Half Century Hangout
We are Half Century Hangout where different perspectives make for better discussions.! John, Luke and Chuck are three guys who grew up differently but became good friends with a lot to talk about. On this show three unique perspectives are brought to the table where we dive into everything from current events to life's big questions. We might not always see eye to eye... But that's exactly why we're here. So grab a seat and join us for honest conversation, unexpected insights, and a few friendly arguments.
Half Century Hangout
From Buckeyes And Bears To Big Questions About Truth and Reality!
We don’t settle for easy binaries. One of us stakes reality on the verifiable—H2O is water, electricity flows, pyramids stand—while another argues that reality must be anchored beyond our senses, toward an objective truth that won’t bend with mood or metrics. That leads straight into faith: if eight billion perspectives tug at the world, is there a fixed point we can trust? And if so, how do we test our daily choices against it without becoming rigid or naïve?
How about them buckeyes? How about them buckeyes? I'm just full disclosure.
SPEAKER_05:My lights in the garage are red today for Chuck. I'm a stand-up guy. I'll I'll I'll eat it where I have to. You know, I haven't for four years, but let Chuck have his little uh spotlight.
SPEAKER_04:What are the buckeyes now? What's what's their record? 11 and 0, 10 and 0? Something like that. I think they're 11 and oh. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:And they I'm actually looking forward to Saturday. That's gonna be a good one. Indiana, Ohio State. Indiana, Ohio State. Number one and number two in the Big Ten championship. And it's in Indianapolis, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Big time. Indianapolis. Yeah. Yeah, it's Indianapolis. Well, Naptown.
SPEAKER_04:What virtually how many do they have in the top ten?
SPEAKER_05:Top ten. Those two, Oregon. Oregon. And I think that's it. In the top ten.
SPEAKER_04:Right. Yeah. I thought they had more.
SPEAKER_05:But yeah, it was, it was, it was fun. It was, it was, you know, we started out strong. I I was I was hopefully cautiously optimistic at the beginning, but yeah. Wound up being real low-key watching it because I was gonna stay in Michigan and watch it there. But the weather, we left a little early to try to beat the weather of the storms back here to Iowa. So after Thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_00:Those first six or seven minutes, maybe ten minutes. First quarter, Michigan kind of owned. Yeah. I felt there were a lot of wins there for Michigan in that first quarter, you know, stopping us a couple times on the goal line there. That was a that was a big win for them.
SPEAKER_05:It was, it was, it was I mean, they were clearly a better team than we were, 100%. Ohio State was about it. Oh hundred percent. So I think, you know, but that's why it's a rivalry, right? It's not one-sided. Yeah. I mean, even though over the course of the whole thing, Michigan has more wins in it than Ohio State does. But I'm just saying.
SPEAKER_00:What a classy dude, Ryan Day, though, huh? At the end, did you hear? I mean, like he this is the first time he beat Michigan. And the reporter Did he drink McUltra? I don't think he drinks McUltra. I wouldn't have to do it. He drinks Mick Ultra anyway. Chuck Kaiser drinks McUltra. Okay. It's a really good beer. Anyways. So yeah, he was asked. Hey, give me you must have some emotion. Come on, give us something. He goes, Well, we win with humility. And I thought you can say that.
SPEAKER_05:You can do that when you only win once. I mean, you can say that.
SPEAKER_00:Hey, you know, well, maybe he'll get a little bit more excited on the next time. You know what I just noticed in your garage? You just noticed it today? I just noticed it today. Okay. Your your shotgun over there.
SPEAKER_05:Oh, yeah. That's a little single shot 12.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah. Little breakover. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:That's that's pretty cool.
SPEAKER_05:It's got a broken hammer on it. The hammer's cracked on the back. What was that?
SPEAKER_00:I don't know. I'll probably get a little bit more. Probably. No, I've seen those in 20 gauge, but I've never seen a single shot 12 gauge. Yeah. Makes a believer out of you. You gotta be real. You ain't gonna have time to load it. So I've got a I've got a 12 gauge Mossberg five shot. Mossburg 500. It's a 70A.
SPEAKER_05:Oh, a 70A. Okay.
SPEAKER_00:All right. Yeah, and that's that'll make a man out of you real quick. 100%.
SPEAKER_05:But how was your Thanksgiving?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, Thanksgiving was great. We uh my uh my kids uh celebrate Thanksgiving with their in-laws on Thanksgiving Day, and so we were actually celebrating Thanksgiving after the Michigan victory, uh-huh. You know, Ohio State victory over Michigan. Yeah, and so yeah, we had uh much more to be thankful for, though. That's awesome. And you didn't have to cook, did you, Shaq? No, I didn't do anything. My daughter-in-law, Cheyenne, did a lot of the Who made the turkey? Or did you have it? Yeah, Cheyenne smoked it and uh Yeah, it was great. Cheyenne and Cole did. So it was awesome.
SPEAKER_04:Well, did you do too? We we went down to my in-laws and had a nice, nice Thanksgiving. It was it was really nice. It was a little bit fewer people, people couldn't get into town, and so we just didn't have as many, and it was nice and quiet and able to listen and talk. And were you sleeping in the chair? I was not sleeping in the chair, I was sitting at the table talking or listening more more so. But uh yeah, we had we had smoked turkey. Yeah, my brother-in-law, and we only brought cheesy corn. That's all we brought.
SPEAKER_05:But yeah. My sister did a great job, you know. We went to Michigan, drove through, and uh got there, picked up two of my sons on the way in Chicago. Got there, she did a great job. I cooked the turkey in an electric roaster, which was a first for me. Oh wow. Presentation-wise, it wasn't my greatest, but it was good. But she did all the sides, did a lot of stuff. It was good, had my rutabaga, so I was happy. Rutabaga. Oh, yeah. Love rutabaga. You don't have rubga, you don't know what it is? It's isn't it a root or something? Kind of like a kind of like a turnip, yeah, but not quite as bitter if you want to say never had rubber. More sweetbaga. No, it's not sweet, but it's just uh it's a root vegetable, like a potato, like a starch.
SPEAKER_00:As you were telling yellow. As you were telling the story about the presentation of your turkey, Luke, I was reminded of was it Christmas Vacation? Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05:That's a great scene. Yeah, yeah. Not that dry, huh? Yeah, it wasn't quite that dry. But yeah, it was fun. We went there, and you know, it's always, and the kids remind us like their their thing was always the cousins getting together for Thanksgiving. That was fun because they don't see him as much because they live a long way. Right, yeah. So Nathan wasn't able to go. Nathan went to uh California, spent uh Thanksgiving with his uncle, so he was out there.
SPEAKER_00:Missed what we what'd we get? Three, four inches of snow?
SPEAKER_05:Uh yeah. I drove through the part where you were. I drove through the part that got about 14. Oh wow. Like around Iowa City, Des Moines in that stretch. But you were driving during the snowstorm too, weren't you? Yeah, but that's why we left early, because actually when we drove it, we hit it at its, if you want to say its least point, even though it was still a little chippy coming through there, but we made it through. It took us uh three and a half, four more hours than it normally would. Yeah. So that was a little rough. Got home at three in the morning, but yeah.
SPEAKER_00:My daughter was unable to make it because of the snow.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, so she but it was good. It was it was nice, but I didn't want to skip over that because that was oh yeah, it's a cool weekend. Yeah, that was good. Thanksgiving weekend's always one of my favorite. And the Bears won. Bears number one step. I watched a lot of football. It's crazy.
SPEAKER_04:When's the last time it's fun to watch? It's been a while. How about how about the Bears and that tush push?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, they didn't stop it.
SPEAKER_04:I didn't see it.
SPEAKER_05:Oh stripped the ball you gotta do, go around the outside because he's just holding it like a loaf of bread, just go and strip it. They're still pushing, but they didn't get far enough and they stripped it out of his hands. So they didn't try it again that game after that. They didn't do it again. They really didn't have the chance either. But so we were listening to that on the radio on the way back, so which was cool because we came through Chicago, so I had my favorite Chicago sports radio stations on from back in the day. So that was cool. Back in the day.
SPEAKER_00:Well, yeah. You guys ever heard WLW? Say it again? WLW 700 WLW out of Cincinnati.
SPEAKER_05:I'm pretty sure my dad would hit me with a shuffle if I was listening to a radio station out of Ohio. I'm I'm in fact, I'm sure it would have been. Now we listen to CKLW. We listened to a lot of Canadian radio back in the day. Do you we we did?
SPEAKER_00:So I only reason I bring it up is you mentioned your favorite station in Chicago, and WLW is one of my favorite stations.
SPEAKER_05:Do you listen to it online now? No, you should. It's actually pretty good. I'm sure they do. Just about everybody does. It's kind of one of those things where where now it's like we listen to the Bears game going across, whatever. I mean, you can you can find it, find the radio station, listen live. There's a couple apps. Odyssey, I think, is the one that plays a lot of radio stations from around the country. You can find it in there and do it. So which it's nice, you know, you're not paying for it, you're just finding it. Yeah, it's like tuning in on your radio. But it's nice and clear, it's not like you know, you're getting static when you go across underneath a bridge or underneath an electric line like you did in the radio in the country, right? Yeah, but yeah, it was cool. And I just listened to the post-game stuff, which was neat. So that's fun. Yeah, but you know, number one seed, that doesn't happen very often. So we'll have it while we have it.
SPEAKER_04:Not since uh I mean I'm not 84 or 85.
SPEAKER_05:85, one eighty-five when they won, but I think there was there was probably another year in there somewhere in the 90s that oh, it was when they made the Super One. Rex Grossman was the quarterback. I think they were then.
SPEAKER_03:Is that the Patriots? Or Colts. That was the Colts, wasn't it? It was the Colts.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, but yeah, so what do you got, John? Reality. So human beings, we all get our information from the world through our senses, and we take that and we filter it through our brains, which is part of what we believe, our background, our emotions, and we come up with our own reality. And if you ask somebody what the facts are, you're probably gonna get a different set, a different set of facts. However, somebody experienced that because each person's unique and different. And we talked to our officer, and he said, Yeah, you know, two SRO is SRO. You talk to two different people, and you get two different stories, but you can kind of put the facts together. So that's reality for people. What uh what do you think of that, Luke? You look like you're I'm not gonna do that.
SPEAKER_05:I I don't disagree with what you said, but I don't know that I think that you're describing a little more what perception is. Okay. Because now I used to say this a lot, and I still believe it. I I think it's real, but in certain walks of life or professions or whatever it is, we have to deal with the idea that somebody's perception, a person's perception is their reality. Now, does that really make it reality? Okay, I mean, there's a some of its semantics a little bit, I think, but the idea is, like you said, John, is that their life, their all these things that influence that, their perception, can we say their perception of what is real and what's not real is what forms their sense of reality or their I hate to use it again, but their perception of what reality is. But if we're really talking about reality, like breaking down the word, what's real, okay, because we all know that there's people that have a perception of something and it isn't even close to what's real. Not even, not even close. We know this, okay. But in that person's mind, that's their reality, okay. But what is actually what is reality? And to me, I mean, I was kind of thinking about it after we talked about it last week. I mean, I was driving a lot in the car, so I had some time to think about stuff, right? I think that one of the things that hits me in the head about reality, okay, this is a goofy way to think about it. And I am fully re reporting that ahead of time. But to me, I think that reality a lot of times is the things that people feel uncomfortable really accepting. It's something that's kind of they're chasing it. Like, oh, I don't really like it there, so I'm gonna kind of come around and go through this way, or I'm gonna go around through this way, because they're not really a hundred percent comfortable or at least accepting in their mind of what reality really is. Because sure, I mean, the base of the word is real, right? Right. I mean, you know as well as I do that there's people that their reality isn't real, right now. Some of we might call that mental illness with some people, yeah. But for others that are completely fine as far as their mental health goes, it's not really real. They might think it is, and that's the perception part. So I think I struggle with it. You're right. Perception I struggle with it.
SPEAKER_00:I think this conversation is akin to a conversation about truth. What is truth and what is it? We've had that conversation before, haven't we? And we have, and there's a subjective truth that each of us carry, or subjective reality, like the way we process things through the senses that John was talking about. Something could be real for us, or this could be our truth, but then this I think we have to consider the idea is what is an objective reality. Like, is there a way that things are supposed to be, or a way that things really, really are, and we have to marry up our reality or our truth to that particular objective truth or reality? And then maybe at some point we we meet up into this understanding of what reality really is. That makes sense.
SPEAKER_05:Would you use the words truth and reality interchangeably?
SPEAKER_00:Maybe in some ways I would, but I don't I don't know about every way. But in this case, it just kind of feels like when we talk about like what is reality, we're kind of talk asking the question, what is real? Which is kind of what is the truth about a particular situation that you're in.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, it could be. I I think my thoughts on truth and reality, I I think they're two different things. I really do. I think the truth is a little bit different than you know. I I think reality to me are the facts. What are the facts? What what actually happened? What is that and and it I suppose it could be the truth, but so you're asking really kind of what is true about a situation. Yeah, right. What are the facts?
SPEAKER_00:What is it that what is the situation? Like there's something that happens, a circumstance that happens, what is true, what is real, what is the actual piece of the nugget that comes out of this? You know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_05:I know what you're saying.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. And so I this idea of there being something objective that you have to kind of get in line with, to me, helps me define what reality is. That's how that helps me process and look at what what I'm perceiving is what I'm perceiving actually truth or what's happening, yeah. Or do I need to align it with this particular real truth?
SPEAKER_04:Well, and I think that that is where your beliefs and your background and your history kind of comes in too. You know, your your perception is of reality is based on where you've come from, what you believe, okay, where you are at the point at that point in time. And I think there are some some truths or some reality out there that you should have a definite bias or closed mind to that, and you should say, this is what I believe, this is my truth, this is my reality. Luke is Luke is thinking here, what do you think?
SPEAKER_00:I can see the smoke's coming at you.
SPEAKER_05:Because I was gonna say I think that, and I know I say this word a lot, and I don't mean to, but I think that as time has gone, language has been a bit of a barrier in our world because we look at words, we hear words, and over time the meanings of those words have changed. Okay, they they're slanted one way or the other, or maybe they're positive or negative. But one word that comes to mind about this particular topic, and I think that it comes into it a lot, which is something that we all share, where does the word faith come into that? Because the thing is, is that you can say with conviction if you want to, that you know, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, you can you can say that. And in your reality, in your perception, whatever you want to say, that's faith. We believe in that, right? Is it factual? In our mind we think it is, right? But you can't really, I mean, you can argue it with people, but it's hard to completely discount it for somebody that maybe doesn't believe in that completely. Like maybe they have the idea or they have some things about it, but faith I think is part of that, and part of reality is also what you have faith in. And if you want to add to it, true faith. You know, some people have faith in things, but we might back off and say, well, they don't really have true faith in that. Whatever, whatever it is, that might not be religious, that might be something else. But I think that's where it gets a little muddy for me is that when you I don't know, it's kind of like this. Can you name one thing that you could say is a hundred percent factually based, that would be universally accepted as real and true? I'll give you an example. H2O is water, like that's kind of hard to balk off of that.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_05:Okay. What's another one? Something that is real, like we know, besides you don't get to use the uh periodic table, I already did. Something else that's 100% unarguably real in there. What's another one? Don't say anything about Ohio State, or I'll break that area.
SPEAKER_00:That's like Nobel invented the bomb, right? You you light a wick at the end of it is a bunch of black powder or whatever, and that is real. That's it's that's gonna blow up, and if you're in the vicinity of it, you you might just get hurt. Sure. So I mean that's a hundred percent real. What about you? Come up with anything?
SPEAKER_04:You know, I would go to a utility too, and this this may not have been real back when, but electricity to us, it's pretty real. And I think you would have a hard time arguing that we don't have a current going on and we don't we can't generate electricity, and we can't take that energy and put it into something else.
SPEAKER_05:So it's kind of where I was where I was kind of going with it. And and we all gave a specific example of something. Right. Right. Last week, two weeks ago, whenever it was, we talked about the ancient times. Did they have more, I'm just putting it under the general category of technology than we thought they did, or that we give them credit for to do these things or to build those aqueducts that are under the pyramids or all these things. Is it real? Okay, well, the the picture that we see of of the not the picture, but the the pyramids themselves show that it's real, it's not fake. You know, you can't now you might be able to argue and say, how did they actually do it? Or what did they have to do to make it, or any of that stuff. But the the fact is that that's still there. My point in this, I'm not trying to drag it out too long, but my point of this is that things that we call real or a part of reality are something that's tangible, something that you can touch, something that you can put together. There's pieces and it only works one way, and that's the way. The other things that we struggle with with reality have all sorts of what ifs. All sorts of them. And that's tough because, like John said, you've got people that come from all walks of life and have come from different paths in that same life, even if we live next door to each other growing up. We're probably not the same as we are now, you know, like we were back then. And I think that it's that's why the the topic was interesting to me because I think that nowadays I don't put as much emphasis on real. I think that our society places everything on it. Oh my gosh, this is real, or that content is fake, or this is BS. They don't know if it's you can't watch anything on TV or on TikTok or on whatever, and there is going to be something, at least a part of it, if not the whole thing, that it's fake. It's pre-made. It's created by something.
SPEAKER_04:Okay, it's something, it could be anything. I saw a show last night before it started, it said some of this content is created by AI. I believe you had an AI.
SPEAKER_00:I did, but it was a song that my wife and I were we found on TikTok, and it's created entirely by AI. This guy was in the shower, and these words came to his mind, and he put the words and kind of how he wanted it to sound in a app, and out popped all the harmonies and tracks and all this kind of stuff, and now the song is like got millions of views and millions of listens. Now it's real, but it wasn't created by him. He's not like a real musician, maybe is, but this particular thing is. But it was artificial intelligence. Back up one second.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, you said it in the same sentence, so it was artificial intelligence, but it's real.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. It was real music that I really, really enjoyed. But is it really real? It was produced by AI.
SPEAKER_05:Okay, but is AI real? Yeah, it's real. It's real. Yes. So it's not, it's not manufactured. So so here it's not manufactured or it's real. Go back to the beginning and say this is why I wanted to do this because I I tender, I say, and I will this will be my old man thought for the day. Yeah, it's not real. It's manufactured. Now, I'm not saying that it doesn't exist, it exists. Yeah. But when you throw that word to it, when you think of music, music is something that we all know. We love music. We all love music, different kinds of music, well, some of the same. It's, you know, somebody was moved somehow to write this song. So here's a guy in a shower and he puts something in a computer and does this thing. Now, I'm not saying that there haven't been a lot of songs probably in the last five years that have done that, or the music video or the things that we see or the stuff that we hear, but I would back off of that and say, it it exists. I don't know that I would say it's real because if it's if it's using some sort of artificial, I mean it's called artificial. My artificial Christmas tree isn't real. But it's a it's a real and oh, you almost said it. I was gonna just jump on it. It's a real representation. Well, that's different. It's not real, it's not a real tree, it's a representation, it's a representation of it.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, that's what I'm trying to say. I'm not saying it doesn't exist because it does, yeah, but I can't say my artificial tree or my song that was come up with through artificial intelligence is real. It exists, it was created by something, but it's not real when we look at a song. To pass it off or to say that it's real or that it's reality is a stretch for me. I'm not saying I agree with it at all. I you were giddy there. You were like a kid on Christmas morning there for a minute.
SPEAKER_00:The music you almost said my tree was real, and I was just gonna the the music was is incredible, it's super poppy and like moves along, and it's I mean, it's a great song to listen to, and obviously multi-millions of people think so because I think it's gotten like 30 million listens or something like that in the last week and a half. Yeah, probably it does.
SPEAKER_05:I mean, so you've never listened to something once and then never listened to it again because you didn't think it was it's still counted as one. I don't know, but it's pretty good music.
SPEAKER_00:It's pretty good music. That was the other thing I was gonna follow. We actually listened to it again on the way home last night, Jen and I did, from the basketball game.
SPEAKER_05:And it's a I mean, it's a great song. And I'm not saying it's a bad, I'm not saying but my point, and you you made it for me, which is good, because this is where I worry about stuff, is that like you said, it's got 30 million hits. Okay, that doesn't mean they were all good. And the thing about it is that people say, Oh my god, it must be good. They got 30 million hits. Maybe it was 30 million duds, but they all listened to it once, except Chuck, who's now listened to it like 16 times, and that's okay. But people see this this is why this stuff worries me, because I don't think that a lot of that feedback is real. We can see a video, we can see a thing, and oh my, look at this guy. He has got to be the G because he's got you know 60,000 views of his YouTube thing. That doesn't mean he's anything other than somebody said they saw it and they said, Oh, I'm gonna try that. It's kind of like Melort. So I think you have millions of people have tried Malort, and I'm guaranteeing there's only a handful that go, I'm gonna drink this every day because this shit's the G.
SPEAKER_04:I think you're talking about two different things. I think you're talking about what is real to our senses, our emotions, and how we perceive the world, which could be a song written by AI that you heard and you felt something from that song emotionally or whatever. And you're also talking about the algorithms that are maybe shaping our perception. That's not reality. Reality is having a friend you can sit across the table with and have a conversation with.
SPEAKER_00:So that's what I keep getting back to about like that's reality for us, but for some people, their reality is sitting in front of a screen and associating with 100% agree.
SPEAKER_04:I don't I don't agree with that. I don't disagree with that either.
SPEAKER_05:But I think some people and I and I agree with you, but I think it goes right back to the beginning, like we just we just drove around the circle. It's still to the point that okay, it's that person's reality, but is that really reality? That's that's that's that's the point.
SPEAKER_00:Is that so then is there an objective reality that all realities must at least somehow come in align with with in order to be a true reality?
SPEAKER_05:I think that technology, to some degree, it's certainly not technology's fault. I'm not to the point yet where I blame AI for everything because it hasn't been around long enough to, but at some point I'm going to. Because I think that it while there can be positives, and we know this, we know this from history, that things that have a very positive start can turn negative in a hurry. And they can be used by people who don't have the scruples to do it the right way, and they're gonna use it against people for their own gain or for some sort of negative something. You know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_04:We're seeing that already. Already, 100% with with AI, with social media, with all that. We're we're seeing that kind of thing, and and how old is that? Maybe 15 years? Yeah, that's that's not very old. I like the conversation, and I think there are some definite truths, and I think there are also some I'll call them deep fakes. But when you were talking, it made me think the world used to be pretty black and white, pretty simple, pretty simple, black and white. We've made it very gray, very gray. Well, it's very complex, yeah. It is, it's very complex. Some people like two have been mixed together, and it's just it's hard.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, and it's hard to define what reality is. Well, look at what we were talking about today. Even even something that we both love is coaching. I mean how much different it is now, yeah, compared to what it was even 30 years ago. Right. I mean, even 20 years ago. Yeah, it's like a whole different ball game.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:And especially even in the last 10 years, five years, every year, it's getting more and more more complex.
SPEAKER_00:I more and more complex. I think all of these desires, maybe not all, that's probably an overstatement, but probably all. I think everyone is searching for something that's in like that they can grasp a hold of and say, this is this is my reality. This is I found it. And do you think we're still at our age? I think we are.
SPEAKER_05:You haven't found it yet? 100%. You haven't found it yet? I think I found it. But you're still looking. So what you found isn't real yet.
SPEAKER_00:Because it's not really there yet. I think the moment you think you found it and you give up, I think you maybe lost it.
SPEAKER_05:I don't know that you're giving up, but if you find it, are you always trying to find the next better thing?
SPEAKER_00:So I think what you I think so. Here's here's what I think you always gotta confirm that where you are is from an objective perspective, is lined up with what actually is. I think you always have to make sure that you're doing that.
SPEAKER_04:I I think what I hear you two talking about is are we continually learning? Or growing? Are we continually growing? Are we continuing are we continuing to listen to other people open our minds and say, okay, maybe I need to make a shift, maybe I need to change. Now, there are some truths in my life at this point in my life as a half-century hangout, that definitely I'm probably not gonna change. There are some things that I I won't change. I won't change my mind on those things. But there are things that I'm gonna listen, I'm gonna take in, and I'm gonna continue to learn.
SPEAKER_05:I'm not gonna try to do that. I'm gonna continue to grow. I'm not saying that. What it sounds like to me, and correct me if I'm wrong, but it's that you are, I don't like to use this word, but you're constantly, no matter what, evolving. I don't know that I'm evolving anymore. And I think what John said is true that there are for sure things that I'm still gonna listen to or learn from, but it's not changing my core. It's not changing who I am or what I think the truth is. It just might be for me getting older. What it is is me trying to keep my core applicable in today's times. It's more of that. That's what I was talking about, as opposed to changing who I am or what I'm gonna do.
SPEAKER_00:Well, that's what I was talking about with confirmation. Like this, your core, your core beliefs probably aren't going to change. Your core, your sense of a core reality is probably not going to change. But whenever you're faced with a something that comes into your life or comes into your family's life, or whatever, it can shake your core and it can also confirm your core. And that's what I'm saying is I think that like we always have to make sure that we're in line with this objective reality. You keep saying that, I don't understand what that is. So there's gotta be an there's gotta be a way the world works. Or the world doesn't work eight billion different ways. There's the world works in a particular way, and then we gotta align ourselves with that way. So we don't run the world? We don't run the world. Who runs the world in your reality? In my reality, uh the creator God runs the world.
SPEAKER_05:Okay, so so has the creator god changed? Why is the world so much different?
SPEAKER_00:I think they're what's his objective? His objective is to bring glory to himself.
SPEAKER_04:God created everyone, and God created the world, and we are here to give God glory.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, but didn't didn't didn't man as he created him went awry? Uh-huh. So did he change what his reality is? Or did he say, well, I'm gonna keep growing and keep learning how to deal with this thing that I made and make it still work in my eyes?
SPEAKER_00:No, I don't think so.
SPEAKER_05:See, what's he doing?
SPEAKER_00:God?
SPEAKER_05:I think I think why did the world change so much then? If you're saying it like that, that that's his objective thing, like that's the objective viewpoint, or however you want to take it, you can't well, I can't. I shouldn't say you. I can't look at it and say, okay, from where he started and what it sounds like, what we've been taught our whole life. Right. That that first of all, A, he's real happy about it. Second of all, that he's had to change his things so much, is it still I I guess that's where I get stuck, because the basics of your faith and salvation haven't changed. No. The basics. Now, there's a lot of ways to interpret that, yeah, but the basics have still stayed the same. Which are believe in me, put your 100% trust in me, and I'm gonna give you eternal life. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Okay, which are really God created man, man screwed up, God gave us a way to south save ourselves through his son. And if we believe in his son, we have salvation.
SPEAKER_05:That's uh that's what I mean, though. It's it but but in the breath. And that has not changed in the breath, and that's the same, but hasn't he had to change his viewpoint based on what the world is now? God? Yeah, since he created it. So what so what's he thinking? Why, why is why is I don't know what God is thinking. What's his what's his you kept using that word? What's his what's the word you objective? Objective reality. What's his objective reality?
SPEAKER_00:Well is the objective.
SPEAKER_05:I think he so no matter what, so no matter what, his objective reality has not changed one iota. I would say not.
SPEAKER_04:And and Luke, I think.
SPEAKER_05:Why does ours have to then?
SPEAKER_04:I think what you are what you where you're going is man is fallen.
SPEAKER_05:Well, I understand that.
SPEAKER_04:I'm not saying that, but you said before we can't say whether what God's objective reality is. That's I'm not sure.
SPEAKER_05:I know that. I'm completely aware it was a trick question. The idea is what you said made it sound like God is changing what it is because you have to change because things are moving in a different objective way.
SPEAKER_00:Now that we're into this, I don't think I meant that God changes. I said that we all have our subjective realities and we have to align ourselves with the objective of our objective. Ours are subjective. Subjective to what? Ours are subjective to whatever our experiences are.
SPEAKER_05:Okay. Hand on the self, which God provides.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, but we have to align ourselves with the objective reality, which is God.
SPEAKER_05:So if that's not happening, so so you said we what's the objective reality that you're that we're aligning with, and maybe you just came up with it, and that's okay. You didn't say that was God's objective reality. Like if that's what you think it is, if we're supposed to, if that's what the objective reality is to do, there's so many things. This is where I'm landing here. Yeah. What I'm saying is that if we are supposed to align, and I'm not disagreeing with you, if we're supposed to align with that objective reality, which is God's, right? Okay, then all of these other things, these influences, these other things aren't real. Because what they're trying to do is pull us away from that 100% real.
SPEAKER_00:That's exactly right. From that.
SPEAKER_05:But why don't we just say at the beginning that none of it's real? Because it is real. No, it's not.
SPEAKER_00:You just said it wasn't real. But listen, it is it is real to us. But it's and we've got to we've got to make that shift from okay, this may be real to us to this is what's actually real.
SPEAKER_05:But that's what I kept trying to say is that it's semantically ridiculous to go through it because it's I don't disagree with what you're saying, but but it doesn't match up. So it doesn't make sense like logically, if you want to say, which faith never does. That's kind of the whole idea. Yeah. Is that you're being asked, you're being taught, you're being whatever, to believe something that people could poke holes in all day. Maybe learned people. They might be. I'm not saying they're right or wrong.
SPEAKER_00:I don't think they could poke holes into the idea and the ultimate objective reality that murder is wrong.
SPEAKER_05:You don't think there's people that could give an argument about if there was, I mean, if you're gonna say murder, if somebody was if I walked into my house and somebody was doing something awful in my house to the people I love and I killed that person. I would not define that as murder.
SPEAKER_00:Murder is the the taking of innocent life.
SPEAKER_05:Okay, so I'm we could I know what you're saying. I mean I know what you're saying.
SPEAKER_00:That's my point, is that like when you when you we have these different competing realities in our minds, you know, eight billion of them, right? And at some point we've got to align ourselves. We're on a journey that hopefully aligns ourselves with the greatest objective reality, which is yeah, which is God.
SPEAKER_05:Which is also faith.
SPEAKER_00:Which is what we believe in. Faith is the evidence of things hoped for, or the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.
SPEAKER_05:But again, that's a very it's not difficult for us, the people who believe it. Right. Right. But in a real sense, it's very difficult to either a quantify it or completely back it up as one hundred percent like H2O or like electricity or like whatever. I don't remember what you said. What did you say? Was your like Nobel with the colour? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's it's very difficult. And I think that that's where it's I think that's why when people say like like I laugh when when they first came out, however, 20 years ago, when they called them reality shows. Okay. I think it's funny because not that I really watched a whole lot of them, but the point is, is that it was when I thought of it in the first one that I watched, I'm like, okay, this reality that they're pushing here in this show. Okay, yeah, it's closer to what reality might be on a day-to-day basis rather than a scripted script of a of a rom com, right? Or something like that. But it's certainly not everybody's reality. And it's still scripted. Well, it is, but but the idea is that it's supposed to mimic real life as opposed to a rom com or something that really is ridiculous, right? Which John is wearing rom-com socks today, just so we're clear. But anyway, the idea the idea is that when you look at it, that's why that word and that's why this always has intrigued me. Because they're really, and I'll and I'll go back to it because I think that it's it is, it's like people's reality is their perception because that's what they live by, that's what they've learned, that's what it is. But as we all know, perception isn't always real. It might be sick circumstantial that it's real in certain circumstances or at certain moments that it's real or something like that. But overall, I just think it's a real tight one to squeeze through. So good talk, though. You're right. You are right, it's an interesting thing to go down. It is, and there's a lot. I mean, you could talk about this for hours, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:You know, but I you got you got a final comment, I can tell. Yeah, I'm just this understanding of reality and truth. I think human beings have since the fall tried to find a reality in something other than God. Yeah, because our hearts are prone to wonder and and rebel. And so as the world continues to grow and get older, I think people find new ways to find different realities that work for them, which in the end they find that those aren't really fulfilling. And I have since what, I guess maybe 40 years now. Yeah, almost 40 years found a reality for me that makes sense. Now I always have to, like we were talking about earlier, I always have to pull myself back to that reality, or oftentimes I'm drawn back to that reality because things shake you or mess with you or whatever, and you gotta question where you are, and then questioning it to this objective reality that you're used to, right? Or that you've known. And so I think reality has to be tied to something outside of us. I think that's just oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_05:I mean, you're not gonna form it just on your innards. No, this is gonna be it's gonna be somehow driven by outside factors, whether they're great factors or whether they're small factors. It's gonna be driven by something else, not just what's inside. Yeah. Because we're not built that way.
SPEAKER_04:Right. But I agree. All right, guy. That was good. That was a good conversation. Thank you for uh one of the first really heart conversations that we've had.
SPEAKER_00:I we've like you you pushed back quite a bit on that, Luke. That was fun. Well, and Luke was pushing.
SPEAKER_05:I think it's something that sometimes it's to my detriment, but I'm I'm a thinking man. Like I think like whenever you ask me, what are you thinking? Well, usually when you ask me that, I'm not thinking. And that's kind of my moment to breathe. Sometimes I just think and overanalyze stuff way too much. But I think it's always been it's kind of like we've talked about this. I'll sit up in a tree stand. I couldn't see a deer for a hundred years, but I do a lot of thinking. I do a lot of things about what's surrounding me, what I'm taking in, you know, sensory-wise, like you said, John. I mean, a lot of things that go into that, but it makes you think about stuff. Makes you think about, you know, all sorts of things. But, you know, it's good. Yeah. Well, guys. Good conversation. Enjoy the uh enjoy the weekend. Speak for fun. Thanks. Do some things, be good. Yep. Peace out. Later.
