Matt (00:00:00)
Hey everybody, welcome to the Latter Day Lens. I'm your host, Matt. With me as always is Sean, and we are so excited to welcome the female voice to the podcast. Melanie, welcome back to the podcast.

Melanie (00:00:11)
Thank you, thank you.

shawn (00:00:12)
I thought she was the youthful voice.

Melanie (00:00:14)
Ha ha.

Matt (00:00:14)
She's she's youthful. You know, Melanie, when you're not around, we like to talk about female issues like abortion and why young women leave the church. And then when you join us, we like to leave those topics for other days. We don't want to talk about that stuff with you.

Melanie (00:00:27)
⁓ I like that you can say this 'cause you know I don't listen, so I can't even call you out if you're lying to me.

Matt (00:00:31)
⁓ But but since I have you on, and I know you haven't prepared for this, but I'm gonna ask you this question: why do you think that young women in the church? So ⁓ if you look at 18 to 25-year-old people in the church, retention rates among young men is like 60%. ⁓ Only 40% of young men leave the church in that age group. But it's the reverse. For women, the retention rate is only 40%. ⁓

shawn (00:00:33)
Hahaha

Matt (00:00:58)
And sixty percent of women that age leave the church. By the time you get to like seventy years old, there's no difference between men and women. So why do you think it is that younger women are more likely to leave the church than younger men?

Melanie (00:01:11)
This is a good question. I'm gonna say some things that might not be backed by data. So people please let me know if I you have data contradicting me. But ⁓

Matt (00:01:20)
Yeah, let her know by writing into the podcast on weeks when she's not here. ⁓

Melanie (00:01:24)
I I'll catch it in like four weeks or something. ⁓ But I think as a general rule, women tend to be a little bit more empathetic than men. And I think a lot of there are a lot of topics in the church right now that are really hard to deal with from an empathetic perspective. Like leadership's church ⁓ stances on homosexual relationships and same gender marriage and transgender issues and all of that.

If y ⁓ sometimes it can feel like if you care at all about other human beings who are conventional minorities, there's hard to find a place for yourself in the church. And also women in the priesthood is a whole other thing that could likely be contributing as well. But I think that's the big thing.

Matt (00:02:13)
Mm. It will not surprise you, Melanie, to learn that we never came up with empathy as one of the possibilities. ⁓ Of all the things we thought of, no one said empathy. So ⁓ thanks for joining the ⁓ Yeah, for sure. I mean in a roundabout. I I said I don't think it's actually the priesthood itself. I think it's the way the unrighteous exercise of priesthood in the church where women are told you have to defer to so and so because they're a priesthood holder.

Melanie (00:02:24)
⁓ You did bring up women in the priesthood, right? Okay, good.

Matt (00:02:42)
Which is contrary to what the scriptures teach, but very prominent in LDS culture.

Melanie (00:02:48)
I think it can also be disheartening to say that there are fifteen people making decisions about the entire course of the church and there's never gonna be a female voice in that quorum.

Matt (00:02:58)
Mm, yeah. Except for that isn't it really God making those decision decisions, Melanie? I'm just kidding.

Melanie (00:03:04)
I I feel like I can't answer these questions anymore ⁓

Matt (00:03:07)
All right. Well, hey, thanks for your perspective. I never would have thought of empathy in a million years. Which, listeners, this demonstrates why it's good to not have females in these decision-making rooms because sometimes they muddy the waters with answers like ⁓ with answers like empathy. ⁓ Care about other people. ⁓ Well, about the last episode, somebody wrote in and said, Such a great episode. Thank you for being wise and vulnerable and informative and even inspiring.

shawn (00:03:07)
Hahaha

Melanie (00:03:13)
Ha ha

shawn (00:03:20)
⁓

Melanie (00:03:21)
We're too emotional. ⁓

Matt (00:03:38)
I have to imagine that that was not based on the things that we necessarily said. It was probably Porter was like inspiring and vulnerable. I don't know. ⁓ Yeah, thanks, listener. Glad you wrote in. Another listener wrote in. This was about the episode we did with Mark when I praised communists in the world. ⁓ Just wanted to drop a line and say, I'm enjoying your podcast, though. I'm listening to you going on some bizarre rant about the DSA wing.

shawn (00:03:47)
very nice. ⁓

Melanie (00:03:56)
Ha ha ha.

shawn (00:03:56)
You

Matt (00:04:07)
Taking over the Democratic Party and ushering in utopia for 60 years. And it's hard not to be able to raise my hand and rebut this nonsense. Well, listener, actually, we would encourage you to raise your hand and rebut the nonsense. Do it in your car, do it wherever you're listening to the podcast. ⁓ Let your friends and family know that you vehemently disagree with the communist utopia that's on its way, that's coming into the United States sometime soon.

Melanie (00:04:35)
I'm starting to think I should listen to the podcast more.

Matt (00:04:37)
⁓ It was a pretty fun episode, Mel Melanie. And then another listener wrote in and said, Did I just hear Sean say that jobs don't help society? Jobs that don't help society will always go away. Has he never gotten a robocall? People make millions and millions of dollars doing something that makes the world overall much worse. And there are lots of other examples. Econ 101 says the only way to make money is to help people, but econ 102 bursts that bubble. I just want to say because

If we're gonna bring up college level classes, I just wanna point out that it depends on where you study, because in some places econ one two would be principles of macroeconomics, but in another place it might be principles of microeconomics. So there's not a set curriculum for econ one two.

shawn (00:05:23)
Well, if you're going to add that comment to the listeners comment, then I'm going to add to your comment that you're a nerd based on everything you just said. ⁓

Melanie (00:05:30)
Ha ha

Matt (00:05:35)
I think it's funny that people still want Sean to defend the invisible hand. Like Sean's perspective on the invisible hand is so abundantly clear. I think I could put like transcripts in AI and say, ⁓ using Sean's tone, ⁓ defend this argument using an invisible hand argument, and it would give us the same thing that we've heard many, many times.

Melanie (00:05:47)
Yeah.

shawn (00:05:52)
⁓ And by the way, Porter last week, I'm gonna call out our friend Porter, he challenged my understanding of the invisible hand. And so we're gonna have to have future debates about that. ⁓ And to the listener's comment, ⁓ I understand that there are externalities in capitalism. I understand that there are market failures. I understand that, I get that. ⁓ I'm just saying that...

Melanie (00:05:53)
⁓ Ha ha ha.

shawn (00:06:19)
the most durable ⁓ or scalable ⁓ businesses in the long run that last. And they're the ones that create value for other people. Like profit is often a signal of solving a problem, and that is the invisible hand. But it's not a guarantee to make the world a better place.

Matt (00:06:35)
Unless there's

I just wanna say to listeners, stop making Sean talk about economic theory. Like Sean is super fun and super brilliant, but now you're turning him into a nerd, which is something he's never wanted to be. And so don't make him talk economic theory.

Melanie (00:06:48)
Ha ha ha.

shawn (00:06:48)
⁓ I read I read the Communist Manifesto and Wealth of Nations on my own. Okay, I read it on my own. I didn't get nudged by you. Wasn't because of this podcast. ⁓ Sorry. Yeah, that's true.

Matt (00:06:54)
⁓ No, that's true. ⁓

Melanie (00:06:59)
This isn't helping your cool person case.

Matt (00:07:04)
Do you know, Sean, I would love it if you did like you know how they do like graphic novels? I would love the graphic novel where Adam Smith and Karl Marx sit down and just chit chat with each other.

shawn (00:07:15)
hahahaha ⁓

Matt (00:07:17)
From Sean's perspective. ⁓

Melanie (00:07:19)
Ha ha ha

shawn (00:07:22)
You'd need to be the author and editor of that. I'll just draw it.

Melanie (00:07:25)
Yeah.

Matt (00:07:25)
Adam Smith's like, could you speak English? I don't understand German. ⁓ All right, let's get to the thought provoker. So, first up this week, ⁓ Andrei Melninchenko ⁓ is one of the richest oligarchs in Russia. And he sat down for an interview talking about what's going on in Russia and Ukraine and things like that. ⁓ he's saying that the conflict between Russia and Ukraine is now beginning to hurt life inside of Russia, causing fuel shortages and public anger.

shawn (00:07:28)
Hahaha! ⁓

Matt (00:07:55)
He's afraid that if Putin feels trapped, he might escalate the war or even use a nuclear weapon. He says there's four potential things that could happen to Russia ⁓ if things don't change their course. He says the first is anarchy. The government could collapse, and violent warlords could fight for control of the nuclear weapons in Russia. He says Russia, I know that doesn't sound good. He says it could be China's helper. Russia could lose its independence and just become a weak supplier of raw materials to China. ⁓

shawn (00:08:14)
Cheers.

Matt (00:08:24)
It says it could be a poor neighbor, Russia could become an impoverished nation, isolate an isolated country on the edge of Europe, or it could be a closed fortress like North Korea. It just becomes a permanent ⁓ war against the world kind of nation. So to avoid these outcomes, Mel Ninchenko argues that Putin must end his absolute one man rule. By the way, Mel Nichhenko, I don't want to tell you like how to live your life because you're a billionaire, but I think that being in Russia ⁓

Melanie (00:08:53)
Mm-hmm.

shawn (00:08:53)
You

Matt (00:08:53)
Arguing that Putin should give up his authority ⁓ is a path to death. Like it doesn't but anyhow, ⁓ he's arguing for that. He thinks that they should that Putin should share power with experts and business leaders to reform the country. But here's the question that I have for us. ⁓ What role should the United States play in trying to guide Putin toward one of these paths or away from any of these outcomes?

shawn (00:08:58)
You

shawn (00:09:17)
I mean clearly clearly America is playing that role because ⁓ our fearless leader he he campaigned on He'll end the war like that. He'll he'll have influence over his buddy Putin who he doesn't fear But he has a great relationship with remember he said he would end it. So he's already ended it. It's it's over What do mean?

Matt (00:09:32)
Yeah.

Melanie (00:09:32)
Right, right. So the solution isn't changing anything about how Putin controls Russia. The solution is just ending the war in Ukraine, so the citizens of Russia don't feel that economic drain anymore.

Matt (00:09:44)
Mm. But if we do that's interesting.

shawn (00:09:45)
I'm Eleni.

Melanie (00:09:46)
Well l that's what you're saying, Sean. ⁓

shawn (00:09:49)
⁓

Matt (00:09:50)
⁓ Melanie was summarizing your perspective, Sean.

shawn (00:09:53)
⁓ Thank you.

Matt (00:09:55)
⁓ do you have a a more serious thought, Melanie, before I go or do you want me to go first?

Melanie (00:10:01)
I want you to go to first. Yeah.

Matt (00:10:03)
My thought on this is that the United States has a history of trying to play politics in other countries, and I really don't want us to play politics in Russia. So my answer to this question is the United States needs to stay out of the internal politics of Russia. And we need to do whatever actions we take need to be based on what we think is the right thing, just the right thing to do, ⁓ rather than trying to steer Russia toward or away from different things that might happen in that country.

shawn (00:10:33)
Whoa, I didn't expect that. So Matt, was just, I just spent the last week in the Baltics. So Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. And there was a spot in Lithuania where in the 1980 something, as soon as, I think it was when Lithuania got accepted into ⁓ the EU or NATO or something, your favorite president, George W. Bush, that's your favorite, right?

Matt (00:10:50)
Yeah, EU.

Matt (00:10:55)
I do love him. He's one of the best presidents in the history of the world.

shawn (00:10:58)
I ⁓ H.Y. ⁓ Bush was your favorite. ⁓

Matt (00:11:02)
that's right, I like HW more. But George W. Bush was fine. He was a cheerleader at Yale. Like he's a fine guy.

Melanie (00:11:05)
Ha ha ⁓

shawn (00:11:08)
Do you remember what he said when he stood on the, so I was at the spot where he stood on the steps in front of this big building in Lithuania and he said something like, ⁓ I'm gonna butcher this, something like, anyone who now is an enemy of Lithuania is now an enemy of the United States or something like that. I butchered it, I butchered it. But you're saying the right thing to do, which is keep the promise that we as Americans made back in the 90s when we said, hey, Ukraine, if you will.

Matt (00:11:21)
Mm.

shawn (00:11:33)
denuclearize, we will be your defender, we will be your support. And if an enemy comes against you, they become our enemy. That's the right thing to do.

Matt (00:11:40)
Yeah. We should stick to our treaties. The right thing to do is to stick to our treaties and to defend the order that's kept the world safe and not worry about what that implies for Russian citizens, Ukrainian citizens. Like Ukraine might choose to become a corrupt state. Like Zelensky did some really unpopular things this last week. ⁓ Zelensky might end up being not the kind of leader we really want him to be, but it doesn't matter. We just do the honorable right thing from our perspective.

shawn (00:11:58)
Yeah.

Matt (00:12:09)
Which is honor those agreements and not worry about internal politics in other countries.

shawn (00:12:14)
Hmm. Interesting.

Matt (00:12:16)
What say you, Melanie?

Melanie (00:12:18)
I think I agree with a lot of what you said. Most of the biggest I don't know, from my naive view of history, it seems like most of the biggest problems we're facing in the world today happen because we see a regime that we think is unfair and wrong and we go in to change the regime. And that's really none of our business. ⁓ Like I think we should stand by our allies. If we've made promises we should keep them. But if it's an internal struggle, it's not our business to impose what we think is moral or right

On a country that is not ours and a people who are not ours.

Matt (00:12:51)
Well, and I know you were being facetious about this at the beginning, but I really do think the US military could go in and get Russia out of Ukraine. I don't I don't want to say like within weeks, but it wouldn't take long. By the end of the year, the US military could push Russia out of Ukraine and they could re preserve the integrity of the Ukrainian borders. And I think that's the best thing in the interest of the world because Putin is probably not going to cede defeat at any particular time. And the more it drags on and the more there's internal problems for him.

shawn (00:12:51)
sup

Matt (00:13:20)
The more likely it is that he would use a nuclear weapon. So a quick military end to the conflict in Ukraine is probably in the best interest of everybody, including Russia.

shawn (00:13:30)
It'll be fascinating to see whoever the next president is if it goes more towards that direction. That would be really fascinating.

Matt (00:13:37)
I don't even think we need a new president. I actually think that ⁓ there's enough support among Republicans in Congress right now that ⁓ yeah, I don't know. I think it could happen. I don't think we need to wait for Putin to change his mind. ⁓

shawn (00:13:49)
So Matt, just real quick, I gotta challenge your stance because ⁓ you said one of your favorite presidents is George W. Bush, and then you said, ⁓ as America, we need to stay out of meddling in other people's business, yet George W. Bush didn't do that in a major way, or do you just see that whole thing as a response to 9-11? And that wasn't us meddling in other governments, I'm talking about Iraq.

Matt (00:14:02)
Yeah.

Matt (00:14:09)
⁓ Yeah, no, I definitely disagree with George W. Bush's invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. I think that those were big mistakes. I didn't support those at the time. Yeah. But ⁓ there are other ways other things that he did that I thought was made him a great, great president. Yeah.

shawn (00:14:19)
Okay. Okay.

shawn (00:14:27)
Yeah, me too. ⁓ Melanie not Melanie though.

Matt (00:14:30)
⁓ Melanie was like just a a little baby when George W. Bush was president, so

Melanie (00:14:36)
Yeah, I wasn't born during nine eleven.

Matt (00:14:39)
But Melanie sure remembers the day that Barack Obama was inaugurated as president of the United States.

Melanie (00:14:43)
⁓ Have you shared that song with the podcast yet?

Matt (00:14:46)
No, nobody knows. I in I wrote a song for the Barack Obama Inauguration Day that we would sing in our house and cheer when Obama was inaugurated. And all of my kids know the song. Sing a forest melody.

shawn (00:14:55)
Hahaha! ⁓

Melanie (00:14:56)
⁓ It's a r ⁓ I think you should sing it, Dad ⁓

Matt (00:15:01)
⁓ No. Someday, someday maybe. ⁓ Sean is actually really good at music production, and I don't want to embarrass him by having him on a podcast with low quality music production and his face is there, and people are like, Whoa, Sean, how did you let that happen when you were there? But it's possible Sean and I could get together and we could do a a a proper recording of the song and then ⁓ yeah, release it someday.

Melanie (00:15:09)
⁓

shawn (00:15:18)
Well... ⁓

shawn (00:15:28)
Wow, okay, challenge accepted. Let's do it.

Melanie (00:15:29)
Ha.

Matt (00:15:33)
Okay, here's the next topic. A new Gallup poll. I know Sean hates polls, but I love polls. ⁓ It shows that Americans' trust in their country's major institutions right now is at a historic low. Only 27% of Americans say that they have high confidence in 14 core public and private institutions. The military is the only institution in America that a majority of Americans trust.

shawn (00:15:38)
You

Matt (00:16:01)
And only 33% of Americans trust organized religion. So this is part of a broader trend of decline. Trust has been dropping for decades. ⁓ today, 12 out of 14 core organizations are at or near their lowest trust points ever measured, including the presidency, schools like higher education and newspapers, and even public confidence in large technology companies has dropped to a new low of 20%. ⁓ So there's decades of research.

That show that when trust declines in a democracy, it leads to fewer people participating in the political system. People, when they no longer trust the system, they just say, I'm not gonna participate. It just doesn't matter if I vote, there's nothing I can do to change things, and they just sort of opt out. And that has a lot of other kind of like bad effects in society. But here's the question: Do we have, as members of the church, do we have a role to play?

In increasing trust in US institutions, and I would refer us to President Dallan H. Oak's talk on the Constitution. What say you, Melanie?

Melanie (00:17:09)
I say yes, but

Matt (00:17:11)
⁓ tell me more.

Melanie (00:17:13)
Okay. ⁓ I think it doesn't matter if a system is ⁓ broken as many people perceive current American institutions to be. I think it's our job to do everything we can in with the situation we've been given. And so if we have issues with institutions, it's our job to go and fix them and make them better. And giving up on them is not the way to do that.

shawn (00:17:36)
Wow. Dude, Melanie, that's inspirational, man. That was awesome.

Matt (00:17:36)
I love

Matt (00:17:41)
That's pretty good. ⁓ I'll go next. This is what President Oak says. ⁓ he says, our belief in divine inspiration gives Latter-day Saints a unique responsibility to uphold and defend the United States Constitution and the principles of constitutionalism wherever we live. And then he says, we should trust in the Lord ⁓ and be positive about this nation's future. And then he says, What else should we do? And he says, pray.

for the Lord to guide and bless all nations and their leaders. And then he talks about other things that we can do. ⁓ and so I say that I I would call that a divine charge for members of the church to be positive about the nation's future and to pray for the leaders of our nation.

shawn (00:18:17)
you

shawn (00:18:26)
⁓ So let me challenge it, let me, you took us, gave us, Melanie gave an inspiring answer, Matt gave a softball answer. So let me challenge it. Let me challenge you a little bit, Matt. So ⁓ here's my take on it. ⁓ Like, I'm a skeptic in general, but ⁓ there are certain things, like I love in the scriptures when it teaches about faith.

Melanie (00:18:35)
Ha ha ha ⁓

shawn (00:18:47)
And it says, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. I love that that teaches us that we are not supposed to put our faith blindly into things, right? Like just because ⁓ I'm a member of this church, carte blanche, I believe everything that ever has come out of a ⁓ book from Bruce R. McConkey or from, you know what I mean? We're not supposed to blindly base our faith in things. It's substance and evidence.

And that substance and evidence we know is the Holy Ghost. So what I've come to learn is there are a few things that we can put our trust in absolutely and completely. For example, scripture, canonized scripture. For example, a living prophet and the institution of the prophetic priesthood mantle, the leadership mantle. Now, because scriptures has taught us that the constitution of the United States is ⁓ divinely inspired.

I can put some more trust or faith into that. And so I can trust those institutions. But Matt, outside of those institutions, I have very little trust. Like, isn't it healthy for us to be a skeptic of all other institutions, except for those that are divinely inspired, those that we can put our absolute trust in?

Matt (00:20:01)
What do you say, Melanie?

Melanie (00:20:03)
I think there's a line that can be walked between skepticism and trust, right? I think we shouldn't be all in in trusting our institutions, but I think if you fully embrace skepticism, there's a danger of giving up completely. And so you can say, Yeah, the political system's probably a little flawed. I don't know if I trust all of my elected representatives. But I can either give up and not go out to vote and just like stop trying, or I can say

I'll research my candidates, I'll vote, I'll do what I can ⁓ and I'll look for things I can do to do more.

shawn (00:20:38)
That's a great response. And for clarity, my skepticism is a tool for me to try to make things better, right? My skepticism isn't a ⁓ pessimistic, ⁓ everything sucks, why even get involved? So that's a great distinction. Yeah, you're right. And maybe I need to be clearer on that. That's great.

Matt (00:20:52)
Yeah. Well, and I think it goes back to we talked about blind patriotism versus constructive patriotism before. I think President Oaks is trying to teach us that when we say we believe in a divinely inspired constitution, that is not so that we can go around the world and tell everybody how we are better than other countries. Canada, if only your constitution was divinely inspired. ⁓ Great Britain, don't you wish you were as great as us? No, what he's saying to us is.

shawn (00:20:59)
Yeah.

Matt (00:21:20)
Living in a nation with a divinely inspired constitution puts responsibilities on us. So if I truly believe that the constitution is divinely inspired, then that faith in that idea should motivate actions within me. And if I'm not behaving consistent with these certain actions, then I am not living in accordance with my faith that it's a divinely inspired constitution. And so so I think what President Oakes actually encourages, if you read the talk, he's encouraging.

constructive faith in the divinely inspired constitution. So we should be positive about the nation's future. Does that mean I can't be critical about the past? Of course not. Does that mean I can't be cynical about what's happening in my community now? Of course not. What it means is I can't define my participation in politics by the comments I make on YouTube, the things I do on social media, the complaining I do with my family.

None of that is constructive or helpful in society. And so we should engage in the behaviors that actually strengthen the nation rather than just being pessimistic about the institutions that surround us.

shawn (00:22:31)
Very nice, Matt. Very nice. know, being in the Baltics in the last week, our tour guides were all like later Gen X borderline baby boomers. So these were people who lived during the communist USSR in these countries. And two of our guides were people who lived during the revolutions, right? And they participated, like they, like.

during communism, they would just have to tow the line and they would just accept these institutions out of fear. But at the end, when they start to felt like things were changing and things were falling apart, like this one guy, he talked about how he, it was emboldening and he ⁓ rose up and he'd go in the streets and they would do all kinds of underground things to try and cause the USSR to fail so they could get their independence. ⁓ But

It was for the first time in his life that he started to say, I'm a skeptic of this institution. I don't like it. It didn't give us freedom. Now I need to do something about it. And now in Latvia, especially, they have this attitude. They're just like punk rockers. Like analyze your institution, ⁓ change it to make it better. Get involved, fix it, break it apart so that you can rebuild it. Is that a good attitude to have or is that an extreme attitude?

Melanie (00:23:31)
Yeah.

Matt (00:23:39)
Yeah. I I no, I think that's more of what we need. And and I sort of liken it to there have been talks in general conference recently when when people say members of the church are the church, right? So if you want to criticize the church, ultimately you're just criticizing the members of the church, the people in your neighborhood. Like there is not ⁓ I mean, and yes, of course there is an institutional church, but really the church is just the people who go to the church. And I think that ⁓

Americans need to get more of that feeling in their lives that the United States of America is the people who live in the United States of America. And the forefathers that we revere and the people who come but came before us that protected our liberty and protected the rights that we have today, they didn't do that by sitting around and complaining about the institutions around them. And we need to take that power, right? And we like if you don't like the media.

shawn (00:24:29)
Nice. ⁓

Matt (00:24:34)
Do something to change the media. If you don't like the church or organized church, do something about that. There's some institutions you can't do anything about, but this idea that like as Americans, like 20%, like 22% are like, I don't trust them. I don't trust them. Who are we as a people that we're just gonna sit around be like, no good, no good, no good. Try harder and then maybe I'll give you a good review. Like, that's not democracy. That's not what we're supposed to be doing.

shawn (00:24:59)
That's a nice sound, that is your sound bite for your YouTube clip. That's good. That was good.

Melanie (00:25:04)
Amen, hallelujah.

Matt (00:25:05)
Yeah. ⁓ That's what I was looking for as a soundbite. ⁓ I was just thinking like, I don't know, you have to if experience this in your world too, Sean, right? Like these people that think that like the reviews that they give you on Yelp should like define everything that matters in the world, right? Or like these people that are like, You better do this for me or I'm gonna give you a bad review. It's like, come on, like what is wrong with Americans? And it's like, Yeah, I don't know. Like, why don't people just take charge of

Melanie (00:25:09)
Ha ha

Matt (00:25:33)
their their communities, their lives, their institutions and say, this is who we are, and I'm not gonna just sit around and complain and give you a bad review. I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna change it. Not I don't I don't know. I just don't wanna do a soundbite thing. That's why I expanded on it a little bit.

shawn (00:25:48)
Okay, good. ⁓

Melanie (00:25:49)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (00:25:51)
I'm not a soundbite kind of guy, Sean. ⁓ Well, Sean has mentioned before how the podcast has kind of a theme. And so this next topic, I'm trying to build this theme, right? If you think about it, listener, we like started with Russia, and then we went with the United States. And now we're going to go really specific to like some politicians. And the story, ⁓ it just sort of surprised me when I saw this. But

shawn (00:25:52)
⁓ Don't put Matt in a box. ⁓

Melanie (00:25:56)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (00:26:16)
⁓ one of the things that happened at the two hundred fiftieth birthday of the United States of America on July fourth, there was a white supremacist group called the Patriot Front who had a march in Washington, DC. They were wore matching uniforms to look like peaceful, orderly patriots, but experts warned that this public image is a trick to hide a dangerous reality. In private, records show that they are a hateful neo-Nazi group with a history of secret racial violence, including a brutal assault on a black musician.

And vandalism of a black history mural. Experts also describe the group as a financial cult and a pyramid that controls its members' lives and forces them to pay hundreds of dollars a month to belong to this group. ⁓ Utah Senator Mike Lee, who's a member of the church, which is why it becomes relevant to us, he promoted a conspiracy theory on social media, claiming that these people were actually fake white supremacists paid by Democrats and the Southern Poverty Law Center to make patriots look bad.

But news reports ⁓ news reports point out that Senator Lee provided absolutely no evidence to support his claims. And official investigations show that the Patriot Front front is real and it's an ex extremist group, and they're actually white supremacists. So here's the here's the question. Like politicians are famous for lying, but it seems like Mike Lee, Donald Trump, and others are taking the lies to a whole new level. ⁓ so here's the question: How should members of the church act?

When the people they elect to represent them distort the truth.

shawn (00:27:51)
Melanie, I want to hear Melanie. ⁓

Melanie (00:27:51)
We should stop electing them.

Matt (00:27:55)
I agree. That should be disqualifying, right? If you're gonna post some stupid conspiracy theory on Twitter, every single person or whatever he posted on, every single person who sees that should say, You lost my vote forever. I agree.

Melanie (00:28:06)
There should be something like the hockey penalty box. If you post something online that's externally like proven to be untrue, then you don't get to make any public statements for a week. ⁓

Matt (00:28:17)
⁓ I love that. Could you imagine poor Donald Trump's life if after that speech he gave, they're like, All right, we counted up like twenty-five mistruths and all of this out of Wow, you got six months of no public speaking. ⁓

Melanie (00:28:29)
Like I don't know if that's constitutional, so maybe I shouldn't stand for that, but like

Matt (00:28:34)
We are the Constitution. We can put anything in there we want to put in there. We could put the ⁓

shawn (00:28:35)
Yeah. ⁓

Melanie (00:28:38)
⁓ Ha

shawn (00:28:41)
But Matt, so there's this interesting YouTube channel, I think it's Jubilee, and they have one kind of show where they call it fact checked or something like that. So you get three people from the left and three people from the right, and they sit at a table, and at any moment, their team is behind them, can push a button that says, I need a fact check on what that guy just said. And so they'll go back and they'll do this fact check. And I'm fascinated because most of the time, the fact checkers come back after like two minutes and they're like, they always qualify.

Matt (00:28:45)
yeah, I love them.

Matt (00:28:59)
Mm-hmm.

shawn (00:29:09)
it's a pretty nuanced statement and you know if you meant this then it could be like they always have to qualify because in the end they go okay but we're going to judge that that was a false fact claim or a true fact claim but I was surprised at the qualifications that even these you know fact checkers had to put out there like these are nuanced questions like your statement that you're putting out there if you meant this then maybe it's a true fact if you meant this then it's not so is it possible

Matt (00:29:20)
Mm-hmm.

shawn (00:29:35)
not to defend Mike Lee, but is it possible that Mike Lee with whatever information he has isn't actually like lying or putting out a conspiracy theory. Maybe he is just going, look, I'm looking at the details and the information I've got and that's telling me one thing.

Matt (00:29:51)
But you are a US senator. ⁓ Like you have access to the best quality information in the world. You want classified information. You want like inform like the as a senator in the United States of America, Mike Lee has every opportunity to get the facts right. And so he has an obligation as a US senator to say, I am not going to promote something that's wishy-washy. Like he doesn't need to say anything. He doesn't have to comment on them. He doesn't have to like,

Promote any kind of a perspective. He can just stay quiet and everybody's fine. So if you choose to make a statement as a US senator or as a president of the United States, we should hold you to a very high standard and say, please don't tell us things that aren't true. You're not like some junior high kid, like trying to get girls to like you or something like that. You don't need to like win some popularity contest. Just tell us the tr things that are true and then keep your mouth shut unless unless you know for a fact that it's true.

shawn (00:30:46)
When has that ever been the case with a politician? say they don't say truth. They say things that get votes. ⁓

Matt (00:30:52)
Well, I could tell you about George Washington and he chopped down that cherry tree and then he he told the truth. Or ⁓

shawn (00:30:56)
huh. huh. huh.

Melanie (00:30:59)
But like in the vein of changing institutions, isn't it our job to say we don't like that politicians have to lie in order to succeed? So we're gonna vote for the politicians who don't lie.

Matt (00:31:12)
Well, if I go back to President Oakes' talk, that's what he says, right? He says that should be our guide of who we vote for. We vote for honorable and wise people. And so if whether it's true or not, right, is it honorable to say that this white supremacist group is actually a front for it's actually the Democrats that are do like, no matter what nuance you want to throw in there, Sean, there's zero evidence that the Democrats are the ones that created this like n neo Nazi. Right. So

shawn (00:31:39)
Yeah.

Matt (00:31:42)
So we say, look, be honorable and don't don't say things ⁓ that have that have no basis in fact.

shawn (00:31:49)
course. ⁓ Yeah, no, no one's gonna argue that. I agree. Just try. ⁓

Matt (00:31:51)
Yeah, well, ⁓

Melanie (00:31:56)
We appreciate you, Sean.

Matt (00:32:00)
Yeah, I th so it's it's complicated, but I make this argument a lot on the podcast. We need to stop voting for people based on the policies that we think they're going to pursue. We need to stop judging candidates by like, I'm pro-gun, they're pro-gun, therefore I'm voting for them. We need to vote for people based on who they are, the quality of the people there. If we w in the in the Bible it says when the wicked rule people mourn. In the Doctrine of Covenants, it says we should w it says the same thing. It says we should.

shawn (00:32:26)
It's.

Matt (00:32:29)
vote for good people. Like if we really want if we want to trust institutions, if we want to have a a presidency that we're proud of, we need to vote for good people and set aside all of the stupid issues that they tell us to vote on.

shawn (00:32:42)
It's a complicated equation though, man. Like good, honest, wise person ⁓ or good, honest, maybe not as wise person. Like ⁓ Jimmy Carter, right? Not the wisest person, but a good person. But was he a great president for our country? ⁓ Some people say not really.

Matt (00:32:55)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Matt (00:33:01)
Okay, but I want you

Melanie (00:33:02)
But would you rather have a Jimmy Carter or an Andrew Jackson?

Matt (00:33:05)
⁓ Jimmy Carter. Well, but this is the question, Sean. If we were to look at your elected officials in California, and I know that you don't like all of them, ⁓ just look at ⁓ widely across the elected officials, how many of them can we say, I'm proud of them? How many of them can we say, I would trust my children to hang out with that politician and they would be a good influence on my child? There's not a lot of them. And so then ⁓ why are we voting for these people?

shawn (00:33:31)
⁓ No, there's not.

Matt (00:33:35)
If you wouldn't let your kids hang out at their house for the evening, if you don't trust what they're gonna do with your loved ones, why would we put them in charge of the of our nation or our community? Like

shawn (00:33:45)
Okay, so the crux, really what you're getting at in this question is you just want to proclaim in public that you do not want Mike Lee to babysit your children and you don't want to hang out with them. That's the point of the question, isn't it?

Matt (00:33:53)
⁓ Yeah, he's been asking lately. And I'm like, I'm an empty nester, and he's like, maybe I could dog sit for you. And I'm like, I don't know, like maybe ⁓

Melanie (00:34:00)
Ha ha ha ⁓

shawn (00:34:00)
Hahaha.

Melanie (00:34:11)
I think there's something to be said though for like the idea that we can have politicians we disagree with on policy issues. And yeah, that kinda sucks because our policy opinions are formulated by what we think is right. But if we had a bunch of good people who listened to each other who all disagreed on policy, they'd maybe get a little bit more stuff done because they'd compromise and work together and build policies that like weren't perfect for anyone but were

Good for a lot of people.

Matt (00:34:43)
I like it. Melanie gets the points.

Melanie (00:34:46)
No.

shawn (00:34:46)
man. I'm not, I can't give it to you because I don't want more stuff to get done. I don't want more laws, policies. ⁓ I like the gridlock. ⁓

Matt (00:34:52)
⁓ Yeah, Sean likes the gridlock. Well, Sean, what you need to do is you need to vote for a wise person and then an honest person, and then a wise person and then an honor per honest person, and then there'll be ⁓ there'll be gridlock between the wisdom and the honesty. All right. I'm so excited about the big topic, the big question. ⁓ This is this is like part one of maybe three. Like ⁓ every time I want to promote communism.

Melanie (00:35:06)
Yeah.

shawn (00:35:10)
Holy moly, you went nuts on this one. ⁓

Matt (00:35:20)
And beautiful socialist principles. Sean comes in with the scripture about property and what it says in the Doctrine of Covenants about property. So ⁓ I did a deep dive into the Old and New Testament, and I found every scripture that I found that I could think of that talks about property in some way. And so I identified it's either three or four themes. I can't remember. So we'll dive into the themes one at a time. ⁓ and we're never gonna get to the one in the Doctrine and Covenants that says,

Wait, what is it? Private property is sacred or something. Anyhow, we're never gonna get there because we Sean and I both acknowledge that the Doctrine of Covenants is divinely inspired and it's standardized, and and ⁓ we should ⁓ we should respect private property rights. So let me just be clear. When I say I love communism and when I say I love socialism, I also recognize that it has to be done in a way that respects private property rights because that's what the scriptures say. ⁓

shawn (00:36:14)
It's not communism or socialism. What are you crazy? It's like the central guiding principle of the Communist Manifesto. ⁓ What?

Melanie (00:36:16)
Ha ha ha.

Matt (00:36:22)
⁓ Well it's a it's a newer form of communism. It's the kind of communism that John Wayne hated but was really, really good in the fifties or the forties or something like that. ⁓ Okay.

shawn (00:36:35)
just said.

Melanie (00:36:36)
Me neither.

Matt (00:36:38)
⁓ Did you know you guys know this? ⁓ Did you know back in the day, ⁓ there were a lot of people in Hollywood who belonged to the Communist Party? ⁓ And and they said you either have to out your friends and family or whatever and tell us who they all come before this committee and rat them out, or you're gonna be blacklisted. So John Wayne and Ronald Reagan were big proponents of the like anti-communist movement in Hollywood, and so

shawn (00:36:38)
⁓ Something complicated about John Wayne in the 50s. ⁓

Melanie (00:36:39)
⁓ Ha ⁓

shawn (00:36:49)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

shawn (00:36:57)
Yeah.

Matt (00:37:04)
One of the reasons, I think it's the primary reason, that you see so many John Wayne movies in Hollywood is because John Wayne got all of the competition fired and blacklisted in Hollywood for being communists. And the reason you have so many movies of this period of time that are like rah, rah, rah, a particular version of America, is because all the people who had a different idea of America got blacklisted and thrown out of Hollywood and weren't allowed to make movies anymore. So that's what I meant by that John Wayne comment.

shawn (00:37:13)
Hahaha

shawn (00:37:29)
So, ⁓ so Gene, if it wasn't for John Wayne and the whole anti-communist movement, we would have had way more cowboy movies with Gene Kelly dancing around and singing the songs. ⁓

Matt (00:37:38)
⁓ Jimmy Stewart. ⁓ No, no, it was ⁓ I can't remember the names of there's a movie, I think it's called Trumbo, Trumble, something like that. There were a lot of really good filmmakers who were communists and got didn't make movies anymore. There was some if you want to see really good film, like go to the 1940s, early 1950s. There were some really cool things happening in Hollywood, and then it all sort of ends, and it's all like,

Melanie (00:37:39)
Ha ha ha.

Matt (00:38:05)
World War Two movies and Cowboys and Indians movies and there's not a lot of like

shawn (00:38:08)
But that's, but that's relevant to the culture of the day and the times the current events. It's not, it's not this talk now and that's preaching a conspiracy theory. ⁓

Matt (00:38:18)
⁓ Okay. ⁓ That's not

Melanie (00:38:20)
I think he's just saying socialists make better art.

shawn (00:38:23)
⁓ But you have no evidence of that. There's zero evidence of that.

Matt (00:38:23)
That's what I'm trying to say. That's what I'm trying to. I would go to museums in the Soviet former Soviet Union and say, my goodness, this Soviet propaganda speaks to my soul. And like the it's the same when I go to the Rockefeller Center down in the basement down there. I'm like, I feel like I'm back in the Soviet Union. And then ⁓ since then, nothing good. ⁓ No good art. ⁓ All right, but that's not the big question. ⁓ There are a number of scriptures here.

Melanie (00:38:33)
Ha ha ha ⁓

Melanie (00:38:41)
Ha ha ha

shawn (00:38:49)
No, it's not. ⁓

Matt (00:38:53)
And I'm not gonna ⁓ read them all for the listeners, but it seems to me like there's this principle in the Bible that says, I'll I'll find one that's a really good one. This is Deuteronomy 10:14. ⁓ behold the heaven, and the heaven of the heavens is the Lord's thy God, the earth also with all that is therein. And then it's basically this principle that says that God owns everything, people own nothing. And so here's the question: What is the gospel principle?

About property ownership taught in these verses.

shawn (00:39:24)
I mean, read a couple more so the listeners have context.

Matt (00:39:27)
The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world, and they that dwell therein. The land shall not be sold forever, for the land is mine, for ye are strangers and sojourners with me. ⁓ All that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine, both riches and honor come of thee. This is something David says to God. Right, so God's saying, like everything on the earth belongs to him, ⁓ and he gives us stewardship over it, I think.

But not true ownership because truly God owns everything. That's what I think the principle is.

shawn (00:39:59)
But don't we mean property ownership? We mean stewardship. That's what we mean. For example, Matt, is your body yours? Is it yours? ⁓ But I thought the elements that make up your body are the same elements that make up all the property that you're so against owning. So how can it be yours? If you're preaching here in the Old Testament that God is saying, ⁓ all the elements are mine, all of it is mine. How is your body yours?

Matt (00:40:03)
⁓

Matt (00:40:08)
Yes, yes, my body is mine.

Matt (00:40:17)
But but

Matt (00:40:23)
'Cause God God gave me agency and He gave it to me and gave me agency to act for it. So it's mine.

shawn (00:40:29)
Bingo, bingo. So he gives us agency and he says, look, Matt, the same elements that your spirit, the true you, needs to learn how to govern, your body, those elements. They also make up the wood that makes your home. They also make up the pipes that run water through your home. And Matt, the same way that you need to use your agency to be a good steward over your body and you own that, property.

other types of property. Like don't we need to learn how to be God or know learn how to live how he lives? And you look at the creation story and he basically says, look, look at all the matter, the element there that's in chaos. ⁓ I, God know how to organize it and reorganize it. So and then manage it and basically get it to obey me. And I know how to own it. And you are his son, Matt, and you need to learn how to do the same thing. And a way to do that ⁓ is

Own and manage property ownership. Yeah, the same way that you believe you own your body those elements ⁓ so that you can learn how to ⁓ master them within its sphere. ⁓ So it is with a house. So it is with a car. So it is with all these things.

Matt (00:41:21)
Ownership?

All right.

Matt (00:41:37)
So I was watching a documentary on the Shakers. This is like Ken Burns' very first documentary. And the Shakers were a religious group in the United States. They're the ones that forbade marriage, right? They said you can't, and they had communal ownership of property. And by the way, Angels, Marx and Engels, who wrote the Communist Manifesto, Angels praised them because they had communal ownership of property.

shawn (00:41:46)
Yeah. Yeah.

shawn (00:42:00)
Wait, you're pretty you're pointing to the shaker movement as the standard for how life should be the shaker movement.

Matt (00:42:03)
Yes.

Yes. The Shakers, ⁓ in their view, ⁓ followed the Bible perfectly. They said, We're gonna do things the way the Bible teaches us. And the Bible teaches us that ⁓ all things belong to God. And they had the same concept of stewardship that you're preaching to me, but it didn't involve property ownership. They had to give up everything they had to the church. They had to actually not just give up their property, they gave up their children and their wives because marriage was forbidden in their community. So

A man and a wife would go from bringing man and wife to brother and sister, and the kids were brother and sister. And and they built the most amazing architecture. They they invented the clothespin. They invented a number of like technological advancements for the time. They created the best furniture, the best buildings. Like they had a society built on communal ownership of property because they believed, like you're preaching to me, Sean, they believed that God is in everything.

Melanie (00:42:46)
Ha ha. ⁓

shawn (00:42:47)
Ha ha. ⁓

Matt (00:43:03)
And so I need to treat everything with respect and I need to I need to everything I do and everything I interact with, I need to make it the best that it can possibly be, because it's not mine. It belongs to God. And He's just lending it to me for a time. So I owe it to him to make it the best it can be.

shawn (00:43:16)
So, okay, so, go ahead Melanie.

Melanie (00:43:18)
You know

Dad, I was picking up what you were putting down until you said men and women didn't stay married. ⁓ I ⁓ But Sean, I've been thinking about what you were saying about like the property body analogies.

Matt (00:43:26)
Ha ha ha.

shawn (00:43:27)
Ha ha ha ha ha.

Matt (00:43:31)
Wait, wait, wait, pause, Melanie. Pause. That's exactly what Engel said about them too, by the way. He's like they have a beautiful society, but when they tell them they can't be married anymore, then nobody wants to join them. Okay, sorry, go ahead.

Melanie (00:43:41)
⁓ Okay, thank you. ⁓ Sean, I was thinking about your like property body analogy, because I think you've got something really good going there. But I think one ⁓ way I disagree is that we know that in the resurrection we'll keep our bodies. Our bodies are crucial to our eternal identity. But our property is not. Like there's that whole verse in the New Testament, you can't take it with you essentially.

And I think one of the most valuable things we can learn to do with our property in this life is to learn to give it to others. ⁓ And I think that's why like consecration and socialism really resonates with me, right? Because God has this power to create all of these amazing things. He has power over everything in existence and he chooses to give it to us. ⁓ He doesn't keep it for himself. Yeah, of course.

shawn (00:44:30)
So can I challenge that? So how can you give or consecrate to others that which you do not have? Right, the idea is that...

the idea behind socialism is that you don't have property, you don't control anything. So let's apply that to the body. So if you're gonna apply the idea to the elements, which are the body, the same elements make up a tree, or that makes a home, so why can't we argue the same thing with your body? You don't own your body. So whatever the church says to do with your body, you do it.

Matt (00:45:12)
⁓ I don't know, Sean. I don't understand exactly how that relates to property.

shawn (00:45:18)
Because the whole premise is, ⁓ you said, I've read all through the Old Testament, the Lord says you don't own anything. ⁓ I said, do you own your body? He says, I do own my body. And I said, the elements are the same. So if,

Matt (00:45:26)
Yes.

Matt (00:45:30)
I see. I see. I see what you're saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, I see what you're saying. Well, it's a very interesting place to take it. And I think that ⁓ there is an argument I could make that says that ⁓ yeah, I don't know. Like in in some ways, God wants us to treat our bodies the same as he wants us to treat all property. If God gives us a commandment related to our bodies, which is like do this, don't do this, then he wants us to follow that and not say, but it's mine, I can do what I want to do with it.

shawn (00:45:58)
Like isn't the whole purpose, one of the purposes of this existence is, Matt, you need to learn how to, ⁓ you need to figure out how your spirit can overcome the flesh. Your spirit needs to learn how to master the flesh. You'll never do it, therefore the atonement, but that's part of the reasons you are here, to experience this flesh. ⁓ The same applies to all other property. We need to learn how to overcome.

Matt (00:46:09)
Yes.

Matt (00:46:17)
Mm-hmm.

shawn (00:46:22)
the elements of this world and manage it and organize it from chaos into order. Like that is owning the ownership of property that God gives us through agency is us learning to manage the elements of the universe. Like we have to learn how to do that.

I don't think ever he'll say, I don't think in the celestial kingdom he will say, you own nothing. He is going to delegate to us the elements and we are to learn how to be like he is. We will own those things and we will learn how to use them and we will freely give them to others. But you can't freely give that which you don't own.

Matt (00:46:42)
Let me

Matt (00:46:57)
Okay. Okay, but to focus on this particular principle, would you agree with me, Sean, that if ⁓ Jesus showed up at your door tomorrow and he said, Sean, I want your house, I want everything you own, give it to me. He wouldn't be stealing from you because he actually already owns it all.

shawn (00:47:16)
Yeah, sure.

Matt (00:47:18)
Okay, so that's the principle, right? God owns everything.

shawn (00:47:20)
⁓ The ⁓ same if he says to Abraham, take your son, go up there and kill him, because I own that son. I own the body of that son. Right, same thing.

Matt (00:47:27)
Okay, okay, okay. So God can't steal property because it's all his in the first place.

Melanie (00:47:30)
Mm.

shawn (00:47:36)
and he can't murder because it's his body in the first place. Is that fair? Yes?

Matt (00:47:40)
Yeah, he created life, right? He create he's the yeah. So so yeah, even if God is the reason why everybody dies, he's not murdering people because he's not taking something that doesn't belong to him. Do you agree with that, Melly?

shawn (00:47:51)
Correct, yeah. So ⁓ I'm curious.

Melanie (00:47:55)
I don't know if I agree with that. I'm gonna have to think about that more.

Matt (00:48:01)
That God can't steal or that God can't kill?

Melanie (00:48:04)
That God taking an individual's life is not murder because he owns the elements of that body.

Matt (00:48:09)
Okay, so for forget about the murder one, what about the stealing one? Can God steal Okay.

Melanie (00:48:11)
⁓ I agree with God can't steal.

shawn (00:48:12)
You

But what's your point in that, Matt? Help me understand your point in that.

Matt (00:48:18)
I just want to make sure that we all agree on that principle of property that's in the scriptures. Do we all agree that it all ultimately belongs to God?

shawn (00:48:27)
Yeah, but the same way that God's

Matt (00:48:29)
Okay.

Melanie (00:48:29)
I think my dad's starting a long con here where he's gonna get you to agree to one thing every episode and then at the end he's gonna be like, boom, I've got ya ⁓

Matt (00:48:32)
No, no, no, no. ⁓ No, no. It's just like for listeners, because we talk about this stuff a lot and we talk about property and who owns it and all of that stuff. And so Sean was like, we should do a deep dive on this. And I'm yeah, let's do a deep dive. So this is ⁓ deep dive of principle number one. I think we all agree that there is an eternal doctrinal principle, an eternal truth. Everything on the earth belongs to God. And if he tells you to give it to him,

shawn (00:48:48)
No, I love this deep dive.

Welcome.

Matt (00:49:01)
He's not stealing from you because it really all belongs to him in the first place.

shawn (00:49:03)
But ⁓ sure, I can agree with that hypothetical, but the same has to apply to our bodies. And if I look at the way that God commands us to use our bodies, that applies to property as well. So your hypothetical isn't quite there, Matt.

Matt (00:49:10)
Okay.

shawn (00:49:19)
He doesn't come down and say, Matt, give me your body, go run with that bomb. He doesn't command you what to do with your body. He says, I ⁓ own the properties of this earth, including the elements that make up your body, and I give you agency over them. That is a more accurate application of property, ⁓ not your hypothetical that's never happened.

Matt (00:49:20)
Well

He might.

Matt (00:49:44)
Of sh of sure it's happened. God told Martin Harris to sell his house to for the printing of the Book of Mormon. Yeah. But the reason why your thing on life is uncertain to me is because there's a couple of things there. Number one, ⁓ intelligence is not created nor can be. So there's an a component of all of us that has always existed. And so I

shawn (00:49:45)
When does it happen?

shawn (00:49:50)
⁓ good one. That's a good one. That's a good one. You're right.

shawn (00:50:07)
this is deep. This is deep.

Matt (00:50:08)
And so I don't know that I would say that God owns everything of my body, even though he helped create my body, because there's something unique to me that has always existed apart from him. And then the other thing I would say is if we if the book Frankenstein was not fictional, but it was non-fiction and it really happened, I don't think that I would say that Dr. Frankenstein ⁓ owned the monster he created because he gave it life and he organized it all and put it all together, right? He's like, Well, I got this from this cemetery and this.

And I don't think that ownership would be the appropriate like you can create something and you can put all those elements together and organize them in a way, but that doesn't give you ownership over it because ⁓ life is something there's something there that you can't own.

shawn (00:50:47)
you

shawn (00:50:52)
then why do you say you own your body?

Matt (00:50:55)
Because there's something about me that's me and uniquely me that nobody created. It's just who I am. Life. Life.

shawn (00:51:01)
⁓ Yeah, but that's the eternal you, the spirit you. ⁓

Matt (00:51:07)
Well then but but just as just as Dr. Frankenstein organized elements and put life into the monster doesn't give him ownership over the monster. Dr. Frankenstein doesn't have the right to kill the monster whenever he wants to, because he created that life and organized the body that the life is in. Once you put life in a body, it doesn't necessarily become yours.

shawn (00:51:24)
So what, why can't you, but why can't you say the same thing about the shed I just built in my backyard? I put the life into the shelf.

Matt (00:51:31)
Well, people build buildings. ⁓ There's no life in the shell. ⁓ There's no life in the shell.

Melanie (00:51:35)
There's no life in it. ⁓

shawn (00:51:38)
There's a structure, it was chaotic matter, just like the world was, and then I organized it according to God's principles, mathematical principles, ⁓ the laws of physics. I applied truth to organize it and make it into something that...

Matt (00:51:49)
So there's

Matt (00:51:54)
Well, so that might be an area where we disagree about life. But at least we all agree that everything in the earth belongs to God.

Melanie (00:52:01)
⁓ I ⁓

shawn (00:52:01)
Well, you don't agree with that because you don't think your body belongs to God. So you don't agree with that.

Melanie (00:52:05)
I kinda think Sean's saying something interesting here though, like the idea that ⁓ come on you clap. ⁓ I think the idea that the raw materials are the Lords, but then when we take the raw materials and make something new from them, there's an act of like creation or imbuing with something separate from like what was there originally.

Matt (00:52:27)
⁓ It doesn't give me ownership over it. People build buildings all the time that they don't own. People create things all the time that they don't own. Just because you create it doesn't mean you own it.

shawn (00:52:39)
Yeah, I wouldn't say that just because you created it. No, of course. I would never say that. in a scenario where God ⁓ gives me stewardship over the elements, gives me ownership, or stewardship, I don't know if you want to separate those two words, but... ⁓

Matt (00:52:54)
They're different. They're definitely different ideas. Stewardship and ownership are not the same.

shawn (00:53:00)
I mean, I'll concede to you that in the end, yeah, everything that I am, I'm going, when the Lord says it's mine, ⁓ whether I choose to give it to him or not, he has control over it, of course, including my body, absolutely. But that's not ⁓ typically the way the Lord works with humans. He says, ⁓ I give you stewardship.

Matt (00:53:12)
Okay, so this is ⁓

shawn (00:53:20)
and ownership over the elements. Learn to use them the way I use them. Learn to control them. Learn to be good stewards and good creators. That is what a creator is, being able to apply righteous law to the chaotic elements that exist, including my body.

Matt (00:53:22)
⁓

Matt (00:53:37)
But would but would you agree that everything we have is conditionally held? It's not absolutely ours. It's just given to us by God and He can take it back if he wants to.

shawn (00:53:49)
In mortality, yes, but the laws that he applies allow for ownership and stewardship. But in immortality, I don't know, Matt. I think he is going to teach us how to actually own elements. Not people, not people, element. Element that, ⁓ not people, no.

Matt (00:53:52)
Okay.

Matt (00:54:04)
People. ⁓ People. ⁓ Just checking. Just checking. ⁓ Just okay. Hey, that was enlightened. Melanie, thank you so much for joining us. And Sean, I thought what you were saying was interesting all along, even before Melanie said that it was interesting. ⁓ Hey, listener, thanks for joining us. It's been good to have you with us. We'll talk to you again next week.

Melanie (00:54:22)
⁓ Ha ha

shawn (00:54:25)
you