Does being religious mean being righteous?

28:00  Does being religious mean being righteous? Does righteous mean principled? Christianity has no codified principles. In fact, Christians cannot even agree on whether it is necessary to worship the Trinity to be Christian. Jehovah's Witnesses are not Trinitarian. Yet the Roman Emperor Constantine who established the Roman Catholic Church was Arian, was he not? And so were a few Roman Emperors until all Christians in the Roman Empire had to be Trinitarian, or else, when the Edict of Thessalonica was passed in 380. Aren't Mormons a category of Christian as well as Seventh Day Adventists and Unitarian Christians? But wouldn't Trinitarians execute Unitarians for heresy when Trinitarian Christianity was firing on all four cylinders, which was what happened to Michael Servetus at the behest of John Calvin? Weren't the Founding Fathers - being Unitarians - in fact heretical Christians? Wasn't America founded on a Christian heresy? If so, wouldn't it be better for Americans to raise their religious status by accepting the narrative that the Founding Fathers were proto-Muslim Noahides rather than heretical Christians? These questions have yet to be resolved.

38:00  All these questions suggest that we now have American Gnosticism in the 21st century. Before the Roman Catholic Church was founded by Constantine, Christianity operated only by people claiming to be Christian using the brand of Jesus to sell their wares - which was usually snake oil -  making up the rules as  they went along. Constantine at least knew that this could not be continue if the Roman Empire were to adopt Christianity as its imperial religion. He thought, naively, that calling Christian bishops to Nicaea in 325 would solve the problem. In fact, Nicaea was only one of the First Seven Ecumenical Councils. After so many centuries, Christians still cannot get their story straight.  

Let's face it, if you want to control your people, the blunt instrument is the use of personality politics and having an absolute monarch claiming the divine right to rule supported by the Pope who would whip your people into a frenzy of hatred and rage to wage their Crusades against Muslims in the Levant.

Such a system would mean routine abuse of power to silence critics eg having absolute power to sign the death warrants of your subject and incarcerating them without the writ of habeas corrupts. quran.com/2/256 supports the First Amendment guaranteeing freedom of belief and expression. The point of the Koran is that it protects the ruler from abusing his power and allows his subjects to know their legal rights.    

Colonel Wilkerson on Tucker Carlson has pointed out that the CIA is trying to arrange an American Catholic Church to support American imperialism now that has an American Pope.

BRAVE AI

During an interview on The Tucker Carlson Show, retired Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson discussed a long-standing, "sotto voce" effort to create an American Catholic Church with its own Pope, distinct from the authority of Rome.  Wilkerson stated that while he initially hoped the election of an American Pope (Leo XIV) would stop this movement, it instead reinforced the desire among certain groups to have an American Pope who would not take instructions from Rome, driven by what he identified as a motivation for power rather than theology. 

Key Points from the Discussion

The Proposal: Wilkerson described an under-the-table effort to establish an independent American Catholic hierarchy, allowing the group to ignore papal authority. 

Motivation: When Tucker Carlson asked if the motivation was ideological or theological, Wilkerson insisted it was "all power," arguing that such a church would seek to divorce the Pope from the idea of being from God. 

Pope Leo XIV: Wilkerson expressed skepticism about Pope Leo XIV, noting that the Pope’s willingness to argue with the Vatican and dress as Jesus Christ for advertisements did not give him confidence, and he criticized the timing of the Pope's actions as "bad juju."

Historical Context: Wilkerson suggested this current period might be viewed in the future as a "great awakening" similar to the one that produced Prohibition, indicating a significant cultural and religious shift in the United States.

Absolute bombshell. Col. Wilkerson exposes a covert operation by the establishment to create a rogue American Catholic Church.

They desperately want an American Pope to completely ignore the Vatican.

The elite want to hijack religion to justify their endless imperial wars! pic.twitter.com/cHh1bFZdly

— Furkan Gözükara (@FurkanGozukara) May 4, 2026

38:20 Lots of atheists go to church.

50:00  The difference between religion and politics is a distinction without a difference.

53:00  Jordan Hall is just a confused pretty boy only comfortable in echo chambers and so is Jonathan Pageau who is obviously an intellectual mediocrity. He converted to Orthodox Christianity from French Baptist Church because confused Europeans disillusioned with their own churches who do not understand their own history instinctively choose a religion that is older than their country thinking that its apparent longevity will save them from the depredations of their malign ruling classes. The phenomenon of churches becoming mere social clubs happened as long ago as the Half-Way Covenant of 1662. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-Way_Covenant

Jews have a rather more principled stance on these matters. If a Jewish community can no longer find ten good Jewish men in good standing with God to form a quorum/minyan, they are to shut down their synagogue in shame,  instead of pretending they are still Jewish with their homeopathically diluted Judaism. 

https://wongchunwai.com/2013/07/the-jewish-community-in-penang-is-all-but-gone-leaving-only-tombs-behind/

55:00  Sermon on the Mount

1:02:00  We just want to be told the pass mark so we know the least we can do to get to heaven after sitting the exam in our Examination Hall of Life. This is for people who do not expect to pass with flying colours and even wonder if they will get through the exam at all.

1:15:00  "Now we're  going to have theological discussions again!"

1:20:00  Actually,  Allah is Zionist. https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/allah-is-a-zionist

1:23:00  ' "Keep your religion at the door." Is that a religious practice?' 

Liberalism is a religion for all practical purposes. 

Yes, if you're a liberal whose political orthodoxy dominates all political and religious discourse. Is liberalism a religion? This is not yet established, but we already know that liberalism is a secular political ideology that has the effect of religion over those who subscribe to it. That is why our laws are liberal and hate speech laws are basically speech that liberals hate and regard as heresy.  

I know this to be true when I was talking to a Chinese man who more or less took that attitude with regard to Marxism over the different religions in China. "We, the Marxist establishment whose orthodoxy is Socialism with Chinese Characteristics - tolerate you and set the boundaries of your religion." 

1:26:00  "Secularism was an amazing Christian invention." Who agrees with you about that apart from Tom Holland? If you are saying Liberalism was a reaction against and a rejection of the totalitarian oppression of absolute monarchy, I would agree with you. The last 250 years of Western history has been a series of republican revolutions rejecting the institution of absolute monarchy beginning with the English Civil War. 

Are you really saying that believing Christians in France and Russia in the 21st century - assuming they are not already long extinct - would be on board with Christians taking credit for the republican revolutions of America, France and Russia two of which were regicidal?

1:27:00  There are liberal elements in the Koran since it grants Muslims more rights in a constitutional republic than that enjoyed by the Christian subjects of an absolute monarch. Sunnis talk about the Rashidun Caliphate ie the Four Rightly Guided Caliphs implicitly agreeing that all the subsequent Caliphs - who were absolute monarchs - were not rightly guided. As Lord Acton said, "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Thomas Jefferson would agree that absolute monarchy is absolutely corrupt. As for constitutional monarchies, why bother having one if the constitutional monarch in question cannot even enjoy his First Amendment rights - one of the "unalienable rights" conferred on men created equal? The British monarch enjoys neither freedom of expression nor freedom of belief since it is part of his job description to be the Supreme Governor of the Church of England. 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights [contained in the Koran], that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness [within the boundaries determined by sharia].

Liberty is what we ought to enjoy after all the necessary laws are in place. Who apart from God who has made laws for humanity knows what laws are necessary for humanity while protecting their unalienable right of freedom of belief and free speech? 

1:29:00  Only in a decidedly unChristian nation would apostates like Bart Ehrman profit from their apostasy and be praised even by Christian clergymen. 

1:34:00  It is not just Christians that fear being killed by other groups, is it? Atheists presumably would fear early termination caused by WW3 and hostile groups more than anyone who believes good will be rewarded and evil punished in this life and the next. How many Christians really care that they might be guilty of a mortal sin? If they do not, doesn't this mean that they do not believe in the afterlife? If they do not believe in the afterlife, does this not mean that they do not believe God exists to punish anyone for anything? If they are only pretending to believe in God and the afterlife, then it means they are Hell-bound hypocrites according to the Koran. 

The great thing about the Koran is that it blocks all the exits for idolaters and hypocrites who are guilty of the idolatry of worshiping their own dumb opinions and refusing to be corrected.  

1:37:00  Israel is an American colony. 

1:38:00  I am sure Yosef, Chezi and Jacob would confirm that Maimonides does not represent Jewish mysticism. 

1:38:00  Maimonides was deeply influenced by Islamic philosophy. 

BRAVE

Maimonides was deeply influenced by Islamic philosophy, particularly through the works of Al-Farabi, Ibn Sina (Avicenna), and Ibn Rushd (Averroes).  Born in Muslim-ruled Córdoba and later settling in Egypt, he was immersed in the Islamic Golden Age intellectual milieu, writing his major philosophical work, The Guide for the Perplexed, in Arabic (Judeo-Arabic). 

Key aspects of this influence include:

Transmission of Aristotle: Maimonides adopted the Aristotelian framework preserved and interpreted by Muslim philosophers, using it to reconcile Greek reason with Jewish theology. 

Theological Methods: He utilized Al-Farabi’s via negativa approach, which negates positive attributes of God to preserve divine unity, and mirrored Islamic philosophical discussions on the nature of prophecy and the active intellect. 

Scientific and Medical Knowledge: His expertise in medicine and astronomy was derived from Islamic texts, and he served as the personal physician to the court of the Sultan Saladin. 

Cultural Integration: His legal code, Mishneh Torah, and his formulation of the 13 Principles of Faith were shaped by the structured theological and legal traditions of the Islamic world he inhabited.

1:40:00  What Bret Weinstein meant by "a different branch of the [Abrahamic] tree" is that he does not condone the genocide of the Gazans.

1:41:00  Yes, it is a religious war. It is not really led by secular Jews who antisemites like to pretend control the American Empire, but by the American Empire itself relying on the ignorance, chauvinism and indifference of the American people to the Muslim countries neocons - a euphemism for American imperialism  - bomb in their name. Insofar as secular Jews are seen to have power and influence, it is only what the US government allows them to have. 

1:41:10  PVK "It's almost as if Tucker Carlson and Bret Weinstein share a religion!" It's just human decency, Paul. 

1:41:15  Secularity = neoconservatism + neoliberalism + feminism + intersectionality 

1:42:00  The more people see this war as a World War of Religions, the more people will take theology seriously, and this is where we both come in!

1:45:00  Hills worth dying for are fundamental principles of decency, logic and undisputed truth.  

1:46:00  Bret Weinstein is saying that there are principles worth dying for. Even if you are an atheist and a hypocrite, you have to say that you are prepared to die in defence of your own people and territory because if you say you will not, you would be rightly shunned and despised by those around you who will see you as a potential coward and deserter. Is it even religious? It should be the instinct of any man who understands his gender role as a man. Imagine what women would think of men who expect them to die on hills of any kind in defence of any principle or territory. The tragedy of it all  is that Bret is the exception rather than the rule in our global matriarchy of infantilised and feminised men. 

1:47:00  Antisemitism, Islamophobia and racism are being ramped up to prevent people from asking the right questions and coming up with the right answers after having full and frank discussions about the way things are. Women who wish to remain in denial want to call men conspiracy theorists and other names for discussing subjects disturbing to them. Political activists also call each other names for daring to discuss heretical ideas. Sadly, YouTubers who are more interested in showing status and pandering to their subscribers and viewers might also have a part to play in the blame game of denialism. The lies we want to believe in are sacred to us. 

1:48:00  We just need to agree on a minimum standard of morality.  This means the Noahide laws minus the prohibition against idolatry and blasphemy since they infringe on the First Amendment supported by quran.com/2/256

1:49:00  Orthodox Jews regard Reform Jews as heretics.

1:51:00  THE RELILGION OF MUM AND DAD IS PATRIARCHY.

There is a Dad who sits at the Head of the Table and holds forth, lecturing his children about this and that. This is patriarchy at its most basic. In a matriarchy, the brats sit in front of the TV and get chicken nuggets and chips thrown at them. It is fundamentally only men who talk about tradition. Women just see it as more cooking and cleaning and giving hospitality to their husband's friends and family whom they don't necessarily like.   

Doesn't sound like Bret get to go to the Hebrew school and the Bar Mitzvah he asked for.

1:58:00  Lineage is holy. 

2:03:00  Isn't liberal democracy incompatible with a religion that supports marriage, patriarchy and lineage?