Welcome to this episode of intellectual Catholicism today I am here with my good friend Kyle Whittington has a YouTube channel by the same name and today we’re here to talk about the power of fraternity and so I know that Kyle you wanted to kind of take the Reign on this
One so Bill first before we get into the subject how have you been I’ve been good it’s it’s been a little crazy uh you know if you guys are subscribed to my channel you probably will see that content has not been coming out as regular uh you know we just had a baby
And then you know like two months after we we moved we move or after we had the baby we moved to Stubenville so uh we’re still we’re still kind of getting settled in uh things are things are a little hectic but it’s a it’s a good kind of chaos because you know meeting
New people making friends at living in community it’s it’s a really nice change of pace and Kyle is this uh your studio in your house or is this another room where you at right now this I am in the Numa co-working space in Stubenville Ohio which is great for remote workers
We have a uh a phone booth I’m touching both ends of it right now so yeah so it is uh it’s just for like conference calls and stuff like that it’s kind of soundproofed it’s just kind of nice for doing stuff like this so it’s uh it’s
It’s a cool space so actually like hey if you guys are looking to move and you know you want to build some of this fraternity here uh Stubenville is not a bad choice uh I actually highly recommend it so it’s yeah yeah Kyle speaking of fraternity
Uh you you know you I mean there’s a lot that you want to say with this and so maybe let let me you lead the conversation now and we’ll just see where we can go from there yeah for sure um so uh I I do want to plug the event
That I’m I’m doing is it is it is it cool if I do that oh yeah go right ahead Okay cool so uh I believe it’s already in the description if not I’m sure it’ll end up there eventually it coming this July 12th through the 14th in Stubenville Ohio at Chesterton Cigar
Lounge I’m going to be hosting a Catholic Creator conference the main purpose of this we don’t have any speakers booked or anything like that but we’re going to have Catholic creators myself I’m going to be there drew the Catholic Swan might be there I know things are as a college student
Things are not always certain for you but you know uh it’s G to be a great time it’s going to give us a chance to interact face to face because as anybody who has spent more than 15 minutes on in the Catholic apologetics sphere whatever there’s a lot of fighting there’s a lot
Of headbutting going on and you know the conversations just typically are so much friendlier when they happen within strangling distance and you know I just want to try to close that Gap a little bit get some people here face to face talk to each other become actual friends
Not just faces on a screen you know Swan you and I we’ve hung out in person twice now and you know I feel like I got to know you way better than I ever could have through a camera or whatever especially just seeing you in just the
Absolute meane machine that you are and that’s something that doesn’t really come across uh on a camera especially you know intellectual Catholicism this is a very serious Channel you want to take it seriously you don’t want to be spamming Thanos gifts all over the place
Um but yeah so uh so anyway that we are limiting it to creators and there’s only 25 spaces available so there’s an application uh I’ll review your application but think good fit uh I’ll send you a ticket to or send you a link to go purchase the tickets $25 it
Literally only pays for the venue I’m not making a cent off of this in fact it’s it’s costing me money so that’s just to help cover the costs of it so if you’re interested check it out and yeah so fraternity a lot of people especially if
They’ve if they found their way to your channel especially my channel it means that they spend probably a lot of time on YouTube I’ve already kind of alluded to the the infighting and the stuff that I I I myself am guilty of I’m not going to
Pretend like I’m I’m an innocent and I’m the Paragon of virtue here because even if I you don’t see it on camera there’s a lot of times where I’ve got this builtup anger towards people that I’ve never even spoken to and what can I do about this and I was
Like all I can do is basically just sit in my chair cope and see and that’s not building the kingdom that’s just building resentment and then even worse is that whenever you go into the real world and you talk somebody talk to someone who’s familiar with the YouTube
Scene and they find out that you’re allied with this individual or this individual and then that’s more cause for fighting and you know I do I do think that’s a problem especially when you find out that those two people those sides that people have so have have drawn those two people are actually
Really good friends with each other you know they talk to each other on the phone occasionally and I’ve seen that happen and you know it’s like followers of this guy followers of this guy those two guys get along the followers you know are always at each other’s throats
And uh I you know I’ve heard I’ve heard uh great stories of friendships between Protestant apologists and Catholics apologists but you know when you see them in a debate you would think that they were the bitterest of enemies but meanwhile the following weekend they’re going to go hunting together or
Something like that and I really really think that this is something that the YouTube algorithm Facebook algorithm you know you mentioned this yesterday in your stream so this is kind of a sequel and building off of that of It kind of rewards bad behavior you want to oh I’m
Gonna destroy this guy and even myself in some of the content that I’ve previously made I remember thinking to myself it wasn’t I want to lovingly and charitably correct this person the thought that I would have is I want to kick this person’s teeth in and that’s not helpful like okay I
Punch this guy in the face what’s he going to want to do well he’s going to want to punch me back he’s not going to take the hit and go oh maybe that guy had a good point it was it’s it’s causes infighting and quite frankly it causes a
Scandal in that you know a non-believer an atheist is going to look into this and go oh well how about them Christians look at that they can’t even agree on some basic stuff they don’t care about the Catholic Protestant they just see Christians too so that’s why I am
Thinking that or why I’m saying and trying to push the fact that we do need to love each other we do need to get along and these owning and dunking on everybody it’s just kind of embarrassing whenever we’re trying to beat people over the head and the stick that we’re
Using to beat them with is Jesus Christ you know we’re beating them with the crucifix and it’s just oh my gosh like what a what an absolute sacrilege that is and I think that’s something that we do need to take uh take seriously and you know consider consider our actions consider our words
You know Jesus tells us that you know we will be H held accountable for every careless word that we utter and you know how much more could that be Amplified whenever our words are more or less permanently recorded in either a video or a comment section so this isn’t just
A Creator thing this goes for for you dear viewer as well because you know you’re going to have to account for those words too at your judgment and you know I I think there’s something that we could do a little bit to um to to encourage each other to Virtue
A little bit and maybe not be at each other’s throat so much so anyway I’ve been talking for a little bit I’ll get your thoughts on this Swan yeah I think it’s I mean there’s so much like I basically agree with everything that you said that
Um we need to be able to see that the person that we were talking to is a human being and what that really means I mean I think that’s so much even just part of like Christ Stone ethic when you read the New Testament his whole thing
Is to get you to see like if we take seriously the idea that our neighbor is a human being created the image of God what does that actually mean for the way that we conduct ourselves and you know yesterday I mentioned in the Stream that a lot of people think that like virtue
Is just a moral thing but intellectually I can do whatever I want right I can I can straw man I can no but it’s like no virtue applies not only to the moral life but the intellectual life as well and so I think the conference that you’ve organized is just it’s going to
Be so important because I think that especially like you know you know Catholic Scholars uh biblical Scholars philosophers they all have conferences that they go to in order to ensure that they can like you know meet in person and maintain good relationships it’s a great way to connect but I think the
Same thing needs to happen in for Catholic content creators I I don’t know if there’s any conference really out there for Catholic content creators yeah and so I think this is filling up a major Gap in the community that we as as content creators we need to be able to
Actually be together hold each other accountable but also have friendships with each other I think that’s I mean that’s so important so Kyle there’s I mean there’s so much that I agree with you uh with on this particular matter and uh I’ll say this too I think that
You know for some people they might say and I I saw there was a comment in the um live stream that you know there’s some people saying like oh I have I have the Crusader complex right not I in particular but just they right they they were admitting that they have the
Crusader complex right same that’s me you know and the thing is like it’ll it might get you some wins in the short term but in the long term as like things get more sour and people look back right and they think about the effect that somebody’s content has on
The internet on the online community I think in the long term that’s not going to last it’s not going to be good because I mean it’s kind of like fast food you might get something that’s really good for the short term but then it’s just going to kind of not be so
Good in the long term right you want something that’s going to last yeah so I I normally I don’t name drop whenever I’m criticizing people although I think this guy’s going to be cool with it there’s one clown online and if you look at some of his stuff uh
He goes by the name of Kyle Whittington and he did this series called lwh hanging fruit and it was exactly that it was the fast food of apologetics uh I did no study uh it was all off the cuff I made it into a drinking game and
Looking back on it now it’s just like yeah I mean okay don’t get me wrong it was fun it was funny I never once got a single message a single email that said Kyle thank you so much your work your uh your this series here has deepened my
Faith in Christ and or oh you really helped me get over my my objections to Catholicism or something like that that didn’t happen a single time and especially if you’re a content creator I’m sorry but if you’re doing the right thing you should be getting this kind of
Feedback from people like oh dude thank you so much because usually when people are changed they you know they want to show gratitude and never once so uh it is possible there might be some silent person out there personally I kind of doubt it so you
Know I didn’t talk to any of those people except for you know as new glof is in here uh you know Kevin non trath which Kevin Kevin’s a sweetheart I love Kevin to death uh and he was the only person who ever asked for the the loow
Hanging fruit treatment uh but even then like after that uh it was followed up with a conversation with Kevin but uh personally you know Kevin I’m not going to say his last name he’s a sweet guy I love that guy to death in fact like I
Need to get with him because I said like you’re not coming onto my channel again until it’s in person so you have to come to Stubenville and we’re going to get to hang out and actually like beep Ros um so that’s uh yeah so stop I guess I I
Want I just want to encourage people to like stop trying to just dunk on each other even with that offthe cuff answer that I would give it’s like I’m making something that’s going to be on the internet presumably forever um um but yeah it’s yeah anyway I yeah you know
Right I think one concern that people might have though is like what I’m saying is everybody needs to be like a scholar right and obviously like there are some people who they they have a voice and they want to express it right but they don’t have the time to read
Richard Price okay they don’t have the time to read you know all you know commentaries and ancient Jewish texts they don’t have the time for that right and that’s okay I think that um what we need to do I think what everybody can do no matter where you are
Right is virtue so you can make the funny content you can have a good time have good laughs and all that but so long as you do it in a way that is charitable and maybe you put like caveats in that of course like I’m not saying all Protestants believe this but
Here’s this particular Protestant who I mean I I think that there’s a way in which you could do low hanging fruit without it being like you know bad uh and uh sure yeah right and so yeah I don’t want people to think that everybody has to be like very serious
And scholarly I think that there’s a lot of value in how different people do apologetics you know so for me I have my particular way of doing it some people like to make you know animate videos cartoons some people like to do like comedy I think all those are acceptable
I think I think there’s always though that question of you know being careful especially if you use humor right because humor is very powerful actually and you can use it for good or for ill so I mean that that’s just something that I’d say there right I don’t want
Everyone to kind of uh become just I’m not saying everyone become me right and uh even for myself I’m trying to correct myself I’m trying to adjust and do things differently you know so I I’m not I am not the Paragon and as you said too you’re not pretending to be an Exemplar
Of virtue I think all of us are working at it yeah absolutely and you know there there’s a few people that I would say that are doing extremely well uh but yeah well I’ll just say like I’m pretty sure he won’t mind the compliment Scott Han uh one of the most gracious guys
I’ve ever met um and obviously he’s doing but you know he’s also a scholar but um I do want to kind of call back to the one of one of the main points that I’ve got in my notes Here is whenever we’re going out and doing these things
One of the problems with the new uh with the lwh hanging fruit you know I’ve got David is in the in the chat saying like well you know that really helped me vent and like you said there is value there so I don’t want to say that it’s
Completely worthless and and whatnot uh but the person who made those videos they’re not going to you know I they’re going to watch that video and they’re going to think that I’m a jerk and to a certain extent they’re correct and that’s that’s one of the big
Problems and I know it’s a cliche but I think is very true and I found this in my own experience in my leadership journey and whatnot but people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care yeah not I’m making a point to not name
Any names there’s a certain apologist online and he is the most triumphalist arrogant insulting guy that I think I’ve ever met I could not care less what he has to think because I don’t think that he cares for my good I legitimately thinks that he is just
Arguing and it’s just so that he can beat me and prove that he’s Superior and quite frankly man I got five kids I ain’t got time for that uh so you know it’s just so the danger though is thinking that like you and I are above
That and we could never be that whenever in fact like that danger is always always there so we always need to be on guard of this and I do have to give you a compliment because Swan I think you’ve done an excellent job at remaining above that
Not getting into the mud and the muck of all of this and always you know being charitable including a time that most people don’t know about because it that recording never saw the light of day uh calling me out U of saying like yeah Kyle this ain’t this ain’t good you know
This this is this is gonna go to the trash bin where it belongs and you know and I really appreciate that too because honestly that was a huge Direction change for me and uh I think getting the relationship up is really going to uh help you reach that person better
Now uh you know does that mean that we’re going to stop the stop the the low hanging fruit from coming our way no of course not however the people that are spouting it to you you know one of the things that I’d recommend just actually there’s somebody in the chat right now
That I recently gave this uh advice to not going to name this person but it the first thing you need to do is just understand them hear them hear where they’re coming from they might be saying like you know Catholics worship Mary or other such things like that but if you
Don’t understand what they’re saying how could you possibly engage with them how could you respond if you’re going to be just responding into something with something or responding to something that you think that they’re saying but they’re not really saying and then that’s when you get two people talking
Past each other and you know at that point you’re creating more heat than light yeah I mean this is something that I well I mean there’s a lot that I could say there I think the first thing is that people underestimate the power of when someone feels heard once they feel
That they’ve been heard they’re willing to actually listen to you I think that uh yeah we underestimate that I think people also underestimate the power of kindness and I I don’t want to sound like a Care Bear here but I really do think that if you do show someone
Kindness and you do your part to make them feel heard they will give you more room to like make your argument to articulate your position because yeah I won’t name any names but back when I was in uh my undergrad there was a girl that I knew who was like
Pro-choice and like very you know like very adamantly pro-choice and we got into a conversation about abortion and rather than just like going right into my philosophical Arguments for the moral Dignity of the embryo and the substance of human persons I just like listen to
Her and at the very end I just said yeah I mean like I I respect you I can see how you got from point A to point you know I personally disagree uh and obviously like I think it’s a grave deep moral disagreement it’s serious but she had this interesting reaction where she
Said like wow I actually felt heard by you like I was expecting you to just get mad at me to yell at me or to like give this argument for you know as this pro-life man but I’m like no I mean I think if you if you were able to kind of
Be different than what they’re expecting then there’s a way in which I mean you you kind of put the shields down right they put the shields down and you’re willing and they’re more able to listen to what you’re saying because they trust you and they’ve established that there
Was something else I wanted to say but um I mean I like how I actually like let me put up on the from the chat um shepherdess who says the art of listening is an act of kindness listening neither affirms nor condemns it just listens and I think that’s
That’s a great point there uh especially in our online work yeah and this is the other thing I was going to say like also um you know I don’t want to pretend either that like I’ve never gotten angry about some of the things that go on
Online uh I don’t want to pretend as if I haven’t also felt the Crusader complex within myself because because like I I mean you know from my conversion from being Baptist to being Catholic uh I had to deal with people who mistreated me who said all kinds of things about me
And it’s very e easy in that context to lean into your resentment and just unleash it right especially like I mean you know you could you could view this as a great deposit of knowledge or you can view these books as ammunition that’s how easy it can all
Switch up and so I have to constantly slow down and make sure that I’m not letting myself get into that Spirit of resentment yeah yeah no that’s that’s uh that that Crusader complex whenever I watched that like I felt particularly called out there I know you were thinking about me
Specifically so but uh yeah no that’s oh man I had something too and I totally it is uh yeah but hey oh bren’s here that’s cool yeah yeah and new glof he just said to be able to say I agree or I disagree I must be able to say I understand
Mortimer Adler I think that’s a good quote to share yeah yeah no and you know okay so here’s here’s the point that I was going to make uh is turning the other cheek you know that doesn’t mean always lay down never defend yourself just do that but yeah in those times
When you are being attacked turning the other cheek is one of the most effective things you can do because if somebody punches you in the face and you punch them in the face well okay now it’s a now it’s a full-on brawl and it’s gonna
End with both of you in the hospital and actually really interestly neither of you won but if somebody punches you in the face and you look back at and can say sincerely I forgive you now I love you can we talk about this please that’s such a striking unnatural Supernatural thing to do
That’s something that okay now you’re making progress that’s going to speak louder than any of these you know you you’ve got all of the church fathers memorized and can quote quote it line by line and you can right you can dismantle everything whatever but it’s that I care about you let’s do this
Now um yeah so anyway I I let you add on to that because you’re the biblical scholar here well it reminds me yeah it reminds me what Paul says Paul says you know if I’m if I don’t have love then I’m just a banging symbol right like my
My voice my preaching everything is meaningless if I don’t have love and I mean that’s precisely what makes Jesus so troubling for us it’s that you know he calls us to love our enemies and in this world today what we want is power right we want to be strong
Especially us guys you know we want to be strong and present ourselves in such a way where our community feels confident because we’re confident but I think that when you love somebody else you become vulnerable you’re willing to let them finish their sentence you’re willing to let them finish their
Argument you’re willing to absorb that point that uh objection and really say maybe there’s something there or I’m going to take you seriously and I think there’s actually more in doing that than just striking back like he were saying before and even you know I think about
Um you know when Jesus talks about turning the other cheek uh I mean there there’s a lot of different ways that you can interpret that but the the the primary way in which I think people have interpreted it is that you don’t immediately retaliate right because what you’re ultimately concerned with is that
Person being able to see the face of God and if you strike them back immediately then all they see is an enemy right and then the cycle continues but there’s a sense in which if you refuse to strike back if you refuse to go in the way of the world or what’s
Expected think about the story before of the girl that I talked to about the issue of abortion with when she saw that I wasn’t doing what she was expecting it kind of opened up an entirely different world for her and so I think too like with Christ saying love your enemies
Turn the other cheek he’s trying to get you to do the thing that’s going to open Open the Eyes of your enemy to the face of God right to a world that they didn’t think was even possible yeah dude that that that’s some solid stuff and I do
Have to confess whenever you said you have to let them finish their sentence I was it took every ounce of my being to not just interrupt you right then and there but anyway so no that that but that’s really good um you know and a lot
Of that comes with just humility too you know I guess for me as an uneducated hick from Oklahoma it’s really easy for me to go well I might be wrong I’ve been wrong a lot in my life but just have some of that humility in listening and
Assuming you know Dale Carnegie has this saying and I I try to remember it it doesn’t matter who you’re talking to every single person on this planet is your Superior in something and you know whenever you remember that and you’re just not going to know what that thing is until you get
To know them and get to understand them a little bit more so and then on top of that too even if you’re you’re dealing with some of these people who are you know the most vitriolic they’re just so angry they’re SP filled with spite whatever there’s still something in them
That is so valuable that is so lovable that it made Jesus Christ want to die for them try to figure out what that is you know yeah try to figure out what that is that would say what is so great about you that that I should give my life for you as well
And that doesn’t mean like oh this person’s a jerk now go jump on a grenade for them that’s not what I’m saying but you know just trying to find that value trying it that just helps make it easier to to show kindness to these people is remembering what Jesus did for them as
Well as he did for you yeah oh Haley says she has lots of question for Yeah well yeah and for those of you in the chat for those of you in the chat just feel free to uh you know post your questions or your comments and I think
Kyle and I will’ll look at them in about maybe um three to four minutes when weit the 30 minute Mark how about that okay yeah um so but uh but on the on the subject of humility uh I do have this quote on my notes I wanted to get that
Out was um it’s a it’s a apparently I never had one of Dr hans’s classes but this is what I’ve heard people say that he said said a lot is that God opposes the proud even when they’re right so it’s uh yeah anyway so what was the time frame you were
Suggesting again like we we take questions at 30 minutes or just kind of go back and forth a little bit Yeah because we’re we’re about to hit the 30 minute Mark so I think once we hit 30 I think we’ll be ready to take questions and comments from people okay
Sweet Swan’s a broke college student so super chats are definitely [Laughter] appreciated yeah Kyle uh is there anything else on your agenda that you want to talk about or um you know another thing is just like Fraternity in real life the faith was never meant to be lived online obviously we bring our
Faith to the online sphere but I’ve ran into so many people and sometimes it’s like through no fault of their own but like the only community that they have is in a Discord server and on on a certain extent it’s like oh thank God for that Discord server because I feel
Like if this wasn’t here you would have nothing right but that’s a problem that the Discord server there is a Band-Aid solution you know know you need you need the overhaul you need to find that Community even the holiest men in who have ever lived like St Benedict he
Still lived in community so we still that oh wow thanks okay Super Chat uh but anyway they uh so get that Community build that fraternity because there’s some you know this is okay now this is me shooting off the cuff from uh from a psychological standpoint I’m not a
Psychologist feel free to dismiss me without cause or good reason whatever but God designed us to be survivors whenever there’s an unknown we always replace that unknown with fear with stay away from it this is why the dark is so scary to us at like such a primal like
Animal level we always want to know everything which that does need to be kept in track check we don’t want to fall into the vice of you know unbounded curiosity but there’s a problem with just text text is you can tell whenever I say dang Swan
You’re super bad today that’s a good job good job man you know or something like that now was is like I don’t know I said bad because I don’t know it’s first thing whatever but I could say like the same compliment it’s just like hey hey Swan nice glasses versus nice
Glasses they’re the exact same exact same words but it can be taken differently so that’s why um that’s why I want to say get face to face especially like stuff like this it’s a good Band-Aid solution you’re in Massachusetts I’m in Ohio you know it’s awkward we’re making
It work but you can see that I’m over here flailing like a mad man while I’m talking and but it’s so much better than if I just do that because I type I write like a serial killer so if you’re getting messages from me on Discord they
They they probably come across as very cold because I’m probably just trying to communicate as efficiently as possible and that leaves a lot to the imagination and can sometimes come across as hostile so get your get more human interactions don’t just do these long back and forth
Or you know there’s some great uh writers out there uh that you know Dr Han especially if you’ve ever read any of his books you know the humor is littered throughout there the man is definitely a dad um but you know so like okay he’s good at it I’m not so that’s
Why I want to try to keep these more serious conversations in person and like I said it’s fantastic too if you can have that conversation within strangling distance because then there’s that natural barrier there that’s going to keep you polite just out of want for your own natural safety anyway so I
Think that’s like the last Point uh uh point that I really really wanted to get to but we’re have 30 minutes now so let’s take some questions yeah and I’ll just say before um before I move on hold on let me get something ready okay because you mentioned that I’m a
Meme Lord so I’ll get a meme ready but um before before I get to the meme well actually I’ll just do it now because you kept on talking about like um what is it being within strangling distance of each other and every time you said that I
Just couldn’t help but think of this meme yes yeah but yeah I wanted to say too that um you know one of the problems with like things like the Crusader complex or other things along on those lines is that if you think about the new atheists right the new atheists had the
Crusader complex I mean it just it’s litered throughout where they felt like they were on this kind of immoral Mission Against religion and against all religious belief and then for a time like you know you had young edgy atheist teenagers who were you know really excited for this kind of stuff eating up
Hitchens Dawkins dennit and Harris but then as time has passed their legacy hasn’t fared that well I think terms of like in academic circles and in what people want today I mean I think in the in the wake of the um the new atheists have come figures like Jordan Peterson
Where people are actually interested in religion they want to have dialogues about religion they want to see what they can appreciate about these religious ideas and their wisdom and so if we try and do like the new atheist but we’re Catholics I don’t know not the new Catholics but whatever we would say
For that kind of movement then sorry I just saw something in the chat that made me laugh um if we try to do that same tactic it’s going to backfire and I mean I I have a sense with some of the streams that are are going online right
Now there might be some Protestants who are attempting to do basically like the new atheist move against us Catholics online um I know that that might sound like conspiracy theory but I have a sense of where it might be going I think these are right now these figures are
More Fringe so they’re not going to be part of the mainstream um but it’s just something that makes me concerned how can we avoid the new athe atheo of the online apologetic scene and before I move on to the uh chat I just want to say to new gloff for the Super
Chat like I know I really appreciate it and thank you so much I mean I think that’s the biggest Super Chat I’ve ever gotten in a chat so I mean that means a lot to me so thank you I appreciate it all right uh let’s go to the top here
And if you see any questions that you want to talk about Kyle you let me know um okay well let’s see here so Haley had a question which was first why I I don’t know what you’re getting at um but uh let’s see here uh should I stop my
YouTube so up there 527 uh should I stop my YouTube comment conversations from new gloth no next question no um so no you shouldn’t stop them okay because the YouTube comment section for the absolute cess pool that they are there’s still a mission field you can still try to reach
Somebody your batting average is going to be awful you’re going to strike out more than you you know actually hit here so but as long as you’re doing it with virtue with love check your intentions because I can’t tell you how many times that well you type out this whole
Comment out of spite and then you read it and you go ah that that com never needs to see the light of day it needs to go it needs to go and it needs to stay go um but yeah so if you can keep yourself from getting angry with the
Text on the screen that is actually another human person uh then yeah or if you find yourself that That’s too great of a Temptation you know what do we say at the end of Every Act of cont Act of Contrition to avoid the near occasion of
Sin if it’s a near occasion of sin for you stay away from it if you’re prone to wrath like me um then then stay away from it and uh and whatnot but if you can do it with charity and kindness and gentleness um do that but I I would
Still say try to make them a friend before try to understand them as best as you possibly can before you start pushing on them because one problem that I’ve run into a lot is that I’m a terrible writer I’m not good at communicating my ideas so and sometimes
I’m not a very good speaker uh there was one time my wife and I were arguing about something and she repeated the words that I said right back to me and I realized how awful they were and my only response was I can see why you would
Think that that’s what I believe because that’s exactly what I said and so sometimes this person give them some Grace a little bit their ideas are probably far more developed than what they’re able to communicate on the screen just like you just like me so
Keep that in mind um and just try to make the direction to be um to be more friendly make them a friend and not I’m going to demolish them or if you have my attitude of I cannot let this error stand because if I don’t respond they’re going to think
That there’s not a response yeah and you know what if they do believe that that’s their problem that’s not yours right so if you can’t respond kindly then you know can’t say anything nice and don’t say anything at all yeah I mean that that’s the problem of Pride where you
Don’t want them to have the last word you want to make sure that you stamp stamp uh their position out um I would say to new gloff as well just I think there are two tactics that you could take and maybe you’ll you you can
Develop other ones but one is to just if you see a comment and the question you know is one that you can really competently answer then write out your answer be very calm be very deliberate about it maybe if it’s a paragraph or two go you know go ahead right and then
Post it and then just see how they respond and if they respond by just kind of mocking or um even sometimes people like ask questions I I think this is called was it like sea lioning or they like ask a bunch of questions and they try to seem sincere but they’re really
Just trying to like ask questions for the sake of questions you know there’s a way that you can tell them when somebody’s being sincere with their questions or not but like if if you post that comment you can use that as kind of a litmus test where like you did the
Hard work and you know you tried to remain calm hopefully in your comment and you just maybe at the end of the comment say you know what do you think or I’d love to hear your thoughts or maybe that would sound too sarcastic but like you know what do you think right uh
That’s one way the other way that you could and use that as a test the other thing that you could do is reply to the person by just asking some clarifying questions and just being very gentle about it and and once you kind of feel like okay I think this person feels hurt
I feel like I understand what they’re saying then maybe you could get get into like the more direct responses maybe write out that paragraph so those are kind of two ways that you could navigate the online scene but I will say that if you do that for a long time like just
Debating on in the YouTube comment section that will drive you insane it will drive you mad yeah it’ll kill you it’ll kill your it’ll kill your soul um you know it’s we once again the faith was never meant to be lived out online
Um so yeah uh I do want to add one more thing so whenever it comes to YouTube comments specifically I will always because I used to you know I haven’t been doing this as much but you know reading comments on the Council of Trent one thing that I would always Trent
Horn’s Channel not the church Council um I would always look for accusations yeah if an accusation of Mal intent or something like that the moment some I see one of those I move on that’s not worth engaging because you’re just trying to do this I mean what’s the
Response to that nuh obviously there’s no trust there anyway there’s no reason to engage and I might be wrong but especially when you’re dealing with thousands of comments you know you just got to pick your battles and and choose so um and that’s also something we need
To be on guard for too is don’t ever accuse somebody’s intentions uh I don’t think that that’s ever appropriate uh an appropriate thing to do you know somebody say oh you’re being deceptive no I’m not being deceptive I’m just stupid I’m just wrong okay like and and
That might just be that person too I don’t want to say that they’re stupid I’ll call myself stupid I’m not going to call them stupid uh you know they might just be gen Ely mistaken so give them some Grace don’t ever just like impune their intent that’s that’s not
Appropriate for a Christian to do yeah and just one one thing really quick too is that like in terms of human psychology I forget what they call this phenomenon exactly but it’s like if you present somebody counter evidence or counter arguments it can actually make them dig more into their own worldview I
Forget what they call this but um but like I I don’t know if you’ve heard about this phenomenon but it’s it’s really dangerous because you have to present counter evidence and arguments in the right way so try to get the shields down so you can have that fair
Conversation or else what you do is if you just barrage somebody with a bunch of quotes then they actually feel like they need to dig in and double down and that’s really risky right well and like at the end of the day like if anybody here believes that they’re smarter than
Every planet or every Protestant on the planet stop you’re wrong you know there there are Protestants out there who are far more familiar with the church fathers than you than with church history than you uh I’m not saying that they’re correct but I am saying that they probably have better arguments than
You specifically do and uh you know that’s not something that you want to come in half coocked and and whatnot so but anyway yeah okay Wesley Novak asks should all Catholics move to stuben Bill Kyle what’s your answer no should a lot of Catholics move to stanville yes absolutely this town in
Population about 80,000 we’re currently sitting at about 18,000 so what that means is you can buy a house for a grand total of like $5,000 you dear viewer could turn this crack house into a crack home um so but no uh Stubenville is fantastic if you guys are desperately grasping for for
Community it’s here uh I can tell you it is here in Spades now I’m crazy So within just a couple of months from being here I’ve already planned events I’ve hosted parties um I’m gonna be doing a surprise birthday party for somebody here in town this Sunday I hope
They don’t watch this channel um but they uh yeah it’s it’s so so good in my neighborhood what the house that we selected which hopefully Swan you’ll be at one day when I was looking at the houses that the house that we got wasn’t anything special it would work though I knew that
It would work but whenever we afterwards when we were standing out in the driveway and I was say still thinking like yeah I’d still prefer something cheaper the neighbor the the neighbor came home uh and I was talking to her and you know her and her five kids got
Out and ran inside or went to go play outside whatever she gave me a very Stern warning of if you’re going to live here you have to be okay with children playing in your front yard basically warning me my kids are going to play in your front yard and I’m not
Going to try and stop them and to me that was a huge selling point because also as a father of five yeah I want my kids to play outside with all sorts of neighbor kids and my kids now have really good friends in the neighborhood and that’s something that we’re kind of
Missing so if you can make it work duh there are not many good paying jobs here we have no like industry we have services and we have you know secondary and tertiary Goods so clothes whiskey beer cigars stuff like that we’re not like producing textiles or you know all
The steel steel workers are losing their jobs and stuff like that so it’s great for me as a remote worker I work here at Numa it’s a great situation it’s kind of nice because you know I take I take money from my full-time job and basically pump it directly into the
Stubenville economy which is doing good uh but yeah so if you’re a remote worker I I do do highly recommend Stubenville though you know come and see come for a visit first see if it’s the right fit for you it might not be but I love it that’s great Kyle all right David
Shapen asks how can we reform Catholic communities because when I go to parishes they seem to assume the community already exists and it just must be served other than move to Stubenville Kyle so I’m from the south I am from Southeast Oklahoma so I was heavily influenced by the
Baptists um but I do think that the Baptists have a few things right namely eating like have a potluck you know yeah there’s I used to plan a ton of events in St Louis when we lived there Swan you were at one of them because you were the
Keynote speaker uh but have free booze have free food there if the church doesn’t want to pay for it and you’ve got a good job and you can spare the money you pay for it find a group of guys who will pitch in for it because we’re Catholic we love
Drinking you know nothing gets a group of men together like free beer or free whiskey um so you can start doing that get these guys together unite over a good drink chances are your priest is also a fan of these things start planning these events a lot of times I
Have found that if you go to ask your priests can we we do this thing now and you got to you got to be very careful on how you present this because if you do it in the Y form such of like hey y to do this nope nope nope you’re
Volunteering him for the priest for work or you know whoever’s there you’re volunteering them for work that’s not how this works you plan the event you decide hey I would like this for this to happen most priests their checklist is is this going to end me up in a news in front of
A news camera that that answer needs to be no is this going to cost moneyy this Quin could be a yes but you know if you can get that it’s like no it’s not going to cost any money and then is it going to cause extra work are you gonna like
After the party are you guys going to have a have a big mess if you can cover those three things chances are your your event is going to be green lit and you will be uh you know the priest is going to say yeah do it so and then but
Sometimes the end of the day people have to leave their house they have to show up to have an actual community and last time I checked in at least in all the developed countries kidnapping people out of their houses is illegal uh so you can’t force them there but you can make
It enticing and as things go you know these other community leaders will just kind of naturally rise up and you will naturally get help most of the time but you know obviously depending on where you are your mileage may vary yeah I mean just going back to your point about
Baptist yeah like I really miss having pot looks that’s why like I would sometimes go to the Byzantine Church near where I live in in Kansas City uh because they would always have a potluck after Divine Liturgy and um you know sometimes you have to make the community
Yourself uh sometimes you have to like find those opportunities I I I it just it impresses me because especially like on college campuses uh I know that like for example the parish that I went to during my undergrad St isadors you know did a great job of this but just at
Least for my some of my friends who are out here in in Massachusetts some of the Protestant Ministries they’re just so well-coordinated that if you want to be in a Bible study if you want a community they like have the the Excel spreadsheet all ready to go like it’s incredible how
They’re able to really Network and do that sort of community building and so I think that we need to be willing to do the same thing within the Catholic Church itself and I’ve recently seen comments like on on Facebook and other places where people have said that like
Yeah like the Catholic Community where I am just isn’t really well formed or well veloped you know everyone goes to mass after Mass everyone’s gone right and that’s it and I think that’s something that we really need to work on in the church in so far as like you know
Everyone has their different gifts but everybody I think could have like pizza beer whatever all the good stuff I think that’s totally possible yeah longterm uh so that’s what you can do shortterm longterm and I’m talking like generationally get married have lots of kids raise your sons to be good priests
At Foster community or single yeah or if you’re single get into the Seminary discern a vocation and if that is your vocation become a priest Foster Community my only answer to that is based all right only love says is acts 17:23 a good argument okay okay to prove
Muslims profess to worship the one true God or what’s a better argument to use I hope I’m not changing the topic thank you God bless okay let me pull up Acts 17:23 let’s see here that mon I see you’re basically going saying oh hey Kyle hey thanks for coming buddy
Could you stand could you get out of the way please yeah okay so this is when um like Paul is I think this is when he’s on uh when he when when Paul is discussing you know the unknown God and he has like the shrines of other gods
Around him and just to quote acts 172 three for while I was passing through and examining the objects of worship I also found an altar with this inscription to an unknown God therefore what you Worship in ignorance this I Proclaim to you so I think it’s kind of difficult
To I don’t know how you would apply this I mean maybe you could apply it to Muslims in terms of by analogy right there’s a similar situation that the Greeks and the Muslims are in in terms of like ah but but here’s the thing like
This is this is a so this is going to open a can of worm ter that I’m not trying to open the can right now um so is it a good argument no because I don’t think it actually deals with everything that’s relevant for that conversation between Catholics and Muslims on the
Nature of God and the god that we worship you could because you know in the in the case of the Greeks they if I remember properly you know and if this is wrong you know I’m open to correction but it’s that they were trying to cover
All their bases and so they had like their their you know statues for their different gods and then they said just in cas case we missed anybody here’s the statute to the unknown God and that’s not quite the same situation that Muslims are in and so I think we need to
Be careful about um how we analogize what’s going on in Acts 17:23 to the situation between Catholics and Muslims um or what’s a better argument to use uh so if you want a better argument for okay well okay so that is going to open a can of worms but I’ll just say
That there I think there are better arguments than acts 1723 for Catholic Muslim dialogue um yeah I mean there there’s a lot that I can say but I don’t want to open a can of worms so I’ll just leave it at that yeah okay David subpoena says how should
We be integrating the fact that we are able to have a conversation like this that we couldn’t even have 30 years ago into a community how should we I’m gonna be I’m going to be honest I don’t really understand the question so and I so David forgive me
And you can hit me up on Discord later to try maybe we can try to talk this out later but I I don’t feel comfortable giving advice this granular in a platform this wide because a lot of that like conversational stuff it has to be very broad when talking to a broad
Audience you just use your best judgment whenever you’re in the in this scenario and you know either you do it right or you don’t and you apologize and you move on yeah all right let me see here uh David tpen says Swan are you interested in purchasing a $55,000 crack home in
Studville this is the comment that made me laugh a little bit earlier so apparently this is a well-known stereotype uh so David’s in my Discord and I I recently well I recently stole it from another person that was in my Discord that Apparently one of her
Friends had a a doormat and it said in like the live laugh love font it’s not a crack house it’s a crack home so and then I just kind of ripped that off and it was like you can buy this $5,000 house take it from a crack house turn it
Into a crack home and yeah but you know there are $5,000 houses for sale here in Stubenville and they are in extremely rough shape not sure if drugs have run out of them but I wouldn’t rule out that possibility dudo comical says Kyle should just create a software that auto
Replies know you on those comments the the accusatory comments I think yeah yeah no and you know what maybe with chat GPT I could actually do something like that let’s see here um thanks Dom I’m becoming a calvinist because of Kyle thanks Don if you becoming a calvinist it’s because God
Predestined you to be let’s see yeah okay yeah why is Kyle predestined to be the king of Catholic YouTube I I would be because if I became the king of Catholic YouTube uh you guys would have to all uh if you’re if you’re not currently married you would have to
March straight into the Seminary uh become priests and uh never cease to say masses for me daily in order to keep my humility uh you know where it needs to be and not let me not have my head inflate to the size of Texas so I I
Actually have been kind of enjoying the fact that my Channel’s been kind of stalling because it has been a wonderful uh humility Growing Experience uh new glof asks Kyle what are your thoughts on Exodus 90 I’m gonna decline that question okay uh the catak humanin says is there an ontological difference
Between the justification of Abraham in the Old Testament and the justification of Christians under the New Covenant yeah you know this is actually um kle just walked out you know this is such a I mean honestly I don’t know I don’t think I’ve adequately explored this question
Um I could see it going either way where you could say yes or you could say no but yeah I maybe I shouldn’t even comment on this uh but I mean if Abraham was ontologically justified in the old in the Old Testament the same way that we’re Justified in the New Covenant then
What you could say is that like the grace of Christ was also applied to Abraham thousands of years before the coming of Christ I mean and so it would be actually like not quite like the Immaculate Conception but at least similar in terms of like the the
Temporal causality of what was going on where the merits of Christ were already being applied to the past so I don’t know actually that’s that’s an interesting question um but I don’t know if I’ll I’ll say anything else further about that let’s see if there are any other questions
Okay so I think that’s the last question that we have I will go ahead I will go ahead and address The Exodus 90 thing because I didn’t mean to like make it think like I hate them I think they’re stupid and no no no no no that’s not it
Uh Exodus 90 I do believe that the aesthetic PR practices that they teach uh that they that they promote is excellent uh I know personally a lot of people who have uh who have benefited from doing that uh personally especially whenever I did it like in 2021 uh that
Was a huge jump start to my faith it really helped me through a lot of things that I was working with I think it’s a good program um uh I also believe that with the team that they have they are both needing to and capable of making lots of
Improvements all right well Kyle it’s been a delight to have you on the channel again and just before we end the show I think I want to bring up the conference again so if you could just talk about the conference really quick and I’ll pull up the Google form and all
That um so hold on Alexi in the chat just said do some calvinist consider themselves C uh Catholics consider themselves calvinist no that was 100% a joke I’m so sorry uh that was uh yeah 100% a joke I I I apologize for any confusion that might have been caused uh
The logos project Dom is a good friend and uh actually you know what I’m gonna throw him under of the bus because it’s a great segue um Dom’s gonna be at the at the conference so 2024 it is July 12th through the 14th that’s a Friday so we’re going to get
Started Friday evening Sunday you go home so you know if you’ve worked the normal nine-to-five job chances are you could come to it without taking off any time out of work what we’re going to do is start on Friday we’re going to have uh one of the local priests here give a
Talk and try to kick us off get everything started out right and it is going to be uh and then the next day is going to be kind of relaxed we’ve got some of the local organizations here uh actually one in particular Nelson’s who you might know
Is Catholic to the max or if you’ve ever gone to any Catholic store and bought a frame print of something they did it uh they’re going to be talking about some things that you can do as far as merchandising goes uh actually make sure you subscribe to my channel because I
Will be I will be interviewing Mark Nelson who is the guy behind that he’s also responsible for a lot of the revitalization at Stubenville this guy is amazing dude yet Jeremiah you’re in my Discord you two were invited um yes you 100% were invited and if you’re not
There I’m going to come to Michigan and kidnap you even though that’s illegal in Minecraft um but anyway no so Mark Nelson yeah he runs a Catholic Gift Shop yeah he uh they do the Nutcracker Village here they run Leonardo’s the C uh the coffee shop here but also this
Dude has been fighting for life since you know since before any of us were were born the man literally met his wife in a jail cell because he was doing jail time for protesting against abortion so yeah it’s uh it’s GNA be a great time we’re gonna have a whole bunch of
Creators around each other face to face there’ll be plenty of times for collaboration uh I you know I don’t want to commit to anybody anybody to anything they haven’t but I’m GNA try to get one of the local people that you would be familiar
With to do like a one- hour Q&A with us um and uh yeah I can’t I as things develop I’ll be able to tell more but it’s going to be a great time and for $25 plus travel uh you know it’s not going to be uh it’s not going to be uh
It won’t be money wasted and I think moving forward because it’s probably going to be just a bunch of smaller creators but you know we’ve got Braden here in the chat Swan we’ve got you here wherever I don’t know how this is mirroring uh we’ve got you who are kind
Of these upand comers so how awesome would it be yeah I know you and Braden have already have already spent quite a bit of time together in person uh like at my house and in a hotel but how cool is it as you guys grow as you do that so
Does your friendship and you continually do that so let’s say you say something dumb and Braden goes oh I’m gonna get that Swan guy but then he can just call back and think well but you know Swan did say this but man maybe I should I should just
Call him first because I know from all those times that I’ve had a beer with him or something I know that you know there must be something to it you know and it’s just to build that fraternity build that love and ultimately make us stronger make us more unified so that
Way we can be more effective in carrying out the Great Commission yeah and Kyle I don’t know if I told you this but I do plan on coming so that is my plan I hope to make it I think think I can MH okay so it okay there it is there it is
There’s your big name I once again I don’t know how this is being mirrored um there’s your bigname guy there come on out uh if you’re a Creator come see Swan and uh we’ll do that I promise you he’s much bigger in real life oh man well uh you might be
Disappointed once you meet me it’s okay I’m only like 5 foot three so oh my gosh look at this with the catak cumin said he’s small man it was so funny I met a fan when okay I’ll just I’ll close with this story I met a fan uh like when I was
Entering the order the Dominican order for just the nov visit I met this other guy this other novice and he’s like I thought you’d be taller when he met me I’ve always gotten the exact opposite but yeah and Braden the catak cuman’s the exact opposite too like he he’s he’s
A little taller than I am and I’m I’m 6’2 so yeah that’s was a lot taller than I expected him to be oh yeah Bren Braden’s a total Chad he’s a total Chad six like like they I I don’t know I don’t know I I know that you’re like six
Something I know that Braden’s like 710 from what I last remember uh and then huya said Swan is the Asian Scott Han changed my mind that’s so that’s so freaking funny and then James just said Swan’s a short King I appreciate all the nice comments thank you you Scott
Swan Scott Swan that’s right all right well thank you uh Kyle for joining me and thank you all for on the live stream for joining me as well uh man it just means a lot and you know this conversation was very wholesome I feel very rejuvenated okay all righty well hey and
You know hey come subscribe to my channel it doesn’t help me in humility
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