Mormonism

oh hey man hey buddy hey hayden how are you i'm really i'm really okay i'm really medium thank you how's your how's your dog how's alan man how's the smeg smegma yeah he's still got a lot of smegma he's snoring next to me as i talk to you and i'm thinking about keeping him oh god so is it the smegma or the snoring that swayed you on that one some sort of combination of the both i think he's just so dysfunctional i find him hard to give up you know i've become really ingratiated to him yeah it's funny yeah because you see yourself in them on today's hit episode of flightless bird we're looking at mormons aka the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints and i'm wondering when i say mormons what comes to your mind what comes to hayden's mind do you know any mormons are you a mormon do we have mormons in new zealand am i a mormon not to my knowledge but hey you know what they always look happy right have you ever seen a sad mormon i guess that's the branding right but it's a little bit less like because scientology they always look happy but you can tell that there's nothing going on behind the eyes mormons are warmer and you know what i do have qualms it is a cult and the undies the undies are a bit weird magic underpants but are they that much worse than other religions they're kind of a community right they're mostly upstanding members of society they're not really hurting anyone as far as i'm aware spoiler alert for this episode we're going to be talking about mormons in the next episode as i delved into the mormons i kind of came away thinking ah not so bad i kind of like them yeah brandon um flowers the killer's guy right we love him he's a mormon he's a mormon and he writes really good songs yeah he does my god personally i don't like the idea of being a mormon i probably am not that positive about it overall but i keep coming back to the whole the same theme in every one of these conversations and i think it really resonates with your listeners day and that's why i'm here today and i'm going to be talking about mormons in that's that we're all just lost apes on a oh here we go no we can't we can't go on this speech again we're losing listeners we're losing listeners no i'm cutting takes the end joff no you know what we're going to do we're going to do some trivia guess how many mormons were in new zealand in the last census 45 000 not bad 54 348 that's so good that's awesome how many in america um there are 6.8 million that's too many there are more american mormons than there are mormons in there are new zealanders in the world i don't like that we're outnumbered if the mormons invaded us they would win and we would be the perfect outpost for them i'm david farrier and new zealand are accidentally marooned in america and i want to figure out what makes this country tick now when we were touring flightless bird earlier this year rob and i ended up in utah the mormon hq of the united states as we wandered around getting our bearings we stumbled into the to some friendly mormon staff who are happy to answer all our annoying questions i also learned about other mormon things like dirty sodas and how in parts of the venue i wasn't allowed to carry my beer with me now we've done episodes on religions before that's where we started way back in episode one if you think we've already covered mormons no that episode was the seventh day adventists not to be confused with mormons and as i sipped on my dirty soda it occurred to me that the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints aka the mormons are basically perfect for this podcast because they're so deeply deeply american i'd argue there is perhaps nothing more american than being a mormon the religion's founder joseph smith was from vermont publishing the book of mormon in 1930 an american man in america started mormonism so grab the book of mormon and get in those magic underpants because this is the mormon's episode before we get into this episode i want to do a plug right at the top for our patreon because if you ever find your podcast platform is down and you're like i can't listen to flight this bird you can go to patreon.com slash flightless bird and you can listen to episodes in a reliable way ad free with a bunch of really lively discussion around it and bonus podcasts every week we put out on thursday that is my plug for patreon it's a fun place uh mormons yeah so when we started this uh and came in the studio to record this i asked you if we had done a mormon episode or not yet um and then i looked panicked because for a second i was oh my god have we i think the other one so seventh day adventist we've done jehovah's witness i think also in my mind i muddy all of those kind of fringe art is it considered a fringe religion oh no that's funny in my mind it is but it's not it's like they're relatively big but i guess we come from a background of like bog standard christianity so to us these additions to that kind of train of thought seem like fringe yeah so the context of us coming from catholicism yeah we come in with that but yeah they are different things they blur together in my mind as well and with the doc and this one i went pretty deep and talked to someone that knows a lot about this because i did really want to define like what is different about this and there's also so many mormons like it's such a big thing oh well yeah yeah having done those salt lake city shows it's yeah they're it's a very active religion that whole city seems to be a very active religion surrounded by lds that's what i hadn't clocked until we did that show because we'd been there before you and i yeah yeah and you know obviously the place for that religion but i think even being backstage in that venue and seeing you know just with uh where you're not allowed to have alcohol in there it sort of struck me oh this whole even a secular venue is all under this particular law i hate to burst your bubble on this i don't know no no burst my bubble i don't know if the alcohol thing was mormonism or not i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know specific or just that it was an all ages show you're completely right no no no i think you're i think you're completely right which which there are strict rules about where alcohol can no i think that's a really i think that's a really good point children are allowed at the show but i stick by my theory of it being embedded in the town listen we were downtown and the like main square was all uh buildings and temples and just everywhere walking around i did so i made a list of uh famous mormons i love the authority ryan gosling grew up mormon good lord one of the most attractive men uh in the world uh starred in rom-coms and got some really gritty roles and is now in a big sci-fi movie that we love uh you love i love i think i think it was a good david i think didn't you like that film a little bit with big rock alien man i didn't see it it's really fun i don't i we've talked about this i don't love space movies no fair fair yeah uh amy adams grew up in the mormon church mormon church as well um john heater also known as napoleon dynamite we love napoleon dynamite what a film he is the only name on this list that i saw is still an active member of the mormon church most most of the people that i saw grew up and have since left the church that's an interesting thing to mention because when i was looking at how many mormons are present in new zealand uh on the mormon website it listed 120 000 yeah then on our census it was only 54 000 and that's because the mormons essentially if you've ever been in there and being baptized they keep you on that master list and they don't account for people dropping out so that is an interesting thing when it comes to numbers uh aaron eckhart these are all people i really like a lot yeah um and then hayden had mentioned brendan flowers another musician named brendan yeah uh brendan yuri from panic the disco he's also i remember when that band was starting um that yeah they were like the mormon kids from vegas right that were making this cool emo pop music uh that that was definitely a descriptor early on when i was hearing about yeah that was very good the disco like very part of that conversation yes yeah brendan flowers is the only one that i knew of instantly because i'm a huge killers fan and i like everything that that man does and still a mormon i want to add to that list of celebs um who uh grew up mormon jacinda ardern uh our very well known former prime minister celebrity politician david sleep kind of yeah i mean she is such a good public speaker and ended up i feel like on every american talk show and didn't embarrass us as new zealanders which was so so nice but she grew up in the mormon church um and she left when basically all her progressive values sort of overpowered the she i think she was quoted in an interview saying like she had a lot of gay friends and she saw how some of those were treated by the church so she ended up leaving but that's new zealand's main mormon jacinda well i mean i think a lot of what americans know of mormonism that americans that are not mormon yeah yeah i think come back to south park again and then also they made the book of mormon huge show which was massive and i think also a big education yeah to to a lot of Americans. on on how they perceive mormonism and yeah what they know of it the other thing from pop culture that i really got into at the time was that show big love yes yes which i with chloe and yeah yeah i trailed off but that was very much i remember the focus of that was very much on the aspect of the faith where men can have multiple wives like that was me polygamy which is which i we i don't we don't touch a lot on that in the doc i feel everyone kind of knows it and it's frowned upon by some mormons other mormons embrace it entirely from my understanding i'm sure it's an annoying thing that they get asked but also it was part of the religion so yeah i mean their founder was like very very into it yeah and not great you know from what i understand not widely no practiced anymore but i'm sure the same with any other religion when you get into the more pure versions of it you have people still practicing it i mean they have like mormon housewife shows right at this point they do and i think that's an that's another thing that i don't get into in the stock but i know that on tiktok there's like a huge community of mormon wives essentially and them i think rebranding themselves in a way that's like we're not overpowered by men we're living our best lives we're having our mormon sodas like we're having a great time glamorous exciting money and that's this whole other angle which was almost too big an angle to touch on this this episode is more about origins of and where it's sort of started and i think that's where i'm sits currently in society i tried to go deep but from what i know about mormons yeah i think similar to jehovah's witness i believe uh no alcohol caffeine drugs uh coffee tobacco don't know where much no tobacco yeah i don't know much as a tea so probably not allowed and i mean that kind of leads into i think the big plus for becoming a mormon is that statistically mormons are living longer than the rest of us uh and there's obviously a small element of psychologically they have their shit together so they're less stressed but purely just they're fucking healthy like what they eat i just i i wrote some of this down because it kind of blew my mind um yeah no alcohol no tobacco uh plant-based foods are encouraged um animal meat should be eaten eaten sparingly mm-hmm and mm-hmm grains are the so-called staff of life all that is just incredibly healthy like if all americans and all new zealanders ate less meat not a case of giving it up but just less yeah it would be so good for us and so the mormons have that shit down yeah i wonder so it's probably a combination of that full diet you just have me questioning caffeine killing me yes i think i think you're okay i think it's like a non-smoker drugs and tobacco i mean i've been thinking since our kratom episodes i've been thinking so much because alcohol is the main like drug that i use and it's so probably also just getting older you feel it more but it's so bad yeah and if you're the fact you don't drink alcohol probably means you're going to outlast me by like a decade probably it's crazy let's hope so i would love to make this show without you for a decade and just see where it goes you're are you allowed to speak at my funeral you can speak at my funeral if you don't do any of your puns or bad jokes do you think you could do that yeah because no one would know that you're joking yeah when you're saying these like really dark just wrote it just be roosevelt chuckling in the corner you'd hear this laugh like there she is there's roosevelt i could just knowing how much you hate it she'd be laughing in the corner i give you permission to carry on the show with you and her okay i'd listen from the afterlife um yeah and then i mean like other religions no sex outside of marriage yeah frowned upon from upon yeah uh tithing i think is a big thing yeah 10 of your income but i don't think that's super rare no that's sort of across the christian traditions right it's like you give some of your income to that yeah that's that's the depths of my mormon knowledge i actually have to give credit to my parents i remember when i was deeply in the church when i was 16 we had a pastor give a particularly like intense speech about giving to the church and how if you invest in god you'll get so much back and well my family would give i don't think we've gave 10 we'd give some money like when it got passed around yeah my family too yeah but i remember when i got back from this church service i was like very fired up and i was like we fired up pro giving money to the church or you were like oh this is no i was deeply in and this is i think probably my deepest and i said to my because i've been saving up for university and stuff pocket money and little jobs here and there how old are you at this point sorry how old are you i'm i'm um 15. okay okay so not this is not like an eight-year-old no no this is mature my brain's pretty there i sort of said to them 10 i want to give more like did you hear what he said if we invest in this church and invest in god it's going to come back on us and on me and i think i want to give my savings to this church and my parents who are still you know very bible believing christians they sort of stepped in and said no yeah you're not going to do that we can give a bit but i don't i think you should rethink that like and then credit to them they listen to that past to get that fiery speech and we're like no you don't need to do that i think save it for your study or save it for something else save it for you save it for other people i'm not fully against the like giving back and that it will come back to you vibe it's like a psychological concept yeah yeah i think it's more it's the grayer area becomes of like you're paying the salaries of the pastor and for exactly different things to be improved around the church and this and that which sure the fact that people can and want to um donate to do those things is great oh i i agree 100 but that's more the transparency of where the money is being used and when one a 15 year old wants to give half of his savings yeah all of it i was gonna like pass it all over my parents like no you it's like your pocket money we gave you that money yeah and also there's that thing definitely the sermon that this pastor was giving was using that really manipulative thing of god himself will like award you with like a good life right and that is just completely deranged okay should we get into a fairly i would say weighty but also entertaining audio documentary on the moments yeah but in if you're watching on youtube there will be some visuals for this always visuals spotify and youtube we have uh you can see rob and i in the studio we animate the doc it's all there there's a lot of ways to consume the show patreon we've got video there yeah i just i wouldn't devalue and say this is only an audio doc oh no hell oh no it is where it's a world of um visual storytelling also all right let's go chapter one the believer and the expert to learn about the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints i wanted to talk to someone who didn't just know about the group's religious beliefs but about the history of it all as well and i think i hit the jackpot my name is terrell givens i'm a senior research fellow here at brigham young university's maxwell institute for religious scholarship so i am a latter-day saint i began my professional career at university of richmond and more by chance than by intention i just ended up writing about latter-day saint history culture and theology for an academic audience what's it like obviously being involved and being a believer yourself and then also being involved in academia and studying things does it create any certain clashes or did they generally gel quite well well in my experience they've they've gelled quite well i i think just as a kind of personal tenet that if my faith isn't rational and as if it isn't durable enough to stand up to withering criticism from skeptics and and cynical academics then uh then it's the institution's fault so uh i find that the two have been very compatible in my life it's been a nice synthesis terrell's written books he's taught countless students and what i wanted to grasp was how american this religion is exactly as i mentioned earlier to me it seems very american founded by an american in america america is obviously an incredibly christian country um but i feel like mormonism is is even more deeply american you know it's the most american version of christianity i could kind of imagine is that sort of making sense absolutely in fact harold bloom right very famous literary scholar intellectual from yale wrote a very popular book called the american religion and he said mormons are the quintessence of the american religion and i think what he meant and others have meant is that mormonism arose uh during a period in america known as the period of jacksonian democracy there was a huge emphasis on individualism the self-made man a kind of optimistic reappraisal of human nature and potential and mormonism is deeply invested in those kinds of values so it's american in that sense but deeply protestant variety of america uh that arose out of the kind of you know it's it's the second great awakening it's also time of expansiveness on the american frontier so so it's just it was an era of possibility and exploration and imagination and mormonism i think is without without a doubt, the most kind of theologically ambitious and creative of Christian traditions, which is one reason for its kind of marginalization by the more orthodox. The Mormons had a pretty tough time back in the 1830s, because not everyone loved Joseph Smith and his golden plates. If, like me, you're unfamiliar with the golden plates, the story goes that Smith got a tip-off from an angel about the plates who guided him to a buried stone box near his home in Manchester, New York. Inside that box, some gold-colored metallic pages covered in mysterious hieroglyphics that he'd then translate, and that turned into the Book of Mormon. Now, many people didn't like the idea of the Christian Bible getting an update or a remix, so people got very angry. In 1838, there was the Mormon War, during which time the governor of Missouri said that the Mormons, and I quote, must be treated as enemies. About the 1830s, there was a lot of talk about the Mormon War, and there was a lot of talk about about 8,000 Mormons migrated to Illinois. But shit kicked off again in 1844, and the prophet Joseph Smith, along with his brother, were both killed by an angry, bloodthirsty mob. The Mormons were on the run again. There were tens of thousands of Latter-day Saints who were expelled from Illinois in 1846, so they head to Mexico. And in 1846, Utah was part of Mexico. They arrive, the Mexican War has been settled, and Utah is now part of the United States. So it was one of the most painful, remarkable ironies in American history, that they flee the United States, they get there, and there's an American flag, effectively. But it was the area of first settlement and exile, and Brigham Young was just a brilliant colonizer. And tens of thousands of converts are coming from the British Isles, principally. And he just colonizes literally hundreds of towns and communities in the Intermountain West, but centering in Utah. So to this day, pretty heavy concentration. In short, the Mormons tried to leave America, but then America sort of followed them, and here they remain, as well as spread out all over the planet. And with that in mind, I wanted to try and find out more about what Mormons actually believe in. When the Book of Mormon, you know, what, 1830, um, what, how did that shift the main beliefs? Like, how does it differ to your bog-standard Christian beliefs? Yeah, well, I think the Book of Mormon itself was just this full frontal assault on one of the most core beliefs of the Baptists or the Christian world in general, which is the doctrine of sola scriptura, the doctrine that the Bible is full and sufficient. And Joseph Smith comes out of the, you know, upstate New York woods, and he says, no, I have this revelation. I have this revelation from God. I've recovered this ancient scripture. The heavens are again open. God continues to call prophets. His voice is in the present tense, not just the past. And so it is, it was at the same time, both appealing and alienating. Uh, it was an offense to those who are committed to that doctrine of sola scriptura, but it also offered this kind of, I think, this exciting sense of, um, of, no, everything is being remade. Everything is being made new again. There's this kind of revitalization of the original Christian message coming. It's, it's like, you know, the lava comes out of the volcano and the further down the slopes it goes, the more it cools and hardens. And it's like, this is the second eruption. And, uh, you know, David Bentley Hart said about Christ's coming that, that he changed the terms of history such that human relationships could never be the same again. And I think Latter-day Saints were part of, there was, it was part of a larger movement called primitivism, where there's this sense that we'd wandered too much from the early church. We'd lost kind of the core ideas of community and personal inspiration and revelation. And I think it recaptured that. And it also reacted against the kind of Calvinist sense of a, of an, of an angry God of predestination, uh, emphasis on sin and depravity, whereas the Latter-day Saint emphasis is, is on, uh, human possibility and potential. That last bit made my ears prick. Because my personal experience with Christianity was this constant background worry that hell would await if I fucked anything up. I'd heard that with Mormons, hell wasn't such a big deal. I feel like your belief system is, is, takes a slightly more optimistic view on the future, perhaps. Absolutely. No. Um, in fact, one of the revelations that Joseph produced in 1832 that alienated even some of the Latter-day Saints was a revelation in which he said, essentially every man, woman, and child would be saved in a kingdom of glory. And he once said in a sermon, I, I, I'm not afraid of hell, the fires of hell, because they don't exist. So, um, you know, we're not officially classified as universalists, but it certainly is, uh, an almost unprecedentedly expansive view, uh, that, that God has the capacity and the desire to exalt and ennoble the entire human family without exception. And, you know, we think that that's, that's, uh, within the realm of civility. The sinful don't get off scot-free. There's something called the outer darkness, apparently, which is kind of like temporary hell, I think. But the point is Mormons are not as hell-bent as your bog-standard Christianity. Stay tuned for more Flightless Bird. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. Support for Flightless Bird comes from Helix. Now, Helix has been with Flightless Bird from the beginning. Part of the reason you're still listening to Flightless Bird is because Helix has been with Flightless Bird for the first time. The reason it exists is thanks to Helix. And good God, they make good mattresses. I sleep on it every night. 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To me, that seems like a pretty successful religion. The question I get asked most frequently by my students in religion courses is, how did Augustine in the fifth century ever convince the world that the main message for Christians was, we're all lost, we're all fallen, we're all condemned to hell because of something a mythical ancestor did? It's an absurdity, and it violates every norm of common sense and decency and morality. And that wasn't a message you find anywhere in the Gospels. You don't find that in Jesus' teachings. And I think Latter-day Saints have been bold enough, and they're the only, essentially the only Christian tradition that says, no, things were already off kilter by the time of the creeds. We need to go back to a pre-Constantinian, pre-credal Christianity to rediscover the joyfulness and just the optimistic outlook. That we think Christ was trying to reintroduce to the world. How did that horrific take on such, how did that spread? Well, you know, there are a couple of theories, and most of them are, well, one is political. Augustine was just the consummate political operator. When the first debates and church councils were held to arbitrate between Augustine's view of predestination and original sin, and the so-called, heretic Pelagian, who was arguing for free will and no original sin, the councils voted in favor of Pelagius the first two times. And Augustine just dug in his heels. He appealed to his political allies. A new pope came on the throne, and he won out. And, you know, an interesting psychological theory is that in a world, and you think about any world, previous to the modern world of, you know, aspirin and antiseptics and, and, and medicine, life was brutal. Most kids die before they reach the age of 18. There's highly stratified societies. Hardly anybody has any kind of autonomy. And, and this, this gospel comes along with this promise that we can be free in any way that is meaningful, that spurs, scholars like Elaine Pagel say, that was the spur to, to this phenomenal growth of early Christianity. But at the same time, there's this deep human yearning for certainty. And, and so Augustine comes along and says, you're trying to make sense of, you know, why did your baby die? Why did your wife leave you? Why do you, you know, suffer all these ailments? It's because God just predestined you. And we don't know why, but, but you're, but this notion that there's a finality and a predetermination, it's, it's easier to suffer the certainty of damnation than the possibility, the ever-present possibility of a damnation. You know, some, some medical studies have even shown that people who accept their cancer and reconcile themselves to it fare better emotionally than people who keep desperately, right? And so I think there's a perversity to human nature that will take, will take predetermination. And so I think there's a perversity to human nature that will take, will take predetermination over freedom. Of course, Mormonism isn't for everyone. To get another angle on this whole thing, I wanted to talk to some people who'd grown up deeply involved and committed to the religion, but had since left. Which brings us to Chapter Two: The Leavers. Well, I'm Zach. Yeah, I'm Kelly. So if you watch Saved by the Bell and Newsweek, you'll know who I am. Absolutely. Yeah, Zach and Kelly, yeah. To be fair, as much as I love the show, I didn't put that together until like maybe a week before we got married. So I'm a marriage and family therapist. I just graduated, I don't know, a month ago. Yeah. And. And I'm a dental hygienist. The pair met at Brigham Young University, a Mormon university founded in Utah in 1875, and named after the second president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Going to Utah, it's maybe like 10 minutes from the airport, is what's called Temple Square, right in the center of Salt Lake City. And so that's like, if you see a Mormon temple, that's usually the one that you'll see. And then they have what's called the Tabernacle, and then a few like church museums around there, and then across the street, is the Conference Center, which is this giant building where twice a year they have what's called General Conference. And it's where the prophet and all the leaders speak to everyone through, you know, TV, internet, all that stuff. Rob and I saw some of that when we were in Utah earlier this year. But I wanted to know about some of the secret spots. Because I personally think one of the appeals of religion are the secret spots, the secret stuff. Who doesn't want to be part of a community? Who doesn't want to be part of a club with secret stuff? We got married in the Sacramento Temple, and I had my mom and dad, I think, were the only people on my side that were even allowed to come in. Yeah, and even for me, like my mom was at our wedding, but my dad was not, because my dad was not a temple recommend holder. Even though, you know, he's a believing Mormon, he doesn't do all the steps that you're supposed to, to be able to attend the temple, and therefore he could not come to my wedding. What's in the temple? Is it fancy in there? It's hard to explain. And it's one of those things where. Is it like being in a church? A little bit, yeah. A little bit. Yeah, and it's something that I hesitate to get too into detail, just because it is something that's regarded as very sacred. It's something that when you're in the temple, you don't talk about it outside of the temple. Right, so it'd be like, it'd be disrespectful to the religion to kind of like, talk in detail about what's inside. Exactly. Exactly, yeah. And so it's one of those things I don't believe in anymore, but I understand that it's important to other people. And so you can, you can Google search, it's all out there. What Kelly is basically saying is, Google it. Thank you, Kelly. You get it. I wouldn't want to like offend family and friends and all that. And when he mentions family, his family goes way back to the beginning of all this. I come from, you know, Mormon pioneers from the very beginning, on both sides of my family. mormons forever and i feel like i need to preface before i get into this because you probably get active believing mormons writing to you saying we're not called mormons oh that's a good point and so what yes so several years ago the prophet of the mormon church came out and said the word mormon is a victory for satan and people need to stop using it and we need to be called the whole name which is the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints and so it's quite a rebrand because it's quite a difficult thing to get people to do and this coming mere years after the church put out a movie called meet the mormons yeah like this huge like multi-million dollar campaign but anyway this is sort of amazing to me i never thought mormons would have beef with being called mormons i quickly checked back in with terrell my prophet for this episode yeah one of the problems with that is that you know the leadership of the church tried to to shift that nomenclature a couple of years ago because they think it has a disservice to the church's focus on jesus christ and and the latter day saints are a christian group uh the the cost is that we have lost a really important word that is more all-encompassing than the institution mormon refers to a culture a tradition uh you mormons are part of the mormon story are believing latter-day saints so some of us are kind of would like to see mormon make a comeback as a useful term yeah i mean it's a pretty difficult rebranding exercise i feel like there's so much there's so many cultural touchstones to the word mormon and mormonism as well right absolutely book of mormon mormon tabernacle choir the mormon experience mormon culture so yeah good luck with that rebrand back to zach and callie so but for the sake of simplicity i'm going to keep saying mormons we're aware that's not what the church wants to be called you grew up in the mormon faith are you still there have you left just give me a little bit of background about you guys so i was born in salt lake my parents were converts um they if i remember correctly they lived in the same neighborhood as the mormon prophet at the time who that would have been kimball it doesn't matter um but you know he's always busy with work so it's not like they knew him or probably ever met him yeah but uh i think they kind of got love bombed and ended up joining the church um so fast forward uh i'm born i was raised in the church um kind of my my dad worked for was an architect for the mormon church uh he was in charge of like um going around and making sure that the buildings the roofing was working i don't know right i'm keeping things maintained yeah yeah um so yeah i grew up in the mormon faith very very mormon uh i'd never had a drink of alcohol or coffee until my mid-30s now i'd had terrell's take on where mormonism differs from christianity but i wanted zach and callie's takes too what are the way main ways in which mormonism differs from like your bog standard christianity you know like is it how much different really is it or what stands out to you as being unique about mormonism the biggest thing is um they believe that when christ died in that three-day span before he's resurrected that he came to the americas and taught trying to think how to phrase it uh taught they used to say the principal ancestors of native americans and now dna evidence has come out and they go oh well they're related somehow so people in america they he taught people in america um the gospel more or less and set up his church on the american continent and so from there it's kind of their wars and civilization and how their civilization fell apart that all checks out by the way my mind is blowing in addition to that just that there is a prophet that speaks directly to god and that's what i'm talking about and that's what i'm talking about and that's what i'm talking about god and it is basically the mouthpiece from god to all the members of the church and so kind of what what he says goes maybe we should talk about magic mormon underpants is that a thing i genuinely don't know if it's real or not yes it's real yeah so when you go through the temple typically for men it's before right before they go on a mission for women usually right before they get married um you go through and they're you know they're like they're like they're like they're like they're you know you're told this is very sacred and it represents your covenants with god and yeah it's uh completely ripped off of masonry yes ripped off masonry and hideous white underwear that's really uncomfortable and how long do you wear it for like what you pop it on for the ritual and then you take it off no it's like the rest of your night under your clothes and everything yeah yeah it's like a t-shirt and shorts and yeah it's supposed it's just supposed to be this constant reminder of the covenants you made in the temple and i think you know they they kind of change it over time but when we were members it was you know if you're working out or swimming or sex yeah you can take it off but other than that you know look for opportunities to wear it rather than not wear it of course zach and kelly are no longer believers and i wanted to know how that happened exactly how that happened and i wanted to know how that happened and i wanted to know how that how you live and breathe a thing and then walk away i went on a brief mormon mission uh typically they're about two years i lasted about a week uh they sent me home because of anxiety which now i realized was probably more ptsd but where did they send you where did you go uh i was supposed to go to san bernardino california so i got as far as missionary training center in provo utah and i did not last long like i was a mess um a lot of pressure to go on a mission the pressure was one of the early cracks for zach callie separate to zach had her own issues with mormonism it's it's a very patriarchal religion where um you know the men are in charge and you you do what they say and so it it often appeals to a certain ego yes it's it's it's a breeding ground for narcissism particularly male narcissism is the tithing is that 10 tithing thing oh yeah yeah that's that's real yeah it's it's 10 and i mean they don't they don't care if you're a broke college student they don't they don't really care about your your financial situation whatsoever and you'll have people telling you oh it's not really a requirement not but it is um even to get into the temple you have to pay your 10 tithing and to get to the temple you have to go to the temple to reach the you know highest exaltation of heaven because just a side note also in mormonism now not to give a huge lesson but they believe that there's three degrees of heaven there's like lesser tears and greater tears and so to get into the highest highest level you you have to go to the temple which means that you have to pay tithing you have to you know wear the underwear you have to do x y and z you have um following the word of wisdom which is not drinking alcohol not drinking coffee so what are the tears like what how would it differ if i'm in tier one of heaven and you're up in tier three or is one the best and is three the worst so the highest is celestial um and that's you know temple worthy you know the best of the best okay and then i was then it's terrestrial yes i was got the two confused and so that would be oh and it's been so long i can't even yeah we're starting to forget stuff this is important stuff it's the afterlife we're talking about yeah yeah and then there's telestial um which would be you know people who had the chance to join the church and didn't and rejected it and things like that and then there's actually really a fourth tier there's what's called outer darkness which would be most people's conception of hell and so that's reserved for people that had a testimony and rejected it so that's that's where we're going when did you um sort of leave the church so this all happened during the pandemic there were a lot of things that fell into place like i was thinking about it on my run this morning how um you know the the mormon church is so black and white thinking and uh at the time we were watching the show adam ruins everything i don't know if you're familiar with that um and you know just thinking about kind of the the black and white of science that can actually be backed up um and so that was just kind of in the back of my mind then the pandemic happens and trump happens and people that i normally would have looked up to or respected their opinion on church or suddenly on facebook proclaiming like he's god's chosen president and i just think he's the most appalling man alive yeah um and so it just kind of made me rethink rethink well if i've been relying on them for my testimony maybe it's time to rethink some things and my biggest thing was uh kind of my tipping point was i never agreed on the church's stance on lgbtq plus issue you know they've kind of got the standard christian view on it as in the whole thing bad evil don't do that i think about uh one of my best friends from high school who came out when we were around 30 and this guy is one of the best people i've ever met and the fact that he would be condemned for something that is biological is absurd to me um so anyways i brought this up to kelly uh just saying you know when the pandemic's over i i feel bad saying this i don't want to go back and she looks up and goes i'd be okay with that so i was born and raised i'm very active my entire life um you know went to byu did all the mormon things we got married when i was 19 um just very very typical mormon story you know had our first child i was 22 um and then kind of along the same lines where yeah there was a lot of when trump became president i was you know so many people were revering him and i'm thinking if you're wrong about this what else are you wrong about um but i just started doing my own research and because the the mormon church is very good at saying don't look at outside sources everything else is evil everything else is going to lead you astray you can only look at these approved sources and so there's sorry to interrupt there's a pervading sense that if you are not looking at church approved sources that satan is going to get a hold of you after we'd had our third child and i would be up at night just looking for something to do while you know feeding her and so i started reading and you know i was aware of you know you grow up knowing about polygamy and mormonism but they just kind of brush it off as that's something that happened a long time ago that was something to help single women and whatever and so i knew that joseph smith had multiple wives and i said you know from the feminist standpoint i want to know more about them and so i started reading biographies on them and learning and coming to realize oh some of these wives are basically children they're you know 14 years old some of them are you know sister pairs mother-daughter pairs and just the more i read the more the ick factor set in of you know i don't think that this was called of god this sounds like coercion and not a great thing and even then even with that you're very good you get very good at compartmentalizing where it's uh Okay, I'm just not going to focus on that. There's other good things. But just stuff, it just starts piling up when you start looking at the Book of Mormon. And, you know, reading on that where it's filled with anachronisms, where it talks about things like horses and steel that didn't exist in the time period that it takes place. So it couldn't possibly happen, things like that. And so it just kind of started falling apart for me. So Kelly had her own set of doubts. Trouble was, back in 2019, she was married to her Mormon husband, Zach. What would he think? Because they hadn't been talking about any of this together. They were both trapped in their own heads with their own questions. There was still that fear of, if I come to my husband and tell him, hey, this is what I've discovered, and he doesn't agree with it, that could be it. That could end everything. And so this was. It was all, like, 2019, this happened. And so for a solid year, I said nothing. And I just kind of went with the flow. So just that one day of him saying, he'd be okay, or whatever he said, about not going back to church. And I said, yeah, I would be okay with that. And I kind of spilled on him, here's what I found. And here's. Yeah. That's incredible that you were both synced up in that way, like, separately having similar thoughts, but not sharing them with each other. That's amazing. Oh, we. Yeah. We are so lucky. Yeah. Like, there are people whose marriages are destroyed because one leaves and one doesn't. Chapter three. What do the Mormons have to say about all of this? I wanted to circle back to Terrell again, about some of the stuff that had been on Zach and Callie's minds. Like, what does it make of, say, Donald Trump? I feel like here in America at the moment, there's such large conversations. There's a huge debate around Christianity as a whole, and the rise of certain belief systems. And it's, you know, it's, I think it's been tarred by some of the politics that's going on at the moment. Within the world of the Latter-day Saints, how is that world at the moment? No, I think there's a lot of discussion taking place from the leadership of the church, especially, and I think it's pretty much pervaded the membership, that Latter-day Saints feel called to be peacemakers at a time of. of incredible political polarization. The Mormon leadership has cautioned against those trends that culminate in a kind of Christian nationalism. I think that that idea is absolutely anathema to our beliefs and our roots. Latter-day Saints were excluded from the polity of America. I mean, they were literally, right, exiled from the United States in the 1840s. They know what it's like to be cast to the margins, to be disparaged. And persecuted and legislated against. So Latter-day Saints, at least at their best, have a particular sympathy for and understanding of what it means to be an immigrant or a minority or anybody else that is marginalized. And so I'd like to think that Latter-day Saints are trying to exert a kind of mediating force, at least on the American political scene at the present moment, because we know how to build bridges. And I think. I think we're pretty good at building community. And speaking of community, what about the whole gay thing? From what Zach and Kelly had said, gay people were not seen or treated in the same way to everybody else. I wanted to know about that and about something else Zach had mentioned, the pressure that church members feel to perform. There's no question that the Latter-day Saint church is, I mean, it's classified by sociologists as a high-demand religion. And it's kind of interesting. It's interesting that if you look at actual growth trends and disaffiliation trends, it's the high-demand religions that are doing the best or the least bad. And I think there's just kind of a basic human psychology that if there's a cost for admission, you're going to be more deeply invested in that organization or affiliation. So there's no question it's a high-cost religion. You're expected to live the law of chastity and sexual abstinence until you're married. You're expected to forsake alcohol and tobacco to pay 10% of your tithing. To contribute to the work of God. You're also, there are also prohibitions against sexual relationships between people of the same sex. So this is where you have found a lot of hurt and fracturing within the church community itself, right? Because all of us know people and love people who are LGBT. And so I think that the best thing the church has done in that regard was to, to, to, to put their influence behind what's been called the Utah Compromise, where Utah passed legislation that fully acknowledged the rights of gay people and prohibited discrimination against gay people, while also affirming their rights to establish, you know, moral parameters in their own faith community consistent with their own beliefs. And many prominent gay intellectuals in America, like Jonathan Rauch would be the best example, who has praised that as a kind of unparalleled, unprecedented, thoughtful compromise that safeguards religious liberty and independence and freedom on the one hand, and the rights of the LGBT community on the other. So I think it's something that the church has made tremendous progress in, but that it's still a source of pain to, to many because gay marriages are not solemnized in the temples along with heterosexual marriages, for example. So there, there are still differences. You know, significant numbers of gay people committed Latter-day Saints and participate in the church. As I wrapped up my conversation with Terrell, I kept thinking about how remarkable this whole thing is, about how some guy in New York had come out of the woods in the 1830s with some golden sheets he'd found in a mysterious box covered in mysterious hieroglyphics, and how the translation of those hieroglyphics got him and his followers run out of town. Heck, they got run out of America until America, basically pulled them back in. Fast forward to today and 18 million Mormons. This started as such a fringe group and it's gotten so, so big. What do you, what is it about this religion specifically, or this, this version of Christianity that has gotten legs so, I mean, relatively quickly? I mean, this grew quickly. Yeah, it did. In fact, there's a famous sociologist, Rodney Stark, who believes, he believes that Mormonism has managed to replicate the growth rate of early Christianity. And he thinks kind of the growth trends are pretty parallel. And, you know, it's hard to say. I think there are several factors that contribute. One is that Mormonism, in this rather unique way, combines, I think, some of the best elements of Catholicism on the one hand and Protestantism on the other. What I mean by that is Mormonism is a very highly hierarchical church, a very authoritarian kind of church, right? Instead of a pope, the leader's called the president or the prophet of the church. And there's a priesthood, a formal priesthood, just like there is in the Catholic church. On the other hand, there's no priestly class, right? It's kind of more like Luther's priesthood of all believers. It's a lay ministry. And so there is this deep, deep kind of participation that permeates the ranks of Latter-day Saints. So, you know, for example, I served as a bishop in a congregation. You rotate in for a few years, you rotate out. There's no paid clergy, no professional class. And so it has created such tremendous bonds of unity and cohesion that the Harvard Encyclopedia of Ethnic Groups say that Mormons are the only example in American history of what it calls an indigenously derived ethnicity. And so, you know, I think that's a really important thing. So Mormons have been called a tribe, they've been called a culture or a subculture, a religion that became a people. So, I mean, it really is an identity that transcends just denominational status. And I think that was true of early Christianity. Christianity, some scholars say, was the first trans-ethnic and pan-tribal community that created cohesion in a family-like way. Finally, I wanted to know what he found remarkable about Mormonism. He's believed in it for decades. He's studied it for decades. What's interesting to him? Okay, a couple of things. 1830, right, we're well into what has been called the American Enlightenment, right? Lags a little behind the European Enlightenment. But this is a time when people expected there to be evidence and scientific credibility to their religious beliefs. And, yeah, Joseph comes out of the woods saying, yeah, an angel directed me to these gold plates written by ancient Israelites. Kind of crazy. But, you know, what I love about the story is that I think it functions in a way parallel or analogous to the resurrection of Christ. It's like, okay, we can believe Jesus is this great moral instructor and a nice sermon on the mount and what a great community, but come on, rising from the dead. But what an outrageous claim like that presents. I think that what precipitates is, it seems to me, is a kind of crisis point in a possible believer, where they say, I'm not going to believe that unless some extraordinary confirmation from heaven comes. And I think you see that in the early Christian church. I think you see that in the lives of Paul and Peter and others, that there had to be some special dispensation that fortified and gave them the strength to really be committed to these supernatural claims. And I think the golden plates do the same thing, because people can find the church really appealing. It's like I once said to my son's girlfriend, who was just a real hostile kind of skeptic, and I said, hey, don't believe a word of it. Just join for the fringe benefits. You live eight to ten years longer, your marriage is more likely to succeed, you'll have higher levels of happiness. So, you know, one might be tempted to join because of all these. These well-documented benefits, but one has to confront the absurdity of the story of gold plates. And so, Latter-day Saints are deeply, deeply invested in this principle that I've called dialogic revelation. This belief that one can actually access heavenly sources of power and inspiration, and find personal confirmation of something that they approach God about in their life. And so, I think that's a really, really important point. And so, I think that's one reason for the strength of the church is because, you know, John Stuart Mill once said, it's heresy to believe the right thing, but for the wrong reason. And so, it's difficult to be a Latter-day Saint and just buy into the story without having your personal kind of conversion experience. And so, I think there is a level of intense personal experience behind a lot, a lot of the Latter-day Saints. Membership. A second point that I would just make, as an academic, I've just recently completed a six-year project that was trying a history of Christianity. Oh, God, wow. And to do it informed by a Latter-day Saint perspective. And just as pure historian, I have been astounded by the degree to which most Christian faiths are converging on so many points. It's a belief that have always been central to Latter-day Saints, such as a much more expansive view of salvation, which has always been at the heart. I mean, everybody's now claiming the universalist label, right? From David Bentley Hart and the Orthodox, and you got evangelicals, you got, we've always, we've always been there. Latter-day Saints have always preached an embodied God, which we now know, a few scholars would disagree that that was actually the tenant of all the early Christians, at least through the fifth century. Um, belief in the immortality of the soul that extends not just into the future, but into an infinite past as well. An idea that some are starting to take seriously again. And then finally, the doctrine of what was called theosis or divinization in the early church. Uh, this belief that we can become like God, that we are created in order to, to imitate him, to share in his divine nature and enjoy all of the fruits, uh, associated with godliness. And the West kind of divested themselves of this belief in the fifth century. Um, but they're rediscovering it. And you find in every quarter now, Christians talking about, yeah, we need to rediscover this, this lost doctrine of divinization. It's always been a central idea in Latter-day Saint thought. So a church that was so much on the margins, uh, in the 19th, 17th century, uh, was a church that was so much on the margins, uh, in the 19th century, suddenly their doctrines are the, the, the common stuff of conversation among theologians everywhere today. Chapter four, any regrets. I think it's been interesting talking to this man, Terrell, who's been so invested in this religion and to a couple who happily just walked away. And I wondered if they had any regrets at all. Did Zach and Callie ever feel pulled back in? Since you've left how, how much has life changed? Cause I imagine your whole community and your whole life was built up around other people that believe the same thing as you. Has that been strange? It's been a trip. Um, you know, like experiencing drinking for the first time or, uh, things like that, or, you know, finding out that I love coffee and then finding out, you know, I'm not a morning person at all. And then finding out that I can function, you know, the first four hours of the day was life-changing. Coffee took a little bit longer for me to adjust to. And it was like, I would fill the cup like this much milk and a little bit of coffee and then kind of go from there and adjust. Um, but yeah, now, now it's yeah. Every morning we go to Panera after dropping off the kids at school and have coffee and I'm like, it's great. There's kind of this sense of calm and not having everything figured out and not having all the answers because with Mormonism, everything was black and white. It's like, no, this is what happens when we die. It's X, Y, and Z. And it was just, it was kind of a good place to be in to go. I don't know. And it's okay to not know. Yeah. And, and I think for me, you know, everything was so every decision I make was future focused and, oh, we're going to pray about this and all of that. And it's allowed me to live in the moment, which has been amazing. Is there anything that you miss from your old life? Do you sort of think, oh, I miss that thing or that aspect to my old existence? Singing. I would sing a lot in church. Um, and so that's probably what I miss the most is not having, you know, the choir to sing with their, um, uh, and you know, there's some community aspects, but at the same time, you know, we've discovered different communities and, you know, we we've had the discussion of, you think about, you know, the, the best of the best people that go to church and, and thinking about, are these the people that we're going to hang out with in heaven forever? Like that's not my kind of people. I don't know about this. I'll settle for Mormon hell with the people that I enjoy hanging out with. Support for flightless bird comes from ethos. Now, as I've grown into an adult and at 43, apparently I am an adult. Things like life insurance start to come to mind. And I'm very proud to have ethos as a partner here with flightless bird, having this podcast, keep on going ethos basically makes getting life insurance fast and easy. It's 100% online. You can get a quote in seconds. You can apply in minutes and get same day coverage. There's no medical exam. You just answer a few simple health questions and you can get up to $3 million in coverage, $3 million. Gosh, some policies are as low as $30 a month and you'll get your lowest rate from their network of trusted carriers. Also just FYI ethos has 4.9 out of five stars on trust pilot with over 5,500 reviews. So if you have been pondering life, what it all means, who you want to look after when you're gone, then ethos could be the thing for you. Take 10 minutes to get covered today with life insurance through ethos. Get your free quote at ethos.com. That's ethos.com slash bird. Application times may vary. Rates may vary. Trust pilot rating as of 8 slash 1 slash 2026. Everything you ever wanted to know about Mormons in that episode. Yes. And then some. Then some. And then some. Actually, I got to be honest. I really liked Terrell and the more he talked, I really, he was, he had such a lot of fun talking to me about, uh, converting you. Kind of. It's the only one of these episodes about religions where I've gone out of it thinking it's not as dicey as I thought it was going in. And that was purely Terrell's ability to kind of talk about it in a slightly removed way, but also be like very engaged in the whole thing. He was just a very likable person. Well, I mean, of course, any of these religions are going to have people like Terrell that are still invested in the religion, but have a more modern. Yeah. Approach and take to it. Is taking the good things from it and, and, and understanding yes, as well, understanding, but then distancing themselves from it or being outspoken against it. He said something in there and I can't remember exactly how he phrased it, but he acknowledged how like part of the pluses for the religion is that they're so invested in it, despite the being objectively quite crazy stories, like a man emerging from the woods with golden plates, you know, like he's acknowledging that it's batshit. And if you believe it, it's almost. It's almost like a plus because these people are so dedicated. So clearly they've had some sort of emotionally engaging revelation from the religion. So there's like an interesting angle, kind of almost right. It's like, if you can swallow that you've obviously had, have had some kind of revelation that makes it makes you stay. I did find it interesting. Um, they were referring to current profits. The fact that there are people within the church now that are considered profits profits to me sounds like such an old. Timey thing completely. No, I had that same thought and I think that is when you talk about the difference. between say christianity as standard catholicism or whatever we don't have apostles no no they're gone it's like in the ancient history you might as well be looking at lord of the rings or something it's like it doesn't exist but in mormonism that whole thing is like very much alive and it would be exciting like suddenly oh my god we've got a direct line from our leader to heaven but but holy shit a little bit hit or miss though for me because you can put the weight of knowledge on an apostle that is like long gone but then to consider someone now a prophet also seems to be giving too much weight to just a human man and and like knowing that person grew up a little boy and in this world did things right and wrong and yeah totally it just makes it more real you can it seems they're right easier for them to make someone that's gone a deity yeah no because yeah you can see all their flaws in front of you yes and like you see them picking their nose in church and you're like his odor is not that's our problem yeah there's that no it's a really unusual thing to think about and something i'd never considered until you raise it just now uh the other thing i found interesting was just the parallels to trump with john smith of just it the the couple that you spoke to talking about how they realizing that he had multiple wives and then oh some of them are underage they're 14 and the ability to just fully overlook something that bad yeah because of what they represent completely um and the willingness that people are are able to do that with him as well i mean it's funny yeah because i always think about this situation with trump and people overlooking all those allegations yeah so easily that's the biggest thing is of how can you it doesn't matter the fact the fact that he still isn't doing good though either yeah but on top of that even if he were you're overlooking all of this other terrible stuff that he's yes and the fact that you had this happening a very long time ago in mormonism and it was also still overlooked it's not like trump is like the first great example of that it's like as long as history i guess you've got men being shitheads instead of people just being oh don't worry about that look at how powerful he is and how great he is and how rich he is and he's got these gold like let's just follow him gold and he loves his gold plates too all of golds i think of that melania trump doc that i went to and just how much of that was about her rabbiting on about how much she loved goals and i'll never forget that experience watching that in a cinema full of trump fans and hearing them like coo and ah over all this horrible um the other things that just jumped out to me that were interesting i want to read that book um the american religion mormon um the book yeah the book of mormon uh the american religion is apparently a really amazing book also oh yeah it was that point you made that i've written down the point that um the brief joke the britain we're getting to that leaving it to the end um yeah the fact that like the heavens are still open god continues to call prophets so it's kind of interesting that's part of this religion that sells it to people it's like it's not closed off it's like we're not waiting for heaven it's like no we've got people talking to god right now that's fucking insane i mean it is it is a modern take on religion though the fact that if you are going to be that into a religion why would it be limited to just people hundreds of years ago completely i'd never i mean the best that i had when i was a christian was like seeing a pastor claim to have gotten like a vibe from god or something like that and i was like oh my god i'm not gonna be able to do that but it was never a direct conversation right yeah yeah i mean yes there i think i think there is kind of this thought that priests are connected in there and maybe they're just not calling them prophets but it's considered to be similar but yeah i find that interesting finally you as you know when we recall these episodes you and i both listen to the doc you'll listen to it the first time ever i'm listening to it to make sure i haven't fucked anything up too badly as a second listen you often will make a lot of puns you'll look at me from across and you'll make fun zachary and kelly had just talked about how um they had um they were very familiar with the magic underpants that mormons have to wear um and then uh zach talked about how he had been on a brief mormon mission your face it was like an electricity and passed through your body they're talking about the magic underwear mission a brief mormon mission congratulations rob that's one of your better ones thank you um all right this has been a long intense episode i'm going to just end on a couple of bits of brief feedback free feedback oh you did that wasn't on purpose i do wait can i make a plea you may in our feedback um was sent was it you that sent me an angine dave 14 yes halloween spirit has costumes oh yes of them your favorite canadian band favorite canadian band apparently only in montreal halloween spirit it's really good and i don't know if this is real or not or someone just set up a bunch of them but they are selling halloween costumes and i think for halloween i would love to get my hands on one of those costumes so if anyone is in montreal they're using this as like a shopping service now a personal shopping service i've already immediately texted liz and was like who do we know in montreal right now that can go get this yeah please if you see any of these halloween outfits email us flightlessbreadchat at gmail.com purchase it i'll venerate you the money or something we need to get this for rob yeah desperately be great maybe you'll get vinnie in one of the costumes too we'll do a little a little one and a big one yes i hope it's real it's like there are so many pranks in style that place fake toys and things in stores well and it became this like meme to do the costumes where you list the things underneath and just put their picture i hope it's real there's two bits of feedback i want to read um troy wrote in the comments that he's going to be a fan of halloween and he's going to be a fan of in regards to milk bags uh choice is many warm greetings from a cali boy living in cold berlin we get bags of milk here in germany from the netto grocer i'll be saying that incorrectly but there you go half a block away from our cafe the handle is filled with air and with just the one cut off cut out a bull hole it's surprisingly easy for this baker to pour precise amounts so troy is a baker he is getting these milk bags to bake with so they need precision and apparently the handle being filled with air and one hole that's sort of being pre-placed to cut it works just fine yeah i mean i guess with like a piping bag that's how you're getting precision too it is yeah true enough very specific you can uh have one hole and still be precise one thing i discovered thinking about this i realized the other day when i was um using the urinal um that when you sneeze the stream of air is going to be it's like a built-in device um to stop men women too i don't know i'm just experiencing my own body um i've never clocked it before the stream cuts off which is a great thing because if the stream didn't cut off you'd sneeze everywhere you're spider everywhere and just finally michael from our both our kratom episodes he is the guy that originally got attached he was heavily addicted to kratom and 708 he's tailoring off it um he sent in some feedback banger of an episode he would say that because he was in it biased um he says my bad for the truck audio uh if you recall he recorded his um interview in a very loud truck as he was driving um i got a kick out of it though thank you for being understanding um in response to the caller defending suboxone uh i mean no offense to her or anyone who works in the addiction field i know that suboxone can be a wonderful tool to help people and can literally save lives i just don't think it was right for me but i should have picked my words a little more carefully and for that i do apologize and this is david jumping in with my own voice here for a second um nothing on him for doing that i almost like he was just talking about his own use of suboxone and almost in those episodes i feel like i should chip in and kind of make that clearer so i apologize to you michael for not making your point of view more clear the distributor guy you talked to was super slimy you can absolutely tell through the words he chose he knows what this stuff is and what it does he's making millions from it so he will never admit to that to him um i say spend a day in our shoes and then tell me the stuff is not addictive i know i'm speaking to the choir here but fuck that guy i want to reiterate my commitment to helping anyone who reaches out i had a hunch that you would get quite a few responses so if anyone is needing help i'm here like i said i'm not a professional or an expert or anything but just um know you have someone in your corner can make a huge difference and i know that firsthand so don't hold back so yeah much kudos to michael for helping us with both those episodes and if you want to get in touch with them we're flightless bird chat at gmail.com i'm happy to forward that on to him and if um you want to hear bonus episodes we talk every week on patreon we do patreon.com slash this bird we're going to be finally scheduling our lord of the rings we are screening in la this fall yes we've got a kind of crazy october but i think uh november things will slow down and that'll be it's time perfect time to it's time we've got to we've got to get it done in 2022 yes has to be done did you see dominic monaghan no cast in a new season of traitors really yeah one of our favorite reality shows that exists we love him i feel like all the hobbits were good boys right yeah like all that cast just seemed like such pure good people that played the hobbits uh we always flightless bird chat at gmail.com if you have any feedback we'll see you next week or we'll see you over on patreon on thursday with our bonus