• 3 days ago
1 Corinthians 6:19-20:
"Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore, honor God with your bodies."

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Transcript
00:001 Corinthians 6 19 20 do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy
00:07Spirit who is in you whom you have received from God you are not your own
00:14you were bought at a price therefore on a God with your bodies amazing stuff for
00:23me and I'll tell you what I think it means philosophically and you can tell
00:27me of course what you think and we can reason together your bodies are temples
00:32of the Holy Spirit so the conjunction of the mortal and the immortal is really
00:41the essence of the of humanity were why does Jesus resonate so much with
00:48humanity because Jesus was of course the eternal in the mortal he was half God
00:56half man he was born of a woman and became immortal not just in his soul and
01:02in his ascension but in his fame his renown his influence we live we strive
01:12we struggle we win we fail we die like the fruit fly like the intestinal
01:21parasite like the eagle and yet of course we all know that deep down there
01:26is something within us that is far more than mortal so I want you to think of
01:33the things that are in you that are not of you and the things that are in you
01:39that are not of you this podcast if it changes your mind and it certainly will
01:46rearrange the neurons is in you but not of you almost all I mean I've invented a
01:52few mostly silly words here and there but effectively all of the words that we
02:00use are in us but not of us I was taught English I was taught syntax grammar
02:10morphemes sentence structures and these were all brought into me from before me
02:18English has been evolving for hundreds or thousands of years and it is not
02:26within me the language that you know is not yours now you can of course arrange
02:32it according to your free will and values and preferences and how you
02:36choose to assemble these language and what you choose to communicate is you
02:40but the language itself is not the facile tongue and lips if you ever try
02:49and figure out right at the beginning of the rather horrifying book Lolita by
02:54Nabokov there's something which is always stuck in my brain which is Lolita
03:00that he says that the tongue moves forward with each of the pronunciations
03:04of Lolita and if you think of the amazing orchestration of the lips the
03:13teeth the tongue the jaw the vocal cords all required to produce coherent sounds
03:20it's really an amazing incredible dance think of all that is required for the
03:26production of the words that I am talking that I am speaking we could go
03:33for hours and hours about everything that is required but your tongue is not
03:39yours right you you have a tongue but you did not create the tongue you own
03:45the tongue but you did not make the tongue all the nerve endings all of the
03:50taste buds all of the sense organs all of the wiring is not yours it's not mine
03:56it's inherited what about you is not inherited I mean this is the whole thing
04:03of the NPC meme right the non-player character that is people who inherit and
04:10reproduce with no particular thought of their own who comply and therefore
04:16accept only the immortal not the chosen compliance of course is an ancient
04:22immortal strategy for staying alive in a time of tyranny so the hardware and
04:30software the hardware being the physical structures that produce language and the
04:36software being the language the words the structure I mean people in Japan
04:45speak very differently but we all have very similar hardware in that you know
04:52somebody raised in Japan speaks Japanese even if they're not Asian fluently and
04:57somebody raised in say Sweden speaks Swedish perfectly though they are not
05:04necessarily white so the hardware and the software is not yours a man assembles a
05:13house but the man of course does not invent himself the hands that fashion
05:20the house he does not invent the bricks he buys them he does not invent the
05:27matter he simply transfers it because matter cannot be invented or destroyed
05:31only transferred to energy and back so when Corinthians says that you are made
05:41from eternity and you owe eternity you are not saying you are your bodies are
05:50the temples of the Holy Spirit who is in you whom you have received from God so
05:56we would say philosophically your bodies are inherited from eternity because of
06:04course everything that is not mortal is in a sense eternal everything that is
06:11not mortal is in a sense eternal from the perspective of mortality because my
06:16consciousness does not reach back to before I was born neither will my
06:21consciousness exist or process after I am dead it doesn't really matter how far
06:28back it goes so life is four billion years old which is an infinity to my
06:37mere 80 hopefully 80 plus years mortality right even if we say what
06:43humanity is a couple hundred thousand years old it's essentially eternal to me
06:47that far back if you think of running off a cliff right the cliff being
06:55mortality if you think of running off a cliff does it really matter whether you
07:00only run one foot off the cliff or you managed to leap six or eight feet off
07:05the cliff it doesn't really matter you're gonna fall either way right and
07:09that's what I mean like once you're over the edge it doesn't really matter how
07:12far you go your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit of eternity that we are
07:19a repository of eternity and I know this sounds kind of flaky and abstract and
07:24all of that but it's really important for the virtue of humility so the virtue
07:32of humility is tied into the virtue of gratitude just felt a wave of emotion
07:37the virtue of humility is wrapped up in the virtue of gratitude so gratitude is
07:44saying that something has happened outside of myself that I'm benefiting
07:47from and that's what humility is as well I said this a million times on the show
07:52I feel amazingly fortunate to have inherited the mind that I have I feel
07:59that I absolutely won the eternal cosmic lottery now if you recognize that you
08:09are as I do in the recipients of good for you are the recipient of amazingly
08:14good fortune as I mentioned this also before like a number of friends that I
08:18had when I was young I died it's just a cluster of bad luck and foolish behavior
08:27but yeah a number of the friends that I had when I was young died which kind of
08:33slithered into me in terms of a sense of mortality and they died leaving really
08:41no mark except the long shadow of sorrow in their parents hearts so
08:47gratitude for life there is a veteran who's talked about this saying that you
08:57know when he got old he was a world war two veteran and when he got old and he
09:01was sick and dying people were sad and he said my god you know most of the men
09:07I served with died 50 years ago the fact that I've had an extra 50 years is
09:13nothing to be sorrowful about and this concept of gratitude for what you did
09:19not earn is really something to behold something to experience gratitude is
09:26the opposite of vanity so I've been truly blessed with a very good mind and
09:35a reasonably good appearance and a reasonably pleasant speaking voice and
09:42an accidental accent and see I did not study philosophy really philosophy
09:51seized me I mean when I first started reading about ideas arguments reason
09:59virtue it was a paroxysm form of epilepsy a seizure in my soul so to
10:05speak and in a sense I've had no more free will to study and spread philosophy
10:12than a snail has if launched from a catapult about his trajectory I mean
10:19obviously I have some choices I'm not it's not determinism it's not
10:24determinism I've had a lot of very delicate choices to make and a lot of
10:28navigation to make but it is not free will per se that has launched me into
10:38philosophy it was a response as insistent as a shark's feeding frenzy
10:45or a flowers inexorable bent towards the light I would not have done anything
10:53else were possible and the moment it became possible I shed my former life
10:59like a snake trying to become an angel I shed my career my income my family my
11:08friends my life and it's been glorious it's been joyful it's been alarming it's
11:15been beautiful now the argument that you know it's the
11:20Holy Spirit that moves within me is absolutely in accordance with my
11:24experience I feel sometimes that my voice or my brain is a hand puppet of
11:31the divine I mean I know this sounds crazy I understand that and I'm just
11:37telling you my experience I'm not trying to make an empirical case here I'm
11:43telling you my experience I did not know when I started doing this analysis
11:50of this text and thank you so much for the listener who sent it in I did not
11:54know that I would become this emotional and hopefully this eloquent in my
12:00explication of what I think this means for you from for me for all of us I do
12:08not have philosophy philosophy has me I did not invent philosophy obviously I
12:16did not invent the words that I'm using I did not fashion my apparatus for
12:21speaking my tongue my lips my teeth my nerve endings my voice my vocal cords I
12:26did not invent the technology that allows me to pace and record as if we
12:34were on a long walk and I was sharing my thoughts I am a tiny fragment of
12:40what I am doing I have some guidance to it I have some navigation but I feel as
12:48if I am in a storm-tossed sea in a flighty but strong craft attempting to
12:58navigate giant waves and crazy winds as best I can I have some skill I have some
13:07capacity to choose what I'm doing I have some capacity to shift and alter the
13:14direction of the vessel but only so much and this is very common among people who
13:20are creative and I fundamentally view what I'm doing as rational creativity
13:24but a songwriter has the capacity to sit down at a piano and tinkle around and
13:31record and right but he does not have the capacity to create hit songs through
13:35willpower otherwise that's all he would be doing right it's all he would be
13:40doing so recognizing that I am in position I am in possession of all that
13:47can be inherited and a small amount that can be navigated is humility and
13:55gratitude if you are a hedonist and not philosophical but if you're a hedonist
14:01then what you do of course is you chase food you chase alcohol you chase orgasms
14:09you chase could be exercise it could be any number of things but you chase
14:14dopamine but you did not invent dopamine you did not invent the nerve
14:19receptors you did not invent the pleasure of eating or exercise or any of
14:25these things you didn't invent any of that you are chasing that which you
14:31never made and you are inhabited by an eternity that you inherited the eternity
14:37of physical development psychological development the human brain the human
14:42mind I mean I'm very much aware that my brain was fashioned and conditioned by
14:50the relentless winters of my ancestors that did not suffer fools at all and had
14:57to survive brute winter even against the desperate pleas of those who had not
15:03planned that is fashioned the brain I am aware that my brain has also been
15:09fashioned by I don't know how much this was the case in Ireland but
15:14certainly the culture that I grew up in in England was the most influential
15:17culture to me from the age of pretty much birth to with one or two exceptions
15:22in other countries to the age of 11 or so was the British culture and the
15:26British culture was very much conditioned by a couple hundred years of
15:33killing off the aggressive and sometimes the non-conformist and I see this of
15:39course my daughter's raised very peacefully and very positively and she
15:42still has this is some of the British show that's cringe or is a sense of
15:47decorum or self-criticism or self-analysis relative to a social norm
15:53that's just baked in it seems so when the Bible is talking about this it is
16:03resonating with a very deep truth whether you're religious or not it's
16:07resonating with a very deep truth do you not know that your bodies are temples of
16:14the Holy Spirit so a temple is a physical thing the Holy Spirit is an
16:22eternal thing so you are a physical thing inhabited by an eternal thing the
16:28eternal thing being all that is evolved over four billion years which is not
16:35eternal but eternal to a mere flash-in-the-pan fragment of life such
16:40as we all are but the truths and the concepts are eternal the truth the facts
16:49the math the constants the absolutes the tune to make for the UPP the fact of
16:57gravity mass all of these things are eternals and we are made from them and
17:06they are in us we did not ourselves make them which really comes down to the
17:11fundamental question right which is who are you you are not your body because
17:19if you are your body then you are not you because your body was not invented
17:23by you I had a friend in university who still you know this after university
17:31sorry but she was haunted by something she didn't high school which is she
17:35stole some lines from a poem and passed them off as a wrong something about
17:39coins and sunrise and so on right I can't remember the exact phrase and she
17:45was tormented by this because she passed off something she had taken from
17:52someone else as her own and she was praised for something that she did not
17:59create and she gained a reputation for language excellence based upon something
18:04that she stole or plagiarized defrauded based upon passing it off as her own so
18:11what I'm saying is that your intelligence your physicality the nature
18:18and structure of your brain the language the nerves the tongue none of these are
18:21yours all mine the only thing that you can accept as yours is that which you
18:30have chosen created and earned I did not create the language I use I did not
18:36create the body that I use I've had some effect on it of course by working pretty
18:43hard to exercise and eat well and stay healthy but that's the humility that's
18:49the humility and the gratitude I mean not only was I given a human life so to
18:55speak which is the greatest prize in the universe but I was given a human life
19:00with extraordinary to me at least levels of intellect and creativity which
19:06I am NOT going to take pride in because I did not earn it what I can take pride
19:11in is the choices that I've made in how to deploy that which I neither chose nor
19:19created which is my body and my brain I did not choose the storm I did not
19:24choose the vessel I did not choose the wind or the height of the water or the
19:30physics of the environment but I can choose how I steer the thunderous
19:35machinery constantly emotion in my mind and heart that I can choose and should
19:42and I can take some pride in how I have steered but I cannot take pride in the
19:49ship or the storm that would be vanity it's the same thing if you happen to be
19:56a very good-looking you know let's take a silly example of you know some only
20:03fans woman who has I don't know great boobs great ass whatever it is right
20:08attractive well did she earn the money not particularly because she did not
20:15invent her body and she did not invent male lust or the desire for men to
20:20provide resources to attractive women and so on right she did not provide the
20:26nerve endings and the masturbatory pleasures that males are females are
20:31capable of that is baked into life itself so what does she own what does
20:39she own now she made the choice to monetize her physical assets but she did
20:44not earn the entire environment of lust and simping and so on that's baked into
20:49a lot of men's natures particularly men whose fathers married or reproduced with
20:57their mothers because of their mother's physical attractiveness and for no other
21:00personal or moral qualities so do you not know that your bodies are temples of
21:07the Holy Spirit who is in you whom you have received from God the key phrase
21:13there is not body or temple the Holy Spirit but your who are you who are you
21:17the only thing you can take pride in are your choices not reactions not
21:25triggered not lust not desire not even the repudiation of desire the only thing
21:30that you can take pride in are your moral choices you can't take pride in
21:34your height you know I when I was even still now occasionally you see these
21:39guys online with great hair right so Zac Efron right he's got that sort of great
21:44shock of hair right oh you see guys online and they they have this sort of
21:49arrogance around their hair and you know I get it it's it can be attractive and
21:53all of that although a lot of women do like the bald look but it's like it
21:58really is the saddest thing to take pride in of course right it'd be like me
22:02taking pride in having blue eyes it's just an accident right you have some
22:07protein strands sticking out of your scalp that you accidentally hung on to
22:13through genetics right I mean balding is genetic right didn't earn it right
22:18didn't earn it I mean Zac Efron didn't earn his hair although I think he and
22:24his trainer and whatever other pharmaceuticals he's on have turned that
22:29will-o'-the-wisp teenage body into this absolute middle-aged tank he's got going
22:35on now it's really quite something but to take pride in that which you did not
22:40earn is vanity right it's saying I am responsible for being good-looking I'm
22:45responsible for being tall I'm responsible having great hair or great
22:49boobs or great butt or whatever it is like but you're not so the phrase goes
22:54on to say you are not your own you were bought at a price therefore honor God
23:00with your bodies you were not your own you were bought at a price well very
23:04true this is part of the whole sacrifice of your ancestors thing I did your
23:09ancestors sacrifice as much as they did to give you life did they suffer through
23:16the death of half their children disease war famine horrible weather lack of
23:23health care lack of dentistry of any functional kind did they suffer through
23:28all of that to hand you life so you could piss it away playing World of
23:32Warcraft or fortnight your life is a shadow cast by the guillotine
23:39sacrifices of your ancestors did my ancestor William Molyneux who I know a
23:45bit more of I've actually read a whole book about him but did my ancestor
23:49William Molyneux suffer as he suffered hiding out in Barnes in Ireland with
23:55John Locke escaping the soldiers of the king did my ancestors suffer as much as
24:01they did to hand me life so that I could waste it on pornography video
24:07games and online simping well of course not if they had known that the sum total
24:15of my life would be a repudiation of all of their suffering through blank eyed
24:19glassy-hearted hedonism in the here and now they wouldn't have bothered to have
24:23children I am only alive because my ancestors kept a flame of light and
24:30handed it down the centuries and the millennia in order for me to carry on
24:35the flame the flame is reproduction if possible but it's also doing good being
24:40honorable promoting virtue fighting corruption so life is a gift from your
24:49ancestors who gave you that gift on the understanding on the belief on the hope
24:56on the optimism that you would not waste it that you would not waste it would you
25:02work 80 hours a week for 40 years to amass a fortune if you knew for sure
25:09that your children would piss it away on pyramid schemes and hiring questionable
25:15people in foreign lands and buying useless crap that they shoved in the
25:21basement died hoarders you wouldn't why would you bother gathering all of that
25:26wealth working that hard if you knew for certain that your children would squander
25:31it you won't you wouldn't right you wouldn't would you get married if you
25:38knew for certain that your wife would divorce you take your children and half
25:42your stuff no life focus purpose and effort are all based upon optimism in
25:49outcomes and you my friend and me at the result of wild optimism in the past for
25:56the potential of the future and if you squander it you are stealing from your
26:01ancestors sufferings you are defrauding them life is a gift from eternity life
26:07is a gift from before you were born and that gift comes with certain
26:10expectations and if you fail to fulfill those expectations you are defrauding
26:15the optimism of those who suffered and died to hand you the trembling
26:18windblown leafy torch of life so I think that's what it means that's what it has
26:27to do with that's what it's foundationally about life is a precious
26:32gift given to you by the optimism and suffering of those who came before you
26:36it is not yours to do with as you please but you must add to the story and pass
26:41the torch forward or be condemned as a fraudster so I hope that this helps I'd
26:48love to know what you think about this free domain.com slash donate if you find
26:53these talks helpful I would really appreciate your support and I hope you
26:57have a wonderful day it's a Sunday morning on the 12th of January 2024 and
27:03I will see you at 11 o'clock in the morning. Bye!