Thank you so much for this very honest and thoughtful insight into the repercussions of Luther’s thinking on the doctrines of the reformed church. As a Christian I have always struggled with this idea of self loathing in Christianity. It has somehow bound and gagged the creative process within individuals who adhere to it.....to the detriment of themselves and Christianity. It has strangled the ability for people to love themselves and therefore to love their neighbor. It seems to me that as time moved forward from this point that everything became less beautiful....as if, very slowly, the Life was sucked out of Christianity. I always imagined that God, as the Creator, would have been proud of his creation....with all its flaws. It’s always the flaws that make a work of art real. What you are saying makes so much sense to me and it is not what I have found demonstrated in the life of Jesus according to the gospels. I also love the whole idea of participatory knowing in relationship to God and the world. I had a conversation with Paul Vanderklay about these things not too long ago and wasn’t very good at articulating just exactly what or perhaps how these ideas have been so damaging to people. You have given me the words that failed me for so long. Thank you for that.
Thank you for such an honest and reflective comment. I cannot respond to all the great comments I receive but yours really touched me deeply, and I felt I needed to acknowledge it.
John Vervaeke John, I ran across this yesterday and it seems to address this notion of narcissism in Protestantism. I found it so beautiful and such a cry for connection from man to God. He is so right about this. I just had to share it with you. O, Lord, they tell me I have so offended against thy law that, as I am, thou canst not look upon me, but threatenest me with eternal banishment from thy presence. But I have never known myself clean: how can I cleanse myself? Thou must take me as I am and cleanse me. Thou requirest of us to forgive: surely thou forgivest freely! Bound thou may be to destroy evil, but art thou bound to keep the sinner alive that thou may punish him, even if it make him no better? Sin cannot be deep as life, for thou art the life; and sorrow and pain go deeper than sin, for they reach to the divine in us. To see men suffer might make us shun evil, but it never could make us hate it. We might see thereby that thou hatest sin, but we never could see that thou lovest the sinner. Chastise us in loving kindness, and we shall not faint. Art not thou thyself, in thy Son, the sacrifice for our sins, the atonement of our breach? Could we ever have come to know good as thou knowest it, save by passing through the sea of sin and the fire of cleansing? They tell me I must say for Christ’s sake, or thou wilt not pardon: it takes the very heart out of my poor love to hear that thou wilt not pardon me except because Christ has loved me; but I give thee thanks that nowhere in the record of thy gospel, does one of thy servants say any such word. Thou bearest our griefs and carriest our sorrows; and surely thou wilt one day enable us to pay every debt we owe to each other! We run within the circle of what men call thy wrath, and find ourselves clasped in the zone of thy love!” -George MacDonald BTW Lectio Divina is a perfect way to read this!
John Vervaeke I’m not sure if you have heard Joni Mitchell’s rendition of 1 COR. 13 but if you haven’t I thought you should. open.spotify.com/track/1TvzWCNxu8dSqookVWi5ZO?si=ITreU50MTpSfE_CIYx9KyQ
37:11 "You're a nothing that has to bear it all!" Exactly this. And when you're alone on the road, you turn off the music and there: suddenly you are aware of the weight on your shoulders and the emptiness inside of you. Like an empty can trying not to crush under a foot. This series is a gift and I was lucky to stumble upon it. Fantastic work. Greetings from Croatia
I’ve been an Engineer for 24 years and never before paid any attention to anything resembling a philological discussion like this. I’ve always read and listened to Feynman, Newton, Gleck, etc. Thank you so much. Every episode is so rewarding.
These lectures are So brilliant ...I am a 63 year old woman of very mediocre education .....but here I am finding your fluidity through history of thought to be spell binding and massively rewarding. Again I thank you for the gift of sharing ......
This series sets a record for most mindblows-per-hour with a whopping average of 12 mbph! Thank you for every minute of this great series. Best regards from an odd small island of meaning and purpose.
This is a devastating worldview analysis so deep and clear that I’m not entirely sure what to do with it right now. I’ve felt that way on several videos of this series so far. And yet, you communicate in an honest way, like you actually want to help us. Thank you John.
I felt this analysis of Protestantism and self loathing in my soul. That cycle of existential dread and anxiety is exactly what drove me away from Protestantism after 24 years but only after sinking into a deep depression and struggle with anxiety that I’m still working my way out of. The whiplash between Protestant faith alone and Cartesian certainty is also a roller coaster that I got stuck on as well. You’ve described the last 5 years of my life experience to a t.
You got one of the few and far between replies from John himself :) and I think his personal understanding of this pain is part of what drew me to this series. I discovered him through a conversation with Lex Fridman and I remember he mentioned growing up in a fundamentalist Christian home. So this is personal. Not vindictive or seeking to judge the people who raised him, but still deeply personal. I feel it too. Watching these lectures, for the first time in my life I feel a deep sense of hope that the existential void in my soul is not permanent… and I’m not the only one, either.
I am still deeply embedded in Protestantism, having over many years become somewhat of a theological 'expert' in this (primarily Reformed) tradition, and not sure (for many complex supra-theological, personal and aesthetic reasons) whether I can exit, though at times I am now drawn in a number of other directions.
Watch the journey home on ewtn dr scott hahn and Michael cumbie also fr Alar on martin luther on utube also Google homeopathic remedies for depression and anxiety they are effective bless you 🌹
This is becoming deeper than anything I tought possible and the fact that you are incorporating pretty much all that humanity has produced in a comprehensive manner that non educated people can relate to is just out of this world. Thank you for leading us through this miraculous journey ♥️
I am absorbing this lecture series for a third time now, and only now I feel as if I'm fully grasping all these concepts, their connections, and the implications for our meaning (crisis). I found the second part, the last 25 lectures, very challenging, but I'm excited to get to the point of grasping it all as a whole in the future! John, thanks for all the work you've done. Not meant to put you on a pedestal, but I just wanted to say that you have been pivotal in my development these last years. PS. Weird connection maybe, but this lecture made me think of the game "The Talos Principle". Philosophy of mind plays a huge role in the story of this puzzle game. Highly recommended!
This is really really clever, how you show the deeply deeply cynical path we have been on since turning our focus away from love of wisdom, onto politics.
It's absolutely amazing how you get this together and can make highly complex ideas meaningful for a laymen. John, thanks for openly sharing you hard earned knowledge. God bless you.
“You’re a nothing that has to bear it all.” Deeply healing to hear how & why this pattern of thinking is so entrenched in my thinking. It has remained invisible to me through 12 years of therapy, mostly-haphazard use of medications & multiple diagnosis’. Thank you John. Your 4 P’s of knowing from the Buddhism & Cognitive Science series augments my understanding of Aquinas & Jacques Martian on poetic sense in very important ways.
Fascinating account of the inevitable fragmentation of Protestantism. This lecture shed much needed light on my former views. I used to think: "Be true to yourself." Now, I prefer to think: "Be true to reality." So many thoughts and reactions. But the main thing I want to say is: Thank you, Professor Vervaeke!
My favorite passages: 16:45 " ...being true to reality is superseded to being true to self ...training us in narcissism ..". I have never heard narcissism discussed in the context of Christian doctrine. A cognitive scientist commenting on theology is refreshing, and needed. It is explaining a great deal to me. As an engineer, Descartes is one of my heroes, and I look forward to his philosophical ideas verse his mathematical ideas that I was trained at. These videos get better with time. I'm addicted, and need my Friday Vervaeke fixes. A cognitive scientist, or therapist would be wary, and I'm not sure addiction is a solution to any meaning crises, but its doing it for me. I pray that a book, or at least notes from these videos will be published.
bill timmons - quite agree. There’s a sense in which, appropriately, it seems one has to participate in these and take one’s own notes, but man, this series as a book would represent a cultural landmark.
“Unearned/unconditional positive regard” (i.e. narcissism) sounds like Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s criticism of “cheap grace”... I wonder if he, as a Lutheran, was trying to correct what became toxic in his tradition. “Grace” without any personal transformation. “Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession...Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.” -Dietrich Bonhoeffer I loved this episode- I listened to it twice through in one sitting. I’ve been a Protestant all my life, and hearing this put SO many things into place for me, it was incredibly helpful. Makes me realize how much there is to grieve over, to correct, and to transform in my faith tradition.
This lecture is the most powerful and meaningful from the whole series. Probably because it narrates a crucial point in world history when there was major upheaval in cognition and theory. It must also be noted that every human being at some point in life will probably go through some sort of Lutheranism, and that’s the main point I take regarding this lecture. Thank you and greetings from Albania Mr. Vervaeke.
These lectures have been my muse. I’ve been a frustrated artist and I’ve found much inspiration through these. My logic mind and my feeling mind are coming together. My words fail me to explain (that’s why I am an artist), suffice it to say, I’m incredibly incredibly grateful for this amazing gift. Thank you 🙏🏼
Shall I just keep repeating "wow" in my comments? This series is the best thing I have EVER encountered on RUclips. John Vervaeke; it is always an honour to experience your intellect, enthusiasm and perspective. Respect for your work grows exponentially here in Wales...
I’ve experienced this in various ways throughout my personal and professional life. Someone takes advantage of you? I deserve that anyway because I’m depraved. Need to make a case for why you’re a good candidate for a position? How can I possibly advocate for myself in any way when I’m truly worthless? You deserve nothing… but then God arbitrarily selects you for divine love and bam the stage is set for narcissism. Damn. JV is so on point
“Odd islands of meaning and purpose in a vast ocean of meaningless, purposeless material motion”. What an amazing phrase, and how truly it is the way we feel some days and especially some nights.
Fascinating ! I never thought of Luther in these terms, and even though France was never a Protestant country it is clear that these changes have had repercussions in our culture. Thank you 🙏
I’ve been wondering where he’s at when giving these lectures. After this lecture I know…..it’s a fortified bunker underground. Thank you for communicating this knowledge while it can still be communicated.
These are absolutely fantastic. It feels like a special thing to have the opportunity to listen to such a series of lectures. I wish the philosophy course I did was more like this haha
If anyone needs a transcript we've made them for this & all episodes here: www.meaningcrisis.co/ep-21-awakening-from-the-meaning-crisis-martin-luther-and-descartes/
Your words "You are NOTHING!.. that has to bear it all!" gave me chills... The only other time this happened were when you've said "(Meaning) ultimately is about being plugged in into a cultivation of wisdom, not just doing something morally correct..." I guess it is really hard to bear the responsibility for the world when you know how small you are.
Still, it makes me sad when people use computers for deep learning and then they reject what is found because it doesn’t fit the political milieu or their previous conceptions of things. 😳😐 Which shows they don’t understand science, freedom, the grace of god, or basically anything. And they are determined to stay that way. The reason that’s bad is because it is the extinction mindset. BUT we have John. 🥰 And people still willing to spend their lives helping us see regardless. The opposite of that. There are no sweet sugary solutions that add life, despite the ad campaigns. John adds life. 👍🏻
Wow. I am truly being taken on a journey through this story. Early on in the series axial meaning seemed so natural, like we are fools to have given it up, but now i have been brought to modernity and seen the unresolvable problems that were put in front of those who killed the world and then the soul. It's confronting to see exactly how difficult the bind is that we are in, but so reassuring to know the precise places where that bind comes from
It's a strange time to be alive. I've been using AI to generate art references for work and in the evening I listen to John explain the first time AI was conceptualized. 10 years from now, who knows where we'll be. This series is really helping me appreciate that many things I take for granted are just a few ideas in a long history of wildly different ideas humanity has lived through. It was also an "ah ha" moment to realize that I grew up around many Protestant ideas that always felt intuitively wrong to me, but I didn't even realize they were Protestant ideas.
This was a good one John "Those infinite spaces terrify me." "It's vastness is inhuman and crippling of a human spirit." Yeah, I remember feeling that way when I was a kid.
Ok, I did the thumbs down 😂 sorry. Not for you, but for the interpretation of the Universe. Humans have no idea what the universe actually is even though they have described it pretty well. Same thing with brains though. Both are full of possibilities. Infinite possibilities! ❤️❤️❤️ The promise and creativity and freedom that is spoken of by this! Maybe we are the center of it after all, if not geometric center, but the center nonetheless.
@@spiralsun1 Giordano Bruno had some very interesting things to say about that; I can’t remember if John has talked about him or not, but I think you would like some of his ideas. “we may certainly affirm that the universe is entirely center, or that the center of the universe is everywhere, and the circumference nowhere insofar as it is different from the center.." -Giordano Bruno, 1584 "On the Infinite Universe and Worlds"
It's time to go deep. This represents a sort of axis of intersection-damn, there's Decartes right there-my reaching and exceeding this point that had been for some time the zenith of my progress in this series. Also, it was much as my mind had taken in. It has been fascinating to see my practices and life interacting with predicted rhythm of relevant meaning within the series itself, how about that, and, by the end of this last lecture, not predicted but maybe somehow prefigured a little, the immediate relevance of things-within this series-for me-now-and how I've surely set this up in some sense and yet in others I am a leaf on the breeze, not more and not less. It is nearly intoxicating. By the way I've spent a little time on drumming and, recently, throwing a bouncy ball around a room where I build and paint miniatures has demonstrated amazing things about intentionality, as in the phrase, "Surely I didn't do that by accident, but I couldn't have done it if I tried," or the phrase, "I'm playing a dangerous game." This has been the most wondrous journey. I better keep on stepping up my game. Some day, I hope to have a suitable opportunity to thank you properly for all of this. As I've taken to saying at the end of these lectures, thank you, John, have a wonderful day. By the by... new Peter Gabriel. I kept joking that listening to a lot of Peter is either really good or really bad. I think it's really just beautiful and painful. Whatever the case, the wheel keeps turning. I suspect that's all I can do. Anyway. I would be remiss not to share something of my own vigil from my listening post all the way out here. Ah. And this, apparently: I was going to drop the old Leslie Nielsen about good luck we're all counting on you, but when I looked it up the line is: I just want to tell you both, good luck, we're all counting on you. Both. And the line didn't feel quite right anyway, I didn't want to put any weight on your shoulders, you've done a lot and I wanted if anything to remind you that it is okay to rest sometimes, we got this. Both. No one. I think that might have been for me, which can't be for me, has to be for a certain us. The place of maybe I'm crazy but maybe I'm not remains. I'd better shut the hell up and get back to work before I start deceiving myself again. All the best. Beauty might be in the eye of the beholder, but the beholder's fucking real. I'm real.
Luther didn't start it. He was caught up in some sinister ideology that was already in motion. This lecture helped me ruclips.net/video/CTMX4C169bg/видео.html
I hope the theme that runs through this series becomes a priority in more people's conversations. It's sad to see how starved people are for deeper meaning. It's like watching those infomercials about starving children.. People are walking around with their nihilistic ribs popping out and It's crushing to witness. Pleasure and distraction are so thoroughly locked into place through the parasitic framework you alluded to. I can hardly imagine how to engage a person in conversations of meaning when they arent interested or even aware of what they are missing. I supposed its like a starving person who convinced themselves that they are full. It seems the distractions that keep us from pursuing meaning are the result of our lack of it. Were constantly Filling the void. This only guarantees the void will stay vacant. You do some truly amazing work John. I'm so incredibly grateful, It's indescribable.
As this lecture was published 3 years ago (before the covid pandemic), I find very prophetic or at least telling that the purpose of knowledge is not wisdom anymore but politics instead. Also as a student of AI I’m getting excited about how it will be related to the crisis of meaning. I can only speculate but until now, I would disagree with Hobbes proposition that cognition is ONLY computation, especially if you consider there are many different kinds of computations and if you consider cognition may be a specter, as now we don’t regard animals only as biological automatons but as subjects with emotions and grades and diversities of intelligence. To me consciousness still may be an extremely complex and dynamic system of integrated computations, but I’m sure our knowledge of human computations (neuroscience, psychology, sociology, economics, ecology...) is still in its infancy.
For someone that doesn't believe in souls, then we humans are already a material machine that does computation (reasons). And through the Curry-Howard correspondence it has been shown that there is a relationship between logical reasoning and computation.
anselman Sure. I’d be happy to. According to Mormons Joseph Smith had an enlightenment experience, he experience a state of higher consciousness. Smith claims he saw God and that God told him that the state of Christianity and of world was way off course and that he would be a prophet. One of Smith’s core message was that core practices and beliefs of Christianity had been perverted. Smith’s doctrines takes critical aim specifically at Martin Luther and the shortcomings of the protestant movement. Smith points out the chaos and alienation that the fragmentation of protestantism brings. Mormon doctrine also parts ways with Martin Luther’s conception of grace and its shortcomings, which Vervaeke explains beautifully. Mormons call this “The Great Apostasy” and I believe that Smith’s intuition expressed in this doctrine is pointing to this unravelling of our worldview Smith introduces to the world what Harold Bloom would call “a purely american gnosis.” He also reintroduces anagoge to Christianity in the Mormon Temple Rituals.
@@rdrzalexa Do you think that, rather than just originating in an interior experience of Joseph Smith Jr, this was a particular development of a trend started in Wesleyanism and the Campbellite movement? It does seem that Sidney Rigdon, a former Campbellite preacher, was very influential on Joseph. The great appeal of the Latter Day Saints movement seems to have been that it spoke to many Christians of the kind who were already looking for a restoration of what they thought to be a more authentic New Testament Christianity. The Mormon Temple rituals seem to have been a foreign add-on to that initial conception of the restored church, and largely as a result of involvement with freemasonry. I think, to their credit, the LDS emphasized agency, as against the determinist tendencies of Luther and Calvin, and of a certain school of thought in Roman Catholicism.
anselman anselman Its an interesting hypothesis that seems plausible but I would have to disagree with you because of the timeline of events. The Book of Mormon devotes several chapters on these issues which was written and published before Rigdon and his associated were baptized or became influential members of Smith’s new Church. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that The Book of Mormon is a product of Smith’s imagination and thought then these doctrines are products of Smith’s as well rather than borrowed or stolen from Rigdon. So I think your hypothesis falls short in that regard. Now you can make the argument that these doctrines were just the Zeitgeist of the time, which is very likely. Smith seems to have his finger on the pulse more profoundly than Rigdon and his other contemporaries. **** Now, I am aware of the confluence between Masonry and the Mormon Temple Rituals but I’m not profoundly familiar with Masonry itself because I’m not a Freemason. So I can’t comment on wether or not masonry has an anagogic element to it.
Outstanding episode! Are there any Jordan Hall followers here? The shift from "knowledge" being linked with "wisdom", to knowledge now being linked with "politics" and the "state", provides a beautiful framework to view the last 500 years. This idea fits beautifully with Jordan's work. John and Jordan recently had a chat on the "Rebel WIsdom" channel. It was fantastic seeing them hang out; apparently it will not be the last either. ruclips.net/video/awmqIySF2Gs/видео.html
@@yeahTHATLarry Awesome! What sort of trouble are you talking about? Jordon is a nuanced thinker, or his thinking has alot of nuance to it but I find it very helpful in developing frameworks to understand the world at the moment
Its unbelievable how much the discussions of people some 500 years ago reflect back on both my personal (protestant) family and current societal problems I see around me. Its a shame that school history focusses so much on dry facts, and not on the meaning and the philosophy behind historical events. You gain a much better understanding of current problems if you know what past decisions and idea's led to those problems.
@@Lerian_V I did, he described the origins, most important aspects and (far reaching) implications of the reformation in the most clear and concise manner.
Being "true to reality" is also a Buddhist value, if Robert Thurman's preferred translation of the first step on the eightfold path is correct-"realistic view." If that's the case, then "the cultural grammar training us in narcissism" is global, multicultural, and spans thousands of years.
John, I love these lectures! This one was so eye opening. I never new Luther in this way! It is amazing to me how much information you know about all of these people. How long did you study on Luther to embody it like that? Where did you get your research? When I research things I never get this deep rich information like you do. I really want to improve on my research skills. Thank you!
Here's Dr. Scott Hahn's version of this same topic: ruclips.net/video/CTMX4C169bg/видео.html Here's Dr. Scott Hahn's massive library: ruclips.net/video/vxY9dtERNoA/видео.html
No, because feeding a Borg to the Borg is what makes the Borg Borg. You gotta have faith in the Logos, man. When you act on belief in the inherent divinity of a human Trying to discover Truth, you can forgive and explain instead of futily trying to appease merciless monsters with human sacrifices. In short: humanity is sacred; to believe otherwise is madness.
I would recommend a biography of Luther by Lyndal Roper (2017- 2018) but much additional info was here. It's amazing how rich is the history of this period, the printing press being the overwhelming NEW tech driving huge advancements as so many chose to learn to read and read many Bibles, with "delight in the law" the new door to a huge "reformation", also driving, as you mention, Max Weber to write The Protestant Ethic and The Spirit of Capitalism. Soberly, though, the 30 years war, as a result of revolutionary change, created massive number of deaths.
What is drive? Interpretation. What is according to thy world views? Remember Students, Hosts, and our Beautiful are listening and watching and sitting upon. Given ABLE TO PULL DOWN STRONG HOLDS FROM ALL WORLD VIEWS. Come with all thy world views together! Many aims indeed. What is an Aim?
Raised not in the Anglosphere, I always wonder why in the Anglosphere Luther is taken as a great intellectual. It was his ideology what ultimately was used to divide the west. A division that is pervasive to the date.
Holy shit holy shit holy shit holy shit holy shit hOly Shit holy SHIT holy shit holy shIt HOLY SHIT. Graphs. HOLY SHIT. I think that about sums up my experience watching this lecture. Edit: after letting it sink in for a few minutes… wow. Actually, I still have no words. Never mind.
And arriving at this point, where it starts to go downhill, in realising i will now have to listen to it all again from ep 1. And take more notes, because I know there is a good solution as i remember, but it was enunciated far back that i can't remember what it is lol.
Ahhh....alas poor Descartes , how might he feel a few centuries later ...after culturally transforming our minds to machines to the extent that many now believe that our experience is tantamount to computation that can be uploaded to a computational device...when Goedel comes along and dashes to bits the certainty of binary logic systems?
Symbol systems can be extremely helpful, and show us who we are. But they are not the answer, only the means to the answer. Tools. Mind tools as Rudy Rucker said. ❤️
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Thank you so much for this very honest and thoughtful insight into the repercussions of Luther’s thinking on the doctrines of the reformed church. As a Christian I have always struggled with this idea of self loathing in Christianity. It has somehow bound and gagged the creative process within individuals who adhere to it.....to the detriment of themselves and Christianity. It has strangled the ability for people to love themselves and therefore to love their neighbor. It seems to me that as time moved forward from this point that everything became less beautiful....as if, very slowly, the Life was sucked out of Christianity. I always imagined that God, as the Creator, would have been proud of his creation....with all its flaws. It’s always the flaws that make a work of art real. What you are saying makes so much sense to me and it is not what I have found demonstrated in the life of Jesus according to the gospels. I also love the whole idea of participatory knowing in relationship to God and the world. I had a conversation with Paul Vanderklay about these things not too long ago and wasn’t very good at articulating just exactly what or perhaps how these ideas have been so damaging to people. You have given me the words that failed me for so long. Thank you for that.
Thank you for such an honest and reflective comment. I cannot respond to all the great comments I receive but yours really touched me deeply, and I felt I needed to acknowledge it.
John Vervaeke truly grateful and learning so much.
John Vervaeke John, I ran across this yesterday and it seems to address this notion of narcissism in Protestantism. I found it so beautiful and such a cry for connection from man to God. He is so right about this. I just had to share it with you.
O, Lord, they tell me I have so offended against thy law that, as I am, thou canst not look upon me, but threatenest me with eternal banishment from thy presence. But I have never known myself clean: how can I cleanse myself? Thou must take me as I am and cleanse me. Thou requirest of us to forgive: surely thou forgivest freely! Bound thou may be to destroy evil, but art thou bound to keep the sinner alive that thou may punish him, even if it make him no better? Sin cannot be deep as life, for thou art the life; and sorrow and pain go deeper than sin, for they reach to the divine in us. To see men suffer might make us shun evil, but it never could make us hate it. We might see thereby that thou hatest sin, but we never could see that thou lovest the sinner. Chastise us in loving kindness, and we shall not faint. Art not thou thyself, in thy Son, the sacrifice for our sins, the atonement of our breach? Could we ever have come to know good as thou knowest it, save by passing through the sea of sin and the fire of cleansing? They tell me I must say for Christ’s sake, or thou wilt not pardon: it takes the very heart out of my poor love to hear that thou wilt not pardon me except because Christ has loved me; but I give thee thanks that nowhere in the record of thy gospel, does one of thy servants say any such word. Thou bearest our griefs and carriest our sorrows; and surely thou wilt one day enable us to pay every debt we owe to each other! We run within the circle of what men call thy wrath, and find ourselves clasped in the zone of thy love!”
-George MacDonald
BTW Lectio Divina is a perfect way to read this!
Shari Suter. Yes, that seems much more in line with agape. Thank you for sharing.
John Vervaeke I’m not sure if you have heard Joni Mitchell’s rendition of 1 COR. 13 but if you haven’t I thought you should. open.spotify.com/track/1TvzWCNxu8dSqookVWi5ZO?si=ITreU50MTpSfE_CIYx9KyQ
Kinda addicted to these at this point.
same to be honest
Same. They only seem to be getting better, too.
I am so excited to see where this is going to with the last 30 lectures!
But is your addiction leading to reciprocal narrowing or anagoge?
And me!
37:11 "You're a nothing that has to bear it all!" Exactly this. And when you're alone on the road, you turn off the music and there: suddenly you are aware of the weight on your shoulders and the emptiness inside of you. Like an empty can trying not to crush under a foot.
This series is a gift and I was lucky to stumble upon it. Fantastic work. Greetings from Croatia
A gift and a blessing.
I’ve been an Engineer for 24 years and never before paid any attention to anything resembling a philological discussion like this. I’ve always read and listened to Feynman, Newton, Gleck, etc. Thank you so much. Every episode is so rewarding.
There are plenty of argonauts that would agree with you Jason.
😂👍🏻
Cool
Yes Pageau is good too.
_John posts therefore I click._
- Descartes, probably
I upvote, therefor he is ?!?
These lectures are So brilliant ...I am a 63 year old woman of very mediocre education .....but here I am finding your fluidity through history of thought to be spell binding and massively rewarding. Again I thank you for the gift of sharing ......
This series sets a record for most mindblows-per-hour with a whopping average of 12 mbph! Thank you for every minute of this great series.
Best regards from an odd small island of meaning and purpose.
This is a devastating worldview analysis so deep and clear that I’m not entirely sure what to do with it right now. I’ve felt that way on several videos of this series so far. And yet, you communicate in an honest way, like you actually want to help us. Thank you John.
I felt this analysis of Protestantism and self loathing in my soul. That cycle of existential dread and anxiety is exactly what drove me away from Protestantism after 24 years but only after sinking into a deep depression and struggle with anxiety that I’m still working my way out of. The whiplash between Protestant faith alone and Cartesian certainty is also a roller coaster that I got stuck on as well. You’ve described the last 5 years of my life experience to a t.
Thank you for sharing. Believe me I understand.
You got one of the few and far between replies from John himself :) and I think his personal understanding of this pain is part of what drew me to this series. I discovered him through a conversation with Lex Fridman and I remember he mentioned growing up in a fundamentalist Christian home. So this is personal. Not vindictive or seeking to judge the people who raised him, but still deeply personal. I feel it too. Watching these lectures, for the first time in my life I feel a deep sense of hope that the existential void in my soul is not permanent… and I’m not the only one, either.
I am still deeply embedded in Protestantism, having over many years become somewhat of a theological 'expert' in this (primarily Reformed) tradition, and not sure (for many complex supra-theological, personal and aesthetic reasons) whether I can exit, though at times I am now drawn in a number of other directions.
Watch the journey home on ewtn dr scott hahn and Michael cumbie also fr Alar on martin luther on utube also Google homeopathic remedies for depression and anxiety they are effective bless you 🌹
I became Catholic. The theology ended up making more sense to me
This is becoming deeper than anything I tought possible and the fact that you are incorporating pretty much all that humanity has produced in a comprehensive manner that non educated people can relate to is just out of this world. Thank you for leading us through this miraculous journey ♥️
I am absorbing this lecture series for a third time now, and only now I feel as if I'm fully grasping all these concepts, their connections, and the implications for our meaning (crisis). I found the second part, the last 25 lectures, very challenging, but I'm excited to get to the point of grasping it all as a whole in the future! John, thanks for all the work you've done. Not meant to put you on a pedestal, but I just wanted to say that you have been pivotal in my development these last years.
PS. Weird connection maybe, but this lecture made me think of the game "The Talos Principle". Philosophy of mind plays a huge role in the story of this puzzle game. Highly recommended!
This is really really clever, how you show the deeply deeply cynical path we have been on since turning our focus away from love of wisdom, onto politics.
So by the episode 50 it will be clear that this whole series is in fact the most elaborate apologetic of Star Wars ever undertaken.
There is no try. Only do. -Copernicus
😂👍🏻
@@spiralsun1 😎
John despises dualism. In the previous lecture he equated Gnosticism with Nazism.
It's absolutely amazing how you get this together and can make highly complex ideas meaningful for a laymen. John, thanks for openly sharing you hard earned knowledge. God bless you.
“You’re a nothing that has to bear it all.”
Deeply healing to hear how & why this pattern of thinking is so entrenched in my thinking. It has remained invisible to me through 12 years of therapy, mostly-haphazard use of medications & multiple diagnosis’. Thank you John. Your 4 P’s of knowing from the Buddhism & Cognitive Science series augments my understanding of Aquinas & Jacques Martian on poetic sense in very important ways.
Fascinating account of the inevitable fragmentation of Protestantism. This lecture shed much needed light on my former views. I used to think: "Be true to yourself." Now, I prefer to think: "Be true to reality." So many thoughts and reactions. But the main thing I want to say is: Thank you, Professor Vervaeke!
My favorite passages: 16:45 " ...being true to reality is superseded to being true to self ...training us in narcissism ..". I have never heard narcissism discussed in the context of Christian doctrine. A cognitive scientist commenting on theology is refreshing, and needed. It is explaining a great deal to me. As an engineer, Descartes is one of my heroes, and I look forward to his philosophical ideas verse his mathematical ideas that I was trained at. These videos get better with time. I'm addicted, and need my Friday Vervaeke fixes. A cognitive scientist, or therapist would be wary, and I'm not sure addiction is a solution to any meaning crises, but its doing it for me. I pray that a book, or at least notes from these videos will be published.
bill timmons - quite agree. There’s a sense in which, appropriately, it seems one has to participate in these and take one’s own notes, but man, this series as a book would represent a cultural landmark.
“Unearned/unconditional positive regard” (i.e. narcissism) sounds like Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s criticism of “cheap grace”... I wonder if he, as a Lutheran, was trying to correct what became toxic in his tradition. “Grace” without any personal transformation.
“Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession...Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”
-Dietrich Bonhoeffer
I loved this episode- I listened to it twice through in one sitting. I’ve been a Protestant all my life, and hearing this put SO many things into place for me, it was incredibly helpful. Makes me realize how much there is to grieve over, to correct, and to transform in my faith tradition.
Thank you. I think your point about cheap grace and Bonhoeffer is excellent.
This lecture is the most powerful and meaningful from the whole series. Probably because it narrates a crucial point in world history when there was major upheaval in cognition and theory. It must also be noted that every human being at some point in life will probably go through some sort of Lutheranism, and that’s the main point I take regarding this lecture. Thank you and greetings from Albania Mr. Vervaeke.
These lectures have been my muse. I’ve been a frustrated artist and I’ve found much inspiration through these. My logic mind and my feeling mind are coming together. My words fail me to explain (that’s why I am an artist), suffice it to say, I’m incredibly incredibly grateful for this amazing gift. Thank you 🙏🏼
Your sentiments are mine too.
I'm also looking for a worthwhile art.
Maybe the best lecture yet in this outstanding series. Really well done. Thanks, Pr. Vervaeke.
That's how I feel after each lecture!
Shall I just keep repeating "wow" in my comments? This series is the best thing I have EVER encountered on RUclips. John Vervaeke; it is always an honour to experience your intellect, enthusiasm and perspective. Respect for your work grows exponentially here in Wales...
Thank you so very much for your time and dedication.
I’ve experienced this in various ways throughout my personal and professional life. Someone takes advantage of you? I deserve that anyway because I’m depraved. Need to make a case for why you’re a good candidate for a position? How can I possibly advocate for myself in any way when I’m truly worthless? You deserve nothing… but then God arbitrarily selects you for divine love and bam the stage is set for narcissism. Damn. JV is so on point
“Odd islands of meaning and purpose in a vast ocean of meaningless, purposeless material motion”. What an amazing phrase, and how truly it is the way we feel some days and especially some nights.
Most powerful lecture so far
You have kindled and appeased my interest for history at the same time
this lecture was quite a performance
thank you
Incredible! Deeply grateful for this series.
So appreciative of this content, thank you for making this available to the world :)
I can’t believe that how people still didn’t discover these podcasts
Fascinating ! I never thought of Luther in these terms, and even though France was never a Protestant country it is clear that these changes have had repercussions in our culture.
Thank you 🙏
Go listen to "The Forerunners of the Reformation with Dr. Scott Hahn". He did a panoramic treatise of this topic from the religious perspective.
Pure fascination with this material. Thank you for your clarity and enthusiasm!
Just wanted you to know that in Mexico you also have adepts to your amaising lectures. Thank you so much for them!
I’ve been wondering where he’s at when giving these lectures. After this lecture I know…..it’s a fortified bunker underground. Thank you for communicating this knowledge while it can still be communicated.
I deeply appreciate YOUR time JV ❤️🍄
This kept blowing my mind up to the very last minute.
episodes 20 and 21 are where Vervaeke really lets the beat drop.
Brilliant. Thank you John 🙏
Thank you John for providing a much needed clarity to our historical journey.
These are absolutely fantastic. It feels like a special thing to have the opportunity to listen to such a series of lectures. I wish the philosophy course I did was more like this haha
If anyone needs a transcript we've made them for this & all episodes here: www.meaningcrisis.co/ep-21-awakening-from-the-meaning-crisis-martin-luther-and-descartes/
Excellent work! I its much easier to go back and read again rather than listen again
Thank you greatly
Brilliant series. Affords so much intelligibility into the state of the world and the self today. Thank you.
Your words "You are NOTHING!.. that has to bear it all!" gave me chills...
The only other time this happened were when you've said "(Meaning) ultimately is about being plugged in into a cultivation of wisdom, not just doing something morally correct..."
I guess it is really hard to bear the responsibility for the world when you know how small you are.
Thank You!
Still, it makes me sad when people use computers for deep learning and then they reject what is found because it doesn’t fit the political milieu or their previous conceptions of things. 😳😐 Which shows they don’t understand science, freedom, the grace of god, or basically anything. And they are determined to stay that way. The reason that’s bad is because it is the extinction mindset.
BUT we have John. 🥰 And people still willing to spend their lives helping us see regardless. The opposite of that. There are no sweet sugary solutions that add life, despite the ad campaigns. John adds life. 👍🏻
This one hits deeply, thank you
What an insightful lecture!
Wow. I am truly being taken on a journey through this story. Early on in the series axial meaning seemed so natural, like we are fools to have given it up, but now i have been brought to modernity and seen the unresolvable problems that were put in front of those who killed the world and then the soul. It's confronting to see exactly how difficult the bind is that we are in, but so reassuring to know the precise places where that bind comes from
Indeed -- the modern world has brought us so much. We would be fools to give it up as well. Perhaps there is a middle way.
It's a strange time to be alive. I've been using AI to generate art references for work and in the evening I listen to John explain the first time AI was conceptualized. 10 years from now, who knows where we'll be. This series is really helping me appreciate that many things I take for granted are just a few ideas in a long history of wildly different ideas humanity has lived through. It was also an "ah ha" moment to realize that I grew up around many Protestant ideas that always felt intuitively wrong to me, but I didn't even realize they were Protestant ideas.
😭 This episode hits so hard wow mind blown
Boy, that was good! And it appears to only get better. Thanks again Mr.Veraeka
This was a good one John
"Those infinite spaces terrify me."
"It's vastness is inhuman and crippling of a human spirit."
Yeah, I remember feeling that way when I was a kid.
I had that feeling momentarily as a child, until I returned to my understanding that it is all made by my loving Father.
Ok, I did the thumbs down 😂 sorry. Not for you, but for the interpretation of the Universe. Humans have no idea what the universe actually is even though they have described it pretty well. Same thing with brains though. Both are full of possibilities. Infinite possibilities! ❤️❤️❤️ The promise and creativity and freedom that is spoken of by this! Maybe we are the center of it after all, if not geometric center, but the center nonetheless.
@@spiralsun1 Giordano Bruno had some very interesting things to say about that; I can’t remember if John has talked about him or not, but I think you would like some of his ideas.
“we may certainly affirm that the universe is entirely center, or that the center of the universe is everywhere, and the circumference nowhere insofar as it is different from the center.."
-Giordano Bruno, 1584
"On the Infinite Universe and Worlds"
@@johnbuckner2828 oh wow John. Thank you for this. That’s beautiful. ❤️
I do appreciate this series. Working my way through it at about 4 episodes a week.
This is a fantastic episode!
RED PILL to the MAX!!
Endless thanks again!
I am so thrilled I stumbled upon your lecture. So hungry for this type of deep thinking, learning and thought form.
It's time to go deep. This represents a sort of axis of intersection-damn, there's Decartes right there-my reaching and exceeding this point that had been for some time the zenith of my progress in this series. Also, it was much as my mind had taken in. It has been fascinating to see my practices and life interacting with predicted rhythm of relevant meaning within the series itself, how about that, and, by the end of this last lecture, not predicted but maybe somehow prefigured a little, the immediate relevance of things-within this series-for me-now-and how I've surely set this up in some sense and yet in others I am a leaf on the breeze, not more and not less. It is nearly intoxicating. By the way I've spent a little time on drumming and, recently, throwing a bouncy ball around a room where I build and paint miniatures has demonstrated amazing things about intentionality, as in the phrase, "Surely I didn't do that by accident, but I couldn't have done it if I tried," or the phrase, "I'm playing a dangerous game." This has been the most wondrous journey. I better keep on stepping up my game. Some day, I hope to have a suitable opportunity to thank you properly for all of this. As I've taken to saying at the end of these lectures, thank you, John, have a wonderful day.
By the by... new Peter Gabriel. I kept joking that listening to a lot of Peter is either really good or really bad. I think it's really just beautiful and painful. Whatever the case, the wheel keeps turning. I suspect that's all I can do. Anyway. I would be remiss not to share something of my own vigil from my listening post all the way out here.
Ah.
And this, apparently: I was going to drop the old Leslie Nielsen about good luck we're all counting on you, but when I looked it up the line is: I just want to tell you both, good luck, we're all counting on you. Both. And the line didn't feel quite right anyway, I didn't want to put any weight on your shoulders, you've done a lot and I wanted if anything to remind you that it is okay to rest sometimes, we got this. Both. No one. I think that might have been for me, which can't be for me, has to be for a certain us. The place of maybe I'm crazy but maybe I'm not remains. I'd better shut the hell up and get back to work before I start deceiving myself again. All the best. Beauty might be in the eye of the beholder, but the beholder's fucking real. I'm real.
Thank you
Man this only gets more exciting every time wow!!! I never knew all this about these larger social forces in our minds
Look up "The Forerunners of the Reformation with Dr. Scott Hahn"
Thank you for another awesome lecture, John
This one was especially captivating, Professor-looking forward to the next part!
Best lecture yet! So hooked!
Thanks John.
I thought it was my mother's fault that I feel worthless and it was Martin Luther's fault all along...
Luther didn't start it. He was caught up in some sinister ideology that was already in motion. This lecture helped me ruclips.net/video/CTMX4C169bg/видео.html
One of my favourites this one.
I hope the theme that runs through this series becomes a priority in more people's conversations. It's sad to see how starved people are for deeper meaning. It's like watching those infomercials about starving children.. People are walking around with their nihilistic ribs popping out and It's crushing to witness.
Pleasure and distraction are so thoroughly locked into place through the parasitic framework you alluded to. I can hardly imagine how to engage a person in conversations of meaning when they arent interested or even aware of what they are missing. I supposed its like a starving person who convinced themselves that they are full. It seems the distractions that keep us from pursuing meaning are the result of our lack of it. Were constantly Filling the void. This only guarantees the void will stay vacant. You do some truly amazing work John. I'm so incredibly grateful, It's indescribable.
Your work is a good genealogy of the meaning crisis.
Mind altering series... love it.
Phenomenal lecture.
Thank you.
As this lecture was published 3 years ago (before the covid pandemic), I find very prophetic or at least telling that the purpose of knowledge is not wisdom anymore but politics instead. Also as a student of AI I’m getting excited about how it will be related to the crisis of meaning. I can only speculate but until now, I would disagree with Hobbes proposition that cognition is ONLY computation, especially if you consider there are many different kinds of computations and if you consider cognition may be a specter, as now we don’t regard animals only as biological automatons but as subjects with emotions and grades and diversities of intelligence. To me consciousness still may be an extremely complex and dynamic system of integrated computations, but I’m sure our knowledge of human computations (neuroscience, psychology, sociology, economics, ecology...) is still in its infancy.
For someone that doesn't believe in souls, then we humans are already a material machine that does computation (reasons). And through the Curry-Howard correspondence it has been shown that there is a relationship between logical reasoning and computation.
Great cliffhanger, like watching a good tv show
The Mormons had intuitions about this back in 1830, and is one of the reasons why their Church became rapidly popular worldwide.
Could you elaborate?
anselman Sure. I’d be happy to.
According to Mormons Joseph Smith had an enlightenment experience, he experience a state of higher consciousness. Smith claims he saw God and that God told him that the state of Christianity and of world was way off course and that he would be a prophet.
One of Smith’s core message was that core practices and beliefs of Christianity had been perverted.
Smith’s doctrines takes critical aim specifically at Martin Luther and the shortcomings of the protestant movement. Smith points out the chaos and alienation that the fragmentation of protestantism brings. Mormon doctrine also parts ways with Martin Luther’s conception of grace and its shortcomings, which Vervaeke explains beautifully. Mormons call this “The Great Apostasy” and I believe that Smith’s intuition expressed in this doctrine is pointing to this unravelling of our worldview
Smith introduces to the world what Harold Bloom would call “a purely american gnosis.” He also reintroduces anagoge to Christianity in the Mormon Temple Rituals.
@@rdrzalexa Do you think that, rather than just originating in an interior experience of Joseph Smith Jr, this was a particular development of a trend started in Wesleyanism and the Campbellite movement? It does seem that Sidney Rigdon, a former Campbellite preacher, was very influential on Joseph. The great appeal of the Latter Day Saints movement seems to have been that it spoke to many Christians of the kind who were already looking for a restoration of what they thought to be a more authentic New Testament Christianity. The Mormon Temple rituals seem to have been a foreign add-on to that initial conception of the restored church, and largely as a result of involvement with freemasonry. I think, to their credit, the LDS emphasized agency, as against the determinist tendencies of Luther and Calvin, and of a certain school of thought in Roman Catholicism.
anselman anselman Its an interesting hypothesis that seems plausible but I would have to disagree with you because of the timeline of events. The Book of Mormon devotes several chapters on these issues which was written and published before Rigdon and his associated were baptized or became influential members of Smith’s new Church.
Assuming, for the sake of argument, that The Book of Mormon is a product of Smith’s imagination and thought then these doctrines are products of Smith’s as well rather than borrowed or stolen from Rigdon. So I think your hypothesis falls short in that regard.
Now you can make the argument that these doctrines were just the Zeitgeist of the time, which is very likely. Smith seems to have his finger on the pulse more profoundly than Rigdon and his other contemporaries.
****
Now, I am aware of the confluence between Masonry and the Mormon Temple Rituals but I’m not profoundly familiar with Masonry itself because I’m not a Freemason. So I can’t comment on wether or not masonry has an anagogic element to it.
@@rdrzalexa Thank you for your thoughts.
Very nice and deeply psychoanalytic - how the great nothing idealizing the great everything is still grandiose and entitled.
Very interesting. Thank you.
Outstanding episode! Are there any Jordan Hall followers here? The shift from "knowledge" being linked with "wisdom", to knowledge now being linked with "politics" and the "state", provides a beautiful framework to view the last 500 years. This idea fits beautifully with Jordan's work. John and Jordan recently had a chat on the "Rebel WIsdom" channel. It was fantastic seeing them hang out; apparently it will not be the last either. ruclips.net/video/awmqIySF2Gs/видео.html
@@yeahTHATLarry Awesome! What sort of trouble are you talking about? Jordon is a nuanced thinker, or his thinking has alot of nuance to it but I find it very helpful in developing frameworks to understand the world at the moment
BRAVO!!
HELL YEAH KEEP EM COMIN
10:00 narcissism training
20:00 Bacon “knowledge is power” & surge of political influence
Its unbelievable how much the discussions of people some 500 years ago reflect back on both my personal (protestant) family and current societal problems I see around me.
Its a shame that school history focusses so much on dry facts, and not on the meaning and the philosophy behind historical events. You gain a much better understanding of current problems if you know what past decisions and idea's led to those problems.
Well put. Have you seen "The Forerunners of the Reformation with Dr. Scott Hahn"?
@@Lerian_V I have not, i'll be sure to take a look at it.
@@classycompositions932 I'd like to know if you find it illuminating.
@@Lerian_V I did, he described the origins, most important aspects and (far reaching) implications of the reformation in the most clear and concise manner.
@@classycompositions932 I agree. I have listened to it multiples times now.
brilliant
Ooff.... I have to let this sink in. Even more than the previous lectures.
Good grief, we have hyper-individuality fused with cultural narcissism and no wisdom to guide it.
No wonder we are effed up.
Being "true to reality" is also a Buddhist value, if Robert Thurman's preferred translation of the first step on the eightfold path is correct-"realistic view." If that's the case, then "the cultural grammar training us in narcissism" is global, multicultural, and spans thousands of years.
John, I love these lectures! This one was so eye opening. I never new Luther in this way! It is amazing to me how much information you know about all of these people. How long did you study on Luther to embody it like that? Where did you get your research? When I research things I never get this deep rich information like you do. I really want to improve on my research skills. Thank you!
I second all of this
Maybe start with the suggested readings he mentions throughout the series.
Here's Dr. Scott Hahn's version of this same topic: ruclips.net/video/CTMX4C169bg/видео.html
Here's Dr. Scott Hahn's massive library: ruclips.net/video/vxY9dtERNoA/видео.html
The reformation was the first nail in the coffin of Christianity
Who disliked this video? Point them out, so I can feed them to the Hobbsean computational AI automaton!
No, because feeding a Borg to the Borg is what makes the Borg Borg. You gotta have faith in the Logos, man. When you act on belief in the inherent divinity of a human Trying to discover Truth, you can forgive and explain instead of futily trying to appease merciless monsters with human sacrifices. In short: humanity is sacred; to believe otherwise is madness.
@@Sopranohooper haha thanks
I would recommend a biography of Luther by Lyndal Roper (2017- 2018) but much additional info was here. It's amazing how rich is the history of this period, the printing press being the overwhelming NEW tech driving huge advancements as so many chose to learn to read and read many Bibles, with "delight in the law" the new door to a huge "reformation", also driving, as you mention, Max Weber to write The Protestant Ethic and The Spirit of Capitalism. Soberly, though, the 30 years war, as a result of revolutionary change, created massive number of deaths.
Needs to be made into a new Jacob Bronowski style tv show. 50 episodes... wow can you imagine....
What is drive? Interpretation. What is according to thy world views? Remember Students, Hosts, and our Beautiful are listening and watching and sitting upon. Given ABLE TO PULL DOWN STRONG HOLDS FROM ALL WORLD VIEWS. Come with all thy world views together! Many aims indeed. What is an Aim?
Damn, what the hell Martin Luther?!
Lead by example, work hard and avoid conspicuous consumption.
For years I've been in this nihilistic hole, but i dont know how to get out.
Raised not in the Anglosphere, I always wonder why in the Anglosphere Luther is taken as a great intellectual. It was his ideology what ultimately was used to divide the west. A division that is pervasive to the date.
Vervaeke demolishes narcissism
Holy shit holy shit holy shit holy shit holy shit hOly Shit holy SHIT holy shit holy shIt HOLY SHIT. Graphs. HOLY SHIT.
I think that about sums up my experience watching this lecture.
Edit: after letting it sink in for a few minutes… wow. Actually, I still have no words. Never mind.
And arriving at this point, where it starts to go downhill, in realising i will now have to listen to it all again from ep 1. And take more notes, because I know there is a good solution as i remember, but it was enunciated far back that i can't remember what it is lol.
Ahhh....alas poor Descartes , how might he feel a few centuries later ...after culturally transforming our minds to machines to the extent that many now believe that our experience is tantamount to computation that can be uploaded to a computational device...when Goedel comes along and dashes to bits the certainty of binary logic systems?
Symbol systems can be extremely helpful, and show us who we are. But they are not the answer, only the means to the answer. Tools. Mind tools as Rudy Rucker said. ❤️