Stranger Things 3: The End of the World

We’re back with the third year of our Stranger Things series on the Navigating An Ancient Faith Podcast! 🎙️ This series begins with a timely and thought-provoking question: Are we witnessing the end of the world—or just the end of a worldview? 🌍 In this episode, we explore cultural shifts through history, from ancient Greece to modern times, tracing the transitions between philosophies and societal norms. Using vivid images like Joel’s locusts 🦗 and the Tower of Babel 🏗️, we reflect on how our own society may be moving through the close of a significant cultural era. Along the way, we discuss the importance of recognizing patterns, preserving wisdom, and staying grounded both personally and spiritually. 🙏 We conclude with a message of hope, reminding ourselves that understanding the ultimate direction of these cycles gives us purpose and peace.✨

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Listen 🎧 : Stranger Things: Apocalypse Now

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Chapters

• 0:00 Stranger Things and the End of the World
• 10:43 The Evolution of Western Culture
• 26:41 Philosophy, Religion, and Cultural Shifts
• 43:00 Joel's Prophecy and Cultural Erosion
• 49:35 Signs of a World Ending: Social Conflict and Obsession with the Strange
• 59:56 Building an Ark: Surviving Cultural Shifts

Transcript

Stranger Things - The End of the World

JR: [00:00:00] And you eventually have the destroying locust that destroys something good.

David: Yeah, you look like you were about to say something, but

JR: No, I

David: Okay.

JR: you to say that's brilliant. That's daggum genius. 

David: Alright, so we've said before that obviously we record these podcasts 2, 3, 4 weeks sometimes before they released. And so sometimes what we say in a podcast is kind of dated it's already outta date. So I ran into one of those moments when you actually edited the last podcast, and it was the last one of our Ephesian series.

And I was reading through the script real quick 'cause I would just go through and kind of make sure spelling's right, things like that. And I ran across this statement that I made where I said, I mentioned a national tragedy. And I paused there real quick because we're recording this the week Charlie Kirk just got shot, right?

JR: Yeah.

David: [00:01:00] Assassinated. But I had to think for a moment because I read that in the script where I had said something about a national tragedy and I said, wait, we recorded this two or three weeks ago.

JR: Yeah, but it'll be coming out pretty close to the shooting, right?

David: Right. But my point is that I don't remember what national tragedy I was referring to because this past week has been a rough week for a lot of people because.

JR: Yeah. It overshadows any

David: was the week.

JR: The

David: Right. And, and so I, it was so odd because I'm sitting here thinking, I don't even know what national tragedy I was referencing because everything, well, I'll just say it kind of pales in some sense to what the nation's gone through this past week.

And of course I hope when this episode actually gets released, there's not something worse that happens.

JR: Yeah. No kidding.

David: But it was just that weird moment where I referenced the national tragedy and I'm thinking I don't even know what that was anymore because this has been a rough week for a lot of people. [00:02:00] But I'll also say that one of the comments I've heard after the assassination, I've heard in a couple places where people have said, this feels like the end of the world, or something like it.

JR: Right.

David: I was at dinner with my wife and she said, this just feels like God is done with us.

JR: Yeah.

David: How far can you people stoop? Right? And she said that, you know, she said the phrase, this feels like the end of the world. And I thought, oh,

JR: Here we go. 

David: She don't even know we're gonna record this episode, but.

JR: Right.

David: So it's kind of a, let's say it's not a fun way to introduce the Stranger Things episode that we're gonna talk about this episode and next episode. But I did think it was something I just had to kind of put out there.

JR: Yeah. But it's a way, it's an event that really actually helps us relate to what we're talking about when we talk about the end of the world. Again, we're in our third season of Stranger Things, and so I mean, I love these little series, and when [00:03:00] we're not recording, you and I, every once in a while we'll talk about and say, man, what do you wanna do for Stranger Things next year? It's like, what other bizarro thing is going on in our culture today that we can do another episode of Stranger Things for this next season? And, you know, when we talk about the end of the world, there are examples of literal, the end of the world, a meteor crashing into Earth or something like that. But what we're talking about is sort of the end of a world or the end of, what would you call it, the end of a, the end of the culture or the end of something.

And that's what the Charlie Kirk assassination, represents. Obviously, I don't think that there's gonna be some civil war and us start nuking each other and that be the end of mankind. But it does feel like the end of something. It does feel like we're at the precipice of a dangerous place where, I don't know where there's chaos on the other side. And I can't for certain say what our country looks like a year from now. Right. And

David: Yeah.

JR: there are other times in the past that it's [00:04:00] just like, oh no, we'll be fine. You know, this tragedy happened, but we'll make it through. We always make it through. But there's something about where we're at right now.

We're at a unique time, at least in my lifetime, where I look at it and say, I can't say for certain we'll make it through. I don't know what that looks like. You know, I'm not predicting or calling for anything, but it does feel like things are unraveling in a way that the genie can't be put back in the bottle, so to speak. And it wasn't just the assassination and we're not gonna get too political or opinionated on this episode, but it wasn't just the assassination, it was the immediate negative response to that. And the people cheering and things like that. And I don't think I need to go into how gross that is, but it's just, when you see that response, you realize, we're not in Kansas anymore, man.

There's something badly wrong with our culture that the immediate response of really anybody is to cheer and applaud and say whatever. And so it's just kind of this weird space where it does feel like the end of [00:05:00] something. I don't, How do you recover from this?

David: Yeah, I heard someone say this is either the end of something or it's the renewal of something.

JR: Right. 

David: And it depends on how we respond. I thought that was a good way to say it, but it does capture this idea of the end of the world and like we have both said, now this isn't gonna be a episode about the assassination, but it just feels like a what? A sobering event. Just as we plan to talk about our new Stranger Things series and we're gonna talk about the end of the world. And why does it feel like that? Right? And so it's not only that, we've heard end of the world rhetoric now for what, 5, 10? You could probably keep going back. So when we're talking about the end of the world, we're talking about, look, you can make a joke like the zombie apocalypse, right?

Zombie movies we're big for a while.

JR: Oh yeah.

David: And then people started talking about how it was only a matter of time right before the zombie apocalypse takes over and look with the emergence of AI, [00:06:00] you're already hearing that too. Well, it's, some people are saying, you know, well, it's only a matter of time the machines take over and we're done.

JR: AI takes over. Yep. Skynet.

David: Yeah. So it's that front as well. Nuclear annihilation that's been going on for a while. Right. The radical environmentalism, I mean, look, Al Gore told us a long time ago that the end of the world was gonna happen in 2020, and then we were out of time.

JR: Hmm.

David: And so, depending on what your interests are or, well, you hear it from the news all the time.

You hear it from culture all the time, is that the common thread, there seems to be almost a, fascination or a resignation, you might say that whatever we're in the middle of right now is coming to an end, whatever that looks like, right?

JR: Right. And like you said, this is nothing new, you know, end of the world rhetoric has been going on and when you brought up the nuclear annihilation I just finished a book and it was written in the fifties. The book wasn't written in the fifties.

The setting of the book was in the fifties, [00:07:00] and it just reminded me I wasn't alive during this time. But the Bay of Pigs, JFK, people really did think that the end of the world was near. That it was just a matter of time before we have a nuclear holocaust and wipe out half or all of the planet. And so this is nothing new. And even to go back to ancient times, I mean, listen, you see this in Daniel. You see this in Revelation. And so while in one sense we're gonna be talking about the never ending cycle in this episode, there's also a sense that it feels like it's kind of on top of us here in 2025.

David: It feels like we're closer and closer to the end of something, right?

JR: Yeah.

David: And so what we're gonna try and unpack today is what do people mean by that? And this helped me actually, when I could distinguish between the end of the world and the end of a world, right? So that's the distinction of what do we mean when we're talking about the end of a world?

And what we're really talking about is the end of a commonly held, I don't know, probably the best way to say, it's the end of a [00:08:00] commonly held culture that everyone speaks the same language. Everyone roughly thinks the same thing, but for whatever reason, for events that we'll kind of talk about today, that is coming to an end.

And so the only thing that you see in the future is a chaotic state, right? Until something new emerges.

JR: Yeah. Yeah. Well, we've all witnessed or maybe we've even lived through sort of a personal end of the world moment. A divorce or the terrible diagnosis or the loss of a loved one or something like that, that really shakes your life to the core. But in those moments, even though it feels like your sky has fallen, there's still maybe the subtle reassurance that the world outside your crisis kind of continues.

That your friends are still gonna get up and have to go to work. That the seasons are still gonna change. And that continuity reminds you that somehow life moves forward and therefore you will eventually move forward too. Right? But when the upheaval isn't personal, when it's an [00:09:00]entire society that crumbles into, you know, this earthquake of history, that reassurance disappears.

And if everything and everyone around you is swept up into chaos, there's no stable backdrop that you can measure your own tragedy or your own pain. It's not just your life that's turned upside down. It's the very foundation or the stage of human life itself, right? And that's when the end of the world stops being a metaphor and starts to really feel like a universal shared reality.

David: Yeah, no, that's a good point. Just you were saying that, yeah, you can always draw some reassurance that sometimes I'll tell myself that a year from now, whatever I'm going through will be fine, right?

JR: Yeah.

David: Whatever personal tragedy or difficulty, okay, give it six months, it'll be fine. Everything will be back to normal.

And yeah, when we're talking about the end of a world, people I think are struggling with, I don't even know what normal is going to be six months from now, or a year from now, or five years from now. Right. [00:10:00] And the time horizon. And so with that comes a lot of anxiety. And I think it's just interesting, that's what you hear behind the rhetoric. So it helps me to think when people are talking about the end of the world, what they're really talking about is the end of our current culture, right?

JR: Yeah.

David: The end of what comes next after Western culture if we can't turn things around right, or we can't renew Western culture, then what comes next?

And I think that's where the anxiety comes in.

JR: Yeah.

David: 'Cause there is no more, I like what you said. There is no more, well, a year from now, everything will be better. It's a year from now, who knows?

JR: Yeah.

David: What kind of apocalyptic chaos we might be living in, right?

JR: Right.

David: If we can't get our act together.

JR: Yeah.

David: So one of the things that I thought might help is to just, what does it mean to say that Western culture might be coming to an end.

JR: I'm glad you asked that because I wanted to kind of say, let's talk about what Western culture is. 'cause we hear that term thrown around a lot, [00:11:00] but Western culture goes back alot further than, well, I'll let you start.

What did they mean by Western culture and how far back are we talking about? Because when you talk about if we're at the end of Western culture, well, America was founded in 1776, but is at the beginning of Western culture and it actually goes back a lot further than this. And so when you're saying we're at the end of Western culture, we're at the end of something a lot older than 3, 4, 500 years, right?

David: We're talking more probably like 2,500 years is what most people would say.

JR: Yeah.

David: So we're talking about the end of something that's been the foundation of Western society for a long time in some way, shape or form. And I hope by the end of this podcast we can also clarify that I don't think either of us are predicting the downfall of Western culture, but we are predicting the end of a current stage of something that we're in.

JR: Right.

David: Right? So I thought it might be helpful just to do a quick review of what you just [00:12:00]talked about, like what is Western culture? Because when you step back and look at the arc of history, you can see the beginning of something new, but the beginning of something new, always necessitates the end of something that went before it, right?

And that transition between the end of something old and the beginning of something new is the end of a world for those people who lived during that transition, it was the end of the world as they knew it, right? To quote REM.

JR: You see this with technology. that all these great technologies, whether you go back to something like the printing press or the light bulb or something like that, it means the end of scribes or the end of the guy who runs around town and lights the lanterns on the streets.

Right. You know, it's,

David: Yeah. Yeah, that's right.

JR: So you're, you're right. Every new technology, and it's not, we're talking about something more than technology, but I think about it with technology, with every great technological innovation, it means the end of something else. That's the whole Luddite viewpoint.

They're like, Nope, that means the end of our job.

We're gonna [00:13:00] go ahead and just destroy it. And so Luddite has become synonymous with those who push back with change because they're afraid of the end of a world.

David: Right. Yeah. Alright, so I'm gonna try and keep this quick. I like history, so I could go on to this, this for like 20 minutes, but I'm gonna try and keep this to a minimum.

JR: anymore.

David: Well, we talk about going back to the beginning of Western culture, we're really talking about going back to ancient Greece, right?

The birthplace of democracy, Western philosophy, so we're talking Socrates, Plato, Aristotle 600, almost 800 BC is when people start to date that, and that lasts until about 140 BC. Then what happens is Rome takes over. Now that's interesting because the Roman Republic emerges, but then about this 145, it's like they start taking over territories.

JR: Right.

David: Right. And mainly because they were being attacked themselves. It's kind of an interesting time period because they end up taking control of all the Mediterranean, and of course that gives birth [00:14:00] to the Roman Empire. 

JR: Well, a good way to say it is that what was it that the ancient Greeks figured out? It's a birthplace of philosophy, but what does that mean? Why is that important to Western culture? And the reason is, it's like the first time what a group of people said, we're not going to establish our rules on the gods.

Or, you know what I mean? It's based on philosophy. It's based on something else. And the Romans came along and established a formalized version of a senate and a structure of democracy or a structure of government, I guess, that we built on. And see, these are all things that we just take for granted and it seems self-evident in 2025 or in our lifetime. But, you know, you just have to remember that you have to go back and somebody thought this was a novel idea because it wasn't the norm at the time. 

David: Yeah, at some point. Well, to be ruled by a king was always just the way things were, right?

JR: Right.

David: Or a tribal chieftain or something like that. And so when the Greeks come along and they actually say, Hey, we think all these groups in society [00:15:00] should have a voice in ruling. That was, that was crazy talk, right?

JR: Yeah.

David: It's like, what are you talking about? That's never gonna work.

JR: Well, it seems, yeah, it seems obvious now in a democratic society, but why do we think that that would work? Why would somebody with no money and no influence, why should he or she have a voice? Like, why wouldn't we just leave it up to the smartest people in the kingdom, so to speak? You know, so it's very counterintuitive to think that way, but that's what they did.

David: Yeah, yeah. So then you have the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire that lasts for about a thousand years . And what's interesting is they actually take Greek culture and they spread it throughout the entire world, which is where we get this term Hellenism or Hellenistic culture, because there were Roman ideas, but the culture was largely, you know, this vestige of the ancient Greeks.

And like you said, the Romans kind of took this idea of democracy and then built Senate. And the Senate got bigger and bigger. Now they still [00:16:00] had the whole idea of the Caesar there who kind of disrupted all that. But in any case, they lasted, uh, till about, 476, I think is the date that a lot of people come up with when they fell to, and I wanna say it's the Goths or the Visigoths, something like that.

But that was the Roman Empire. That was the fall of the Roman Empire. Right. And that would have been the end of a world. If you look back and you'd said, man, Rome has always been here, right?

JR: Right.

David: Rome has been the stable force ever since I can remember: my grandparents, their grandparents, right?

JR: Yeah.

David: Well, that's no longer the case.

All right, so when Rome falls, everything shifts over to the Byzantine Empire, and we tend to forget this sometimes, but the power then shifts over to Constantinople.

JR: Right.

David: Constantinople stands until about 14, well, 1453 when Constantinople fell, right?

JR: Istanbul, right?

David: Yeah, Istanbul. We were there.

JR: The uh, They Might Be Giants song. That's what [00:17:00] they're, they're teaching history, man. Istanbul's not Constantinople, right? So that happened in 1453. 

David: So you and I, when we were there, we went to this museum, I dunno if you remember this, and it might have been called like 1453.

JR: I think it was.

David: And we're like, oh, this will be cool. It's this interactive museum walks through the fall of Constantinople. Well, it wasn't till we got there and started walking through and we were reading how the different displays and the different history was being told, we realized that we assumed that all this was gonna be a negative thing, right?

JR: Right.

David: But for, for, for people who lived in Istanbul, of course, at the time, the descendants of the Turks and the Ottomans, right? Like they're all presenting this as, Hey, we finally won. Isn't this great? And suddenly, like you and I remember this moment where it'd be, we became very self-aware that kind of we were, we were the baddies, right?

JR: Yeah, we're the outsiders.

Yeah.

David: We're the outsiders here.

JR: [00:18:00] Yeah. Yeah.

David: So that was kind of a weird experience. I remember. I remember,

JR: you know?

David: Yeah. So that happens in Meanwhile, in Europe a lot of these overlap, but you have what we call the Middle Ages, right? And of course you have the split of the church between the Eastern Church and the Western Church.

And that happened the Great Schism 1076, I think I could have that date wrong 'cause I'm trying to remember some of this off the top of my head. But that's where Catholicism really starts to gain influence over all of the different countries in Western Europe.

JR: Right.

David: And when you combine that with the fall of the Eastern Church to the Ottoman Empire, then the Eastern Church, and we've talked about this before, the Eastern Church really almost disappears.

Doesn't go away, but it almost disappears from people's psyche. So then we have the Renaissance, and this is where it starts to get relevant. So the Renaissance happens at about, well, 1350, 1600, but let's say about 1500, right? [00:19:00] Where you have this rebirth of literature, this rebirth of art, this rebirth of science, and that leads to the Reformation, right?

1500. And so that's the Protestant reformation, that's the scientific revolution. And so you could say that we have basically been living in this Renaissance slash scientific revolution for the last 500 years.

Right? And some people would say we're in the modern era. 'cause you have the industrial revolution. you could even say we have the technological revolution right now.

JR: Right.

David: But we've basically been in this 500 year period where scientific revolution, the enlightenment, Reason. We can know things now. We're putting superstition behind us. The influence of the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church has really diminished.

It's starting to diminish.

JR: Right.

David: And so I guess from that sense, [00:20:00] then that's where we are currently at. So it helps to understand , why do I go through all this? It helps to understand that we have for the last 500 years lived in what you might stay, kind of is the result of this Western way of thinking. 

JR: Right. Well, there's been a lot of changes obviously in the past 500 years, and so we're not trying to say that if you go 500 years ago, it would look similar to today. But we are saying that the foundations that society was building on, things like human rights, things like democracy, things like freedom, that's been around for 500 years, not in a perfect way, but when you have technology and the industrial revolution and the scientific revolution and sort of the internet and now the AI revolution, those are all built on those foundations that we're talking about.

And so when you're talking about the end of the world, we're not saying, what, if one of these technologies goes south or sideways, we're saying, what if those foundations [00:21:00] of human rights, of democracy of freedoms, what if that starts to decay. And what do all those things that are built on top of that. How do they react to that crumbling foundation that we're seeing? And so, yeah, that's a good history lesson because it does go back to, golly, it almost goes back to BC time, you know, when you talk about Socrates and philosophy, things like that. And so it's, yeah, it all builds on each other. And so when something that fundamental starts to crumble, when the foundation of the building starts to crumble, what happens to the penthouse? It's like, well, it's all going down with it. And so that's what we're kind of talking about. The foundation that you're talking about goes way, way back.

And it goes a lot, earlier than the United States of America and even earlier than, what we'd call typical UK Europe, that type of thing.

David: Yeah. And so even though that's the foundation of Western culture, the other point I thought it'd be helpful to make reviewing this history is every one of those [00:22:00] transitions is the end of that world, it's the end of a world, right? So when Istanbul falls in 1453, look, that was the, gosh, that was the end of the Eastern Church.

That was the end of eastern culture based on Western civilization, you might say. So I already talked about when Rome falls, that was the end of that world. Look, even when the Renaissance takes place, and you were talking about the Luddites earlier, it was the end of a world of people who worldview was grounded in superstition.

And we say that as a negative, but you know, they believed in spirits. They believed in things they didn't understand. They had ways to describe these things. So when the scientific revolution comes along, it's the end of that world.

JR: Right.

David: And as weird as it is to think that was earth shattering for a lot of people.

JR: I've got a question, but go ahead and finish that thought first.

David: Okay, but real quick, so we've said before on this podcast, you know, when Galileo says that what the earth [00:23:00] revolves around the sun, and the church said, no, that can't be right. Right. And we look back at that and we go, well, well, of course. We know how the solar system operates, but it was the end of a worldview

JR: Right.

David: for the church at that time

JR: Yeah.

David: to say, no, the earth is the center of the universe. That's the way God created it, right?

JR: Right. That's important to think about because, especially a lot of what we do, and this is a little bit of a rabbit trail, so I'll make it quick, but a lot of what we do is we go back to the ancient way of thinking. And when Genesis or when the Old Testament talks about stars or angels, things like that, it's really important to get into the worldview of the way the ancient person understood that.

'cause to your point, Galileo came along and said, no the sun is the center of our solar system. And the church just couldn't wrap their head around that because again, why would God make man and not make them the center of the universe? Well, they were projecting something on the Bible that the Bible never explicitly says.

David: Yeah. Yeah.

JR: But the point is, is that still the way ancient [00:24:00] writers viewed the world. And I'm not talking about the planet, I'm talking about the world. Right. You know, that's the way they viewed things. And so if you project our scientific foundation and understanding back on ancient writings, you're just gonna get it wrong.

And that's what we've said this before about, you know, Genesis is not meant to be a science textbook. It's meant to say how the people at the time saw the creation of the world, saw the beginning of things. And so to try to project and say, you know, here's materially what's going on.

That's problematic. You're gonna run into unnecessary problems if you hold that view. But anyway, I wanted to ask a question to go back to the idea of these stages and these worlds crumbling. Do you think that the people in the moment realize what they were in the middle of? Or do you think that that completely caught 'em off guard? Or is it just something that the subsequent generations look back on and say, oh yeah, now that we look back, there's a clear dividing line. I think you said that the Roman Empire ended in 476? Well, [00:25:00] I'm sure there wasn't on the calendar, next to Christmas, the end of the Roman Empire, you know, so, I mean, somebody established that after the fact.

So again, do you think that people realized it in the moment, or how do you think that they saw those things?

David: Well, I think, and we could say the same thing about today, I think is I think a lot of people probably were just bogged down in survival, right? In their everyday life. They're not really paying attention to the signs.

JR: Gotta put food on the table.

David: I think there was, yeah, I think there was always a group of people who, if you understood how to read the signs, let's say that, that you understood that something new was emerging and that meant that something old was about to be pushed aside.

Look, I think you can see that even if you go back to Socrates, right?

JR: Mm-hmm.

David: I mean, Socrates and Plato, they were aware that they were developing an entire new way of thinking that no one else had really done before, right? This idea of philosophy. And so I think I. In [00:26:00] some sense, I would say, I was trying to think of specific example, but in some sense I would say that I think they did know that they were shaking up the way the world was at the time.

And of course they put Socrates to death because of it.

JR: Right.

David: As crazy as that.

JR: right.

David: Gosh. I mean, as crazy as that is, but Well, we just saw someone get shot for what his opinions were. But anyway. 

JR: I was about to say, yeah. Talk about being on the wrong side of history, I mean, do you think that in their lifetime, the ones who, put Socrates to death, you think, a few decades later, they look back and think, yeah, I might've missed the boat on that one. If I could redo that, I think I might have a different opinion now.

David: I may have overreacted. Yeah. Maybe just a little bit.

JR: Yeah.

David: Yeah. But I think some of the leading thinkers at that time understood that there was about to be a dramatic shift in the way things, and look, we talked about, and this is gonna lead into the next topic we're gonna bring in, and we brought in this last time, is the GK Chesterton in Everlasting Man.

But there was definitely people who would [00:27:00] say, take Greek philosophy, who understood that this meant the old, what, the old grip that the Greek gods had on society.

JR: Right.

David: Now in Plato and Socrates and Aristotle, you see this combining of the Greek gods and philosophy. Right. But in fact, one thing is that Socrates was accused of basically being an atheist of denying their Greek gods.

JR: Yeah.

David: And his defense was, look, I'm not denying the Greek gods. I'm just saying like, we don't have to appeal to them on every single thing, and we can reason things out for ourselves. And that, again, that was one of the things that got him killed. Right?

JR: Yeah.

David: So anyway, yeah, to answer your question, I do think there were always people who could see what was coming.

In the Roman Empire for example, there were people who were saying that Rome had become way too decadent, way too fat, way too self-indulgent, right? And it was only a matter of time before these incursions from the north were going to be their end.[00:28:00]

JR: Yeah.

David: So yeah, there's always, I think, a subset of people who understood that something was about to change if the society around them didn't change, let's put it that way.

JR: Yeah. I said in a previous episode that you don't have to think of a prophet as sort of a magician woo woo type of thing. But think of a prophet as somebody who recognized patterns. And so they're the ones that are out in front of something and saying, does everyone see the same pattern I'm seeing because we're going somewhere that maybe we don't wanna go if we don't pull back a little bit.

Right? And so the prophets of the Old Testament a lot of times were the people that saw the writing on the wall. And yes, they were divinely inspired. But I also think that there was some sort of common sense pattern recognition that they saw the way things were going. And so they were trying to sound the alarm bell before things got to the point of no return.

David: Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point. And I do think that's almost the role of [00:29:00] the prophet in each society, right? The prophet is almost, you could think of it as the person who's actually able to read the signs and understands that a dramatic shift is about to take place.

JR: Yeah. And prophets are typically kind of seen as crazy until it happens. You know what I mean? You think of Noah basically building the ark. You think of John the Baptist. You think of lots of prophets and certainly prophets that have been put to death and kings and wicked kings and queens that want to put prophets to death because they're sounding the alarm bell.

But yeah, prophets are kind of nuts. Socrates was nuts until he wasn't, you know, until we look back and it's like, wow, that guy had it right the whole time. Too bad we executed him. You know?

David: Yeah.

JR: So, yeah. So there are these patterns that can be picked up on if you are in tune with how the world works. And I don't know our prophets, and we don't call them prophets today, but the people that are out in front saying, be careful because we're going down a road that we can't turn back from if we [00:30:00] go too far. And so it's these people that pick up on these patterns.

David: Yeah, they're picking up on the patterns and they're warning what the repercussions are of not paying attention to the patterns. Yeah. And look, they're not always right. The Old Testament prophets, you had to be right, or you got executed, but.

JR: That's a pretty good policy, by the way, if you're gonna put something out there, if you're gonna put something out there and it doesn't come true, well, you know, we don't need you as a prophet anymore, right?

David: Yeah. How confident are you about the proclamation you're about to make? Right?

JR: Yeah, exactly.

David: So. This is where I, it probably a good time to bring in this whole idea. We brought up the end of last episode, which is Everlasting Man, GK Chesterton does this outline, and he kind of overlays the history that we just talked about. He overlays what was the dominant worldview, right? So he starts out with Paganism. And that's where you see the Old Testament. I'm, reading in Judges right now. And I mean, it was Baal and it was Molech and it was child sacrifice, right? And [00:31:00] even the Israelites, the prophets, right, had to say for goodness sakes, knock off the idol worship like, like what do you not see here?

Right? God says, don't do this. And we're still worshiping idols, right? And we're still ingrained in this paganism Well that gives way to mythology. And that's where in Greek culture, it kind of emerges where these stories, this mythic story about the gods in an attempt to try to explain how the world actually worked.

So it wasn't just we have to placate the gods. It was that there is an order to the world. We attribute it to the gods, but these stories are a way for us to try to explain how the world of the gods works.

JR: Yeah. We don't have to merely please the gods, but then these stories develop about the gods little g and this is the way reality actually lays itself out. And so if we're wise enough to listen to these stories, then we'll be wise enough to see when cultural changes are afoot.

David: Yeah.[00:32:00]

JR: Right.

David: Yeah. And actually, when you know how to read 'em. We wouldn't attribute it all to the liturgy gods, but when you know how to read 'em, they actually contained a lot of wisdom. They contained a lot of truth. Their attempt to try to explain this is why the world operates in the way it does, right?

JR: Right. Which is why you and I talk about mythology a lot and even it kind of dovetails into fairytales. It's not that we're trying to encourage people to go back to mythology. We're saying recognize that mythology came out of paganism because of the god worship of paganism.

That mythology came out and said, okay, let's try to put a little bit of structure to these gods that run the world, and let's try to lay out these stories in a way that we can actually learn from them. And so yeah, and then you can see why it kind of naturally tails right into philosophy, where Socrates and Aristotle, where they take these mythological elements and they say, actually we can kind of they didn't say it this directly, but they're saying, you know, we can kind of take the gods out of it.

We can kind of just take these stories and [00:33:00] say there is a reasonable pattern to the world and we can actually reason ourselves into a functional culture without having to worry about Zeus and, you know, right?

David: Yeah.

JR: And so it is kind of a natural outcropping of it.

David: Yeah, it's interesting 'cause they actually very much had these conversations where they would say, what makes Hercules a virtuous person? Right? Well, he's brave. He goes on this sense of adventure, right? He chooses the harder path. And then as they start to talk this through, they start to come up with ideas of, okay, well we don't need a story to tell us how to be a virtuous person. In fact, there are ways that we can develop virtue, right?

JR: Right.

David: And so now philosophy starts to emerge.

JR: Mm-hmm.

David: And yeah, it's not as dependent on the gods. It's not as dependent on necessarily a story, but now it's okay, what constitutes a good person? Right? How do you develop the virtues? And these were things that look, were tied to the gods [00:34:00] in times past.

JR: Yeah.

David: So what's interesting is Christianity then comes along, of course, with the coming of Jesus, the emergence of Jesus, Christianity comes along. And what's so interesting about Christianity is Christianity actually takes a lot of the philosophy of the Greeks and merges it with the religious structure of the Old Testament.

JR: Right.

David: Right? But Christianity actually becomes one of the first ways of thinking that merges philosophy and religion. Before Christianity, religion had very little to do with what makes you a good person, had in fact nothing to do with it. Certainly there was a component of Christianity that says, this is how you become a good person and develop virtue, and it actually aligns with your religious practices and the teachings of Jesus. And of course, the whole story of what God was up to in the world from the Old Testament, right?

So Christianity merges all that. Well, Christianity remained the dominant religious, especially through the Byzantine era. And I don't wanna say [00:35:00] Christianity, how's the best way to say it? Christianity starts to be pushed aside by rationalism in the 1500s.

JR: Right.

David: Right? Because along with the scientific revolution, along with rationalism, and we're certainly not saying all that was bad. But what started to happen was people started to say, well, we don't need these religious ideas if we can actually figure out the scientific way the world works.

JR: Right.

David: Right. We can kind of dismiss with the influence of Christianity, especially kind of as it was appearing in Western Europe at the time.

So Christianity doesn't go away. Certainly we're still here, right?

JR: Right.

David: But it started to be pushed to the side. It wasn't the dominant. Yes. Yeah. And so to finish it up then, what GK Chesterton, what we said at the turn of the century, what he saw is that rationalism then has led to atheism.

JR: Yep.

David: And so we are seeing that shift right now.

You could kind of say, you are here, right? [00:36:00] You put a little pin on the thing. It said you are here right at this moment, right? Atheism was having its heyday, but now we're seeing atheism turn into nihilism.

JR: Right, that's the pin that I think we're at now.

David: Okay. Yeah. That's where you'd put the pin, right at nihilism.

JR: Well, I think, you know, we've talked about, I think that the popular atheists are kind of coming to its end. Like I think it's obvious that they can't quite fill a description of all reality. And so they had their heyday probably 15, 20 years ago maybe, is when it started. And I think that kind of is waning, that their cultural influence is waning. But I think what's interesting about this pattern is that it seems to be a pendulum swing between the spiritual and the material. And so you start off with paganism and mythology, that's clearly in the spiritual world.

And then you see the pendulum swing into philosophy where the philosophers were saying, you know what, we really don't have to include gods into [00:37:00] rational thinking and being a good person. Right? And it's almost like there was a little bit of a void in the philosophical worldview. So the pendulum swings back to Christianity and Jesus comes along and says, actually the spiritual world does connect with the material world in very logical ways.

And so, you know, he has the Sermon on the Mount about being good person and his entire ministry, right, kind of takes over the entire Western world and influences that. And then the pendulum swing goes back to rationalism and atheism where there are these very culturally influential people and debaters that say, really, are we gonna talk about angels?

Are we gonna talk about little guys up there flapping their wings and rewarding you for when you do good things and punishing you for when you do bad things? And they're sort of mocking the whole spiritual aspect of things. And so it pulls you back into the rational and material. And so the pendulum swing, there are different [00:38:00] flavors of it, but what you see is a jump between the spiritual world and the material world and that being a kind of a huge cultural influence just on different stages of history.

David: Yeah, that's right. Yeah. There is some swinging back and forth like a overcorrection and a swing back the other way as well. But the transition between each one of these can also be thought of the end of a world or a worldview. Right. And what's interesting, and again to kind of wrap this part up is what Chesterton says is that if we're at nihilism, then that you're going to see a reemergence of paganism.

JR: Right.

David: And I think you're starting to see that.

JR: Yeah.

David: And what's interesting then to bring this full circle is, if Paganism is on the rise, how do you reach a pagan world? Well, you reach them with stories, right? You bring back the mythology of the gods. We would say we would bring back the story of God to answer the pagan questions, [00:39:00]right?

But it's not going to be these other approaches that have worked in the past.

JR: Yeah. It'll be something new.

David: Yeah, yeah.

JR: Well, it's also worth pointing out that this cycle happens at different scales, right? So you might see this cycle on a smaller scale or a smaller level within your own thinking, or within your immediate community. But when it happens to broader society, it deepens the effect of your own personal cycle. Does that make, does that make any sense? Okay. Do you guys have cicadas down there. Do y'all have cicadas?

David: Yeah.

JR: Okay. So they're real bad in Tennessee right now. There's not just one type of cicada. There are different types of cicadas. There's a two year cicada, there's a five year cicada. There's even like a 16 year cicada. I don't know if you knew all this.

David: No, I knew of the seven year.

JR: Yeah, there's a seven year.

David: I've heard there's a seven year. Yeah.

JR: Yeah. And so it's not just a cicada and the cicadas, broadly speaking, are real bad this summer. It's, what's happening [00:40:00] is when you have a bad summer where you feel like you're losing your hearing, just walking outside, it's because several cicada cycles are aligning and cicada cycles are active.

This happens to be a summer where the seven, the five, and the two year cicadas all align right. I guess what I'm trying to say is that there's more than one big cultural cycle that's moving through history. There's an alignment of cycles that tend to amplify the process.

David: Yeah. No, that's a good way to think about it. I was laughing 'cause we went on a walk the other night and it was deafening walking under this one oak tree. It's like, yeah, sometimes I get this tinnitus and it was just buzzing in my ear. But yeah, no, that's a good point is that, you know, within each big cycle there's a lot of little cycles.

There's some cultural things happening. And so that's the other thing I think that maybe feels like the end of a world is when several of these things [00:41:00] are almost coming in alignment and all ending at the same time, you might say, or all transitioning at the same time.

JR: Yeah. The noise sounds deafening right now, and that's why we're thinking, golly, this has gotta be the end of something. It feels like several cycles are aligning. Yes. That's a good way to say it.

David: Alright. So we went through that whole history lesson and philosophy because the point being is I think it's easy. Well look, I mean I grew up in the eighties and you sit there and you go, yeah, the world's not gonna change, right?

JR: Yeah. Yeah,

David: The way we think now is the way my grandparents thought, given some technological differences.

JR: Yeah. Broadly speaking.

David: Broadly speaking.

But yeah. So, when these cycles happen and they happen all the time, and when they start to come to an end and to your point when they start to kind of pile up on each other and all end at the same time, then it can be the end of a world. Right? And you and I have said before, but one of the things I think we're at the end of is, you might say the rational [00:42:00] scientific worldview.

Now that doesn't mean. Doesn't mean that it's not good to think rationally. It doesn't mean science has nothing to contribute. It's just that like these other cycles, something else is going to come in and those things will start to be minimized. And so when you're holding to your perfectly logical reason, when people say, look, the scientific expert said this, why are we even questioning it?

Don't be surprised if more and more people aren't listening to you anymore, right?

JR: Yeah. Yeah. We, hold on. Hopefully we hold on to the good things of the previous cycle and the bad things fall away, but it's not a perfect process. And lots of times, I guess you have to be careful, of being the type of person that says, yeah, we need to just burn it all down and start again. That's where the nihilism comes in, and it's like, well, you're throwing the baby out with the bath water. It's not a perfect system, but let's try to at least hold onto the things that are valid, and let's try to cull the things that hamper progress or hamper us moving [00:43:00] forward. I read a few weeks ago, you and I talked about this, not on a podcast or anything, but it reminds me of a verse that I came across a few weeks ago in Joel. In Joel chapter one, it talks about kind of the end of the world. Or at least the end of their world that Joel's speaking to, because he asks right away he says something like, "has anything like this ever happened in all your days or the days of your father's?"

And so he is addressing the people of Israel saying, we're at the end of something. Can you not see it? Things are changing and you've never seen anything like this, and your fathers have never seen anything like this. But then he goes, through these cool verses that I don't know, because you and I talk about fairytales and I try to pick up on patterns and things like that, they just popped out to me. But it says in Joel chapter one, verse four, it says "What the cutting locust has left, the swarming locust has eaten, and what the swarming locust has left, the hopping locust has eaten, and what the hopping locust left the destroying locust has eaten." [00:44:00] And, I just knew there was a deeper meaning to this.

'cause I'm reading this thinking, what in the world does this mean? He can't just be saying, Hey people, there's a lot of locusts out there and what one doesn't eat, the other's gonna eat. Right. He kind of has this little pattern, but you and I kind of talked about it and I thought it was worth talking about on this podcast.

'cause we're talking about the end of the world. But, you know, when he talks about the cutting or some translations, we will say gnawing locus. What we're talking about is the person on the edge, the person on the fringe that questions, let's just say a cultural norm, and they gnaw away at that cultural foundation and they eat a little bit, but they undercut culture or society.

And then what they don't eat, the swarming locust comes along. Or you could think of them as the flying locust. And this is where you really get into fairytale imagery. You know? What is flying? Well, it's the people that are at a higher level, let's say. Right? So when the gnawing locust cuts away at the cultural foundation, these [00:45:00] small movements begin to catch on at higher levels of society.

Think of like celebrities or cultural influence or government leaders, right?

These fringe ideas start to catch on at higher society. And then the swarming locus gives way to the hopping locust. Or some translations say the canker worm, which I had to look this up, but think of that as sort of, you could think about it two ways.

Both of 'em work. You can think of it as kind of the hopping as the ground dwelling commoner, the average Joe, let's say, or maybe you could say, when you think of it, the canker worm. So the cankerworm is like a locust larvae. So you could think of that as the next generation, you know, so these celebrities, these cultural influences, they influence the ground locust, and then it becomes a part of broader society. It just becomes this societal norm, right? And then the final stage is the destroying locust, where they come along and they take what used to be a cultural norm, it's completely forgotten.

And the past is even judged through a new [00:46:00] lens, because a new paradigm shift seems self-evident, right? That's the destroying locus. Those are the ones that look back and say, there really was no what there, I'm trying to think of a specific cultural trend that you kind of see this going through. But whether it be religion or whether it be just any cultural trend, you can see that same pattern.

That that's the way it starts. It starts with the cutting locust. It's then picked up by higher society and the influencer. Then it trickles down to lower society. And then it comes to, let's call it the revisionist historians that look back and say, no, that was really never really a thing.

That was really never the culture. It's always been this way.

David: Right.

JR: You know? And so when you see that pattern, Joel actually lays out a really interesting way to see how cultures are undercut and erode and end up being destroyed. And that's what I think, I think you can apply that to modern day.

I mean, as I'm speaking, you probably are thinking about smaller cultural [00:47:00] trends that you're like, yeah, that's kind of how it works. It catches on in Hollywood, and then it's in all the movies, and then it becomes the norm and the next thing you know, that cultural identity is destroyed.

David: This will show you where my mind was at. So the example that I was thinking of is it's how Rage Against The Machine became the machine.

JR: Why? There you go. We love Rage Against The Machine. But you're exactly right. 

David: So, right. I mean, they were protests music. They were everything anti- society.

JR: Yeah.

David: And then they got popular, and then they essentially became the machine.

JR: Yeah.

David: It's like, okay, you're just raging against yourself now because

JR: They're doing McDonald's commercials.

And so, you know what I mean? Yeah. They became mainstream and so now they're not pushing back at anything. They're mainstream. And it's almost like we forgot what were we raging about?

What were we so angry about 20 years ago, right before we got the mansion and we're riding in limos all the time.

David: I'm still angry. I just don't know why anymore, [00:48:00] but.

JR: Right.it's just part of our schtick.

David: Anyway, that's, no, but yeah, to your point, and look, Joel played that prophetic role, right? And Joel, I like that idea. And in fact, this time around as you, yeah, he saw the pattern and he said, this is how one world ends and something else begins.

You know, it starts with the edge of society. It gnaws away, it gets mainstream and then the whole thing topples, and then it's revisionist history. It's like, oh, well this is the way it's always been. Right. That's basically the cycle that Joel is describing.

JR: Yeah. So anyway, it's recognizing that cultural shifts come and go and they come in patterns. 

David: I think one of the people who best put into terms about how to read the cultural shifts, recent memory is a guy named Jonathan Pageau. You and I both listened to him.

JR: Yeah.

David: And he did this whole talk. In fact, he did a talk about what the end of a world looks like.

And he brought up, I'm not gonna go through all of his lectures, but he brought up a couple points that I do think are [00:49:00] really helpful talking about this idea. And so first of all, he says, A world is something that has coherence and hierarchy to it, right? That a bunch of people living in one place is not a world.

JR: Right.

David: And that makes sense, right? Just proximity to other people is not a culture.

JR: Right.

David: There has to be coherence and hierarchy. 

JR: It has to have an image.

David: Yeah.

JR: You know what I mean?

David: A flag you might say. Yeah.

JR: Yeah. It has to have a cultural image that we all kind of adhere to.

David: Yeah, So he just mentions a couple of signs that the end of a world or a worldview is coming to an end. And I thought these were interesting. The first one he says is increasing conflict between social groups. Well, we don't know anything about that, right?

JR: I was about to say, I can't relate.

David: So whatever binds us together. And it's like you said, you have to have an image, right? Well, when that image crumbles, nothing binds us together anymore.

When nothing binds us together, well now we're just, now we're just snipping at each other. Now we're just arguing. Now we're fighting.

JR: [00:50:00] I've said before that the eighties were great because we had the enemy of communism. You know what I mean, USSR and nuclear, you know, we kind of, they were the enemies. So we had Red Dawn and we had Rocky four and you know, we kind of had this universal enemy and so all of us kind of lined up under that image. And of course I was just a kid, so I didn't know squat about it. about what communism meant, but I just knew that that was the image of society and that was the image of the movies. And so it's like, yeah, it's us versus them and yeah, we've kind of lost that. 'cause I don't know what our image, I mean, is there any united image in our country at all?

Can you think of anything that we all kind of would at least look to and say, well, we disagree about other things, but we all agree on that. I don't know what that thing is.

David: It's becoming more and more. Yeah. Tough. You know, we just had 9-11 again last week, but again, we're recording this probably several weeks before it gets released. But there was a lot of people who said, well, something like 9-11.

JR: Yeah.

David: will [00:51:00] at least bring us together.

JR: Yeah, for a week.

David: But even that, yeah, had its limits, right? What should have bound us together for several decades upon end has already crumbled.

JR: Yeah. Yeah, it's not generations. I mean, World WarII bound a generation. Yeah, it's unfortunate that 9-11 didn't unite us more than it did.

David: Yeah, so that's why increasing conflict between social groups, it marks something's coming to an end. Second thing he says, well, he says a lot, but these are just the ones I picked out. And this one's interesting obsession with the strange. It's kind of, we're doing stranger things, right? It's why we have it

JR: Here we set.

David: unending topics about stranger things, right?

JR: Yeah,

David: What he means by obsession with the strange is that one of the things he says, and this gets a little bit conceptual, but it's really helpful to me, is the end of the world is also the edge of the world. And the edge is where you encounter the strange. And so the strange then becomes normalized. I don't know if that makes sense.

You might have to rewind and listen [00:52:00] to that again.

So if you think of, we've talked about this, the pattern of a camp or the pattern of a city, right? So you have the mountain at the center, right? The sacred mountain, and then you have the things that hold those images and icons.

You might say that everyone hold in common. And then outside of that, you have, you might say the suburbs. So that's where people live. But then outside of that, the edge of town, that's where all the weird things take place, right?

JR: Yeah.

David: Or all the shady things.

JR: Yeah. Well, John the Baptist, he was always at the edge. You know. He's the wild man eating honey. Right. You know, so he's, he represents, in some way. The fringe is not always. The modern idea of the fringe seems to be like the wacky and nutty and these people are nuts and you know what I mean?

Then that's not always it, you know, there are good examples of the fringe and that's why I point out John the Baptist.

David: That's true. That's true. So an example of the obsession with the strange again, we're seeing renewed interest in UFOs.

JR: Yeah, Right. Like a [00:53:00] renewal of cult interest of Yeah. Of kind of really obscure science and, yeah. Yeah. Well, that's kind of where we're at.

David: Well, and look, if you start, here's a downside of this. When you start moving away from the credibility of science, right? And I'm doing air quotes right now. But you know, when you move away from the credibility of science, then you start to accept all kinds of things that 20 years ago you'd go, why are we even talking about that?

This is the stupidest thing, right? The moon landing is faked.

JR: Yeah.

David: Just, you know, things like this. And you're going like, are we still talking about this? But again, that's another sign that you are approaching the edge of a culture, right?

JR: Right.

David: The strange becomes acceptable and there's this fascination with it.

JR: Yeah. I love the idea of the fringe and the center, that the fringe pushes out into the unknown, and as it pushes out what was once the fringe becomes, if it does it properly, it becomes accepted as the [00:54:00] norm. So you think about something like fringe science, that the idea that tiny microbes were spreading disease that used to be fringe science, that used to be just one guy's nutty idea. But now it's foundational science. And that's where, the guy at the fringe that was out there I don't know who's the one that figured out that microbes carry diseases. Golly, I ought to know this. But anyway.

David: I wanna say Petri, I could be totally wrong, but something like, Flinder's Petri, something like that. Maybe I'm, that's a total guess.

JR: Well, in, in any case, he's the guy out there crying in the wilderness saying, wash your hands after you do surgery. After you deliver a baby, let's rinse off and use soap and then go do surgery. And doctors push back at that. It's like, listen, I'm a clean guy. You know, like, I don't have to do this. And it was difficult. He was out there screaming in the wilderness saying, this is what's causing infant mortality in these hospitals. And anyway, and like I said, now it's foundational science. Now it seems absurd that anybody would have ever done it otherwise, right? And

David: [00:55:00] Yeah. Florence Nightingale

JR: yeah,

David: was actually pretty foundational.

JR: Yes. That's, yeah, that's a good one. She was the one that was trying to tell doctors wash hands 

David: And then you see the old movies where the doctors are sitting there smoking cigarettes while they're

JR: well,

David: examining patients.

JR: right? But yeah, it's just, yes, what used to be fringe can be brought into the mainstream if done properly, but you can also do it improperly, you can be on the fringe, and demand to be the ideal to be the center. And if you don't go to the proper channels on that, you end up undercutting a cultural norm and undercutting society.

And that's where the locusts come in. And you eventually have the destroying locust that destroys something good.

David: Well, and actually I, I have a tendency to keep wanting to make side comments and I'm like, ah, we'll never get through this. 'cause what I was thinking is like, yeah, it's the goth kid that goes mainstream and then everyone dresses like goth, so you're no longer 

JR: yeah.

David: it.

JR: pick something else.

David: Yeah. You gotta move on.

JR: Yeah, you gotta go preppy. <Yeah.> And it's funny 'cause I've seen that I've [00:56:00] seen the goth teenager turn into the what you'd call sock hop preppy, you know, they're wearing the horn rim glasses and the sweaters, and they really do make that transition because you're trying to stand out on the edge and you're trying to, you're trying to remain the fringe,

David: Yeah.

JR: the problem is the fringe, you know, the rage against the machine became mainstream, and so now it's not cool anymore.

David: Yeah. And it really is. There is a phenomenon too where there are groups at the fringe that like being at the fringe and sometimes trying to bring them into the middle in the name of inclusivity or whatever you wanna say, actually is counterproductive to what they're actually trying to do.

JR: right.

David: They're identity, right?

JR: Yeah. Yeah. They don't wanna be in the middle.

David: Yeah. Anyway, we could talk about any of these points for a long time. One more point I wanna make and then we'll start to wrap this up. But the other point that he makes is language ceases to express a commonly held truth. And, gosh, there's another one that,

JR: Oh, no [00:57:00] kidding.

David: that we are using the same words, but they don't mean the same thing

JR: Yeah,

David: anymore.

JR: Man, that's happened a lot this week. But just there are times, yes. It used to be like, well, here, here are the facts. Let's just lay out the facts and what is it? I forget what podcaster says. Facts don't care about your feelings. But yeah, we can't even agree on the facts.

Like the facts are sitting there in front of us and we don't even agree on our interpretation of them. And so yeah, so there's this complete misunderstanding about each other's language and yeah, that's the Tower of Babel right there.

David: Exactly. You and I can watch a video of the same event and have two vastly different interpretations of what we just saw.

JR: Right.

David: And that's the world we live in right now.

Yeah. So that's an interesting illustration of what we're talking about is the Tower of Babel. Right. I'm glad you brought that up, because the Tower of Babel is the confusion of language. And you know, again, you can read that literally, but I think you're right.

We're entering the Tower of Babel right [00:58:00] now because we're saying things to each other and there's no agreement on what anything means, right? There's no agreement on facts.

JR: Right.

David: There's no commonly held core identity anymore. And so actually it's a fitting idea. It's just, it's Babel, right?

JR: Right. Yeah, exactly, that I think I'm making a valid point and somebody else can take that valid point and say, yeah, you're making my point. And I'm like, wait a second. You know, you see what I'm saying? It's like

David: Yeah.

JR: we're both speaking English, but we're definitely speaking different languages and yeah, nothing can get done.

We can't continue the building of anything if we don't speak the same language or if we don't have a common goal. And that's where that idea of the flag or the identity that goes back to why that matters, is if we can't point to the ideal and say, let's work toward that, then we got competing individualistic ideals and it's like , we're all trying to get to our own ideal that nobody else agrees on, and there's no unifying principle to [00:59:00] bind this together. And so we disintegrate into what? Hyper individuality or something like that.

David: Yeah. In times past, you might've talked about like a national project that brought us together. I mean, there's no prospect of a national project right now. You know, like sending someone to the moon.

JR: Right.

David: Well, you know, Elon will do that. There's no sense of national we can do this together if we all band together and accomplish something.

It's like Babel. It's a good example because when you can't speak the same language, you can't build anything, you won't build anything of significance. Let's put it that way.

JR: Right. Yeah, no, that's right. 

David: All right. So let's wrap this up. 'cause we could go on and on and on. But okay, so what do we do now? Like, let's not just sit here in nihilism and go, well, that's it. You know?

JR: Yeah. I could be snarky for three hours.

David: Hope, hope. Pull up a good chair. Watch the world end, right?

JR: Right.

David: One of the best illustrations that I heard about, what does it mean to [01:00:00] survive the end of the world is Jordan Peterson, but he says, you have to build an ark. And I've actually never really heard him explain really all the details of what that means.

 So you and I were batting some ideas around about what does it mean to build an ark, of course, the story of Noah's Ark, too. That's the end of a world.

JR: Right.

David: Right?

JR: Yeah. Well, it's the boat in Gilgamesh. It's, mean, there's something like 200 ark and flood stories in different cultures. So it's not, it's not like the Noah's Ark is the only story out there.

All cultures seem to understand that there is an end of the world and there's some sort of ark element that we need to build our ark and preserve humanity. Right. I mean, it's written in all these different cultural stories.

David: It's an archetypal story that basically says, yeah, this is how you survive

JR: right

David: a cataclysmic event, right?

JR: Yeah.

David: Well, all right, so the first thing I wrote down is this is easy to overlook too, but you, I just put down, read the forecast, right? Understand where culture is headed. 'cause the [01:01:00] first thing Noah had to do is actually believe God that there was going to be this thing called rain.

And at the time it's funny 'cause it said it didn't rain at the time, right? And so we had to actually read the forecast. We're pretty much through hurricane season actually we're peak hurricane season. But I'm getting used to reading the forecast. And the forecasts fortunately have been really boring right now.

So that's a good thing.

JR: Thankfully, you're right.

David: Yes.

JR: Well, it Goes back to my comment about the prophet as someone who recognizes patterns, be able to read the forecast, know where you're at, and know what's coming.

David: Yeah, that's right. And there's value in being able to understand, reading the culture, reading the patterns. Look, that's a lot of what we talk about on this podcast, right?

JR: Right.

David: And understand what it means for the culture moving forward and how to reach a culture moving forward.

JR: Yeah, which is why that pendulum swing always seems to go back from materialism to the spiritual world is because those stories anchor reality. And so story is the way to [01:02:00] reach a pagan culture. Right? I mean, that's how we do that.

We have a unifying story that we can look at. And you're right, we missed that about Noah also is that not only could he see the forecast, did he know the rain was coming? He tried to reach the Pagan culture.

But in any case, a story is a universal experience. You know, there's something universally about something like music, right? We've talked about this in other podcast, but there's also something universal about a story, and it somehow breaks through our, argumentative defenses.

And, you know, you just tell a good story and that captivates people. There's something universally relatable about a story that communicates meaning, and that's why it kind of breaks through our defensive things where if I bring up Donald Trump, other people automatically are gonna put the walls up and it's like, oh golly, let's hear what this guy has to say.

Or if I bring up somebody on the other side, you know what I'm saying? It's like when you get political, people automatically get defensive. And so there's something about a good story that breaks through that because [01:03:00] ties together meaning, and it's universally relatable.

But also I like that preserve your sphere of influence; tend your garden. You know what I mean?

David: Yeah. And so that would be Noah bringing his family on the ark, right? That's that whole idea. And, and so we can't control where the culture's going. You know, look, I have very little say in what happens in politics and all that, but I can control my sphere of influence. I can control how my household, how my family.

JR: right.

David: What traditions they preserve.

JR: Yeah.

David: That's the whole I, you know, what is worth preserving, right?

JR: Right.

David: It doesn't matter if our culture doesn't wanna preserve something, I can preserve something and pass it down, right? I think that's that idea.

JR: Well, I just like the idea of pulling into your garden, to your sphere of influence. You know, to go back to the Charlie Kirk thing, one place I've arrived at is shutting down the noise of social media and stop listening to [01:04:00] everybody's comment on it and focus on tending my garden, right?

And then working my way outward from that. I can't change the broader culture, but I can have good faith conversations with my friends and with my neighbors, and when you do that, first of all, if you're afraid of the world coming to an end, what a lot of times you see is, well, my street's not coming to an end. My town is not coming to an end. You know what I mean? And it's when you get into the noise of, let's be honest, you get into the noise of 24 hour news and social media, that's when you can be thinking, oh wow. I mean, there's murders every day. There's school shootings, there's all these awful things constantly happening.

It's gotta be the end of something. Some of that is the noise of 24 hour news and some of that is social media. And you gotta kind of dial that back and walk next door and take your neighbor a plate of brownies or something.

Man, just dial it back a little bit, and what you'll find out is that humanity is pretty reasonable when they're [01:05:00] face to face. It's when we're anonymous and online that we can get really gross, you know? So yeah, kinda shut that stuff off and kind of tend your own garden. I like that idea.

David: Yeah, get off the message boards. You and I both said we've gotta limit our exposure to message boards this week. But I thought, you know, get off the message boards, go out to a restaurant, did this the other night. And you know what? People are nice, people are gracious. I went into a coffee shop yesterday, the barista said, "you're usual?"

And I was like, oh, cool. I have a usual now, right?

JR: Yeah. There we go. That's cool.

David: So, yeah. So, she was nice and yeah, your own little world. I guess the way to say it is, as bad as the big, bad world looks out there sometimes your own little world, right? Your neighborhood, your city you live in, it's actually still pretty civil and pretty normal and pretty, yeah, go ahead.

JR: Well no, your own little world can be a retreat. I mean, from the craziness of the broader world. And [01:06:00] listen, I'm not saying that, that your own world can't be chaotic too. Maybe it is, but I'm just saying lots of times when you're panicking about the broader world, pull into your own world and have a little man, a staycation in your own house and shut off the noise a little bit.

David: Yeah. Yeah. So preserve your sphere of influence. thi this next one, I hesitated because if you grew up in church, you're gonna roll your eyes. Learn to be in the world, but not of the world. I didn't know how else to say that.

JR: No, hey, that's, it can be, you know, we can turn that into a meme, but also that's very helpful and functional.

David: Yes. Yeah. So in John 17, it comes from the words of Jesus, you know, he says,"I have given them your word and the world has hated them. Right? For they are not of the world any more than I'm of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world, but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world as I'm not of it."

There's a lot there in what Jesus' prayer is for his disciples, and what he's saying is they are in the [01:07:00] world, but they are not of the world. And I was thinking about what does it mean when Jesus says they are not of the world? Well, if you, think of that word, well first that idea of, of could also mean like out of or begotten from, right? And if you think of the world as the realm that has been given over to Satan, right? The evil one

JR: Right.

David: before Jesus reclaims it, then basically what he's saying is don't align yourself with the evil out there. Right? The world may be an evil place, but you don't have to be of that. 

JR: Right. Well, we've talked about it before. There's a spiritual realm

David: Yeah.

JR: and there's a material realm, a earthly realm, let's say. And despite the fact that we walk in grass and we smell the trees and leaves and, you know what I mean, all our senses are in this earthly realm. It's really easy to get attached and to say, this is all that matters. But we're from the spiritual realm. Ultimately, we're destined for the spiritual realm. And so recognize and take solace in the fact that that's where we're [01:08:00] ultimately gonna end up. And so while the material world may be crumbling around us, we can take refuge in the fact that our spirits, our spiritual souls are going to end up in the spiritual realm. And that's our ultimate destiny. That's our ultimate destination. And so that's the whole be in the world, but not of the world. You know, recognize that we have this other destination and that the world, it's gonna come to an end anyway.

It may not be in our lifetime, but it's coming to an end and we were created for something else. So there is a lot of I don't know, it's a peaceful way of looking at it. It's a peaceful way of looking at a chaotic situation sometimes.

David: Yeah, and I think you brought up what I would say would almost be my final point, which is that we know how the story ends, and you brought that up, right? We know that the ways of this world are not destined to ruin everything or delve us into chaos because God's kingdom is going to come and reclaim this world.

JR: Yeah.

David: And then the realm that we will live in is the kingdom of God.

JR: Yeah.

David: And so, we know [01:09:00] how the story ends.

JR: I don't know if I've brought this up before, but you and I are both FSU fans and unfortunately we have to go all the way back to what, 2013 when we won the national championship, is that right?

David: Yeah, that's right.

JR: A little dated, but anyway I remember 2013 when we won the national championship. Me and my son were watching the game and, man, if you remember that first half, we were not playing well, I forget what the score was at the end of the first half. But I mean, they had our number on everything. It seemed like everything we were trying to do, they were predicting and they were just wiping us out.

And I mean, I was just on pins and needles and my son was furious. He was like, I, he was mad at everybody mad at the world. And of course the second half, we kind of turned it around and I just remember that there were tackles and things like that where Auburn is who we played. They're standing over us and they're flexing and they're like, kind of in your face. And we were just being demoralized.

Well, we finally figured it out and we turned it around the second half. And uh, we kind of had this, great [01:10:00] comeback and ended up winning the national championship. But as I kind of tend to do, a few days later, I watched the game again because I wanted to relive the moment. 

And, it was just so interesting. All those things still happened. I'm still watching Auburn, they've got our number and they'd intercept a ball or they'd stand over us and they'd, flex at the tackle. And it's funny because the second time I watched it, I was just sitting there sort of chuckling saying, ha, yep, you got us that play, you know what I mean? But I know how it ends. Right, you know?

David: Yeah. That's right.

JR: And so there's just something about knowing how it ends that ought to change the way we view the tragedies of the moment, let's say. These awful things happen. The other side seems to be winning. And we're sitting there, we shouldn't be anxious.

We should be kind of chuckling and say, that's a good hit, but I know how this ends. You know what I'm saying? And maybe that's a good place to end this.

David: Yeah. Yeah, that's a good word. We don't have to have a lot of anxiety about how all [01:11:00] this is gonna look a year from now, or five years from now. Because ultimately we know the long-term view, how it all ends, and it all ends with God's kingdom. Right?

JR: Yeah.

David: I mean, it says, there will be no more tears, right? Evil will be banished. There will be no more chaos. And so while we have to navigate this life while we're in this world, yeah, I think the Christian story offers a hope that says we know where this is all culminating.

JR: Yeah. We ought to be the voice of calm and reason because we know where this is culminating.

David: Yeah, yeah.

JR: And listen, you can't have a new beginning without the end of something. And so, are we at the end of something? I don't know. But if we are, then that means that there's gonna be something new and it'll be hopefully something better. And it depends on how we as humans can connect to each other and make it better. I mean, that sounds like a we are the world moment, but, you know, we can overlay that song if we don't,

David: There comes a time when you need a helping hand.

JR: [01:12:00] Yep.

David: The world must come together as one.

JR: I'm, surprised you know it. You just rattle off like that.

David: Sure I know it. No, something you said, the end of something always feels scary, but it doesn't mean what comes next isn't going to be better.

JR: Right.

David: Right? And in fact, if you, go back to the whole arc of history we traced, there would be reason to argue that look through a lot of these things, the world became a better place.

JR: Sure.

David: Yeah, that's a good word too, is just even though we might say, Hey, we're at the end of something culturally, and it might be a rough transition, but it doesn't mean that what comes next can't be something better, so.

JR: Hopefully, yeah.

David: Yeah, hold onto that optimism as well.

JR: Yeah. I've just also heard before that as bad as you might think things are, there's really no other time in history that I'd rather be living. I might take the eighties, but you know, that's not going too far back, because it just means I gotta go through all this mess again, right? In the next 20 years.

David: [01:13:00] Yeah.

JR: but 30 years. But right. But no, I mean, it's a good time in history. So, I mean, look, there's all kinds of good things about being in the world today, and so we don't really mean to focus on all the negatives and how the world's crumbling. It's actually a great time to be alive. And again, if you know how the story ends, then there's part of us that can enjoy the narrative and hopefully, we have enough sense to read the patterns and, create our ark, tend to your garden.

David: Yeah, so for all the end of the world talk that you hear in our culture today, next episode, we are going to talk about kind of the exact opposite. Talk about the pendulum swing. We're gonna talk about immortality.

JR: Yeah, this is a good one. I'll enjoy this one.

David: Yeah, so that's, the other side of the coin, right, is there's a lot of talk about how to live forever.

JR: Yeah, so I just heard the other day that I just had a couple grandkids in the last few years. I heard the other day that our grandchildren could very well live to be 150. That was this guy's prediction because of modern medicine and things like that. But yes, to your [01:14:00] point, there is kind of this renewed interest in immortality and maybe not living forever, but I've heard people say 200 years.

I've heard people say 250, 300, you know, which, golly, that feels like forever to me. I don't know how Adam and Methuselah hung out for, you know, 900 years plus, but, yeah, there's a push for this.

David: Yeah. Yeah. So we're gonna talk about that next episode for our Stranger Things.