Shawn (00:03.214)
Hello everybody and welcome to the RM podcast. This is a really special episode. It is episode 99. Well, okay. So technically we've dropped a hundred episodes, right? So on, but this one is the 99th that we're recording. That's right. So next week is the hundredth episode. You would think, next week, a hundred, that's going to be super special. It'll only be special because Sam's going to be back for the hundredth episode.

Now the reason the 99th episode is special is because it's the first episode that we've ever recorded being in the same place as each other. Sean and I are together. My daughter, Melanie is with us. Also our families are here, but they don't want to join the podcast today, but they're welcome to join if they should decide that they want to be a part of the podcast. So Sean, I learned something interesting today. I learned that Kristen

Doesn't always think the things that you say that she thinks on the podcast. Would you like to clear that up a little bit? Our friend Levi also seems to like to fact check me. I feel like I'm the one that does the most research out of everybody and I do my best to fact check. And if I ever say anything wrong, my sweet wife, you just correct it and I will fix it. You'll come on the episode the next week and say, I just want everyone to know that I said my wife would say this.

She would never say this. I think it means you don't know your wife as well as you think you do. think that's a judgmental statement. I think that if it really was something that was questionable, she would make me change it. And so far she hasn't made me change anything. So I think we're fine. Okay. Well, the other thing that's special about this episode is Melanie is going to join us as a guest host. Welcome Melanie. Thank you. Thank you. I'm glad to be here. So previous guests hosts actually listened to the podcast.

Melanie emphatically refuses to be a listener to the podcast. That's not true. You said you've listened to some. Yeah, yeah. It's not an emphatic no. It's just like a 95 % of the time no. Because you're too busy for us? Because you're too good for us? We've talked about my opinions on podcasts, dad. Tell us more Melanie. All of our listeners to podcasts would like to know your opinion about

Shawn (02:16.472)
podcast. does it save my case if I just say I talked to you for an hour and a half once a week and that's about enough of you for me? Nice, nice start. I like it. This is good. Now, Mel, hang on. You did say one thing as over time, Matt and I have debated with Sam about the name of the podcast. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You like our name, right?

I feel like I'm in a lose-lose situation here. be honest, Melanie. What do you think about Well, the first name when we launched was called the Latter-day Lens, and that meant that we're going to talk about... See, I got to pitch it to her. Happy New Year, listener. Happy New Year. Okay, fine. We're revisiting a debate you've probably never heard of before on this podcast. It was first the Latter-day Lens, and then it became Real Mormonism or the RM Podcast.

I will say that I personally love alliteration. So Latter Day Lens has a great ring to it. And I hate the label RM. But I don't want to be mean to either of you, but I don't think you guys know as much about branding and marketing. To end this into transition to the next thing, watch this, what I'm about to do, Melanie. I'm sitting next to Matt for the first time on this podcast and I get to slap him.

All right. That's the ding. If you heard that, that's the ding that says new topic. So we had a listener write in. We never actually, we're actually never going to get back to all of those listeners that wrote in talking about monopolies or whatever. We've moved on from that. We're going to just read this listeners. I Matt is bored of the time. I also think maybe it means Matt has a favorite listener. Yeah, no, no, it doesn't. No, I'm, I think Sean's right. just, I,

Monopoly is a board game and I don't care about it other than that. Okay, somebody please tell, somebody please fact check Sean's Tesla story. He lives in California. Okay, pause. How is that relevant to Tesla that you live in California? I mean, ask the listener, you know? okay. Listener, if you could tell us how that's relevant. Okay. There's no excuse for not knowing all the ways government subsidized Tesla. Sam will know the details. Well, Sam's not here with us today.

Shawn (04:36.11)
and we're both in California and that didn't help me know the details. Google, the Google did help me know the details. Oh, what are the details? Wait, first I want to hear you try and defend your misinformation. I'll tell you the details. You tell me the details. ahead. Tesla buyers, a person purchasing a Tesla car received federal tax credits worth an estimated $3.4 billion before the perk disappeared entirely for the Tesla buyers at the end of

2019. Okay, but that's an art. Okay, but you can argue there that the government was incentivizing because of some stupid laws. Yeah, it's it's citizens of California to buy electric vehicles. Yeah, they were subsidizing the I mean one argument could say they're subsidizing the buyer. The buyer is benefiting by saving money. But Tesla benefits because they can charge more money for the vehicles and or they benefit because

The government is artificially creating a market for vehicles that wouldn't have existed otherwise. Yeah, there's, there's, there's meddling there. agree. don't agree with the market. Just suddenly decided we want electric vehicles. The government said to them, don't you want electric? Hold on. You're telling me that everyone loves their gas guzzling vehicles. And then one day the government says you can save $7,500 if you just buy a battery vehicle and everyone's like,

Let's go spend $80,000 on a stupid Tesla. $80,000. $80,000 for a Tesla? they're like 60,000 and 50,000. you serious? I wouldn't pay 20,000 for a But what if you got $7,500 off, Then I would. So listener, there you go. Like you can write in and we'll fact check Sean from time to time. No, but to his, to...

to Levi who wrote that. To his credit, obviously the government did more than just the $7,500 subsidy. There was a lot of money that they invested, not invested, what was it? It was a loan. was like low interest loans because the government said, yes, we've got a company over here that's innovated batteries and we want to get away from gas. So yes, let's invest in these guys. Let's give them a loan so that they can do it.

Shawn (06:53.25)
Now, would you argue that that's government subsidizing and creating Tesla and enabling Tesla to become a giant? No, I don't think so. Cause Elon Musk could have easily gotten money outside of the government, but he got cheap money from the government. He's not stupid. He's going to take it. But you can't say that government enabled the rise of that. No innovation did. This is all I want to say about that. Sean Levi, you were invited to be a host on the podcast and you turned us down. So if you have something you want to say to Sean,

Get on the podcast and say it to Sean. back. I'm not reading texts from you anymore. I didn't realize what happened. I feel cheated. I feel duped. I feel dirty inside. Yeah, good. Come back, Levi. Come back. Yeah, there you go. Okay, so the big question, we're going to have a little bit of a truncated episode. Sean's not at all happy with me today because I came to Sean's house to hang out with him and then I sort of forced him into a podcast with no preparation. You know how Sean likes to prepare? Well,

I'm not a political science professor. I don't have an IQ that's 10 times higher than the rest of the citizenry of America. I need a little time. I need a little time to prepare. So I didn't get less time. We'll see how I do. Yeah. We're going to, it's going to be good you guys. Um, but Sean's, if he sounds like he's a little bit grumpy with me or, uh, like he's not quite ready. Um, this is why. Okay. So I'm just, I'm just mad just to preface it.

He got here, I was so excited to show him my original NES system, the game Contra. We played it and he just wasn't that interested. I mean, Melanie, you played it though. It was really fun. Shout out to Contra. Contra when I was a kid, but I'm not a child anymore. Computers have come long way. And you put away childish things? Why is Sean buying Nintendo games in 2024? My dad cares about things like good graphics, which frankly I think is juvenile.

Nice. It's the quality of the game. Sit down. I love you here, Melanie. Okay. So my big question is this. This is from a New York Times article. If the headline says this Pfizer, if you don't know Pfizer is a big private pharmaceutical company. I'm grateful to Pfizer because they developed the first vaccine for COVID-19. But other people like.

Shawn (09:14.602)
have different opinions about Pfizer. This is what my dad does with his preparation time. Pfizer stopped us from getting ozempic decades ago. And here's what it says in the story. There was a startup company that figured out that GLP-1 could be used as a potential treatment for diabetes and could help with obesity. GLP-1 is the chemical that's in ozempic.

Ozempic is that weight loss drug that if you inject yourself with it, it helps people lose weight. Well, it turns out in 80s, in 1987, there was a company that was being funded in part by Pfizer that had figured out that this stuff worked. But Pfizer decided that there wasn't enough of a market for an injectable diabetes drug. And so they stopped funding this company. And so we've had the technology since 1987.

to have drugs like Ozempic and we'll go, I don't know all of them. But if you watch any television, which I've been doing over the holidays, every third commercial is some GLP-1 drug that will help you lose weight. We've had this technology for over 40 years and it never came to market because the free market is inefficient. Let me just understand the premise of your question, all right? You hate pharmaceutical companies because they're just.

Greedy capitalists. No, no, no, you do. I love the pharmaceutical. just said I like Pfizer because they gave us the COVID vaccine. remember how I used to stockpile COVID vaccines. And then they all expired and you could have sold them for 200 bucks each. You had to go on your cruises. Yeah, he did. did. See, I like Pfizer. I have no problem with that. Okay. But you're presupposing that certain drugs like Zempic is a net benefit to the world. society. For society. Yes, because

thousands of people die from diabetes and They're not gonna die from diabetes anymore because they lose weight. I learned this on the commercial Ozempic lowers your a1c It's funny I would ask my dog I've asked doctors I said, can you pause because I worked in the pharma world They did marketing and branding for some pharma products and I was pretty sure in those years that you have big teams of regulatory and legal people because you can't

Shawn (11:36.162)
like a drug or a medical device has an indication for something, right? It gets approved to do something. And I was asking these doctors, how can this ozempic drug be given out like candy to people who don't have diabetes? And they said, well, I know it is kind of skirting the indication, but the fact is that I would almost do anything to get people to lose weight because losing weight is... It's really healthy. It's so much healthier. going to save so many...

They can eliminate diabetes if you lose 30, 40 pounds. See? Okay. So, so then it is good. Well, but it's indicated doctor would do anything, when it's indication is for diabetes and doing what diabetes, no, no. A1C, all the stringent testing is focused on just that lowering a one seat. Right. So it's not focused on weight loss, for example. So there have been no tests. There's been no testing. I don't think on what are the long-term effects.

If non diabetic people take ozempic, we don't have that. So it's not FDA approved to take GLP one. That's right. That's right. That's right. So that's my first thing. Your presupposition is faulty. because FDA approved. Well, I will tell you this, Sean, the COVID vaccine that I took was not FDA approved. That's right. That's right. But you but there are many people who don't think that I live. I will not be here with you today if I had not.

taking a non-FD... I think we should have follow up on that story because I'm pretty sure I remember you getting COVID before you were vaccinated and surviving. It's the best to have you here. Also, the vaccine made me really, really sick for a couple of days, but then it saved my life. my gosh. You don't know that it saved your life. Okay, but your point in this question is what? That if the government were in charge of medicine...

instead of the free market. We would have had GLP-1. We would have done all those studies by now because we would have known back in the 1980s, here's this chemical that can help lower your A1C. And the question wouldn't have been, is there enough of a market for another diabetes drug? The question would have been, does this work? And there were studies at the time that showed that it worked. So we would said, it works. Let's let people have this as an option because government makes better decisions.

Shawn (14:02.35)
than private individuals who are seeking to maximize profits. You've got a lot of assumptions in what you just said. That was a fact. Oh, is it a fact? So here's... makes better decisions? Yeah, always. Okay. Thank you. Melanie, once again, for pointing out and clarifying things that your father says. I wanted to emphasize his point. Yeah. Do you want to give an opinion before I... No, no. I want to hear your opinion Are you sure? Yeah. Okay. So, first of all, if you're presupposing that it's a good drug...

Okay, let's presuppose that. Yeah. Charles Barkley likes it. Oprah Winfrey. And she has good taste in, okay. So let's presuppose it's a decent drug. At the time, what you're saying is the company got together and says, okay, there's already an injectable that treats diabetes. And our research says that if we invest the money to put out another injectable, it does different things.

the market won't buy it. don't want another injectable. So if we go ahead and put it out there, no one's going to get it anyway because no one's going to buy it. So there was a marketing slash business decision that they made to not put it out there. Now fast forward to 2024. You read me the statistics earlier. How many more people have diabetes since the eighties? Okay. So in the 80 in 1987, one in five had diabetes. That's 20%. Okay.

Now it's more than 40%. and so the number of people with diabetes has doubled. Okay. So the market that's Pfizer's fault. So the market, their fault, no, cause they're research giving that drug. They're prevented that the research that you stated in your well-researched report was the market said they wouldn't take the drug. Right. The free market said, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah. I've already got an injectable. My cousin has diabetes. I remember every Christmas watching him, you know,

it's harsh and he would have said according to the research. I'm not gonna put another thing I'm not gonna do that twice. I'm gonna do this and that's it So no one would have used it. No one would have saved lives according to their research, but they could be wrong about that You agree that Pfizer is money-driven, right? Yes So if the research would have said we're gonna make money, they would have done it right and the research said what? We won't make money, but government doesn't care about making

Shawn (16:28.002)
Government cares about making people healthy and making them happy. your dumb face! could keep it at 20%. Say it again. Say the phrase you said again, Melanie. Say it again. said, government cares about keeping people healthy. my god. Do they not? Come on, of course they do. Whose government? Who is it? Our government. The United States government. What is it? Is it? We the people.

So you care about no you're saying that the bureaucrats in Washington DC care about America being healthy That's what drives them. It's not power He cares about people being healthy. It's not the money that he made. It's not this status So I think the question should really be does government or business care more I think we can both agree that

maybe government doesn't care a ton, but I also think maybe business doesn't care a ton. I agree. I agree. And this is why. Okay. Let me finish it. Yes. So the case I've been thinking about here is we know that businesses are motivated by the free market, right? Supply demand. in this initial study, when they were like 20 % of Americans aren't going to take this drug, it's because supply wasn't high enough. So the question is, should medicine just be provided?

in response to demand, right? Should we wait until it reaches epidemic levels to provide the medicine or should we use it as a preventative measure? That is a way better question than that. That is a good question. So your question is Pfizer looks at this new drug and goes, well, this is breakthrough. This really helps people, but the market won't buy it. So you're saying maybe the ethical thing to do Pfizer should go, well, then let's just invest in more education and maybe let's partner up with.

government, I can't believe I'm saying that, to not give it to them, but let's have them help educate the public on this drug that actually will help them. Yeah, like maybe 20 % isn't enough to turn a profit for us. But if we get it out here, if we get it to the 20 % and have them take it, then we won't need it later on when it reaches whatever percentage it's You know what love about that? Because initially you said, we don't trust government, right Matt?

Shawn (18:44.014)
And we also don't trust the altruistic motives of business because there's a profit motive, right? And that's capitalism. But what's lovely about the free market is this. The free market is driven by the invisible hand, which means if Matt wants something like Nicholas Cage. When you said invisible hand, was like, that is Nicholas Cage right there. thank you. How's that? Because the invisible hand, means if Matt wants something, if Matt has diabetes,

and really will benefit from this drug. If I can provide a value for him, then he's going to want to gladly pay money for that. So it's not the greedy company and it's not the stupid enough government. It is the individual who is being benefited here. Right. So the free market doesn't mean business and it doesn't mean government. The free market means the individual, the consumers. I've given the points to Melanie. Good job, Melanie.

It's your first time on the podcast and you got points from me and Sean, which rarely happens. And you did what I think is the smartest thing to do, which is take a question that Matt asks and just change it to a better question. I like that. because Sam does that all the time. Yes, he does. No, no. Sam takes your question and makes it a worse question. You know, I'm just concerned because I feel like at some point you're both going to turn on me and that's not going to be pretty. So it's a good start. You're nervous about what's happening. Yeah, I'll just start on the high point and it'll be downhill from here.

Melanie, you haven't listened for a while, we slash I always try to inform our decisions and opinions here based on gospel principles. Matt tries to run away from that. Can you see any type of scriptural or spiritual principle that informs, I guess, our opinions on this? I guess we could talk about like the principle of preparedness or whatever. I don't know.

No, I take the points away from Malin. I'm citing self-reliance books here, not the Book of Mormon. I like that. That's a scary doctrinal line. Okay. Keep that in mind. The next few questions, we've got to bring in some scripture or scripture for us. Sean, do you have a question? Is it mine? Yeah. All right. Let's see. okay. So I've been reading a bunch about, we've had a lot of discussions about constitution and there was this state. Are you familiar with?

Shawn (21:09.548)
Our government or our constitution should be, we should have a government of laws and not of men. I have heard people say that before. was on, I'm embarrassed because John Adams, the actor, John Adams in the John Adams films said that and I don't know if it's historical or HBO thing. okay. So I'm not sure if it's real or not, but he was real adamant that we need to create a government of laws. Yeah. Not of men. So do you understand what he meant by that?

I think I do, go ahead. context of that John Adams thing. So the idea in great Britain and let's say prior to the United States is power comes from God and you have the divine right of Kings. So God chooses a King, a man, and he creates government and society. Yes. And so what John Adams was saying is that we should have government, not from a man chosen by God.

but we should have laws that govern everybody and treat everybody the same. And that should be the form, like the power of our government comes from the law, not from the individual chosen by God. Sometimes our political scientist provides value and that was deep and beautiful. So in other words, principles govern. People don't govern principles, laws, principles are the things that go, which applies to gospel, right? Like what's so beautiful about scripture is you open it up and it's just full of principles.

Principle. But there's also a person, Jesus. Yeah, but we believe that our Father in heaven and Jesus Christ are perfect and all-knowing. I don't believe that they have to follow laws. I'm pretty sure that's scriptural. Mercy cannot rob justice. If so, God would cease to be God. Right. So that implies that there are laws. I love Melody here. There are laws that God has to obey. Or maybe he creates those laws. Okay, I love this discussion.

It's definitely another topic. We can revisit it when you finish your question. But even if God or Christ, whether He creates the laws or He obeys the laws, the truth is in their perfection, they govern them. They obey them or they govern them. Let's just say they don't make rules that they don't follow themselves. Sure. Okay. Okay. So that being a truth, look in scripture and say, I can look at scripture and I can go, it's infallible.

Shawn (23:33.506)
It's all full of principles that if I can just study and know and learn the principles, then my life will be happy and I will return to God and I will be with my family. Like all the benefits that come from that, right? So when I look at it that way, this article I read said, when you look at our constitution and the history of people, usually implementation of principles is gradual. It's not all at once. Like for example, does not our constitution, let's say it's principled.

Or let's say certain principles like all men are created equal or like... Not in the Constitution, by the way. Okay, no, that's in the Declaration of Independence. Is that a founding document? Is that a document that... Is that a true principle? How about that? That is a true principle. Okay, so it's a true principle. So if that's a true principle that informed a lot of what was in the Constitution, which it did, Yeah. I think so. I ask myself how on earth could they be so wrong with slavery if all men are created equal? Right?

But the idea, the answer, some people would say is because implementing true principle is usually a gradual thing. Okay. So the question is this. Well, there's two questions. One, do you agree with that, that our constitution is for the most part inspired and principled? And when you look in our past, it's lots of failures, but it's not because of the failures of the law or the principles is the failures of men implementing it. And gradually we hopefully get better and better. That's number one. What do you say, Melanie?

I think there are lots of principle documents and the goal is to find the ultimate principle that you're working towards, right? Like we can say the constitution is a divinely inspired document. We can say the Quran is a divinely inspired document, right? And the question is, what is it that we're working towards? What's our ultimate goal? What are the ultimate principles? So I don't know. I'm going to answer your question with another question. Would you say, but would you say, let's just assume it's an inspired document, the constitution.

Are you okay with the idea that whatever follies or failures that we as a people, you know, in implementing it, it's not that it's okay, but it, but applying principles is always, is always a gradual process. So for me, the divinely inspired constitution is always, I know that the scripture say that the Lord suffered the constitution to be established.

Shawn (26:01.004)
by individuals who were raised up to that purpose. But there's nowhere in scripture that says the document itself is divinely inspired. Okay. We do have president Oaks talks about a divinely inspired constitution. And he talks about it principles in that document that are inspired president Benson. Same thing. so to answer the first question, do I think that, the document is divinely inspired? Yeah.

Does it contain divinely inspired principles? Yes it does. Because I believe it has some principles that are divinely inspired. I do think that there is value that God gave the world in the establishment of the United States. The idea of separation of powers, the idea of federalism, as messy as those things can be. I think that those are important principles. The idea that individuals should be responsible for the government and their system.

I think that that could be inspired and it wasn't really on the earth. The next question about the gradual implementation of law, I think that that's more of like a hopeful statement than a statement of fact. It doesn't necessarily take a long time to figure out how to implement laws. I could tell you what to do, I could give you set of instructions and you could follow it exactly. What happens is you have individuals that don't like the laws.

so then they don't follow them or they try to find ways around them. This happens all the time, right? You can imagine in the Trump administration, he's going to make some executive order that tells somebody in some agency to do something that they disagree with. And they're going to engage in they call in the guerrilla government or the Biden administration could buy them from the from a from the force of a gun force, what millions of people to take a vaccine, for example.

Which was not constitutional, got struck down in the Supreme Court. Who in the world was threatened with a gun? That's government. Government is Government doesn't shoot you if you don't vaccinated. Yes, they would have. the Supreme Court didn't shut that down. Who was going to get Well, we know were vaccinated, so you can't really say. They maybe don't let you go on a cruise. Or maybe they don't let you go shopping. they would have been fired from their job. And if that person shows up, they call the police. The police, by force of gun, will take that person off the premises and put them into jail for trespassing.

Shawn (28:24.992)
Okay. So we can imagine a situation like that where there's some executive order that a person doesn't want to follow. Okay. And, then at the same time, they don't want to lose their job. So they'll engage in like these tactics that make it so that it appears that they're following the rules, but they're not really following the rules. Okay. So it's true. Like there is some element of implementing laws and policies that can take a long time, but I'm just questioning, like, I don't think that it is always like a really good reason for that. Sometimes it's that.

Like if we take the case of the United States, there were slave owners who wanted slavery. so, that violates the principle in the, in the founding documents, right? Man are created equal life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. But you're saying that the majority, the, the, there were enough people who disagreed with the principle. Yes. Okay. It's not a flaw in the constitution. Well, in some ways it is right. We talked about this before. Yeah. It had to be clarified later on in the

That if 14th, let's say that you're a slave in Virginia. Yeah in 1776. Yeah, and you have to make a choice Do I want to fight for the United States or do I want to fight for Great Britain? You would have been freed as a slave sooner if Great Britain won the war. then if the United States won Yeah, because the Great Britain freed all of the slaves everywhere in like 1840 1850, right? Yeah, and they didn't have to go to war to do it Yeah, but in the United States we had to have a war to do it

because there were these Southern states that weren't gonna let go of slavery. They were gonna maintain it as long as they could. So the United States Constitution is a compromise in some ways, right? It's a compromise between the Northern states and the Southern states. And the Southern states have a strong interest in maintaining slavery. See, I don't like this because what this does is it suggests that this is not a infallible, strong, inspired document full of principles. It's a compromise between that's what it is.

We can almost see a divine pattern there too though, right? If we look back to the Levitical priesthood way back when as God was giving the law to the Israelites, they weren't prepared for the higher law that we live by now. So he gives them the Levitical priesthood, not because that is the perfect law, not because that's what they're aspiring towards, but because that's what the people are ready for. But in this case, we chose it. Americans chose it, right? Chose.

Shawn (30:43.266)
The U.S. Constitution as it was the compromised version not the one that's just full of beautiful true principles and but now I love Melanie's point because you're saying that that's the nature of humans. So even God in dealing with his chosen people was like, okay, I need to is the right word compromise. I need to modify, right? I need to modify until and I like that because remember in Moses and Abraham in the Pearl Great Price when God is going through the seven days of creation.

or the six and the rest. And he gets to one point and he says, and then we gathered the elements and we commanded them and then we watched them until they obeyed. And then that was the creation process for day three. And then again, we gathered the elements and we commanded them and we watched them until they obeyed. You remember that part? Yeah, but that's not what happened with the constitution. Well, that's what happened with the Levitical. take what we're ready for, right? And so the constitution is us being flawed. I don't think as we have it,

It's anywhere near perfect or anywhere near as good as the little bit Levitical priesthood was. But I just want to emphasize Sean. It's a compromise, right? Because the US constitution has to get ratified by three quarters of the state. And in the state of Virginia, it came down to three votes that almost didn't pass in Virginia. If it hadn't passed in Virginia, it wouldn't have passed anywhere. In New York, it was a handful of votes.

So there are several states that only pass the constitution by a handful of votes. So you have to recognize like there were slave states that did not want the U S constitution because they wanted slavery more than they wanted. the compromise was that there wasn't stronger language in it that, that abolished slavery right away. that an African-American is three fifths of a person for the purpose of representation. Then you're right. They're not citizens. You're right. Okay. They can't vote.

Yeah, that's horrible. Yeah. Okay. So there is a compromise element to it. Okay. I'm to give Miles the That's you, Malini. I think that's you. I'll have to choose between the two Miles's then I'm giving it to Malini because man, she brought in scripture, she brought in priesthood. feel really uncomfortable comparing the three fifths compromised to the limitical priesthood. I don't want that associated with me or associated with No, she did not. We got the point.

Shawn (33:08.206)
Okay, so the next the big question is sort of a combination of two things so I noticed that For the first time since they've been keeping track of these things in surveys if you ask people What is your New Year's resolution? The number one answer this year is lose weight and hey good news. It's always the number one, right? It's usually the number one is this year

There's a drug you can inject in your stomach. It's not FDA approved. It helped Charles Barkley. It could have been introduced in the 80s. Maybe it wouldn't have been the number one this year if Pfizer hadn't gotten in the way in 1987. Okay. But for the first time ever, number two is mental health. So people are saying things like, I'm going to go on more vacations. I'm going to spend more time with my family. I'm going to do some meditations. You're reading into that part. That's not what the study said.

You're projecting what you consider mental health solutions. yeah. Correct. I mean, I want to hear them. This reminds me. So I found out recently that Sean and Kristen have a little bit of a debate in their family because Kristen thinks that vacations are relaxing and something that they should do as a couple. Sean, how do you feel about vacations? I don't like them. I don't like them. I like to build your pair. I don't understand the concept of work at home, build your paradise, build the home you love and that

and then leave it all the time? don't get it. No, I understand why people want to travel. I just don't enjoy it. As guests in Sean's home though, we can say he's done a great job building his paradise. Thank you very much. Sean's home is paradise. That's true. What I realized is suggesting that a vacation might help with mental health could be triggering for individuals like Sean who live in paradise. Okay, so number two is mental health. Related to that is this idea. Which is shocking, right? This is a brand new.

It's never been like we read last year's like the common goals of last year and it was like make money. It was like give up alcohol. Yeah, that's that was yours. mental health was not so high on the list. So it's a new phenomenon that in 2024, the second most most important thing to people when they're setting their New Year's resolutions is to focus on their mental health. So what does that say about us as a society? Is that a good thing? Oh, does it say that we've solved the other problems?

Shawn (35:28.226)
Maybe people kept all those resolutions in the past and now they can focus on things that matter more. Does it mean that things are bad, have gotten really bad in a mental health way? And so people were like, I've got to focus on that. Like related to that, two thirds of Americans have stopped watching political news. They're like, I'm done with it. You think it's related? I would imagine that there are a lot of people that the election had had like caused like mental turmoil.

Like mental illness with that with that there. Come on. That's ridiculous. I mean, I think there are real good reasons that we all struggle. Certains of mental health. That's it. That's ridiculous. I'm not saying that being sad that your candidate lost the election is is a mental health problem, but I am saying that there was a lot of anger and contention in the election and and it hasn't stopped.

Some people haven't stopped doing it. But that's evidence of a deeper underlying problem. It's not like elections or problems. It's people being unbalanced. I this is I think the hard I think this is the real answer. Luke 2 52, Luke 2 52, Luke 2 52. It's not even there's only 48 verses in Luke. I he has it pulled up on his phone right now. I'll read it. I'll say this again. I've said it before, but the church's campaign.

Luke 2 chapter 2 verse 52. is when Jesus was born. Oh, it's a Christmas message. I've said this before. A couple of years ago, the church came out with a campaign for the youth and they based on Luke 2, 52 and it was genius. I'd never read this verse this way, but it is absolutely genius. You'll recognize it. And Jesus increased in wisdom. This is him as a teenager or a young person. Jesus increased in wisdom, in stature.

and in favor with God and man. the campaign was basically saying, if you want to be a happy, balanced person, there are four categories that Jesus gave an example of what to focus on. Increased in wisdom, so mental, Statue, so physical. In favor with God, spiritual. And in favor with man, social. Popularity. Social. Nobody's making goals about those last two. Nobody's like, this year I want to grow in favor with man. What I'm saying is...

Shawn (37:51.414)
A balanced Jesus Christ gave us an example that when you focus on certain areas to balance out your life, I think that's a recipe for happiness. And I think many people like take, we could take anyone we know and go, okay, let's look at those four areas. And most people are going to be lacking in one or two of those. Don't you think? You're definitely lacking in physical. How dare you remember when your wife made these delicious pumpkin chocolate?

Like a half of one. Oh, I'll eat more. And sure. You supposed to take your word for that. I'll eat it. I'll eat it. The pressure of the podcast. Like you've you've admitted that you've I do. But Matt, you've admitted in the past that the biggest flaws to mental health, the happiness in our country is a lack of spirituality, right? A lack of religious. Right. Yeah. Right. So so the look to. then they're setting they're setting the wrong goal. Right. Wisdom, stature, wisdom.

Okay, so you're saying favor with God would help with the mental health. Favor with God would be that spiritual element that clearly is going to help with mental health, right? It's going to give people purpose and answers and a relationship with God. Do you think that a vacation could be an adequate substitute? For favor with God? Wait, this whole time that you've been questioning my interpretation of the allusion to two is somehow work in vacations. So I'm thinking next time we go on a vacation, one of us enters a period of apostasy first. And then we can compare and contrast that.

Shawn (39:40.813)
I'll speak in Russian. How are

Right? It's like to everybody has their own. Everyone has their own. I vacations don't do that for me. Now it's all relative to me. Vacation doesn't produce that to you. It does. No, doesn't for me. not at all. no. No, just asking what you thought about that. I don't think. No, I don't think the answer to Americans having better mental health is going vacation. No, I don't think that's the answer. Absolutely not. Because you can sell that.

No you can't because it's do believe that. People believe that. Yeah but it's not true. So I think if we make a case for vacation days though, right, we're taught that the spirit is felt in a still small voice, right? Okay. And so when people find a way to detach from the craziness of the world, even if they aren't actively turning to God, they're putting themselves in a place where maybe they're a little bit closer to him. interesting. Because it is peaceful. Okay. Because it's relaxing. I like what you're saying but I'll challenge it a little bit just to play devil's advocate.

So because what that sounds like you're saying is I can only be spiritual if I'm not engaging in the things that are necessary to engage in the world. I can only feel the spirit, there's still more voice. So I'm not saying that's the only possibility, but I think we live in a world where a lot of people struggle connecting to God, right? But would you say it's because they aren't able to because life's demands are too heavy or is it because they choose not to? I would say it's the choose not to. This is what I want to say.

I've been on a lot of vacations. I've been on a lot of cruises and I see the vacation industry sells fun and relaxation as a way to like recharge. First you're building memories, right? So there's the memories aspect of it and like memories are priceless. But then there's this other aspect of like, you deserve this. You need this. You're going to be like heart attack, stress, all that. Do they sell it that way? Totally. They totally sell it that way.

Shawn (41:38.018)
You live this high stress life and you need this to just calm down. But what I've learned is you can never get enough of what you don't need because what you don't need doesn't satisfy. So you can go on a big long cruise and do nothing for a month, a week. And when you come back, you're not going to feel like satisfied by that. think you just haven't gone on a long enough cruise. there you go. 180 days. enough of them. Wait, wait. So your point is, you bring up the question.

Why is it that there's this mental health epidemic? And then your answer to that is, well, it's not vacations. This is the way you've solved this. What I'm saying is that- What are your pro, what are your positive solutions? So there are mental health, people can have mental health challenges where you need clinical medical help for mental health. I believe that. Yes, I agree. believe that most of what people are saying when they say, want to work on my mental health, is they're saying they want something spiritual in their life, but they don't know how to find it.

And so they're saying these other things because the message of the world is telling them. So why do you, is going to give you that. Why do you, the end, they're going to find out that doesn't work. Why do you conflate spiritual with mental? No, the men, when people are saying, I want to work on my mental health, you think they're saying spiritual. So unless it's there, unless it's like a diagnosed clear mental health thing, then yeah, what they're really saying is they're lacking a relationship with God. They're lacking connection to the, but I know lots and lots of young.

Sorry, Melanie. People who are very committed to God, who have spiritual experiences, who are very faithful, and also are just strong with anxiety and a little depression in today's world. So that would be clear mental health. What I'm saying is... But I don't think that's diagnosable mental health. think that's... it is. You can diagnose anxiety. no, no. I'm saying yes. Of course, there is such a thing as, I think, I don't know what percentage it is, but yeah, we are agreeing that there's a category of chemical imbalances

diagnosable real need, they need to be treated. What I'm saying is the majority of Melanie, your generation, I kid you not, I get on an airplane and I got to, I'm afraid, so I got to talk to someone and whenever it's a millennial or Gen Z-er, their whole life is just strewn with anxiety and they're scared of everything and it's just hard. And- don't you think spirituality could help calm some of that? Luke 2 52.

Shawn (44:06.542)
Says there's got to be a balance spirituality physical mental and Social is like learning like smart intellectual stuff. Well wisdom is wisdom is mental health I think I thought it was favorite. I say favor with God is mental health. That's spiritual

What do you I favor with man. don't think anyone needs to work on favor with man. Social. I think a waste of time. Yes, go Melanie. Yeah, just like, I think human beings are inherently social creatures to some degree or another, Yeah, you're Whether you're introverted or extroverted, you need some connection with the people around you. Are you married, Matt? Have you ever been married? Yeah, of course. Oh really? You married? Yeah, Why? I don't need to work on my social interactions with people. Oh, but you're married.

Why? Because I love my wife. Oh, you love that social relationship, that social contract. would even work on that? Yeah, so I think favor with men is necessarily saying I need to be the most popular person in my high school. But it's saying how can you form meaningful social connections with the people around Like family, for example. Okay. Well, I could do better at that. Oh, okay. Maybe do you go to ward activities? No. Do you go to mutual?

day if you're a youth, right? Are you forming connections in that way? I love my calling because I never have to interact with adults. You interact with your eight-year-old though. Yeah, I love hanging out with those kids. that's great. Okay, but let's ask, let's ask Melanie because you're in the generation where you're the probably your generation is probably the one that took the survey and said number two focus is mental health. What do you, why is that from your perspective? Yeah, so I think there are a number of things.

First off, I want to say that like as someone who struggled with a handful of mental health challenges, a connection with God is something that's helped me overcome a lot of them. So I just want to put in a plug there. Even though it doesn't solve every problem, it does help individuals find solutions. For sure. But I also think it's just, got a scripture for that too. Sean has a scripture. If you had the scripture, Melanie, then you would get all the points. No, going.

Shawn (46:24.942)
I think there are so many problems we encounter, right? And I think my generation as a whole is trying to say, well, instead of focusing on the symptoms, let's focus on the problem, right? Like if the previous number two was alcoholism, a lot of people don't struggle with alcoholism unless there's an underlying mental health concern. true. Going to the gym gets a lot easier if you're happy or it works as a mental health coping mechanism.

And I think a lot of us are realizing that so many of the problems we were trying to address are really going to be best addressed by saying, what can I do to take care of myself and approach life as a happier, healthier individual? So then is that your New Year's resolution, Melanie? Focus on your mental health. It was not my New Year's resolution. Yeah. Sounds like you've already dealt with that and overcome it. It's not overcome.

Are your gifts to Jesus so focused on wisdom, stature, favor with God? This is third time today you've brought up gifts to Jesus. What is that? Do you guys not give gifts to Jesus? I don't know what you're talking about. in our family, we don't do New Year's resolutions. Okay. We on Christmas Eve, we give a gift to Jesus. Okay. And the only thing you really can give Jesus is what's the only thing that... Neil A. Maxwell. Your will. Your will. That's so great.

That's why you say, okay, what in my life could I more align my will with his will as a gift to Jesus this year? So my dad's decided that of the four umbrellas of goal setting, we should just focus on the spiritual. Nice. You all and I don't do New Year. Do you do New Year's resolutions? I don't call it that, but we set goals. Yeah, I goals. year in January. Yeah. I try to not set them in January because, cause okay, so since you go to the gym regularly, you'll see this pattern.

In the next couple of weeks, the gym's going to be full of people. yeah. Yeah. And then by March it'll be back to normal. Yeah. And like people won't be there. Yeah. Yeah. So that's why I try to, I really try to not set my goals in January. Cause you know you'll fail in them. Yeah. And the things I promised Jesus over the years, they're all the same things. I don't really ever actually give those gifts to him because I'm failing them all the time. He just knows if he starts his two months in the gym in March, then no one will be there to see it.

Shawn (48:46.178)
That's right. I avoid the crowds. Well, what you said before was so powerful. and again, Moses, so this is Pearl Great Price. Remember when, I think this is Mount Sinai, when God was talking to Moses and God showed Moses like everything, right? The beginning, the end, all the people, all that. And it's interesting because in this whole discourse that they're having, God repeats something kind of annoyingly three times, like really repetitive.

And if you, it is kind of annoying, but here's what he repeats. says, the words of God, which he's speaking to Moses, he says, as he saw God face to face, said, God's speaking to Moses saying, behold, I am the Lord God, where is it? He says, behold, thou art my son, wherefore look and I will be told, and goes on and on and on, and he says, Moses, my son, and he goes on and on and on, goes, Moses, my son, and he goes on and on and on. Then God leaves, Moses falls to the ground, then she comes up and was like, holy cow, look what I just experienced, and then Satan comes, and Satan says, worship me.

And Moses, the first thing he says is what? Where is that glory? Yeah. Who are you? Where's that glory? I'm a son of God. Like that identity is that that self value and identity is such a strong, it's a foundation, right? That building that identity as a disciple of Christ and as a son or daughter of God. That's kind of what you said before, right? Yeah. Yeah. I wasn't saying it as profoundly. No, you did. I had to refer to lame.

Paraphrasing of scripture. Well, that was the big question. So we don't do any points on the big question. yeah. But we'll end up with Sean. Yeah, we're to end on that powerful thought that was started with Melanie. But then Sean ended it in scripture and Matt tried to ruin by talking about vacationing for half hour. Hey, listener, you might not know this, but I'm a

certified travel agent. You won't feel satisfied at the end of your vacation, but you will have less money. Which actually you could do that at home. You could do the Sean stay home paradise version of life where you come closer to God in paradise because that's where you live. Or you could hope that you bring them with you on a cruise and try to come closer to God as everybody around you is like enticing you to worldly fun. Either way.

Shawn (51:09.368)
do what works for you because Sean said, Camu-cock. And that's what we're going to end with. Camu-cock. Next episode is going to be our 100th episode. We hope to be celebrating it with Sam. If not, it'll be just Sean and I celebrating 100 episodes. We're glad you guys have been with us for each of these episodes. If you haven't, go back and listen to them. You will have so much fun as you listen to each of those 100 episodes that we've recorded along the

And by the way, just to remind you, will be in the company of many, many other people because we're one of the top podcasts in the entire world. And thank you for joining us. Thank you for listening. We'll talk to you again next week.