The Saints That Serve Podcast
Welcome to The Saints That Serve Podcast!
Where each week, your hosts dive into the crossroads of faith, culture and the unknown.
Christ is Lord and the Kingdom is now!
We are The Saints That Serve!
The Saints That Serve Podcast
Episode 9 - From Virtual Realms to Spiritual Realities
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Ever wondered how faith intersects with video games like "Throne and Liberty"? This episode of the Saints That Serve podcast invites you to explore these intriguing questions with us. We reflect on our community's support through the Pray for You Friday initiative, while also sharing candid stories, like Jarus' delightful adventures with his dog, Toast. As we approach our tenth episode milestone, the conversation takes unexpected turns, from the aftermath of the election to our favorite Thanksgiving traditions, all culminating in the anticipation of our upcoming live stream event.
We delve into the depths of spiritual deliverance, pondering the church's role in guiding believers through hidden sins and spiritual strongholds. Personal anecdotes illuminate the potential for demonic oppression within the faith community, sparking discussions on spiritual maturity and the power of confessing sins. Shifting gears, we dive into the vibrant world of gaming, from nostalgic memories of Club Penguin to the immersive landscapes of "Throne and Liberty," exploring how media consumption is evolving from physical to digital.
As the episode rounds off, we explore Christian perspectives on fantasy entertainment, from video games to literature like Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings. The conversation navigates through the ethical and spiritual quandaries these stories present, while humorously contemplating which fantasy race we'd choose to be. We also touch on the mysterious allure of vampires and the rich tapestry of music that brings us together. Join us for a journey filled with laughter, thought-provoking dialogue, and a shared love for the diverse world of faith and entertainment.
If you want to send us a question or a comment you can by texting us by clicking this link!
Saints That Serve Podcast Episode Nine
Speaker 2Welcome to the Saints that Serve , podcast where , each week , your hosts dive into the crossroads of faith , culture and the unknown .
Speaker 1Christ is Lord and the kingdom is now . We are the Saints that Serve . Welcome everybody to the STS podcast . That's the Saints that Serve podcast . I'm your host , jairus . With me is Johnny . And this is episode nine . Yeah , baby , almost to double digits . We're almost there , are we going ?
Speaker 2to have another celebration . Yeah , I think , yeah . Yeah , we are , it's going to be lit .
Speaker 1It's going to be lit .
Speaker 2Literally , because we're going to have lights on , but that already happened . So if you're listening to this on November , help me out here we don't know because we don't have a calendar in front of us if you're listening to this on November 11th .
Speaker 1we have done our live stream on November 5th . That's come and gone . That's right . The election has happened and the winner of the election is insert winner here .
Speaker 2Yeah , actually , there's a good chance . We won't even know the winner when this comes out . Today , if you're listening to this today , If you're listening to this today , we still might be deciding who the next president is .
Speaker 1I don't know if y'all have caught on . We are pre-recording this episode .
Speaker 2Yeah , we try to stay ahead so that you guys get it on time .
Speaker 1On time and of quality , quality Okay .
Speaker 2So , speaking of quality , do you have any quality announcements for us ? Yeah , yeah , um , it's just . You know , we do pray for you friday , so if you , need prayer for anything .
Speaker 1We never skip a single friday .
Speaker 2That's right just reach out to us . We are on x , we're on , we're on Instagram , we're on Threads , we're on Facebook , we're on YouTube , we're on it all except TikTok . I guess we need to do that .
Speaker 1We need a TikTok yeah but we're on there .
Speaker 2You can check us out Saints that Serve Pod on Facebook and Instagram and Threads . And then on X , we are STS Ministry because the other one was taken . Saints that Serve was taken . Saints that serve was taken . Saints that serve and saints that serve pod were both taken . What about podcast ? Yep Taken , because I took them all those are ours , yeah , I guess I don't know , but it yeah . So it is STS ministry on X , but everything else it's saints that serve pod . So , yeah , reach out to us . We'd love to pray for you . You don't have to wait till friday . We will pray for you whenever , but we will be coming together to pray on fridays . So reach out to us . And then , uh , we want to know what your favorite thanksgiving tradition is , so make sure you comment on this episode and let us know what your favorite Thanksgiving tradition is Food , food , food . I like the dog show .
Speaker 1Oh right , Not even the Thanksgiving Day Parade the dog show afterwards .
Speaker 2But yeah , that's pretty much it for announcements . I have a dog .
Speaker 1His name's Toast , toast , yeah , toast the Wamarainer .
Speaker 2I don't know how to respond to that .
Speaker 1Respond saying I'm glad you have a dog . I'm glad you have a dog .
Speaker 2Thank you , it's named Toast . So yeah , that's it . Just reach out to us .
Speaker 1Comment like subscribe podcast On all the possible subscriptions .
Speaker 2Every avenue . Even if you don't have a Facebook or an Instagram , just create one , just like our podcast .
Speaker 1Go to every Best Buy and sign in on the display phones and like and comment on the display phones yeah , best buy yep , yep , do it , do it for us , don't do it at the local insert hometown . Here I can't say where I live , but our local best buy . I did that already .
Speaker 2Yeah , just because , just because but uh , yeah , so that's pretty much it for announcements . There is one more , but it has to do with one of our topics today , so I'll just wait till we get there .
Speaker 1Sounds great , so I've got comments .
Speaker 2Yay , hold on Before we get into that , because we totally forgot to pray before we started recording , so we're just going to pray right now .
Speaker 1In the middle of the episode .
Speaker 2Let's do it right now . You ready ? Heavenly Father , I thank you for the opportunity to come together and just , yeah , record a podcast and build relationships and put out entertainment out there for people around that hopefully is wholesome and enjoyable . So please just help us to remember that we're here for you and your glory , god , and that we'd have a good time . So , yeah , we love and we praise you , lord Jesus , amen .
Speaker 1Amen , okay , I'm ready . So this is on Spotify
Spiritual Deliverance and Christian Beliefs
Speaker 1. This is for episode seven . That spooky season finale in the Power of Prayer is the name of the episode and this comment is from one of our commenters here . It says great series , y'all really finished well , because that was the finale of our spooky season .
Speaker 1Oh well thanks , that's right . And then we have a comment from Ashley and it says and this might spark a little bit of conversation what do y'all think about Christians being possessed versus oppressed by demons ? So , continuing what she said Okay , I know it's a she , because this is my wife I've been watching a lot of Christian commentary videos and lately there's been a big push to say that you cannot be filled with the Holy Spirit and a demon at the same time . Also , deliverance ministry should really be occurring outside the church , except when non-believers are in the church .
Speaker 2Thoughts Okay , you want me to address that now .
Speaker 1Yeah , let's go , let's do it right now .
Speaker 2Okay , address that now . Yeah , let's go , let's do it right now , okay , um , in the american church specifically , there is very little attention given to the spiritual and it's very much so just like accept jesus and believe and do these physical things in the physical to correct your life , and so any kind of spiritual baggage you had before getting saved is never really addressed at salvation , and so the Holy Spirit is going to be working you towards that . But if you don't have any mature Christians coming alongside you to build you up and say like , hey , like you need to be baptized in the Holy Spirit and you need to like surrender , you know all your stuff to the Lord , because he doesn't , he doesn't want you to be burdened by it anymore . I know from personal experience with spiritual deliverance ministry um , some stuff we've buried so deep inside us we don't even remember that it's there . Um , we just know something's off , and then when you invoke Christ , um , and you address it and you call out any kind of unforgiven sin or unrepented sin or any kind of spiritual stronghold in your life , when you call it out in the name of Jesus , those things tend to manifest and come to the forefront and then it shines light into dark places that you're harboring in your life . So that's the idea of deliverance ministry for believers .
Speaker 2If you're a believer and you have past spiritual issues , be it possession or even just you know pain or sin that you cling on to but you're unrepentant of it , you know that will , that will fester and be a stronghold in your life and the enemy will try and keep that hidden because it'll keep you distracted . So the spirit will put that on your heart and kind of call that out and and a lot of us don't want to bring it to the light because we don't want to deal with it Most of the times we don't want to deal with it personally , and then the rest of the time it's I'm afraid of what other people will think of me , so I don't want to bring it up in front of other people . But Christ does tell us to confess our sins to one another . And the reason for that I strongly believe , the reason that , yes , we confess our sins and lay them at the feet of Jesus , but the reason he calls us to confess them to one another as Christians it's not because , christian , you know , we have the power to forgive or to not forgive sin .
Speaker 2That's God's power , but it brings that sin into the light so that it can be addressed and cast away . That's the idea is repent of your sin to other Christians and their job is to come alongside you and encourage you and say like well done , way to confess your sin before the Lord and before your family in Christ , way to not let the enemy have a stronghold in your life . That's how we're supposed to respond as Christians is this person is repenting , they're trying to come to Christ and they're trying to be closer to God and they're trying to surrender their sin to the Lord , and we need to encourage that and build that up . So that's the idea of deliverance ministry for Christians is that sometimes we get saved and the environment that we're in is immature when it comes to the spiritual side of things , and so some things continue on in our lives that we need to repent of or we need to address so , so we can be free of them , but they're never brought up because of the christian environment that we're in .
Speaker 2So that's how I would address it correct as far as demon possession , um , I really don't know . I've heard , allegedly , of stories where people believed in Jesus but they were demon possessed , they were demoniac and when someone came and performed exorcism of those demons , they left the person , performed exorcism of those demons , they left the person and the person was able to continue on in their life , but they did profess Christ . They said that they believed in Jesus , they believed that he died for their sins and they were trying to live for him . But they were having , at the same time , issues being totally dedicated to the Lord . So you know , I can't get into .
Speaker 2Well , were they really saved ? To begin with ? I don't know the hearts of man , only God knows , um , but you know they were doing what the Bible says we need to do to be saved confess with your mouth and believe . Um , and simultaneously they were also dealing with spiritual strongholds . So , um , that's all allegedly .
Throne of Liberty Video Game Review
Speaker 2I have not firsthand experienced that , um , I don't know that anyone that is firsthand experienced that . But um , I will say from our example with uh in episode seven , with the girl who came to a missionary base to do a mission to school , but she was open about inviting demons into her life and then at one point she manifested . After those demons were cast out . She fully committed her life to Christ and said that she was a believer and she wants to serve the Lord .
Speaker 1So really it was a block , something blocking her potential in Christ .
Speaker 2I think that the reason the demons manifest is because she finally decided to follow Jesus and that manifested them .
Speaker 1Um and as like a last ditch effort to well . I think , troll her , or an effort to control her , to keep her from Christ .
Speaker 2No , I don't think it was a . I don't think it was a . I think that the demons in that environment would have liked to be quiet and stay silent and be in the background . I think that the power of Christ so demons are not dumb , they're very smart and they've lived for a very long time , so they're going to be strategic , and that wasn't strategic , but it was the power . I firmly believe it was the power of Christ that forced them to come out and then , in that happening , they were cast out .
Speaker 1So yeah , way to get into Jesus immediately . I love it . Praise the Lord , praise the Lord . Praise the Lord . All right , what are our other comments ? That was it . That was our comments . Oh , so Awesome , there we go . Thank you , ashley , and thank you the other comment , we'll call you D . We'll call you D . Thank you D , Thank you D . There we go .
Speaker 2So , anyways , this is our Tyler transition Moving on to the main topic of the episode , which is what this week Throne and Liberty .
Speaker 1Keep it going , keep it going , keep it going , keep going . No , come on . No , I'm done . Oh , good , good , okay , I'm glad . So we talked about Throne and Liberty a little bit in episode seven , because we could not contain ourselves .
Speaker 2Because we could not contain ourselves . No , it was eight , it was episode eight .
Speaker 1No , it was seven . I just edited seven . I haven could not contain ourselves . No , it was eight . It was upside eight . No , it was seven . I just edited seven .
Speaker 2I haven't edited eight yet Okay .
Speaker 1I'm pretty sure it was seven . Okay , sorry . So , yeah , we promised a review on that , so we're going to talk about that and talk about video games .
Speaker 2Yep , All right . So first thoughts on Throne of Liberty . This game is Sucks . No , I'm just kidding .
Speaker 1This game is dope , yo , dope and Hagen , dope and Hagen , yo , really good . I really do enjoy it . It has its flaws , but the tiniest of flaws , yeah . I think that where it suffers is what kind of game it is . Uh , at least from my point of view , right , okay , so , first off , thorn and liberty is a rp , uh mmo , rpg , set in like a fantasy land , but it's not quite like high fantasy , like like um elves and all this stuff , like all your um , you know what I mean , all your uh characters are um human , human , humanesque , I don't know what you'd call it , cause these people can change into animals . So is , can you humans do that ?
Speaker 2Yeah , Well , but yeah yeah . They're , they're humanoid , yeah , humanoid , and you're battling , uh , just kind of like crabs and well birds and the main , the main goblins and well , but the main part of the lore for the game is that there's this landmass and uh , at one point disclaimer .
Speaker 1Uh , when I play I've been skipping all of the story points , so I don't actually know the story of the game .
Fantasy MMORPG Gameplay Overview
Speaker 2Yeah , so the like the , the main villain , guys from another realm or dimension , and they have invaded . They have invaded at one point , um , and we're kind of like pushed back , but now they're trying to make a comeback . But ever since that first time , a lot of stuff kind of just dropped in the world . So some of it is , it's just , it's always been that way , but most of it is . All these creatures , all these things are from another dimension . They've been given , they've been in like souped up , oh , empowered , because of this force . Yeah , this force kind of like increased the darkness , if you will . So , um , like the area where there's just a ton of wolves in the field , it's very obvious that it's like because of the wolf hunt in the game there's got to be a lot of wolves , but the idea was that was the hunting grounds and then , because of this initial attack , it got overrun with wolves , because one of the wolves was a servant of the main bad guy and he just was able to resurrect wolves , as they would die .
Speaker 1He would just resurrect them back and I got you , so that's why there's so many wolves , even though you kill so many wolves , yeah .
Speaker 2And it's the same with the forest that we're in right now , with all the spiders . Like the spiders were not there and then , all of a sudden , it became the nesting ground for these spiders , and now the forest is dying because of all the spiders .
Speaker 1So right now , relatively , we're about maybe close to about halfway through the game .
Speaker 2No .
Speaker 1I think so . I think following it there's 10 main mission lines . I think we just finished for so we're relatively . Maybe I don't know , we're close , I'm not sure how much ?
Speaker 2Well , because we've only unlocked 50% of Lazlan . There's still a whole other island .
Speaker 1Stronghold . So yeah , you unlocked .
Speaker 2Just only I've ran around the map when you weren't playing and unlocked everything on the map okay , but I'm just saying as far as missions go , we've only done half of laslan gotcha for the main mission line no , we're , we're already outside of that first half .
Speaker 1We're on the other half of the map . Now there's only two halves of the map and then that island , the above us in the map , is , uh , reserved for future content . So where we're that map going up on the map ? Yeah , it's grayed out . We don't go there , not yet . Yeah , yeah , I know , okay , cool . So , yeah , we're . We're over halfway through the game , I think . Okay , yeah , there we go . I'm . You want to believe that I'm always right , don't worry about it . Okay , no , but um , so , yeah , mmorpg is made in korea . Um , I think it sat in korea for a while before we got it . I'm not a hundred percent on that , okay , so , but um , we , it came out here fairly recently , maybe about a month or so ago . Yeah , and just , it's a blast . You know you target your enemies and it kind of auto attacks while you throw skills out , you know . So , like , yeah , you pick different yeah attack .
Speaker 1So what kind of makes this stand out a little bit from other RPGs , MMOs , RPGs is uh , typically you choose your class , You're stuck with that class .
Speaker 2Yeah .
Speaker 1Like oh , I choose the elf , and with the elf , I choose to be a mage . With thrown in Liberty , you can be anything at any point . Yeah , you choose , uh , two weapons as your main and then your primary , and then two weapons as your main and then your primary , and then you get the skills , your primary and second hand . Oh , I said main and primary . Yeah , so your primary and second hand allows you to have combined skill sets that um partner well with one another . Yeah , so , like um , I am a um , I think what it's called a dark mage technically . So I have the staff . So , in in rpgs . So you have your white mage and your dark mage . White mages , heal , focusing on healing magic . Dark mages focus on destructive magic . Okay so , fireballs , electric stuff , Fireball . And then I chose , like daggers .
Speaker 2So I am technically a combined destructive magic assassin , and I don't know the terminology for mine , but I've got a sword and shield combo and then , uh , double crossbows , which I'm not familiar with , all that .
Speaker 1So just pistols . But so in within the game , so at any point you can change your weapons . So I like that . So at any point I decide I don't want to do be doing this with my character anymore . I don't have to make a new character . Yeah , um , I was told that you will be behind if you change out your loadout .
Speaker 2Yeah .
Speaker 1But you can at any point say I'm done with this aspect of it and I'm going to move on . And I think a lot of people what they do is , once they level up with this aspect of it and I'm going to move on , I think a lot of people what they do is , once they level up , get max level , they level up their class , essentially their two weapons class skills all the way . They move on with other stuff .
Speaker 2Makes sense . I will say that is the one thing that I think is different . Maybe it's not . I don't play a lot of these MMORPGs , but this one . You don't have to repair your weapons . That's nice , and you don't . And you don't have to collect ammo , yeah , so , like any kind of projectile weapon , like your staff or your spear or your bow or crossbows , you don't have to collect things to be able to store up , to be able to shoot . Whatever you're shooting , you can .
Speaker 1It's just unlimited yeah , so while you're so , you're attacking , then it'll be like shooting the crossbow or the bow or whatever , oh , sorry , the arrow , yeah , and then you , as it's doing minimal damage , you are then throwing out your skills , like okay , like um , I have it set up where my uh staff has a thunder attack , so um , so I merge that with , so I'll hit them with like a poison attack , that so they're slowly draining their health even more , yeah , and then I will then hit them with electric attack , which I have morphed by setting certain skill slots on the um , on the skills yeah to change the way that it um acts in the game .
Speaker 1So before it was a single fire , a single lightning bolt that would hit one enemy . Now it's a single lightning bolt that goes and travels between enemies and also stuns them and will have this area effect that will also electrocute anybody other enemies that get near those enemies . Yeah so , and that is based on not the level of the skill , but how you um route , how your skill is set with like attributes to it . Yeah so , so if anybody doesn't know what an MMO is , rpg , that is a massive multiplayer online role playing game . So me and Johnny are playing together , killing these monsters , and so is hundreds of hundreds of other people at the exact same time on the same map .
Speaker 2Yeah , so the stats for Steam right now , like while we're talking right now , there's 118,000 players online , almost 119,000 .
Throne of Liberty Gameplay Overview
Speaker 1So what I will say about this game is it's hard to find something that we're all into , right . Yeah , we were trying consistently to get our friend group of everybody together to play a game that we all like and all enjoy at the same time , yep , and when I first started playing , it didn't really click with me .
Speaker 2Yeah .
Speaker 1And I kind of set it down for a couple of weeks and then I got back on it after you got on it , yeah , and started playing it again and after slowly leveling the stuff up , it clicked and I'm having so much fun , not only with the aspect of playing the game , but also with the fact that I'm able to play with friends , which I've missed , deeply Missed being able to play just a good fun game , yeah that's what I will say is what I like about it the most is being able to go and play together .
Speaker 2We just recently unlocked Dungeons , so it's like now we can finally go in somewhere together , because it's like in the game main storyline . You have to do it by yourself . You know you can go to the different spots with your friends and they can do it while you're doing it , but you can't do the story together .
Speaker 1And we've ran into that issue a lot where it's like , okay , where are we , where are you at ? Okay , I'll wait right here so we can just run around together and be in the same area .
Speaker 2Yeah .
Speaker 1So we kind of keep track of it , but there's nothing in the game that really tracks together you playing the storyline yeah with the dungeon , you are thrown in and you are in it together , together , and it's a lot of fun it is a lot of fun .
Speaker 2We had our first leroy jenkins moment and there are me and you .
Speaker 1Tried to do the dungeon by ourselves when it's supposed to remember because it locks you out if whenever ?
Speaker 2oh yeah , that's right . So when you get to the main boss , who , whenever he gets hit , the very first time the dungeon gets locked and anyone that's not inside it gets locked out , gets locked out . And when you die you get locked out of it and everyone . It's almost like tag , like you're frozen and you can't get back in until either he's defeated or everyone dies and then it starts over . So it's uh interesting , but we didn't realize that was the mechanic and so like we're all like by the fire trying to get ready to go , and then a couple people run in . It was jerry's and I with four other people and we weren't just random people , we just ran and weren't talking to him or anything , but someone runs in and hits him and like almost half of the team is locked out of the battle because and the boss is I mean , the game is designed that you have to have your team set up a very specific way .
Speaker 1Yeah , you're gonna or you're gonna lose and you .
Speaker 1You have to have a full team for these dungeons like we had somebody like die on our team , yeah , and it's like it was downhill , like there was no , like we . It wasn't trying to win , it was survive as long as possible , yeah , yeah , so , um , so like . But you have to have like a really nice built team of like . You have to have your tank , that's the phrase is . So it's a character who is overly , not necessarily powerful , but has a lot of health and a lot of defense that grabs the attention of the boss , so he takes a lot of the hits . While you have four people it's called DPS , damage per second who is chipping away at the boss's health consistently , all attacking and doing their skills to drain his health , while you have the sixth person who is your healer , healing everybody . And having that number and everybody set up correctly really makes things work .
Speaker 2Yeah .
Speaker 1So that's a lot of fun . I feel like that's my catchphrase it's a lot of fun , it is a lot of fun and that's the announcement we have .
Speaker 2If you are playing Throne of Liberty , we have a guild . Is it a clan or a guild ? It is a guild . Is it a clan or a guild ? It is a guild A guild . We have a Saints that Serve guild .
Speaker 1It's literally just called Saints that Serve one word yeah , saints that .
Speaker 2Serve altogether one word .
Speaker 1So if you're playing Throne of Liberty and you want to reach out , Join our guild . Join our guild , Search for Saints that Serve . Also putting this out here , just letting you know . I don't think we talked about it . The game's free to play .
Speaker 2It is free to play .
Speaker 1And we're playing on Steam , but you can play it on other platforms . So we're on the Amos server . So the game sets up that when you start the game , you can choose a server . You can only play with those people with a server . An annoying thing about the game is that there's a lot of aspects to it . That's like you have to pay money to do certain things that you normally think would be free . Yeah , but those things typically don't affect your gameplay . It's aesthetics . For the most part , it's aesthetics . It's cosmetic crap . But then , um , but you do have to pay like ten dollars to switch your server . If you're on a server and want to move to a different one , yeah , if when you , when they first launched the game , that was free , and then after two weeks they started making people pay for it , yeah , yeah , so , uh , but we were on the Amos A M O S server . So if you're on the Amos server or want to , join and play the game and play with us .
Speaker 2We're on the Amos server and that's the Saints that Serve Guild . Saints that Serve Guild , Get in there . Right now it's Jairus and I , but we will welcome all .
Speaker 1We welcome all . Into our community Because we love you .
Speaker 2That's right .
Speaker 1We do love you . Praise the Lord , praise the Lord . So that , just to sum it up , uh , we love thrown in liberty , and I see myself playing it for a little while yeah , we're having fun and we're definitely gonna be playing it for a while .
Speaker 1So , like I said , if you're playing , or if you're about to start playing , or you're thinking about playing or not even playing . Come on and play with us . It's free to play . It is um risk-free . If you don't like it , you can turn it off , delete it . It's risk-free . If you don't like it , you can turn it off , delete it .
Speaker 2It's risk-free . If you're playing , let us know if you want to play with us because we'll set you up with the Discord . You can hop in and play . Hop in and we can talk while we're playing and we can actually be strategic and actually be a thriving guild . Yeah , a thriving guild . Yep , yep . If you want to join us and you want some more info , you can reach out to us . You can email us at saintsthatserve at gmailcom or like .
Speaker 1I said reach out on social , We'll get you on that Discord .
Speaker 2Yeah , it is a fun game . I mean , it's one of those things where there's certain parts of the map that I'll just , you know , if I need to just grind and get materials and it's low , low level areas like the npcs are low level then I'll just sit there and I'll I'll let my boys just kill crabs yeah , that's right .
Speaker 1So you don't even play the game . You have little little workers who will grind , grind the game for you , because that's all they want to do . They're not into the story or like crafting or anything and they probably don't really fully grasp the concept of leveling up your skills , getting things a very specific way yeah they just want to play .
Speaker 1They don't understand leveling up and the importance of that to the uh , the future and the end game of the game and all these weird things . Like I just want to play this game . I just want to play , yeah , which I do miss that sometimes . About games , by the way , I don't know if we said this . I think we're turning this into the game episode . We're just going to talk about games for a while , yeah , yeah , so , um , but like I miss , like I think that achievements have kind of ruined games in a way yeah because it's just like .
Speaker 1I miss the days when you could just plop in a game like a and just play it yeah , speaking of achievements , there are 48 in the steam for throne of liberty mm-hmm , I think they're all , for the most part , story related . I'm not sure yeah , that sounds right , because I think I did get one for beating that boss , done dungeon boss .
Speaker 2Yeah , all the ones I'm looking at . They have to do with , yeah , completing quests uh , destiny was like that too .
Speaker 1it was pretty quick to get all the achievements . Most of these like massive online multiplayer games . Yeah , usually you get the achievement quick because all of your real true achievements are through progressing in the game .
Speaker 2Okay , yeah .
Speaker 1Like my , my wife is playing , plays a lot of Sims yeah , she does , she plays a lot of Sims and , uh , she works on these achievements and , like I don't , I can't even sit there and fathom this is ridiculous how much stuff she has and has to work with .
Speaker 2I will never forget when we were all sitting together talking about games and it was here at the house , I think we had just played a board game . Somehow Sims got brought up and she was talking about this one thing she was trying to complete and she's like yeah , I've got my different breeding programs like what she's like trying to get , like she was trying to complete an achievement for like having a certain amount of kids , or like having a certain I don't know if I'm not .
Speaker 1I don't remember what it . It's something like she has to have like a hundred generations with a single family to get this achievement , so like , and so it takes like a we need her on to explain it way better than me type thing . But it's like it takes a very long time to have a child in the Sims , yeah , yeah , like it takes a very long time to have a child in the Sims , yeah , yeah , and she essentially in the Sims has like a generational machine , grinding machine , just like . Okay , this person had a kid All right . Now I got to get them into a point where they can have kids and then go down , down , down , and it's like 100 generations to get an in-game achievement .
Speaker 1She was getting mad . She's like the other day playing , and she's like I hate this , I hate this so much , I hate this game because she had to . To get the next big achievement , she has to do the star wars expansion pack , and so the star wars expansion pack for that is just star wars land at disney world and that's the map . And I'm like , why , why do you ?
Speaker 2not like this we've been here .
Speaker 1This is awesome . I'm like I'm starting to get interested and she's the map . And I'm like , why , why do you not like this ? We've been here . This is awesome . I'm like I'm starting to get interested and she's she just doesn't like the uh game mechanics of the uh Star Wars expansion . Oh , also , every time they open , put a new expansion on the game because the game has been out for so long , yeah , anytime they add something , it breaks half the game . Oh , my gosh , so like things that she was working on . Just it breaks it . Like , every time I come home from work , the sims is up , yeah , and um , I think she told me she has over like five or six thousand hours in the sims or something ridiculous .
Speaker 2I yeah , I have nothing like that , any game that I've played .
Speaker 1If it tracks , maybe Minecraft .
Speaker 2I don't even think that much in Minecraft Thousand you said five or six thousand .
Speaker 1It's something ridiculous , large number .
Speaker 2Yeah , I may be getting close to a thousand hours on Minecraft .
Speaker 1You'd be surprised how much time you actually put in something that you consistently play .
Speaker 2Yeah , but Minecraft is one of those things where it's like I play for a couple of weeks and then I don't play for , you know , six months to a year , and then I play for a couple of weeks again , and so it's like it's consistently there but I'm not . I'm not consistent with it .
Speaker 1What about Elder Scrolls ? I know you played that a lot .
Speaker 2Elder Scrolls I played Skyrim . I did play Skyrim for a good bit , but I just completed the main story and then the main story in all of the expansion packs whenever they came out . I I wasn't one of those hardcore guys that like completed every single side quest and all that stuff .
Speaker 1So I think um for me and uh , kingdom hearts . I think I probably total on the franchise , probably put about a thousand hours yeah um , I know so , like in that game to get the ultimate weapon at the very end yeah like , you just have to do a ridiculous amount of material grinding yeah just , and you have to find , like these special hidden enemies .
Speaker 1And then , like a lot of times , the hidden enemies are like a mini game , almost like keep , how long can you ? You have to keep , oh , keep this enemy up in the air for a certain amount of time .
Speaker 2Yeah .
Speaker 1Or , like you got to find the hidden . Which one's the real one out of all the fakes .
Speaker 2Yeah .
Speaker 1And like what's crazy about that is they don't spawn . Like you have to just keep running around until they spawn and then you could fail .
Speaker 2The mini game ball the ball , the the enemy mini game that comes along with the special enemy I know that there's one game that , if it was still around you and I would jump back on it in a heartbeat .
Virtual Penguin Game Nostalgia
Speaker 2I'm gonna give you one guess what game it was . It was an online game that we played as kids growing up . Is that runescape ? No , you didn't play that with me uh , kids , oh , club penguin , there we go club penguin dude if that was still around .
Speaker 2You know we would be getting on that and playing yeah , but it's like club penguin wasn't ?
Speaker 1I don't even know how to describe how that was a thing for it was a virtual poly pocket game . That's what it was well , I was gonna say it's just like what did , what did we ever do ? In looking back , what did we ever do in that game that ever felt like we were accomplishing anything ?
Speaker 2we did nothing . There was a couple of mini games , but everything you did in the game was to unlock different furniture for your house but you had to pay the subscription to be able to put furniture down just in your house , if I remember not .
Speaker 2No , not all of it . No , there was like some like premium stuff , but there was some there was free stuff as well , um , but it was like you could go play a couple of mini games inside the game and then you could go to the actual club , which was you go , click a button and watched all the penguins dance . Yeah , and you could make your penguin dance .
Speaker 1and so , like that , do you remember that you could throw , uh , snowballs ? Yep , it didn't do anything , but you could make your penguin dance . And so like do you remember that you could throw snowballs ? Yep , it didn't do anything , but you could throw a snowball .
Speaker 2All it did was annoy whoever else because it did block their penguin like if you hit them .
Speaker 1Yeah , but it didn't damage anything , it's just the snowballs would pile up on you .
Speaker 2Exactly .
Speaker 1Do you remember ? Okay , so it's shut down . Now , what happened was ? Disneyney bought the game , let it run for a little while , then they shut it down , which is stupid I think that a lot of companies do that . They'll buy like essential competition , let it run for a little while and then shut it down competition to what ? Good question , for that is probably more competition for their own pockets to maintain it , I think disney does this a lot .
Speaker 2They have things that are like nostalgic or like really like great or enjoyable and they intentionally put them in the disney vault that way , for whatever reason . If they want to become relevant , they just they go through the cat , have something ready . They can go do whatever they want , because like there's a ton of stuff that's in the disney vault that is not out there in the public but because at one point it was now , if you have that thing it's worth a lot of money , like the black diamond vhs tapes not all of them , but there's a couple of them that they have songs that are not in any of the other releases of that movie but they're on the black diamond vhs . And so if you have a black diamond vhs for I think it's the lion king , like it's worth a couple hundred bucks because it has this extra song , and an extra song it's different .
Speaker 1Um , back on club penguin .
Speaker 1Uh , something I loved about that was like the weird lore and essentially just like conspiracy theories within the game yeah do you remember , uh , if you go to that iceberg and if you danced on it , it would flip , it would tip . Do you remember that ? I don't remember that . No , so , uh , when they closed the game out like just a really cool example of how they actually updated and were in touch with their fan base on that when the game was like ending , everybody went to the iceberg and was dancing on it and it actually flipped . Oh really , yeah , they actually programmed the game for the iceberg to flip . That's awesome . So it really just showed you're going and flipping your penguins , kind of like all the penguins rotating in the air , they kind of got knocked up in the air and then when they land they're upside down .
Speaker 1It's like a secret base underneath the iceberg . Oh nice , so it was a lot of cool stuff like that . They had this cool penguin . Do you remember the ? What was it ? What was ? It was the pirate penguin that you could see him coming over a span of a week like his boat , getting closer to the island and then they actually had , like , an employee of the company walk around and interact with other penguins as the pirate captain . I don't remember that there's . There was so much stuff in that game that uh , really , um was just cool to have back , just having events , yeah , in a way that felt uh , organic and not forced . Yeah , just like this felt like this was just real .
Speaker 1That was also the game that got me into playing mancala I don't know what mancala it's like this um pebble , uh , board game type thing where you have to strategically pull um , choose the these pebbles and how they move across this like little circle board thing . After the podcast is over , I'll pull it up . We'll play like a round of Mankala okay .
Speaker 2Do you know when Club Penguin shut down ? I ?
Speaker 1think it was 2016 march 30th of 2017 I was close dang .
Speaker 2Yeah , so that was . I mean it wasn't as long ago as I thought it was , but that was . I mean it's still a decent amount of time let me get on this real quick .
Speaker 1so , um , these games as services , right , yeah , club penguin was a technically a game as a service because you could subscribe to be a premium player , yep , and you would get extra stuff like special perks and whatnot for the month that you paid for the game you could play for it for , play it for , but then it would be more benefits if you paid money for it . Yeah , we're seeing that more
The Evolution of Gaming Consumption
Speaker 1and more . Now that these games are a free game as a service , you can put a lot of money into it . We've gone through it before .
Speaker 2Yeah .
Speaker 1And what happens if fortnite shuts down ? It won't , yeah , soon , but what if it becomes irrelevant ? Something happens and it's no longer in the main focus of you know , of the internet as a game and how much money people put into that game .
Speaker 2Yeah , and it's nothing yeah , I'm , I'm thinking about it . Right now we don't even play it anymore , but I've probably sunk like 50 to 70 bucks , yeah , into that game just buying easily that much for just costumes , yeah .
Speaker 1And a better example there is a kingdom hearts mobile game . Yeah , that I put a lot of money into and it was just story missions that kind of built along the lore . They shut that down . That's no longer a thing you can play . I put money into that to build up my character in that game . That's no longer a thing .
Speaker 2It's just gone , dude .
Speaker 1So it kind of stinks when we have these options to play these games , yeah , but at any point it's just gonna disappear . Yeah , I mean the same way with , like all the um I was looking at it yesterday . I want to play fable 2 again . I don't know if you ever played fable or not . No , but that was one of my favorite Xbox 360 games . Yeah , I played the heck out of Fable . The only way to play Fable now is either to have an actual original physical copy of the game , yeah , or you can play it on the newer Xbox , but apparently , for some reason it runs like doo-doo . It's really slow and laggy and really crappy . So , um , and the other option on that is to play it through their streaming service . Yeah , xbox streaming service , but all these options are just like it's not viable and you can't buy it on a 360 anymore .
Speaker 1The 360 store is gone yeah so the way to play it in its better version no longer exists unless you own a physical copy ? Yeah , so we're getting to a point where that was back , when that was physical media .
Speaker 2Yeah .
Speaker 1We're getting more and more towards a digital world and these games are no longer going At any point . I don't know if you know this , but when you buy a digital game , it says , uh , you're buying the right to play this game , that you do not own this game , yeah . So at any point these companies can say for one reason or another uh , you can't play the game you paid for anymore yep , yeah , and that gets bad .
Speaker 2I mean , we've talked about that before and it falls in line with the kind of the conspiratorial like one world order , you don't own anything you don't own anything .
Speaker 1Everything is provided for you , and you're just a vessel that's in this mass like conglomerate , and isn't that the case a lot more too , even with the gaming of like Like conglomerate ? And isn't that the case a lot more too , even with the gaming of like ? You pay this fee and everything's handed to you . You have so many options to play games now , and you ever sit there , like on Game Pass and go through those games . I've done it once or twice .
Speaker 2And it's like I don't have Game Pass anymore right now .
Speaker 1But yes , I have done it , but , and you're sitting there , it's like thousands of games , yep . But yes , I have done it , and you're sitting there . It's like thousands of games , yep . And you're just sitting there like I don't want to play any of these .
Speaker 2Yeah , well , and do you think about it ? It's everything , video games . There's several different streaming services that you can subscribe to or have a subscription to it , and they provide the games for you to play . There's a built-in library and a lot of them you don't even have to download . You can play them in the cloud and it's the same with music and with movies now too .
Speaker 2You don't download them , you don't own them , you just subscribe to the service and they provide you with their catalog and you just play it through the cloud , you know whatever whatever , how often do you sit there and you say I want to watch something ?
Speaker 1and you go through your fifth ten different services yeah , that you have access to doom , scrolling through it , finding nothing you want to watch yeah , and you end up just watching the office for the 17th time .
Speaker 2Yeah , I don't really watch the Office .
Speaker 1But you get what I'm saying . I get what you're saying . You find your thing that you have watched a thousand times , that you're familiar with , and you just watch that and said , after scrolling through all these things , they're probably decent shows , but it's just like For me and my wife .
Speaker 2We go back and forth between the lord of the rings trilogy and mummy one and two the mummy . One movie is so great dude it is .
Speaker 1It is a timeless classic but you understand what I mean by that is it's when . Why do we have so many options and nothing to watch ?
Speaker 2I actually am gonna get a mummy poster for the wall For the wall .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah , you need to do it .
Speaker 2I need to get it , yeah , anyways . Yeah , it is kind of crazy how far we've come , but it kind of opens the question of like , where is it going to take us ? Mm-hmm , you know , because we're really for the past decade we've been in uncharted waters consistently . It seems like it's something new every single year , uh , or it changes every couple of years and it like drastically changes every couple of years and you're just like where is this going ? Like again , it's it's more ease and it's more convenient , or it's more immersive , or whatever . But like , when do we stop ? When do we just it's okay , you know . I mean , let's just we don't have to progress anymore anymore . Let's have a quarter arcade machine for a decade . You know what I mean .
Speaker 1It's funny because I feel like arcades are kind of coming back into the forefront of things . They never really truly went away , but people are going back to them .
Speaker 2Yeah , I would say that the reason for that is the novelty that are that's being pushed in movies and TV now .
Speaker 1The stranger things 80s nostalgia .
Speaker 2People aren't going to the arcade cause they enjoy going to the arcade . They want the uh , they want the vibe that comes with going to the arcade . So they they go and they play a couple of rounds of pinball and kind of walk around and do a couple of the other things . They're not looking to get the high score on their favorite game and they're going to put the hours into it . They're not doing that .
Speaker 1I mean , it's so much fun to go to the arcade still .
Speaker 2No , yeah , I'm not dogging it . I have a good time , but yeah , it's just kind of and this is so .
Speaker 1This is a great time to to do a tyler transition and transition to our next thing before we do would you not have killed as a kid for , uh , the option to have game pass ? Not literally kill , but you know what I mean like as would I murder for game pass ?
Speaker 2no , to be honest , though , um , I would not , because , I look at , I've had game pass as an adult . As far as games go , I've kind of I've kind of been the same , like I haven't really changed or evolved in any way . Still playing minecraft , still playing minecraft . I will always play halo . If anyone wants to play halo , I'll always go back to
Christian Views on Fantasy Video Games
Speaker 2it . Um , and the only call of duty I get into is nazi zombies you know call of duty .
Speaker 1Uh , black ops 6 came out this week , duty . Yeah , I've been seeing a lot of videos about it .
Speaker 2I like it because not not videos about it .
Speaker 1I've been seeing a lot of promotionals about it I like the idea of it , like it almost got me to where I was , like do I want to play call of duty again because black ops 1 was my favorite ? Yeah , and it's not like overly high futuristic , like what there was , like the Black Ops , that was overly futuristic .
Speaker 2I don't remember . I know what you're talking about , I don't remember which one it was .
Speaker 1But this one seems like it kind of goes back to the roots of Black Ops and it has a pretty cool zombies map as well .
Speaker 2Okay .
Speaker 1So I saw where there's liketer egg , that where you can go bowling and you can like go do like zombie bowling in it , zombie bowling . So like you after you like go around the map and you shoot like and find all the hidden uh shoes okay uh , you can then um uh , it trail trans . Uh teleports you to a bowling alley and you can throw bowling balls at zombies . Yeah , yeah , okay , and you get your points for the game . So there's really crazy stuff that they're doing with these games now .
Speaker 2Yeah , but I mean , dude , there's nonstop titles coming out All the time throughout the entire year and it's like the way to play is evolving so rapidly . I mean , you know , like they started playing around with the virtual reality stuff again and started making it popular and now it's evolving into the heavy , heavy , augmented reality .
Speaker 1The newest VR headset , the MetaQuest 3 , has the ability now to do both VR and AR .
Speaker 2Yeah , so it's just like that stuff keeps on , and I mean some of the VR arcades that are starting to pop up , insane arcades that are starting to pop up , insane . I mean multi-directional treadmills . Uh , strap in vests , you know , like the faux guns . Yeah , as the controllers like . It's just it's insane .
Speaker 1I went to andretti's for a work thing and um did that and I did very well in the game and I had co-workers looking at me like , why did you do so well at this shooting fake game ? I'm like , oh , I got something just like this at home , but I have a MetaQuest too Okay . So it's not like actually this . I'm just like I have I understand how to play in VR and understand how , like you've learned that muscle memory of how a vr works versus real world yeah and you get used to not you hitting things that are not really there .
Speaker 1Yeah , with a fake toy gun , you don't mean that kind of thing . So yeah , so I got used to it and I did like abnormally well on that machine where everybody's looking at me like this guy's a freak . That's funny , all right . So anyways , now you can have your tyler transition .
Speaker 2All right , tyler transitioning into christians in the gaming world . Can christians play video games ? Obviously we do , there , you go we're done ? No , no , but you know it does beg in the question because we hit really hard during the spooky season about like , do you not do witchcraft , do not participate , it , don't get into it ? Uh , and then we I mean here we are talking about throwing liberty and it's like hey , the you know , like dark magic , dark , yeah , yeah , and and so I'm uncomfortable with this .
Speaker 2So that's why I try to make my player like as rooted in reality as possible .
Speaker 2Even when I played Skyrim , I didn't do I barely did any of the magic stuff . That's why it took me so long to do stuff , because I didn't like using the healing , running around , using the healing spell and all that other stuff . You just shouted a lot , yeah , I just shouted a lot , and then , you know , I'd carry food and stuff with me but , um , yeah , it was just I , I'm uncomfortable personally with it . Um , I don't know . I mean we get into that realm once again when it comes to these games . We get into the realm with like , uh , harry potter and chronicles of narnia and the lord of the rings , where it's like this is a fantasy and they're . They've got magic as a terminology woven into the story , uh , but they try to make clear lines between good and evil and and it's just a story like it's not the real world .
Speaker 1Um , so it's kind of one of those to each his own , because I mean , I mean , you know you , I think you and I differ on this , because you're totally okay with it I , um , I think that I can personally with within video games for sure , yeah , separate that and see that as a fantasy , a fake thing , and it doesn't affect me spiritually within video games .
Speaker 2Yeah , and I'm just you know I'm a little bit more reserved .
Speaker 1I guess .
Speaker 2So you know we kind of disagree on that side of it , but we're still playing together , you know , at the end of the day . So I think that's the important side of this is , you know whether you're fine with magic being in a game or you're uncomfortable with it .
Speaker 1If it's something that makes you so uncomfortable , you probably shouldn't be on the game at all right , because the the thing is , the term magic is so incredibly woven into the lore of video games in general . You're going to touch three games and all of them are going to have some sort of form of magic in it . Yeah , and it's typically within the lore , and I guess this is a poor excuse for it . For me , is it's not witchcraft within the lore , it is . You are using it as a weapon and not as a worship of Satan .
Speaker 2Yeah , yeah so , but that's the thing is . If you shoot , like we were talking about during spooky season , if it make , if you are conflicted in your soul , then just don't do it , because you really don't need it anyways . It's not something that you need to be able to get by . If you're not feeling the confliction you know . Test every spirit , make sure you're in prayer , and this is for everyone , including us as the hosts . Prayer and this is this is for everyone , including us as the hosts take how much time you're playing video games and compare it to how much time you're reading your bible and spending in time in prayer with the lord . Um , and if your video games triples the amount of time you're spending with the lord , that's the bigger issue . Um , you know god wants to be present in your life , and if you're just ignoring him for a fake world that has no eternal benefit , I mean , here we are talking about video games that you spent a bunch of money on and they're gone . So that's the important thing . All games come and go , but Christ is eternal and so why not invest in him ? And it goes for the same thing with relationships , like if you're in a godly family and your family professes Christ . Like those relationships are eternal . So you should be spending more time with your family than you are alone on a video game .
Speaker 2I was listening to a Francis Chan sermon today and he was kind of hitting on that and it hit me hard because he was talking about when the iPhone came out . There was one friend that they had that was really close to them and their family , and that friend had an iPhone , but no one else did , so they would be together playing a game and she would just be sitting there on her iPhone doing you know whatever , and everyone else is like can you get off that ? We're trying to . We're trying to play a game here and spend time with each other , and nowadays you have yeah and he was like but now everybody has one , so it's not like everyone is less annoying .
Speaker 2We're just all ignorant of how annoying we are because we all have iPhones or smartphones . But that just hit a note with me . I was like dude , how often do we shut off all the screens , all the games , all the movies and just spend time as a family ? I'm going gonna be honest , we do it . I mean , we do spend time like that together , but in comparison to how much time we spend isolated from each other , there needs to be a change . Yeah , so , uh , yeah , christians and gaming .
Speaker 2There's nothing wrong with playing games . When it comes to the kind of games you're playing , you need to treat it like it's a spirit . You need to test it with the Holy Spirit and with scripture . And if you have peace , you know , that's fine . But also keep your brothers and sisters in Christ . You know in your heart , if someone wants to play a game with you but they struggle with it , like , oh , if you're playing that game , that's a sin . Like , just don't play that game with them because you don't want them to build up this bitterness and resentment towards you you know , because they are , they don't .
Speaker 2They're going to sit there and look at you like , hey , as a as a center in who's not taking his salvation seriously , yeah , and so and I try to hit hard on this Like , if you have the ability to set aside what you feel free in Christ to do for the sake of someone who struggles with it , that is sacrificial love and that shows the love of Christ to your brothers and sisters in Christ , so take those opportunities you know . Go the extra mile for your fellow believer in Christ . Don't fall , don't get on the train of like well , I've got freedom in Jesus . This isn't a sin . I've been set free from sin , so I'm going to do it . And it's your problem for thinking it's a sin , not my problem . It's like , don't worry about that . Like , worry about how can we grow together as believers . That's what we should be worrying about . So that's all I've got . I don't know , do you have anything to add to it ?
Speaker 1I was gonna say I feel like we're going to get on this and I don't mind that we repeat ourselves a lot , but it's it's depends on person to person whether or not it's going to affect you . Like you said , you need to examine it , pray over it and , just you know , ask God to you is this something that's going to affect my walk with God ? Yeah , yeah , and we say that with just really honest , with everything there's a , there's a few things that we are very firm on of . Yeah , don't do that . But there's a lot of stuff too , when it especially when it comes , I mean , we're an entertainment podcast .
Speaker 2Yeah .
Speaker 1Half entertainment , half Jesus .
Speaker 2Sorry , how do we make entertainment about jesus ? There we go there you go .
Speaker 1So yeah , but we are an entertainment podcast and you know you're going to hear a lot of us talk about the things that we find entertaining and think just topics of that nature in general , and when it comes to entertainment in general , it's used in certain to use discernment and be in fellowship and be in fellowship and be in fellowship . I think that it helps us playing a game that has magic in it . We're playing together and it's not about the magic . It's about me and you , in brotherhood , spending time and hanging out in fellowship .
Speaker 2Yeah , and it's important . Jairus isn't over here researching incantations that he needs to be able to say to be effective in the game . He's literally pressing X to shoot a fireball and it shoots a fireball .
Speaker 1Yeah .
Speaker 2Right , so you know . It's like it alludes to magic . It's not that he's practicing magic to be better in the game , so that distinction needs to be made . So it's really . It just comes down to the surfacy . Can you not even say the word magic as a Christian ? Or is there some liberty when it comes to a made-up fantasy realm ?
Speaker 1I will use this as an example . Universal Studios going to get off the topic slightly , ever so slightly . Universal Studios has Harry Potter World Yep . Universal studios going to get off the topic slightly , ever so slight . Universal studios has harry potter world yep . So go ahead , sir , and I'll . I'll be quick about this , but in the in , in the theme park , they have their land . You can buy their toy wands , that at their park . Um , you go to certain spots and you say an incantation , they have their spells and you wave your wand and it does something . You're not actually casting magic . It senses the motion in the tip of the wand with a , a hidden camera somewhere , but you are still waving your wand and saying whatever incantation . Yeah , there , that to me that is different . When I went there I did buy a wand as a souvenir , because that was part of the thing at the time I was there yeah I sat there and I said I'm not waving this one though , yeah , and saying these incantations .
Speaker 1I bought the one because I thought it looked cool and it was a character's one from the movie I liked . Yeah , it was a souvenir . Yeah , I need to throw that one in the trash , but now . But you understand what
Christian Perspectives on Fantasy Entertainment
Speaker 1I'm saying .
Speaker 2Yeah , and you know Harry Potter , it does fall into that kind of controversial Christian . There's two camps . There are Christians that are okay with it because it's 100% fantasy to them but it has a biblical morality to it in the story of good versus evil and self sacrifice and all that stuff . And then there's the other camp of like it . They really dive deep in it , then live that life well , the no the christians are like have nothing to do with this , because oh sorry , sorry , yeah , yeah have nothing to do with this , because it is from the occult um .
Speaker 2So you know , I , I don't know , I mean I don't know where I stand with it . I don't really like Harry Potter anyways , mm-hmm . So . But I can't sit here and be like , uh , anti-harry Potter but at the same time enjoy Lord of the Rings .
Speaker 1Lord of the Rings and Chronicles of Narnia , which both also have magic in it . Both have magic in it . I know that you can go into deep detail of why Gandalf isn't actually using magic , but you know .
Speaker 2Yeah , but that's the issue is . In the movie they call him a wizard , right , and so anyone who does not dive into the lore doesn't realize he's actually casting spells and magic yeah , no , he yeah but we can .
Speaker 1We can talk about that another time .
Speaker 2Yeah , we can or we can talk about it now .
Speaker 1So again no but I was going to say so like I , you were saying that , yes , there's the christians that look at it and they watch it and they enjoy it as a movie , and then there's the christians that , you know , avoid it and both are viable and , yeah and um , both camps need to be respected , right ?
Speaker 2especially the ones that are saying have nothing to do with this , because most people coming out of the occult and Wicca and getting saved and becoming believers , they are adamantly against Harry Potter because they've been so . Their entire life has been riddled not their entire life , but their entire past has been riddled not their entire life , but their entire past has been riddled with witchcraft . That , watching jk rawlings fantasy world teen drama teen drama which she pulled a lot of inspiration from druidry , which is the ancestor to Wicca it hits too close to home to be like , yeah , it's 100% fake , Because they're like , listen , like this is we've experienced these things and so we're telling you to have nothing to do with it because of our knowledge of this stuff . So you know , you do need to take that seriously , you do need to weigh that , you know when you get into that kind of stuff . But I know a lot of people that love Jesus and they're very fully committed to the Lord , but they also enjoy watching Harry Potter and drinking a butterbeer while they're out .
Speaker 1And that's my point is , you are allowed to watch something and enjoy a movie , a film , and that's it . There are the people that I was mentioning before that deep dive . You know , I this is my house and my wand , and you know , I practice my spells and I want to be part of this world and they deep dive and they get super engulfed in that world . Yeah , in a way that it becomes dangerous yeah and that can be anything .
Speaker 1Yeah , that can be . You could fall in line , uh , fall deep into the rabbit hole of something that isn't witchcraft related , that , and if it gets in the way of your walk with god , that should be cut out yeah , you could join us in the Lord of the Rings camp .
Speaker 2That's right If you had to be , if you got to pick , but you had to be a race from Lord of the Rings . What race would you be Int ? You'd be an int . I'd be an int . That's like the most depressing you could pick .
Speaker 1I just want to stand still and just live my life in one place and slowly talk with another tree oh my god what is it ? They said what was it ? They stood there and waited for like 13 hours in the movie and they're , like we just said , hello yeah , yeah , but dude , they talk about it , they .
Speaker 2Yeah . We lost all our wives , so we're slowly dying out over thousands of years because we can't reproduce because we lost our wives .
Speaker 1This is after that . There's women ints again in my world . Oh yeah , yeah in my make-believe Lord of the Rings , make-believe world .
Speaker 2And Jairus' continuing of the trilogy Lord of the Rings . They didn't realize there was a the hunt for the Entwives .
Speaker 1They didn't realize that at the time there was Ent females growing . Somebody planted a tree and it was a woman tree . Well , but that's the issue .
Speaker 2Ents aren't trees , my guy . They're made from the bones of the earth . That's the point . Is that they're one of the first creatures of the earth ? Yeah , the point is that they're one of the first creatures of the earth .
Speaker 1Yeah , I didn't know all that yeah .
Speaker 2They're before trees there . That's why they're called the tree the herder , or tree shepherds , or shepherds of the trees , is because they they're the guardians of the forest .
Speaker 1Right , then I'm a Hobbit , you're a Hobbit . Yeah , hobbit , you're a hobbit . Yeah , they get to chill out , have food throughout the day , yep yep yep , um , yeah , I was thinking about dwarfs , but they were totally unaware of everything going on around just leave me alone and let me go play golf .
Speaker 2Yeah , exactly , yeah yeah , dude , I'm all about it . I'm all about it .
Speaker 1Okay , yeah , that's good , what , uh what race would you be ? And you're gonna throw out some random thing no one's ever heard of , because you dive deep into lord of the rings , nobody else I'm thinking maybe , yeah , maybe the um , yeah , the short wild men um that live in the mountains on the edge of rohan of course , yeah , those , yeah , everybody knows those they're not dwarves , but they're short men and they live .
Speaker 2It's almost like they're indigenous . They would be compared to indigenous people . They live like tribal , moving from place to place . They live in the woods , wild , you know . Uh , they wear pelts as their clothing and stuff , but in the movie they're like you are . In the book they don't like the men of Rohan , because the men of Rohan hunt them Like for sport kind of a deal , but they hate the Dark Lord more . So they rescue the entire Rohirrim army from being attacked on the road by orcs and they help get them to Gondor safely in time to fight in the field of Pelennor . So they are like a very integral part of the story and the success for the battle at palinore field . Are you turning me off ? No , I'm kidding , I'm kidding , but uh , yeah , it's the only time you see him is in that one spot , but uh , it seemed pretty cool how about that anime movie coming out in a month war ?
Speaker 2for the roheron . Yeah , december 13th .
Speaker 1Yeah , you got that , you got your tickets .
Speaker 2I haven't bought the tickets yet , but we need to go see it .
Speaker 1We're going to go see it .
Speaker 2We're going to go see it . Date Release day . It looks pretty good Like I'm going to quit my job . If I have to , I'm going to tell my boss .
Speaker 1Tell your boss I'm not coming in tonight , exactly Tonight Today , today , um yeah , so um , did you hear that ? Uh , christopher lee is going to voice a character in that movie , his character christopher lee is is voicing his character .
Speaker 2Yeah , the war of the roe heron ?
Speaker 1yeah , that's not possible they are taking uh archived vocal tracks when they recorded .
Speaker 2I should . I should take that back . Anything's possible now with ai I I guess .
Speaker 1So it's actually voice tracks that he or I guess , from when he acted for scenes deleted scenes in the Hobbit . Okay , so it's going to be Christopher Lee's voice and it's not going to be AI going to be put in that movie .
Speaker 2That's awesome .
Speaker 1So you're going to hear him . So I guess spoilers . I guess Saruman is going to be in the movie . Did you know that Christopher Lee voices a character in Kingdom Hearts ? I think .
Speaker 2I did know that I don't know what character , but I think , yeah , we'll get it eventually . Yeah , eventually we'll talk about it .
Speaker 1His name is Diz . His name is Diz D-I-Z , d-i-z Diz .
Speaker 2So Speaking of Christopher Lee , we're going to do a Tyler and we're going to move into our final topic tonight , which is our cryptic corner . Nice and nice , and it's not , it's , it's , it's . The lines are blurred on whether or not it's a cryptid or not , but we cryptid or not , but we're talking about vampires . Why did you say Christopher Lee ? Because he played Dracula in the old Dracula horror .
Speaker 1Really yeah , that was Christopher Lee . Oh , nice , all right , yeah , so Christopher .
Speaker 2Lee . Let's talk about Christopher Lee some more . You're like was Christopher Lee a vampire ?
Speaker 1No , because he was in that heavy metal band . I'm like are you referencing like he was in , like a heavy metal band thing where they did some weird vampire , weird stuff on stage ? I don't know .
Speaker 2Yeah , no , no , he did play Dracula in like the , I want to say like the 40s or 50s .
Speaker 1It was a while ago , maybe not even that long ago , that man lived a crazy life , yeah .
Speaker 2He , uh , yeah , he did .
The Lore and Reality of Vampires
Speaker 2Anyways , vampires , Um so you know , we kind of all know , you know what a vampire is , what a vampire is If you don't quick , what's a vampire ?
Speaker 1You know what a vampire is , what a vampire is If you don't quick .
Speaker 2What's a vampire ? A vampire is a creature of the night that is humanoid in most of its features , but it sucks blood and , depending on who you talk to , they can turn into a bat or other creatures of the night or , in the daylight , sparkle , depending on who you talk to . They can sparkle , and they are creatures consumed with lust and an unrelenting desire , or unquenchable desire , for blood . So this kind of the lore of the creature of a vampire is deeply rooted in European folklore and history .
Speaker 2Vlad is deeply rooted in European folklore and history . Vlad , yeah , more specifically Eastern Europe , with Vlad the Impaler , and even before that . I heard a story about this . There was a village kind of in that area , but basically what was happening was animals were being killed and like petrified . In the night the village would wake up to these animals just petrified , and I don't remember how they got to this , but like they would . They dug up a grave of someone who recently died , but like recently being , like two weeks ago , and their body was perfectly preserved . There was no decay whatsoever . In fact , they looked more lively in the coffin than they did when they were buried and they said what's going on ? And they opened their eyes but the person was dead . No , the person was dead . I know , I know , and so it's like they dug them up and they looked lively , but they were dead . No , heartbeat , not breathing none of that .
Speaker 1So they are saying , oh , this person is still alive , or vampires , it's a vampire .
Speaker 2Yeah , so that's where they're , allegedly . That's how the story came about . It's because of this disease that started happening in this village , because eventually that person bit someone and and you know , and then it started trickling out . More people started , as they died . You know , they get really sick and then they would die , and then their bodies wouldn't decay and they would start coming back at night and , you know , sucking the blood out of creatures from the point of view of realistic or reality .
Speaker 1What do you think caused that a body not to decay ?
Speaker 2I don't know . Um , it would have to be , because what keeps our body from our body is kind of in a constant state of decay , but it's also in a constant state of growth and it revolves around our organs operating like so . When our organs shut down , then there's nothing that's revitalizing ourselves and that's what causes the rapid state of decay , of death . Right is that everything shuts down and we're not living anymore , so there's nothing producing new cells in our life or in our bodies . So it would have to be . You know them intaking an insane amount of living cells in the blood and , almost like a battery , it gets them through the day when they're clinically dead Because they're not breathing and their heart's not beating and all that stuff . It gets them almost like a battery . It fuels them until they can resurrect again in the night to suck more blood .
Speaker 2That would be the only way it would work in my mind . Um , but I've by no means I'm expert in any way , shape or form . Uh , but , dude , doing the research for this , I told you this before we even started recording yeah , you started me down a path that I was not expecting , and it was pretty upsetting .
Speaker 1Stuff that , like the way I understand it is like the lore of the vampire has actually created a delusion of realistic vampires . It's gray .
Speaker 2The area is very gray . So vampirism is something that is practiced in the occult , like the sucking of blood . Uh , it is practiced in wicca , in the in , like dark magic . So there are like real vampiric people , um , and you could say that they have supernatural powers , like the actual mythical creature vampire . Um , you know , because they are practicing black magic , um , there's some , there's some worldly power there , some like spiritual stuff going on , but um , yeah , that that uh , that's like hardcore , like deep into black magic , and not a lot of people are doing it . I guess is what I'm trying to get at . But when I look into van vampire , the first thing that it brings me to is there's an association , a vampire association , and none other than New Orleans H-O-V-A .
Speaker 1Yeah , home Owners Vampire Association .
Speaker 2New Orleans Vampire Association and they've got a couple other things to it , but inside this association they have different houses and , from rating on , like the information that they have on their website , these different houses are basically different groups inside the community , inside the association , that have different takes on what being a vampire is , and and so it's like okay , so there's no explanation for what a vampire is , you just all identify as it , but you all have your own reasons for it .
Speaker 2That's literally what they're getting at , and they all sparkle and they all sparkle no , they , but they definitely buy into the trope of like creatures of the night , but they also do like they do , homeless feeding programs . So it's kind of weird , like it's like you know I was in danger .
Speaker 1You know I was .
Speaker 2I was starving , but my local troop of vampires saved me , yeah and my , the vampire association really stepped up this year . For the turkeys , no . But like I don't know , there was one article I was reading about this organization and say that , say that . One more , know there was one article I was reading about this organization .
Speaker 1Say that one more time there was one article I was reading . No , before that they really stepped up .
Speaker 2The vampire community , really the vampire association really stepped up with turkeys this year .
Speaker 2Yes article I was reading and basically it was like there is a , there is a rare disease , that or disorder that basically people drink animal or human blood to sustain themselves or survive , and they , like the way they were trying to classify it was it was a clinical disorder , like it was something that they had no control over and they had to do it to survive , and but that's all I had was one article that alluded to that didn't give me any information about it , and when I go to looking for like vampire disease , I get something about something that's totally different . It's called porph or for porphyry porphyry , and it's like a skin and nervous system disease . So it's a disease that either it affects your skin , like in a really like there's a genetic disorder in your blood and so it affects your skin , causing welting or sores or blistering , or it affects your nervous system and where you can't function correctly , or it affects both . But what is the correlation to that ? In a vampire ? They call it the vampire disease because of like you know , people are really , really pale .
Speaker 1Oh , so it's because of their blood . So really it's just vampire in the name . It's not really anything related to the blood .
Speaker 2really it's just a nickname . I think that the reason that they correlate that is I couldn't find anything about treatment for it , because everything in the article I was reading was like talk to your doctor , but I think that there is like blood transplants that have to happen because it is a blood disorder , so your body needs help , so it could be something along those lines , but they're not drinking the blood , like they're not doing vampire things .
Speaker 2Yeah , yeah , but you know this is . But yeah , it took me to , it took me down this road of there's an association in new orleans called the vampire association and they are like we are a community , we all identify ourselves as vampires . So much to the point where some of these people in the community have filed their teeth to where they have pointy are like we are a community , we all identify ourselves as vampires . So much to the point where some of these people in the community have filed their teeth to where they have pointy canine , really pointy canines , and they look , you know they're trying to pull off the gothic I love the idea of them , like you said , going out and helping the neighborhood .
Speaker 1Like we're gonna come out and help you but make sure you're wearing really thick scarves . I was gonna say make sure you come out at nine o'clock at night to come get your food hey , we're gonna do a feeding program for the homeless .
Speaker 2It's gonna be at 11 o'clock pm at the cemetery on south and maine um , uh , no , what was ?
Speaker 1um , no garlic or collared shirts , collared shirts , and if you're a minister , stay away yeah , um , if you need assistance walking , use aluminum canes , no stick canes .
Speaker 2Thank you very much , that's right . Yeah , so that's it , dude
Mysteries of Appalachian Twilight Realm
Speaker 2. It was like you know , I kind of know about the vim . You know the folklore vampire from me , from europe , and we all , we all know the dracula story and and then , you know , then I stumble on this stuff . Like there there's real people that really think that they are like to identify as a vampire and they've created this community and they all have their different interpretations of what that is or what the lifestyle is that revolves around it .
Speaker 2Um , and and and . Then , on the other side , community that actually practices vampirism to like actual blood sucking of human blood and like having supernatural powers of being able to , you know , disappear or , you know , move places . This is all alleged , but it's stories from people that have had that have had these encounters with these people doing it .
Speaker 1Um , so , you know it's like , did it really happen .
Speaker 2I don't know , but people have seen vampires and it the unfortunate side of it , is it ? All the stories are happening in the Appalachias , kind of like at our you know our back door , right , um , so you did it , okay . So okay . Ever since I got into conspiracy theories , I used to love going hiking in the mountains , in the Appalachian Mountains in autumn , like in the season we're in right now , where it's really beautiful .
Speaker 1Really beautiful .
Speaker 2Leaves are changing , the air's fresh , it's fun . You can go into a small town after you're hiking , get a coffee , enjoy the small town and shops and stuff , and now you're like I do not want to run into those pig feet and werewolves .
Speaker 2Well it's like I cannot be in the mountains after dark because who knows what I'm going to run into . Because it's like there's something new every single time and it's like crazy stuff's happening and they're freaking . People are like , oh , there's portals in the sky in tennessee . Have you seen that there's videos of ? There was one video for tennessee where it was a perfect cloud circle in the sky , and then there was another video that people had taken in Kentucky and it was a perfect circle of fire in the sky . And so people are like oh , that's portals , that's what it's got to be . And you're like what ? No , like , I'm not going to go that far , but it is strange to see a perfect circle .
Speaker 2I'm not going to go that far but it is strange to see a perfect circle and nothing's off the table , dude , because of all the emphasis everyone's been putting on aliens and the government , they're really pushing for people to believe in aliens now .
Speaker 1Yeah , they just came out and said the government hadn't come out and said like , yeah , we got documents , they're real right , something like that . I'm crazy .
Speaker 2Someone I was listening to on a podcast . Really great guys really liked their podcast . I'll give them a shout out . Ninjas are Butterflies . I love it . It's a very entertaining podcast , but they're talking about that . You know , someone in NASA put out information that there's like an alien , alien ships plural ships coming to Earth , because they caught pictures or readings of these things that are moving through space and then course corrected .
Speaker 1So they were going this way and then the course corrected and started coming this way and they're coming to Earth .
Speaker 2And so that sounds like your lights up at the farm . Yeah , yeah , yeah , which I still haven't found that picture , dude , I looked for like 20 minutes after we got government , got on your phone and deleted it . That's what I think . That's really I think , but uh , yeah , but so he's like I don't know if aliens are real , but I think that the one world order camp is trying to create the illusion of a potential alien invasion .
Speaker 2They want everybody to then come together as a one world and say like you need to let us take over and unite to defend you from the aliens .
Speaker 1You know that like that is like the plot psych , like plot twist to the movie Watchmen . Oh really , but not the uh , not the movie , sorry , the comic for Watchmen . The ending of the movie is different , but um , they like the villain of the of the comic purposefully makes these aliens like . He genetically creates these fake aliens , teleports them and drops them on key points in the world like major cities like New York and China , you know that kind of those kinds of places Tokyo , no , tokyo , and it makes it look like there was was an alien invasion , but when they teleported to attack , they died on impact so then the whole world then would then uh , band together against this outside force of these aliens that seemed to mess up trying to invade earth but screwed it up but messed up on impact .
Speaker 1So like it's like the , like a haunting image in the comic of , like these giant dead squids and all these dead people all around them , type thing .
Speaker 2Interesting .
Speaker 1So Watchmen came out in like the eighties . Maybe they got something right , but it was . It was fake comic the comic , yeah , but so it was like it was fake the comic the comic , yeah . So it was a fake attempt on the villain creating this stuff and it was like we got to tell people about this and they're like , but if we tell people they'll die for nothing because this is working .
Speaker 2Yeah , yeah .
Speaker 1Watchmen is a fantastic comic . I love that movie . It is pretty entertaining . The movie spoiler on the movie movie and it doesn't get the point across as well is they take one of the heroes of the movie who have a lot of power kind of . He's kind of like a superman , like omnipotent kind of character , yeah , and make it look like he's the one who did it to , uh , and it kind of doesn't have the same effect in the movie . The movie's great . I love Zack Snyder movies , by the way .
Speaker 2Yeah .
Speaker 1But it doesn't have the same impact as an outside force they're coming against . Instead , they're trying to be like let's all come to band together against this one guy . Yeah , yeah .
Speaker 2Yeah , I get that yeah .
Speaker 1Yeah , who , at the point of the , the attack was in outer space anyway . So there you go .
Speaker 2There you go . You can't even blame him , because he wasn't even around .
Speaker 1I'm going to watch Watchmen soon . That is literally my favorite movie of all time . Literally , literally my favorite movie of all time Out of all the movies in all of history . Yeah , that's my favorite movie out of all the movies in all of history . Yeah , that's my favorite movie . It's like my version of the movie I have is like a four-hour movie I've got a four-hour movie yeah , but lord of the rings return of the king baby .
Speaker 2Which one's your favorite ?
Speaker 1extended edition I thought you always loved two towers as as your favorite .
Speaker 2No , no Two Towers . I thoroughly enjoy the Two Towers . Helm's Deep , because of Helm's Deep , mm-hmm .
Speaker 1Mm-hmm .
Speaker 2But you know what I don't know ? In the movie you know they're like and the elves come to help out and it helps them hang in there . In the book , the elves never came .
Speaker 1Did they just throw that in in the movie for variety , I guess ?
Speaker 2yeah , it was just creative liberty that peter jackson took um but the idea in the book is that they were able to handle this on their own , without outside help yeah , well , the idea was , it was a fight , it was rohan's fight for rohan's survival , and so , um , you know , it was like the king and his guard and that was pretty much it , and they were trying to survive until help could come , um , and they did , and they did it . So it was kind of like that was like the turning point for like , hey , mankind can step up and fight back against evil so isn't that kind of ?
Speaker 1the point too is like the transition of societal power , where it was the elves and they're kind of disappearing and it's going to be the time of man .
Speaker 2Yeah the because the like . You know , the big thing behind it was like the elves are , they're so concerned with just returning across the sea , um , and so they have no care for middle earth and the dwarves . You know they're here in middle earth but they're very much so like trying like in their own world . They don't really have much to do with the outside world , but in the book they make it clear like the darkness is so vast and the enemy is so big that it's not just like it's not Rohan's being attacked , and then Gondor gets attacked . Gondor gets attacked . It's , you know , all the dwarves at the Lonely Mountain , all the men in Rohan , all the men in Gondor , the elves and their different kingdoms . Everyone's being attacked at different fronts At the same time , at the same time .
Speaker 1It's just we're following the story of the attack that happens in Pelennor Field as , like the big climactic deal , I guess we're gonna have to have some sort of live stream watching lord of the rings at some point . Yeah , dude , I'm down , I'm all about it . Tell us in the comment section if you would like watch alongs with the saints .
Speaker 2Saint boys , saint boys watch alongs with the saints , st Boys , st Boys , so the STS boys , that's right , yeah , but no , yeah , leave in the comments . Okay , so this is what you need to do Tell us your favorite Thanksgiving tradition , let us know if you want to do a watch along with us , and then we'll oh movie Would you want to watch along with us ? And then we'll what movie would you want to watch along with us ? What movie would you ? Yeah , so what Would you do a watch along and if so , what movie ? And if you're playing Throne and Liberty , join our guild .
Speaker 1That's all I got . That's all we got . So a few things as we close out this episode , so I'm doing this again . I made a promise at the end of episode four , going into five , that we were going to have a guest . Guess what I'm doing right now Episode 10 , we're getting a guest , yay .
Speaker 2We're going to play an awesome game .
Speaker 1I'm actually looking really forward to this game . We have been talking about this for weeks . It's going to be good . Hopefully you guys are going to enjoy it .
Music Discussion on Saints That Serve
Speaker 1So tune in to episode 10 . We have our guest , and can I kind of say what the topic of the episode is going to be in general , yes , music .
Speaker 2We're going to be talking about music , so if you're a music lover , then make sure you love our podcast .
Speaker 1And if you're not a music lover , listen and learn with your life . Listen and learn and go home and re-evaluate your life .
Speaker 2Figure out who you are and then get back to us , okay .
Speaker 1The episode will still be waiting for you when you get back and figure out who you are there , go so anyways . So this has been the saints that serve podcast , where christ is king and the kingdom is now . I said that wrong . Christ is lord and the kingdom is now all right . Love you guys , love you guys . Love you guys . Bye , bye , bye . Hello everybody , welcome to the SDS podcast . My name's Debra .
Speaker 2Debra , I'm lactose , intolerant . Where are the cigarettes ? I gotta smoke my cigarettes before we start . Oh no , debra , no , no , no , no , no , no , no .
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