How Faith Transformed My Life Forever | Ruslan DSH #683

Proof is an interesting concept, right?

Because, like, to prove something, we would need a time machine and a video camera to go back 2,000 years and say, Did Jesus bodily rise from the grave?

But I do think there's a proof in a historical sense, not in the scientific sense, like material matter sense.

I give my life to Jesus, start living his ways, and then in hindsight, everything changes.

I'm overweight, I start eating chicken and broccoli, I start compound training.

All of a sudden, my body changes, and I go, That's the proof I need it out.

all right guys we got ruce lane here today coming off of uh paneda's event right that's right yeah how about y'all your first talk with slides first talk with slides man it was it was uh it was interesting yeah it was good though good event brian's an amazing guy yeah so it was fun he's done a great job fostering that community he has in that space he has he's done a good job of not always having like the biggest like youtube podcast numbers but just incredible conversion to his live events which i admire a lot and quality people, too.

And quality people, like, like he really figured out the avatar.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And a lot of the people in the church space have built up a huge following.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's, it's, I think it's like a cultural shift happening where I think people are re-intrigued by faith because they are starting to see the practical utility to it.

But then there's like, but what if it's true, right?

Like C.S.

Lewis said, like, Jesus is the myth that's fact.

So like there's a practical utility that influences our laws and, you know, would do unto others, the Good Samaritan law, like this is all New Testament.

But now people are starting to say, like, well,

what if it's real?

You know, so it's cool.

It's cool to see.

It'll be cool to see if they ever prove it one day.

Like, because there's always that debate with the scientists and the religious community.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, proof is an interesting concept, right?

Because like to prove something, we would need a time machine and a video camera to go back 2,000 years and say, did Jesus bodily rise from the grave?

How do you, you know,

to prove that?

But I do think there's a proof in a historical sense, not in the scientific sense, like material matter sense, but in a historical sense.

And I do think there's a proof in I give my life to Jesus, start living his ways, and then in hindsight, everything changes, everything becomes different.

So it's like I'm overweight, I start eating chicken and broccoli, I start compound training, all of a sudden, my body changes, and I go, that's the proof I needed.

I don't need to hear from a vegetarian that chicken's bad for me.

I don't care because I know that I walked this out and it works.

You know, so it's like a different type of proof, if that makes sense.

Yeah, that makes sense.

So you came as an Armenian refugee?

Correct.

Yeah.

So Armenians are culturally Christian.

The oldest Christian nation, the Armenian Apostolic Church, traces its lineage all the way back to the Apostle Bartholomew, one of Jesus' 12.

And you could still go to parts of ancient Armenia today and stand at the gravesite of a disciple of Bartholomew.

Wow.

So Christianity invades Armenia.

Armenia becomes Christian.

Armenia doesn't have a written language until Christianity hits it.

We translated the Bible.

We developed a language to translate the Bible.

So deep, rich Christian history.

I grew up Armenian apostolic, but because of communism in Azerbaijan,

a lot of persecution, and we eventually were forced out of Azerbaijan because of the ethnic cleansing by Arzis against Armenians and came to America in 91.

And the sad part is this just happened again just right two weeks before October 7th.

Dang.

100,000 Armenians were just displaced from eastern Azerbaijan.

Because of being Christian?

Because of

just the fighting amongst the Armenians and the Arzis or the Arzis and Armenians.

Depending on how you look at Azerbaijani is going to be Muslim, right?

And then there's also this Nabor-Karagak region, which is autonomously Armenian, but it's in Azerbaijan territory.

And so Arzerbajan just invaded and just dispelled 100,000, 120,000 Armenians there.

Where did they go this time?

They went to Armenia and the Armenian diasporas all over the world, right?

So like Glendale is like a huge Armenian community.

Glendale, Arizona?

Glendale,

California, right?

Loser California.

Wow.

So that's where you went?

So we came from Azerbaijan.

We went to Moscow.

We applied for asylum, refugee status in Israel, Australia, and America was the last place.

And we got picked up in Armenia.

I mean, we picked, I picked up in America.

That was the last place we applied.

First place we got picked and came to this beautiful San Diego.

Nice.

Yeah.

So America was your last choice of the four?

Last place we applied.

First place that accepted us.

Was it not the one you wanted to go to at first?

I don't know.

I was a kid, but I was pumped.

I got to America and they took us to Lucky's grocery store off of El Cajon and like 30th Street.

And I had never seen a grocery store because in Armenia, we grew up under, I mean, in Zarborough, we grew up under rations, Soviet Union rations.

Food was rationed.

Holy crap.

We'd get a tub of water to last us for the week that we'd have to share as a family.

We'd have to line up for bread, right?

So my first time seeing a grocery store, I thought it was a toy store.

I was like, how thoughtful of my parents to take me to get toys?

Why would we land?

And I was like, oh, it's like food.

And

total 180 on listening.

Total 180, everything is different.

It is like the world became colorful when I came to America.

That is cool.

And you had no idea this even existed, probably, because the media probably didn't want you seeing outside.

All I knew was Michael Jackson in American Ninja.

That's all I knew about America.

Wow.

So that was really communist, then.

Really communist.

Like, we didn't go to church in Azerbaijan because of how communist it was.

Dang.

Yeah.

So then when we came to America, then we we discover like, oh, Armenia has this rich Christian history.

And so we become a part of the Armenian Apostolic Church.

I get christened as an altar boy.

I become an altar boy the whole bit.

And this is like the late 90s.

At the same time, my mother and father divorce.

And it's a really nasty, bitter divorce.

My dad brings out his

girlfriend, gets remarried, out of my life.

And I just, I go down a complete...

downward spiral of just insanity.

I got sexually assaulted by some older altar boys.

So I'm like seven, eight.

They were like 13, 14.

And that, with my dad being gone, like completely derailed my life.

So I ended up getting arrested at 11 for breaking into houses.

I get, I lose my virginity at 11.

I'm selling weed.

Damn.

Just like a mess of a kid, man.

Really bad.

Wow.

Yeah.

At 11 years old.

11 years old.

You're breaking into houses.

Breaking into houses, breaking into schools.

My fourth grade teacher was so sweet.

She had this karaoke machine.

She let me try to rap on it and I broke in and stole it.

Holy crap.

Yeah.

Does she know that?

She does now.

Shout out to that teacher, man.

She was so sweet.

She believed in me.

And And so it was a mess, man.

And I, I, like the gangster rap thing is at its peak.

This is around the time like Tupac gets killed.

Yeah.

I'm just gone.

Do you think that music influenced you subconsciously?

I think the neighborhood I was in reflected the music.

And then I think the music made everything worse.

Wow.

So my best friend's house,

the night

he was

spending at my house, we did our sleepovers.

So my best friend's name is Stephen Jackson.

His mom's Cherie.

She was involved in some sketch stuff.

He spends the night at my house.

His room, the backside of our apartment building, gets shot up.

Jeez.

And so this is like the climate in the early 90s in San Diego.

Like people think San Diego is sweet and it's like this amazing town, but like San Diego in the early 90s was pretty rough.

Wow.

You were growing up in violence.

Yeah, I thankfully never got into guns and never got into like, I mean, I was a kid, like I was a scrawny kid.

So like I never got violent, but there was a lot of shootings and SWAT teams being called and just craziness.

San Diego.

I didn't know it was like that back then.

Back then it was it was different.

I remember our upstairs neighbor got into a confrontation over a parking spot shot somebody and they had to they wouldn't let us back in house because there's a swat team trying to get him and his whole family and my friends out because of the shooting happened right in front of our our house no one they didn't get killed but someone was shot over a parking spot so silly yeah it's crazy yeah people couldn't control their emotions It's interesting, interesting.

Men without father figures struggle with emotional regulation for sure.

And that's what happened to you, right?

That's what happened to me, man.

And thankfully, my mom was a blackjack dealer.

She worked nights, which was awful at first, but then she got a job at Oceans 11 in Oceanside, California.

And so she saw me down this trajectory and

transplanted us to Vista, California, which is where I live now.

Vista is like a suburb of San Diego.

It's way quieter, way green.

You know, it's like the best of both worlds.

It's like country and city in one, but it wasn't what I grew up in.

And so I decided, oh, okay, great.

This is a fresh start for me.

And going into eighth grade, my GPA in seventh grade was 1.2.

Jeez.

My GPA in eighth grade was 3.8 damn i got into i got into basketball completely just went a different trajectory because environment like my environment changed and i wasn't in in involved in all this foolishness so just the environment change caused all that just the environment change had me almost be a base student perfect a student in eighth grade year you're going off the hoop man yeah man well my i got a bum knee now you're you're you look like you you're nice i'm decent yeah yeah how often you hoop i'm in the lifetime leagues out here we just won last season okay um yeah you hoop i'm decent yeah yeah you hoop, hoop, hoop.

Yeah, it's fun, dude.

When you're 6'6, you got to take it.

You got to take it.

You ever played like ball in high school, college?

I didn't.

One of my regrets is not doing that, actually.

Yeah, see, I thought I was going to go to the NBA.

Yeah, you were nice.

And then I discovered that I was Armenian.

And then genetics.

And then my mom's boyfriend, Dosha, he sat me down and had to explain to me,

it's not in the cards for you, bud.

Yeah.

You know, and so my buddy Rufat always says, like, if you count the Kardashians, Armenians have taken more people from the NBA than we've added.

Damn.

Yeah.

Holy crap.

Yeah, I can't think of any Armenian NBA players now.

There aren't any.

There aren't any.

So I got cut from my JV basketball team, my sophomore year.

And then I was like, I'm going to do the next best thing, which is be a rapper.

And then I went on,

became a rapper, was a full-time rapper from 2015 to 2020.

How'd that go?

Terrible.

It's awful.

It was before TikTok.

No hits.

I mean,

I got a couple of songs that are like 10 million.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

So I made a living.

We grossed 100,000 a year from 2015.

For rappers,

for an independent rapper, it's good.

And then when the pandemic happened, I pivoted to YouTube and everything kind of blew up from there.

Right.

Yeah, you're popping off on YouTube, man.

Thanks, man.

That's how I found you, but you don't even cover any hip-hop stuff on there.

Not really.

Like, I covered a little bit of the Drake Kendrick beef,

but not really because it's just so fragmented.

I feel like hip-hop is just in a real weird spot, you know?

And so I still put out music occasionally, but like the YouTube's just been so good to me.

Yeah.

What's your bread and butt on YouTube?

What topics?

Right now, right now we're in real time pivoting to long-form conversations like this, like trying to go deep with people who are experts in something.

And so that's what we're trying to go.

I'm writing a book about godly ambition for young men.

Usually the stuff that works is a combination of reaction stuff around something that's trending and then tying in my expertise.

So like our last viral video was about Jordan Peterson sitting down with Alex O'Connor.

Alex O'Connor asks him, if I were to go back in time with a video camera, would Jesus walk out of the tomb?

And Jordan Peterson goes, I suspect so.

So that's like a big deal.

Like Jordan Peterson affirms the bodily resurrection of Jesus.

So like something like that, something about maybe like the Nephilim aliens and tying that into the Bible

in time stuff is always hits.

So those sorts of things, but we're really trying to get people to like, hey, live God's ways because God's ways are good for you.

That's what we're trying to point young people to.

Yeah, Jordan Peterson's had an interesting religious journey, right?

Really interesting religious journey.

My friend Jonathan Pageo is really close to him.

I don't know if you know who Jonathan is, but he's an Eastern Orthodox Christian who's an iconographer, artist, writer.

He's brilliant.

And so they just did a whole series on the gospel that's about to come out through Daily Wire.

So his journey's been really short.

This is like as close as we've seen Jordan Peterson overtly affirm the bodily resurrection, which is like, that's the line.

Like if there's a line, if you believe Jesus literally rose or if you didn't believe Jesus literally rose, that's kind of like the distinguishing factor on if someone is on our team.

Really?

Yeah.

Oh, so that's the factor.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And like if you believe a miracle happened, a supernatural event that's never happened, you're like, I think it's more than likely.

And I have confidence that that probably happened.

I would say, okay, that's, that's the line of orthodoxy, amongst other things, believe the Bible is reliable, right?

Other things.

But yeah, I would say that's pretty high up there, affirming the bodily resurrection.

If someone doesn't believe in that, will you converse with them and debate them?

Absolutely.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, I debated Destiny on the.

He doesn't believe in that?

Destiny?

No, Destiny.

I mean, Destiny is pretty liberal on

these things.

Yeah, Destiny.

We debated on No Jumper, Adam 22.

Adam 22 hits me up.

Hey, hey, I got the opportunity you've been looking for.

This is at like 11 o'clock.

I need you to be here at 9 a.m.

to debate Destiny.

And I'm like, oh, gosh.

Destiny's good.

Like, he's a great debater.

He's a great debater.

Great debate.

I saw him against Peterson, actually.

Yes, that was a great conversation.

He held his ground.

So

I was like, really, oh, gosh, because I don't think I'm a great debater.

And thankfully, man, everyone is like,

like, imagine a studio like this, but like your camera operator smoking weed, your video switcher guy smoking weed.

Everyone in the room is smoking weed.

And I'm sitting there praying, like, God, please, like, I can't catch a contact tie.

Like,

I can't unravel.

And, bro, I believe the Lord preserved me and then when he got on camera he was gone like he was he was hot bro and so something happened there so if people go back and watch that like i'm not saying like i owned him but i definitely think like he was off he was off damn that's the worst debate i've seen him with a christian i gotta check that out i i would definitely get a contact high if i was there oh absolutely i don't smoke i don't know how i didn't i don't know how i did you smoke no oh wow no i i mean i take some edibles when i blew out my eco

my meniscus 2019 and then i had the same surgery 2020 so instead of like uh what did they give you?

Morphine, not morphine.

They give you painkillers or oxycotton and like all that crazy stuff.

I was scared.

So I ended up taking edibles.

Bad choice.

Yeah,

that's the most I've done anything cannabis related in over 20 years.

All right.

Do you drink or do any drugs or anything?

My mother's an alcoholic.

She just recovered.

She's been sober for three years.

And so

I'm too scared to drink.

You drink?

No.

My dad was an alcoholic.

Yeah.

Fucked me up, I think.

Yeah, same.

Same.

And last time I had a drink was in Israel.

It was like a Shabbat dinner with an orthodox jewish family and it was like yeah i'll have a drink

situation but i had a drink and was done i was like this is why i don't drink i had a glass of wine it was like

i'd probably black out right now off a glass of wine i'm chilling yeah i got no tolerance anymore it's not worth it it's not trying to operate on a high level it's not if you're trying to be an athlete and you're trying to run a business and you're trying to ideate things that can help people

i just i don't see the the cost reward i'm not saying it's sinful or bad just not for me yeah so in that kendrick diss he went out joel osteen Yeah.

Yeah.

What do you think of that guy?

Because I've never seen any positive things on him, actually.

I think Joel Osteen means well.

I think Joel Osteen really is trying, but I think Joel Osteen is trying too hard to be a motivational speaker.

And okay, this is my overall analysis of if Joel Osteen was starting today, if a lot of these celebrity preachers were starting today, they would be doing what you're doing and what I'm doing and not trying to run churches.

And I think Joel Osteen just started at a time where his dad died.

He takes over this massive ministry and he just wants to be an encouraging guy.

That's not the same as a pastor.

So I don't think he's malicious.

I don't think he's trying to be harmful and push nonsense.

I think he's genuinely doing what he thinks is best, born in the wrong time.

And therefore, there's so much confusion around it.

There's a guy named Carl Lentz.

I'm not sure if you're familiar with who he is.

He was like Justin Bieber's pastor.

Oh, I saw that.

Didn't he get exposed or something?

He did.

So Joe Rogan roasted him for the D-root, his penis root photos, walking with Justin Bieber on the beach, his crotch showing.

So this dude got completely exposed, lost his church, lost everything.

And now he's becoming a podcaster.

And I'm like, if he were starting now, he would be a great podcaster, he'd be a great YouTuber, he'd be a great influencer.

But these guys, they just kind of charismatic, they're good looking.

What do I do?

I'm gonna be a pastor, and it's not what most people need to do, they don't need to be pastors.

That's a really serious thing you're taking on.

And so, I think, like, they're, I don't want to say they're victims of their circumstance, but I almost feel bad for the guys, if that makes sense.

Yeah, these mega churches must be tough to run.

Yeah,

you gotta, you have to have a TED Talk every week.

You have to manage hundreds of employees.

And you have to be semi-available to actually pastor and shepherd people and love people and be compassionate.

What other industry is someone having to do all three of those things?

That's very difficult.

So that's what I mean.

I'm like, I get it.

Like, it's hard.

It's tough.

It's tough to make it work.

And a lot of the

criticism they get is on the financial side of things where they're spending and investing the money.

And to their credit, all these guys have paid back their salaries.

Oh, most of them.

Like Joe O'Connor's paid back a salary.

He doesn't take take a salary he lives off his book sales okay right now you're still using your platform as a pastor to sell books but it's not the same as like he has a million dollar salary as a pastor he doesn't take a salary and the books is what keep him afloat i didn't know he had a million dollar salary most of these guys i think i'm not saying he does i'm saying it's not as if he has a million dollar uh crazy exorbitant salary the books run everything he works basically for free i think the same for like and i'm not fans of any of these guys but the same for like a steven furdig or these guys so i'm just steel manning that they're not like running church money into the ground by having lavish jets and craziness.

Like that's not with what these guys.

Some are, but not these dudes.

Do you participate in the tithing, the 10% to the church?

I do because I think it's a good principle and it's a good discipline.

And I think there's something, there's supernatural math there.

It doesn't make sense on paper.

And I've been doing it since I was a kid.

I remember my 87 Toyota Silica got broken into.

I used to have 12-inch subs in my trunk.

My car stereo, everything got stolen.

And I started tithing at my first job at Pizza Hut, maybe making a a couple hundred bucks a week.

And I just was faithfully like, I'm going to, I'm going to try.

And

that same time, I didn't know this, but the guy who broke into my car, they ran fingerprints.

They caught the guy, they made him pay restitution in a fund.

And like the same month I tithed for the first time, I got like a $900 check in a wall from the county.

Who runs fingerprints and then goes and finds the guy who

breaks into a kid's car and steals a stereo?

And that, and so, like, ever since then, I do just as a discipline, I think it's a good practice to live on 90 and give 10.

And truthfully, we're giving more than that across all the other nonprofits we support and everything from charity water to live action.

We try to be very generous.

I'm big on energy.

I think when you give, you get back.

I think there's something in the aspect of the psychology of just being a generous person and having an open-handed mentality, which is what's preached in the New Testament.

It's not about a tithe.

It's about radical generosity.

Be generous with what you have, because if you could have an open-hand mentality and you have means and you could serve people, God will trust you with more.

You got to be faithful with little and then God will trust you with more.

And I would say I'm like that.

And I get a lot of criticism for it, dude, because I'm open with my podcast guests.

Like if you see someone on my show and you want them on yours, yeah, I'll do that.

But apparently a lot of people won't think like that.

I think that's that scarcity mindset, right?

Like if you're like, hey, I'm cool.

I'm not threatened.

I'm good.

I think

the contrary to that is like, no, no, no, I'm going to keep all my chips close and I'm going to keep all my connections close.

And I think you're generally a more attractive, generous person, you know?

So that's dope.

Let's do that you're that way and that you are intentional about it.

Yeah.

No, it's interesting to see people live like that, though.

So closed off.

I was never like that.

I was always pretty, even as a kid, just super giving.

Yeah.

You know?

That's good.

Would you say your parents gave you that or where's that come from?

I'm trying to think.

I don't know.

My parents were both immigrants.

So it could have been just.

Just that.

I'm not sure.

Where are your parents from?

My dad's from Ireland, mom's from China.

Okay.

Yeah.

I think there's a different perspective growing up as an immigrant you probably had that

you didn't take this for granted.

Yeah.

You know, and they didn't take this for granted.

And so then if like you're in a position to help, you just naturally naturally, I see that a lot in immigrant kids.

Really?

Yeah.

That's good to know.

Supernatural side of faith.

So what do you believe there?

I believe there is a realm that is beyond this dimension and that it is real, that it is

active and that people can exploit and do dangerous things with.

The CIA did, we did a video on this, but the CIA did an experiment as a way to try to spy on, ironically enough, the Soviet Union.

Wow.

And they found that these combinations of exercises they were doing were offering people the ability to go across and travel through space and time and collect intel.

through the supernatural, through the spiritual realm.

So there's definitely some sort of spiritual realm.

I would say that's, I don't say you could prove it with science, but there's something spiritual that we would all say there is.

And I think it can manifest in the physical.

And so when it comes to things like aliens, like I don't think aliens are from another galaxy.

I think they're interdimensional beings that can show themselves in a physical sense to say people.

So that's remote viewing, right?

What you're talking about with the CIA?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, remote viewing.

I don't remember what the operation was called.

I just, I was, I wasn't thinking about doing a part two.

Was it the gateway process?

Yeah, yeah, the gateway process.

Yep.

Yeah, I saw your video on that.

Yeah, the gateway process.

Yeah, man.

So, so that's like a trip.

So, that, like, that, I don't, I don't, again, I don't want to say, like, oh, that absolutely proved that a spiritual world exists, but it, but it proved something.

Something's out there.

I think it's out there, dude.

Yeah.

I think everyone has a spirit.

Yeah.

Because you feel people's energy, man.

Yeah.

You know, you could tell if they're a good dude or not, pretty quick.

Yeah.

So I think if, if, if the spirit world is real, then I mean something had to have caused this.

spirit world to to happen.

Yeah.

And I think if I look at all the potential alternatives, I think I can't think of a figure that's added more good to society in terms of value system, in terms of women's rights, in terms of dignity of children, in terms of dignity of people, in terms of erasing class divide than Jesus and the teachings of Jesus in the New Testament.

And to be fair, a lot of that has been corrupted and co-opted.

And so I think if there's a supernatural, there has to be a God.

If there's a God, what's the most reasonable conclusion?

And I go,

I'm confident that it's Jesus.

And then from that confidence, it's the faith of a mustard seed that if I just have enough confidence to believe in that and actually apply his ways, like let's just say tithing, right?

Which is like a crazy amount to anybody.

Why would I give 10%?

That sounds insane.

But I did it, and then something miraculous happened.

By the way, I'm not even saying that you have to do these things.

I'm just saying something happened when I said, I'm not going to have sex with my girlfriend anymore.

Something unlike, something different happened.

Something when I said, I'm not going to be stingy with my money anymore.

Something different.

When I said, okay, I'm not going to live for myself anymore.

I don't want to make it about me, me, me.

I want to see how I could serve and bless people.

Something happens.

And I think all of this comes back to Jesus.

And then I think Jesus has this like, it's like this drop where it hit past and future worldviews, meaning that there's principles from other faith traditions that I think Jesus then impacts past history and future history from his timeline.

And I think we really see that everywhere.

Like we see that in our ethics system.

We see that in our law system.

Like a lot of the just war theory, like a lot of these things we take for granted in the West are almost, I mean, I use the example of like the Good Samaritan law.

That's a parable.

Jesus has a parable of the Good Samaritans directly where it's from, do unto others.

That's the saying of Jesus, right?

So this, this is everywhere.

And then when you start seeing it, you go, whoa, like we really take this stuff for granted.

I'm not saying America is a Christian nation.

I'm saying we are so influenced by Christian principles and Christian ethics that we take it way for granted.

And you don't really know this until you go travel to other places.

Really?

And you go see other places.

You go see the Middle East.

You go see how...

babies are treated.

I mean, even with China's one-child policy up until 2015, like I saw a whole documentary about it, and I'm like, that's dark, man.

You know, the lack of view, Soviet Union, Soviet Union communism.

Like the way we viewed people was not as image bearers of God with innate value.

Yeah.

No, I agree.

There's a lot of Americans that complain about this country, but they're not factoring it outside country views.

Yeah.

Like they haven't lived in other places.

And we're probably one of the best.

Have you traveled internationally?

I've traveled, yeah.

Where would you say is the like far-off Western culture you've gone deepest?

Western, like Eastern or?

Yeah, yeah, like, or just not in the West.

Not in the West.

I've been all the way to China, been to Thailand, Greece, Ireland, Australia.

Okay.

Yeah, things are different for sure.

Yeah.

Different mentality over there.

I think America is one of the top, though, to be honest.

I know a lot of people complain about it, but they haven't traveled.

Yeah, I mean,

one, they haven't traveled.

Two, they take for granted what we have.

Three, I would say there's a lot of value in those other countries.

So what I'm not saying is like other people aren't good people.

What I'm saying is there's also something in the scriptures where it talks about natural law and common grace.

Like people have eternity and God, God's ways written on their conscience.

So just because you've never heard of Jesus, you haven't been exposed to Christianity, that doesn't mean that you can't have valuable aspects as a culture, right?

But what I will say is that I think we take it for granted.

And I think this is the best time ever to be alive.

I'll give you an example.

I'm sure you're familiar with the book, Outliers or Mastery.

Heard of it.

So Outliers and Mastery both explore this idea of the 10,000 hour rule.

In order to be a master at chess, in order to be a master musician, you got to spend 10,000 hours practicing your craft.

Recently, they discovered that because of online learning, because of stuff like the iPhone, that that has been completely slashed in half.

So not half, excuse me, slashed by fourth.

So you can become a chess master through playing online in about 2,000 to 2,500 hours.

Holy crap.

Yeah.

So that wasn't possible 50 years ago.

Now take that and apply that to other skills that someone might need, right?

Say you want to, I was just talking to a girl and she's like, I'm a reseller.

And I'm like, great, figure out how to develop your own products.

Figure out how to develop Facebook ads.

Figure out how to develop a website.

Shopify.

It's never been a time like this, ever.

And there's never been a time easier to learn those scarce skills that are like the deficit between, I want to have a podcast to, to I understand the cameras and the microphones and like like it's all of that has been compressed with technology.

So this is this is an amazing time to be alive.

Yeah.

So you're saying it's the best time ever right now to be alive.

Ever to be alive and to the best time ever to do the most amount of good to the most amount of people.

Wow.

Charity Water, you familiar with that?

Yes.

Okay.

So 100% of everything they generate goes to actually building clean water filtration systems.

You can contribute your birthday, right?

Like I'm my, I forgot what worth it is, but I just asked everybody, hey, don't, don't give me money.

All my subscribers go give my birthday here this 36 or 37 to Charity Water.

We raised $12,000, which is enough to build one water filtration system

in a part of the world that doesn't have clean water.

Incredible.

To completely revolutionize the full trajectory of that village.

Not just they have water, they can farm,

they can clean their clothes, sanitation.

That's insane that we're doing

$12,000.

Incredible.

Credit.

Changing hundreds of lives for $12,000.

Yeah.

That's powerful.

Yeah.

There's certain charities that I really like and then certain ones I don't know where they're spending the the money and you've got to do your own research.

The beautiful part about Charity Water, and this is not like a full endorsement, I don't know everything they all believe, but they start, the founder was Christian, and then 100% of everything they raise goes to the actual cause.

And then they have a separate nonprofit to fund like the administrative fees or whatever.

When it comes to friendships and business partners, do they have to share your views on religion?

No, well, business partner?

Well, I don't believe in business partners.

I believe in joint ventures.

So like that no one owns any aspect of my business with me.

So that's like a Dave Ramsey thing.

I'm not not sure if you're familiar

the only uh the only ship that doesn't sail is a partnership that's one of his i like that so i don't believe in partnerships at all i believe in joint ventures so chris is helping me shoot music videos right now we're trying to figure out how to crack the music he's coming on as a as a joint venture on a project i have working with an agency to do my first three-day summit they're they're a partner but we're not We don't have a separate LLC, if that makes sense.

So do they have to believe everything I believe?

Not necessarily, but they should have my value system.

Like, I wouldn't go start a YouTube channel.

Well, actually, no,

my buddy Rufat is an atheist, and we've talked about like doing stuff together.

And then

David Wood started a whole podcast with Apostate Prophet, who's an atheist.

So you got a Christian, hardcore Christian, a hardcore atheist.

That's interesting.

It's really interesting.

So, like, I would do something like that, like,

but I wouldn't like build a YouTube channel with an atheist.

Like, that just, we just have different values.

Yeah, totally different.

Yeah.

I used to be atheist.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What would you say brought you over?

Would you say you're more deist now or more theist?

Or where would would you say you are now?

I don't know the difference between those two.

So deist is like God set the world in motion and checked out and he's like having a cigar, not paying attention.

You guys go figure it out.

A theist is you believe in a personal God that wants to engage and has an opinion on how you and I live.

Hmm.

Huh.

I would say theist.

I think someone's still there right now.

So someone's still there.

And he cares.

He cares and he has ways for us to live.

Okay.

Yeah.

So what would you say brought you over from atheist to theist?

Dude, I was depressed, honestly.

Like I needed something to believe in, some purpose.

I mean, being atheist, it's kind of mundane.

I mean, you go through life and it's like, damn, what the fuck?

Like, what am I doing?

You know what I mean?

So I was like that for years.

I would say in high school and a little bit of college.

And I was like, damn, there needs to be something.

So you were like, I'm going to choose to believe in a God and that's going to give me meaning.

Kind of, yeah.

It wasn't like a set decision, but slowly.

Yeah, slowly over time.

That's interesting.

So the darkness brought you into the light.

Yeah, it was just such a bad way of living, honestly.

Now,

where would you say you are with Jesus now?

Have you examined the evidence for the resurrection?

Yeah, not really.

I haven't studied or looked into it.

I'm not sure where I stand on that.

So there's a great movie called The Case for Christ.

I actually read the book of it.

It's on Netflix, I think.

And it's about Lee Strobel, who is an investigative journalist.

His wife becomes Christian, and he's so irritated that he is

hell-bent on disproving Christianity.

So in his pursuit to disprove, multiple books have been written from this perspective.

In his pursuit to go disprove Christianity, he ends up getting radically converted when he examines the resurrection.

No way.

Radically converted.

And now he's one of the leading voices in what we call apologetics, which is a defense for the faith.

Okay.

I got to watch that.

Dude, it's nuts.

It's a good movie.

It's a good film.

There's a book.

There's a documentary about it.

So I would just encourage you to start there because there's things that kind of all of the, even the non-Christian agnostic scholars believe.

Jesus really existed.

Jesus really had a following, right?

These are like, people believe Jesus was a person.

People believe Jesus was crucified under Rome.

People believe that.

Like the atheists believe that.

And then the part that you can't, that's very difficult to fill in is then, and they believe, a Bartren will say, and he believes that the apostles were convinced that they saw a bodily Jesus.

So they're not going to say the tomb was empty.

They're not going to say Jesus bodily rose because they're agnostic and atheists, but they will say

Peter, Paul, all these people that followed him were convinced that Jesus bodily rose from the grave.

Jesus bodily rose from the grave, then it means the New Testament's reliable.

If the New Testament's reliable, that means that God has an opinion on how we are to live.

And again, then it becomes this like,

I have enough faith.

I have a little bit of faith.

I put my confidence in that.

I walk it out.

And then I look back in hindsight and I go, whoa, this is real.

Like, this is real.

So it's like the chicken and broccoli.

Like, I don't need a vegetarian to tell me chicken's bad for me because I've walked out the process of strength training, eating chicken and broccoli, and I've seen the gain.

I've built, built muscle loss fat.

Bad parallel to Jesus in faith, but you catch my drift.

Yeah, there's things I really like about it, like the community.

I love that, bringing people together, like-minded people.

I think having a belief of some sort is really good in life.

Have you ever tried to just read the Bible?

When I was super young, I don't remember anything from it, though.

Okay.

Here's a challenge for you.

Read the Gospel of John in a translation you can understand and try reading a chapter of Proverbs a day.

Your mind will be blown on how much of our self-development content comes from Proverbs.

I mean, everyone is pulling from Proverbs and they don't know it.

Wow.

Proverbs, so whatever the day is, so like today is Proverbs 31.

I mean, today is May 31st.

I'll read Proverbs 31.

And I've just been doing that for about 20 years.

Every day, whatever the day is, I'll just read that chapter.

Oh, so there's one for every day?

Yeah, one for 31 Proverbs, 31 days in a month.

I just read those.

And then you'll start seeing things like, follow God's decrees and his son.

And you'll be like, his son, like, his son is the wisdom of God.

Like, you'll see these things.

And then the Gospel of John is just laying out the eyewitness account of Jesus' life, ministry, divinity, resurrection by the Apostle John.

Interesting.

It's a later gospel written about 80 AD after the, I think they say, some some people believe after the destruction, some don't.

But I would really encourage you to try those two things and then just tell me that like the words of Jesus don't totally like illuminate you and God.

Okay.

Whoa.

I'll report back to you.

I'm open.

I'm open.

What do you think of Billy Carson?

I don't know Billy Carson.

Oh, you don't know Billy Carson?

No.

Oh, okay.

Can I Google him real quick?

Yeah.

Who is Billy Carson?

The name sounds familiar.

You've probably seen him, but he's like this anti-religious guy.

Billy Carson.

No, I don't know who he is.

He's my most viewed guest of all time.

Is he?

He's anti-religious?

Yeah.

Why is he anti-religious?

Oh, yeah, yeah, I've seen his guy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm familiar with this guy.

He has some interesting views.

I've seen a few things here and there.

I'm not super familiar with what he does and doesn't believe.

Yeah, he's more of a historian and needs proof, I'd say.

That's the first thing we started off this podcast talking about.

But

yeah, I guess the evidence wasn't enough for him or something.

Yeah, I mean, again, evidence is an interesting word, right?

Like, what do we mean by evidence?

Like, you want a video camera and a time machine?

Like, that's, you know, but like.

Well, he reads the ancient tablets and he was saying the the Bible wasn't actually written by God.

It was written by people.

Well, it was written by people.

Yeah.

So he was saying there's been stuff lost from the original meaning.

Yeah, I think the tough part is when you get into Case for Christ, you get into the number of manuscripts, like the number of surviving manuscripts.

So think of like, people think the Bible is like a game of telephone, right?

Like you played the game of telephone as a kid, right?

The Bible isn't like that.

It's like, it's like

one letter.

gets translated into four letters, then gets translated into eight letters, then gets translated into more letters.

And then as we dig up these manuscripts, there were 5,500 of them, and they're more or less all the same.

Textual variants like typos and this word and that word.

But even Bart Ehrman, who's an agnostic New Testament scholar critic, will tell you that the end views and the end doctrines are all the same.

So despite there being textual variants, they're all the same.

And as a resource,

people who are nerdy about this stuff, I'm nerdy about this stuff.

Bart Ehrman versus James White, textual critic debate.

Okay.

It's really good.

Yeah.

About four hours long.

But they get in the weeds of like

what came out, what manuscripts, what, what is different.

And there are discrepancies, but they're so inconsequential in terms of typos, grammar, little things like that.

His biggest thing, I believe, he said, was God's was plural, and they removed the S.

So there is a title for God that is Elohims.

And if you really want to, this is trippy.

If you really want to go down this rabbit hole, Dr.

Michael Heiser, who's since passed on, did amazing work about the heavenly council, about the Elohims, about there being people kind of co-ruling with God, but not being the same as Jehovah, God, Yahweh God.

Yahweh God is the highest title.

So Jews don't say Yahweh, they say Hashim.

They say the name because they can't, they're afraid to tremble in the name of God.

Or if they've ever seen God and

they don't write the O,

they'll just write, right?

So, so they're like afraid to say, they're afraid.

That's how much reverence there is to the name Yahweh.

Wow.

The interesting thing about Yahweh is: if you read the Old Testament, you will see multiple accounts of multiple Yahwehs, of a Yahweh in heaven and a Yahweh on earth.

Right.

When

Abraham comes down, Yahweh and the two angels come down.

There's a Yahweh that shoots down fire from heaven to Sodom and Gomorrah.

And then there's a Yahweh present with Abraham.

It's a physical Yahweh.

Now, we as Christians will look back and go, man, there's a lot of Yahweh, physical Yahwehs, and there's Yahweh on earth.

That sounds a lot like two different, right?

A physical and a spiritual God.

Jesus is God in the flesh.

Father is in heaven.

The Holy Spirit indwells believers, right?

So one essence, but three distinct people.

Interesting.

Yeah.

Wow.

This gets deep, man.

Yeah, it can get deep.

It gets real heady and spacey, but at the end of it, people have to work through the resurrection.

You know, like if the resurrection is true, that changes everything.

If the resurrection happened, that changes everything.

And we can get into the translations of the Bible and what manuscripts and what stream, the Byzantine stream, versus this stream, and a school of exact, like all that stuff is really interesting.

But the resurrection and it being true in a tacit practical sense, you know, if you were to go to church for a year, hypothetically, let's just say you go to church for a year you read the bible every single day you do that you give 10

i guarantee your life will look so different really and you will have an incredible encounter just doing the things oftentimes right but you have to have enough faith to say i'm willing to give the things a shot right i think there's something to this resurrection and i think the bible is true if you're if you if you get there and then you go do it for a year you you'll be like dude this is this is incredible interesting do you ever question any of it or do you just follow it completely i

have wrestled with my faith in that I came in through the door of questioning and I wasn't, there was no questions I was afraid to ask.

So I grew up Armenian apostolic.

I didn't believe there was a God.

I was a full-on atheist.

I started dating a girl.

She gets me going to church.

Only way I can see her on Sundays over the summer is if I go to church.

I start going to church.

I'm hearing about this Jesus.

At the same time, me and her breakup, I started dating a Jehovah's Witness girl.

Then I have my Muslim friends.

Then I have all my Buddhist friends.

I have all these other friends.

I'm reading the Book of Mormon.

I'm reading all these different things.

And I am working at Pizza Hut.

And God, in his providence, my manager and our lead delivery driver were Christian.

And I asked them all the questions: Is Jesus really God or is he the son of God?

How do we know the Bible is reliable?

All these different things.

And they gave me a book called The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict.

It's like an encyclopedia.

It's written by Dr.

Josh McDowell, similar as Lee Strobel.

And I read that book in my sophomore year, and it was like, okay, I got the answers to the hard questions.

Now, do I question,

does God exist now?

I think it would be disingenuous to say that faith doesn't come with some degree of of doubt, right?

I think fundamentalists would say that faith is an absolute certainty, right?

Where if you are approaching faith as like a C.S.

Lewis, mere Christianity, Jesus is the myth, that's fact, it's okay to have a healthy degree of doubt and ask questions.

And I have access to the greatest people in the world, from my pastors to some of these scholars and thinkers that I'm not afraid to ask questions.

But in terms of anything major, like that, it's been sorted out, like it's been sorted out.

And I've seen the evidence on the other side of walking with Jesus for 20 years and how many of my friends went to prison, how many of my friends are still in prison, how many of my friends have gone through awful things and yet I have this incredible life.

That's not perfect.

I still experience trouble.

I still suffer.

And I'm not saying like follow God to be rich and happy and successful and a famous YouTuber.

That's not what I'm saying.

What I'm saying is.

On the other side of this man, my life is so much different than everybody I grew up with that didn't follow Jesus.

There's probably something there then.

I hope so.

Yeah.

Russan, it's been fun.

Anything you're working on or want to promote?

Uh,

we're we're always working.

I'm working on a book uh that'll be coming out next year with Penguin.

Um, we are gonna announce our three-day Bless God Summit, so we'll get you that information.

That's happening in Southern California the end of January.

So, we're gonna have some amazing speakers for that, concerts, some amazing artists.

Um, and yeah, they can check me out on YouTube, Ruslan KD on all forms.

Link below, thanks for coming on, man.

Thank you, brother.

Yeah, thanks for watching, guys.

As always, see you tomorrow.

Peace.