Ep 113: Bibliomancy! The Biblical Dance with the Devil?

00:00- The likeness of anything that creeps on the ground,

00:05the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth.

00:09- Well, that couldn't be more clear.

00:11Thank you, Bible for that.

00:14(upbeat music)

00:17- Hey everybody, I'm Dan McClellan.

00:20- And I'm Dan Beecher.

00:22- And you're listening to the Data Over Dogma podcast

00:25where we increase public access to the academic study

00:28of the Bible and religion, and combat the spread

00:31of misinformation about the same.

00:33How go things today, Dan?

00:34- Things are good, things are good.

00:36We are, if you're in our timeline,

00:40just about to set out into the second leg

00:43of our big tour, and if you're in the listeners timeline,

00:48we've gotten home, everything went great.

00:54There were definitely no problems flying,

00:58or anything like that.

00:59- No problems with the speakers, no problems

01:01with the microphones, no problems with anything.

01:04- Everything went great.

01:05- Yeah, we signed some books,

01:07we kissed some hands and shake some babies,

01:09and everybody enjoyed it, a great deal.

01:14- You know what that is?

01:16That is a prophesying, we are prophets.

01:19- Well, yeah, and provided everything does work out,

01:22then we are true prophets.

01:23- Yeah, exactly.

01:24- Which is better than a lot of folks can say

01:26who's work ended up in the Bible, but.

01:30- Yeah.

01:31- Well, speaking of the Bible,

01:33how interesting that you brought that up,

01:34because we've got a whole show about it.

01:37And one of the, so the first thing we're gonna talk about

01:41is we're gonna make you go head-to-head

01:43with one Charles Xavier Kirk.

01:46- Charlie Kirk. - Tiberius.

01:49- Charles Tiberius.

01:51- That's right.

01:52If you don't know Charlie Kirk, good, keep on not knowing him.

01:57- He's not gonna give you anything that's worth anything.

01:57- Oh, yeah.

02:01- You.

02:02- But we're gonna do a taking issue

02:06with Charlie and ethnocentrism.

02:08And then we're going to,

02:11then in the latter half of the show,

02:13we're gonna do a what is that?

02:15And we're gonna talk about Biblio Mansi.

02:19So get yourself some spooky clothes on

02:23and maybe some kovasi. - Yeah, kovasi.

02:25- Dim the lights and we'll get all kinds of spooky about it.

02:29That's gonna be a lot of fun.

02:32But first, let's take issue.

02:35(upbeat music)

02:38And the thing we're taking issue with is,

02:40there was a video that we found that had Charlie Kirk.

02:46And Charlie Kirk, what he does,

02:47he loves to go to like college campuses.

02:52And then he sits there with a microphone

02:54and he puts a microphone up for students

02:57to come up and challenge him on stuff.

03:00And inevitably, he's loaded for bear.

03:03He has been studying to have these interactions.

03:06He knows what he wants to say.

03:08And these kids are just kids.

03:10You know, this isn't their field of study.

03:12They haven't been prepping for this.

03:14So he gish gallops over them, says a whole bunch of stuff.

03:17You know, they think they're coming in hot.

03:19And then he actually has what sound

03:22like pretty good answers for them.

03:24And they get put in their place.

03:27And of course, he only releases the video

03:30of the ones that he's happy about.

03:32So this one, this particular video,

03:37he is asked about being a Christian nationalist.

03:42And specifically about how the young man

03:47that's asking in the question is self identifies as Christian

03:52and says, how do you reconcile trying to sort of,

03:57as a Christian, trying to take over the levers of power

04:03in the government when it seems like Christianity,

04:08the word of Jesus is specifically against that.

04:11- Yeah.

04:12So, and Charlie Kirk brings out Jeremiah, Jeremiah 29.

04:17- Little bullfrog right out of his pocket.

04:21Boom.

04:22And he's drunk though.

04:24He had been drinking it off a lot of wine.

04:27Yeah.

04:28- He's helpful in that way.

04:29- Yes.

04:30He cites Jeremiah 29 seven.

04:35And I forget exactly what he says about it.

04:37I actually responded to this video a bit ago on TikTok,

04:40but I wanted to just further tease out

04:42some of the implications of the way

04:44he's approaching these passages.

04:47And particularly the way he's giving weight

04:49to these passages from the Hebrew Bible

04:51and ignoring the New Testament,

04:53which is something that the young man brings up

04:55in that video, but he gets gished.

04:58- And we'll get to that because I have,

05:01when I was sort of researching the idea of ethnocentrism,

05:04yeah, the New Testament seems to be all anybody

05:10who was talking about.

05:11So it is interesting that he dove directly

05:14into the Old Testament and they do seem like

05:16they have very different takes.

05:20- Well, much of the Old Testament,

05:22there are some parts of the of the Hebrew Bible

05:24that are more universalistic in the scope of their vision.

05:29However, yeah, it's really with Christianity

05:34that you get a theological, well,

05:37an additional, more concerted theological framework

05:42for understanding the tearing down

05:46kind of these ethnic boundaries.

05:47And there are reasons for that.

05:48And that's kind of what I want to discuss,

05:50is why there's a difference

05:52and why we can't just pick and choose whichever one we want

05:56depending on what tradition we're representing.

05:58- I can too, I can pick and choose as much as I want.

06:01- Well, if we're identifying with a specific tradition

06:04and asserting the Bible as an authoritative text,

06:08then if you're going to presuppose univocality

06:12and all that kind of stuff, then at least be honest about it.

06:16Be honest about the fact that you are picking

06:19and choosing and negotiating with precisely

06:23or negotiating with the text that you imagine

06:26are all saying the same thing.

06:27But he appeals to Jeremiah 29.7.

06:30And I want to read it from the NRSVUE.

06:34I don't remember exactly how he said something

06:37along the lines of, it was like demand,

06:42demand the welfare of the country that you live in.

06:47Because in that country's welfare,

06:50you will find your welfare.

06:52And I remember the first thing I noticed

06:56is that it does not say demand.

06:58And the idea was that this is a rationalization

07:02for Christian nationalism.

07:03Well, if I am to demand the welfare,

07:06then I must be at the levers of power.

07:08I must be taking them over, or at least trying

07:11to influence them to the degree I am able to,

07:14up to and including taking over the government

07:17and making it an organ of the Christian body, yeah,

07:22the church, but I want to talk a little bit

07:26about what Jeremiah 29 is doing.

07:28'Cause in Jeremiah 27 and 28,

07:30Jeremiah is engaging with the public.

07:33This is the Babylonian exile is coming up.

07:38And apparently there are prophets that are saying,

07:44"Oh, this is gonna end real quick.

07:45"This is gonna be over with.

07:46"We're gonna have, there's gonna be peace.

07:48"Peace, peace and love."

07:50And Jeremiah is saying, (laughs)

07:53fools, this is going to be 70 years.

07:57You're not gonna have peace until the 70 years are up.

08:01And so in 29.1 it says,

08:03"These are the words of the letter

08:04"that the Prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem

08:06"to the remaining elders among the exiles,

08:08"and to the priests, the prophets,

08:10"and all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken

08:12"into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon."

08:14So the exile has already begun.

08:16I misremembered that.

08:18And thus says, "Adonai have host the God of Israel

08:22"to the exiles who might have sent into exile

08:25"from Jerusalem to Babylon.

08:27"Build houses and live in them.

08:28"Plant gardens and eat what they produce.

08:30"Take wives and have sons and daughters.

08:32"Take wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage

08:34"that they may bear sons and daughters.

08:36"Multiply there, and do not decrease."

08:39And then we get to the verse that he paraphrased.

08:42"But seek the welfare of the city

08:44"where I have sent you into exile,

08:47"and pray to Adonai on its behalf,

08:50"for in its welfare you will find your welfare."

08:54And then continuing, "For thus says Adonai have host

08:57"the God of Israel, do not let the prophets

08:58"and the diviners who are among you deceive you,

09:00"and do not listen to your dreams that you dream,

09:04"for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you

09:07"in my name.

09:07"I did not send them," says Adonai.

09:10"For thus says Adonai, "only when Babylon 70 years

09:13"are completed, will I visit you?

09:15"And I will fulfill to you my promise

09:18"and bring you back to this place."

09:20So the message is actually to these exiles,

09:23and get comfy, because you're gonna be there for a while.

09:27And so it is, don't put your bags in the corner

09:32and not unpack them.

09:34You are going to need to--

09:37- Buckle in, this is happening.

09:39- Hunker down, it's gonna be 70 years.

09:41The prophets who are telling you,

09:43"Now we're gonna fix this right away,

09:44"are all lying to you, I did not send them."

09:47And it says, "Pray for the welfare of the city

09:51"in which I've sent you as exiles,

09:54"because it is in their welfare

09:55"that you are going to find your welfare."

09:57In other words, don't pray for the city to be destroyed.

10:02You're gonna be there for 70 years.

10:03And if it's a pile of rubble,

10:05that's a crappy 70 years to be spent in there, so.

10:09- Well, and it's so weird to take this idea of pray

10:14for the place that you're in,

10:16that it's gonna do well,

10:19because if it prospers, you're gonna prosper.

10:22Yeah, how do you take that

10:24and then flip that around to this means

10:27that we should control the government ourselves.

10:31But that is, that's not even hinted at in that.

10:36- Yeah, and when Charlie says it,

10:40I think he says demand the welfare of the city.

10:45But the word there in Hebrew is darash,

10:47which means to seek, like that's not really ambiguous at all.

10:52To seek out, it is not saying you must force

10:57the welfare that you want onto the city.

11:01It's saying seek out, don't try to undermine

11:05and pray for the, 'cause the exiles are not in charge.

11:09The exiles are not going to become president.

11:12They're not storming the capital.

11:15And so it's a ridiculous misreading of the text.

11:18However, there is, I think there is something to be said for

11:23the fact that what we have in the exilic

11:27and post-exilic literature is rather ethnocentric

11:30on the part of the Judah heights,

11:33because they are circling the ethnic wagons.

11:36They are hunkering down and they are setting up

11:40firm boundaries around their ethnic identity.

11:43And that's not necessarily a bad thing, I don't think,

11:48because they are a minority ethnic group

11:51that is under significant threat of disintegration,

11:54of destruction, and they're trying to preserve

11:56this ethnic identity.

11:58And so in order to do that, you have to set up those boundaries

12:02and you have to push back against encroachment

12:04from the outside.

12:05Now that's not to say that I think in Ezra Nehemiah,

12:09we have the decree that everybody who married

12:14non- Judah height wives had to divorce them

12:17and send them away along with their children and all that.

12:20'Cause that kind of thing is an extreme example

12:25of that trying to preserve those ethnic boundaries.

12:29- Yeah, but I'm going to push back a little bit

12:31because you say that it's not necessarily a bad thing.

12:34But I think that the extreme examples are the place

12:38that those ideologies tend to go, like eventually,

12:42so often, the group that is the marginalized

12:47or the less powerful group, they say circle the wagons,

12:50they say, and that becomes their thing.

12:53We are this group, we are isolated,

12:56we don't want to be interfered with

13:00and we don't want to interfere, and then it becomes,

13:02and then that becomes like a statement of superiority

13:08or a statement of, I don't know, I think,

13:11and I think we see it in other parts of the Bible as well

13:14where the Israelites or the Hebrews come out of Egypt

13:19and then they go and they start just laying waste

13:24to all of these other ethnic groups

13:26because they have the power to do so.

13:30So I don't know, I feel like maybe I'm not okay

13:33with the idea that hunkering down in your ethnicity

13:38is, I don't know, I'm ill at ease with that idea.

13:42- Well, let's consider it further

13:45because absolutely there are ways

13:48that it can become incredibly problematic

13:50and I would suggest that it becomes most problematic,

13:53it's not the only way it becomes problematic,

13:55but I think it becomes most problematic

13:57when the systemic power asymmetries begin to even off

14:02or begin to a face and then it gets leveraged

14:07as a part of privilege and this is what Christianity did.

14:11Christianity was a marginalized and oppressed group

14:15and they were certainly circling the wagons

14:18and then they took over the Roman Empire

14:20and then they became the Roman Empire

14:23and at that point, you then have to become aware

14:27of the shift in the asymmetries.

14:29You're now on the other end of the stick

14:33and so I think that's when it becomes dangerous

14:35and phenomenally problematic to start wielding

14:40that identity aggressively and antagonistically.

14:45I think there's a defensive

14:47and there's an offensive use of this idea

14:50of ethnic boundaries and there are groups

14:54that have to defensively use those boundaries

14:57and I think that's what's going on for a lot

15:00of the Hebrew Bible, but I think there are ways

15:03that it goes, it begins to harm other people

15:06who are in even less or even more vulnerable positions.

15:10For instance, these women and these children

15:13who they have married into a Judahite household

15:17and that's the life they know

15:19and now they're just being shoved out into the street.

15:24That's incredibly problematic,

15:26but if you don't have that kind of defensive

15:31ethnic identity, then identities get destroyed

15:36and I think there's a case to make

15:39that that's not a great thing that--

15:42- Yeah, I'm of two minds, it bothers me kind of both ways.

15:46I see problems with either thing

15:50or at least potential issues.

15:52It does seem like if your ethnic group

15:57comes under attack, what else are you going to do

16:02but band together, what else are you going to do

16:04but circle the wagon, so it totally makes sense.

16:07- And a lot of times that identity is forced upon folks.

16:10- Oh yeah.

16:11- By the larger groups who are intentionally,

16:15like you get over here, you guys are all one group now

16:18and we're in charge of your group

16:21and how you understand yourselves.

16:24And so that's another example of a way

16:26that you can have a defensive reification

16:29of ethnic boundaries.

16:31- And maybe that's another problem

16:32that I have with this whole thing

16:34is that these boundaries are kind of,

16:37they're just imposed, they're just made up.

16:40Like somebody, you know what I mean?

16:42Just like the concept of race,

16:45it's just something someone came up with at some point

16:47and it doesn't have to be that meaningful

16:51but it becomes that meaningful

16:53and when it becomes meaningful

16:55and when it becomes really important,

16:58it can become deeply problematic.

17:00I don't know, I'm still grappling with this.

17:02I'm not making statements here, I'm just sort of exploring.

17:05So sorry if I sound weird or if I make a statement

17:10that you're ill at ease with, we're just exploring here.

17:14- Yeah, yeah, we're just jamming.

17:17(upbeat music)

17:21- I think the Jewish identity is an example of one

17:24that down to today has been historically

17:27on the receiving end of an awful lot of oppression

17:31and suppression and antagonism and violence.

17:34And so I would say it's, you know,

17:39they're prerogative to police the boundaries

17:41of their own ethnic identity

17:44which is one of the things that makes me so uneasy

17:46with the ideas about combating antisemitism in MAGA

17:51because they're not really trying to combat antisemitism.

17:56They're reifying antisemitism

17:59and really just trying to protect their own structures

18:03of power and the identity politics

18:06that serve the interests of white Christian nationalism.

18:10And you see a lot of tokenizing of these identities

18:15on the part of Christians who sit at the intersection

18:19of some of the most privileged and powerful social identities

18:24that have ever existed.

18:25And so when somebody like Charlie Kirk appeals to

18:29some of the more ethnocentric passages in the Hebrew Bible

18:32in an effort to try to validate the most privileged

18:36and powerful groups getting to dictate the rules

18:40to everybody else, I see that as somebody

18:43who has entirely swung the wrong way with this.

18:46Right.

18:47They have taken something that is,

18:49I think rationalizable in certain circumstances

18:53and said I'm leveraging that

18:55for an entirely different set of circumstances

18:58where I don't think it is at all defensible

19:00or appropriate in order to say Christians

19:03should be thumping their chests

19:05and be making the decisions for everybody else.

19:07Well, and that's one of the points that you make

19:09in your social media video,

19:11is that the circumstances of Jeremiah seven

19:16are not, they're not analogous to anything

19:21that's happening now.

19:22Like they're not analogous to anything

19:24in the United States.

19:25It's nothing to do with us.

19:27And no good analogy can be made there.

19:32You know what I mean?

19:34It's so him trying to export that

19:37into his own reality is just a non-starter.

19:41It's definitely wrenching it out of its context

19:41Yeah, yeah.

19:44and then trying to impose it into service

19:48for an entirely different context.

19:50And he gets called out on that by the gentleman

19:53with which he is debating who says,

19:55well, what about the New Testament?

19:59Everything is fulfilled in Christ.

20:01And the point here is that the New Testament

20:05is not an ethnically oriented corpus.

20:10Right.

20:13Christianity is supposed to have transcended

20:17those boundaries that's supposed to be for everybody.

20:20It is.

20:21This is where we get these ideas

20:23of there is neither Jew nor Greek,

20:24there is no bond nor free, all of that sort of thing.

20:27Yeah, neither male nor female Galatians 328.

20:31And yeah, that's the ideal within Christianity

20:35and Kirk just sidesteps that entirely.

20:39Of course he does.

20:40And his response is to say,

20:42what is Genesis one is less than the New Testament?

20:47And he was like, well, no, we read it

20:49through a Christological lens.

20:51And Charlie Kirk is just like,

20:53(laughing)

20:54and just flustered and is using this defense.

20:59You can't say Genesis one is less than,

21:03which is kind of silly

21:04because if you ask Charlie Kirk,

21:07what Genesis one 26 means when it says let us make,

21:12he's gonna read it through a Christological lens.

21:14Right, right.

21:15He's going to subordinate the Hebrew Bible

21:18to the New Testament in absolutely every single instance

21:22where it serves his interest to do so.

21:25And that's gonna be the default.

21:27But here when this guy says, hey, wait a minute,

21:29we're not supposed to be thinking of ourselves

21:32in our identities and our groups on those terms.

21:35And this is where JD Vance's ignorant appeal

21:39to the Ordo Amoris where you're supposed to love

21:42And then the concentric circles of importance of love.

21:42the people closest to you.

21:47Yes, and it was such a treat to have the new Pope

21:52call him out on that.

21:54(laughing)

21:57But it's kind of a similar idea.

22:00Ethnocentrism is not appropriate

22:03in any of these circumstances

22:05that the folks who are leveraging this

22:07are find themselves in.

22:10And yeah, especially not Charlie Kirk,

22:12especially not for white Christian nationalists

22:15in 21st century America.

22:18If you call yourself a Christian

22:20and if you claim to be following Jesus,

22:23the last thing you should be doing

22:25is trying to assert these ethnocentric things

22:28and appealing exclusively to Hebrew Bible passages

22:32to try to do it.

22:33I think you see a, it's Deutero Isaiah,

22:37so 2nd Isaiah, Isaiah 40 through 55,

22:40where you see what a lot of scholars

22:42call the universalization of Adonai's purview, kingdom,

22:47whatever you wanna call it,

22:50where now you don't have to be a part of the nation of Judah

22:56to enjoy the blessings of Adonai's bounty.

23:01And this is an ideal.

23:03It doesn't really take root precisely

23:06because this is coming at a time

23:09when everybody needs to circle the wagons.

23:11But the idea that God's love,

23:15God's concern, God's charity extends to all peoples

23:20and is not only for the nation of Israel,

23:23it begins in the Hebrew Bible, begins in the Exilic period.

23:27However, you have kind of competing interests

23:30because at the same time you have large empires

23:33like the Babylonian, like the Persian,

23:35like the Hellenistic, like the Roman

23:39that are coming down hard on the Judah heights

23:42and the Judean people and then the Jewish people.

23:45And so there's an effort to kind of say,

23:48yeah, it's for everybody, but hey, wait a minute,

23:51we gotta take care of ourselves

23:53so that we can live through this.

23:56And all of those dynamics are just ignored

24:01and he just rides roughshod over all of them.

24:05In the interest of trying to defend this notion

24:08that Christianity, this kind of crusades style approach

24:13to Christianity.

24:17- So let's maybe talk a little bit about what the Bible

24:22might actually have to say about the interplay

24:26between sort of politics and the religion.

24:31I mean, my mind jumps immediately to the sort of,

24:35to the render under Caesar that,

24:37which is Caesar's sort of idea.

24:39Does that mean what I think it means?

24:42And what would we say since we're viewing it

24:47through the Christological lens,

24:48what would we say is Jesus' message about that?

24:52- I think it has to do with where the positionality

24:55of the authors, because if we're talking about D,

24:58the Deuteronomistic literature,

24:59these are people who are under the employ of the king.

25:03These are people whose paycheck their wellbeing

25:06is directly tied to the wellbeing of the king

25:09and the king's household and everything like that.

25:12So they're going to advocate for the interests of the king.

25:15And if that means they're writing legislation

25:18so that the king can say,

25:19"Oh, look what I found in the temple."

25:22Oh, look at that, we've been doing it all wrong.

25:25And now we've got to change everything, dang it.

25:28Oh man, that really serves my interest, doesn't it?

25:31And-- - Did you guys know

25:32that the Lord writes in my handwriting?

25:35That's crazy.

25:36- Yeah, spells things wrong the same way, just like me.

25:41That's how they, every time I do the,

25:44I grew up learning to have your cake and eat it too

25:46in that order.

25:48And then on social media, I said it once that way.

25:51And like the world came crashing down on top of me

25:54as everybody said, "It's each your cake and have it too."

25:59'Cause the order is supposed to be important.

26:03- It means literally exactly the same thing.

26:05It doesn't matter what order you do with it.

26:07You can't have both of the things.

26:09- And there are a lot of sayings like that.

26:11Like people are like, "I could care less."

26:12And they're like, "I think you mean you couldn't care less."

26:15It's like they both work, you know what the sense is,

26:18but they identified the Unibomber based on the way

26:22he used that phrase, evidently, which is funny.

26:27He thinks he's using it right,

26:30but he uses it the way nobody likes to use it.

26:32That must be that guy, Kazinsky.

26:37So I forgot what we were talking about.

26:40We were talking about the New Testament.

26:43We were talking about the relationship

26:46of religion and politics.

26:50- Yeah.

26:51And so-

26:52- Because, I mean, like one of the things that occurs to me

26:54is you were talking about the kings

26:56and being subject to a king.

26:58Is that that's a very different setup

27:01than a, well, it's getting less different by the day.

27:06I'm trying not to get too political,

27:09but that's a very different thing than a democracy.

27:14- Yeah, and by the time of the New Testament,

27:17none of the authors of New Testament texts

27:20have any close relationship to the Roman emperor

27:23or anything like that.

27:24- Right, right, right.

27:25- They're very much on the other end of things.

27:28And so they're kind of like,

27:30eh, you don't wanna have anything to do with them.

27:33In fact, they're Satan.

27:36They're the dragon or the great whore or whatever.

27:41They're the evil empire.

27:45And so we're just this plucky little band of Jesus followers

27:49out here in the wilderness trying to get by.

27:52And so a lot of it has to do with positionality.

27:56And even in the Hebrew Bible, you have the prophets.

27:58Some of them were probably court prophets like Isaiah,

28:01but had an awful lot of bad things to say

28:03about a lot of the kings.

28:05And then you had other prophets

28:06who were probably itinerant prophets.

28:09They were probably prophets for hire.

28:11And they had even worse things to say about the king.

28:14And so it depends an awful lot on who's writing

28:17this literature, whether or not

28:20they're supporting the political power structures

28:25or are criticizing them.

28:28And by the time you get to the New Testament,

28:30it's pretty unilaterally critical.

28:32None of the folks there have a lot of political power.

28:36- Well, I mean, Jesus himself was essentially

28:38an itinerant prophet.

28:39- Yes.

28:41So yeah, he fits into that non-king slot.

28:45- Yeah, and we've talked about Romans 13 where Paul says

28:50that all this power comes from God.

28:53And basically he's just writing to the people in Rome.

28:57He thinks Jesus is coming back at any moment.

28:59And so he's like, and basically doing the same thing

29:02that Jeremiah's doing, make it easier for yourself.

29:07Don't rock the boat.

29:09Don't, I said rock the apple cart in a video one time.

29:12And I should have said, knock over the boat

29:17or something like that, just to avoid people.

29:21- But that's putting the horse before the cart.

29:24- The horse before the cookie, isn't that what it is?

29:28- So he's making a practical exhortation

29:33that you just leave them be don't cause too many problems

29:38for yourself by needling the powers that be.

29:43So when it comes to how we should be leveraging

29:47the Bible for politics today, I mean, it's a dealer's choice.

29:52Everybody's gonna do whatever serves their interests.

29:56And I think if folks who claim to be followers of Jesus

29:59think that the New Testament is inspired and an errant

30:03and has authority over the Hebrew Bible,

30:05which they overwhelmingly do,

30:06then you gotta take that position.

30:09That position comes with that hierarchy,

30:13scriptural hierarchy that you're asserting.

30:15And so I think it is disingenuous for them

30:19to be like, I'm gonna leapfrog right over the Sermon

30:22on the Mount and I'm gonna get into Ezra, Nehemiah.

30:25And that's where we're gonna be talking about

30:28the relationship that we should have

30:30with political power and with ethnic identities.

30:32And when you have as much power as you,

30:38and this was a big deal we've talked about this as well

30:41with the book of Revelation,

30:43when Christianity took over the Roman Empire,

30:45a lot of the people who now had the book of Revelation

30:48in their canon were like, huh.

30:50I think we won.

30:53I think like this is the fulfillment

30:56of the book of Revelation, isn't it?

30:58We traded places with the evil empire.

31:01We're in charge now.

31:03We did it.

31:03Yeah, and then they immediately turned

31:06to a lot of horrible, horrible things.

31:10And it's been a lot of horrible, horrible things ever since.

31:14For the folks, I think who are most concerned

31:17with what Christianity can do for their power.

31:21Right. And yeah, there's a,

31:26and a lot of people say, well, they're not real Christians.

31:29I think the history of Christianity

31:32kind of makes them the more real Christians than that.

31:36Well, and yeah, and also there's that whole Scotsman fallacy,

31:40but we don't need to do anything to that.

31:42All right, well, I think that that's fascinating.

31:46Charlie Kirk should hit the bricks or hit the books,

31:51hit something.

31:52Yeah, I think he should spend a little more time

31:54in the buildings.

31:55He's debating out front of it.

31:59He went to Harvard, didn't he?

32:02Probably.

32:03I don't know.

32:04I haven't done much looking into Charlie Kirk.

32:06I mostly try to avoid the guy as much as I do.

32:10Yeah, for your own mental health.

32:12I think that's a good idea.

32:15But I think he might have, yeah,

32:18I don't know if he went there

32:19if he finished a degree or what,

32:21but there's an awful lot of money to be made

32:23and shilling for right wing authoritarians right there.

32:27There sure is.

32:28Yeah, Jordan Peterson knows that too, so.

32:30But that's the story for another day.

32:33Okay, let's dive in then to our next topic.

32:38It's a what is that?

32:40(upbeat music)

32:43And the that that we're what is in today,

32:47everyone get a cauldron out and some sage to burn

32:52or something, 'cause we're going bibliomancy.

32:55We're divining, baby.

32:57Bibliomancy is, I don't know what,

33:00syllable supposed to be.

33:02Bible, Bible I/O man.

33:05Bible I/O man.

33:06(speaking in foreign language)

33:08Manky.

33:08(laughing)

33:10So, which would be very close to necromancy,

33:14which is consultation with the dead,

33:17which is prohibited in the Hebrew Bible.

33:22Interestingly, there are parts of the Hebrew Bible

33:26that suggest it may not be fully prohibited.

33:30Like there's a part in Deuteronomy

33:34where it says when you bring your food offerings

33:36to Adonai, make sure none of it was offered

33:40to the dead, which doesn't say,

33:43which like if you weren't supposed to offer anything

33:47to the dead anyway, like you shouldn't need

33:50to add that on there.

33:51Yeah, yeah, it seems like a thing.

33:52It almost sounds like it's like that food is just for them,

33:55that's just for the dead, whatever you bring to Adonai,

33:58it's gotta be separate food.

33:59There's no double dipping on sacrifices, you guys.

34:02Come on, you can do it to them, you can do it to him,

34:05but you can't do it to both.

34:06Gotta keep them separated as the great poet once said.

34:10And so the idea of bibliomancy is consultation

34:15with the Bible, it's a means of divination using the Bible.

34:20And this was all brought up because I stumbled

34:24across a video where somebody was,

34:28they're doing a little performance

34:29where they had a Bible in their hand like,

34:31"Lord, I really need to know what to do with my life."

34:35And then they slam it down just with their eyes closed,

34:38open it to a random page and then just put their finger down

34:41and read and he went and hanged himself.

34:45And I was like, "Ah!"

34:46And so it was supposed to be funny,

34:49but the content creator, the caption was like,

34:52"Isn't it so funny that we literally all do this?"

34:55And that's--

34:57Listen, I grew up, my people did it, that was a thing

35:01in the Mormon church that I was like the people around me.

35:06And by the way, I have in front of me.

35:09A holy Bible.

35:10A holy Bible.

35:11These are burning your skin.

35:13If you steal it from a steal a Gideon's Bible.

35:16If you stay in a hotel, these are free.

35:20So I'm gonna just launch in by doing a little man see myself.

35:25Okay, uh oh, it's Nehemiah, we got into Nehemiah chapter eight.

35:32And all the people gathered as one man into the square

35:37before the Watergate, it's about Watergate.

35:41Uh oh, wow, okay, that's obviously,

35:45I am supposed to vote for Nixon, that's what this means.

35:48Well, I don't know when he's gonna be on the ballot again,

35:51but yeah, you had your marching orders, I guess.

35:55I was really disappointed when our event in DC

35:57didn't end up being at the Watergate hotel.

36:00I think that was one of the possibilities

36:03but has it been, it's surely has been renovated since then.

36:07It can't be the same layout and everything.

36:08I don't know, I wanted to break, let's go break into it.

36:11'Cause the only, the closest I've come to actually

36:14knowing what the Watergate looks like

36:16is the scene in Forrest Gump when he's like,

36:20hey, I got some people over there.

36:22Yeah, yeah, they're in flashlights.

36:24I remember it from all the president's men,

36:27but whatever, anyway, not the point.

36:30The point is that my bibliomancy gave me nothing.

36:33Nothing helpful, anyway.

36:34Nothing helpful, anyway, yeah.

36:36And what's funny is that I, you know,

36:38I like in high school, me and all my mom and friends,

36:42we would gather around and do it,

36:44and then it was always disappointing.

36:46Yeah.

36:47Because the really, the really meaningful scriptures

36:50are kind of few and far between.

36:52Yeah.

36:53There's a lot of begats between old, between the good stuff.

36:56You know what I mean?

36:57I'm gonna do it again, hang on.

36:59Judges, chapter one.

37:02Oh no, wait, what, oh no, I'm in the end of Joshua.

37:07After these things, Joshua, the son of none,

37:10the servant of the Lord died being 110 years old.

37:14Okay, boom.

37:15This is not good.

37:16This is not helpful for me, Bible.

37:17Hang on a second.

37:23Oh, are you gonna do one?

37:25I'm gonna do one too, yeah.

37:27And like, this would be better with something digital

37:31where you could just say, just give me a random verse.

37:33In fact, I'm gonna do that.

37:34Because like if I'm flipping through,

37:36I know more or less kind of in general where I've stopped.

37:41Like I can stop closer to the end

37:43and be like, I want a new Testament verse this time.

37:45Yeah, yeah, yeah.

37:46But I'm sure that if I just go give me a random Bible verse.

37:51Boom.

37:53Randy, dailyversus.net, okay, then said Jesus to them.

37:57Again, peace be unto you as my father hath sent me,

38:00even so send I you.

38:03Yeah, that is very clearly a curated list.

38:07Yes, very clearly they want,

38:09that is gonna be a new Testament heavy.

38:12Okay, I'll try another one, see how random this is.

38:16Generate random verse.

38:18I want an actual verse, but Psalm 34, 17 through 20.

38:23The righteous cry and the Lord hearth and deliver,

38:25why is everybody using the freaking KJV

38:28and deliverth them out of all their troubles?

38:30The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart

38:33and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit many are.

38:37This is also very clearly curated.

38:39Yeah, yeah, yeah.

38:40It's four specific verses that make a sense unit, so.

38:45And of course they chose the KJV

38:47because they stole it from the hotel.

38:49Like I, I think you're allowed to.

38:52I'm pretty sure that you're allowed to take those.

38:54Okay, I just opened a thing, the giddy list.

38:58Oh really, that they're like, take it if you want it.

39:00Yeah, 'cause they have a lot of,

39:02yeah, they seem to think of it as kind of a pastoral thing

39:06as it's almost a therapeutic thing

39:08that they're providing these Bibles from people

39:10who might be in dire straits.

39:13Okay, I'm gonna hold it on the spine

39:16and then just let it fall open.

39:18Okay.

39:20Okay, it just fell down in the cover clothes.

39:23(laughs)

39:25So your verse is holy Bible.

39:27Yeah, the holy SBL Bible.

39:29Okay, oh, I think I got one.

39:31Okay.

39:33Second Peter, chapter three, verse 14.

39:35Therefore, beloved while you are waiting for these things,

39:38strive to be found by him at peace without spot or blemish.

39:43Hey, that's a good one.

39:44That wasn't even a curated one.

39:46You got a, you got a good one.

39:47I got all crap.

39:48Anyways, six or seven tries.

39:50But you know what, here's the thing.

39:52It makes sense 'cause I'm just a dirty, dirty atheist

39:55and you're the Lord's beloved Dan McClellan.

39:58Well, not if you ask my compatriots.

40:03I mean, if you ask the New York Times bestseller list,

40:06maybe, what about that?

40:08Boom.

40:09Sorry, I'm--

40:10You've puttin' it away?

40:11Eatin' a bear time tryin' to put my Bible away.

40:13Yeah, you can just put it down next to you

40:15and put it away after the show.

40:16I know how many books I have sittin' next to me right here.

40:19I don't have room for much on my desk.

40:21Just chuck it behind you, it's fine.

40:23Anyway, one of the things that's interesting

40:27about this concept of bibliomancy,

40:32when I looked it up, I found a lot of places,

40:36I found, for instance, I go back to Got Questions,

40:41which is that website that purports to give you--

40:43That's like answers and genesis or somethin', isn't it?

40:45Well, yeah, I don't know who runs it.

40:48I think they're their own thing.

40:52Anyway, they had an article about bibliomancy.

40:57And one of the things, they did do the joke about

41:00Judas went and hanged himself.

41:03And then, but then they were like,

41:05and by the way, the Bible, the God's Word,

41:09condemns all forms of divination in no uncertain terms.

41:14And to support that, they said,

41:17Deuteronomy 1810, which says,

41:19"There shall not be found among you,

41:21"anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering,

41:24"anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes

41:28"or interprets omens or a sorcerer."

41:32That's the ESV.

41:34Yeah.

41:35And then they also did a quote, they pulled up that.

41:41That means, that's actually, okay, continue.

41:45They pull up Acts.

41:46Yeah, and they're casting knuckle bones, right, for--

41:51This is the slave girl.

41:53This is Acts 16, verse 16, and it says,

41:57we were going to a place of prayer.

42:00We were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination

42:04and brought her owners much gain by fortune telling.

42:07And then, apparently, Paul eventually casts the spirit

42:11out of her, and then her owners are mad

42:14because they're not gonna get rich from her divinations.

42:19When they have to replace Judas in Acts,

42:23they cast lots for it.

42:24They gave forth their lots.

42:27Yeah, and I'm not sure, let me look up the Greek term,

42:31if the idea is they voted,

42:32or if they cast lots in the sense of rolled dice.

42:40Yeah.

42:42For it.

42:42And they cast lots.

42:44The lot fell upon someone, especially marked objects,

42:48such as a pebble, a piece of pottery,

42:50or a stick used to decide something by lot.

42:52It kind of sounds like that might be,

42:54you know, I'm not sure if the idea there is,

42:58is like drawing straws, or what it is.

43:03'Cause they cast lots for Jesus' garments as well.

43:08Yeah.

43:09And remember Lot's wife.

43:11I think they might have, the search function might have.

43:14(laughing)

43:15They cast lots for the, yeah, I am.

43:20But you have a lot of examples of types of divination

43:24in the Hebrew Bible, and perhaps in the New Testament as well.

43:29And there's a good kind and a bad kind,

43:33because when it comes to Adonai,

43:38you have your sanctions type of casting lots,

43:43whether it's using this orim vitumim,

43:46the Uriman thumbim, which the priests were supposed to use

43:49to try to divine God's will and things like that.

43:53So there were ways that were approved,

43:56and there were ways that were not approved.

43:57And it seems to me the two main factors were one,

44:01who's on the other end of this?

44:03If it's God, then that's a strike in your, not a strike.

44:07That's a check mark in your favor.

44:08Like it's more likely to be okay

44:11if you're trying to seek the will of the God of Israel.

44:15And then the other thing is the means or the method.

44:19If it's associated with people we hate,

44:21then we don't wanna do it.

44:24That's what you constantly have in Deuteronomy and elsewhere.

44:27Don't worship Adonai using the conventions and the methods

44:32that the nations around you are using.

44:33'Cause that's, we've got our own way to do our own thing.

44:36- Yeah.

44:37- But there's also, if I recall,

44:38and you can correct me on this if I'm wrong,

44:40when we talked about the necromancer

44:42on the forest moon of Endor.

44:44She, her practice of speaking to the dead,

44:53of divining by speaking to the dead,

44:56A, was effective.

44:58- Yep, it worked.

44:59- Worked, it had been banished or it had been,

45:03it had been prohibited, but just by that king,

45:08it had, was it Saul, I don't know.

45:13And so like, clearly before then, it had not been prohibited.

45:18It had been widely practiced and this person

45:20had practiced this before that with sanction.

45:25- Yeah, yeah, and it worked.

45:29- Yeah.

45:30- And then it worked that time as well,

45:32although it spooked the necromancer as well,

45:36'cause it was Samuel.

45:39Yeah, the idea doesn't seem to be,

45:41don't do it because that's all,

45:43that's all hokum and that's all pretend,

45:45make, believe stuff.

45:46It's very much. - Or even that it's,

45:47or even that it's sin.

45:49- Yeah, in and of itself,

45:50it's like there's nothing particularly considered bad

45:54about the practice in and of itself.

45:57It's the circumstances, it's the target of it,

46:00it's whether or not the actual conventions are okay or not.

46:05And so you have a lot of people today

46:09who I see all the time on social media,

46:12people getting upset about witchcraft.

46:15- Yeah.

46:16- But what's the difference between the knuckle bones

46:21or whatever the crone in Robin Hood Prince of Thieves does,

46:27and then the lady who just makes you breakfast

46:30and Robin Hood men and tights.

46:32And some dude closing his eyes and opening up the Bible

46:38and slapping his finger down on a passage.

46:41- Right.

46:42- Both of them are based on the idea that the universe

46:46is just chock full of these divine forces

46:49and God's will or the future or whatever

46:53is just inscribed all over it.

46:55And so whether it's by reading a particular passage

46:59in the Bible, they're still conceptualizing this Bible

47:03as a piece of material media that transmits or channels

47:07God's will or agency or power or even presence.

47:10And so whether someone uses the Bible

47:14to try to divine a path for their life

47:18or in an effort to try to feel God's spirit

47:20commune with the holy or whatever,

47:23they're treating the Bible like a divine image.

47:26- Right. - Which, and there's quite a bit

47:30of overlap in divination and divine imagery.

47:33A lot of people think of a divine image

47:34as just an object of worship.

47:37But it really was there to facilitate the presence

47:41of the deity for whatever required the presence

47:45of the deity, whether that was consultation,

47:47so divination or that was worship or that was what have you.

47:53Even the trying to communicate back and forth,

47:58trying to feed the deity or whatever,

48:03there were a lot of different functions

48:05that use this divine image.

48:07And because Christianity has sworn off

48:12all of the material media of worship,

48:16except for the Bible, that kind of is the grab bag

48:20that has collected all of the different means

48:25of interacting with deity have all been subsumed

48:30within that single piece of material media

48:33and an awful lot of people treat it

48:35like it is something divine, something that is superhuman.

48:40- Well, I mean, so there's another angle to it.

48:46That sort of, when you think of it in a supernatural way

48:51in a divine imagery sort of way,

48:53and by the way, I will point out

48:55that when I was sort of Googling this

48:56and when I was researching it a little bit,

48:59I found a Reddit post that was somebody asking about

49:03divination in the Bible and somebody,

49:06the first answer on the Reddit thing mentioned a,

49:11you said divine images, it mentions a book

49:13called Adonai's Divine Images, A Cognitive Approach.

49:17So I thought that that was interesting by some weirdo.

49:20I don't know, it's probably not trustworthy.

49:22Anyway, but the other thing is that a lot of forms

49:27of divination and I think now of like tarot cards.

49:30I know plenty of people who have gotten very into tarot

49:37as a thing, but not because of the actual like

49:40any kind of mystical belief about the deck

49:44or about something magical is going to happen.

49:46But rather just as a way of sort of saying,

49:48hey, does this gel with me, as a way of sort of priming

49:52the brain to think slightly differently

49:54about their situation or to refocus their themselves.

49:59- Okay.

50:01- So in that sense, I think grab a book,

50:06it doesn't have to be, you know, the Bible.

50:10- Yeah.

50:11- But there's no reason why as long as you're not thinking

50:14that you're going to, you know, get some sort of magical

50:17answer to your life's questions,

50:21it can be a thing that can prompt you

50:23in ways that are useful, in ways that are interesting

50:27to re-explore and re-imagine ideas

50:31that you've been stuck on or whatever.

50:33- Yeah, absolutely.

50:34And that's how a lot of art and a lot of what you might

50:39refer to as ritual practice is there to kind of get the,

50:44get the juices flowing out of the box a little bit

50:47and provide cues that might help you figure things out.

50:52So like, and there's a funny story.

50:56You know the song, "Chopsui" by a system of it down?

50:58- Yes.

51:00- Wake up.

51:00Grab a bus road on the makeup.

51:02- I don't know any of the lyrics.

51:04I've never understood a word of it.

51:06- Yeah, so there's a-- - Wake up and makeup.

51:08- Yeah, there's a funny story where Serge Tankian,

51:13who's the lead singer, he was, I think the producer

51:16was Rick Ross, and they were in his library

51:20or studio or office or whatever, trying to figure out

51:24how to fill a lyric to put in a space.

51:28And Rick was like, hey, grab a book off the shelf

51:30and open it up and just see what we come up with.

51:33And it was a Bible.

51:34- Okay.

51:35- I opened it up and slapped his finger down on a verse

51:38and it said, "Father, into your hands, I commend my spirit."

51:42And that is what is in the song now.

51:45And it was considered, they were like,

51:48this is inspired.

51:49And, but like, they were just doing that.

51:54They were just like, let's just kind of,

51:56you know, it's not even a brainstorming thing.

52:00It was just kind of a throw the spaghetti against the wall

52:02and see what picture it makes kind of thing.

52:04And so sometimes that's all you need to get your,

52:09you know, the creative, the thinking juice is flowing.

52:13So yeah, and a lot of people use prayer that way.

52:16Prayer is a way to just kind of center yourself

52:20and focus on what's important, what do we need?

52:24What are we grateful for as a way of just trying to

52:28take stock of your day and keep a larger,

52:33broader perspective?

52:34And so there are a lot of people who do that.

52:37It's very, it's not incredibly different from meditation.

52:41- No, as a matter of fact, I as an atheist have,

52:45you know, when I talk to people who are deconstructing

52:48and they're feeling sort of untethered

52:50and they don't even know if they believe in God anymore,

52:53but they have a deep connection to a lot of these rituals,

52:57I tell them, look, pray, there's no reason not to.

53:02And it doesn't have to be the same thing

53:06that you were doing before, but it's such a useful practice

53:09or can be, and so if it serves you to help you,

53:14focus yourself and to help you understand

53:17what questions are really present in your mind,

53:22I think it's a great idea.

53:24- Yeah.

53:25- You know, it's funny because a lot of people,

53:27like I'm so, I'm personally so like such a literal thinker

53:32and I'm not someone who appreciates magical thinking,

53:36I think it's dangerous, I don't like it at all.

53:38So when I go, when I see someone who's talked to a psychic

53:44or a medium or whatever, and they were like,

53:47oh my gosh, they were so dead on or whatever.

53:53You as someone who studied cognitive sciences,

53:58you're aware that like one of the things our brains do

54:03really well is ignore all of the things that went wrong

54:08and just focus on the things that go right.

54:10And so it's like there's something to these practices

54:14that could be actually great and useful

54:17as long as we don't try to ascribe too much power to them

54:21or pretend like they're somehow magical

54:24in ways that they probably aren't.

54:26- And I think one of the reasons that they persevere,

54:29there's an awful lot of, well, we're much closer

54:32to answers now, but a big question for a long, long time

54:37in anthropology and sociology and the study of religion

54:40was why it perseveres.

54:41And there are, one of the ideas is that,

54:50well, the main idea is that it perseveres

54:52because it serves all these social functions

54:54related to pro-sociality and stuff like that,

54:57but rituals are associated with religion

54:59and also non-religion, non-religious social practices as well.

55:04But there's a theory that you have a couple of different

55:06types of ritual, you have kind of a spectrum.

55:08On one end is what's called imagistic ritual

55:11and on the other end is called doctrinal ritual.

55:13And the imagistic ritual tends to be less frequent

55:16and it tends to be what they call higher arousal,

55:19meaning it's intense.

55:21And then the doctrinal ritual is more repetitive

55:24and it tends to be where you transmit authoritative knowledge

55:29and things like that and tends to be low arousal.

55:33- Sort of the reciting of creeds or something.

55:35- Yeah, and so there's all this fascinating research

55:39into when and why imagistic versus doctrinal rituals

55:44will become more prominent or become less prominent

55:47and a lot of it has to do with,

55:49like the imagistic rituals tend to serve the interests

55:52of the individuals because they're more intense

55:56and they generate this collective effervescence

55:58that Durkheim referred to where people are doing something

56:03together and it creates this sense of bonding.

56:06- Would that be an example of that be sort of like,

56:10like when someone goes into an ecstatic state

56:16and in a sort of Pentecostal revival sort of--

56:18- Yeah, absolutely.

56:19Like speaking in tongues when everybody's dancing

56:22or singing or chanting things like that,

56:24that's an example of that.

56:26Usually they, and it goes beyond Christianity,

56:30the fire walking and that kind of stuff.

56:33Certain kinds of like self-flagellation,

56:37certain things that rights of passage for young men

56:41or young women that can be painful and things like that,

56:43those are examples of those high arousal rituals,

56:46but the like institutions frequently want to increase

56:51the doctrinal rituals because they are more useful

56:56as identity markers and they also facilitate

57:00the greater saturation of this authoritative knowledge.

57:05That's why they're called doctrinal.

57:06And so they're-- - Which can provide

57:08a cohesion to the group.

57:11But they tend to be more boring and so you get,

57:14you get a kind of give and take and ebb and flow

57:18and Mormonism is fascinating because it takes--

57:22- Because it's all boring.

57:23- Well, yeah, but it takes, like the temple ritual

57:28is an, would be an example of an immunistic thing,

57:31which only happens once, but Mormons found a way

57:36to make it repetitive and make it something

57:39that you do a bunch and yes, make it boring.

57:44And so that's, I've always wanted-- - I take this shots out.

57:48- You can take shots out of all you want.

57:50I shouldn't take shots.

57:52- I've wanted to talk to some of the leaders of that,

57:56the thought leaders in that ritual studies field

57:59and be like, "Look into temple worship and Mormons."

58:02- Yeah, yeah, interesting.

58:03- And because it's such an interesting combination

58:06of the two different types of ritual.

58:09But when it comes to things like prayer and meditation

58:14and some of these things that people do,

58:18like there are reasons that these things persevere.

58:20It serves important functions for people's ability

58:24to identify with a group and feel connected to that group

58:28and also to kind of advance their own needs

58:33and their own interests.

58:35And so I think there's a reason that those are some

58:38of the things that are most widespread

58:40across the different religious landscapes

58:44rather than being something that you only find

58:46in one religion.

58:49- So I think what we're saying is you're allowed

58:50to just point it a part of a book and read it if you want to.

58:55- I have not seen anybody struck by lightning

58:58because of that yet.

59:00And we learned that-- - Regardless of what

59:02God questions says. - And even the folks

59:07who wag the finger at that,

59:09I think they're like less concerned about that

59:12than they are about everything else.

59:15And so even though it is something that we would,

59:18we could say, you know, there are parts of the Bible

59:20that say don't do that.

59:21We could also say there are other parts of the Bible

59:23that seem kind of on the fence about it.

59:26But yeah-- - Or they'll even promote it

59:29in some way.

59:30- Yeah, but use it as a party trick.

59:33- Yeah, have fun with it. - For sure, yeah.

59:35- Let us know if you'd come up with something interesting.

59:40- But it is a massive-- - Ask a, I'm gonna,

59:43I'll ask one final question.

59:44- Okay. - Instead, I'm gonna ask a question

59:47rather than just point at a thing.

59:49Okay, so the question is,

59:52are we correct that the second leg

59:57of the data over dogma tour will have gone

60:02swimmingly well by the time this episode airs?

60:06- The likeness of anything that creeps on the ground,

60:14the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth.

60:17- Well, that couldn't be more clear.

60:21Thank you, Bible, for that.

60:24You've been so helpful today. - So helpful.

60:28Well, that's it for the show today.

60:29If you would like to help support us

60:32as we creep on the ground and swim in the sea

60:35or whatever that verse just said,

60:39you can become one of our patrons

60:41and that's our favorite thing for you to do.

60:44Just go to patreon.com/dataoverdogma

60:48or do a search for data over dogma in there.

60:50You can sign up to be our patron.

60:52You choose at what level and then you can get access

60:57to an early and ad-free version of every show

61:00and the after party, which is bonus content every week

61:05and our patrons find out first about events

61:08that we're doing and all that sort of thing.

61:10So please feel free to go over there.

61:12If you can't afford to do that,

61:14you can still afford to give us five stars

61:16on whatever app you're listening to us on

61:18and that would be great and helpful.

61:20Go subscribe on all of the platforms,

61:23the YouTube or the whatever.

61:25And that just bumps our thing and interacting and all the things.

61:29If you want to contact us,

61:31it's contact@dataoverdogmapod.com.

61:34Thanks so much to Roger Gaudy for editing the show.

61:37Thanks to you for tuning in

61:38and we'll talk to you again next week.

61:40Bye everybody.

61:41(upbeat music)

61:44Data Over Dogma is a member of the AirWave Media Network.

61:48It is a production of Data Over Dogma Media LLC,

61:50copyright 2025, All Rights Reserved.