Mythological Thinking: The Crossroads of Psychology and Theology (Hillsdale talk)

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:00]These stories that contain the structure of human attention, they're very different from what we could call taxonomic or scientific descriptions.

[00:00:12]They're very different in their nature, the way they look, what it is that they're doing. And unless we're able to understand the difference between them, then they're going to be very mysterious to us. You know, if you grew up in a world in which someone tried to tell you that, let's say, Genesis 1 was a scientific description, it's going to become very odd to you because it's not, right? It's not a scientific description. It's a story. Scientific descriptions are not stories, right?

[00:00:45]Scientific descriptions are, you know, category, calculation, uh, you know, measurement, prediction, reproducibility. That's what scientific things care about. For several centuries now, sadly, we've had this situation where in some ways because the scientific way of thinking was very very prominent, uh there's been a dismissive attitude towards those stories. But if you remember this is that as let's say scientism took over the world at some point the lack of story be started to become apparent and then the the incapacity to see the story in which things are structured uh became very painful and now I think we're in a moment where we can kind of see it again.

[00:01:50]This is Jonathan Pjo. Welcome to the symbolic world.

[00:02:03]On behalf of Hillsdale College's psychology department in collaboration with the department of philosophy and theology, welcome. My name is Colin Barnes. I'm associate professor and chairman of the psychology department here. Uh it's an enormous pleasure to have with us today uh Mr. Jonathan Pjo.

[00:02:21]Uh many of you have had the opportunity to meet with him. Actually yesterday he spoke with some of my students who have been exploring how his ideas touch fundamental problems in psychology. This morning he had breakfast with members of the Orthodox Christian Fellowship followed by lunch with psychology majors and coffee a coffee gathering with theology students. And tonight he's going to dine with faculty from history, philosophy, education, and English. Um I'm pretty sure it's felt like a whirlwind to him. Uh but I can assure you at least uh from our perspective, the experience has been absolutely rewarding at every turn. Uh we can't thank Jonathan enough for his time and his energy. He's very very generous with both. Um, and now we come to what I suspect will be the highlight of this visit. We invited Jonathan to speak on mythological thinking, the crossroads of psychology and theology. And you may wonder what we in the psychology department are doing hosting a lecture like this. U mythological thinking isn't scientific thinking after all. And psychology purports to be a science. the science of mind and behavior. Uh, isn't that something we're concerned about?

[00:03:31]And our answer to that question is yes and no.

[00:03:35]Uh, we're mostly concerned with the truth. And while we think science makes an important contribution on that front, we don't think it's the greatest or most important contributor at every turn.

[00:03:46]Being careful, being attentive, making good observations, and sound judgment.

[00:03:52]In as much as these rather obvious values are those of science, we share them and we teach them to our students.

[00:03:59]We think it's a mistake to suppose the humanities aren't animated by similar interests. Further in the humanities, we find other commitments were equally unwilling to dispense with that goodness, truth, and beauty are intermingled, for instance, that you can't have the fullness of one without bringing the others in tow. and that the liberty to express this co-mingling artfully and poetically when the occasion calls for it is necessary and should never be abandoned.

[00:04:27]If you then said, "I find truth, beauty, even goodness, and science, the humanities don't have a monopoly on these," we would immediately agree.

[00:04:38]That's why we think any attempt to put psychology in one realm or the other will always fail. Clarity at the crossroads is hard to find. Too often we force it when we should let mystery prevail.

[00:04:50]That's why we invited Jonathan to speak to us today. In fact, he is a unique and important figure among public intellectuals.

[00:04:59]He has discovered a way of expressing ancient ideas about humanity and the cosmos that simultaneously connect with our modern sensibilities and breaks through them, reminding us of a world we have for too long forgotten.

[00:05:13]He and his collaborators are making it possible for us to recover this world.

[00:05:18]Jonathan's beautiful iconography helps with this. His portrayal of the cosmic mountain, an image of everything as he describes it, is an example. You cannot look at that image without feeling your heart, even the heart of humanity exposed.

[00:05:32]His imaginative and beautifully printed portrayals of classic stories like the tale of Snow White and the widow queen perform a similar service. They're produced by his team at the Symbolic World Press. Symbolic World is not just a press. It is simultaneously a consortium of like-minded intellectuals.

[00:05:48]The name of his YouTube channel and podcast and his platform for disseminating a growing collection of fascinating online courses concerning symbolism, storytelling, and cosmology.

[00:05:59]His podcast episodes include conversations with figures like Jordan Peterson, neurossychiatrist Ian McGill, cognitive scientists John Vervi, biologist Michael Leven, and Bishop Robert Baron, just to name a few. He has hundreds of thousands of followers online and is a sought-after public speaker. We are very lucky to have him.

[00:06:20]Uh following lecture, we'll have 5 to 10 minutes for questions. So, please raise your hand and I will get a microphone to you as quickly as possible. So, um, I'll try to take questions in order, but as you can see, the room is quite full. Um, and I suspect we won't be able to get to everyone. Um, also, uh, after the Q&A, uh, Jonathan has a dinner engagement, uh, that we'll need to get to, but there will be a little time perhaps for a little milling about, but at some point I'm going to have to whisk him off to another gathering. So, uh, that's not, um, any don't take that as a sign of rudess on our part, just a need to get to another place. Okay. Um, at any rate, I'll stop talking.

[00:07:00]Without further ado, please help me welcome Mr. Jonathan Majou.

[00:07:04]>> Um, it's really a great joy to be at Hillsdale.

[00:07:09]A few years ago, I met Larry Arn at the Daily Wire of all places. And I didn't know really anything about Hillsdale, but when I discovered what it was and, you know, the project, I uh I saw in it, you know, a great hope, you'd say, for for your country, but also a great hope for the possibility of what the university, what the college, what teaching can become. As we watch a lot of the structures that are around us start to fragment and to crumble, you know, and to become slippery, it feels like projects like these are really uh give me hope. And it's related to what Colin was saying that is, you know, as we watch in some ways postmodernism play itself out and everything kind of fragment and become odd and mixed, uh there's a surprising thing that happens, which is that there are conversations that are possible that weren't possible before. And there are crossovers that are possible that weren't possible before. And so the idea that some guy who makes icons for churches would be able to talk to Michael Levan who does you know biology or to talk to Ian McGillchrist who's a psychiatrist. You know this is something that is actually being born out of the chaos being born out of the breakdown. And so even though sometimes we're hopeless and we kind of look at our world and we feel like things are falling apart, we have to remember that it is out of the flood that the new world comes, right? It's out of it's out of death that that that uh life comes back. And so all of you have an amazing opportunity to kind of be in that world, right? to be part of a new beginning of a new story that that if it's true will win cuz truth wins.

[00:08:59]Sometimes it gets beat up but it wins in the end. So uh so anyways I'm very happy to be at Hillsdale. It's a it's a like I said for a few years I've been wanting to come and every student that I've met and all the professors that I've met have been uh really wonderful.

[00:09:14]And so, you know, I want one of the things that I'm good at or that for some reason I can do is try to create those bridges between things. And the fact that I'm an artist, that I'm not a specialist means that I don't have a stake. So, I don't really care. I have nothing to protect, you know, and so for that reason, I'm able to make bridges that sometimes are a bit audacious, you know, but I'm not going to lose my tenure, so it doesn't matter.

[00:09:41]Uh so hopefully you can like follow me along and uh give me the benefit of the doubt at the outset uh and see how we go. Now my good friend uh Ben uh likes to say he doesn't say it so much anymore but he liked to say you know facts don't care about your feelings. And um I always remembered the first times I heard that I found it a little funny because I understood what he meant. Like I kind of know, you know, it's like if you if you don't like the idea that walking off a cliff will lead to your death, well, it I don't care because if you walk off a cliff, then you will then you will die. And there is an aspect of obviously reality that resists our whims, right? That resists our little idiosyncrasies.

[00:10:27]Um there's also a way uh in a deeper way in which this a statement like this is insufficient.

[00:10:35]Um, and so we have something that we call a fact, right? Something that can be measured, something that can be shown to be true, possibly reproducible, right? Then we know that it's true because we can reproduce it. Um, but of course we have a deep problem, which is that we actually don't have just fact. We have facts and the facts actually completely splinter and splinter into millions and millions and an indefinite amount of facts. Right? you know for sure that in this room there's an indefinite amount of facts in this room and I could spend I could spend you know an hour describing the corner of the chair if I wanted to because there's an indefinite amount of ways that you can approach reality from an indefinite amount of purposes. And so the problem with this idea that facts don't care about your feelings um is that well what fact are you talking about? Which facts are you alluding to that don't care about my feelings? Right? How do I organize the facts? How do I know which facts depend on other facts? And also why are we talking about it in the first place? Why are you talking about this fact? what is it that uh what is it that you're referring to? Right. Um and so actually even if we use try to use Ben's formulation to some extent we could say that care organizes facts, right? Okay. So, it's not so much that it's not so much that facts that your feelings organize facts, but for sure care organizes facts, which is that when I point to a fact, I have something behind the reason.

[00:12:42]There's a reason why I'm pointing to that fact. And that reason is a is a priority, right? John Viki and some of the Kogsai people they talk about relevance which is that relevance precedes facts you know if I am studying a rhino there's absolutely no reason to talk about the facts of a flower right so it's not you need to have something that frames and directs your attention towards relevance and then from that attentionality then you can discover what the facts are and you know we have some precedents. I think that in this case H highaidiger is useful for us because H highaidiger sensed that right right in the midst of modernism right in the midst of the at the height of a kind of scientism and a kind of scientific thinking he was like well there's something there's a problem here which is that the world presents itself to us right it kind of presents itself to us in this uh field of possibility and we move into this field of possibility with what he called care, right? And so that's why I like that word. I think care is a good word to understand it. That is that depending on what it is that I want or what it is that I'm that is attracting my attention for reasons, that's how the facts will organize themselves. So when I visit my friend, you know, their house is organized based on my relationship with my friend, right? I'll notice the family pictures. I'll notice, you know, how it's decorated and how it reflects, you know, uh the personality of my friend. I'll see that the table is set and that I can come and sit at the table and the the my relationship with my friend and the fact that I'm going to visit them is going to structure the facts of the house based on that purpose. Now, if I'm a thief that enters into his house, right, it's the same house, but I'm not going to see the same things as the friend does. My facts are going to get organized in a completely different set of priorities. Right? I'm going to check what's valuable. I'm going to see how do I get out of here without getting caught. And so the the field of possibility that will kind of appear to me will be get organized into other purposes.

[00:15:18]And there is an indefinite amount of possible hierarchies. You know, if you call a repair person to your house and they will have their own hierarchy of facts that they will care about. If you you know depending on who is engaging with the space there will be an indefinite amount of possible hierarchies that will structure your perception of facts. Now, some of you might say, "Oh, Jonathan, you're postmodern." Like, that means that anything's possible, that, you know, everything is true and there's no objective truth and everything is relative. And it doesn't mean that at all, right? It doesn't mean that at all because each purpose yields a true hierarchy of facts, right? The thief will order the order his perception of your house according to his purpose. And if another thief came into the house, their hierarchies will be pretty similar, you know. And so it's not a it's not about the idea that anything goes and everything is relative. It's rather that even before you look at the world, you have a given, right? There's a given that structures the way that you understand reality and that has that's something we could call relevance. That to the extent that something is relevant, it will shine to you in that relevance.

[00:16:50]And so a good way then of understanding it is that facts are always contained in a story because human purposes are framed in motion right so you you have a purpose and you move towards your purpose and that is a little story right if I'm here and the fire alarm goes off and now I need to get out of this building everything is going to get organized.

[00:17:23]The facts of this are going to change radically. All the structure of the facts are going to change radically and then everything will be either a way out or an obstacle to my way out. Uh and then and then I will go and so that's like a little story. And now again in the same way that I'm dealing with you now, you could frame that as a story, right? So there's all these things that are taken for granted that you guys are here to hear me talk and most of you know that it's not for you to talk right now because if that would happen we'd have a problem, right? And so there's a kind of coherent understanding of the purpose of the event and then this frames the way in which we organize the facts. So the best way to think about this is to think about how stories are fact compression mechanisms, right?

[00:18:17]Stories organize facts towards purposes and they squash them together in a pattern of coherence.

[00:18:27]Why? Well, first of all, so we can engage with them, right? So we can engage with the facts. So we're not lost. So we're not confused, right?

[00:18:37]Because if we and some people, you know, if like there are moments when that happens to you, when all of a sudden you find yourself in a position where the story isn't clear and then all of a sudden you're in a moment of fear and anxiety and confusion because you're trying to figure out what's going on, right? Has that ever happened to you? I'm sure it's happened to most of us. Uh, and until you res resolve that, right, until you figure out what's happening, you you're in a kind of puzzle, right? You're in a kind of of moment where you're lost and you're wandering and ultimately you find that purpose and then things kind of structure themselves coherently towards that.

[00:19:23]This is Sarah from Hamilton. The imagery of Isaiah is overwhelming. Fire, stone, seed, life, and death. What does it have to do with Christ? Join me for my course the fifth gospel to discover how to read Isaiah in terms of its native language symbolism. When we read that language along the textual structure of the book, we find the story of Christ, the God who became man to elevate man to divine glory. And we find that story both in Isaiah's most famous passages and in his most obscure ones. The course starts on June 15th and can be attended live or at your convenience. I hope to see you there.

[00:20:10]And so even if we were I'm not a materialist obviously I'm not I'm not a you know I I'm an artist and so and and I'm a Christian but we can make the argument from almost a kind of very basic almost Darwinian scientific argument about how it is that we come to these stories that we have which is that if you think of A fairy tale, for example, you kind of imagine that, I don't know, 10,000 years ago, people were telling stories, you know, around the fire, something that happened to them or something they saw.

[00:20:47]And who knows, maybe something they thought of, I don't know. Um, some stories are boring, right? And some stories are interesting.

[00:20:56]And you know that because sometimes people sometimes people at the end of their day if you ask them how your day went there are some people that when they tell you that story you forget it immediately right and you're like please stop like please end this this thing right uh and there are people that when they tell you the story of their day for some reason it hooks right it hooks into you and you remember it and if it's something that's particular that happened to them maybe you might want to tell someone else, hey, do you know what John told me today? He told me about this thing that happened to him. And then you tell the story, right? So you can imagine like 10,000 years ago, people are on a fire telling stories and then some stories are boring, just get forgotten. Some stories are interesting and then they get remembered and then some stories are retold, right? And then in the versions that are retold, some stories are some versions are interesting, some are boring, some get forgotten, some get retold. And you can imagine just an iterative process by which stories get refined, right? They get purified. They they kind of start to shine more and more and you get versions stories that are something like the myths or the fairy tales. And the thing about it is that it does it's completely unconscious. It doesn't have to be a conscious thing. You don't have to know why you find something interesting. You don't have to know why you care about something. All you need to do is care about it. All you need to do is remember it. And all you need to do is transmit it.

[00:22:34]And so even from a very basic kind of scientific point of view, you can understand that stories contain the structure of human attention, right?

[00:22:48]That stories contain in them the structure of human care. Even if you don't know why, doesn't matter. and stories that have lasted for thousands of years, for centuries, and that are still being retold.

[00:23:05]You can almost trust that there's something in that story that will be revoly of what a human cares about.

[00:23:16]And what's funny is that some of these stories, they're very weird, right? You know, uh I was thinking some I was thinking about the the story of the of Puss and Boots.

[00:23:27]It's very weird story, right? When you when you think about that story, you think why do we still have that story?

[00:23:33]You know what's going on? And the truth is that like I said, you don't really have to know. You you probably if you dive in and you take the time, you can start to tease that out. But there's something very very deep in these stories that that are almost like you could think about them as the rhythms of human attention, right? They contain the rhythm uh of human attention.

[00:23:59]And so these stories that contain the structure of human attention, they're very different from what we could call taxonomic or scientific descriptions.

[00:24:16]They're very different in their nature, the way they look, what it is that they're doing. And unless we're able to understand the difference between them, then they're going to be very mysterious to us. You know, if you grew up in a world in which someone tried to tell you that, let's say, Genesis 1 was a scientific description, it's going to become very odd to you because it's not, right? It's not a scientific description. It's a story. Scientific descriptions are not stories, right? Scientific descriptions are, you know, category, calculation, uh, you know, measurement, prediction, reproducibility. That's what scientific things care about. But the the things that are written in the Bible, for example, that's not their that's not their structure. That's not their shape. They have something else.

[00:25:12]But what's interesting to me at least is that for several centuries now sadly we've had this situation where in some ways because the scientific way of thinking was very very prominent uh there's been a dismissive attitude right towards those stories. Um but if you remember this is that as let's say scientism took over the world um at some point let's say the lack of story be be started to become apparent right and then the the incapacity to see the story in which things are structured uh became very painful and now I think we're in a moment where we can kind of see it again right and so this is by the way this is also true about science you know because science is not only the act of science but if you take the act of science and you put it in its context it's always this because there are people putting trillions of dollars into studying artificial intelligence and they're not pulling trillions of dollars into like studying the behavior of like some random insect, right? It means that even the science that's being done is always this.

[00:26:42]Sometimes it's hidden like the scientists won't necessarily tell you, but if you pull out a little bit and you look at how the science is being done, you realize that it is always framed in a human story.

[00:26:57]that the priority of what it is that humans look at and what it is they study will be based on the same care that has brought about the myths and the fairy tales, right?

[00:27:14]And so mythological stories, they have a different structure than the the scientific traditions.

[00:27:23]And one of the things they do is that they help us understand what an origin is. And this is going to be important especially, we're going to talk about the Big Bang a little later, but they help us understand what an origin is, you know, and and the really deep mythological stories. They contain in themselves the reason for the story.

[00:27:46]They kind of have in them in themselves.

[00:27:49]You can see the care that is part of the story, right? And so if you have the origin of Spider-Man, for example, which we have up here, you will realize if you look at the origin of Spider-Man, that in the origin of Spider-Man, there isn't just a description of a bunch of facts that happened. that the facts of what we describe in his origin are very well selected and they necessarily have to include a description of how things started but they also have to have in them the impetus for the story. They have the origin has to have in itself the reason why you care about it. Like why would you care about a guy who becomes like a like a spider man, right? And so in the story of the origin of Spider-Man, you'll have him getting bitten by the radioactive spider, you know, turns into a very powerful being, but you need Uncle Ben to die. Uncle Ben has to die.

[00:28:53]Why? Because that's what's going to make him into a hero, right? And if you only had a guy that had the powers of the spider, why would you care? I mean, okay, you you're like a spider. So maybe the guy's like continues to be an accountant and just basically is an accountant but has the powers of a spider, you know, and once in a while, you know, he kind of lifts heavy things or whatever, you know. Um it's like, okay, that's not interesting, you know, that's not interesting to humans. Humans don't care about that.

[00:29:20]But if we have him experience this deep this deep tragic lack of responsibility for his power, then we're like, "Oh, this is interesting, right? This is interesting." So in the origin story, you have the structure of why it is you care about it and you need to have the thrust of the story, right? And so this is true of all origins. All the origins that we describe must be like more like a seed of a plant, right? So the seed of the plant contains the pattern of the plant in it. But it also has a bit of magic in it, right? Because it's not just the pattern of the tree or the pattern of the plant. There's like a oomph. There's like a thing. There's something that drives it towards a to that drives it towards and takes it into a story, you know? And so you could you could encode let's say the the the the genetic material of a seed on a like on a on a piece of paper and like write out all the code that's very different from the seed itself because the seed has the the impetus into it. Okay.

[00:30:34]And so this is where we get to the the creation narrative in Genesis. Now the creation and narrative the creation narrative in Genesis is not a scientific text but the pro the thing that we have to get to and this is what's hard to make that leap is that it is much better than a scientific text.

[00:31:00]It contains way more than a scientific description.

[00:31:04]The the story in Genesis actually contains the scientific process in it.

[00:31:11]You ever thought about that?

[00:31:13]Right. How does the story go?

[00:31:18]God speaks reality into being, right? So God names and that name is the creation of an identity.

[00:31:29]And then once God is named, he then looks at it and then he evaluates it. Right? So he says, "Let the earth, let there be this."

[00:31:43]And then he looks and he judges whether or not what's happening is equivalent to the name that he gave. And of course, because it's God, it's always good. It's always good. But we're not idiots. We can know that as humans, let's say, lower down on the rung, like we're doing this all the time. That's what science is. science is I have a theory of how I think the world works and then I I apply the theory and it organizes the facts.

[00:32:17]Right? So I apply the theory to something, it organizes the facts for me, but then I have to look and I have to evaluate whether or not the the organization of the facts yield reality, whether or not it's a delusion, whether or not it's an illusion.

[00:32:36]So the scientist does this all the time.

[00:32:39]Proposes, looks, evaluates. Is it good? No, it's not good. Two problems. either I need to change my theory or I'm not looking at the right facts, right? I need to find a way for those two things to connect. And once they connect, then reality shines to me.

[00:32:59]So, it's very powerful because it actually has in it the very way in which consciousness looks out at the world.

[00:33:08]So, it's a meta scientific text, right?

[00:33:11]It it precedes science. It contains science in it. Um, and then not only that, but it gives the oomph, right? It tells you humans what you are. Not just what you are, but which direction you should have. It gives you a place in the world. It says a human being, which is you, which is the people that have written this text and that care about this text, what's your place in this thing?

[00:33:44]And so it it it it places it integrates human care into the story and then it gives the direction that humans should embody in the origin right in the beginning.

[00:34:00]And so if you look at the two theories, right, you'll see that the creation story has relevance in it, right? Relevance is directly inside the way that it's described. The categories that are described in Genesis have very little to do with the kind of cold biological categories that are described. If you think about even the categories of the animals that are described, the categories of the animal that are described are God creates wild animals, tame animals, and creepy crawlers. And that is not like what a biological taxonomy usually is. These are categories of relevance, right? Because there's a difference between, right?

[00:34:45]There's a difference between the animal that you eat and the animal that eats you. It's a very fundamental difference, right? the animal that you can't control and the animal that you can't control.

[00:34:56]The animal that's an extension in some ways of the human will and the animal that escapes the human will. These are true categories of relevance for humans.

[00:35:05]But like the question would be are they lesser categories?

[00:35:12]Are there lesser categories than the scientific categories?

[00:35:16]I would suggest that if a scientist doesn't follow these categories and he gets mauled by a bull or he gets eaten by a lion, there's not a lot of science that he can do, right? These categories are the primary ones. You got to follow these. Follow the categories that are described in Genesis 1 and your life will be ordered because it tells you what's relevant. You have to know if you want to not go crazy that the sun is the main light and it rules the day and the moon is the secondary light and it rules the night and you're awake when the sun is up and you go to sleep when the moon is up and you know the difference. Uh and if you you tell me, "Oh, that's just an illusion." You've heard that, right?

[00:36:07]The sun coming up in the morning is an illusion. actually, you know, it's the earth that's turning on itself. Like, that's Try to live differently and you will you'll you'll go crazy. Like, you'll lose your mind at some point. I mean, you can you can do it for a while, you know? You can twist these patterns for a little while, but you can't do it forever. At some point, you're just going to you're going to start to get very weird if you only live at night and you don't and you sleep during the day.

[00:36:32]It's things are going to get wild for you. Um and so the the big bang on the other hand describes the mechanical causes. It describes all these mechanical processes. It describes, you know, how physical forces and chemicals join together and what the things are made of, you know, and how they expanded and how much time and all of these kinds of things. And you know, I mean, it's it's useful and it's it's it's really, you know, it's nice to know. Uh, but it's definitely a secondary theory. Like it's definitely something that is lower on like if you Okay, so let's do it this way. If you don't know the things that Genesis 1 teaches you, you'll die pretty fast, right? If you don't know the things that the Big Bang teaches you, me, like you'll be you'll be okay, you know? It's it's nice to know. And if you want to like, you know, if you want to fly satellites and and you want to do the kind of technological things we do, you know, it's useful to know this stuff, but we we have to I mean, my contention is we have to flip the hierarchy. We have to switch it. We don't have to deny one for the other, but we have to change the way that we think so that the story version becomes primary and the technical descriptions becomes secondary.

[00:37:55]And we don't have to like we don't have to lose any of it.

[00:37:58]Now, the thing that's interesting is that the Big Bang Theory might change.

[00:38:04]The thing, it's weird because the thing about scientific theories is that be everybody tells us that they're the most solid thing, but they all have expiration dates, right? You know that every single scientific fact has like an expiration date in it. You don't know how long it is. You don't know like how much how long that expiration date is, but it's it it's there. And then it changes all the time. this story, the Genesis one story, that's that doesn't change. That's not going to change, right? That's that's a that's a that's a true origin.

[00:38:36]All right. Hopefully, I'm so we come back to this idea, right? Is that the factual story is contained the factual things must be contained in the story.

[00:38:49]So I like to I kind of like to replace this way like to I have this idea that the entirety of the universe that the that the the 20 I don't know three trill I don't know how many trillion galaxies are basically between the upper and the lower waters you know that that that uh that are created uh in the Genesis story it's like the whole thing and Augustine had this like intuition about that there was a I forget I think it's in city of god where he he looks around and he says like everything that I see, you know, all the stars, everything. It's it's the earth, right? It's in the earth. It's all a It's all kind of inside these these uh these more transcendent uh realities.

[00:39:32]And so, I really think that we have to reconsider a lot of the ways that we've been taught about what these stories are and what these stories are for.

[00:39:47]You've heard probably that uh myths are ideological stories. You you know what an ideological story is. So an ideological story is like why does the leopard have spots? And because we're we're naive and we're kind of, you know, we're we're we're not very intelligent.

[00:40:05]So we come up with a story to like explain why the leopard has spots which will one day be transcended by the scientific understanding, you know, of why leopards have spots. Now, and you see that in the Bible, people will say that a lot of the Bible stories are ideological. And so, you know, ancient peoples, they didn't know uh how why there were multiplicity of languages. So, they came up with a story about, you know, a city that was one language and how God punished them and now we have multiple languages, right?

[00:40:41]Um and so once you kind of understand right how the factuality is included or is a subset of the stories you realize that the ideological story has the oomph in it. Right? An ideological story isn't just a technical description of how things happened. It has that it has that life in it. It has that drive. It has that directionality and that's that's what differentiates it from just a technical description. So it's not just about naive people in the past that tried to come up with a technical description of what it is that is happening. It's because ancient peoples understood that the origin has to contain the driver for what is real.

[00:41:31]Right? And so the stat the story of Babel contains the wisdom, right? It contains the wisdom of seeing our desire or an aspect of humanity that desires unity and desires and can see that there there's some aspect of us that wants us to all be together and to have unity.

[00:41:56]But it also contains this wisdom to understand that if we had that absolute unity i.e. watch pluribus, it would lead to it would lead to decadence like it would not be possible that the world is made of unity and multiplicity and so once you see that you're like oh this story is a pattern of care right I think it happened you know I mean I can't prove it doesn't matter but I think it I think that it mostly and the reason why we remember that story rather than other stories is because it contains a very deep structure of the pattern of care that humans have, right?

[00:42:38]And so then you realize that this story is similar to other stories and that's okay. It's not a threat on this story that it's similar to other stories. So if you look for example at the story of Icarus, right? So the story of Icarus is very similar to the story of Babel that you have a character that wants to move up into the light completely, right?

[00:43:07]That wants to kind of transcend himself through his own will into absolute the absolute unity of the sun and for that reason falls down. Right? The story of Prometheus is also similar to this story. you'll find a very large number of stories that are similar to this story and that is not a threat on this story because I remember when I was young people I remember like people telling me oh well this story is is a version of some other myth and therefore it's not true what isn't it the opposite isn't it because we can see that there is a deep coherence of human care and there are universal reasons why we remember these stories universally across all cultures.

[00:43:58]That actually seems to me to be the proof that it is true, right? That it is the type of thing that we care about and therefore it would be the type of thing that we would remember and it would be the type of thing that we would retell, right? And that we would continue to transmit. And so what happens in these stories is that they because they contain this like deep pattern, you realize that they're an analogical to a lot of things that are going on in the world or that are happening in your life, right? A good way of thinking about it is that they're they're applicable, right? And it's very different because a lot of a lot of people tend to want to think of these ancient stories as metaphors, right? It's like here's a story and it's a metaphor for something else. That's not really the way that this works. Is that if you think about the the the reason why we remember it and we care about it and we transmit it means that in the structure of the story, the very structure of the story is going to be something analogous to the things you care about. And that's why you can then apply it, right? That's why when you see The European Union for example when they came together they use this image as their flagship image right the in Brussels the main building of the of the European Union is made to look like the Tower of Babel they're wrong obviously they should have watch they should have listened they should have paid attention to the story you know they should have paid attention to how the story ends but but nonetheless Les, you can see that they that they have this deep insight that this ancient story is applicable to a moment now and finds its reflections in these lower stories, the stories of your life, the stories of your day, you know, the stories that surround you that have this resonance, right? And it's a resonant structure.

[00:45:58]And you see this, you know, um I I remember when I started talking about symbolism, you know, people would be very quick to remind me that Tolken, Dr. Tokien who wrote the Lord of the Rings hated symbolism. He really didn't like symbolism and he was against symbolism. But I actually think that what I'm saying is like literally what toolkit like this is what Tolken thought. Tolken talked about applicability because he said I cordily dislike allegory in all its manifestations and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history true or fain with with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. And that's kind of what I'm saying, which is that his history has a structure. There's a reason why we remember certain facts in the story of our nation rather than others. The reason why some stories become kind of legendary and have that weight where we retell it and we remember it, right, and we honor it and we do things around it. we kind of turn around these stories is because we can see the resonance, right? We can see that in those stories there is the origin, right? There is that impetus.

[00:47:13]There's a thing that reminds us why we're part of this nation, why we're part of this church, why we're part of this family, right? That kind of that kind of bring things together. Um and so this is when you realize that to some extent all stories are mythological right or at least all the stories we tell have the same type of structures which is this and I haven't even even gone deep into what the structure of human care is. Sadly, we won't have that much time to do that here. But what you can understand is that anything that you remember is an image of human care, right? Is an image of human attention. It has to be because then you wouldn't remember it, right? There's when you walk out of this room, there are things that you will remember and there are things that you won't. Right? You might not remember that. See that little blue plate above the black one that's painted over so you don't really see it? Probably won't remember that. Well, now you will because now I pointed it out, but like naturally you would have walked out of this room and it would not at all have been uh in in your memory. You might remember a few people here, but for sure it's not because it's me, but you're definitely gonna remember me, right?

[00:48:38]Because because you came here to hear me talk. And so it's like inevitable that you'll remember that oh I went to hear Jonathan Pjo talk. You tell your friends oh I went to see Jonathan Pjo talk and I met such and such friends. You'll have a kind of coherence around you. The people around you that you know are brighter obviously than the strangers that you don't know. And the person that has is the reason behind the event is brighter even still naturally because there's this coherent thing. And so all our stories are mythological to some extent.

[00:49:11]And so, and this is where in some ways like the the title of the the talk comes into play, which is that what I'm saying has consequences in terms of psychology that is what is it that humans care about? But it also has consequences in terms of ontology which is that I am really suggesting that there's very little difference between the two is that there is no way to escape human care.

[00:49:50]There is there's no way to stand outside of human care and analyze the world without that. So it means that there is no there is no numina in the use a conscient term right that that there is no world out there that exists outside of consciousness and outside of meaning and that's why the genesis narrative is so powerful because it says that there is no world without logos right logos is the organ organizing principle of potentiality, right? And so the world is a joining of actuality and potentiality, but that happens through to use a modern term consciousness, right? It happens through, you know, ultimately as Christians, we believe that it happens through the God man, right? It happens through the incarnation that that's the key, the key that kind of holds everything together and then that's the source of reality.

[00:50:54]And so even in terms of the big bang, I kind of always joke and when people say, you know, the earth, the world is trillions of years or whatever. And I'm like, yeah, you know, maybe, but it I don't know what that measurement means outside of human consciousness. I don't know what you're talking about. Like, what are all these categories that you're using? If there's no one to see them, if there's no one to recognize them, if there's no one to measure them, they're kind of they're kind of meaningless, you know?

[00:51:21]So I kind of tend to think that that that the world is born in the human person to some extent like that is that is coagulated into human consciousness. We don't have another way of perceiving the world besides that. So I understand that that might be a bit of a stretch for some of you. Uh but at least at least you could say uh think about it. And so I have up on this on this uh slide the the famous phrase by CS Lewis uh which is that he talks about how the incarnation is the myth that came true and I obviously I have a lot of deep sympathy for CS Lewis and I totally understand why he said that but I have a little bit of a fight with him right I have a little bit of a fight with him because all of your experiences are the myth that came True, right? All of the things that you can recognize as having relevance and meaning are reflections of the deepest stories. And that's why you like them. That's why you care about them. That's why you attend to them because they are always reflections of the logos acting onto the world. Right?

[00:52:35]There's a famous saying, my favorite saying by St. Maximus the confessor who's a a 7th century uh church father and he says God is in all things and at all times working out his incarnation that is that the logos organizing the world is the fundamental principle of all of all being and so obviously that's CS Lewis is right that is in the story of Christ we have the kind of we have the uh the the the summit of storytelling, you know, and it's true that in the story of Christ, you basically have a kind of coalescence of all of these ancient stories that get pulled into one story. And in order for it to be really the the the the source of all reality, it also has to have happened, right? You need to have someone in the first century named Jesus of Nazareth that kind of incarnated all of this into into the world. Um, but I would say to be careful not to to think that it's an exception, right? It's rather the the the shiniest part, the shiniest aspect of creation that reveals how all of creation functions, right? And how all things participate in that great story.

[00:53:56]You know, heaven, the heaven and earth that's described in Genesis 1 is still real, right? There's still heaven and the heaven of heavens and there's still touhu and pure potentiality below and the world is still and always being gathered out of that potentiality into being. And so although yes the story of Genesis is describing the beginning and the origin but that beginning and that origin continues to be real uh continuously.

[00:54:30]And so, so how does this all how do this kind of all come together? Um, and it is that this vision I think like this way of thinking about the world unites something like psychology with theology.

[00:54:50]It makes them it makes them play together, right? It makes them part of the same sandbox.

[00:54:58]uh and that we can't we can't completely separate psychology especially in the sense of human perception and human care, human memory, human attention. We cannot dis we cannot pull that out of theology especially Christian theology because of the incarnation that all of this is together and so the the the the stories what they do and that's why stories are also superior to theology.

[00:55:31]I hope you think that's true right because the gospels come before the epistles. You know, I'm just saying without the gospels, there's no epistles, you know, and so I love St. Paul obviously, but without the gospels, there are no epistles. Without the story of Christ, there's no theology. There's no explanation, without the basic narrative, right? And so the the the the story is primordial because of all the things that I said because the story gives you the origin. the origin in the real way. The origin in the sense of the of the the beginning but also the drive the direction right? It it gives that movement out of which a world will unfurl. It establishes the ontology that is it establishes the hierarchy of facts and how they relate to each other and how being reveals itself in these in the in these structures. But it is also no different from epistemology. And I'm like making big radical claims here, you know, because a lot of the modern a lot, you know, a lot of the modern people will say, "Well, don't confuse ontology with epistemology."

[00:56:39]>> Like read aistic confessor. You'll see it's just all it just all kind of comes together. If you have an a theology of the logos, you realize that there is no separating uh theology uh ontology and epistemology completely.

[00:56:54]So it gives you orientation of course and then ultimately it also yields an esquetology which is that in a story and in a directionality there's always hidden a finality right and so in the origin and this is also true like of every gesture we make again the alarm goes off there's a fire right I have an origin I have an I have an ontology. I definitely have an epistemology, right?

[00:57:28]And I have an orientation which is that door. But I also have an esquetology, right? Which is there's a good towards which I'm moving. And I don't the thing is the thing about an esquetology is that you can't um you can't describe it, you know, you have to describe it in in analogical terms because you don't have it yet. So I don't completely know how my trip from here to the door is going to go, but I can I can see it enough as this glimmering light that will kind of pull me towards it. And so there is a mini esquetology in every thing we do.

[00:58:06]There's a mini esquetology in every story that we participate in, right? And ultimately that at least in in in scripture that esquetology is is described in the book of revelation or also you know in Christ's own esqueologgical statements you know about this city shining on a hill. You know that you know the image. Um but this is something that I think like I said that in some ways makes a return to mythological thinking.

[00:58:35]Not at all. It doesn't contradict science at all. There's no reason to deny any of the scientific theories.

[00:58:41]Doesn't matter. They're very useful and we need them. You know, they make medicine, they make cars, all of this good stuff. Like, we want that good stuff. Um, but to realize that that there is a kind of there's a deeper reality. And one of the I think one of the things that we've been dealing with for the past decades is at least for maybe more than decades let's say for the last 200 years is that there's been a kind of retreat of the mythological story. You know there's been a kind of shame and even a lot of Christians have been trying to really prove very hard that what they believe in isn't uh mythological.

[00:59:19]Um, and I would say embrace it, right? Embrace it because these deep stories, they're actually how the world works. They're actually how the world lays itself out. And it's the opposite of saying, well, because it's a myth, it didn't happen. It's like, no, it's actually the opposite. Because anything is happening is because it participates in these deep, deep mythological stories. So, all of the events of your life are reflections of these of these deep stories. And so um so yeah, so that's what I was hoping to share with you today and I'll be happy to uh to take questions.

[00:59:56]Thank you so much for your talk. Um I have been for the last four years a science teacher at a charter school and um I'm back here doing the master's program in education. But something that I've struggled with as a science teacher is this sort of >> fundamental disconnect between the method of science and final causality and inculcating in my students moral and theological virtues while just teaching them biology or physics. Uh might be a little bit out of your area. Um, but I've I would love to hear your thoughts on what kind of things can be incorporated into the K12 classroom to pull the mythological into the scientific.

[01:00:40]>> Yeah.

[01:00:41]>> Or um a proper way to subordinate the scientific to the mythological and the theological that doesn't sacrifice the good of either.

[01:00:51]>> Yeah. I don't think it's that I don't think it's that difficult. And the way it's not difficult is to kind of remember what I said which is honest.

[01:01:00]Honestly and truthfully you cannot separate science from technology. Even though some people pretend you can, you can't because not because theoretically you can't but because money you can't because of care because of human care.

[01:01:12]Humans care about certain things and will put money in certain things. And therefore like to present moral dilemmas you know to your students. You can do it with a with a with a thought experiment.

[01:01:25]You can say you know if humans could study a way right to to scientifically create a button that you could press where everybody in the world would immediately die. Would it be worth pursuing that scientific because it's a scientific question right? is this it's a scient can we create can we find the means by which to do that uh you know and then let them talk about it you know and then even like sometimes some of the some of the scientific developments that have already happened you know in our world that you know to ask the question about biological warfare for example or to ask questions about you know nuclear proliferation all these these these questions are are I think things that students would actually deeply uh deeply kind of uh be connected to and would immediately bring them into the sphere of asking about final causes. And it's funny because like it it kind of reflects what I'm saying is that I don't think that we can actually think of final causes outside of human consciousness. I think that that coming back into the stance of human consciousness is the way to recover final causes because all of the things that Aristotle says like they're still totally true from a human perspective, you know, and and that's still the world we live in. Like Aristotle was pretty much right. Like we just live in that world. And so I would say that that might be a way to kind of to use the the ethical problem and to kind of make them think about it.

[01:02:58]Thank you very much. Um, I was wondering about the idea of myth and how myth is true. Um, and then looking at this image, I was thinking of, well, the serpent told a myth that was false. It was lying. And it asked a question that then had Eve go through the process of, well, what if the story I was told was wrong? Um, and then the idea of the destruction that you mentioned at the beginning of there are so many stories being told in classrooms and around the world to us around us today that the the stories, the narratives are false.

[01:03:36]They're twisted. They're wrong.

[01:03:39]>> What do we do when we're not sure if what we're looking at if it's a true myth?

[01:03:44]>> Yeah. a real myth, a reliable myth, a helpful and encouraging myth, or this is a myth that's meant to twist and turn something wrong, or is that not what it is?

[01:03:55]>> No, I think No, you're absolutely right.

[01:03:57]Um, and so the the best way of understanding this is that most lies are distortions, you know, and so even in terms of the serpent, you could ask yourself the question like, was the serpent lying or was the serpent not saying enough? I tend to think that he wasn't saying enough, you know, because I would, you know, God says if you eat the fruit, you'll die. And the serpent says, "If you eat the fruit, you'll become like God."

[01:04:31]I think the answer is actually it's both, you know, and that's what Jesus did. Basically, Jesus Jesus knew that it was both and was willing to go go through both. And I think that that's often a lot of the stories that are told, they're in they're insufficient.

[01:04:48]They're actually just a little part. You know, the word heresy means choice, right? It means like just basically like a selection. And so that's usually what makes something false. And if we're wise as serpents, we'll be able to see that in fact you sometimes the best way of of facing false myths is to reintegrate them into a bigger one rather than just oppose them. Sometimes you need to obviously oppose them, but sometimes it can be smarter to integrate it into a bigger a bigger a bigger story. And I think honestly I think that that's what Jesus does, right? Because you could see that like all the stories that came before him were partially true but always insufficient and that Jesus in some ways kind of manifest this story that brings it all together. And it's very it's very true like it's very practical. A good example is the kadabases narrative which you you might know of this idea of descent into Hades, right? That you see in the ancient stories. So there's plenty of versions of that, right?

[01:05:52]There's all these different versions of descendant to Hades. If you read the Iliad, if you read the Odyssey, if you read the Anid, they all go to hell.

[01:05:59]Everybody goes to hell. Uh, and they all go down there and they they, you know, they try to free someone, they succeed or they don't. And maybe they get one person out or whatever. And so, you know, there's all these like versions of the story. Um, are they true? Well, they they're they're on to something.

[01:06:19]And then what what does Jesus do, right?

[01:06:22]Jesus does that too, right? Jesus goes down into hell and he gets everyone and that's it. The end. He goes down and he gathers and he brings everything up into the resurrection and then that's the end of the kabasas.

[01:06:40]I don't you can't tell a bigger version like what do you what do you say after that? What what story could you tell after the universal resurrection of all the dead? Like he's he's done it. Whatever these people were trying to do, he's done it, you know, until the edge. And so that's an example like Jesus's story is there's a lot of that in Christ's story where he basically takes the ancient myths and just crunches them into this this amazing thing. So I would say that especially now with a lot of the crazy, we have a crazy mythology that's out there, right? It's like a mythology of the monster is a good way of thinking about it. Like there's a there's a love of the of the of mixture and a love of of the edge, right? Um so how do we deal with that?

[01:07:26]Have to integrate it. It's better than just opposing it. That's my >> Hello. Thank you very much for your talk. I was wondering um in fighting against the machine and trying to uh talk to people about kind of the true myth and the true story in Christ, especially as one who actually does have a large following when a lot of people that have a big following these days don't believe what you do. How are you able to kind of have people listen to you um and treat you uh seriously in certain circles or have them >> There's definitely circles where I'm not treated seriously at all.

[01:08:07]>> Yeah.

[01:08:09]There are a lot of comments that are basically word salad that I'm spouting word salad which is you know it's okay.

[01:08:14]Uh I don't think it's my role to get people to listen to me. Hopefully you you know we try to say things with as much truth and as much light as we as we God you know whatever grace God has given us and then hopefully some people will hear you know I also think that everybody different people play different roles. You know, the people that I'm talking to are very different from the people that others are talking to. I'm like my the way that I speak connects to very specific types of people, you know, and that's okay.

[01:08:45]That's fine.

[01:08:53]Thank you very much for your talk. Uh could you say that original sin might be one of these true myths? It was true for Adam and Eve. It's also true for you and me and everybody's that we in effect.

[01:09:06]>> You're talking to an Orthodox guy. So, okay, tell me.

[01:09:08]>> We're going to run into we're going to we're going to run into problems really fast here.

[01:09:14]>> Problems.

[01:09:15]>> I know. But I do believe that the the the fall definitely the fall of Adam, right? And the event that happened in the garden is one which has been indefinitely reproduced through history.

[01:09:28]That's 100% sure. That's for sure. And I think that that we at every moment of our life, we are have that same temptation, right? The same temptation that Adam and Eve had in the garden, which is to to try to seize the highest things out of pride and self-sufficiency rather than submit ourselves, you know, humbly to that which transcends us. So I do think, you know, I don't want to argue about the the original sin like theology, but I think that you're right that that that story is one which is deep. It's like it's it's it's and it's it's so deep actually that I actually I actually think that um it's inscribed in our perception mechanism, right? Which is that especially the fall part which is that humans have this weird thing which is that We are able to perceive a good that we don't have and we are able to experience the gap between where we are and the good that we are aiming at. Right? We're actually and then this is a human condition. Right? Every human has this experience. Even of the most secular atheist is able to notice that which they are and that which they wish they were and experience the pain of that gap. And that's the fall that's inscribed even in our even in our own kind of perceptual mechanisms. Uh, and it's really humans that have because of self-consciousness, we're the only ones that can experience that self-conscious, you know, realization of the difference between where we are and where we'd like to be, you know.

[01:11:13]>> Hello. Um, as an artist, I'm a writer and artist, too. And I was curious, um, with all the talk about how to start with the myths are truth. It's like, okay, there are facts and we're making a story around the facts. But when you're starting out with like picking a piece or something like that, at what point do you think about, okay, here is the truth that I'm showing through this hierarchy of facts? And is there a point before that where you're just kind of sketching out and getting things together like equivalent of drafting? Um, >> mean like for a story you say? You mean >> yeah before when you're telling a story >> um do you need to start with exactly the facts and hierarchy and the things myth?

[01:12:01]>> I would say no. I would say that what often what drives us often what drives us to do things sometimes it's actually the it's the question it's like the suffering it's the it's the pain of intuiting something that's missing right and sometimes we don't actually completely know what that we don't we can't see clearly or we see like through a veil what that what that thing is and so yeah sometimes we have to kind you know, uh, you could say figure it out first and then at some point then the intuition comes. And so I agree that there is there is a there's there is a kind of um, especially at the outset of the of the creation process, there's a there's a kind of a you know, you have a you have an intuition that's not clear and to see see that clarify itself. Um, but then you can't stay in that forever.

[01:12:59]I think that's a lot of the mistake of a lot of the modern artist is that they perceive that aspect of reality which is real which is a kind of playfulness a kind of you know a kind of process uh and then they say you know it's the process not the destination. You've heard that kind of thing. It's the voyage not the destination. It's like well no that's also not true. That's that's ridiculous. Like you know it's both you know but you need the process to kind of start to see the destination appear. So, I understand as a creative person at first things are a little they're like a puzzle and you want to put the pieces together and then you start to see what the image looks like, you know. Does that make sense? Yeah.

[01:13:42]>> Hi. So, um during your talk, I was thinking the way I would describe my life is a very imperfect I'm really not very good at it, but very imperfect uh attempt to live. I would the the words that I was use I would use is according to the fact of Christ and Christ's incarnation and resurrection and I I do think like I care deeply about whether Christ whether it's a fact or not whether it's a true fact or not >> and during your talk I was thinking you were putting and if if I'm paraphrasing it wrong please correct me but you were putting it more in terms of story and so during the talk I was thinking thinking if it's a story, well, why should I live by Christ rather than by Icarus or a different story?

[01:14:34]>> And what you said later in the Q&A um was helpful and you said because Christ is the most sufficient story.

[01:14:45]But then that leads me to ask um but how do you judge which story is most sufficient? And I teach 20th century European history. And I think a lot of ideologies like the great ideologies of the 20th century are somehow stories.

[01:15:01]And I do think there stories that say Christianity is not sufficient.

[01:15:06]Um. Yeah. So >> yeah. Yeah. So a few things is one is that really you don't you they're just both there. It's both a story and factual in the case of Christ. But I'll be pretty can I say this? Like I'll be pretty bold in saying that at least in the way that we experience it, the story comes comes first in the sense that the reason why you care about the incarnation it has to be real and then that let's say the the fact that Christ is the incarnation of God in the world will yield a certain organization of facts.

[01:15:48]Do you understand? So like so for example like in scripture it doesn't describe the times that Jesus went to the bathroom which he definitely did right it doesn't describe a lot of things actually about Jesus what it does is that it it has chosen the salient relevant facts in his story that reveal the most his incarnation and they've woven that into a narrative uh that is both mythological and also factual.

[01:16:19]Does that make sense? So you and so of course the fact of the incarnation is is absolutely you can't have Christianity without that because different from other stories its factuality is part of the story right part of the story of the incarnation is that it is factual part of the story of you know part of the story of the anidad is that it's yeah it's kind of factual but you know there's a lot of game being played here and and some of the myths like the ancients didn't think they were factual in the sense of that these were things that happened, you know, at this date in the world. Um, and that was fine. But in terms of the story of Jesus, like part of the story is that it's factual. So if if it's not if it didn't happen in the world, like really you could have been there and seen him, then it's then then it's it's a lie.

[01:17:10]It would be a lie because that's part of the story.

[01:17:15]But in terms of the the I think that in terms of the fact that people have said that the story of Christianity is insufficient. I think that that's our sins really that's that's showing it's not Christ. It's it's us. It's it's the weakness of Christians and it's the fact that we have ourselves, you know, turned away from the the the the implications of the of the story and we've wanted other things and that has yielded a kind of weakness in the perception of the story even you could say.

[01:17:51]>> All right, we got time for one more question.

[01:17:55]What is the meaning of the story of the h of man discovering this cold hard uh reality be that is completely independent and uncaring of his experience? What is the meaning of that story?

[01:18:13]Well, what is the meaning of that story? And so it's it's the story of the fall, you know, you know, it's the story if you if you think about the way that the the we often don't remember that the paradise is a is a mountain.

[01:18:34]And when we talk about the fall of Adam and Eve, like they put it in your mind that actually go down like they go down the mountain, right? Right. So, they're up at the top of the mountain and then they go down the mountain and then they start to like dig up dig out dig out metals out of the earth and they start to like, you know, go start to dig out things and make things and then ultimately that leads to them. Imagine the mountain and on the edge of the mountain there's the ocean, right? So that's what they go down down down down down down and then they go into the waters like they basically go into the flood. And so the the the the the mo the modern world is looking down, you know, and forgetting to look up and getting a lot of trading power. You're trading, let's say, wisdom or value or true virtue for power, right? And it's the same thing that Cain did, right? That's what Cain does. Cain trades trades the let's say the sac the the true worship of God for power, right? He kills his brother, but then he builds a city. Those are related to each other, right? Um so this is what we're doing.

[01:19:50]It's like we're we're just like we're looking down and we're seeing that there's a lot of power there and we just keep increasing our power and we're we're reducing our understanding of why we're why we're doing that in the first place and we don't we don't really know. Um so yeah I mean it brings about brings about nihilism and it brings about death and it brings about conflict and it brings about all these things.

[01:20:17]Uh, but it's not new. We have a very particular version of that, but there's been iterations of it of it before.

[01:20:27]All right. Thank you everyone for coming out. Let's give John one more round of applause.