Matt (00:00.812)
Hello everybody and welcome to the Latter Day Lens. I'm your host Matt. With me as always is Sean and we're happy to welcome Levi back to the podcast. Welcome back Levi, it's good to have you.

Shawn (00:08.128)
The goat, the goat.

Levi Barnes (00:10.2)
Good to be here.

fifth best guest host on the podcast. Here I am.

Matt (00:15.97)
Yeah. Hey, by the way, I haven't mentioned this to anybody, but next Saturday, Melanie's getting married. So I'm not going to record next week. I'm just going to enjoy the marriage. so listeners, you're going to have to just wait for a little while while I have some fun.

Shawn (00:22.484)
Levi Barnes (00:31.564)
Listen to back episodes. There's a whole catalog back there.

Matt (00:33.142)
Yeah. Yeah, there's a whole lot of stuff. you know I didn't, for whatever reason, people on YouTube have started noticing the podcast. And so people are going back and listening to those old episodes. And I can't even remember what's on those old episodes. It's probably good stuff.

Levi Barnes (00:36.834)
Hundreds of hours.

Levi Barnes (00:48.75)
Space Shuttle. Man for all seasons.

Matt (00:49.794)
Well, that reminds me, Sam, Sam has another podcast and he interviewed a senator from Ohio on it. So he was we just chatting this week and Sam is still a listener. So even though Sam doesn't join us, he still listens to the podcast and he likes it. Right, Sean? He thinks we're doing okay.

Shawn (00:50.812)
What?

Shawn (01:10.336)
He does like it and we should give him more shout outs to entice him back as well. So Sam, you are the goat, Levi's the goat, but you're also a goat. We miss you. Categories, no, no, no, there's different coats in different categories.

Matt (01:17.708)
There can only be one goat. Do you know what goat stands for, Sean? Gray test. Gray test of all time.

okay. All right. What category is Levi the Goat in?

Levi Barnes (01:29.432)
supporting actor.

Shawn (01:31.55)
Levi's the goat in Mission Companions?

Matt (01:32.716)
Ha ha ha!

okay. And what is, what is Sam the goat in?

Levi Barnes (01:37.208)
Word, whoa, high praise.

Shawn (01:40.948)
See, Sam was never my companion. So Sam is the goat in that kid is good at interviews, man. I watch his podcast and he's like, he needs to be a journalist. He needs to interview the whole world, not just on the, you know, the auto industry topics, but everything that guy is so good. The goat.

Matt (01:46.87)
Yeah.

Matt (01:57.462)
You know, he used to have a radio, he used to host a radio show in Utah back in the day. KJQ was like the alternative show. And then he would host that radio station and then he started Sounds of the Sabbath on that radio station back in the day. So Sam knows what he's doing. This is like, it's serious business for Sam. He's not playing around.

Levi Barnes (02:18.606)
Well, he's OG, right? Like that was like pre-internet. Like he was, he was broadcasting when it was radio waves.

Shawn (02:18.828)
Yeah.

Matt (02:20.353)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Shawn (02:23.916)
Yep.

Shawn (02:27.969)
Yeah, that dude's awesome. We miss him.

Matt (02:28.322)
Well, so as a shout out to our listeners and viewers on YouTube, I have no idea who these people are. I tell you this, don't spend too much time reading comments on YouTube. It can be a scary place, but I'm going to read a few of them just because some of them are supportive of our podcast and some of them are not. these ones, okay, so this one is at Ziggy Man and then a bunch of numbers and letters says, this is about our conversation about the military draft. He says, not everybody, don't believe me.

Ask the Trump family if any one of the able-bodied family members are included in the draft. That also goes for the rest of the wealthy families who support Trump. It would be the moral thing if everyone from every walk of life was included, but it sounds like Ziggy Man is dubious that if there were a draft, he thinks that some people would not have to participate in the draft. So the other, the other guy is at triple Z underscore PT. says,

Shawn (03:20.535)
Yeah.

Matt (03:25.696)
You don't have the right to sacrifice another person's life. No one owns their sons. Want to sacrifice? Go to war yourself. That's what sacrifice means. Doing something in the place of someone else. So that's your view, right Sean?

Shawn (03:37.196)
Preach it, preach it.

Shawn (03:42.124)
Yeah, I think so. Yeah.

Matt (03:43.2)
Yeah, I think that

Levi Barnes (03:45.112)
Let's see, the internet thinks that Barron Trump is registered for the draft.

Matt (03:49.474)
There you go. And he's unlikely to develop bone spurs if we were to go to war. He probably would be one of the first.

Levi Barnes (03:51.862)
I don't know, internet, so I don't know.

Levi Barnes (03:58.478)
Are those genetic? Yeah.

Shawn (04:00.212)
Hey, hey Levi, how many queries in the net searches do you think come out of Oregon with, those words? Does Baron Trump is Baron Trump registered for the trap?

Matt (04:09.026)
You

Levi Barnes (04:09.198)
Is Barron Trump gonna be drafted? Maybe.

Matt (04:12.788)
It's still zero because Levi has a VPN and his stuff's all coming out of Saudi Arabia.

Levi Barnes (04:16.78)
Right, it's coming from California. It's coming from Djibouti.

Matt (04:21.922)
I mean it was a fun discussion about the draft. I don't know, do you have anything you want to say about the draft Levi? Is it a moral thing?

Shawn (04:28.737)
Yeah.

Levi Barnes (04:28.984)
I loved what Matt said. I mean, I am so I'm so tired of poor people going to fight wars for rich people. Stop it. Either everybody's invested or no, but don't don't send people. I actually had a lot to say. I was talking to the radio a lot during that episode because I think that it begins to illustrate something that I want to talk to Sean about all the time. And that is the decisions that we make.

Matt (04:37.953)
Yeah.

Levi Barnes (04:56.46)
We don't always come to the negotiating table as equals. And so I think when people are making a decision, should I enlist in the military, a libertarian likes to pretend that everybody's coming at this from the same place. And Aishan knows this, right? But they're really not. There are people that are coming there because they got no other way to pay for college. And somebody else has a grandpa who's going to pay for their college anyway. they make a different decision.

Shawn (05:00.586)
equals power imbalance.

Levi Barnes (05:24.332)
not because they have different preferences, but because they're in a different situation. yeah, a volunteer army is it, how volunteer is it really when, you know, when we're this unequal? Yeah.

Matt (05:28.578)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (05:33.794)
Some people are compelled to do it by virtue of the circumstances of their life.

Levi Barnes (05:40.012)
Yeah, and maybe not even compelled, compelled, but they just have a different calculus that they're entertaining.

Matt (05:46.37)
There's a different incentive structure for them than there is for another person. Yeah. Okay. All right, well, let's move on to the thought provoker. So first up this week, Utah Valley University is once again the center of controversy. In September of 2025, conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed while speaking at that university. Soon after his death, educator Sharon McMahon posted on social media that although the murder was tragic, it...

Levi Barnes (05:49.434)
Yeah.

Matt (06:14.146)
quote, does not erase the harm many experienced from his words. And she describes some of his ideas as harmful or bigoted. So when the university later invited her to be the graduation speaker this month, many people criticized the decision. Critics included Utah politicians like Senator Mike Lee and Representative Burgess-Owens, as well as conservative student groups such as Turning Point USA. They said her comments were disrespectful so soon after the killing. As pressure and safety concerns grew,

The university recently decided to cancel her speech. I was a proponent of allowing Charlie Kirk to speak on campus. So here's my question. Is it wrong for his supporters to demand that Sharon McMahon not be allowed to speak on campus?

Shawn (06:59.67)
mean, there's no way we're gonna disagree on this, right? There's no way, we're all gonna have the same opinion on this. There's no way.

Matt (07:02.634)
okay.

Levi Barnes (07:06.976)
One, two, three, that was dumb. Right?

Matt (07:07.046)
you go-

Shawn (07:09.634)
Yes.

Matt (07:12.268)
So Sean, okay. So you say she should be allowed, they should, the turning point USA and all those conservatives, or would you say they're being hypocritical when they say she can't speak, but Charlie Kirk can?

Shawn (07:23.208)
I was a big fan of Charlie Kirk. know that's weird to you guys, but I was. I really liked the guy. And I guarantee you the thing that he would say is, stop being hypocrites. She needs to be on this campus and she needs to speak. He would absolutely 100 % support her speaking and speaking out against him. Like of course, what hypocrisy?

Matt (07:40.098)
I didn't know that you were a big fan of, I didn't know you were a big fan of Charlie Kirk. So now we're going to ask you more questions, Sean, because you've revealed this preference. It feels to me like the people who are the inheritors of Charlie Kirk's legacy are not like him in important ways. Do you agree with that?

Levi Barnes (07:47.0)
Mm-hmm.

Shawn (07:48.8)
Yep. Go ahead.

Shawn (08:01.814)
I would absolutely agree with that. mean, he was a unique person. He really was. He's an interesting, unique person. And yeah, they're definitely not like him. I don't think there's, there are many people like him. My opinion is he was a real special kind of dude. Yeah. And no matter who tries to pick up the pieces, they're going to fall short. And yeah, that makes, it doesn't surprise me that they would take this stance because they are not like him. His, his answer would have absolutely been you let her speak. In fact, I'll be there to support it. And I love that she'll disagree with me.

Matt (08:31.936)
Yeah, that seems like how Charlie Kirk would have been. why is it, cause turning point USA is his organization. So why is it that the people who are like the college student activists in turning point USA, why is it that they, it seems so weird to me that that organization would be supportive of their chapter leader saying cancel this speech. Don't let that person talk. Doesn't that seem weird?

Shawn (08:53.246)
It's such hypocrisy. It makes zero sense. They should be, if they're claiming to support Charlie Kirk and his message, they would be the first ones to say, what are you talking about? Let her speak. fact, provide security to let her speak, protect her free speech. That's what he was all about is get together. Just because he had strong opinions about stuff, he was very much get together, have conversations with people you disagree with, do your best to use logic, be respectful.

and have strong opinions, but let people talk about them. So really hypocrisy. Yeah, really.

Matt (09:28.436)
And go ahead, Levi.

Levi Barnes (09:28.482)
So are we talking about Erica Kirk? Who do we think is the like?

We talked about the heirs of the Charlie Kirk legacy. That's Erica? J.D. Vance? I don't know. J.D. Vance?

Matt (09:36.479)
In here.

J.J.D. Vance. Would that be J.D. Vance or that? No. I just think of it as the turning point USA people. But maybe it's I think Erica Kirk is very different from Charlie Kirk.

Shawn (09:43.102)
What?

Shawn (09:52.032)
Yeah, I think so too. Yeah, I think he was one of those, know, cult of personalities type of characters that you just, he had a combination of personality traits that you can't duplicate. So I have no idea Levi who's taken over. I don't really, I don't like anything they're doing, so I don't really follow them anymore.

Levi Barnes (09:53.484)
Yeah.

Matt (09:54.145)
Yeah.

Matt (10:09.473)
Yeah.

Levi Barnes (10:09.57)
Yeah. So is there, mean, on a broader level, is there anything somebody could say that would, that we would not support happening on a college campus?

Shawn (10:20.65)
If it's illegal, mean, Matt talks about sometimes how the law dictates what is moral. Obviously we shouldn't submit to that standard, right? The law doesn't dictate what's moral, God dictates what's moral. But I think it's fair to maybe discuss like what is illegal, like incitement to violence. Yeah, I wouldn't support incitement to violence, right?

Levi Barnes (10:38.356)
Okay, but like straight up Nazis, somebody shows up and says, kick out the Jews. we, is that, do we let that stand or do we?

Matt (10:47.05)
Yeah, I support that. I support Nazi speech. I support all free speech that is not like directly inciting people to violence or directly causing harm, right?

Shawn (10:47.728)
If

Shawn (10:57.878)
You have to, right Levi? Don't you have to? You have to.

Levi Barnes (10:58.446)
Interesting. Well, yeah, I mean, it depends on where, right? I don't think all speech belongs everywhere. But and I do also think that sometimes you can cool speech by allowing speech. And let me explain what I mean by that. When you invite somebody that uses sort of dehumanizing language, I feel like you take a whole segment of the population out of the discussion.

And we miss their perspectives because they're not going to show up in places where they're going to be demeaned and dehumanized. And so I don't think, I think it's naive to say that allowing all speech improves the, improves the debate. I don't think it necessarily will. I just, you know, I would say allow all speech just because I don't know who's going to judge who's going to be, you know, who's the judge of good speech and bad speech. But I don't know. I walk away from discussions all the time because I think that's

counterproductive. That's making the discussion poorer.

Matt (12:00.61)
But in case of Utah Valley University, the university was paying this woman money. They were going to give her an honorary doctorate degree. So in many ways, inviting someone to be a graduation speaker puts them on a higher level than just turning point USA inviting Charlie Kirk to campus, right? Because this is the university endorsing her. This is the university saying we approve of her. And so I could see why people might say, hey, she says things that bother me.

And I don't think she should be honored. And I think people should have the right to say, look, I don't want that person to come in as a graduation speaker. So in that way, it's a little bit different, but it just seems weird to me to have the Charlie Kirk people be the ones to say, Hey, don't honor her.

Shawn (12:44.566)
That's.

I agree exactly with what you said. I think it's no problem with a private institution saying, wait a minute, there are a lot of voices saying that she actually did some offensive things or they don't want to hear her. They can make that private decision to not have her because there's consequences. Your question was perfect. It's the Charlie Kirk folks that are being hypocritical. They're the ones that I disagree with. I have no problem with UVU canceling.

Matt (13:12.832)
Yeah, well, I guess my bigger problem is they canceled it out of concerns for safety, right? So if it again, if it's the people that are supportive of Charlie Kirk, that are making the university feel like this is an unsafe environment, like, that's crazy, right? How could you be there and witness one event like that that led to violence and then in any way be supportive of something that might lead to violence because you like disagree with somebody on the other side? Like that's the part of it that to me seems just crazy.

Shawn (13:20.61)
Crazy.

Shawn (13:26.151)
Nuts. That's crazy.

Levi Barnes (13:41.646)
Did Charlie Kirk, was Charlie Kirk a free speech proponent? Was he in favor of, was he canceling CRT?

Matt (13:46.772)
for sure. For sure. No. No Charlie, like...

Shawn (13:47.144)
major.

No!

Levi Barnes (13:52.75)
Charlie Kirk wasn't against, wasn't like, get CRT out of our universities.

Matt (13:56.994)
Charlie Kirk is going to advocate for the positions he would advocate for, but he would do it in a manner of debate, right? So I didn't watch Charlie Kirk very often, but the most recent thing I saw before he was killed, he went to Oxford University and stood at the podium and anybody at Oxford University could stand at the podium and debate with him for a period of time. He was never disrespectful. He never like went to ad hominem attacks, although sometimes people would attack him. And so

Shawn (14:23.712)
Never.

Matt (14:26.154)
So he could have whatever views he wanted to have, in terms of free speech, he was a proponent of the idea of let's debate and discuss things, not the idea of let's silence opposition.

Shawn (14:34.496)
Yeah, like with CRT, yeah, he certainly did say, I don't think that belongs in schools. But he said, but let's talk about it. Come change my mind. I'm an open-minded person. Give me an argument that changes my mind on that and I'm gonna shut up and listen. And he would do that over and mean, there's years and years of videos of him doing that. And he would listen to their arguments. He would retort back and it was very respectful.

Levi Barnes (14:37.312)
I yeah.

Levi Barnes (14:55.82)
Yeah. Well, and it's fine if he wants to have a discussion about CRT. What I don't go for is somebody that wants to police what professors say, right? Somebody who's going to say, you professors better not talk about CRT. That's not free speech. That's just trying to move the Overton window, right? Like, here's the test. Like if you're a free speech proponent, I want to know if you favor speech that's on the other side of the Overton window for me.

Matt (15:16.887)
Yeah.

Shawn (15:24.414)
He did.

Levi Barnes (15:24.59)
Because if all you want to do is, we know what the Overton window is, maybe not.

Shawn (15:28.861)
Matt does.

Levi Barnes (15:30.36)
The Overton window is the range of ideas that are sort of acceptable in a debate. And if you're outside the Overton window, then you're crazy, right? And so a lot of people on the right want more ideas on the right to be acceptable, right? Let's talk about, know, maybe let's invite Charles Murray to talk about how maybe black people are just dumber than white people. Like those are the ideas that they want to be inbound.

Matt (15:46.166)
Mm-hmm.

Levi Barnes (15:58.926)
But they don't want to expand it on the left. They don't want to talk about whatever, crazy leftist ideas. And so the question is...

Matt (16:05.666)
Critical race theory was the example you were using.

Shawn (16:06.348)
me that.

Levi Barnes (16:10.486)
Yeah, yeah. So if you want to expand, if you want more righty ideas and you want fewer lefty ideas, you're not trying to expand the Overton window. You're just trying to move the Overton window. So the litmus test is you appreciate the ideas you disagree with. You want more of those.

Shawn (16:21.954)
I mean, I learned.

Shawn (16:26.53)
So I learned more about critical race theory from Matt Miles, Ben Shapiro and Charlie Kirk than anyone. They all talked about it in abundance as an idea of let's talk about it. Let's discuss it. And I love that Matt fits in that category of people.

Matt (16:44.418)
I mean, it doesn't bother me. I don't feel like I'm a propagandist. And again, I don't listen to a lot of those people, but I would say that from my limited experience with Charlie Kirk, he was not trying to limit speech, right? He might say Marxism has no place in higher education, but he wasn't saying, yeah, he might have said that, right? But he wasn't saying, well, I don't know.

Shawn (16:46.693)
Ha

Levi Barnes (17:02.892)
Limiting speech, certainly.

Shawn (17:09.004)
that he never said you shouldn't do it. What he was saying was you should choose not to do it because it's a bad idea.

I mean, yeah, it's not limiting speech to say, I think this is a bad idea and I disagree with it. Let's discuss it, change my mind. He said, let's talk about it. I mean, that's the reason he would go to college campuses and do it.

Levi Barnes (17:25.07)
Yeah. Well, what about... So Jordan Peterson once was like compiling a list of Marxist professors and pushing them out to students for them to avoid. Is that limiting free speech? What's your idea on that? Can we... What about McCarthyism? that...

Matt (17:42.9)
I mean, to me, that's no different than rate my professors in my opinion. It's the same thing, right? Students are gonna self-select professors for all kinds of reasons. it's just one way an activist can try to push their agenda. I don't know how effective it is, but...

Levi Barnes (17:48.142)
if

Levi Barnes (17:53.912)
Mm-hmm.

Levi Barnes (17:59.085)
Yeah.

Shawn (18:00.544)
You think that's limiting free speech Levi? I don't think it is. You think it is?

Levi Barnes (18:03.074)
Well, that's not expanding the Overton window, right? That's trying to move the Overton window. So that's certainly somebody saying, like he talks like, this isn't Charlie Kirk anymore, but he talks like, just want everybody to expand their minds and talk about all these great ideas. but not those ideas. Don't expand your mind with those ideas because they're bad ideas. Yeah.

Matt (18:24.374)
Yeah, so... Go ahead, John.

Shawn (18:24.546)
Well, I don't know, I've listened, yeah, go ahead, Matt. Well, I've listened to Jordan Peterson quite a bit as well, and I do think that he says, listen and study all ideas, but there are good ideas and bad ideas, and it's okay to identify bad ideas. Sure, talk about them, but talk about them in a way with an open mind, but talk about them in a way that you do point out principled flaws in those bad ideas. But I've never heard them at once say shut them down, other than.

when, I mean his whole stance was when government started to compel speech. You must say certain things by law or there will be punishment. That was his big stance. You can't compel speech the same that you can't take away speech.

Matt (19:04.278)
Yeah. So I think the reason that I want to talk about, talk about this on the podcast is I've been doing a lot of like thinking about like, especially when I see what Trump supporters are thinking now about Trump, some of them are trying to justify why they voted for Trump, even though they disagree with things that he's doing. And a very common thread I see among people on the right is like it's the Joe Rogan sort of stuff. Like they felt like Kamala Harris and Joe Biden.

There was like this push to like silence people and to make certain ideas evil in society. But there's this idea on the right that, the people on the right want to expand speech and want to expand Liberty. And they're not going to try and silence me. And I just think it's very interesting that now we have something on the right doing the exact same thing that they were accusing people on the left of doing. And I, it feels like there's some hypocrisy there and

Shawn (19:53.77)
Hypocrisy.

Matt (19:57.918)
And I don't know how you feel about this Levi, like a little bit I did in the past feel like there's certain things you can't say. I wouldn't say that I can say more things now. I think it's what you're saying about the Overton window. I can say different things now, but I haven't expanded my ability to speak because if I wanted to post something anti Charlie Kirk after he died, there was a strong sense that like you're going to get canceled or you can't say that. Right. So it feels like who you vote into power.

Levi Barnes (20:13.464)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (20:27.116)
just changes the dialogue about what's acceptable and what's not acceptable to talk about. I feel way more welcome to say racist things now than I was two years ago, but I don't know that that's better. That people are more openly racist in their speech than they were two years ago.

Shawn (20:44.172)
Wow.

Levi Barnes (20:44.182)
Well, and that's not an expanding overton window, right? Like you said, that's just moving it, right? We just moved it to the right, I feel like. And I always feel like, I feel like even as they were saying, Joe Biden and Kamala, they want us not to be able to see the R slur anymore. And we really love that one. I'm like, this is where the hill you're gonna die on. Meanwhile.

Matt (21:03.01)
you

Levi Barnes (21:07.534)
Those same sets of people were like, oh, that idea, you want free college? You're a socialist. You're a despicable socialist. You should get out of here. You can't even say that. I don't know. I don't know that they were that open to speech from the left any more than the left was.

Matt (21:16.096)
Yeah, yeah.

Matt (21:22.358)
Well, I'm giving points to Sean because he's enlightened me about Charlie Kirk and the movement since he died. I'm serious, Sean. I've often wondered what's happening to Turning Point USA. And what I learned from you is you left them. You're not following them anymore.

Shawn (21:41.57)
Yeah, I was never with them, but I liked Charlie Kirk a lot and I don't see any, any, any bit of Charlie. I think there are a handful of guys who are trying to fill his shoes. They're just not as charismatic, smart or principled. They don't have the vision. They're trying, but the whole organization as a whole, I don't even know what it is anymore because it doesn't feel like it's doing what it did. And this is, and this is a nail.

Matt (22:02.594)
And Erica Kirk doesn't bring you along.

Shawn (22:08.032)
I don't, yeah, no, not at

Matt (22:09.634)
Right. You get points for that Sean. Why would you be sad that I gave you points for that?

Shawn (22:15.522)
That's sad, that's okay. Those are the most sincere points I've ever gotten from you.

Matt (22:17.526)
Okay.

It's it's when Levi's when Levi's on the show, I'm more sincere, Sean.

Shawn (22:26.206)
Good job Levi.

Matt (22:27.234)
All right, well here's the next story. of, nevermind. Okay, so there's a new report out. This shows that measles is spreading quickly across the United States. In 2026, more than 1,300 cases have been confirmed in 31 states. I bet Oregon's not one of them. And health experts warned the disease is spreading like wildfire. Measles was once eliminated in the United States, but now it's coming back, especially as people travel more during events like Spring Break.

Shawn (22:33.152)
Hahaha

Matt (22:56.694)
The worst outbreak is in South Carolina with nearly 700 cases followed by Utah, Texas, and Florida. There's a question. Does this demonstrate why governments have a moral obligation to mandate vaccinations and quarantines? Yes, I'll tell you right now. Yes.

Shawn (23:13.474)
I love that Matt couldn't, I love that you couldn't ask that question without laughing and smiling. And you couldn't help but just throw in your opinion first.

Matt (23:19.904)
Yes!

I'm telling you, again, I mentioned this before, but my students did a whole bunch of interviews with other students. And so I've been listening to them. And one of the questions they were asking students is, what did you think about that COVID-19 stuff? And there were the number of students that said, it has been proven that the COVID-19 vaccine was harmful to people's health. Therefore I'm glad that we're not mandating that stuff anymore. It blew my mind. I'm like, what happened to America? Where like my wife,

She believes in her soul that vaccines cause autism and that's okay. There's no amount of empirical evidence that will persuade her otherwise. That's fine. But this idea that somehow vaccines are bad public policy, vaccines and quarantines are bad public health policy. I can't wrap my head around it. It's just, I don't understand it. Of course they're good.

Levi Barnes (24:01.24)
Really?

Shawn (24:13.568)
Matt, and your argument is government should mandate it because if you can make Matt take a vaccine and not get sick, then it doesn't pass on to Levi. It's an altruistic, righteous, I mean, it's a moral and righteous thing to you and to a lot of people, right? Yeah, you're being unkind and you're being immoral. If you don't take the vaccine because you're gonna cause Levi to get sick and that makes you a bad person, right?

Matt (24:18.252)
Yes!

Matt (24:29.494)
Yeah, yeah.

Matt (24:35.714)
Correct.

Matt (24:39.232)
I'm not worried about Levi getting sick. Levi is a big boy who can take care of himself. I'm worried about infants who lack the immune, they can't protect themselves. I'm worried about other people who are taking medical treatments who don't have the immune system to defend themselves. And we're just going to spread measles around like wildfire. It was gone, Sean, it was gone. Nobody had measles. And now it's back and people have to actually worry about it. People die from measles.

Shawn (24:48.172)
But, but you-

Shawn (25:04.034)
But do you hear my tone? Like I'm joking a little bit, but do you hear my tone? My tone is this, Matt. You saying that if I don't take a vaccine, I'm an immoral, I'm a bad person because I cause babies to die. That message, that, no, hang on, by mandating it by government. That is the tone that those who are pro-government mandates a vaccine, that is the expression that comes across. That we are righteous. You are.

Levi Barnes (25:16.418)
you

Matt (25:16.894)
No, I'm saying

Matt (25:30.88)
Right. Yes.

Shawn (25:33.607)
Evil you are bad people. No, really that's the tone that comes across you're bad because you kill babies

Matt (25:37.506)
That's the message I want to come across. I'm saying the government has a moral obligation. If the government knows that you're gonna do something that will harm your neighbor and they say, whatever, freedom of choice, do what you wanna do, they're doing the wrong thing. If you're gonna do something that's gonna make your neighbor sick or cause inflict harm on those around you, the government has a moral obligation to prevent you from doing that.

Shawn (25:41.666)
Wow

Shawn (26:00.544)
Matt. Matt.

Matt (26:04.704)
or to punish you severely when you choose to do that.

Shawn (26:05.088)
Matt, what if I have COVID, refuse the vaccine, but I choose to quarantine so I never expose myself to my neighbor?

Levi Barnes (26:06.03)
Thank

Matt (26:15.692)
Okay, okay, that's the, that's the governments can do that. Morally, governments can either require vaccinations or quarantines, but they have to do one of them. You can choose no vaccine. Like if you're like my wife, you know, like, vaccines are bad. Fine. If you get sick, you quarantine, but that's not what's happening. That's right. That's right. Go to jail.

Shawn (26:32.512)
by law or go to jail? Quarantine or go to jail? Quarantine or vaccine or go to jail?

Matt (26:38.178)
Quarantine yourself or we'll quarantine you for you. That's right We will put you in a quarantine location like this is this is what governments do They protect people from other people that are gonna do stupid things That's like when we say but like the government's job is to protect and defend its citizens. This should be one of those things

Shawn (26:53.676)
Matt, Matt, you know how...

Levi Barnes (26:55.704)
Right, it's what we do with somebody who has the unfortunate tendency to stab other people. We say, okay, we're gonna like quarantine that person so they don't harm other people, right? Yeah.

Shawn (27:07.008)
All right, so Matt and Levi, you know how there's that anecdote that says, when women get a cold, it's a very different experience from when men get a cold. Either that or men are just such wusses. You guys are just, we are such wusses that when we get colds, life is over. Whereas women are just tougher than us. When I get a cold, guys, it is horrible, horrible. Why can't we mandate some medications for that? I suffer greatly. I have to take off work. It affects my livelihood. Why can't you quarantine?

force quarantine and force a vaccine or some kind of medication for that.

Matt (27:41.588)
If we had a cold vaccine, I would say let's mandate the cold vaccine. 100%. I am being honest. Yes, Sean, 100%. We should mandate the vaccines or if you get the illness, you should quarantine. Sean, I am not in favor of a government saying, you feel sick today? Why don't you run around and spread that illness with other people? No, quarantine. And if you can't make that decision on your own, then the government has an obligation to say to you, you are too sick to come to school.

Shawn (27:45.964)
You're not being honest. Joe, you're not.

Matt (28:10.944)
You are too sick to go to work.

Shawn (28:11.35)
What if I get a, Matt, what if I get a cold sore? Cold sore spread. Should I be forced to stay in my home or to take some medication that I don't choose to take because I could possibly get it to someone else?

Matt (28:24.578)
Could a cold sore kill somebody?

Shawn (28:26.978)
It could make them sick, Matt. It could hurt them and cause them to be really, really sick and uncomfortable. It's herpes, man. Yeah, herpes.

Matt (28:34.21)
I don't know that cults, now it's like that's from the office, right? Cult stores aren't really herpes.

Levi Barnes (28:40.492)
Yeah, aren't they? Wait, somebody fact check us on that. Herpes, like a cold sore is a symptom of herpes simplex something, right?

Matt (28:41.492)
I don't know, I have no idea.

Shawn (28:41.836)
Yeah, they are.

Shawn (28:48.524)
Correct. That's correct.

Matt (28:48.778)
Okay, but if it's herpes, then it's not communicable, right? Herpes is a sexually transmitted disease of some kind. So you're not gonna give me herpes.

Shawn (28:57.506)
No, it's a cold sore. Matt, if I rub my face with my cold sore, I shake your hand, you rub your mouth, you pause so you can get a cold sore. Yeah, you can fact check this, but I'm pretty sure that's what it is. So why not mandate that, Matt? My point is at what point does the government decide, do we wanna give the power to the government to decide how much invasion in our lives we have to take by force of law?

Matt (29:10.954)
It is

Matt (29:20.81)
It's really simple. How contagious is the disease? How dangerous is the disease? Those are the simple questions. Contagion and danger.

Shawn (29:24.898)
Oh, oh, that's simple. You're going to go ahead and leave.

Levi Barnes (29:28.47)
Okay, all right. Here's our fact check. Cold sores, highly contagious, spread through close direct skin-to-skin contact, such as kissing and sharing items like utensils, lip balm, and towels.

Matt (29:39.522)
Okay?

Shawn (29:41.794)
You're gonna tell me I can't kiss Matt when I want to kiss Matt? Is that what you're gonna tell me?

Matt (29:43.476)
Okay, so if you want to, if you have a cold sore and you kiss me against my will or something like that, right? When you're talking like such close, there you go. It's that's not the although it might be highly contagious. You're not going to spread it just by being in the same room, you have to have physical contact with someone else. Okay. Okay, so I can we there's other things I can do other than quarantine you to protect you, right? I can say wear gloves.

Levi Barnes (29:51.17)
then Matt has to quarantine.

Shawn (30:03.49)
That's right, if I touch my mouth and then I touch your hand and you touch your face.

Shawn (30:11.5)
What?

Matt (30:13.238)
right? Or I can say like, don't touch

Shawn (30:13.986)
You're gonna mandate me, the government's gonna make me wear gloves, that's what you want.

Levi Barnes (30:17.496)
It's gonna go I gonna say do not kiss Matt while you have a cold sore. Yeah

Matt (30:18.05)
Right. Without his consent. I know it seems awful. It seems horrible. Especially, especially given

Shawn (30:20.812)
Yeah, yeah, now the government's telling me who I can and can't kiss.

Levi Barnes (30:26.574)
Big brother out there.

Shawn (30:28.704)
What if, what if, okay, then what if Donald Trump says, hey, look, if it's okay to make people not kiss each other because of herpes, now gay people can't kiss each other too. Okay, I mean, how far, my point is, but it's not as.

Levi Barnes (30:32.194)
Deep state.

Matt (30:38.658)
It seems like a stretch, right?

Levi Barnes (30:42.552)
I don't think Donald Trump is big on consent anyway, so I suspect he doesn't.

Matt (30:46.082)
You

Shawn (30:47.082)
Yeah, that's true. That's true. Well, when Barron becomes president, maybe he will be.

Matt (30:50.378)
Again, it's when we say, when we say Sean, a libertarian should love what I'm saying. What is the role of government to keep people safe, right? And to provide basic necessities. It is far more important. A government, and if we want to go to the scripture, cause the latter day lens, right? The job of government is for the benefit of people, to protect them, to keep them safe. So any government.

Shawn (30:58.005)
No.

Matt (31:18.54)
that refuses to pass laws and regulations that prevent the spread of disease is doing something morally wrong.

Levi Barnes (31:28.462)
think I'm going to maybe surprise the audience and you guys by saying I'm strongly against things like vaccine mandates. I think that it's really good for the government to provide really good information and for them to launch big PR campaigns and say, look, here are the things that are really important to do for them to support research into vaccines and things like that. I really do think they're an

I think there are cases where it's probably time to quarantine somebody, right? Forcibly quarantine somebody that has Ebola, right? Let's, I know you really are excited to go to that Mariners game, but no, I think we're gonna keep you here. But I think those cases are very rare just because I, again, I don't really trust the government to decide who's worth quarantining.

Matt (32:20.854)
The government is the people. We are the government. We know what's best for ourselves.

Shawn (32:21.42)
Hoorah! Hoorah for Levi! Matt? Matt, Levi gets all the points,

Levi Barnes (32:25.248)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Matt (32:28.612)
man, okay, well, I'll give Sean the points because he talked about herpes and gay kissing in a way that made me really happy inside. All right, let's talk about gender bias. Whenever we get three guys together, I know it's time to talk about gender bias in the United States.

Levi Barnes (32:46.21)
Don't worry ladies, we got this one.

Matt (32:47.906)
But but mostly I know Sean like sports way more than vaccine. So I had to like throw a bone Sean's way after the last topic. Alright, so listeners have probably heard about Diana Rusini. She's an NFL reporter. I'm a big fan of Diana Rusini. She does great NFL reporting and she when I listen to her, she talks about her family. She loves her kids, loves her family. Well, she was caught or people took somebody took photographs of her with New England Patriots coach Mike Rabel.

at a resort and they're both married and it looked as if they were being a little bit more friendly than we would expect in a professional relationship. Some critics said her actions hurt the reputation of women in sports journalism. Others have argued that it shows that there's a double standard because Mike Vrabel has had zero consequences as a result of this, but Diana Rossini resigned her position at the athletic. And so here's my question.

Is this an example of a sexist double standard or is there something else happening here that he keeps his job and she loses her job?

Shawn (33:56.212)
Yeah, I got an opinion here. You got an opinion Levi?

Levi Barnes (34:02.2)
I think, I don't know how Matt's gonna make it up to me for choosing this topic, because I think this, I had never heard of Diana Rossini. I don't care about this at all. My wife says that ESPN is just celebrity gossip for men. She says, I've watched so many hours of ESPN, I've never seen a sport played on ESPN. It's all just celebrity gossip. So shame on you for proving her right. Yeah, it's probably a double standard that she, that you know, if she's suffering consequences, he's not, yeah.

Matt (34:10.816)
I'm sorry Levi.

Shawn (34:17.132)
Hahaha!

Shawn (34:24.034)
Awesome.

Levi Barnes (34:31.618)
Don't do that. Also, I think she's a lot hotter than him.

Matt (34:33.036)
Well, let me give, let me give Levi a little more. Yeah. Let me give you more background to this Levi. Cause Diana Racine is not at ESPN anymore, but, back in the day, like I think it was the seventies or eighties, the sports world would say, we're not going to allow women journalists into the locker room because these women reporters, they're not really interested in reporting on sports. Women can't actually be interested in sports. They're just trying to find a way to get into the male locker room.

and get access to men that they couldn't otherwise. Right, it seems laughable today. And so for the last 30, 40 years, there have been a lot of women reporters who've been working hard to change the way that female sports journalists are perceived. And Diana Rossini was at the front line of that. She was getting scoops, she was getting stories, she had better information than most male reporters. And so for women in sports, was like, wow, she's proving that you can

develop relationships, have a professional relationship without like sacrificing your integrity or your morals or something like that. And so a lot of women are like, this story just shows that like women have to sleep their way to the top or women have to compromise who they are. Or really it's just about those intimate personal relationships. After all, it's not really about a love of sports. So that's kind of the, the sexism, the take on it, right? That's so much about ESPN.

Matt (36:03.382)
What do you say, Sean? Go ahead, Levi.

Levi Barnes (36:03.948)
Yeah, so I'm reading that Mike Vrabel is, yeah, you're right, suffering no consequences from this. NFL will not investigate Mike Vrabel of a resort photos, a resort.

Matt (36:09.44)
No, no.

Yeah. Yeah. Because he's the New England Patriots head coach. So there's nothing wrong. Well, no, the New York Times said we're going to open an investigation because again, the New York Times who owns the athletic, they say we care about journalistic integrity. We don't like the idea of reporters getting stories by sleeping with people in hotel rooms and things like that. And so they open an investigation and she's like, no, you're not going to investigate everything I do in my life. I'm just going to leave.

Levi Barnes (36:16.62)
And she was like forced out. She was.

Levi Barnes (36:32.846)
Hmm.

Matt (36:41.398)
rather than have you do that. so, but the Patriots, they have no ethical standard that says coaches aren't allowed to get free meals or to sleep with reporters or whatever. So from their perspective, he's done nothing wrong because he can do whatever he wants to do. There's not the same kind of ethical violation from their perspective of a coach that the New York Times has of a reporter.

Levi Barnes (36:58.37)
Yeah.

Levi Barnes (37:03.842)
Yeah, Yeah, so is this a gender thing or is this just a reporters versus coaches thing? Good question.

Matt (37:10.571)
What do you say, Sean?

Shawn (37:12.162)
I think it's definitely a double standard and sexist. think that they've definitely mistreated. Yeah, they're treating her in a specific way because it's her. And I hope, hope, that she's able to recreate, reinvent her career out of this and create something better. I don't know what they did. It's none of my business what they did, but absolutely to treat her to this standard. When you look at all the professional athletes, all the coaches and the behavior, like, are you kidding me?

Levi Barnes (37:13.134)
Thank

Matt (37:20.993)
Yeah.

Shawn (37:40.14)
Like we could make a list of 30 NBA players who are accused of raping and punching their wives and no consequences, nothing. Yet this poor woman gets treated this way? Yeah, absolutely sexist and double standard. I don't like it.

Matt (37:55.234)
It used to be this way in politics where if you're a member of Congress or you're an elected official, you could take, um, gifts from lobbyists. You could like, if, if there was a reporter that wanted to do favors for you or whatever, we were like, Oh, you're just cultivating a good relationship with the press. So this double standard that we have, I think that the woman Diana Rossini makes it most visible, right? But there is this odd double standard that if you're a person in power and other people want to know about you.

Like you're a football coach or you're a politician, you're the president of the United States. For some reason, there's this double standard where they are welcome to take advantage of those below them, but those beneath them in no way, like we hold them to a higher standard than we do the people in power. And to me, that's the bigger problem than the gender thing, right? The gender problem, I think is a problem, but it's just a manifestation of this other bigger problem of

Levi Barnes (38:47.032)
Mmm.

Matt (38:51.04)
We don't hold people in power to account for their choices.

Shawn (38:54.434)
Mmm.

Levi Barnes (38:57.026)
Points to Matt, I love that, yeah.

Shawn (38:57.142)
Now, that's the one area I would give it to you that viewing relationships through power and balance is right. I don't think it's right in every other and all the other situations, but this one, think it's true.

Levi Barnes (39:05.635)
Yeah.

Matt (39:09.768)
Okay, well I'll take the points. Levi didn't give me points on any other topic.

Levi Barnes (39:12.642)
Yeah, no, I like that. I like that. And I do think we should be careful with, I mean, we should hold people, like people with more power should be held to higher standards. Yeah, and this is an example of the opposite. Yeah.

Shawn (39:23.21)
the same standard, not higher standards, right? The same standards or higher standards? Just equal standards. Why though?

Matt (39:28.608)
I would prefer we hold them to a higher standard. If you're the President of the United States, I want to hold you to the highest possible standard so that everybody in the nation aspires. Yeah, I want my neighbor to aspire to something higher and I want them to see that in the President of the United States. Don't you think Sean, we...

Levi Barnes (39:32.078)
That's interesting.

Shawn (39:35.059)
and your neighbor, your neighbor as well.

Levi Barnes (39:44.94)
I just think when you have a lot of power, can do a lot of damage. we want to.

Matt (39:48.95)
Like, we hold the prophet and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles to a higher standard than we do everybody else, and that's okay.

Shawn (39:57.307)
I don't know that we do, I've had lots of discussions in the last couple of years about Joseph Smith and Brigham Young and Wilford Woodruff and all these things that people are glad to point out, you know, how weak and how big of mistakes they made. And I'm like, I'm fine with that. You look at every prophet throughout the Bible and the New Testament, they're weak. They're mortal people.

Matt (40:19.702)
Yeah. But Joseph Smith is qualitatively different than Dallin H. Oaks. Joseph Smith's church was like a steak or something like that. He wasn't leading all that many people. Yeah. The President Oaks has, right, the church has hundreds of billions of dollars, at least tens of billions of dollars. And if there was something out there that suggested that President Oaks was not treating the church's money well, or he was treating people badly,

Levi Barnes (40:30.83)
Hour wise, yeah.

Matt (40:49.164)
then people would like hold them to a higher standard and say, Hey, you're the president of the church. You should act better than that. If, if president Oaks was out there tweeting the stuff that president Trump is tweeting, right? We'd be like, Hey, president Oaks, maybe you shouldn't do that as a leader of the church. But if Sean's neighbor, because I've met Sean's neighbor, Sean's neighbor probably was tweeting worse stuff than what Donald Trump was tweeting. And I don't care. It's just Sean's neighbor. For listeners, know, Sean lives on a corner. Sean has no neighbors. There's

Shawn (41:03.371)
Hahaha

Matt (41:19.04)
Sean built himself a nest with no neighbors, nobody to see him, nobody to be anywhere near him.

Shawn (41:21.826)
Yes, you, you live in the middle of nowhere with no neighbors. I have neighbors.

Matt (41:26.754)
All right. Well, good job. Let's move to the big question. We're to talk about my book. So Levi bought my book last month. Yeah. So we're going to talk about these are the two questions Levi sent. The first is, is the gap between religious behaving and religious becoming an indication that we're doing religion wrong? Isn't becoming the whole point of behaving or is there another point purpose to behaving? And then the second is, yeah.

Shawn (41:33.892)
yeah.

Levi Barnes (41:53.374)
Maybe I think that you better preface this by explaining behaving belonging believing becoming Can I do it maybe I'll do it. maybe you should do it. Okay, then you can correct me Okay, alright, so this is my exam here my oral exam with professor miles. So There are three three main ways that three main categories of sort of questions that we've used to define who's religious in the country There are questions about believing. Do you believe in the tenets of your religion?

Matt (41:57.122)
Oh, yeah, yeah. OK, that makes sense. Yeah. So if you look at, yeah, you do it, Go, Levi.

Shawn (42:01.952)
Yeah, let Levi do it.

Shawn (42:08.001)
Nice.

Levi Barnes (42:22.894)
Belonging, you feel you're a part of that community? And behaving, do you obey the sort of behavioral rules about that that involve that religion? And Matt's book proposes a fourth, which is becoming, and it has to do with is your religion making you the kind of person that your religion claims to value, claims to be trying to make you into?

Matt (42:36.77)
That's good.

Levi Barnes (42:53.294)
And so then when we say, you know, yeah, when we talk about becoming, yeah, so those words you'll notice in here, becoming, behaving, believing, belonging, yeah.

Matt (42:59.543)
Yeah.

Belonging. Yeah, right. And Levi's question is, isn't the whole purpose of behaving to help us to become something? there is a, and I show in the book, this big gap, at least in terms of politics between religious behavior and religious becoming. So people who score really high on religious behavior, like they go to church, they read their scriptures, they pray a lot. Sometimes that's associated with support for political violence.

Sometimes that's support with strong dislike of your political opponents, but religious becoming is not associated with those things. In fact, it has the opposite effect. so Levi's question is, does that mean we're maybe doing religion wrong if those who are practicing their religion seem to be not the kind of citizens we would want them to be? Maybe we're doing religion the wrong way. Is that what you're saying, Levi? Asking.

Levi Barnes (43:55.886)
It is, it is. are there, you know, did you find, Matt, that there were certain, I mean, because there's several questions involved in each of those categories. Did you look at, are there maybe certain behaviors that people encourage that do cause them to become loving, generous, charitable people?

Matt (44:20.972)
Yeah.

Levi Barnes (44:20.986)
Or in your own life, have you noticed that there are certain ways that we behave that are more important in really making us the people God wants us to be?

Matt (44:33.354)
Yeah, I think empirically that's kind of the thing that's hard to do and that I don't do in the book at all, but that I think would be interesting to do, right? Because I don't show how religion creates the kinds of people that it's supposed to create. That's like one of the kind of the gaps. But I think of it more like this. We all know people who go to church. We all know people who do all of the right things, but they don't seem to become the kinds of people they're supposed to become. And I think that it

comes down to the intent with which you do things, right? We can all go to the same service project. And if I'm doing it because I've been promised some tangible reward from my parents when I get home, I'm gonna have a different spiritual experience than somebody who goes there because they love Jesus. And that's harder to measure.

Levi Barnes (45:09.656)
Mm-hmm.

Shawn (45:22.85)
Can I ask from a knucklehead standpoint, can I ask two smart guys some questions about all this? Yeah, Matt's a half man. Matt's a half man. so how do you, like this is a knucklehead question. How do you separate behavior from becoming? For example, if I steal something, am I a thief? Right, my behavior, if I continually steal, if I steal once,

Levi Barnes (45:30.286)
One and a half smart guys.

I've only read half the book, so yeah.

Shawn (45:52.79)
Maybe I'm not a thief or am I a thief? If I steal regularly, am I definitely a thief? Is this the difference between stealing something as a behavior, becoming something as the result of my behaviors? Is that what we're getting at?

Matt (46:06.87)
Well, so I'll put a link in the show notes. You can actually go to the books website and you can take the little quiz and see how you score on this. And you can see like the mean scores for on these things for all the different religious groups in the United States, at least the big ones. but becoming is not really about the behaviors. It's about like, are you the kind? So all religions teach that there's these four virtues that people should try to become like choose any world religion.

Shawn (46:14.836)
nice.

Matt (46:35.788)
They value temperance, which is this idea that you shouldn't be really greedy, right? They value transcendence, which is this connection to something bigger than yourself. They value humanity, which is about the way you think about the people around you. And they value justice, this idea that people should be treated fairly and things like that. And so the becoming measures the extent to which a person agrees with the same kinds of things that most world religions say we ought to become. And so it asks you questions about yourself or you're like reflective and like,

Do I do this? Do I do this? How do I feel about this? And then it's sort of like a self-assessment of like where you would fit on becoming. Same as we measure behavior by asking you like, if I cared about, you steal things? I would just ask you, how often do you steal things or how many things did you steal today? And I would measure behavior with like a self-report.

Shawn (47:25.93)
Are you able to conclude based on those answers what I am, what I become?

Matt (47:30.156)
Well, I, don't know that I'm actually like pinpointing you. Like I don't know that I'm getting to the core of you, but I think on average, yeah, I think we can talk about like broadly, how people are, like how, if they've become something or not.

Shawn (47:45.922)
But I'm asking you, does the behavior define the becoming? In other words, if I repent once a year, am I repentant? Am I repentant, Covenanted person? Am I keeping my covenant as a repentant person? Or if I repent every single day, does that mean I've become a repentant person? Like if it becomes a part of who I am and I naturally do it, have I become that repentant person? Like does the behavior define me who I become? Okay.

Matt (47:59.393)
Mm.

Matt (48:09.781)
Yeah.

No. The behavior somewhat predicts it. But no, it's not, they're not the same thing is what I'm saying.

Shawn (48:17.9)
Mmm.

Yeah, okay. Yeah.

Matt (48:22.474)
Yeah, but there are people that there are people that don't do any of the religious behaviors that score high in religious becoming. cause there's alternate paths to becoming that, which is why some people would say, then what you're measuring isn't religion. I would just say, I'm not measuring enough of all the various ways people can practice religion. Right? So there are people who never go to church like a Buddhist who could become something like what the Buddhism teaches, even though they don't go to church.

Shawn (48:50.122)
the four standards that you mentioned that the book teaches, that's the becoming, right? If I become the justice, the temperance.

Matt (48:55.285)
Yeah.

humanity, temperance. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Levi Barnes (48:58.872)
Chest and transcendent and temperant. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, I, it's, it was really thought provoking to start thinking about, so in my congregation and in my life, you know, if there, if these behaviors, right, if the things that we're doing and we're, when we're going to church and we're going to Sunday school and we're going to seminary and we're praying and we're reading our scripture and going to, going to our activities. And it's not making us people who

Shawn (49:02.698)
Yeah, so, Yeah.

Matt (49:06.613)
Yeah.

Levi Barnes (49:29.358)
love the people around us. Yeah, what should we fix? Right? I see that as a real failure. I see that as a like kind of a real tragedy. If yeah, and so yeah, it's worth thinking about how do we fix that? Yeah.

Matt (49:38.348)
Yeah.

Shawn (49:42.594)
Can I suggest one thing, Matt, and you guys teach me this, is there not a hierarchy of behaviors that some matter more than others? Like for example, the most common things taught by the Savior were the behavior of faith, the behavior of repentance, the behavior of covenant making and baptism and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost. If my behaviors are consistent with those four things, am I not becoming? Isn't that the point of becoming? Whereas if I drink Mountain Dew every day,

I can still be adhering to those four things and become something, Is there not a hierarchy of behaviors or is that not true?

Matt (50:18.466)
I think that it's more about the intent. in terms of parenting, my oldest son, my thought as a parent when my kid was young was my job as a dad is to help him maximize his potential. And I have it in me to be a manipulative person. And so, yeah, and so I like, I structured his life in such a way that if he did all of the right things, he would be happy and content. But if he didn't, his life would be miserable.

Shawn (50:34.71)
Max. Max.

Matt (50:47.4)
It was, it was miserable for a long time. And then when he was, he says it was not, he was 13. So somewhere in 13, 14 years old, I was praying and heavenly father's like, you know, that's not the way you should be doing things. Like I got this sense that like God could of course make all of us be perfect, but he only wants us with him if we choose to be with him. And so Max's story is like, you came to me one day and you said, he's like, I'm 12 years old or maybe, know. And you said,

Shawn (51:10.146)
Matt (51:16.406)
I've taught you everything I can teach you the rest is up to you. And like, I don't know, maybe I said it like that, but it was just sort of like a certain point I realized if he didn't do things because he wanted to do them, he wasn't going to get any of the benefit out of doing those things. And so I stopped trying to make him do things. didn't, still led by example, but I was, I was no longer like playing this manipulative role where I'm like making him do all of these things. And I think that that's really what it comes down to in the end.

You have to do something because you want to do it and then it will have a transformative power on you. But if you're doing it for any other reason, because the incentive structure around you, because of the community around you, because whatever, then it's not gonna help you become something because you're doing it based on other incentives rather than the desire to change.

Shawn (52:05.305)
So I've got to choose to take that vaccine in order to be a good person. The compelling won't make me a good person.

Matt (52:09.632)
No, no, you don't even have to choose to take the vaccine. just have to have a government that forces you to take the vaccine. Right, I don't care whether.

Levi Barnes (52:13.89)
You just choose to avoid jail, Sean.

So, but I think this maybe touches on the sort of next question, which is just something you mentioned. So the next question was creating a community necessitates creating a line between in-group and out-group. We have a religious community, some people are a part of that, some people aren't. Religious belonging, then it seems to me like it should almost increase our intolerance, right?

Shawn (52:32.426)
Aha.

Levi Barnes (52:44.812)
Now that there's an in-group and an out-group, that just creates new opportunities for us to be intolerant.

Shawn (52:50.348)
Wait, is this Levi's question or Matt's question? Levi, is the kind of question that you have caused me to, like my whole life that I've known you. This is I love you so much, dude. What a great question. It's so great.

Matt (52:52.278)
Levi's question.

Levi Barnes (52:52.568)
This is my question, right? But maybe...

Levi Barnes (53:01.646)
Thanks, thanks Yeah, and so are we you know, maybe we're doing belonging right? Like I feel like that there you know a lot of people that one thing that I think Matt sort of alluded to was a lot of people are behaving in order to belong and that's probably the wrong reason right so that's probably why they're not becoming is because Well, I mean I only show up to church so I can be a part of this community, which I love right and that's maybe a good

Matt (53:02.498)
you

Shawn (53:21.282)
You

Levi Barnes (53:30.636)
reason to start, but it's not going to get you there. Anyway, but so if we are creating in-groups and out-groups, I don't know, how do we do it without making people intolerant of the out-crowd?

Shawn (53:34.923)
Wow.

Matt (53:43.532)
Yeah.

Shawn (53:43.682)
What an amazing question, Levi. Matt, I wanna hear your answer.

Matt (53:47.66)
So this is sort of a weird thing, but Post Malone and Jelly Roll have this song called Losers. Have you guys heard this song? well anyhow, I don't listen to that. It's one of my favorite songs, but basically the song is about if you go to a bar, that's where all the losers hang out and there's always a place for you here with the losers, right? And they're like, let's raise up this beer as like a celebration of who we are. Like religion does create these in groups and out groups. And I think that

Shawn (53:54.913)
No.

Levi Barnes (53:56.334)
But I'm gonna listen right now.

Matt (54:17.1)
So Levi's other thing he was saying, some people go to church because they're afraid of being seen as the alcoholic outgroup, right? They're afraid of being seen as the sinner outgroup. And again, that's not transformative. I think that religion, if you think about the way that the church talks about this, they say that we should identify first as child of the covenant, child of God, right? Disciple of Jesus Christ. If the in-group that you belong to includes all of humanity,

then there is no out group to be intolerant towards. I think that's the idea of, that's Jesus first teaching, right? Love God, love your neighbor. Who's my neighbor? Let's think of who you hate the most. That person's your neighbor because Jesus is all about saying we're all the in group and there's no out group. And so that's why I like that Post Malone jelly roll song because in my head, they're all part of our in group too, right? They might be at a beer, but the message is everyone belongs and everybody's welcome.

Shawn (54:56.93)
Mmm.

Levi Barnes (55:01.579)
Mm-hmm.

Shawn (55:12.684)
So,

Shawn (55:16.332)
So Matt, if I've come to Christ through faith and repentance and the covenants and I've had this mighty change of heart, you're saying that I am going to now, who I have become is I see people the way that God sees people. Levi used to always tell me that on the mission. God doesn't see you, Sean, right now in all your weaknesses and failures and sins. He sees your eternal you and it is beautiful and wonderful and perfect. You're saying if we become what Christ is,

Levi Barnes (55:18.648)
you

Shawn (55:44.062)
offering to make us through his atonement, we will see people the way God sees people, which means there is no out.

Matt (55:51.328)
Yes, but I also am trying to say in this book that Jesus is not the only way to do this. The other thing I'm trying to say is that we give a lot of lip service to the value of other religions in the world, but there's always this part of us that says, but we're the best and we're the most correct and we're better than all of them and they would be happier if they joined us, which is true. But I'm also trying to say that we don't give enough

Shawn (55:52.674)
That's powerful.

Levi Barnes (55:58.318)
Mm.

Matt (56:18.946)
to those other religions for what they're doing because Buddhism and Confucianism and Hinduism and Islam, they're creating people that are changing in just the way you describe, Sean. They're going through that same kind of transformation and our world doesn't work without that. Democracy requires we have a variety of religions that are developing these attributes in humankind. Agnosticism, by the way, atheism is doing it.

and we have to give more respect to the other paths people take that get to that point. Even though I know they would be happier through the atonement of Christ, it's really not the only way to get to these four virtues.

Shawn (57:01.798)
And you're talking civically or in a political society. You're talking about in a... because obviously if you transition over to religion you can't say in Christianity, as long as you become X, you don't need Christ. Because that's completely... that goes against the entire religion. You're saying becoming as part of a political system or in our society, there's lots of paths to become that, right? People can apply the

Levi Barnes (57:03.235)
Word.

Shawn (57:31.746)
true absolute universal principles in any religion to become. it? That's what you're getting at?

Matt (57:37.024)
Yeah. What I'm saying is if you want to live in a democracy where individuals have liberties and rights, you have to have a certain kind of citizen to make that work. the US context, you tell me this all the time, Sean, they said you have to have religion in order to make democracy work in the United States. What I'm saying is that's true. You have to have religion in order to make democracy work. What you don't have to have to make democracy work is Christianity.

you have to have religion in one of its various forms. And I think the other conclusion that I draw in the book is that when societies say we're gonna limit religion and limit religious expression, you're actually harming democracy in that society. So you don't create that wall of separation that says, hey, there has to be a separation of church and state. What you do is you open that wall of separation and you say, we're gonna have a state.

Levi Barnes (58:19.502)
Thank

Matt (58:32.512)
that has space for every religious expression in society and treats them all the same because they can all lead to good. And we're not gonna say Muslims aren't allowed and Hindus aren't allowed and be all angry that New York votes for a Muslim mayor because we say no, having a Muslim in that position is good for democracy for everybody. as we see these various, so some people would say no, religion is on decline in America because we don't see as much Christianity in the United States.

But it doesn't hurt democracy because we have an explosion of other kinds of religion in the United States that's taking that place. And that's good for us.

Levi Barnes (59:06.99)
you

Shawn (59:10.69)
Hmm, well, I'm gonna have to think about that quite a bit. Yeah, that's good, that's interesting. I think you're gonna get a lot of people.

Matt (59:11.03)
Yeah, only in terms of like

Matt (59:15.37)
Yeah. I'll send you my book if you want, Sean. I'll give you a copy of my book. No, no, no, no, no, no, Sean. I'll send it to you.

Shawn (59:19.946)
I can buy it, I'll buy it.

Levi Barnes (59:23.756)
Well, listeners, you should buy the book, by the way. But that was the thing I loved about the book is and I'm not done with it yet. like it started out and it is about politics. Right. So we talked about a lot of very religious things. It's not mostly about that. But all the time in the back of my mind, we're floating these ideas like, OK, wait a minute. These are ways to think about how I'm living my religion. And maybe I should be living it in a different way. Like, you know, maybe I'm too focused on

Shawn (59:24.129)
you

Levi Barnes (59:54.124)
belonging or behaving or even believing, right? Maybe there are some, yeah, maybe I'm a little too focused on one of these or not focused enough on another. I thought it was a lovely way to sort of springboard some of these conversations, even ones that aren't political.

Matt (01:00:08.362)
Nice. Nice. Hey listeners, follow the link. See where you score. If you're scoring poorly, send us a message. We'd love to know why you are not becoming what you're supposed to become through religion. You can also get the link through the book, through the link if you want to buy the book. Hey guys, this was great. Thanks so much for joining me this week. Listeners, we're going to take next week off for my daughter's wedding, but we'll talk to you again in May. Have a good day, everybody.

Shawn (01:00:21.154)
You