Digital Social Hour
Bryan Calcott vs Demon Erasers : Do You Need Religion to Be a Good Person? | DSH #1597
01 Nov 2025
Chapter 1: What controversial statements are made about morality and belief systems?
Some of the worst people I've ever met in my life have been Christians. Some of the most moral people have all been atheists. And part of the reason why I say that is because an atheist doesn't believe that they're going to be judged for their actions.
I am a Christian and I follow Christ. What that means is to follow Christ. and operate in love. And one of the biggest things that I think, unfortunately, a lot of Christians don't do is operate in love. I know what's right.
I know what's wrong. And I don't have to believe in the fear of hell and the reward of heaven in order to be motivated to do right towards my fellow man.
Religion doesn't really matter. And he came to show us that basically it is your heart that matters and the way you treat people and the way you love people. Like God is love.
Okay, guys, another debate for you guys today. We have a Christian versus a non-theist today, both with the same name and both have been guests on the show. So, gentlemen, thanks for coming on. With a Y, too. Yeah. We're both Ys.
We're both Brian with a Y. Bro, we got it the right way, dude. I know, man. We got it the right way.
We agree on something. We agree. That's the Brian bondage right there. But yeah, Brian, you shared your story with religion, I think, on our first episode, right? Could you briefly go through that again so Brian can understand what you went through?
So my father was a pastor, so I definitely come from a Christian background. I describe myself now, though, as a non-theist. And what I mean by that is that I believe the human condition is one of uncertainty. And I do not believe that you can conclude there is a God with certainty. However, I also believe that you cannot conclude that there is not a God.
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Chapter 2: What is the significance of love in religious teachings?
with certainty. So I have... found the most peace in life with admitting that the human condition is one of uncertainty and will always be one of uncertainty and with that i have found that i direct my energy towards living in the moment and really trying to capitalize on every second because to me it's a very real possibility that this life is all we have and
That rather than taking away from the enjoyment of life, I would say actually adds to it. And it makes me even more appreciative to be alive. And the other thing, too, when it comes to meaning and purpose, I can understand the appeal of wanting to believe that there is this loving and all powerful God and that you are this special creature and he's created you for a purpose and you have a plan.
I do understand why people are emotionally drawn to that. However, I also think about well, you know, if we are primordial ooze, and I just so happen to be here, and I really am the product of a one in like 400 trillion chance that's even possible. It also makes me unbelievably appreciative to be alive.
So that's ultimately what it comes down to is that I think intuitively I know what's right and I know what's wrong and I don't have to believe in, you know, the fear of hell and the reward of heaven in order to be motivated to do right towards my fellow man. I enjoy helping people. I enjoy acting out of love rather than hate.
and i enjoy just knowing that maybe i am here just by chance and to me that is enough i wake up every day with meaning and purpose and like i said it's to me it's really just admitting the you know the reality of the uncertainty of the human condition that has given me the most peace okay so the um
I mean, you said intuitively, and you said being a good person, I guess you would assume. So that kind of assumes a lot of things when it comes to God. And just from my perspective, I'm a Christian, unlike Jordan Peterson. So I am a Christian, and I follow Christ. What that means is to follow Christ and operate in love.
And one of the biggest things that I think, unfortunately, a lot of Christians don't do is operate in love. And I think you've been shown a pretty poor example. I mean, the fact that your father was, you know, you know, somebody that was a pastor and has like, obviously you've been through, you shared a little bit before about some of the trauma.
I think this is, these are bad examples that, you know, that a lot of Christians unfortunately put out. And it seems that The definition of what Jesus came to show us is that religion doesn't really matter. And he came to show us that basically it is your heart that matters and the way you treat people and the way you love people. God is love.
And so Jesus' example, I think, is a very unique example that I think a lot of people sort of miss. And a lot of Christians, unfortunately, miss. They want to hold everybody to standards and rules. But it literally says in the Bible, it says, you know, all things are lawful, but not all things are profitable.
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Chapter 3: How do personal experiences shape beliefs about God and morality?
Well, I think it well, I think that it makes them feel good. And I don't think that there's a problem. And granted, there are. And this is kind of what I went through with Jordan Peterson when I was talking about benefits. He said, you know, are we talking about a whim? You know, are we talking about something deeper?
So when I'm talking about good, when I'm talking about the benefit, if you want to get down to the Jordan Peterson semantics. I'm not talking about a dopamine rush. Oh, I just had a sip of coffee and woo, I feel good. I'm talking about the deeper, meaningful kinds of things. Like if you hold a baby in your arm, if you see an amazing sunset, things of that nature.
When I say good, that's ultimately what I'm talking about. And I don't think that there's anything wrong with doing something that makes you feel good. So as long as it comes at the benefit of someone else. What I would say is wrong is when it's a zero sum game and my benefit is coming at your expense.
And what you ultimately see in those situations is that when I'm living at the expense of others, I think I'm being benefited, but ultimately I'm not. And when you go to ecological systems, I'm obsessed with regenerative agriculture, and you look at what happens in the soil and how nothing exists in a vacuum, and there's this whole symbiotic relationship
where if something is being taken, it's being given back at the same time. So to sit there and say that I'm motivated by good because it makes me feel good. And like I said, I'm not talking about a whim, talking about that deeper meaning. I don't think there's anything immoral or wrong with that. So as long as my good is also associated with your good.
I'm not gonna feel good about taking $100,000 from you, but I would feel good about making $100,000. Like you're a marketer, I market too. I would feel great about making $100,000 off of you because I just helped you launch a product and you just did $10 million in sales. We both benefited. So my whole concept of morality is symbiotic.
And I think that when you look at life, the only reason life exists is because of that symbiotic relationship where if something is taken, it is given back. If it's only a one way street. things don't sustain themselves and ecosystems that have actors to where they're just taking from the system and they're not giving back, they ultimately collapse.
And you see that in the human body with cancer cells. What about chickens? What about them?
what do chickens give you other than eggs? Like, what do you give the chicken?
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Chapter 4: How do historical contexts influence modern interpretations of religion?
I'm like, yeah. He's like, oh, carry on. And he gets in the car and leaves. I'm... completely shocked. I go home and I'm like, listen, other girlfriend, I ain't talking to you. We need to cut things off. I was like, girlfriend, like we are not sleeping together. I was like, we are not, we gotta be righteous. I don't know what's happening. I don't know what just happened, bro.
God made it rain on me. She's just like, what bro? I go to sleep. I wake up the next day. This old man walks into my building and I'm like, Hey, what's up old man. I'm working with another client. He's like, he's like, Hey, I'm here. I'm like, you have a business. No. Do you need stickers? No. Do you need business? Do you need design? No. And I'm like, What are you?
And then finally I pull him aside. I'm like, listen, guy, I'm about to kick you out of my building. You're freaking me out. Some old random dude walking into my building. You don't have a business. You don't like, what do you do? And the guy tells me, so it's a, he literally tells me I do miracles and he goes, and I teach people how to cast out demons and how to heal people.
And he goes, I'm pretty sure God told me to come here today. Like the most insanely like shocking experience. I'm like, I'm like, what dude prays for my girlfriend. I have never seen anything like that. And I had been to churches. I grew up in like, I didn't grow up in the church, but I started going to churches.
Like, bro, I've seen people get healed in church and then they come back and they're broken again. You know, like all that fake stuff that you see. And I've seen the people get knocked over. And I was like, that's hypnosis. Bro, when that dude prayed, like I have never seen a change like that ever. Like, bro, medical things gone, behaviors gone, depression gone, like sadness gone.
She slept the whole night. I ain't never seen that before. Like, bro, that changed my perspective. And so I said, Lord, I don't know what this is, but I need to know. I asked the dude to train me, to teach me, and he told me no. He said, your heart is wrong. And then the Lord, through crazy circumstances, ended up having me
be trained by somebody else and he eventually trained me and now this is what i do bro i cast out demons and heal people bro this is not it's not a joke it's not like the fake like christianity that so many people follow what do you say though and and i don't want to discount your experience and discredit it and i'm not trying to tell you that i don't think that you really witness those things i firmly believe that you have a belief that you witness those things i mean you're
You're being brought to tears right now. So I don't want to ask this question and appear that I just brushed your experience under the table and not acknowledging it. So I just want to say I acknowledge it. Thank you for sharing that. I understand it's a very powerful and moving experience.
My contention, though, is that I have seen people from other religions with other belief systems describe the same kind of miraculous experiences brought to tears. I mean, literally like right in front of me, like what you just did. And that's why they believe in their spiritual system or their religion or whatever it is.
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Chapter 5: How do personal experiences shape beliefs about God?
I didn't just grow up in this perspective. I was aware of it. I was the one that decided to go to church as a child when I was a kid. I made my family go because I was trying to finance because I saw a little shadow thing in my room that freaked me out. You ever seen the shadow beings in your room?
Ever saw those ones? When I had sleep paralysis, I saw them.
But to me, it's like the mind is such a powerful thing. where I think we don't acknowledge just what the mind is capable of seeing and capable of doing. I mean, it's like your mind is this quantum fucking machine that... Everybody has the same experiences, though.
Everybody's having a similar experience. I mean, why didn't he see a pink bunny in his room? Why does everybody see the black shadows in their realm?
I mean, have you seen the DMT research that's being done?
Oh, that's totally going into the demonic realm. That's 100% real.
Yeah, I mean, Graham Hancock talked about it on the Joe Rogan podcast.
It's pretty fucking crazy. And he talks about the entities that happen to be all over the Aztec wall with all the snakes that come out of them. Yeah, you know about those guys?
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Chapter 6: What is the significance of free will in the context of suffering?
The snake heads that are all over the Aztecs? Yeah, bro.
But Graham Hancock, though, he believes in Atlantis and he believes that the flood that was related to the Younger Dryas Comets that came and ultimately wiped away the Atlantis civilization, and that you look at Gobekli Tepe in Turkey, and that's ultimately where our civilization that we're connected to started, and it was with the information that came pre-flood.
And that's once again, like you go back and you look at the archeological record,
Our archaeological record is not valid, bro. Like, it's so broken in so many parts. Geological, then.
The geological record showing that the Younger Dryas Comet did smash into the North American ice sheets did create this massive— Sure, there was some kind of—there's multiple.
I mean, why—let me ask you a question. Why is there no Zeus worshippers today? Where are all the Zeus worshippers at? I mean, I think you could say it goes back to— Where's the Zoanthrianism worshippers? Where's the Babylonian worshippers? Where'd they all go? Why are we digging up their temples, bro? Why are we still digging them up?
Okay, but by your own logic then, they're still Jews and they're still Muslims. So does that give their religion credibility too?
No, no, Jews and Muslims came after the Judaism that today came after Jesus.
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Chapter 7: How do different cultures interpret morality?
Just so you know, like it's a totally different form of Judaism.
Well, I know there's a Judaism, the mysticism that was, you know, 1000 AD that came about. But I, for me, the archaeological... Okay, so check this out. So my belief from the archaeological record is that the Jewish religion that you're referring to did not come after Jesus and that there's clear archaeological evidence that shows that it came after 587 BC.
So telling me about the specific interpretation of it and whatnot, et cetera, et cetera, that is not going to convince me until you can point to actual archaeological evidence that shows that that Jewish religion didn't come about after 587 B.C. and before Jesus. And I'm not trying to be an ass here, but it's like you're making these claims.
I'm saying the archaeological record does not support that in any It seems like you say, well, no, it does, and let me tell you why. Here's the interpretation, and you start going into the interpretation without actually relying on archaeological evidence.
Okay, well, here's what I would say.
Because the Dead Sea Scrolls were 100 AD, and that was before Jesus, was it not?
Yeah, there were some components to it.
So the Dead Sea Scrolls were before Jesus, and the Dead Sea Scrolls were the Jewish religion that I'm talking about.
Yes, and that's the one that I refer to mostly, actually. The Dead Sea Scrolls are fascinating. In fact, the Dead Sea Scrolls talk about the other gods that I'm referring to.
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Chapter 8: What conclusions can be drawn about the nature of God and humanity?
Yeah, they were very, very precise. But that, to me, supports what I just said, that it was the Jewish religion after 587 BC, which became before Jesus, And I guess I would need to know what Jewish religion you're talking about because the Jewish religion I'm talking about is a Jewish religion that was contained in the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Oh, the Jewish religion in the Dead Sea Scrolls is very valid in a lot of ways, and it's very interesting.
But it's literally the first five books of the Torah. It's the second book of prophets.
Bro, it talks. It's got the book of Enoch in there. It talks about the other entities. It talks about the other gods that you're questioning about. Like when you read the second, there's so many crazy stuff.
I'm not questioning those gods.
Yeah.
I'm saying that those interpretations of those gods that we know of came 3,500 years before the first Jewish interpretation. My claim is that the first Jewish interpretation was after 587 BC and that we have these original stories, everything that you're admitting, I would say the truth of the existence of, that those original stories came 3,500 years before there was this interpretation.
I don't think we can say that. it came that time frame like the thing is like our datings is is not determinably accurate and so here's what i would say is like the in regards to i get where your perspective is i get that your your your your view is like well this came first so this must be truth
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