Podcasts about sophists

Welcome to Gnostic Insights and the Gnostic Reformation on Substack. Before I get into this week’s episode, let me tell you that the entire uninterrupted interview with Bishop Nathan Wilson of The Gnostic Union is now available on YouTube under Cyd Ropp Gnostic Insights playlist. I’ve tried and tried to upload the captioned transcript underneath the video, but neither YouTube nor my video editing software will cooperate. I can only chalk it up to Demiurgic interference, so this must be one important interview! The link is provided here to go straight to it on YouTube. Please “like” it and forward it to friends. Thanks. This week I exchanged emails with a podcast subscriber that presented me with some excellent questions prompted by recent episodes. I asked his permission to share them with you anonymously. I always treasure sincere observations and questions from subscibers because it prompts my gnosis. So here we go. Hi Cyd how's it going? I hope that all is well with you. I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed your series of podcasts with the Bishop. Very interesting to hear some stuff on the unpacking of the original Gnostic texts. I thought that today's pod about your discussion was also very revealing as somebody who loves history, but it's giving me an insight into why you are so suspicious of history—would I be right in thinking that you want your texts to be unfiltered from various historical takes from different flawed human recounters? Yes. It is a common saying that history is written by the victors. This refers to the fact that the winners of wars, both physical killing wars and more subtle ideological wars, write the narratives of their opponents from then on. This is why we have had a couple of thousand years of hearing only one side of the gnostic story and one conventionally accepted version of Christian theology. And we have heard that version from Catholic Councils of the 4th century on down through the Protestant churches of today. The surviving descriptions of the nature of gnosticism were written by those who hated gnosticism, and their work is still read and venerated to this day. And I can tell you that even in the little village I live in, the church folks who have no idea what gnosticism even is are dead set against it and dead set against my efforts of sharing my gnostic insights with them and others—and they let me know of their disapproval. I think these divisive times we are living through now also illustrate how what passes for truth is malleable and untrustworthy. We can all see for ourselves how half of the population characterizes the big picture one way and half of the population characterizes it in a completely different way—and these two sides of the ideological divide are incommensurate with each other. Incommensurate is one of those big words I learned during my graduate studies in rhetoric. It means exclusive—both can't be right—you can't hold both positions—it's either or. So if you extrapolate the culture wars forward a few hundred or a few thousand years into the future, how will history frame the disputes that are currently raging through society? If, for example, socialism finally wins out do you think capitalism will be fairly represented? The reverse is also true, and the winner of this tug of war will be the one who lives to tells the tale. My correspondent goes on to say: I think it must be very appealing to be able to narrow down everything into one text and say that we are only going to look at this one source of right thing for the true knowledge. I think this approach has led us to the Bible and the Koran and other food containers which some followers take quite literally and interpret very strictly. There must be safety and comfort in this approach which could be described as textual at best—literal and possibly in a kind way, and without any judgement, fundamentalist, in its true essence. However, and I expect you are waiting for the but… What is listening whilst listening? He continues: It did occur to me that what you are basically saying is that everything in the Tripartite Tractate is correct. And all of the other texts are interesting, though they may be not to be taken seriously because they are myths. Surely it must've occurred to you that the writer of the Tripartite Tractate was also a human, and ergo—a product of the culture that surrounded him or her? Knowing you to be such a thoughtful and perceptive person, is there something I'm missing here? What is objectively different about the Tripartite Tractate, written by a human, just like all of those other gnostic texts? I am not trying to score points here, I genuinely would like an answer. To which I respond: Truly I do not agree with everything the Tripartite Tractate says and, conversely, much of what the other books say is right, though obscured with layers and language of mythology. The difference between the Tripartite Tractate and the other gnostic texts is that it stands alone and doesn’t depend upon a preexisting mythology to make sense. By that I mean that the Tripartite Tractate is a logical argument that any Sophist would be proud of. It speaks in the language of symbolic logic rather than mythology or (purported) history. The Tripartite Tractate begins with a starting premise (a priori) that in the beginning was consciousness without form. It then proposes a method by which consciousness and its attendant qualities, such as power and love, emanate from the origin and make their way downstream into us and other living creatures. It calls the descent of consciousness a fall, but does not condemn the fall, as it was necessary to escape the purely ethereal and create matter. It describes the fall as a “presumptuous thought” choice by Mr. Rationality itself—Logos. I characterize this presumptuous thought as the first action of “ego” made independently outside of the cooperation of the Fullness. This all seems to me to be an entirely rational argument that simply describes the process of the distribution of consciousness. We don’t have to argue the originating premise because our consciousness is self-evident. We are asking where it came from and going upstream until we reach a logical a priori starting point. A lot of what I share at Gnostic Insights comes from my own Theory of Everything—A Simple Explanation of Absolutely Everything—that I conceived and wrote 20 years ago, without benefit of any gnostic texts. So that lens informs my reading of the gnostic books. And I immediately recognized my own T.O.E. when I first read the Tripartite Tractate. The Simple Explanation is written using secular, non-religious language and lots of science and math. My illustrations and charts are different than my gnostic illustrations and charts. But the master chart is identical. The Tripartite Tractate did give me an answer I had been chewing over within the Simple Explanation, that being the difference between living creatures and inert elemental matter. I appreciated that clarification and incorporated it into the Simple Explanation. Otherwise, the book still stands as True. What is meant by True in this philosophical sense is whether or not the argument is coherent and internally consistent and comports with direct observation of the world. Now, as to whether or not I believe that only the Tripartite Tractate is true gnosis and the other gnostic books are mostly mythological–that is not the way I would put it. I don't take the Tripartite Tractate as more holy than other books, and there are a couple of aspects I don't fully understand or agree with. For example, the Tripartite Tractate aligns with other gnostic books in saying that there are three types of humans—the spiritual—called the pneumatic; the ordinary, emotional type called the psychic; and the material, called the hylic. The Tripartite Tractate doesn't seem to think that the hylic types are true second order powers and that they didn't exist in the beginning and will not return to the ethereal home above after death. The final page of the Tripartite Tractate codex is riddled with burned out areas from a fire, yet it seems to say, and I'm filling in some missing words: “While the material beings will be left behind until the end to perish, for they will not give their [missing words—probably acknowledgment of the Christ or allegiance to the Christ ]… If they have returned once more to that which … [missing words—probably worships the demiurge] … in the way that they were… [missing words—probably passing as humans] while they do not exist… [missing words—probably from the beginning] but they had been useful [for the] time that they were among them, even if they are not… [missing words—probably second order powers, —possibly among creation] at first, then… [missing words—possibly they were brought forth] to do something else by means of the power they had in the establishment [to] oppose them.” [yes, I realize I am interpolating a lot of missing words. if you have a more cogent interpretation, please offer it.] This final section of the Tripartite Tractate seems to indicate there are hylics among us with whom we live and work side by side who will not be redeemed at the end of time. This holds out the possibility that there are non-second order powers among us who can pass for living beings—not an uncommon thought in gnostic circles. My brother, Bill, and I contend that all life forms come from above and contain the consciousness and life of the Source. So for a non-living creature were to be born in the usual way is an impossibility. In my mind, the only way a truly non-living hylic so-called “human” could walk among us would be in the form of robotic facsimiles. There are many examples of this in science fiction, such as the cylons of “Battlestar Galactica” and the self-aware bots in P.D. Dick's “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” which became the film called “Blade Runner.” We are now be on the threshold of building and employing these newly constructed robots who appear human, appear conscious, appear living, but are actually programmed imitations that did not exist from the beginning. (Battlestar Galactica carries this very question throughout the series as the cylons become self-aware and question their relationship with God.) If that is the case, then these could be the hylics that will not return to the ethereal because they did not come from the ethereal and the end times would need to be pushed back far enough to accommodate their undetectable assimilation into society. But hey—that's just my notion. And here at Gnostic Insights I try to stick with gnostic insights, not my wild speculations. Cylons of Battlestar Galactica television series. The cylons adapt to become more and more “human.” What is true is that I believe the Tripartite Tractate describes our existence and our origins, as well as our future. But we have to remember it is at least 2,000 year old prophecy and embedded in the language and concepts of that time. Maybe the writer was indeed anticipating androids among us, but that seems an unlikely interpretation. I have been watching quite a few “alternate history” videos lately on YouTube that propose completely different backstories and histories that stretch eons into the past—histories that could indeed have been technologically sophisticated enough to produce androids that blend in with the crowd. But we're getting way into the weeds here. One reason that most readers of the Tripartite Tractate and other gnostic texts think there is an order of unredeemable humans is that they are referred to as “those who belong to the imitation.” The most basic interpretation is that those who we call materialists are the people who only believe what they can see, measure, and taste. In that sense, they belong to the imitation since the imitation is the material projection that is this cosmos. The atheists among them do not believe in the ethereal space Above, or the originating Source, and so by default they belong to the imitation. Yet, if all living creatures are children of the Fullness above, even these will return to the Fullness at the end of time. The way I reason this comes from following the logic of emanation and return—the Fullness would not be Full without them, and it is a basic proposition that nothing of the Source can ever be lost. So you see, the logic is what drives my interpretations, logic—Logos—not mythology. At least that how it seems to me. Another aspect of the imitation is the molecular structure of our world, including our bodies. We inhabit a molecular body. Our living essence, the light of consciousness that makes organisms soft and squishy and alive, literally inhabits an otherwise dead, rocky, elemental body of molecules. So everywhere we go, it goes. And when we “die” and our spirit exits this material cosmos, our hylic body is left behind. It belongs to the imitation—get it? So in this case, the hylic human refers to the elemental molecules that make up our bodies—that inert mud that the Demiurge could not raise up to life, as the mythological version goes. So, this material aspect of our earthly existence is part of the imitation and will not return to the Fullness along with our spirits because it did not exist from the beginning. It is a product of the fall. But I digress—back to the subscriber's email: Secondly, I would like to ask you a question about giving glory to God. I liked what you were saying about turning your attention away from yourself, and your ego, and to look towards the divine and offer up a prayer. I am at the stage of my journey where this is something that does not seem so completely alien, as I am moving gradually away from materialist atheism, which has been caught on my existence for the past 50 odd years. Where I get into trouble is basically the whole business of giving glory to God, because the monad who is omniscience and immutable is hardly likely to need me to do a lot of worshipping or giving glory. This was like a bit controversial, and I'm not trying to argue in bad faith, but wouldn't the demiurge himself be more likely to want humans to give glory to him than the monad? I imagine that giving glory means something to people who have come up in a Christian background, but personally it seems completely irrelevant and unnecessary – A bit like one of those business buzzwords, you hear like synergism or government types talking about inclusiveness or diversity—a sort of empty phrase that could really mean anything you want. It would be really helpful if you could unpack it a bit for me because I'm sure I'm missing something here. Giving glory is not for the benefit of the Father. Giving glory is how we tune into the Father’s resonance. Giving glory is for our benefit, not God's. Now, the God of the Old Testament, the Demiurge—is that jealous, forgetful god that thinks it’s the be-all and end-all. It does like to receive worship and glory because it feeds its ego. But the God Above All Gods, the Father of consciousness and the ALL, doesn’t need our worship and glory—you are right about that. It is we who need to give glory, not It that needs to receive glory. The Totalities of the ALL which were the first emanations from the Son, and the Aeons of the Fullness love to give glory. The Totalities do nothing but give glory to the Father, and that is a pure expression of love and devotion to the Father. It's a good thing for us, way down here in the consciousness stream, that they give unceasing glory, because they are the first emanations out of the Son and the fountain of the consciousness and love that eventually flows into all living creatures. The Totalities that give glory continuously are like an electrical plug that stays connected to the greater originating Source. As above so below—we also connect with the Source when we give glory. And since connecting with the Source cannot be accomplished when ego rules your psyche, you must be humble enough to set your ego aside and pray to/give glory to the greater Source. Surely you recognize that your ego is a lesser being than the Father of everything. If your ego does not allow you to think that, then you are not putting your spiritual foot forward but merely your ego. Our correspondent replies: Dear Cyd As usual- I’m so impressed by your clear and reasoned thinking – it is so elegant and simple. I wish I could think like that. However, there are a few things I would like to push back on respectfully. I have been dialoguing with the Demiurge – Chat GPT – and here’s what the archonic AI came up with in answer to your firm assertion that there is no mythology in the Tripartite Tractate. It basically thinks that it’s an overstatement – and I quote: The text gives an extensive creation story involving:• an unknowable Father;• the Son and the Church;• emanated aeons inhabiting the Fullness or Pleroma;• Logos making a presumptuous, defective attempt to comprehend the Father;• the production of deficiency, psychic and material powers;• a Demiurge who creates humanity;• three fundamental classes of human beings;• and a Saviour who descends to restore what has become divided. [Cyd] Let me pop in here to correct a very important error in this demiurgic version of Gnosticism. It sneaked into its answer a very demiurgic assertion that is not True: • a Demiurge who creates humanity The Demiurge certainly did not create humanity or any other living, conscious being. The second order powers—all living beings—are children of the Aeons of the Fullness, sent down into this lifeless cosmos to remind the Demiurge of the greater power Above, the true source of life, love, and consciousness. I have a habit of calling us the children of the Fullness, but the Tripartite Tractate actually calls us the fruit or the spores of the Fullness. Which is another way of saying the emanations of discreet packages of consciousness, or what I call in Simple Explanation language units of consciousness. To me, this is not mythological but descriptive to the best of our ability. Now, back to the correspondent's email: That is all mythological material. So then it rambles on quoting lots of sources etc BUT what the machine is getting at is that the difference between the Tripartite Tractate and some other gnostic texts is that there is a solid logic framework under the superstructure of mythological language and characters.This fits in with your TOE very neatly – and it is no surprise that you had an ‘OMG’ moment when you discovered the Tripartite Tractate—I would also have thought the same if an ancient text fitted perfectly into a system of thought that I had spent years developing. And you might be right—the uncanny fit could be a ‘tell’ that this truly IS the way of everything. On the less interesting point of contention though – I must disagree with you – there IS mythology in the Tripartite Tractate superstructure – the language is mythological – maybe less so than other gnostic texts. As an aside, as a writer – I would also say -there is nothing particularly bad about being mythological either. To which I reply: I have to laugh at using Dialogue with Demiurge AI as a trustworthy source. lol. I will see your Chat GPT and raise you Microsoft CoPilot AI (poker language, I assume you recognize). My AI says this: “This work presents a restored cosmology of the Fullness — a structural, metaphysical account of creation, fracture, and restoration. It is not myth, nor allegory, nor theology in the conventional sense. It is architecture: a precise description of how consciousness, relation, and harmony operate across the three great phases of existence.” I like that description—that the Tripartite Tractate gives the metaphysical architecture of consciousness rather than a myth. I always like to take the higher, meta view of information, which is literally a step above the normal language and arguments. That’s the secret of how I observe and reconcile seemingly irreconcilable positions—by looking up above the words for the meaning behind them. It seems to me that most people are lost in the language and “can’t see the forest for the trees.” Not meaning you, necessarily, it’s just my observation of how understanding goes awry. By taking the meta approach, the concepts automatically simplify as many points of view and language choices are collapsed into their base meanings. The words I use in my Simple Explanation of gnosis and science and everything else are not written in stone. They are my attempt to convey large concepts in the simple, most recognizable forms. If I say “god” it’s because people are familiar with that term. I offer alternative words, like Source, Mother-Father, Metaverse, the Great One, the Origin, so that people will see that the particular word is less important than what it represents and that what they think of as god has a broader meaning than the meme they have been holding onto. These images from my well-worn copy of the Tripartite Tractate of The Nag Hammadi Scriptures edited by Marvin Meyer, show you the process by which I read and interpret arcane texts. I put the language into illustrated concepts and words I can recognize and understand. The writer shared this final thought from the Chat GPT: There is also a genuine philosophical difficulty: how can a perfect and harmonious divine Fullness generate an irrational act? Saying that Logos possessed the capacity to exceed his proper limits explains the mechanism only by placing the possibility of deficiency inside the supposedly perfect order. He says, I think that is actually a pretty decent question from our AI demiurge—right? I expect that you have a great answer though. To which I reply: As to the Demiurge’s new question that you have put forth in this email—that’s an old canard that is often trotted out to stump theists. “How could a good and perfect God allow for the creation of evil?” I am not at all stumped by that question. The answer can most simply be stated in two words: Free Will. If we begin with the premise that the Father/Source/etc. emanates its entire nature outward with its emanation, then obviously free will is a part of that emanation. After all, it is inarguable that the Source possesses free will. The Aeons have free will. Logos is an Aeon. Logos has free will. While the rest of the Aeons were using their free will to cooperate with each other and to glorify the Father and the Son, Logos used its free will to go in a fresh direction. Logos thought it would be going upward to rejoin the highest glory. The Tripartite Tractate says that Logos didn’t realize this was in impossibility, because no one can approach the power source that is the Origin without being annihilated. And like a magnetic polarity, Logos was repelled by the Source and was knocked out of alignment with the Fullness (the fall). This dissonance became our material cosmos. And because Logos had free will, we have free will. This all flows logically from the a priori definition of the Source. This may sound mythological, but it is not. It could be easily described in scientific terms. Like the way a beam of focused light still allows for stray photons to go off beam. Or boiling water in the kettle mostly clumps together on the top of the water as bubbles, but some bubbles go outward to the edge of the kettle and pop. And so forth. The limit is our language, not the architecture or process. The limit is also imposed by the meme bundle being held the human observer-inquirer when their memes do not allow for certain possibilities to be seen and accepted. It is our meme attachments that limit our capacity to observe and learn. So says me.

Welcome to Gnostic Insights and the Gnostic Reformation on Substack. Before I get into this week’s episode, let me tell you that the entire uninterrupted interview with Bishop Nathan Wilson of The Gnostic Union is now available on YouTube under Cyd Ropp Gnostic Insights playlist. I’ve tried and tried to upload the captioned transcript underneath the video, but neither YouTube nor my video editing software will cooperate. I can only chalk it up to Demiurgic interference, so this must be one important interview! The link is provided here to go straight to it on YouTube. Please “like” it and forward it to friends. Thanks. This week I exchanged emails with a podcast subscriber that presented me with some excellent questions prompted by recent episodes. I asked his permission to share them with you anonymously. I always treasure sincere observations and questions from subscibers because it prompts my gnosis. So here we go. Hi Cyd how's it going? I hope that all is well with you. I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed your series of podcasts with the Bishop. Very interesting to hear some stuff on the unpacking of the original Gnostic texts. I thought that today's pod about your discussion was also very revealing as somebody who loves history, but it's giving me an insight into why you are so suspicious of history—would I be right in thinking that you want your texts to be unfiltered from various historical takes from different flawed human recounters? Yes. It is a common saying that history is written by the victors. This refers to the fact that the winners of wars, both physical killing wars and more subtle ideological wars, write the narratives of their opponents from then on. This is why we have had a couple of thousand years of hearing only one side of the gnostic story and one conventionally accepted version of Christian theology. And we have heard that version from Catholic Councils of the 4th century on down through the Protestant churches of today. The surviving descriptions of the nature of gnosticism were written by those who hated gnosticism, and their work is still read and venerated to this day. And I can tell you that even in the little village I live in, the church folks who have no idea what gnosticism even is are dead set against it and dead set against my efforts of sharing my gnostic insights with them and others—and they let me know of their disapproval. I think these divisive times we are living through now also illustrate how what passes for truth is malleable and untrustworthy. We can all see for ourselves how half of the population characterizes the big picture one way and half of the population characterizes it in a completely different way—and these two sides of the ideological divide are incommensurate with each other. Incommensurate is one of those big words I learned during my graduate studies in rhetoric. It means exclusive—both can't be right—you can't hold both positions—it's either or. So if you extrapolate the culture wars forward a few hundred or a few thousand years into the future, how will history frame the disputes that are currently raging through society? If, for example, socialism finally wins out do you think capitalism will be fairly represented? The reverse is also true, and the winner of this tug of war will be the one who lives to tells the tale. My correspondent goes on to say: I think it must be very appealing to be able to narrow down everything into one text and say that we are only going to look at this one source of right thing for the true knowledge. I think this approach has led us to the Bible and the Koran and other food containers which some followers take quite literally and interpret very strictly. There must be safety and comfort in this approach which could be described as textual at best—literal and possibly in a kind way, and without any judgement, fundamentalist, in its true essence. However, and I expect you are waiting for the but… What is listening whilst listening? He continues: It did occur to me that what you are basically saying is that everything in the Tripartite Tractate is correct. And all of the other texts are interesting, though they may be not to be taken seriously because they are myths. Surely it must've occurred to you that the writer of the Tripartite Tractate was also a human, and ergo—a product of the culture that surrounded him or her? Knowing you to be such a thoughtful and perceptive person, is there something I'm missing here? What is objectively different about the Tripartite Tractate, written by a human, just like all of those other gnostic texts? I am not trying to score points here, I genuinely would like an answer. To which I respond: Truly I do not agree with everything the Tripartite Tractate says and, conversely, much of what the other books say is right, though obscured with layers and language of mythology. The difference between the Tripartite Tractate and the other gnostic texts is that it stands alone and doesn’t depend upon a preexisting mythology to make sense. By that I mean that the Tripartite Tractate is a logical argument that any Sophist would be proud of. It speaks in the language of symbolic logic rather than mythology or (purported) history. The Tripartite Tractate begins with a starting premise (a priori) that in the beginning was consciousness without form. It then proposes a method by which consciousness and its attendant qualities, such as power and love, emanate from the origin and make their way downstream into us and other living creatures. It calls the descent of consciousness a fall, but does not condemn the fall, as it was necessary to escape the purely ethereal and create matter. It describes the fall as a “presumptuous thought” choice by Mr. Rationality itself—Logos. I characterize this presumptuous thought as the first action of “ego” made independently outside of the cooperation of the Fullness. This all seems to me to be an entirely rational argument that simply describes the process of the distribution of consciousness. We don’t have to argue the originating premise because our consciousness is self-evident. We are asking where it came from and going upstream until we reach a logical a priori starting point. A lot of what I share at Gnostic Insights comes from my own Theory of Everything—A Simple Explanation of Absolutely Everything—that I conceived and wrote 20 years ago, without benefit of any gnostic texts. So that lens informs my reading of the gnostic books. And I immediately recognized my own T.O.E. when I first read the Tripartite Tractate. The Simple Explanation is written using secular, non-religious language and lots of science and math. My illustrations and charts are different than my gnostic illustrations and charts. But the master chart is identical. The Tripartite Tractate did give me an answer I had been chewing over within the Simple Explanation, that being the difference between living creatures and inert elemental matter. I appreciated that clarification and incorporated it into the Simple Explanation. Otherwise, the book still stands as True. What is meant by True in this philosophical sense is whether or not the argument is coherent and internally consistent and comports with direct observation of the world. Now, as to whether or not I believe that only the Tripartite Tractate is true gnosis and the other gnostic books are mostly mythological–that is not the way I would put it. I don't take the Tripartite Tractate as more holy than other books, and there are a couple of aspects I don't fully understand or agree with. For example, the Tripartite Tractate aligns with other gnostic books in saying that there are three types of humans—the spiritual—called the pneumatic; the ordinary, emotional type called the psychic; and the material, called the hylic. The Tripartite Tractate doesn't seem to think that the hylic types are true second order powers and that they didn't exist in the beginning and will not return to the ethereal home above after death. The final page of the Tripartite Tractate codex is riddled with burned out areas from a fire, yet it seems to say, and I'm filling in some missing words: “While the material beings will be left behind until the end to perish, for they will not give their [missing words—probably acknowledgment of the Christ or allegiance to the Christ ]… If they have returned once more to that which … [missing words—probably worships the demiurge] … in the way that they were… [missing words—probably passing as humans] while they do not exist… [missing words—probably from the beginning] but they had been useful [for the] time that they were among them, even if they are not… [missing words—probably second order powers, —possibly among creation] at first, then… [missing words—possibly they were brought forth] to do something else by means of the power they had in the establishment [to] oppose them.” [yes, I realize I am interpolating a lot of missing words. if you have a more cogent interpretation, please offer it.] This final section of the Tripartite Tractate seems to indicate there are hylics among us with whom we live and work side by side who will not be redeemed at the end of time. This holds out the possibility that there are non-second order powers among us who can pass for living beings—not an uncommon thought in gnostic circles. My brother, Bill, and I contend that all life forms come from above and contain the consciousness and life of the Source. So for a non-living creature were to be born in the usual way is an impossibility. In my mind, the only way a truly non-living hylic so-called “human” could walk among us would be in the form of robotic facsimiles. There are many examples of this in science fiction, such as the cylons of “Battlestar Galactica” and the self-aware bots in P.D. Dick's “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” which became the film called “Blade Runner.” We are now be on the threshold of building and employing these newly constructed robots who appear human, appear conscious, appear living, but are actually programmed imitations that did not exist from the beginning. (Battlestar Galactica carries this very question throughout the series as the cylons become self-aware and question their relationship with God.) If that is the case, then these could be the hylics that will not return to the ethereal because they did not come from the ethereal and the end times would need to be pushed back far enough to accommodate their undetectable assimilation into society. But hey—that's just my notion. And here at Gnostic Insights I try to stick with gnostic insights, not my wild speculations. Cylons of Battlestar Galactica television series. The cylons adapt to become more and more “human.” What is true is that I believe the Tripartite Tractate describes our existence and our origins, as well as our future. But we have to remember it is at least 2,000 year old prophecy and embedded in the language and concepts of that time. Maybe the writer was indeed anticipating androids among us, but that seems an unlikely interpretation. I have been watching quite a few “alternate history” videos lately on YouTube that propose completely different backstories and histories that stretch eons into the past—histories that could indeed have been technologically sophisticated enough to produce androids that blend in with the crowd. But we're getting way into the weeds here. One reason that most readers of the Tripartite Tractate and other gnostic texts think there is an order of unredeemable humans is that they are referred to as “those who belong to the imitation.” The most basic interpretation is that those who we call materialists are the people who only believe what they can see, measure, and taste. In that sense, they belong to the imitation since the imitation is the material projection that is this cosmos. The atheists among them do not believe in the ethereal space Above, or the originating Source, and so by default they belong to the imitation. Yet, if all living creatures are children of the Fullness above, even these will return to the Fullness at the end of time. The way I reason this comes from following the logic of emanation and return—the Fullness would not be Full without them, and it is a basic proposition that nothing of the Source can ever be lost. So you see, the logic is what drives my interpretations, logic—Logos—not mythology. At least that how it seems to me. Another aspect of the imitation is the molecular structure of our world, including our bodies. We inhabit a molecular body. Our living essence, the light of consciousness that makes organisms soft and squishy and alive, literally inhabits an otherwise dead, rocky, elemental body of molecules. So everywhere we go, it goes. And when we “die” and our spirit exits this material cosmos, our hylic body is left behind. It belongs to the imitation—get it? So in this case, the hylic human refers to the elemental molecules that make up our bodies—that inert mud that the Demiurge could not raise up to life, as the mythological version goes. So, this material aspect of our earthly existence is part of the imitation and will not return to the Fullness along with our spirits because it did not exist from the beginning. It is a product of the fall. But I digress—back to the subscriber's email: Secondly, I would like to ask you a question about giving glory to God. I liked what you were saying about turning your attention away from yourself, and your ego, and to look towards the divine and offer up a prayer. I am at the stage of my journey where this is something that does not seem so completely alien, as I am moving gradually away from materialist atheism, which has been caught on my existence for the past 50 odd years. Where I get into trouble is basically the whole business of giving glory to God, because the monad who is omniscience and immutable is hardly likely to need me to do a lot of worshipping or giving glory. This was like a bit controversial, and I'm not trying to argue in bad faith, but wouldn't the demiurge himself be more likely to want humans to give glory to him than the monad? I imagine that giving glory means something to people who have come up in a Christian background, but personally it seems completely irrelevant and unnecessary – A bit like one of those business buzzwords, you hear like synergism or government types talking about inclusiveness or diversity—a sort of empty phrase that could really mean anything you want. It would be really helpful if you could unpack it a bit for me because I'm sure I'm missing something here. Giving glory is not for the benefit of the Father. Giving glory is how we tune into the Father’s resonance. Giving glory is for our benefit, not God's. Now, the God of the Old Testament, the Demiurge—is that jealous, forgetful god that thinks it’s the be-all and end-all. It does like to receive worship and glory because it feeds its ego. But the God Above All Gods, the Father of consciousness and the ALL, doesn’t need our worship and glory—you are right about that. It is we who need to give glory, not It that needs to receive glory. The Totalities of the ALL which were the first emanations from the Son, and the Aeons of the Fullness love to give glory. The Totalities do nothing but give glory to the Father, and that is a pure expression of love and devotion to the Father. It's a good thing for us, way down here in the consciousness stream, that they give unceasing glory, because they are the first emanations out of the Son and the fountain of the consciousness and love that eventually flows into all living creatures. The Totalities that give glory continuously are like an electrical plug that stays connected to the greater originating Source. As above so below—we also connect with the Source when we give glory. And since connecting with the Source cannot be accomplished when ego rules your psyche, you must be humble enough to set your ego aside and pray to/give glory to the greater Source. Surely you recognize that your ego is a lesser being than the Father of everything. If your ego does not allow you to think that, then you are not putting your spiritual foot forward but merely your ego. Our correspondent replies: Dear Cyd As usual- I’m so impressed by your clear and reasoned thinking – it is so elegant and simple. I wish I could think like that. However, there are a few things I would like to push back on respectfully. I have been dialoguing with the Demiurge – Chat GPT – and here’s what the archonic AI came up with in answer to your firm assertion that there is no mythology in the Tripartite Tractate. It basically thinks that it’s an overstatement – and I quote: The text gives an extensive creation story involving:• an unknowable Father;• the Son and the Church;• emanated aeons inhabiting the Fullness or Pleroma;• Logos making a presumptuous, defective attempt to comprehend the Father;• the production of deficiency, psychic and material powers;• a Demiurge who creates humanity;• three fundamental classes of human beings;• and a Saviour who descends to restore what has become divided. [Cyd] Let me pop in here to correct a very important error in this demiurgic version of Gnosticism. It sneaked into its answer a very demiurgic assertion that is not True: • a Demiurge who creates humanity The Demiurge certainly did not create humanity or any other living, conscious being. The second order powers—all living beings—are children of the Aeons of the Fullness, sent down into this lifeless cosmos to remind the Demiurge of the greater power Above, the true source of life, love, and consciousness. I have a habit of calling us the children of the Fullness, but the Tripartite Tractate actually calls us the fruit or the spores of the Fullness. Which is another way of saying the emanations of discreet packages of consciousness, or what I call in Simple Explanation language units of consciousness. To me, this is not mythological but descriptive to the best of our ability. Now, back to the correspondent's email: That is all mythological material. So then it rambles on quoting lots of sources etc BUT what the machine is getting at is that the difference between the Tripartite Tractate and some other gnostic texts is that there is a solid logic framework under the superstructure of mythological language and characters.This fits in with your TOE very neatly – and it is no surprise that you had an ‘OMG’ moment when you discovered the Tripartite Tractate—I would also have thought the same if an ancient text fitted perfectly into a system of thought that I had spent years developing. And you might be right—the uncanny fit could be a ‘tell’ that this truly IS the way of everything. On the less interesting point of contention though – I must disagree with you – there IS mythology in the Tripartite Tractate superstructure – the language is mythological – maybe less so than other gnostic texts. As an aside, as a writer – I would also say -there is nothing particularly bad about being mythological either. To which I reply: I have to laugh at using Dialogue with Demiurge AI as a trustworthy source. lol. I will see your Chat GPT and raise you Microsoft CoPilot AI (poker language, I assume you recognize). My AI says this: “This work presents a restored cosmology of the Fullness — a structural, metaphysical account of creation, fracture, and restoration. It is not myth, nor allegory, nor theology in the conventional sense. It is architecture: a precise description of how consciousness, relation, and harmony operate across the three great phases of existence.” I like that description—that the Tripartite Tractate gives the metaphysical architecture of consciousness rather than a myth. I always like to take the higher, meta view of information, which is literally a step above the normal language and arguments. That’s the secret of how I observe and reconcile seemingly irreconcilable positions—by looking up above the words for the meaning behind them. It seems to me that most people are lost in the language and “can’t see the forest for the trees.” Not meaning you, necessarily, it’s just my observation of how understanding goes awry. By taking the meta approach, the concepts automatically simplify as many points of view and language choices are collapsed into their base meanings. The words I use in my Simple Explanation of gnosis and science and everything else are not written in stone. They are my attempt to convey large concepts in the simple, most recognizable forms. If I say “god” it’s because people are familiar with that term. I offer alternative words, like Source, Mother-Father, Metaverse, the Great One, the Origin, so that people will see that the particular word is less important than what it represents and that what they think of as god has a broader meaning than the meme they have been holding onto. These images from my well-worn copy of the Tripartite Tractate of The Nag Hammadi Scriptures edited by Marvin Meyer, show you the process by which I read and interpret arcane texts. I put the language into illustrated concepts and words I can recognize and understand. The writer shared this final thought from the Chat GPT: There is also a genuine philosophical difficulty: how can a perfect and harmonious divine Fullness generate an irrational act? Saying that Logos possessed the capacity to exceed his proper limits explains the mechanism only by placing the possibility of deficiency inside the supposedly perfect order. He says, I think that is actually a pretty decent question from our AI demiurge—right? I expect that you have a great answer though. To which I reply: As to the Demiurge’s new question that you have put forth in this email—that’s an old canard that is often trotted out to stump theists. “How could a good and perfect God allow for the creation of evil?” I am not at all stumped by that question. The answer can most simply be stated in two words: Free Will. If we begin with the premise that the Father/Source/etc. emanates its entire nature outward with its emanation, then obviously free will is a part of that emanation. After all, it is inarguable that the Source possesses free will. The Aeons have free will. Logos is an Aeon. Logos has free will. While the rest of the Aeons were using their free will to cooperate with each other and to glorify the Father and the Son, Logos used its free will to go in a fresh direction. Logos thought it would be going upward to rejoin the highest glory. The Tripartite Tractate says that Logos didn’t realize this was in impossibility, because no one can approach the power source that is the Origin without being annihilated. And like a magnetic polarity, Logos was repelled by the Source and was knocked out of alignment with the Fullness (the fall). This dissonance became our material cosmos. And because Logos had free will, we have free will. This all flows logically from the a priori definition of the Source. This may sound mythological, but it is not. It could be easily described in scientific terms. Like the way a beam of focused light still allows for stray photons to go off beam. Or boiling water in the kettle mostly clumps together on the top of the water as bubbles, but some bubbles go outward to the edge of the kettle and pop. And so forth. The limit is our language, not the architecture or process. The limit is also imposed by the meme bundle being held the human observer-inquirer when their memes do not allow for certain possibilities to be seen and accepted. It is our meme attachments that limit our capacity to observe and learn. So says me.

Donald Robertson is a cognitive behavioral psychotherapist, author of over nine books, and one of the founding voices in the modern Stoicism movement. He has spent over 30 years studying how ancient Greek and Roman philosophy intersects with contemporary psychology, and in this conversation we start where it all begins: the maxim carved into the temple of Apollo at Delphi. Know thyself. We explore what it actually meant, who said it, and why it still matters more than most self-help advice written in the last century.What We Dive Into:1. The Stoics drew a sharp line between what actually happens and the value judgments we add on top of it. To say something "is awful" treats our emotional reaction as a fact about the world.2. Of all the emotions that derail a life, anger gets the least attention in therapy, self-help, and honest self-reflection.3. In the ancient world, wisdom was not something you consumed or memorized. It was something you practiced daily. Collecting insights without changing your behavior is closer to what the Sophists sold than to what Socrates taught.Know Thyself, but not by yourself. A guided space to return home to yourself.https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com✨THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS:https://drinkLMNT.com/KnowThyselfTry LMNT & get a free sample pack https://www.timeline.com/KNOWTHYSELF Save 20% off your Mitopure® Gummies___________00:00 Intro01:53 Know Thyself: The Three Sayings at Delphi07:44 What Philosophy Actually Means11:17 Socrates vs. the Sophists: Wisdom vs. Appearance18:05 The Stoic U-Turn: Reorienting What We Value23:59 Self-Knowledge as a Mirror for the Soul26:59 Values Clarification and the Eulogy Exercise35:02 Ad: LMNT36:03 Eudaimonia: Flourishing, Not Just Happiness39:40 Hardship as Opportunity for Character45:31 A Brief History of Stoicism53:22 Ad: Timeline Mitopure54:33 The Stoics Were Way Ahead of Their Time59:30 Stoicism, India, and Alexander the Great1:06:31 Early Christianity and Greek Philosophy1:14:03 Marcus Aurelius: The Man Behind the Meditations1:19:17 Philosophy Born from Injury: Marcus and Donald1:32:52 Uppercase vs. Lowercase Stoicism1:38:28 The Two Phases of Emotion1:45:47 Prosoché: The Practice of Paying Attention1:50:40 Appearance vs. Reality: The Stoic Core1:56:34 Turning the Chinese Proverb into a Practice2:02:44 The View from Above and the Acropolis2:11:28 Premeditatio Malorum: Rehearsing Adversity2:17:27 Anger as Temporary Madness2:23:26 De-Romanticizing Desire2:36:58 Sophists, Rhetoric, and Modern Influencers2:44:47 Why Self-Help Isn't More Helpful2:56:17 The Socratic Method as Cure for Conceit3:13:19 The King Who Rules Himself3:17:50 The Oracle of Delphi and Socrates' Mission3:33:44 Injustice Harms the Perpetrator More3:36:51 Donald's Own Life: Philosophy as a Path3:38:46 The Eleusinian Mysteries and Marcus's Initiation3:48:21 Learning to Die as Liberation3:55:29 Marcus's Naked Soul: Transparency as Practice3:58:07 What the Stoics Taught About Love4:02:05 Rapid Fire: The Great Philosophers4:16:00 Closing Message: You Underestimate Your Resilience___________✨MORE FROM DONALD ROBERTSON↳Substack: https://donaldrobertson.substack.com/↳Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1732050.Donald_J_Robertson↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/donaldjrobertson/↳YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DonaldJRobertsonAuthor/featured↳https://donaldrobertson.name

Can transcendence still make philosophical sense after modernity? John Vervaeke speaks with philosopher William Desmond about Platonism as a living tradition, the meaning of strong transcendence, and Desmond's philosophy of the metaxu: the between. The conversation builds from John's proposal that relevance realization and transjectivity are philosophically grounded in Desmond's ontological account of the between. John begins by distinguishing modern psychological accounts of transcendence from the ancient and Platonic sense of strong transcendence. In this stronger sense, transcendence is not merely a better state of mind. It discloses truths that are otherwise unavailable and changes the knower's relation to reality. That claim challenges modern assumptions about flat ontology, the buffered self, representational cognition, and the fact-value split. Desmond responds through Plato. He presents Plato not as a dry theorist of two worlds, but as a philosophical artist of the between: a thinker of mimesis, eros, mania, dialogue, singularity, and participatory transformation. Plato's dialogues are not ornamental containers for arguments; their drama, characters, and dialogical movement are part of the philosophy itself. The later conversation opens into deep memory, imagination, eternity, possibility, God, Daoism, intercultural philosophy, pilgrimage, and the life-world. Desmond and Vervaeke converge on the need to move beyond the view from nowhere and return philosophy to transformative practice, embodied dwelling, and a richer contact with the sources of intelligibility. Key Insights Strong transcendence has epistemological and ontological significance, not only psychological benefit. The metaxu, or between, names a porous relation before, beneath, between, and beyond modern dichotomies. Modernity's fact-value split risks producing default atheism or default nihilism. Participatory knowing offers an alternative to treating cognition as internal representation of an external world. Plato's dialogical form is integral to his philosophy; the drama cannot simply be stripped away to extract arguments. Mimesis involves relation between image and original without collapsing their difference. Eros and mania point to two directions of transcendence: from below upward and from above downward. Deep memory is a source of imagination and ontological depth, not merely storage of past facts. Possibility should not be reduced to logical possibility; living possibility points toward enabling power. Pilgrimage and theoria are linked: philosophical transformation requires being on the way, not merely observing from nowhere. Timestamps 00:00 Welcome and setup 01:00 Relevance realization and the philosophy of the between 02:00 Platonism as living tradition 02:40 The need for strong transcendence 03:50 Transcendence after modernity 04:40 William Desmond introduces his work 05:00 Between system and poetics 06:00 The Western tradition as conversation partner 08:00 John's paper on strong transcendence 09:20 Psychological transcendence in modern thought 10:00 Truths disclosed through transcendence 11:00 Flat ontology and layered reality 12:30 The buffered self 14:00 Fact-value dichotomy and default atheism 15:10 Contact epistemology and participatory relation 17:20 Being realized as you realize 18:20 Anagoge and the cave 18:40 Interior, exterior, and superior transcendence 20:10 Autonomy, heteronomy, theonomy, and theosis 21:30 Desmond responds 22:00 Plato's philosophical art and the Sophist 22:30 Art, origins, and otherness 23:40 Originality, creativity, and modern art 25:20 Mimesis and the difference between image and original 28:20 Plato as thinker of the metaxu 29:00 Eros and self-transcendence 30:00 Mania and divine inspiration 31:30 Inspiration as transmission 33:20 Metaxology and Hegel 34:40 The Sophist and participatory knowing 36:40 The who of the sophist 38:10 Periagoge and the turning of the soul 39:40 Philosophy as a way of life 40:30 Exiting modernity's frame 43:20 The dialogue form is not ornamental 45:30 Socrates as an image of courage 46:20 Dialogos and method 48:00 Diaphanous logos 49:00 Singular incarnation and witness 51:10 Theoria as contemplation and pilgrimage 52:00 John's dialectic-in-dialogos practice 53:20 Anamnesis in practice 54:20 The logos beyond the participants 55:20 Deep memory and imagination 57:00 Muses, memory, and hidden springs 58:20 AI and outsourced memory 59:00 Memory as ontological depth 01:00:30 Eternity and the other to time 01:02:40 Inward otherness and ultimate otherness 01:04:50 Plato's sun and enabling light 01:06:20 Porosity and the buffered self 01:07:00 Living possibility 01:09:00 Possibility, transcendence, and God 01:10:40 What makes intelligibility intelligible? 01:11:40 Eastern and Western approaches to possibility 01:13:30 Coming to be and becoming 01:15:40 Nicholas of Cusa 01:17:00 Wu wei and giving way 01:18:20 Daoist practice and Socratic midwifery 01:20:20 Philosophical Silk Road 01:22:10 The intimate universal 01:23:20 Against philosophical tourism 01:25:30 Elemental porosity 01:26:00 Pilgrimage and practice 01:27:40 Being underway 01:29:30 Theoria as metanoetic passage 01:30:10 Symphonic language 01:34:00 The life-world 01:35:40 Rejecting the view from nowhere 01:36:20 Closing Resources William Desmond, Being and the Between William Desmond, Ethics and the Between William Desmond, God and the Between William Desmond, Art, Origins, Otherness: Between Philosophy and Art Plato, Symposium, Ion, Sophist, Republic, and Laches Plotinus and Proclus Hegel Charles Taylor Catherine Pickstock, Aspects of Truth Paul Tillich Thomas Aquinas Nicholas of Cusa Pierre Hadot Henry Corbin Frank, Gleiser, and Thompson, The Blind Spot Follow John Vervaeke: Website: https://johnvervaeke.com/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@johnvervaeke/videos X: https://x.com/DrJohnVervaeke Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/johnvervaeke

Keegan Kjeldsen hosts The Nietzsche Podcast and the Untimely Reflections (essentialsalts) YouTube channel — a deep four-year project working through Nietzsche, his forerunners back to the ancient world, and his afterlives in 20th- and 21st-century thought. He's also a doom metal guitarist with Destroyer of Light and Slumbering Sun, and the author of The Ritual Madness of Rock & Roll, a memoir-meets-aesthetics inquiry written on the road through Europe.________________I sat down with Keegan to work through his concept of übermodernism — what's “over and above” modernism, in the same Nietzschean spirit as the Übermensch is over and above man. We trace the history of “the modern” all the way back to Petrarch in the 14th century, work through Nietzsche's perspectivism and his critique of the genealogical fallacy, and ask where the next modernism is meant to come from. A conversation for anyone tired of fighting over whether Nietzsche belongs to the right, the left, or the postmodernists.

In their second episode featuring the works of modern Platonist Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947), James Myers and Michael Fitzpatrick brought Plato into the 21st century through Whitehead's perspectives as a mathematician and philosopher. The discussion relates Whitehead's perspectives to many of Plato's dialogues, including The Sophist, The Timaeus, The Republic, The Parmenides, and The Philebus.Writing his landmark work Process and Reality during the years when quantum mechanics and general relativity were discovered, Whitehead's philosophy of organism treats the universe as a web of interconnected processes and changes. Whitehead applied the logic of Plato's writing from 2,400 years ago to identify crucial connections in the web and, by following their paths, he related concepts in general relativity and quantum mechanics to the universe as an organism. From Whitehead's perspective, there was clear logic for an eternal co-dependency of the infinite universe and the finite connections within its web.The mathematician had much to say about the nature of time, which was a prominent in the episode's discussion. To Whitehead, time was not linear but circular, and likewise Plato's character Timaeus described the universe as spherical. Timaeus also stated that the changes we see everywhere around us are in a “moving image of eternity, moving according to number, of eternity remaining in unity.” The appeal of Timaeus' perspective to a mathematician becomes even more obvious in the character's next statement: “This number, of course, is what we now call 'time'.”Can science and philosophy be reunited? If ever there was a time for such unity, the time is now, and Whitehead paved the way to connecting ancient principles with the discoveries of Albert Einstein and Nils Bohr that have transformed the modern world.

Send us Fan MailTwo ways to support the show and unlock bonus episodes:Download and subscribe to Ekho: ancientlanguage.com/ekho/Subscribe to New Humanists+ for bonus episodes: buzzsprout.com/1791279/subscribeIn his comedy Clouds, Aristophanes turns Socrates into the arch-sophist of Athens: financially voracious, obsessed with verbal trickery, and preoccupied with irrelevant investigations. In most of the dialogues written by his student Plato, however, Socrates is not an arch-sophist, but the archenemy of the sophists: unmotivated by money, able to disarm their semantic wordplay, and concerned above all with living a virtuous life. That is what makes the Euthydemus dialogue so fascinating. In this Platonic dialogue, Socrates meets his friend Crito, and in an enthusiastic fluster, he tells Crito that the two of them simply must go become the students of the two sophists who are visiting Athens. In order to convince his skeptical friend, Socrates recounts his conversation with them, and the sometimes bizarre demonstration of their supposed wisdom. Dr. David Talcott, Fellow of Philosophy and Graduate Dean at New Saint Andrews College, joins Jonathan and Ryan to discuss the dialogue, and what it shows us about the role of education and philosophy in political life, and to draw some parallels with other Socratic dialogues.Plato's Euthydemus: https://scaife.perseus.org/library/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0059.tlg021/H.I. Marrou's A History of Education in Antiquity: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780299088149New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.comSupport the show

In this Sunday Morning Live on 8 March 2026, Stefan Molyneux takes aim at the sophists who chip away at genuine philosophy and any serious engagement with society. He talks about handling anxiety and financial insecurity, stressing the need for practical preparation and inner resilience rather than wishful thinking. The conversation turns to justice and morality when he responds to a listener's provocative view on redemption, pushing back with his usual insistence on clarity and consistency in moral reasoning. Throughout, he urges people to pursue real philosophical understanding and points them toward his materials as a way to engage in honest, searching discussion.GET FREEDOMAIN MERCH! https://shop.freedomain.com/SUBSCRIBE TO ME ON X! https://x.com/StefanMolyneuxFollow me on Youtube! https://www.youtube.com/@freedomain1GET MY NEW BOOK 'PEACEFUL PARENTING', THE INTERACTIVE PEACEFUL PARENTING AI, AND THE FULL AUDIOBOOK!https://peacefulparenting.com/Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!Subscribers get 12 HOURS on the "Truth About the French Revolution," multiple interactive multi-lingual philosophy AIs trained on thousands of hours of my material - as well as AIs for Real-Time Relationships, Bitcoin, Peaceful Parenting, and Call-In Shows!You also receive private livestreams, HUNDREDS of exclusive premium shows, early release podcasts, the 22 Part History of Philosophers series and much more!See you soon!https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/UPB2025

Welcome to Meaning-Making 101 where we explore the crisis of meaning in our world today, and how we may help usher in an awakening from it. This Episode: "The Death of Debate Pt. 2: How Greek Philosophers Created Western Civilization",  @DadSavesAmerica  host John Papola launches a six-part series, 2 years in the making, to examine the assault on America's tradition of open public debate.The series highlights the shocking assassination of Charlie Kirk during a college campus event in September as a stark symbol of this decline, with examples from ancient history as well as modern debates, where speech is increasingly treated as violence. It then dives into what the host calls the most insidious symptom: the corruption of high school debate programs.Focusing on the National Speech & Debate Association (NSDA), the video explores claims of Marxist/far-left infiltration, biased judges, woke influences, and a shift away from merit-based argumentation toward identity politics and critical theory—undermining the training ground for future civic leaders like politicians, lawyers, and journalists.Video covered in this episode: https://youtu.be/Zt472LaVUsE?si=H82-f2QGTLOlxUCLGood News Roundup Source: https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/ Disclaimer: This show may include copyrighted material for educational purposes that are intended to fall under the "fair use" guidelines of Section 107 of the Copyright Act. The content is used for commentary, critique, and educational insights. All rights to the original content belong to their respective owners. If you have any concerns about the use of your material, please reach out to us directly. Join Actuali in podcast land! Links to Spotify, Apple, & more: @ https://Anchor.fm/Actuali Become a part of our community: https://facebook.com/actuali.podcast https://instagram.com/actuali.podcast https://X.com/actuali_podcast https://rumble.com/user/Actuali Thanks for listening!#TheDeathOfDebate #CharlieKirk #CharlieKirkAssassination #MarxistInfiltration #FreeSpeech #WokeIdeology #reactionvideo #RIPCharlieKirk #TurningPointUSA #CultureWar

Send us a textThe classical education revival movement began in the 1980s as a DIY, grassroots attempt to recover the medieval liberal arts, most notably the Trivium of grammar, logic, and rhetoric. However, the classical ed movement also frequently drapes itself in the garb of Plato: leading students out of the cave, employing Socratic techniques in the classroom, and ensuring its students do not lead unexamined lives. But what if classical education, both in its love for the Trivium (and Quadrivium) as well as its institutional character, borrows more from the great enemy and rival of Socrates - sophistry? In this episode, Jonathan and Ryan read H.I. Marrou's chapter from A History of Education in Antiquity on the sophists and the birth of classical education proper.Henri-Irénée Marrou's A History of Education in Antiquity: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780299088149Plato's Symposium: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780521682985New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

Send us a textWelcome to a special bonus episode. I shall be posting several bonus episodes over the next week or so whilst I work on our next season together, in which I return to the New Testament and begin our study through Paul's 2nd letter to the church at Corinth. In this episode, we are reposting an episode I originally posted on 10th November 2024,  one of a series on ancient philosophy and its influence on the early Christian worldview. In it, I examine how the life and teachings of Socrates, one of history's most iconic philosophers, laid the groundwork for the reception and dissemination of the Christian message. I examine the early Greek Pre-Socratic philosophers and Sophists, as well as the transformative impact of Socrates, and the pivotal role of 1st-century Rome and the Pax Romana in the rise of Christianity. The aim of this episode is to offer insights into the historical and philosophical context that shaped the world in which Christianity emerged.I hope you enjoy it.The Balance of GrayFaith That Challenges. Conversations that Matter. Laughs included. Subscribe Now!Listen on: Apple Podcasts SpotifySupport the showTo listen to my monthly church history podcast, subscribe at; https://thehistoryofthechristianchurch.buzzsprout.com For an ad-free version of my podcasts plus the opportunity to enjoy hours of exclusive content and two bonus episodes a month whilst also helping keep the Bible Project Daily Podcast free for listeners everywhere support me at;|PatreonSupport me to continue making great content for listeners everywhere.https://thebibleproject.buzzsprout.com

Sorry (not sorry), it's back to Plato's Apology this week for round two. This time the guys tackle the nature of the elenchus—the method of question and answer that Socrates uses to get closer to the ‘truth' and refute arguments of his interlocturos. How does it show up in the Apology itself? Is the elenchtic method a useful ‘truth-finding' tool orjust a manipulative tactic not that far from what the Sophists peddled? Where does Socrates end and Plato begin? And how might this affect your opinion of the chalupa? We also turn to the great Gregory Vlastos for help as well as  examining Socrates' beef with the craftsmen. Be sure to listen for the magic word for the great Hackett giveaway.

Historian Daniel Immerwahr eviscerates RFK Jr. as a master of glib misinformation—“profoundly informed,” yet wielding that knowledge in bad faith to undermine truth and public trust. Kennedy is the conductor of an orchestra of error. Also discussed: how science became political dogma during COVID, how Fauci's certainty helped fuel backlash, and why a provocateur like Kennedy thrives in epistemological gray zones. Also on the show: Trump's obscure-commission chess moves, as he "Truths" his way through any Epstein flak. Produced by Corey Wara Production Coordinator Ashley Khan Email us at ⁠⁠⁠⁠thegist@mikepesca.com⁠⁠⁠⁠ To advertise on the show, contact ⁠⁠⁠⁠ad-sales@libsyn.com⁠⁠⁠⁠ or visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://advertising.libsyn.com/TheGist⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe to The Gist: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://subscribe.mikepesca.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe to The Gist Youtube Page: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4_bh0wHgk2YfpKf4rg40_g⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe to The Gist Instagram Page: ⁠⁠⁠⁠GIST INSTAGRAM⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow The Gist List at: ⁠⁠⁠⁠Pesca⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠Profundities | Mike Pesca | Substack⁠⁠⁠⁠

In our attention-economy wisdom has now become content - ready-made for monetization! Socrates warned against this trend long ago! 

After a pause, The Philosopher & The News is back! In fact, we have been back since last September of 2024, in the form of a series of live online events in partnership with The Philosopher journal that have then featured in The Philosopher's YouTube Channel. But  we thought it's about time we updated our usual podcast channel too. In this episode I spoke with Robin Reams about The Power of Rhetoric in Polarized Times less than a month before the US election. Did Trump manage to get elected once again using the rhetorical tricks that the Sophists used to undo Athenian democracy? Or does our era of memes, Twitter and fake news mean that demagogue's methods have changed?  Robin Reames is associate professor of English and Culberston chair at IU Blumington, specializing in rhetorical theory and the history of ideas. Her latest book is The Ancient Art of Thinking For Yourself: The Power of Rhetoric in Polarized Times (Basic Books, 2024)If you enjoyed the episode, please leave us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts.This podcast is created in partnership with The Philosopher, the UK's longest running public philosophy journalm founded in 1923. Check out the latest issue of The Philosopher and its online events series: https://www.thephilosopher1923.org Artwork by Nick HallidayMusic by Rowan Mcilvride

In this episode I look again at the Sophists with a focus on their dedication to rhetoric, as described by classicist Bernard Knox in his collection of essays, The Oldest Dead White European Males.

In this episode, we consider some of the philosophically insightful sections of Nietzsche's lectures on rhetoric & the Sophists. In particular, we examine the figure of Protagoras, of whom we have little information, but who is credited with establishing the Sophists as a philosophical school focused on rhetoric. The latter half of the episode concerns the Platonic dialogue named for Protagoras, the "great speech" of Protagoras contained within, and the somewhat puzzling dispute between Protagoras and Socrates on whether or not virtue can be taught.

*This series and episode is slide show and visual heavy so check out our video episodes on Youtube and Spotify. The Linktree link is at the bottom.In Episode 5 we will be discussing Plato's dialogues that contain sophists and sophistry. We will discuss who all the sophists were and how they interacted with Socrates in Plato's dialogues. Please check out episode 1 on the pre-socratics, Episode 2 on Socrates, Plato, Plato's Dialogues, Episode 3 on Aristotle, and Episode 4 on The Sophists if you have not already. In coming episodes we will be discussing the interplay between them all. *Welcome to a journey into the origins of thought, where we explore the minds that shaped the very foundations of our understanding. Hello, my name is Mike and I am the host of Mind Escape Podcast. I am happy to share my new series called Masters of Rhetoric. Masters of Rhetoric is a free bi-weekly course/podcast that will air on Mondays. The goal is to draw from the earliest philosophers, scientists, and critical thinkers to help navigate the current technological paradigm. In a world where divisive and eristic rhetoric often dominates online spaces, I believe it's crucial to return to the roots of dialectic. This approach can offer the thoughtful discourse that humanity desperately needs today. ***So, join us on this philosophical adventure by subscribing to our channel and podcast. Engage with us through your comments and critiques—we're excited to hear your thoughts. Let's embark on this journey together with ‘Masters of Rhetoric.' Enjoy the series!**Here is the Link to the Masters of Rhetoric Playlist on Youtube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLJ-BaaY8oWs0YUhRIbFXg0od7OadLtqP&si=HUekvM63I0hTx_ez**I recently moved a lot of older episodes to our patreon page which you can watch or listen to them for 2$ a month along with other exclusive content. The Link is

Today we've got another Heroic +1 for you featuring wisdom from Brian's recent travels from Athens, Greece after the Athens Heroic Activation Event.   If you're enjoying the podcast, make sure to subscribe! And… It's the final week for Heroic's Cyber Week Specials.

Today we've got another Heroic +1 for you featuring wisdom from Brian's recent travels from Athens, Greece after the Athens Heroic Activation Event. If you're enjoying the podcast, make sure to subscribe. And... we're in the final week for our Heroic Holiday strength-for-two specials!

Tonight I am joined by Author of “Psychedelic Outlaws” and Associate Professor of Sociology at Rutgers University Joanna Kempner, PhD. We will be discussing her research and book on psychedelics, clusters headaches, and the cultural impacts of prohibition.  ***Also big news!!!! “Masters of Rhetoric” the first four episodes are available YouTube channel, Spotify, and all podcast outlets. I will be dropping episode 5 on “Plato and The Sophists” at the beginning of November.  Youtube

Socrates, Plato, and the Legacy of Greek PhilosophyIn this episode, the Daniel and Nathan return after a brief hiatus to explore the life and philosophy of Socrates and his profound impact on his pupil Plato. They discuss the Socratic method of questioning, its influence on Western thought, and how it shaped Plato's works and ideas, particularly in his early dialogues. The dialogue also delves into the historical context of Socrates' life, his opposition to the Sophists, concepts like absolute truth, justice, and the philosopher king. Additionally, the episode examines Socrates' influence on early Christian theology through Plato and Aristotle, the spread of Hellenistic culture, and its enduring impact on contemporary interpretations of the Bible. 00:00 Introduction and Catching Up01:43 Transition to Socrates Discussion02:36 Socrates: Historical and Literary Figure05:16 Socrates' Influence on Plato07:48 Socratic Method and Dialogues12:43 Socrates' Life and Death16:11 Exploring Plato's Socratic Method16:21 The Immortality and Transmigration of the Soul16:56 Socrates' Dialogue on Justice21:13 Socrates' Intellectual Humility22:15 Plato's Philosophical Contributions25:05 Upcoming Discussions on Plato and Aristotle26:05 The Influence of Greek Thought on Christian Theology

*This series and episode is slide show and visual heavy so check out our video episodes on Youtube and Spotify. The Linktree link is at the bottom. In Episode 4 we will be discussing “The Sophists” and the influence they have had on rhetoric and persuasion. Please check out episode 1 on the pre-socratics, Episode 2 on Socrates, Plato, Plato's Dialogues, and Episode 3 on Aristotle if you have not already. In coming episodes we will be discussing the interplay between them all.  *Welcome to a journey into the origins of thought, where we explore the minds that shaped the very foundations of our understanding. Hello, my name is Mike and I am the host of Mind Escape Podcast. I am happy to share my new series called Masters of Rhetoric. Masters of Rhetoric is a free bi-weekly course/podcast that will air on Mondays. The goal is to draw from the earliest philosophers, scientists, and critical thinkers to help navigate the current technological paradigm. In a world where divisive and eristic rhetoric often dominates online spaces, I believe it's crucial to return to the roots of dialectic. This approach can offer the thoughtful discourse that humanity desperately needs today.  **For those eager to dive even deeper, I'm offering an exclusive series on our Mind Escape Patreon called ‘Masters of Rhetoric: The Epistemology of Mysteries.' This series will analyze and critique researchers, books, and theories, all centered around the question: ‘How do we know what we know about the mysteries of life?' Click the Mind Escape Linktree below to join. ***So, join us on this philosophical adventure by subscribing to our channel and podcast. Engage with us through your comments and critiques—we're excited to hear your thoughts. Let's embark on this journey together with ‘Masters of Rhetoric.' Enjoy the series! **Here is the Link to Masters of Rhetoric Episode #1 on the pre-socratics: https://youtu.be/yarLk7t5H3g *Watch our documentary “As Within So Without: from UFOs to DMT”: ⁠ ⁠https://youtu.be/ao9fyP-lS2I?si=zQI3ok4aFNQkvl31 **Check out our new Merch store. We have some amazing designs for T-shirts, Hoodies, Mugs, Stickers, and more ⁠⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.teepublic.com/stores/mind-escape?ref_id=24655 ***If you are watching on Youtube please check us out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all audio/podcast platforms. We appreciate reviews and comments. If you are listening on an audio/podcast platform please check out our Youtube channel where we do our episodes live. You can find all of our links on our LinkTree  LinkTree: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/MindEscapePodcast --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/mindescape/support

Understanding Sophism: Background, Impact, and CritiquesIn this episode, the discussion focuses on the Sophists, their role in ancient philosophy, and their impact on subsequent thought. We delve into their characteristics, methodologies, and goals, exploring how they served as both a culmination and a reaction to earlier philosophical ideas. Daniel summarizes their teaching under the three headings of: skepticism, relativism, and pragmatism. The conversation ultimately highlights the critical role the Sophists played in setting the stage for the great philosophers Plato and Aristotle. Through an analysis of Sophist principles and the response by Socrates and Plato, the episode offers a comprehensive understanding of this significant yet often misunderstood philosophical movement.00:00 Introduction to the Topic00:36 The Role and Influence of Sophists02:06 Sophists' Business Model and Teaching Methods04:58 Protagoras and His Teachings06:53 Skepticism in Sophist Philosophy11:23 Relativism Explained18:24 Pragmatism in Sophist Thought18:49 The Concept of Enlightened Self-Interest20:00 Pragmatism and Societal Values21:50 Cultural Practices and Moral Relativism23:34 Custom vs. Nature: The Debate25:26 Sophocles' Antigone: A Case Study27:59 Socrates and Plato: Challenging Relativism33:04 The Legacy of the Sophists36:01 Conclusion and Next Steps

*This series and episode is slide show and visual heavy so check out our video episodes on Youtube and Spotify. The Linktree link is at the bottom. In Episode #2 we will be discussing Socrates, Plato, and Plato's Dialogues. Please check out episode #1 on the pre-socratics if you have not already. In coming episodes we will be discussing Aristotle, The Sophists, and more… *Welcome to a journey into the origins of thought, where we explore the minds that shaped the very foundations of our understanding. Hello, my name is Mike and I am the host of Mind Escape Podcast. I am happy to share my new series called Masters of Rhetoric. Masters of Rhetoric is a free bi-weekly course/podcast that will air on Mondays. The goal is to draw from the earliest philosophers, scientists, and critical thinkers to help navigate the current technological paradigm. In a world where divisive and eristic rhetoric often dominates online spaces, I believe it's crucial to return to the roots of dialectic. This approach can offer the thoughtful discourse that humanity desperately needs today.  **For those eager to dive even deeper, I'm offering an exclusive series on our Mind Escape Patreon called ‘Masters of Rhetoric: The Epistemology of Mysteries.' This series will analyze and critique researchers, books, and theories, all centered around the question: ‘How do we know what we know about the mysteries of life?' Click the Mind Escape Linktree below to join. ***So, join us on this philosophical adventure by subscribing to our channel and podcast. Engage with us through your comments and critiques—we're excited to hear your thoughts. Let's embark on this journey together with ‘Masters of Rhetoric.' Enjoy the series! *Watch our documentary “As Within So Without: from UFOs to DMT”: ⁠ ⁠https://youtu.be/ao9fyP-lS2I?si=zQI3ok4aFNQkvl31 **Check out our new Merch store. We have some amazing designs for T-shirts, Hoodies, Mugs, Stickers, and more ⁠⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.teepublic.com/stores/mind-escape?ref_id=24655 ***If you are watching on Youtube please check us out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all audio/podcast platforms. We appreciate reviews and comments. If you are listening on an audio/podcast platform please check out our Youtube channel where we do our episodes live. You can find all of our links on our LinkTree  LinkTree: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/MindEscapePodcast --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/mindescape/support

Topics: Forgiveness, God, Blood of Jesus, Matthew 6:15, Forgive Others, Conditional Forgiveness, Old Testament Forgiveness, New Testament Forgiveness, Matthew 5-7, Sermon on the Mount, Subheading Added by Publisher, The Word Sermon Isn't in the Bible, Greek Rhetoric, Deceitful Argument, Sophists and Philosophers Gave Sermons, Augustine and Chrystostom, Sermons interwoven into Liturgy by Constantine, Sermons Set Aside for Eucharist, Sermons Put Back in Place as Best Part of Service by Reformers, Martin Luther Said you Can't Know God Unless You Hear Sermons, Faith Comes by Hearing Is Not a Sermon, Many Sermons Don't Mention Jesus or the Gospel, Cut Off Your Hand, Pluck Out Your Eye, Sell Everything, Don't Ask For Returns On Your Loans, Don't Pray in Public, Anger the Same as Murder, Call Someone a Fool and Go to Hell, Leave Your Sacrifice at the Altar, Go Be Reconciled, If They Have Something Against You, Annual Forgiveness at Temple, Day of Atonement, Never Forgave Others to be Forgiven, Obey Commandments in Law to be Blessed, Deuteronomy 8, Health and Wealth, Without Shedding of Blood There Is No Forgiveness, Hebrews 9:22, Christ Would Have to Be Sacrificed Repeatedly, Hebrews 9:26, He Appeared Once For All to Put Away Sin Through Sacrifice of Himself, The Blood of Bulls and Goats Could Never Take Away Sin, Hebrews 10:4, Propitiation of Sin Rather Than Atonement, Satisfying Sacrifice, 1 John 2:2, 1 John 4:10, We Don't Forgive to Be Forgiven But Because We Have Been Forgiven Past Tense, Ephesians 4:32, Colossians 3:13, Repent of Your sins, Acts 2:39, Acts 3:19, Two Different Greek Words of Repent With Only One English Translation, “Repent!”, Metanoeo and Metanoia, Change of Belief and Change of Behaviors, Unbelievers Committing Repentance According to the Law in the Gospels, Frontier Revivalists, 18th 19th and Early 20th Century, Traveling Superstar Salesman, No Body Life, Just Save the Souls of the Lost, One-Night Stands of Salvation and Then Gone to Next City, Tay Up Numbers of How Many Came Forward and Were Saved, Altar Call Which Showed Repentance Not Biblical, Lorenzo Dow Created Altar Call, So Popular It Was Interwoven Into the Church Services, Only Forgiven Until You Sin Again, Jews Never Repented of Sins to Be Forgiven, Only Blood Forgives, NLT Not Accurate about Repenting “of” sins, Jews Went to the Temple for Forgiveness, They Repented of Sins to Be Blessed With Health and Wealth Not to be Forgiven, Trade of System, Easier For a Camel to Go Through Eye of Needle than for a Rich Man to Enter the Kingdom of God, Jesus Blew Their Minds about Wealth and Health According to the Law, Confess Sins to Be Forgiven, 1 John 1:9, Proof-Texting From the Devil, Matthew 4, Jump From the Temple and Angels Will Catch You, Jesus Corrected Devil's Proof-Texting With Proper Context and We Can Too, 1 John 1:9 Is About Sin Deniers Not Christians Repeatedly Confessing for Forgiveness, John Was a Jew Who Received Forgiveness Annually, Before the Cross The Jews Didn't Confess to be Forgiven, The Agreed they Broke the Commandment and then Recommitted to Not Do it Again, If You Forget One Sin You'd Go to Hell, What If you Tongue Gets Cut Out, Voice-box No Longer Works, James 5:16, Confess to be Healed In Your Mind, Not About Confessing Secret Sins to Receive Physical Healing, Children's Hospitals, Bonus Lie is God Will Forgive You If You Ask, Ask For Forgiveness Not in the Bible, The Truth About God's Forgiveness Is He Doesn't Forgive Like People Forgive, People Forgive Through Changes Behavior and Apologies, God Only Forgives By Blood, It's Good to Mature and Even Say Sorry But He's Not Repeatedly Forgiving You, Jesus Would Have to Die Repeatedly Each Time, By One Offering tSupport the Show.Sign up for Matt's free daily devotional! https://mattmcmillen.com/newsletter

Today we continue our discussion of Ben Burgis' book "Give Them An Argument, Logic For The Left" with chapters 3 and 4. Here he lays into the Libertarians and his critique of the non aggression principle, among many other things. Disclaimer: All opinions are our own and don't represent any institution we may or may not be a part of, respectively.

Sophist by Plato audiobook. Sophist discusses being and not-being while drawing a distinction between the philosopher and the sophist. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

   In one example i can encapsulate the whole mechanism of Dustin Nemos the SOPHIST. I brought up the World Fairs.  I DID NOT say anything about a MUD FLOOD, nor of Tartaria. Just because others may link them erroneously, doesn't mean that I do, and he was berating me arguing points about a fucking mud flood.  He introduced those elements so that he could argue them away (an aweful Iot like a Jewish Lawyer would a witness) I wasn't conjuring imagery or invoking the name of mud flood.      That was him introducing an element that I didn't say, and then arguing the point he injected into my statement about the theaters and the worlds fairs.  Who said anything about the Mud Flood?  My point was that they were huge elaborate centers with great architecture.  And all I said is it seems to indicate they had been there longer.  Apparently that triggered Dustin into defending a friggin' "young Earth" theory.  He didn't get it.  There have been Europeans in the Americas since the 1500s.  The World's Fairs were in the mid-late 1800s to about 1930s. There was no need to drag us into the Bible over me casually bringing up the World's Fairs in passing and me making an entirely DIFFERENT point than what he was arguing.    The little shit was having an argument with himself and came in hostile and rude.  If he was in my house he wouldn't have made it out the door or at least not past the front lawn.  I don't put up with that shit and I have a file to show for it. Me saying isn't it interesting they had all these theaters and elaborate fairs reeducating people of their "history" with higher tech than is claimed.  I'm not sure how that challenges his Bible, but that is pretty Despotic and Pope-Like to have to shut me down over it.  And that stupid shit about how some idiot showed how they can make form blocks somehow dispels the mystery of the World's Fairs, and both of those fucking ass clowns thought that rationale was sound and legitimate?  That's insanity. I was talking to fucking mental patients.   Wisdom is not something that has ever met Nemos.  I know that there's always more information on any topic and that is why I am humble and not absolute in my positions.  Data is corrupted in most things, or it's missing, or it's been replaced with a lie.  Wisdom should tell you your personal experience with God should be more important than what some sandy child-killing, circumcision-crazed assholes have to say about it.  Being wise enough to not be so rigid allows you to grow and learn and consider new information as it presents itself. The two guests are both quite full of themselves.  They don't appreciate that I'm probably older than both of them.  I went through all this nonsense and grew to understand it wasn't for me by age 15, and reaffirmed it was not where God was again in my 20s.  I have 45 years of actual living and life experience.  I didn't just read about life.  I did what all are supposed to do and  what the  Gnostics said was most important and that was to go on the personal journey.  To spend much time solo so as to know thyself, accept and grow with God within you.  I did the countless hikes, the writing, the pondering, analysis. I don't owe them that explanation because it's not my job to qualify to someone else.  We are not here to compete with each other.  We're here to be measured off of ourselves. From day to day. Are we the same person we were last week, or did we succeed in growing and improving ourselves?  I will not lower myself trying to impress people who aren't half the human being that I am, so fck the both of them.   The leading questions and the putting of words into my mouth didn't stop.  John took a series of shots as well. The last one wasn't addressed but I know what he was trying to fabricate.  First I told him twice I wasn't championing the Gospel of Judas.  I said I found it interesting. From that he asked me stupid questions about Transgender crap that was supposed to make me recoil and say something but I didn't give him the material to use. Before he could finish trying to set up some mental gymnastics about his ignorant view of Early Christian concepts, Dustin threatened to leave so I kicked him the Fck Off the stream.  Don't come into my home as a guest, talk down to me, and then threaten to leave.  I want nothing from anyone.  No one and no religion holds anything over my head.  If he was in my home I'd have thrown him out of my window long before I booted him off.  If I wasn't on radio for 2 hours the bullshit would have been shut down much sooner but they may as well do something useful and fill in the time. A sophist is someone whose goal is to appear to have advanced his position no matter what disreputable methods they may use, or whether they believe in what they are saying or not.  It's about appearing to have succeeded at whatever the cost to their reputation or to what damage the Truth endures.  This is not the same as a Stoic.  I am arguing  from the perspective of logic and logical steps.  I can point to many factors that leave me to dismiss the Old Testament as anything but a regional culture and religion, but certainly NOT a valid historical reference or resouce.  The very notion of its literary divinity disqualifies it to me as even a religion which I would consider.  It doesn't pass the sniff test. So if you're going to recite chapter and verse to me that is meaningless.  You can't make your arguments from within a reference I don't accept if you want me to accept what you're saying. Find the data in the real world.     My firm position is the Old Testament is NOT a historical reference book. That shouldn't even be a controversial position. It's a logical one. The bible doesn't pass the most basic test for me to consider it a real log of events past. SO THAT'S WHERE IT ENDS. Before it begins. I'm not telling anyone else to view it in my way. I'm not ridiculing the followers. I'm addressing the simple fact that it's not a valid consideration for me. So when you speak to me of "FACT" come with a different source other than a religious one with some vague disjointed gaslighting to make pieces fit that DON'T. When you want to talk to me about history find something in the historical record. Not in someone's religion. There can be no reasonable discussion with some of those who deem themselves Christian. This particular situation was bound to go like this. It's not the word of God because that's not how it works, so the entire premise is invalid. It wasn't divinely inspired. If anyone thinks God is described in the OT, they are insulting to God, or at least to the God I know. It was greedily and ambitiously inspired. I see it as a work of Magicians, witches, sorcerers... And later, the merchants and thieves. The Cutthroats of the road would write themselves into the story and create characters never written of before. This is a grimoire at best, a list of crimes by the Demiurge and His chosen bastards at worst. Those whose soul was offered to Kronos-Saturn-Yaldabaoth. I'm here to get into it with John Brisson and Dustin Nemos today. Haters out there, this is going to give you caca pants.  And with that, F*ck the Rude.  I don't get paid to do this.  F*ck your hate mail.  Come to me if you have something to say and I'll give you an attitude adjustment.  98% of the people out there are not much more than talking livestock.  They huddle around clowns like this cult leader as proof.  What's coming you will have more than deserved, and it's due to your attitudes that this is true.  It's a shame your children have to suffer for your lazy, self-centered, smugness. Don't expect me to give a shit.  I knew most people were useless unless you could convince them to be a thick bullet sponge for when shit does go down, but most will fail to even serve that function. https://odysee.com/@weveread:7 For Johnhttps://dustinnemos.comhttps://theserapeum.com For DustinThank the Kristos Family anytime here: https://GiveSendGo.com/BaalBustersHELLO European Viewers! You can support here: https://www.tipeeestream.com/baalbusters/US, use "SuperChat" here to support the effort: https://buymeacoffee.com/BaalBustersBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/ba-al-busters-broadcast--5100262/support.

In this episode I examine the competing forces of Physis (Nature) and Nomos (Custom) as detailed in the erudite examination The Sophists by W. K. C. Guthrie.

This time we move beyond Confucius to look at some of the other schools of thought that contended with each other during the Spring and Autumn Period of the Zhou Dynasty. This included the School of Names and the Sophists, featuring an amusing story about Deng Xi. We also see how the Confucian classics became a pathway to a career in the government. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This time we move beyond Confucius to look at some of the other schools of thought that contended with each other during the Spring and Autumn Period of the Zhou Dynasty. This included the School of Names and the Sophists, featuring an amusing story about Deng Xi. We also see how the Confucian classics became a pathway to a career in the government. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This time we move beyond Confucius to look at some of the other schools of thought that contended with each other during the Spring and Autumn Period of the Zhou Dynasty. This included the School of Names and the Sophists, featuring an amusing story about Deng Xi. We also see how the Confucian classics became a pathway to a career in the government. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This time we move beyond Confucius to look at some of the other schools of thought that contended with each other during the Spring and Autumn Period of the Zhou Dynasty. This included the School of Names and the Sophists, featuring an amusing story about Deng Xi. We also see how the Confucian classics became a pathway to a career in the government. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Most of what we know about the greatest of the Sophists, Protagoras, comes from Plato. Whether, then, what we know about him accurately reflects the reality, we cannot be certain. He was, certainly, one of the most famous itinerant teachers of rhetoric in classical Greece. He is most famous for the line, "Man is the measure of all things," as quoted by Socrates/Plato in the dialogue Theatetus, a dialogue that we hope to read for Simple Gifts at a later date. In this dialogue, the famous but aged rhetorician, encounters Socrates while staying at the home of Callias, a wealthy Athenian. Many other characters are featured or present, including several other prominent Sophists. If you enjoy our content, consider donating through PayPal via https://ko-fi.com/thechristianatheist   Take a moment to enjoy our weekly Photos of the Day videos here - short slideshows with relaxing music ...https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_9GPi4HTqoZ8xFgTldbBaA   https://www.youtube.com/c/TheChristianAtheist/featured https://www.facebook.com/JnJWiseWords https://wisewordsforyouroccasion.wordpress.com   #thechristianatheist #drjohndwise #drjohnwise #johnwise #christian #atheist #christianity #atheism #jesus #jesuschrist #god #bible #oldtestament #newtestament #nocompromise #rationality #faith #philosophy #philosopher #culture #society #hegelism #hegelianism #hegel #reason #incarnation #history#psychology #theology #literature #humanities #hardquestions #postmodernism #woke #wisdom #ethics #science #poetry #paradox #oxymoron

Most of what we know about the greatest of the Sophists, Protagoras, comes from Plato. Whether, then, what we know about him accurately reflects the reality, we cannot be certain. He was, certainly, one of the most famous itinerant teachers of rhetoric in classical Greece. He is most famous for the line, "Man is the measure of all things," as quoted by Socrates/Plato in the dialogue Theatetus, a dialogue that we hope to read for Simple Gifts at a later date. In this dialogue, the famous but aged rhetorician, encounters Socrates while staying at the home of Callias, a wealthy Athenian. Many other characters are featured or present, including several other prominent Sophists. If you enjoy our content, consider donating through PayPal via https://ko-fi.com/thechristianatheist   Take a moment to enjoy our weekly Photos of the Day videos here - short slideshows with relaxing music ...https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_9GPi4HTqoZ8xFgTldbBaA   https://www.youtube.com/c/TheChristianAtheist/featured https://www.facebook.com/JnJWiseWords https://wisewordsforyouroccasion.wordpress.com   #thechristianatheist #drjohndwise #drjohnwise #johnwise #christian #atheist #christianity #atheism #jesus #jesuschrist #god #bible #oldtestament #newtestament #nocompromise #rationality #faith #philosophy #philosopher #culture #society #hegelism #hegelianism #hegel #reason #incarnation #history#psychology #theology #literature #humanities #hardquestions #postmodernism #woke #wisdom #ethics #science #poetry #paradox #oxymoron

Topics: Church Practices, Question Everything, Socrates, Socratic Method, Dialectic, Corrupting the Youth, John 7:19, Moses Gave the Law, None of You Keep the Law, Why Do You Want to K**l Me, Tradition of Men, Mark 7:9, Colossians 2:8, Gathering on Sunday, Building Called Church, Hebrews 10:25, “Church” Isn't in Hebrews, Synagogues and Temple, No Pastor or Priest Preaching, Place of Animal Sacrifices, Remember the Sabbath, Sabbath on Saturday, Acts 20:7, Gathered on the First Day, This Was One Individual Meeting, Not a Description of Weekly Church Gathering, Constantine Began Sunday Worship, Worshiped Sun God, One Person in Charge, Matthew 20:26, It Will Not be Like this Among You, You Will Not Lord Over One Another, Gatherings Described in 1 Corinthians 11-14, Group Participation Encouraged, Everyone Gets Chance to Share, No Pastor Ever Listed as “In Charge”, Elders and Deacons Not In Charge, Reformation Put Pastors in Charge, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Elder is Mature in Any Faith, One Body With Many Members, Hebrews 13:17, Obey Your Leaders, Pastor Not in Hebrews, Leading them Away from Temple Work, Obedience of Faith, Formal Education, Preaching, Requirement for Formal Education in the Bible, 1 Corinthians 1:27, God Chose the Foolish, John 5:39, You Search the Scriptures, Did Not Choose Formally Educated According to the Law, Did Not Choose Priests, Choose Fisherman and Tax Collectors, Formal Education Began in 16th Century, Preach Means to Speak, Women and and Donkey Spoke More about God Than Anyone Named Pastor, Sermons, Sermon Not in Bible, Sermon on the Mount, Sermons Began Before Jesus, Sophists, Sophisticated, Philosophers, One-Man Monologues for Pay and Prestige, Early Church Was Greek, Clement of Alexandria, Sermons Bad Thing, Augustine and Chrysostom, Sophists Turned Christians, Eucharist Replaced Sermons, Greek Rhetoric, Deceitful Arguments, Constantine Loved Sermons, Pastor Never Gives Sermons, What's Biblical is Everyone is Encouraged to Share, Tithing, How Many Times Are Believers Commanded to Tithe, How Many Times is Tithing in the Epistles, 2 Corinthians 9:7, Give Freely From the Heart, Not Under Pressure, Not Under Compulsion, Tithing Was Part of the Law, 23.3%, Not Money, Crops Produce Grain Spices Cattle, Tithing is a Curse, Galatians 3:10, Rely on Tithe is Relying on Curse, How Do You Keep the Lights On, Let Your Requests be Made Known, Trust God, Give-to-Get, Rely on God's Grace Working Through the BodySupport the showSign up for Matt's free daily devotional! https://mattmcmillen.com/newsletter

Most of what we know about the greatest of the Sophists, Protagoras, comes from Plato. Whether, then, what we know about him accurately reflects the reality, we cannot be certain. He was, certainly, one of the most famous itinerant teachers of rhetoric in classical Greece. He is most famous for the line, "Man is the measure of all things," as quoted by Socrates/Plato in the dialogue Theatetus, a dialogue that we hope to read for Simple Gifts at a later date. In this dialogue, the famous but aged rhetorician, encounters Socrates while staying at the home of Callias, a wealthy Athenian. Many other characters are featured or present, including several other prominent Sophists. If you enjoy our content, consider donating through PayPal via https://ko-fi.com/thechristianatheist   Take a moment to enjoy our weekly Photos of the Day videos here - short slideshows with relaxing music ...https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_9GPi4HTqoZ8xFgTldbBaA   https://www.youtube.com/c/TheChristianAtheist/featured https://www.facebook.com/JnJWiseWords https://wisewordsforyouroccasion.wordpress.com   #thechristianatheist #drjohndwise #drjohnwise #johnwise #christian #atheist #christianity #atheism #jesus #jesuschrist #god #bible #oldtestament #newtestament #nocompromise #rationality #faith #philosophy #philosopher #culture #society #hegelism #hegelianism #hegel #reason #incarnation #history#psychology #theology #literature #humanities #hardquestions #postmodernism #woke #wisdom #ethics #science #poetry #paradox #oxymoron  

Oh, we wild'n out for sure on this podcast! In a hilarious full spectrum conversation that may or may not have been influenced by mind altering substances, comedian Brent Pella and I delve deep into the realms of comedy, psychedelics, aliens, free will, and…I forget. But I do remember that Brent shares his unique insights on the role of comedy in our personal lives and culture, and that I shared my own interdimensional alien abduction story. Come join us on the inside jokes of the universe so we can all laugh and ponder together. This episode is sponsored by: HELIX Helix is offering 20% off all mattress orders AND two free pillows for our listeners! Go to HelixSleep.com/AMP FOUR VISIONS Go to ⁠⁠fourvisions.com ⁠⁠ and use code AMP for 15% off the customer's first order. To apply for Fit for Service: ⁠⁠www.fitforservice.com⁠⁠ | Connect with Brent Pella | Instagram | @brentpella Twitter X |⁠ @brentpella Youtube | youtube.com/@brentpella ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠To partner with the Aubrey Marcus Podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | Connect with Aubrey | Website | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://bit.ly/2GesYqi ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Instagram | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://bit.ly/2BlfCEO ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Facebook | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://bit.ly/2F4nBZk ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Twitter |⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ http://bit.ly/2BlGBAdAd⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Check out "Own your Day, Own Your Life" by Aubrey Marcus | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://bit.ly/2vRz4so⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe to the Aubrey Marcus newsletter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.aubreymarcus.com/pages/email⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe to the Aubrey Marcus podcast: iTunes | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://apple.co/2lMZRCn ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Spotify |⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://spoti.fi/2EaELZO ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Stitcher | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://bit.ly/2G8ccJt ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ IHeartRadio | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://ihr.fm/3CiV4x3 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Google Podcasts | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3nzCJEh ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Android | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/2OQeBQg⁠⁠

Most of what we know about the greatest of the Sophists, Protagoras, comes from Plato. Whether, then, what we know about him accurately reflects the reality, we cannot be certain. He was, certainly, one of the most famous itinerant teachers of rhetoric in classical Greece. He is most famous for the line, "Man is the measure of all things," as quoted by Socrates/Plato in the dialogue Theatetus, a dialogue that we hope to read for Simple Gifts at a later date. In this dialogue, the famous but aged rhetorician, encounters Socrates while staying at the home of Callias, a wealthy Athenian. Many other characters are featured or present, including several other prominent Sophists.

Most of what we know about the greatest of the Sophists, Protagoras, comes from Plato. Whether, then, what we know about him accurately reflects the reality, we cannot be certain. He was, certainly, one of the most famous itinerant teachers of rhetoric in classical Greece. He is most famous for the line, "Man is the measure of all things," as quoted by Socrates/Plato in the dialogue Theatetus, a dialogue that we hope to read for Simple Gifts at a later date. In this dialogue, the famous but aged rhetorician, encounters Socrates while staying at the home of Callias, a wealthy Athenian. Many other characters are featured or present, including several other prominent Sophists.

QUIDDITY English transliteration of the Latin quidditas, meaning "whatness"; in scholastic usage it designates a thing's essence taken precisely in its capacity to inform the intellect of the answer to the question "what is it?" Related Terms. At most a virtual minor distinction obtains between essence and quiddity: essence is the thing as capacity for existence, whereas quiddity is the thing as capacity to instruct the intellect. The quiddity of a thing, if definable, is analytically expressed in its real definition by its genus and specific difference. As such it is similar to, but more exact than, nature in boethius's first sense: "anything that can be grasped (by the intellect) in any way whatever" (De persona et duabus naturis 1; Patrologia Latina, 64:1341BC). Nature, in the more etymological and Aristotelian sense, is closer to essence than to quiddity inasmuch as nature signifies a thing's principle of operation—effective only through existence. Such are the comparisons between these terms suggested by St. thomas aquinas (De ente 1, 3). To these he adds form and Aristotle's phrase "the what was to be" (τò τί [symbol omitted]ν ε[symbol omitted]ναι, quod quid erat esse ). He defines the form that is convertible with essence and quiddity as "the complete essential determination" of a thing. This is the "form of the whole" (forma totius, ε[symbol omitted]δος) according to the Avicennian interpretation of book seven of the Metaphysics —an interpretation rejected by Averroës but accepted by St. Thomas (In 7 meta. 9. 1467–69). Form in this sense includes the matter as universalizable as well as the "form of the part" (forma partis, μορφή), the substantial form as distinct from matter (see matter and form). Form thus expresses the completeness of an essence's specification in itself with respect both to existence and to intellect, and in the latter respect is synonymous with quiddity. Some modern scholars concur independently in the Averroist interpretation that Aristotle excludes matter altogether from the notion of form or species and its equivalent, "the what was to be." But St. Thomas insists that Aristotle holds its inclusion necessary in the case of natural substances, since it must be included universally in their definition (In 7 meta. 9.1468; In I anim. 1.24–29). Aristotelian Meaning. The term quidditas, coined in the 12th century in translations of Avicenna into Latin and possibly also in paraphrasing the Topics, stems ultimately from Aristotle's own phrase "the what was to be." From its grammar and from the probable places of its earliest appearance (Topica101b 22, 132a 1), it originated in a context of dialectics and predication and was designed as a verbal sort of variable representing the full answer to any Socratic question as to what a thing is, for example, man, virtue, the Sophist, etc. The particular reference of the phrase can be specified in any context by adding a dative, for example, "the what was it for a man to be," or "the being characteristic of man." This full answer, Aristotle says, is expressed in the definition of the thing in question. As such the phrase must be distinguished from another Aristotelian one, "the what is it" (τò τί ἐστι, quod quid est ), of wider range, since it not only may refer to the complete formula or definition but may also be satisfied by any one of its parts taken separately—genus, matter, difference, or form. Grammatically, the past tense, "was" ([symbol omitted]ν, erat ), has a habitual or transtemporal sense, indicating the specifying, or formal, identity of the essence with respect to any individual of that essence at any time (Meta. 1031a 15–32a 11, esp. 32a 5; Aquinas, In 7 meta. 5) or, in the case of the separate substances, beyond time. Going Boldly Where The Last Man has Gone Before! Decrease time over target:  PayPal or Venmo @clastronaut Cash App $clastronaut

This week, Jeff and Dave continue on their stroll through the wonders of Marrou's volume on ancient education. Specifically, they look at Chapter V and the question of the Sophists. Men like Protagoras, Gorgias, and Prodicus were doing something new and unusual at the close of the fifth century, no doubt. And that something was -- wait for it -- selling education! Many arch-conservatives like Plato and Aristophanes did not take to it kindly. But is there any way to sort the wheat from the chaff? How can we know that what Plato tells us about the Sophists is the genuine article, and not just some envious hyperbole? Were these traveling salesman peddling snake oil, or could they really teach how to govern a state properly, the πολιτικὴ τέχνη. And if so, does that constitute ἐπιστήμη? Come along for a lively discussion, complete with the usual round of questionable puns, absurd asides, and just a dash of inanity. Before long, you'll be eating at the Midway food court just like the rest of us. Did someone say M-Burger?

Today we continue with our inquiry into rhetoric and dialectic, with Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Pirsig, like Nietzsche, saw himself as a modern-day Sophist, and part of his work was the rescue of the Sophistic school from the ill repute visited upon them by the Socratics. Perhaps more expansively, Pirsig devotes his philosophical work to the question, “What is quality?”, drawing on the Greek concept of arete, or excellence. His philosophical ideas do not come to us through a dispassionate treatise, however, but through an autobiographical novel. Pirsig was treated with electroshock therapy, leaving him with a new personality, and the feeling that the person he once was is dead: he merely happens to carry the blurry memories of another man. While on a motorcycle trip with his son, Pirsig struggles to unify the dichotomy between classical and romantic, between substance and form, between the two personalities within himself, and between himself and his son. This work remains one of the most important philosophical contributions to American literature in the 20th century, and hopefully today I can show all of you why this work of “pop philosophy” is one of my favorite books, and one to which I regularly return.

Defending Strickland Against Catholic SophistsSubscribe to City of Truth on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@UCOYzHK2_KMl8T-tU6187UBw Follow Steven Jonathan on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/CityoftruthSJSupport City of truth on Locals: https://locals.com/feed/45809/city-of-truthFree Weekly Newsletter  City of Truth: https://cityoftruth.co/**Moving? Use a Catholic pro-life realtor who donates substantially to the pro-life cause!! Contact Real Estate For Life: https://realestateforlife.org/**No matter what your Catholic vocation, The Saintmaker™ is a one-of-a-kind personal journal and planner to help you reignite your faith, succeed in life, and experience true spiritual freedom! With the Saintmaker Free Trial Offer, you can try it out for 90 days risk free. If you decide it's not for you, return your Saintmaker for a full refund INCLUDING shipping. Rules for Retrogrades listeners can learn more about and get 10% off their first Saintmaker by visiting https://www.thesaintmaker.com/retrogrades and using promo code RETROGRADES at checkout.____________________________________________________________________

Socrates was a famous opponent of the Sophists, the teachers of rhetoric instead of truth - and yet, in his legal defense, he employs the techniques of rhetoric and displays a mastery of oratory. In a society that distrusted irony and regarded it as a form of dishonesty, Socrates uses the art of persuasion in a manner that is anti-persuasive: a brilliant irony that few of his judges would have understood, and resented if they had. While Nietzsche's later period is characterized by savage criticism of Socrates, Nietzsche describes Socrates as a heroic conqueror of death, in his lectures at Basel. Today we're going to dissect the rhetoric, the irony, and the deeper significance of Socrates' famous defense at his trial: the act of commitment to virtue in spite of the consequences, in defiance of the conventions of society and the sentiments of the majority. Episode art: Death of Socrates by Jacques-Louis David

Friends, in today's episode of “The Word on Fire Show,” we share Lecture 1 from Peter Kreeft's new 12-part video series on “Socrates' Children: The Great Debates of Philosophy.” In this lecture series, Dr. Peter Kreeft examines key ideas in philosophy by comparing and contrasting two representative philosophers in each lecture. The first lecture compares the father of philosophy, Socrates, with the Sophists, whose philosophy is marked more by cleverness and emotion rather than by wisdom and truth. This video series is being released alongside Word on Fire's new book series by Kreeft, titled Socrates' Children: An Introduction to Philosophy from the 100 Greatest Philosophers. In this four-volume series, Kreeft examines with his characteristic wit and clarity, the big ideas of four major eras—ancient, medieval, modern, and contemporary—and immerses the reader in the “great conversation” the ongoing dialogue among the great thinkers of history. Links Socrates' Children books + video series NOTE: Do you like this podcast? Become a patron and get some great perks for helping, like free books, bonus content, and more. Word on Fire is a non-profit ministry that depends on the support of our listeners…like you! So be part of this mission, and join us today!