 So let's take lust What is lust, let's see Lust in in a encyclopedia botanica. They go lust or an inordinate or illicit sexual desire Now, what does it mean to have an inordinate sexual desire or for that matter an illicit sexual desire? Now you kind of get what an illicit sexual desire is but Why is the desire Wrong, what what is the purpose? Remember this is one of the most sinful things you can do in life This is one of the most horrible things you can do it like in Wikipedia. It says it's an intense longing It is usually thought of as an intense or unbridled sexual desire Which may lead God forbid the fortification including adultery rape bestiality and other sinful sexual acts Wikipedia says Now sexual desire is one of those pleasurable Experiences one can have why is this? What's wrong with it? Now you can have you can say rape Bestiality whatever a wrong you can even say adultery is wrong For a different reason the Christianity says but why is the lust itself? Why is that bad? When it elicits such intense pleasure and it actually does lead one to pursue quote fornification for Fornication which is good For objectivism sex is good sex is pleasure sex is life-affirming Sex is the most intense pleasure one can have It's both spiritual and physical and it's wonderful. Why is Christianity so concerned about? Fornication fornication means sex outside of marriage Why did they care? Why do they deny us the pleasure of sex? Because they want to deny us pleasure They understand that it's a need and therefore they allow it in a particular context marriage for a particular purpose primarily having babies and Satisfying our animalistic need But at the heart of this at the heart of this is Their rejection of pleasure their rejection of Ecstasy the rejection of enjoyment the rejection of human happiness I mean my attitude towards this is exact opposite. I mean To lust that is to have strong sexual feelings towards somebody is wonderful Sometimes you have you're not gonna You're not gonna experience it. Yeah, that is you're not gonna Act on it because the other party might be married might be unavailable might be might not share Your lust for them, right? But having that feeling is a positive feeling Somebody says meth and heroin are more pleasurable than any activity according to all your true But that's why I said pleasure that doesn't undermine everything else in your life. I Don't know if meth and heroin are the most pleasurable. I have no idea, but they clearly provide you with some super high chemical high they certainly lack the the Spiritual aspect that you would get from sex, but they do give you some kind of Some kind of massive buzz, right But that's why I emphasized if if meth and heroin Didn't affect your ability to reason didn't affect Your ability to live a good life, then there'd be nothing wrong with them, right? they we Avoid meth and heroin not because they're pleasurable at least I avoid meth and heroin not because they're pleasurable if they were Just pleasurable that was the only characteristic they had then why not? You avoid them because they're addictive you avoid them because why you're under you're out of control You are not rational. You cannot use your mind effectively and therefore you avoid them But if you could get some kind of spark of pleasure Without those costs Why not? Why wouldn't you do it? So my focus is on the pleasure and and and I've often said People should have sex out of marriage. I mean, I don't think that's an unpopular view these days I think even I think it's pretty mainstream, but It's not mainstream for anybody believes in the seven deadly sins Fornication is definitely a part of lust now We could be to continue to say oh, I've a lust could also mean other forms of a bridal desire such as for money Or power we'll get to that when we get to greed But what is unbridled desire me unbridled from what I'm brighter for what I'm brighter for duty I'm brighter for service. I'm brighter from sacrifice Why is it desired for money and power bad? Well power? Arguably is bad, but sex is not short-term So I mean the physical pleasure short-term the spiritual pleasure is not short-term You build a relationship with some somebody through sex. They can last a lifetime And that is not short-term that is part of the building of mechanism You wouldn't have the kind of relationship that a loving husband and wife have over or any couple have over a long period of time without the fact that they also share this powerful quote short-term thing, but that short term has incredible implications for the long term. It's a Whereas drugs of value destroying sex is value-anning Again when done with the right person right time right person time Place that's pretty flexible Yeah shows what rates and this is it's this is a movie. I highly recommend but you got to watch the series first because it's like the it's like a sequel to a TV series The movie is Serenity the TV series was somebody will remind me And the quote is I'm going to grant your greatest wish. I'm going to show you a world without sin And a world without sin By day definition means a world without self-interest a world without reason a world without pleasure a world without Ambition a world without values That's what it means in the Christian context And that's why Christianity knows that it's impossible And of course in the movie It's a world in which everyone stops living It's a world in which Everybody's dead because there is no such a world because it goes against human life Firefly is the name of the series Fireflies an excellent series. I love that show You can get it. You can get it. I think you can get it streaming. You definitely get it on DVDs and stuff It's a it's a great show And Serenity was a great sequel to it. I thought it was a nice waiter Wrap up the story. I wish it would continue because I I love those characters. So Last is a direct attack on human pleasure Direct attack on the spiritual and physical Wonder that is sex Dante defined lust as a disordered love for individuals It is generally thought the least serious capital sin because you can't stop it as It is an abuse of a faculty that humans share with animals. Yeah, we're animals can't help it and Sins of the flesh are less grievous than spiritual sins the way to On the other hand the way to purge yourself of these sinful desires sinful emotions in In in in Dante's poop Gatorio You walk through flames you burn yourself alive in order to rid yourself of the lustful thoughts Augustine Augustine I used to roll in the snow whip himself whip himself self self torture has often been a practice I think among among Christians in order to rid themselves of lust for sexual desires To rid themselves of pleasure and the way to rid yourself of pleasure Is to engage in pain try to be lustful while You're freezing cold or while you're being Hits and brutalized by your own whip Notice you'll notice that all of these are anti individual Anti-divigual pleasure and individual success and that the visuals ambition anti individual values Gluttony Gluttony is the over indulgence or over consumption of anything to the point of waste of waste by who's standard like when I go to a nice restaurant in Spain and Have a 15 course pre-fix meal That lasts three and a half hours With a nice glass of wine not with every course because I can't drink that much But maybe a couple of glasses throughout of wine throughout the thing 15 courses now there's small courses, but still it's a lot of food suddenly To the point of waste I don't quote me that But man is it fun? Man is it good? Why is that glass me? Yeah, I think I think by this definition I think when I go to my three-star Michelin star restaurants and or two-star one-star and have a great meal That takes forever and involves a lot of food. That's fantastic. That's fun. That's me indulging I mean by some standards by Christian standards, certainly over indulging and spending a lot of money on it The money I could have said to charity It's me being selfish the pleasure of Sinning down and eating a lot sometimes Sin for example one reason for its condemnation is that gorging by the prosperous may leave the needy hungry Right, so the standard is not me standard is not my life standard is not my enjoyment the standard is not my Jennifer says just diet the next day You know the funny thing about these meals is and and this has happened to me You know because we do my wife and I do these trips where we eat For two weeks we eat the great restaurants. It's surprising that we don't put our weight I still don't understand quite the physics of it. We typically skip one meal, but but we're eating a lot of food I don't know what it is about it the pacing of it the the type of food the quality of the food the quality of the food is off the charts You know in terms of the ingredients not just the flavor the fact that maybe we walk more than usual, but anyway, it's Some of my favorite trips ever have been foodie trips. It's great Medieval church leaders took an expansive view of gluttony arguing that it also included an obsessive anticipation of meals. Oh Am I gonna get that great meal at that great restaurant? Overindulgence in delicacies and costly food. I have committed this sin so many times So many times The Aquinas listed five forms of gluttony eating too expensively eating too Daintly eating too much eating too soon eating too eagerly. I have committed all five I'm clearly going to hell actually We've been to restaurants where you know somebody says 15 bites 15 courses which are not bites I mean there's a restaurant where we we ate at in in Paris Here Gagnere three-star Michelin restaurant. This is years ago Per Gagnere also has a restaurant in Vegas a very good restaurant called twist in Vegas, which I highly recommend This is where I could be a food critic right and recommend restaurant. Anyway in the restaurant in Paris It was 16 courses and they were not small They were big courses They were big courses and a lot of food and we couldn't we were struggling And we literally had to tell the French waiters slow down and they were they thought it was the funniest thing ever These Americans with with weak stomachs little stomachs and they can't can't eat all this food You know, we were there for probably four hours at least no over fours because we got there I think earliest the earliest you can eat is eight and we left after well after midnight and We told him slow down. You can't bring this fruit out this quickly slow. Yeah, we capacity is limited Anyway, I mean think about it again. The important thing to take from this is All of these Christian vices are targeting human pleasure Success ambition but pleasure The anti-individual the anti-pleasure they're anti happy greed greed also known as Everest is Like lust and gluttony a sin of desire However greed is seen by the church is applied to an artificial rapacious desire and pursuit of material possessions So now we turn from the sexual To the food food is very important, right to other material possessions. This is all encompassing And again, it's rapacious desire. Well, how do you define rapacious? What is artificial desire? Is it greedy to want a Ferrari? At what point is it Why is this bad? They talk about hoarding of materials or objects You know, I have a lot of art here. There's that, you know, I bought sculptures and stuff like that. Is that hoarding? Well theft and robbery is including in this but sure theft and robbery of course are bad. No, nobody's questioning that Yes, the the Wall Street greed speech is a really really good speech from an evil character and of course It's a good speech only because it's from an evil character. That's the way the director thought of it He's not gonna give a good speech to a good character Because he wants to undermine to us to me. It's a good speech But not for Oliver Stone who directed the movie for him. It's an evil speech So he gives it to an evil character. So here's an attack on material possession Here's an attack. This is the direct attack on ambition on career on wanting a big house on wanting A big screen tv on wanting the values that make your life enjoyable On wanting the material values that make your life pleasurable on wanting the material values because they symbolize your success On to you and wanting the material values because they make your life more enjoyable in every respect And striving towards them working hard to get them Oh, you greedy bastard and note That Greed is a single-minded pursuit of something. That's how I think of it And and the periods of time in which a single-minded pursuit of money. It's not a bad thing. It's a good thing It's an important thing For your survivor, you're flourishing your success as a human being and ultimately your happiness Because you want to attain a certain level of material well-being and that material well-being Is a value Jesus time walk is watching this on a 52 inch screen. I'm huge in a 52 inch screen I don't know I've got a tv downstairs. It's 85 inches And in television's size does count. There's no question So it's all about stomping on ambition Particularly productive ambition Again stomping on an objectivist virtue Which is productiveness and everything it implies the seriousness with which we take Productiveness greed is explicitly about making more money. You see it use that way all the time and it's about The the gold You know in in Dante's inferno the money lenders have that bag of gold around their neck and it pulls them down towards the fire Why because they're greedy for money And again, what is hoarding who hoards? And what is hoarding even mean and why is hoarding bad if you've earned it If you've earned it, it's yours The stuff I buy I keep for myself. I might give gifts, but generally I keep it for myself Linda says what does Dante say about a 65 inch screen? Well, it depends how many people you share it with so The theme here is The denial of personal values the denial again a pleasure ambition and so on sloth Sloth refers to a peculiar jumble of notions dating for antiquity and includes mental spiritual pathological and physical states It's as an you know, it defined as an absence of interest or habitual Disinclination to exert oneself Now here's one Okay, I I'm sympathetic to this one But it seems to be very wide the scope is very wide, right? It's uh, you know, it's it's uh spiritually It's an affliction attended religious post especially monks where they become indifferent to their duties and obligations to god That's not You don't go to church on sunday You don't dedicate yourself to altruism It's laziness, but laziness in a particular context In a particular context It's laziness laziness in just like in objectives and pride is being morally ambitious here it's being morally inambitious, but Think about the morality the morality is a morality that undercuts your own ability your own ambition You know pleasure and so on your own happiness so Beings slothful in pursuing the commandments being slothful in pursuing self-denial But it suddenly has certain positive aspects in positive in the sense of Yeah, I mean being lazy Is a vice It is Goes against the virtue of productiveness. It goes up against the virtue of rationality right It means not It certainly goes against the virtue of pride The objective is virtue of pride It means you're not taking yourself seriously But again the christians don't quite mean it that way So sloth is a sin of admitted responsibilities It's not Taking your christian duty seriously All right, let's see. What else do we have wrath? Wrath can be defined as uncontrolled feelings of anger rage and even hatred Wrath often reveals itself in the wish to seek vengeance In its purest form wrath presents with injury violence and hate That may provoke feuds that can go on for centuries So Again if it's defined as uncontrolled sure anything uncontrolled is bad But is this really against anger? Is it really against rage? Is it really against hatred? I have Said in the past that I'm I'm not against wrath I mean, I think being angry And being and hating Are useful important emotions That reflect your values If somebody attacks your values and you don't feel anger Are they really your values? If somebody systematically attacks your values and you don't feel hatred Are those really your values? so Anger and hatred are not something to be squashed. There's something to be observed Something they are signals. They are messages That something is wrong that something is bad that somebody is a threat that needs to be dealt with Now dealing with anger And hatred or whoever's inflicting that on you could involve ignoring that that person what's going on But it could involve fighting lawsuits physical fights in the case of in some cases And it's important to be willing to do that again. It's your values. You have to fight for them So the battle between iphone and android. There's a battle. There's no battle I mean one is for winners and one is for losers. There's just no there's no battles being won um so Yes, it's true that uncontrolled But uncontrolled anything. I mean, I'm pretty angry at our politicians. I'm angry at the FDA I I I I hate some of our politicians many of them actually most of them. I hate I even feel vengeful against our political class It's not uncontrolled. It's very much under control. I don't let it dominate my life I don't let it distort my ability to be objective I don't let it stop my ability to be rational and to live and to enjoy and to be ambitious and to have A great life But it's there Because it's reality my values are being attacked That's not good and logically rationally from a Like perspective that invokes a negative emotion as it should all right so This is really all of these anti-values anti-values If you don't want anything You will never be angry if you don't desire You will never hate The whole structure of these vices is to deny you your values your pleasure your happiness your life And when you do pursue your pleasure your values your ambitions your life You feel guilty And catholic church certainly through confessional and but the christian church generally has ways to deal with guilt Which involve control you set up a moral system nobody can achieve You make everybody's a sinners constantly. I mean just yeah try driving lust out of human human beings Everybody's lustful therefore everybody's a sinner therefore what therefore everybody feels guilty and therefore everybody can be controlled Guilt is the means by which I control you. It's a tool for control and it's a control To deny you to deny you existence And to put you under my thumb envy Envy like greed and lust is characterized by an insatiable desire It can be described as a sad or resentful You know a a you wanting desiring other people's possessions note here that again envy is focused on other people's possessions it's I want I want the I want that I want what they have Know how iron man describes envy or defines envy it's hated It's a form of hatred Envy is a form of hatred Hatred of the good for being the good it's not I'd really like to have a Ferrari like that guy's one day That's not iron rand's definition of envy It's I hate that guy for having the Ferrari that's The kind of envy iron rand is described it's You know you could you could be jealous of a guy having a Ferrari you could go Wow, that's so cool that he has a Ferrari that he's earned what it's necessary You know to achieve a Ferrari, but I and I'd like one one day That's I'm jealous But to be envious is to hate the guy for having it. It's Rejecting other people's achievements It's not in iron rand's view not about wanting more But here it is there's an aspect of it in christianity that it's about wanting more It's about not coveting things your neighbor has but why not well in a zero sum world If your neighbor has it and you don't the only way for you to get it is to take it from your neighbor Some neighbor somewhere, but it's you know, it's here It's you shouldn't covet what your neighbor has but I covered what my neighbor has all the time I don't steal it I Sometimes see my neighbor has something that I don't have and I go wow, I'd like that Like I have an 85 inch TV. Some guy has 110 inch TV. I want one of those Right, it's not because he has it that I want it. It's because the fact that he has it Well, I didn't realize they make the TVs this big and I want one too And I'm gonna make some money so I can earn enough money so I can buy it Yes, and Frank says the envious guy would scratch the other guy's Ferrari with the key. Yes, because The Ferrari represents hatred of the other guy for having it so envy For Christianity the way it's defined here Is focused on the desire for stuff For Iran, it's the hatred of the producer The hatred of the good for being the good Not the desire for the stuff And again, it's it's envy is is The way it's describing Christianity is the assumption of zero some All right, lastly and most importantly The deadliest of all sins Is the sin of pride is the sin of pride and this is you can see this direct contradiction with both Aristotle and Iran Aristotle called pride the crown of the virtues pride Is to be ambitious about the virtues? Pride is to do your best with regard to virtue Pride is to be the best that you can be the best human being possible It's about moral ambitiousness. It's about Being good It's about trying to be perfect And of course for Christianity This is a sin You cannot be perfect. You should not want to be perfect You are nothing and a nobody Pride is considered the original and most serious of the seven sins because it's the most selfish It's not about lust animals have that fine. You can have it It's not about gluttony. Well, everybody has to eat so you're eating too much. Okay This is about you Being ambitious about Not a Ferrari That's maybe envy or gluttony or whatever right You being ambitious about your own life about your own soul about your own character about who and what you are You wanting to achieve happiness you wanting to achieve for you life to view pride As a vice is to reject self-interest. It's to reject selfishness It's to reject you and to reveal That what christian morality is all about it's not even about the altruism in a sense of others It's about self-denial It's about self-sacrifice It's about Not being happy. It's about not living a good life. It's about not having a good life And and this is the you know the american version of christianity. It says oh god wants you to be happy god wants you to make a lot of money That's only in america And it's kind of a modern perversion of the christian faith christianity essentially wants you to suffer wants you to grovel wants you to be dependent wants you to be humble To recognize recognize and we'll get to humility when we talk about the virtues, right? To recognize that you are sinner to recognize that you are nothing to recognize that you are nobody to recognize that you don't deserve the Ferrari you don't deserve the the sexual pleasure you get you don't deserve that great meal You are nothing nobody You are just a servant of gods An insignificant speck in the universe And who are you to raise your head? Who are you to have pride? Who are you to think of yourself as able and competent and and and successful and moral It's not about pride. It's not about other people. It's not about your view about yourself relative to other people It's about you view yourself relative to you relative to you Don't admire yourself too much And don't try too much to be the best that you can be because it's futile It's futile. You want to be humble humble means putting yourself down Humble mean recognizes your own weakness metaphysical weakness as a human being And it's been labeled by the christians again notice the the contrast Aristotle crown of the virtues christianity father of all sins The devil's most prominent trait C.S. Lewis writes in mere christianity. The pride is the anti god state. Yes The position in which the ego and the self are directly opposed to god Yes, why because it's the position in which the ego the self Is central Is the purpose You become the purpose of your life And that can't be right Because god must be your purpose God might be central to your life You must be a slave to god And what's it's associated with notice that whenever they take something like this It's not just that you lust the lust is going to lead to rape It's not just that you Want really good nice food. It's you're going to deny other people food and you're going to eat until you're sick Right It and with pride this is how c.s. Lewis describes having pride Unchastity anger greed drunkenness And all that are mere flea bites in comparison to god It is through pride that the devil becomes became the devil pride leads to every other vice It is the complete anti god state of mind Which means self-interest is the complete anti god state of mind selfishness is the complete anti god Taking your life seriously Is the complete anti god Another writer writes spiritual pride spiritual pride pride in your own intellectual ability, I guess in your in your in your character Where is where was that quote that was good spiritual pride is the worst kind of pride If not word If not worst snare of the devil The heart is particularly deceitful on this one thing Pride is the worst viper that is in the heart the greatest disturb of the soul's peace And the sweet communion with christ so christianity what's the deny self What's the deny pleasure once deny values individual values and what's the deny ambition And therefore it has to deny pride moral ambitiousness focused on self Nothing is worse than that now while This particular version of christianity might not be dominant in the culture Take every one of those and think about examples in your own life With this is out there where maybe it's from your own childhood Maybe it's how your mother what your mother talked about or taught you how you preach it teaches you and look Sure, if I be one of these you can turn it into a sin A real sin pride can be you know, if you're boastful and you're arrogant about things that you don't you don't deserve credit for Sure, that's a sin, but that's not what they mean you know if you if you are promiscuous in sex and you lost everything That's a sin if you eat to the point where you're throwing up and you're sick and you That's a sin In a sense that it's unhealthy I mean any one of these can be turned interesting, but that is not the essential characteristic That is not what they're meant to do They are meant to undermine Your pride they meant to undermine Yourself they're meant to undermine your values And they are massively impactful in the culture massively impactful in the culture in all kinds of ways Christianity is the dominant ethical view in the culture even though it's not held that way I mean almost all the secular Morrow views are fundamentally Christian essentially Christian In that they reject Self-interest they reject pride And therefore they reject self-esteem And your ability to achieve self-esteem What we need today what I called a new intellectual would be any man or woman who is willing to think Meaning any man or woman who knows that man's life must be guided by reason By the intellect not by feelings wishes wins or mystic revelations Any man or woman who values his life and who does not want to give in to today's Cult of despair cynicism and impotence and does not intend to give up the world To the dark ages and to the role of the collectivist roads All right, before we go on reminder, please like the show. 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