26:06] Some believed in Jesus, some didn't. So the the Christian Jews left and then came back and all their their their brethren were like, "You guys abandoned us. You you're not part you're clearly not part of us, right?" And that's when they basically told the Jews um or sorry that the Jews started persecuting the Christians in that way and then the Romans did, etc. So, um, you know, if if you take a very strict reading of the New Testament and there and there's lots of people who have, then it would be a no violence at all. And in today's world, then how do you live that out, right? Especially if you have some sort of responsibility to somebody else and it's not just Well, there seems to me a pretty clear line between defending your family and say going to war. Like I just see it. It seems like every war like this Iran thing, there's multiple people that are, you know, talking about, you know, God wants us to go fight this war, right? I mean, I look, Anthony and John and I got in an argument about this a couple months ago. I think you were there on the side, but you know, this whole Iran war, right? And to me, it's really clear like don't go freaking kill people over there. I just it never works out for us.

[27:24] Like all these wars keep going on. I I think that if we followed the thou shalt not kill and stop bombing people and killing people and it would be better for us, better for them. I mean, you know, we suffer through, you know, printing money and inflation and everything else. But — I don't know. Oh, I mean I it's you know I mean I I think that's a I think that's definitely a justifiable position especially biblically speaking and and you're right like it gets again I'm not the president. I don't have to make those decisions. If I were what would I do as a Christian? I I don't know. I mean you can go back and I think we've talked about this a little bit like the Catholic Church has a list of um in Catholic social teaching of what makes for a justifiable war. One of the things that's not really spoken about very clearly though is the wording is typically one one that was more from the Middle Ages. So I don't know if it really fully applies in modern warfare. And there's a lot of things that the that the church taught about warfare in throughout the Middle Ages that was again kind of based on like this just this assumption that like this is what's going to happen. We need to we need to teach people how to how to do it more or in a better way and not in a worse way.

[28:41] But in today's modern warfare, I don't I don't know if that's still the best or the most upto-date version of it, but one of the things it seems very clear to imply, which is maybe a contradiction, but it seems to imply that it's always going to be a defensive war. And you know with the United States as basically the hegeimon or the you know global can can we really have a defensive war in today's reality for the United States? I mean other countries I think can but that's that's a really tough one. I mean yeah it's it's confusing and doing my research again I didn't know this stuff but just digging into it there's a place where Jesus told his disciples to sell their coats and buy swords. So that's one message, right? Then when Peter actually used one, which I didn't dig deep enough to I don't know that story. Jesus healed the guy and said, "All who draw the sword will die by the sword." All in one chapter, right? And so, you know, and there's a Luke chapter where it says, "Buy a sword." There's a Matthew chapter where it says, "Put it away." I mean, there's there's just multiple different messages.

[29:50] — Yeah. Yeah, he cut off. Clearly Peter was a fisherman and not a soldier because all he managed to do was cut the guy's ear off and uh and then Jesus heals it like instantaneously. And you're like, "Wow, lots going on here." But I agree with you. It's it's And so if you I think John said it like if you cherrypick the verses, right, or the stories, it's easy to create the narrative you want. It's much much harder to take the Bible as a whole and look at the overall message and then apply it to your life and different, you know, areas like this. So, you know, war is one of those things that it's like I I I I think most people that I talk to, you know, most serious Christians who are really trying to live their faith have an attitude of war is always bad. I mean, I don't think anybody would say war is good. I mean, or or certainly not with a Christian perspective on the world. I think at best you can try to justify it in different ways and say it's necessary, but but that's a far shot from saying it's a good thing to do, right? Or like violence is good. Well, and when I was talking about my argument with Anthony and John, I don't think they were saying war was good or they wanted it or anything like that. They they thought it was necessary, justified, and and I would say self-defense. I mean, you guys correct me if I'm wrong. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I I I that's the way I took it, even though I didn't agree with you. So, Anthony, you're on mute.

[31:23] — Yeah. I think for me, Randy, I I don't you know, self-defense would be the place to that I would I would say, hey, I think that there's a justification in many cases. Um, and I am not in any way a just warfare scholar, but I I got I have to admit that I think there are times when self-defense is appropriate. — well, you know, Christian made the point about picking and choosing. And while I was dropping my microphone, I poked around a little bit. And there's significant differences between the King James version of the Ten Commandments and the more modern translation. And one that came up is thou shalt not kill is now more commonly translated as thou shalt not murder. So that draws the a big distinction Randy between warfare and murder which is implying for no reason you shouldn't kill someone which then opens up the you know Pandora's box of reasoning when you should be involved in killing perhaps. So I just found it I find it really interesting how over time again it's a you know how much of the I I just struggle with this from how much of this is apocryphal and just you know to be used for you guys are not going to like what I'm about to say but is organized religion in the context of what we're talking about or was organized religion created if you will this massive group of Christianity Is it really just cosmetically different than Marxism, Leninism, Minecom, you know, all the all the writings of those people had served the purpose to control a populace to enrich a small part of the of the class, if you will, the population. Is that is this is the Bible just another version of that that it was created in a way because a group wanted to obtain power and control over a huge population of people through a set of rules and enough fear that people just followed it off a cliff. So that's kind of where I'm I'm struggling with — it's a fair question. think should be willing to engage in discussion in a dialogue around it, right? Because I think that people who were pretty faithful and theologically, you know, versed uh would have a pretty good argument for why that's not the case. But I think there's there's an equal argument about like could it have been then moved into that? Like is it possible that parts of today's church have have morphed into a political machine rather than a religious machine?

[34:09] And certainly I think that's a fair a fair question, right? — Yeah. Well, there's there's parts in history like it was very clear. So, so the very early Christians, if you look at historical development of Christianity, were like this tiny minority sect that was had no power and they all ended up getting many of them got, you know, ended up getting killed. So, it'd be hard to just like have that perspective in the early church and most people agree on that part. But then as he gets into the middle ages, right, you know, the church becomes in the year 700, you have the well, first Constantine and then the other emperors who become Christian and then and then power and religion are very much intermingled if not exactly the same thing. And there is there are struggles between the crown and the pope and all that, right? In the year 800, then Charlemagne is crowned by the pope though. So now like political power and religious power are very much linked. Um and that leads to a lot of bad stuff too, right? And then it leads to the crusades and it leads to all these other things. It leads to uh and and you can make again you you want to understand those things historically in their context and not just judge them from today's lens. But still I mean wasn't I I think that I think your your p perspective in those years is much more clearly like yes it was controlling. You know, then again, the reformation comes in the 1500s and that starts to that starts to split and you get to today's reality where I mean today I don't think anybody thinks the church has much power. I mean who listens to the church?

[35:41] Uh I mean it other than their members but I mean there's much less if not zero control I would say based from churches on today's political reality. I mean maybe Hex theft or other people who are very strong Christians trying to bring that back. I don't know. But I don't think that's going to happen like but yeah there there's there's you know in in another way like to think of that is like if you wanted to control somebody what are the ways to do that like financially Randy writes your book I see your book in the background right you talk about financial control you can control them you know kind of sexually you can try to that's more like other religions I mean Christianity though has its kind of version of like sexual morality that they talk about you could try to control them, you know, of course, politically and things. So, there's different ways there's control, but if you if you want to if you wanted to be really narcissistic and control somebody in a malevolent way, what better way than to use religion, which talks about like the heart of of man like, and I think there's examples of this. I mean, heck, I was basically in a Catholic sect controlled by a man who was evil. I mean, he was a priest, right? It was evil and as best I can tell used now he created this amazing thing and got a lot of people involved in it and it was a great fundraiser and all these things and a lot of in in a way did some really good stuff for the church or some good stuff maybe came out of it is a better way to say it but I think that's a definitely a I guess temptation right or and I I you know from my perspective it's not what the heart of organized religion is or what the purpose of it is, but it happens and it continues to happen. It has happened and and so definitely, you know, a scary part of it. I give you something to think about. You you said this guy's evil and I tend to agree with you, but I just want to ask the question. Compare him to David or Saul or Solomon or, you know, we on this episode we've talked about David and Saul, right? And you made a comment earlier that, you know, they did all these bad things, but then did that outweigh the good that they did, right?

[37:55] I mean, I think the same grace could be given to this guy, maybe. I don't know. I mean, you know, better. And I, you know, look, I tend to agree with you. There's that's pretty about as unforgivable as you can get. But yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the hard thing. Let me It's easy and I think as a kid I was definitely this way to you want things to be black or white. It's really easy to to say, "Okay, this political party or this person or this person what it is, they're good. They're a great person or they're bad or they're like I'm very allergic to that kind of thing." Like putting people on a pedestal and then labeling them either good or evil or honestly almost any label, even just like Catholic or Protestant is like that's just a copout. Like get to know their story. Get to know their person. There's way more gray in the world than there is black or white. whether it's in any one religious group or in any person for that matter like the the division between good and evil. Um it wasn't me who said this, it was some pope or something, but it's like it's it's like in the middle of our own hearts. That's a much harder reality to face than it is to just put people in boxes and try to simplify life, which feels good. It makes me feel more certain. And I think people do that with all kinds of things, whether it's again politics or religion or anything. But it's it's much harder to struggle with the reality that yeah, I I have evil tendencies in my own heart and I have to be aware of those and and I have evil things that I do. Like, you know, I've got to ask forgiveness for those and go talk to the people I've hurt, whether it is knowingly or unknowingly. So, I I agree with you, too, right?

[39:38] You know, it's it's tough though when you're talking to somebody who has been abused by a priest, for example, or by anybody and tell them that's not an evil person. So those are kinds of conversations that you can have in certain contexts, but you need to be aware of again their story and who you're talking to. — The standard Jesus set, Randy, was super high, right? It wasn't like thou shalt not kill or murder, right? It was like even having a thought about those things was considered, you know, a sin. And I think that's the that's part of that new covenant, right? Like there's the easy part about forgiveness and kindness, but then there's a standard that gets set that's entirely different. And so I think that's a for me as as not a cradle Catholic, a guy that converted to the faith later in my life. Like one of the big struggles for me is that is the the Bible often times seems to conflict in in in its message sometimes and I've got to really wrestle with that as Christian mentioned earlier and that's sometimes that's where a lot of the growth comes from is in that wrestling match. — Go ahead John. of where it conflicts — and the way you talked about an well an eye for an eye versus versus being forgiving or you know having having enough self-awareness to recognize that when you have a a foul thought that that itself is a sin you know or for me you know I remember brand new to the faith and there's there's this uh part of what we do in church we say I'm not worthy that you should enter under my roof but only say the word and I shall be healed and at first I was like well screw that I am too worried worthy and then it was like wait a sec. And it took me a couple of years to really like get comfortable with that saying because it was like this, you know, this version of like I'm worthy. I'm And it's like but that's not the point of what we're saying. What we're saying is that we're not Jesus.

[41:20] Like it's given freely to me. It's being given as a gift. Not because I've earned it, but being given freely as a gift is is my salvation. And so that was a but but I will tell I mean I I haven't shared that with anybody before now and I'm sharing it publicly like that took me more than a year to get comfortable with that and really understand and and lots of conversations with spiritual directors and and priests about like man I I'm not comfortable saying I'm not worthy but then getting really and you guys know humility is not my strong suit like I'm not I'm not the natural when it comes to humility. And so that took a real a real kind of a bit of humility to to get comfortable with that. So that would be one really crystal clear — Christian, where does that where is that uh written? The I am not where is that in the New Testament, the Old Testament? Where is that? — That's in the New Testament. That's I think at the uh it's actually the Roman soldier who asked Jesus to heal his I think it was his slave or or servant or something. And um Jesus said, "Great, I'll go to your house." and he says, "No, I'm not worthy for you to enter under my roof. Just say the word and they will they shall be healed." So, it was a specific encounter with a person.

[42:28] I forgot exactly where it is. But, um, you know, those those kinds of things are common. And there's been a progression even since the Bible is written and and copied down. And so, if you look at certain people who have lived it out really well, like St. Teresa of Abala for example who lived in the middle ages I think in the forgot exactly 1200s something like that or 1500s anyways St. Terresa of Babala and John Eldridge and people like big Christian authors quote her even if they're not Catholic but she she came up with this idea of spiritual progression that is not even found in the Bible itself. She calls it the seven levels of the interior castle. So she imagines she lives in Spain and so she imagined a castle and you go in and there's different there's like the moat, there's the courtyard, there's various internal rooms and she imagines that that is your own heart and you're going through these castle rooms getting closer and closer to the source which is Jesus himself. And so she describes what the progression should look like for a Christian who's trying to get more and more perfect. And if you read the levels and what the expectations are for each of those levels, it is it is shockingly hard. I mean, it's you look at like a customer journey, right? If you're a business person, you're like, "Okay, there's various things you should do as you become a better customer, so to speak." I mean, if you looked at that as a customer journey for a Christian, it's extremely difficult. And I think most people get maybe to the first or second level. You know, this the seventh level is like mystics who are having regular contemplation directly of God. Like it's basically you're almost in heaven even if you're not in heaven yet.

[44:13] — Yeah. It's interesting the premise the premise of that statement that I am not worthy is painful for me to to listen to and hear because it's it's a form of — You know, you are not worthy. I am not worthy. So I I'm starting out at the lowest rung of the ladder and I have to prove to my God um that I I in fact I am worthy. And here you know — Yeah. But Anthony just Yeah, that's where I was. — Yeah, that's exactly where I was with it. And so it's different. It's more like it's more like the parent that I say to my son like he's like, you know, I'm worthy of your love. But it's like you don't have to be like worthy of my love, unworthy of my love. I love you unconditionally. There's nothing you can do to not be loved by me. There's nothing you can do to earn my love because you don't have to earn my love. It's freely given. And there's nothing you could ever do to earn it because you don't need to earn it. It's freely given. And and and and there's nothing you can ever do to have me stop loving you. And so I think I think I was getting it backwards, right? Which was I have to prove myself to you. And it's the opposite of that which is you don't have to ever prove yourself to me, right? Like that's that is the and this led to a conversation with a spiritual director of me, you know, later on where we were talking about unconditional love and and and she's like she said to me, she said, "It takes great humility to accept unconditional love." And I broke down in tears and I mean it was like because it's not it's not about worthiness. It's not about that.

[45:48] Someone's giving you a gift with no strings attached. John Christian's earlier point though about people wanting things black and white. I read that literally. I hear that literally and you know I grew up in the Catholic church and um went to you know Catholic school early in my life, early elementary school and man you talk about black and white. I mean you know if you go to mass on nine consecutive first Fridays you are guaranteed a place in heaven. I mean, that's about as black and white as it can get. — I'll give you the rest of the list, you know, over dinner sometime. — Well, that's I think that's a human I mean, so much of this, by the way, I want to make clear. I'm not I'm not trying to rip on religion or, you know, the Bible or whatever. Like, so much of this, I think, has been rotted by human influence over the time, right? And even like humans, most humans have a need for certainty and they don't like the ambivalence or they don't like the that well here it says buy a sword or you know and here it says don't use it right and I think that I think that's hard for humans in general to get their head around it. But to me, as I think about it, that maybe is one of the lessons from the Bible is that, you know, to ask more questions and and think about it and be more comfortable in that place of uncertainty. And John, you me you said something that really stuck out to me earlier. You said you said Jesus thought about like not just thou shalt not kill, but thinking about it. And a couple weeks ago, you brought up there's two things we can control, your thoughts and your actions, right? So, thou shalt not kill is the actions and thinking about it is the thoughts and it aligns, you know, really nicely with that. But let's uh in the interest of time, I think we're going to we're going to stop this and have a have a part four with Christian next week. So, if you're still listening, you love us, download, subscribe, tell your friends, and we will be back with more questions with Christian next week.

[48:01] — Great job, guys. Here at Tales of Abundance, we know that fitness is just as important as money or milestones. It's one of our fivefs for lots of other. Taking care of my body while I build my life is one of the more timeconuming and difficult goals to chase. That's why we're partnering with AG1. It's a daily drinkable habit. Less than a minute that's formulated with 75 plus vitamins and nutrients and designed to support energy, digestion, and immune defense. It even has a few grams of protein uh that we're all chasing these days. If you want to try it with our affiliate link, you'll also receive a free AG1 flavor sampler plus vitamin D3 plus K2 with your welcome kit when you first subscribe. $72 value. Go to John Anthony Dave Ramsey came out with his own study. He did a national study of millionaires, 10,000 participants, largest survey ever of its kind. The headline is that 69% of American did it without ever making $100,000 a year. I think that would be surprising to most people. I'll say that again. 69% of millionaires in America have never made $100,000 in a year. One in three never had a six-f figureure salary at any point in their career. 89% are first generation millionaires. So they didn't inherit their wealth. Um in fact three only 3% inherited a million dollars or more. 79% in fact got no inheritance at all. Now here's what I think is really interesting too. Top five careers by percentage of millionaires. I think a lot of people what you would guess is not what it actually is. Number one engineer. Number two accountant. CPA, number three is teacher, number four is management, number five is attorney. I would assume most people would think doctors would come in there, but they're number six actually. And only 15% were VP or seuite roles. And you know, most of them just did it without having big salaries. Another key behavior, eight out of 10 invested in a company 401k and 75% invested consistently over a long period of time. And you know, anyway, mo 94% lived on less than they make. So, what's your guys' biggest takeaway from this?

[50:35] — AOC is wrong, right? — Go ahead. — You knew I was going to say that. You know, th this is, you know, we had we we talked about uh different ways to, you know, die with zero and different ways to live your life depending on the season of your life and so forth. And what what this what this says is, you know, steady and slow and steady wins the race. You know, the these are fundamental investment strategies, long-term, well thought out people with uh that are able to delay gratification. Um and they plan for a future and there's a lot more of than you think, you know. So I think uh it it's very surprising the numbers surprising to me the methodology is not uh this is the way to do it. you know, going back years uh when 401ks first got started, the lower I hate using that term lower, but uh people that were not in management positions or, you know, kind of either call center people or working the working the machines and so forth, they would opt out of 401ks uh to the point where the government stepped in and said, you know, too many people making too much money are over being overcompensated. in these 401ks. Now, my understanding is now when you join a company, you're opted in. So, you have to opt you have to physically opt yourself out. So, I think that's actually a good thing. But, uh, yeah, this is great. This is good news for people and hopeful news, very, very abundant news.

[52:16] — John, when I was really young, I had a mentor of mine gave me a book called The Wealthy Barber and he talked about how to become a millionaire as a barber. And this is like the early 90s when I read the book. And so a million dollars was probably a little harder to make then than it is today. And it's it's real simple. Live below your means and save every month and put that savings into something that generates uh you know cash not cash flow but generates returns. And in the stock market being the one that's most commonly talked about. So I'd say that you know the wealthy barber amazing book. Uh there's another book I read later called Smart Couples Finish Rich by David Bach that I thought was amazing. There's a couple books by Thomas Stanley who's an academic researcher who studied tens of thousands of people. He got, you know, really in-depth answers from about 750 or so millionaires and he studied millionaires and decillionaires. And it's the same stuff. It's it's be patient, it's be disciplined, it's long-term. You know, Susie Orman, same message, right? Spend less, earn more, save. Long-term gratification, delay gratification. Like I think most successful people say something similar and I I do think that there's something to the die with zero where you want to make sure that you enjoy yourself along the way when you're capable of doing it.

[53:28] So but I think both right you you can do both and so I'm a huge fan of this type of data for people to get in their hands. Well, my mentor as a young young kid, I mean, at at I think it was 12 when I bought my first stock Tyler Corporation, my uncle John, he he said to me then, and I've never forgotten it, he said, "You need to maximize your doubling periods." You know, the rule of 72, if you're, you know, going to make 6% annual return, um, every 12 years, your your portfolio will double and so on and so forth. He said, "Maximize your doubling periods." I didn't follow his advice 100% but I I do remember it and later in life I I I started to follow it more religiously if you will. though. — Well, what's interesting to me, I mean, you look at engineers, accountants or CPAs, right? One, two, number three is teacher, which I think is probably one of the more surprising ones on there, but you know, I have teachers in my family and I and I know a lot of engineers and all like all of those people, the top three, they tend to be very disciplined, right? And they have the ability to very simply spend less than they make and live below their means and then invest and let you know, really that's what it comes down to, right? is and and they're conservative.

[54:45] They're not taking big swings. They're not I I think one of the big things is they don't have the years where they lose it all. They just they tend to have very conservative straightforward — You know, Randy, we worked you and I worked with a guy early in our careers that said part of what part of what you make is yours to keep and and he talked well Ken Schmidt I think got that from Don Mulethra, right? So those guys were But but the bottom line is that you know you pay yourself at the government pays themselves first with you know payroll taxes but then you pay yourself next and if you take it out automatically and you never see it in your paycheck even just a few dollars it can build really quickly and there's so many of these great programs today and and and the miracle of compounding interest is such an amazing thing. It just you know even just talking about this right now maybe think I need to go back and talk to my kids and make sure they're remembering all these lessons we have. And so anyway great stuff. All right, let's move let's move to the next topic. SpaceX Elon Musk has bought a laser tech company that could connect AI in space. Basically, the company is called Mesh Optical Technologies. And what I think is really interesting about this, I mean just instead of the way AI chips are connected now, it will use lasers. And this is going to be unbelievably beneficial as they're building, you know, a constellation of satellites in space and eventually a Dyson swarm and all that. But it even makes regular data centers on Earth more efficient. And what they're find is is now they're going to be able to build these data centers and make them more electricity efficient even on Earth. And when we talk about AI needing compute and needing energy, I think these are the types of breakthroughs and technologies that never get considered because how could they? It's new. Nobody knows it exists other than maybe a few people.

[56:32] And we don't know what's going to come 3 6 9 months. So I think that prices of all of this stuff including energy is I just I think this is a big part of our search for abundance is just little pieces of effic efficiency stacked on top of each other simultaneously. What says you? — This unlocked kind of my plebeian understanding of how we were going to have data centers in space. So, I was wondering like how do you get information back and forth? And it makes so much sense. Like, you know, they they've used lasers to pick up sound on Windows in, you know, in all of the spy movies I've seen in James Bond for 40 years. Like, it all makes sense now. It's like, you know, lasers inside like fiber optic cables have used light to move information inside fiber optics forever. When I heard this, like for my non-engineering brain, it was that aha moment about like it made it very real for me and no surprise that Elon's putting the pieces together like so. And you no surprise that the people that built the company came out of SpaceX. — Yeah, that's what I was going to say. I this this goes way over my head from a technology standpoint. I don't understand any of it. But what I do understand is that, you know, three people left Elon Musk's orbit but somehow stayed in his orbit, you know.

[57:47] So it's it's an example where it's it's okay for your people that are working for you to go off on their own and be successful on their own and maintaining a relationship. There's there's abundance in that. you know, when sometimes when, and we've all done this, someone leaves your employment and you hold a grudge against them. You know, they go off to a competitor or they go to their own thing and, you know, you're you're upset about it. Apparently, that isn't the case with Elon. You know, he uh he let him go and then he, you know, brought him right back. And I think there's a le there's a lesson there of of m and we talked about this in one of our podcasts about your circle of friends and and maintaining good relationships and social relationships and so forth. I think it's a great lesson. So technology I don't know what the hell they're talking about. — I I don't think in understanding the technology is important. I think it's it's understanding that there's people smarter than us that are creating these technologies and that it's going to create more abundance in the world.

[58:51] Right? It's whether it means better technology for compute, cheaper compute, more you know whatever more of whatever all of this is going to stack on top of each other and you know I think it's all of these science future um science fiction tropes are coming together simultaneously I think is what's — Yeah. Not to bring it not to bring us down but there you know the movement out there is there there are movements out there that want to slow this stuff down. — Not to bring us down but I'm going to anyway. All right. Moving on. just something to to consider. I I I do think Randy it's probably worth noting and this might be kind of a transfer into the next topic maybe but like you know the being mindful as we talk about abundance about the counter forces of propaganda like I think that geopolitical competitors would love to slow us down in the US and so and we have such an open free system that it's relatively easy to get inside of our system to influence that system through propaganda through lobbying through you know and we have some controls but I think we have to question whether we have the controls, but I've had conversations with friends and and with, you know, family members that that I have to think to myself like where am I getting information that could be propaganda versus really good information and propaganda can come from geopolitical competitors. It can come from our own government like and without becoming kind of a you know an unhealthy conspiracy theorist, understanding what the source of the information is probably pretty important.

[1:00:17] — Let's move let's move to our next topic. We could unpack this one for a while, but uh this in the last couple of weeks, Anthropic claimed they had Mythos 5, didn't launch it or just gave it to what 100 or 200 companies, something like that. And then they came out with Fable 5, which was a dumbed down version of Mythos from what we're supposed to be led to believe. And even that was pulled after a couple of days. The government said, "No, this is too powerful. You have and they limited who they could give it to." But because you know Anthropic couldn't do that, they just dropped it for everybody. So I used it for half a day before they took it away. Not enough to, you know, have it big opinion. And then OpenAI just launched chat GPT 5.6 and they did it on a limited again the government is saying this is you know we need to okay this it's not going out to everybody so it's going out really limited. While simultaneously China's Z.AI AI who had never heard of released GLM 5.2 and supposedly they're saying is as good as Fable Mythos this new chat. They're on the same level. So just man, this stuff is moving so so fast. It's hard to keep up with. It's just breakthrough after breakthrough. So what are what do you what are you guys takeaways? I mean I I guess I want to get into the government restricting this stuff is where — Yeah. First things first for me is I I now listen to I have a podcast or two that I listen to every single day to keep up with this stuff. It's just a digest and I I feel a little bit like, you know, the president's morning brief where you get like what's happening and and just for me to feel like I'm keeping up and I I I don't even feel like I'm at the bleeding edge of it. I feel like I'm just staying up with it, not staying ahead of it. And so that's a part of because I think this is a really important skill set for what I'm doing professionally. So, I can't remember a time where I felt like I had to keep up just technologically every single day at any point in my career until now.

[1:02:15] — And even then, I don't I'm the same way, John. I don't think I can keep up even trying to. Anthony, what's your takeaway on this? — Well, I don't you know, I'm I'm I'm with you guys, but I I'm taking a different kind of approach. I'm just I'm going to I'll just be a fast follower into whatever the newest thing is going to be. there there's going to be a there's a race going on here. I'm not sure what it's a race to is a race to the bottom in terms of what these things are going to cost there. You know, I know that the uh ZI has some issues according to some people I've listened to in terms of its ability to deliver um um accurate information. for example, it's a China ch Chinaabased AI, but it's censored. So if you type in Tianaan Square, what happened in whatever it was, you won't get an answer. So the and and this is you're talking about government manipulation or government involvement. There's even there's a concern here. Um, again, not to bring us down, but there is a concern that these other than Alain's ex that there's some censorship and some not disinformation, but maybe some manipulation of information going on based on the biases that exist in the leadership of some of these companies. So, you know, what's going one thing is the technology. It's moving fast. It can deliver. It can deliver a lot of stuff, — but you know what what and how it's delivering and the the biases that are being delivered is concerning to me. So, we'll see.

[1:03:54] — Well, we we got to wrap this up in the interest of time. I have a lot of thoughts. I will just summarize them into I think the government limiting this is asinine is probably the nicest thing I can say about it because it wasn't that long ago that the Chinese models were supposedly a year to two years behind. Then they were a year behind. Then they were nine months behind. Then six months, then three months. Now they're not very much behind. And I just think that limiting your newest model, you can't limit this in every country in the world. We can limit it in the US, but it's not going to limit what comes out of China or any other country that comes up with things. So I think this is a fool's errand, but you know, that's what the government does. So anyway, uh I think it's pretty exciting that all this is coming and it's going to create more of the breakthroughs like we had, you know, with the lasers and all of these things are going to be expedited by more knowledge and I just have to believe that, you know, people are basically good and that good will, you know, defeat the evil. So anyway, everybody go out, spread a little bit of abundance