Faith and Future Projects

Does truth exist? Because you have faith, does that make this book clear? Does God exist. So when someone says there is no truth, if you apply the claim to itself, what should you say? Is that true? They don't think Christianity's true. They're talked out of it! You know why they're talked out of it? Because they've never been talked into it! Cross-examining skeptical and atheistic views. Welcome to Cross Examine with Dr. Frank Turk Ladies and gentlemen, a little over a month ago I got an email from a very thoughtful public intellectual that I've been following for a long time on YouTube. In fact, he hosts one of the most popular talk shows on the internet for believers and non-believers. that covers politics in current events and he's known for doing something that's very rare in our culture today and that's having civil and open conversations with people who disagree with him. Now Despite him being thought of as an atheist at one point because he had so many atheists on his show This man wanted to have me on his show to talk about I don't have enough faith to be an atheist. And we recorded that episode last month down at his studio in Miami. And you can go to his YouTube channel and see it now. You can also see thousands of other interviews he's done there, and his own daily commentary, which really injects a lot of sanity into the bloodstream of this crazy world. Of course I'm talking about Mr Dave Rubin. of the very popular Rubin Report. Now you need to know that Dave is the uh New York Time New York Times best selling author of two books. The first is called Don't Burn This Book. Thinking for yourself in an age of unreason. And his second is don't burn this country. Surviving and thriving in our woke dystopia. Now you're as you're about to see. We're going to talk about some delicate issues in this show, including same-sex marriage and if Dave would become a Christian if it were really true. This is not going to be a debate. the few issues on which we disagree. Purpose of this show is to see and hear what Dave thinks. And as you'll see, he's very complimentary of evangelical Christians. He's spoken to many of them over the years, so Let's start out the interview with Dave Rubin. Here he is. Dave, welcome to the show. Frank, it's good to be with you. Long time no speak. Yeah, that's right. Well, we were together about a month ago, man. That was a great interview. You're such a great interviewer, and so many of the people that I sent that show to just really enjoyed it. So Thanks for returning the favor. I I appreciate that and you know if I've learned one thing as an interviewer in this last decade or whatever it is, it's that if if you're sitting down with someone that knows what they think, they know why they think it, they believe it, and they really want to communicate it. It really makes your job pretty simple. You basically if you don't fall out of your chair, you can consider it a good day. And uh yes, you made my job very easy that day. Well Dave, if that were the case, everyone would have two million U YouTube subscribers. But you do. So that you you you do have a talent for this. But let's start at the beginning. What's the history of the Rubin Report? How did it come to be? Because you were a comedian early on. How did this happen? Sure. So I graduated college back in May of 98, and one week after that, when I finally realized that I needed a job, I thought I'd be a stand up comic. My my friends were all funny. It's it seemed to me that somebody was gonna be a comedian. Nobody else jumped at it. I was like, I guess I'll be a comedian. And I brought a couple of friends. I was at New York Comedy Club, I think first week of June 98. And you know, most comics, you do really not you're not even a comic at that point, whatever the hell you are at that point. Most people who get on stage to do comedy for the first time, you usually do pretty well because you don't even know how to screw anything up and there's sort of a nervous energy attached to it. And I really kind of crushed it that first night. There was an agent in the crowd who came up to me and said that uh I reminded her of a young Ted Danson, which I thought was quite a compliment. And uh and I was like, all right, I guess I'm gonna be a comic. And you know, for the next fifteen or so years in New York City, uh till I moved to LA in twenty thirteen, I had all the ups and downs and successes and failures of being a stand up, you know, handing out tickets in Times Square for hours on end to get Uh stage time. I started a couple of comedy clubs with some comics to make a little money. I did every freaking odd job under the sun you can think of, from bartending and waiting tables to, you know, to doing factory jobs and at working at accounting firms and temp jobs and everything just to, you know, make a dime so I could keep the dream alive. 2013, uh I get an opportunity to to move out to LA to do a show with the young Turks, uh, who are a pretty far left progressive network. I was I was fairly left at the time. I don't think I was ever sort of what we now see as sort of exposed complete bananas leftiness that's virtually everywhere. What we what we all call wokeness now. Uh but I was part of that network. Did that for about two years. Then I started kind of waking up politically to a lot of the ideas that now people know me for, the things that I that I often talk about on the show and I interview people like you about. Uh and then in 2015 uh started really the full interview show that kind of put me really on the map. And then in the last three years or so we started what my daily show is now, which actually is bringing me the most joy, which is just, you know, basically an hour a day. talking directly to the camera about what's going on dur in in the world in terms of culture, politics, philosophy, religion, all of those things. Trying to tie those things together so that the show doesn't feel like, you know, most people do in politics. It's all right, Trump said this, DeSantis said this, Biden said that. And I feel it it can kind of leave you hollow inside. And what I try to do every day is tie a whole bunch of themes together, often showing old clips of philosophers or religious or political leaders, link them to what's going on today. And just to give people a little something, you know, if you give me an hour of your day. Five days a week, uh, I consider that an honor and a privilege. And I don't want it to be something that's gonna lead you to be more neurotic or angry or upset or anything else. So uh that's what I'm doing now and a certain amount of people seem to enjoy it and uh And I'm enjoying it, so I guess it's working. Well a lot of people enjoy it. Was there one video or series of videos that sort of went viral that sort of put the Rubin report on the map? What was it? The famous one is the Larry Elder interview, when I was really just waking up out of leftism. I was coming around, I was starting to talk to some people like Larry Elder and Glenn Beck and Ben Shapiro, and Larry Elder, who is a conservative who happens to be black. Uh he has been a radio, big time radio host in the LA area for decades now. We had never met before. We sat down, we started talking about things like quote unquote systemic racism and policing as it relates to race and a bunch more. And he just laid it out with facts, did it very respectfully, but really hit me over the head with a bunch of stuff. And I did not have the proper responses, but what it did do because I didn't have the facts with me. So he was hitting me with facts. And if you don't have facts to uh back yourself up, you end up yelling at somebody. I did not yell at him. I just kind of took the hit. And what was interesting about that moment. which has now been seen millions and millions and millions of times. It's been clipped from Here to Eternity, is we did not air that live. That was not a live stream, but we were live to tape and then it was going to air the next day. And when I went into the control room, I had a bunch of producers at the time. And everybody was saying to me, before I even had a chance to say anything, everybody was saying, Dave, don't worry about it. We're going to cut that. Obviously we're not going to air that portion. And you know, Frank, you have these moments in life where you do something and you don't even know exactly why you do it, but it's the right thing to do. And really, I genuinely mean this without thinking. I just said no, we we have to air that as is. If if I'm an interviewer. If I'm gonna cut the part of the interview that is the best part, that's the meat and all of that, I'm gonna cut it because it's making me look bad, then then really I should get another job. I remember thinking that very clearly. We left that portion in, we did not edit it. I never edit any of my interviews. And uh, you know, the video goes up the next day and it starts getting clipped and you know it's black conservative destroys white lib tart and all all of that stuff. But what I started seeing over the course of a couple hours were people in the comments going, you know, it seems like Ruben kind of listened to him. It seems like, you know, maybe he'll explore this a little bit more, talk to some other people. And that's exactly what I did. I continued to have conversations with more right-leaning people on economics and a whole bunch more. And that opened up my world. And I and I think really the magic of I suppose what I've done, if if that's a fair term for me to say, is that people just watched my evolution happen in real time. I wasn't faking it. It didn't just appear out of nowhere. It was something that they got to see every week, and that led me to now doing a show where I can express my opinions clearly. So I think that really is the that's the origin story that uh I think Well, it's the truth and I think it's it's sort of beautiful in a s in a regard because you saw it happen right in front of you. Well, that's what you're known for. You're known for doing great interviews and even interviews with people you disagree with. And you have a civil and open conversation. That's what people are missing. in today's cancel culture. So Friends, if you haven't availed yourself of the Rubin report, check it out. It's on YouTube, it's on Rumble, and we'll talk about some other places you can see it here in just a few minutes. In fact, Dave started a a new way of supporting people without going through Patreon. We'll get to that a little bit later as well. Um now You started as a classical liberal, Dave, and then you After the twenty election, you said, Hey, libertarians, classic liberals. You need to start voting Republican now. Why did you say that? Yeah, well, truth be told, I do consider myself a classical liberal still. It's just that it's it's a phrase at this point that is almost impossible to break through the the zeitgeist at the moment. So a classical liberal you I can lay it out very clear in that was what my first book was all about. You believe in individual rights, you believe in laissez faire economics, you believe in logic and reason. And you believe that, you know. nation state should exist, things like that. And then we can get into like every little specific of the of the political preferences, but those are the basic ideas of that. Most of those ideas are now thought of as republican concept. Meaning if you believe in individual rights, you believe in laissez-faire economics so low taxes, you believe in borders, uh logic and reason, reality, science, I mean real things. These these are now conservative principles. So the line I always have on this is that defending my liberal beliefs has principle. It became fairly obvious to me after uh having vote I voted for Gary Johnson in two thousand sixteen. He was the libertarian candidate. I wasn't quite there yet on Trump. I really didn't like Hillary. You know, I'm mo a lot of my beliefs are just live and let live libertarian stuff. So even though I obviously knew Gary Johnson wasn't gonna be president and also I was in Cali at the time. where my vote was a throw away no matter what, I thought okay, that that'll give me the cleanest conscience in terms of who I'm Putting who I'm uh voting for. Um And became obvious to me that if you cared about some of the things that I just laid out, that Trump obviously was the right answer. Now did I have issues stuff and all that? Of course I did. Of course I did. Of course virtually everyone watching this does. And I and I it's funny because the second time around I voted for him Very enthusiastically. despite having some reservations. Now I'm back to more reservations with him, I think, because of some of his behaviors. related to DeSantis, but that that's a whole other topic. Basically, if you want to live a life where you can live as you see fit and respect. that your neighbor might live a bit of a different way, as long as you do not encroach on each other's freedoms, as long as you do not try to take from one person to give to another person. And all of those things. then in essence you s you almost at this point within the constructs of a two party system have to vote. Republican. Uh I often say on my show that you don't have to be a Republican, but you cannot be a Democrat, and I think really that's the best way to describe it. Uh, you don't have to be a card carrying member of the Republican Party. I am actually, by the way, because having moved to Florida, we have such a functional Republican Party that is now made this the redest state in the Union and and the most functional state, not only in America, but possibly in the world. Um, so I was very proud to register as a publican here. I don't sit here waving the flag like you've got, you know, the the elephant flag, you've got to be a republican. The idea is right now the Democrat Party is rotten from top to bottom. There are virtually no good ideas there. The idea of uh JFK ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. That is 180 the reverse of the modern Democrat Party. They are constantly telling you what the government can do for you, but what that really means is what we can take from someone else to give to this. set of people. on top of identity politics and everything else. So To me, if you are Old school liberal, a JFK style liberal, or if you're more libertarian than that, you just want virtually no government. Or you're a more traditional Conservative. a religious conservative, whatever it might be. There's common cause and we have to figure out what the touch points are. to build a wide coalition there. There are times when it really works and it's somewhat easy to do, and there are times when it's gonna be more difficult to do. But I think that that's a worthy venture. And as I often say to my other disaffected liberal friends it's like you guys can try to fix the Democrat Party. So for example, RFK Junior right now. I think is a roughly sane Democrat. I have some differences with him on affirmative action and a bunch of other things. But he's a roughly same Democrat. It seems fairly obvious to me that the end of his journey, he's either gonna be an independent or eventually a Republican. Because there's just nothing to save there where I think his his um skills, his talents, his mind would be better used. Being on the same more libertarian wing of a Republican Well, as you've pointed out, you know, the left is inconsistent on so many things. On one hand, they believe in individualism so much that they think a man is free to become a woman if he wants, but on the other hand, they believe in individualism so little that if you disagree with them, they're gonna shut you down, Dave. They're gonna cancel you. the left, and particularly the Democratic Party, become the party of government censorship, big tense uh big tech censorship, cancel culture? How did this happen to them? Well I think Ben Shapiro hit it well years ago when he came up with that line that became a meme, Facts don't care about your feelings. And I think that that really was it. That the modern left Mostly is based on emotion and feelings. They don't really know why they believe in something, but they feel it very strongly, and then they want everyone else to feel it too. You know, none of it makes sense. You know, on one hand, we were locking everyone down, which of course wasn't based on science and forcing people to be injected with things, not letting people go out to work, all these things. Then there was the the summer of the BLM Antifa George Flo riots, and suddenly the same people who were locking everybody down. We're saying actually you should go out and protest because that's also very important to do, and it could sometimes supersede public health. It's another type of health. I mean literally they were saying these things, these nonsensical things. Where I was in Los Angeles, that's what Eric Garcetti was our mayor. He wanted us locked down, not going to work. going to our you know grandparents' funerals, but when the George Floyd riots came, he was out on the streets literally with a bent knee in front of activists. That was the level of the craziness, but but there's a reason. for that craziness. It's it's the disconnect. between anything is real. They did not know why they were out there, but they knew that if they yelled loud or whatever, it would fill some hole in them. That'll probably get us to some of the the religious stuff that I'm sure you want to talk about. And and I think that that that hole uh which once was either filled with God and or family and or some of some of the Basic realities. that we used to all know were were good for the most part. They don't have those things anymore. And they've decided that government on any given day. Can decide this or that and then decide how you should It for example, just as I was uh coming to the studio today, we were in the car. I'm looking at Twitter and I see a tweet from from Ilhan Omar, who is no friend of America and it's it's a tragedy. and a travesty that she's even in Congress right now. where she's saying that there is a climate emergency and we must act accordingly, something to that effect. And it's like, lady, first off, there is no climate emergency. Science is very divided on this heat and temperatures change over time. It's cyclical, all of those things. Even p even if you believed that man made global warming was happening. The idea that you should give more power to the government over what you should eat and what you should drive and what you should cook on and all these things. is completely insane, especially knowing that it would have no effect. countries like China and India that are going through their own industrial revolutions right now. Th the amount of Uh the amount of emissions that they are putting out far outweigh what we're doing in the United States right now. But what right do we have to tell them even if it was doing anything to the environment, that they cannot do the same in uh industrial revolution that we went through. So There's just a litany of things. It's it's a group of people basically. who just want something to be a certain way. I I believe the world is a certain way and then you can behave within that to some extent to maximize your purpose and happiness and those things. They want the world to just bow to them, and that's just not how it works. Well, unfortunately they think they can f they can create reality and impose it on everybody else. Now you cover this every day, Dave. I you know this I I I keep my finger on it too. But I talk to a lot of people now, they are just so beaten down by this stuff. How do you keep your sanity? when you immerse yourself in this stuff every day and then have to comment on You know, it it can be tricky for sure. One thing that I started doing, this will be my seventh August doing it, I do an off the grid August where I literally no phone, no TV, no news. No newspapers, nothing. I disappear to an undisclosed location in various parts of the world. And I just let my brain reset. And I'm usually at some beach or ocean type situation. And I I actually don't even read a lot. A lot of days I'm just staring out at the ocean and just kinda Letting my mind go, uh, try to eat right, exercise, take care of myself. And and just get a renewal so that when I come back into the fight I'm ready to do it. And if you know if you do that for one month a year, that's a twelfth of the year. That's that's a pretty significant portion. to reset and come back with fresh eyes, realizing that oh You know, I miss a bunch of stuff. One year I missed the the Charlottesville incident, you know, the the neo Nazis and that whole thing. I miss that. Last year I missed the Mar-Lago raid. That happened, I think, on August 4th. So I had a month where I didn't know that that happened until I came back in September. But when these things when you learn that these things happen. You go, oh, so some stuff h the Afghanistan withdrawal the year before, I missed that. Things happen and you go, oh, the world just kept turning and now I can comment on it again. And it's okay that I wasn't part of the fight the entire time. And I think th that sort of perspective and fresh eyes and and giving a little break. I think helps. I think, you know, also keeping things In perspective, you know, uh even during COVID when I lived in Los Angeles, my life, fortunately, what happened in the four walls of my home. was very good and and stable and decent. Um, and I think that there's a a lot of us feel this weird thing where You know, we're basically doing the best we can in our life and, you know, hopefully we're in decent relationships and, you know, we have a little money to do the things we want to do and something like, you know, roughly approximate to that. And then you have that, and that's like kind of okay. And then you have a world that's just spinning and completely out of control and nuts. You have to realize you can only control things to a certain degree. So if you can keep your own house in order Then the stuff the other stuff, it's not that it doesn't matter because You know, can they destroy the economy, which eventually will come to your doorstep? Of course. Can they get rid of cars, you know, so that all of the things that they can do, sure. Can they get us into wars that will endlessly plunder us? Of course. Can they censor you? And they censor you. All of the things, and I've dealt with plenty of that. They can do all of those things, but you have control over certain things, and I think if you really look at the things you can control and focus on those. Um I think it helps remove some of the craziness. It's not, trust me, there are mornings I wake up and I'm like, man, the the amount of craziness we're gonna have to cover today, how do I do it? You know, but I try to do it with a little bit of humor. And as I said, if someone gives me an hour, my goal is not to make them depressed. I want them to feel like, oh, I got a little something. I either I learned a little something today. Or I chuckled a couple of times or whatever, so that I can go out and and do whatever it is that I do. So that that's how I try to frame it. Check out uh the Ruben Report friends. Uh you can go to Rubenreport.com, you can go there on YouTube, you can go to Rumble, wherever you get podcasts, you can also get the Ruben Report Podcast. But I recommend you watch it 'cause you've got a lot of video clips, which is uh makes it a lot more fun. So friends, if you haven't checked out Dave Rubin, check it out there. Dave, we talk a lot as you know on this this programs called I don't have enough faith to be an atheist. We talk a lot about religion and what people believe and you've been on a bit of a spiritual journey 'cause you started early on as an atheist as a young man. but you've kind of transitioned uh a little bit more toward God. I I could say, what would you call yourself now? Where are you on in this process? Well, I absolutely believe in God. And you know, when I there was it's funny because What happened my my sort of journey towards atheism and then out of atheism are are sort of interesting and they relate to something that I was talking about earlier about how people saw my evolution happen in real time. What happened was I had had a bunch of well known atheists on the show because there was a period, and you have to remember the interview show, which I said started in around 2015. There was this real sort of a awakening, I guess you could call it, of atheism in America, this new atheist movement. And there was Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris and a bunch of other people. Hitchens had already passed away, but there was this there was a movement of these people that were making a lot of sense on a lot of issues, including political issues. That then that then sort of that was like the door that allowed the political part of it was the door that allowed people to enter sort of the more atheistic world, let's say. bunch of these people on the show. Sam Harris several times, Richard Dawkins, a a bunch of these guys. And Although I had never said I was an atheist. People started saying I was an atheist because I kept having these people on and I treated them with respect. Now what was interesting was I was having plenty of religious leaders on too or people of faith all the time. I've had Dennis Prager on a million times. So I was doing both, but for whatever reason, people because I was talking to the atheists and not them or anything else, there it started becoming more and more so that I was an atheist. And then and then there was, I would say, about a two year period where I really did consider myself an atheist. And then to link it to what we were just discussing before. years ago I was doing my off the grid August thing. And we're sitting there. I'm in Bora Bora. I remember exactly where I was sitting. I'm staring at basically the edge of the universe. You know, it's the it's French Polynesia. All you can see is water, one of those over the water huts. And I remember thinking it was just it just popped in my head, like God exists. This is just not it. It's not just this. It's not this. It's not this. And that was the thought that I said when I came back on, you know, I do these big comeback shows at the beginning of September, and that's all I said. Got a lot of atheists really, really pissed at me. I didn't belittle anybody. I didn't uh demean anybody. I didn't announce that I'm, you know Going to church every weekend or anything like that. I just said something else is going on. And then I just again started having more and more of these conversations. I think um You know, I I would say Dennis Prager at a at a spiritual level was probably the most important person to me specifically. On the spiritual side. Uh, but then of course, you know, I was also touring with Jordan Peterson around this time. And we did, you know, we about twenty five countries, a year and a half, about a hundred and twenty shows. And Jordan, of course, was linking a lot of things back to religion and the importance of stories and the why the biblical stories are so important. All these things. So I had so many touch points that were kind of all coming together. That I would say to be respectful of time. That's that's sort of my journey back. Uh towards faith. So Jordan had a lot to do with it. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Well look, uh, you know, I I would say to people all the time, because I was seeing, you know, we would do these shows, I would open for Jordan, there would be 5,000 people night after night after night after night. It was absolutely extraordinary. And the guy gives a different lecture every night. It was it was unbelievable. I I Truly, I sometimes look back on it and I think, was that a dream? Did that even happen? It was just so incredible. But one of the cool things for me was, you know, so I'd be on stage and then I'd bring Jordan on and then I'd be watching from right off stage. But basically I'm I you know be a few feet off stage and a few feet behind Jordan. So I could see behind Jordan, I could watch the whole crowd reacting. And you could see the emotion in me. And sometimes just the stoicism in people, the absolute focus and concentration. And he was getting people to clean their room and take care, set order in their own lives before they went out to set the world. And then talking to them about the importance of belief and and very often One or five or even maybe seven or eight biblical stories and how They're important relative to the things that are happening politically, culturally, otherwise. And I thought, man, if if this stuff that he's doing every night, I see the way it's turning people's lives around. If that can't get in me. then then sort of what am I doing here? It's kind of like that Larry Elder question. If I'm an interviewer and when the truth happens, I can't be part of it, then what am I doing here? And I and I think that that really did uh affect me in that way. And I'll just say one other thing about Jordan and and belief. Jordan has a great line on belief that I think um really helps sort of the hyper rational mind. connect to belief, because that's always a struggle, right, between rationality. And belief. Jordan Jordan once said I've heard him say it a few times, but Uh he said that when he was in his early twenties He started uh saying the truth for the sake of the truth, because he believed that that would put the most order in the world. meaning that sometimes it's absolutely easier to lie. It doesn't mean that good things are always going to happen to you because you tell the truth. But He believes and and his his leap of faith in essence was if I tell the truth, it is an absolute leap of faith. to believe it will be the best possible outcome. And I really thought that that is almost the best way for the rational mind And then the idea of belief, which is an irrational thought. at least in the most sort of esoteric sense. It's the most it's the best way to combine those two things. So I I think that's something that uh that I've incorporated into my life and uh and I think Well, quite literally I think millions of people have because of George. As you said, you've had so many great conversations in addition to Dennis Prager several times. You've had atheists, you had Michael Shermer. I was just watching you with Michael Shermer and uh Dennis Prager earlier today from about six or seven years ago. Native God, yeah. Yeah, yeah, great conversation. You've had of course John Lennox on, you've had Bishop Barron on, Justin Brierly. I've I've been blessed to be on your program. And you've done it, even though at the time you may not have been a Christian. You may not have been a even a believer in God. You may you're you're you you identify as gay and you knew that those people would disagree with you on some things, but you still had them on and you were open to the interaction. What's the overall takeaway or what have you discovered from having conversations with so many people who may disagree with you on some issues like this? Yeah. Well, first off, my my reasoning for doing that was I want actually to live in a society with people that think differently. It it's okay if your neighbor is a Christian and you are a Muslim and the guy on the other side is an atheist and the guy across the street is gay and you know all of these things. These things are okay. Within the construct of America as the great melting pot, as the place where people from all walks of life have come to to build a better life. for themselves and their families and we've done From a uh an American perspective. like no other country in the history of the world, as Dennis Baker often says, it's it's this incredible ongoing experiment. Sometimes, especially in these last few years, it feels tenuous. And I think we have to always fight to to strengthen it. I really felt that always. Like, why wouldn't I talk to this person? Let oh let are you am I supposed to believe this Christian just hates me just like that? Well, I don't know, let me sit down and talk to them and sometimes about uncomfortable things or debate abortion with this person or death penalty with that person or whatever it might be. Uh I for the most part I have found Almost without exception, actually, I have found religious people, especially the ones that I've sat down with, regardless of religion. Specific denomination. Uh to be respectful, open minded, decent. You know, I spoke at um Liberty University. It's the largest evangelical college in the United States. I spoke at Sunday convocation, 14,000 kids. That that's a huge, huge, crazy auditorium full Of truly. I mean it felt like a true political rally to put that in context. The largest show I ever did with Jordan Peterson, who's the most prominent public figure in the entire world. The largest show we ever did was 8,000 people. So this is massive. I don't hide my sexuality. I don't hide my public opinions. Not only did I get a standing ovation there, but I spent the afternoon wandering around the campus, walking around with the dean. Uh and kids were coming up to me and taking selfies and high fives and some said, you know, I I disagree with you on this, or some said I'm praying you uh for you on this or that. Right. I thought these people aren't trying to lynch me. They're not trying to kill me. Like there there's common cause here. And I think if we can do a little more of that, that that would probably Probably help. And also one other thing, you know, especially during COVID. Where so many people went so overboard crazy. Sam Harris who we referenced earlier, I would say is one of the people His hyper rational mind could not come to grips with what was going on and really got so many things wrong about COVID. I found the most rational people related to COVID or not forcing people to be injected with things or not bowing to the government in entirety and all of that. We're religious people. And I and I really like that. It was one of those things that example of why belief actually matters. Yeah, that's 'cause we think there's a higher authority beyond government. And I guess if you don't have God, what what's a higher authority than government? It's either you or the government. Like, where do you go, you know? Hebrew National hot dogs, we answer to a higher authority. Let me also mention this. There are many people, I think, both on the right and the left, that think if you identify it as gay, you must agree with everything the human rights campaign agrees with, or what they what they what they are for on their website. Uh Now you don't. W where has the HRC gone wrong? And why are they wrong? Well first let me say let me just say something like broadly about being gay, because I'm guessing uh am I your first openly gay guest? Is that fair to say? I don't know. I'd have to think about that. Maybe. Yeah. Maybe, maybe. Right. Okay. So it doesn't even it doesn't even matter other than for your for your audience, I would just say. in that they haven't probably seen you have that many of these conversations. I would say Being gay c should be completely separated from the trans thing, which is a sort of very new uh psychological phenomenon, which in some ways is the most anti-gay thing there is, because if there were a group of Christians trying to chop off the genitals of young gay children. the entire machine in the mainstream media would be telling you how evil the Christians are. They do it in the name of tolerance and diversity and everything else because what's happening is most of these kids who are transitioning. They most likely are effeminate boys. So they're probably seven or eight year old boys who happen to like Barbie or Pink or something like that. Or they're more masculine girls. They're what we used to call tom boys. So they the it's odd because these are the people who say you can be anything, you can do anything. And then they have the most rid regimented, rigid view of how you should behave related to your gender, because if you like blue, you're a boy, but if you're a boy who likes pink, you must be a girl. So they they've got such a confused relation to all these things. But on the on the gay thing specifically, I would say that like in every other animal on earth. Ga same sex attraction is a real thing. I don't think it is a mental disorder or anything else. Uh there are, but believe me, I tried very, very hard, as hard as you can pop possibly imagine. to be gay in my early twenties and all of those things. Um and and millions of other people have tried and and conversion therapy and all these things and these things that don't work. Um there is a fundamental difference between attraction and disassociation from your body and all of those things. Um the thing with uh to get it to the HRC and some of the activist organizations, GLAD and that sort of thing. is that what gay people were fighting for uh in the seventies, eighties, that sort of thing. They were fighting for equality, meaning marriage equality. Give us the ability to enter a relationship so we can be functional members of society. There's tax purposes for it beyond. existential reasons and all of those things. Um And and to me that is just. It's absolutely just. By the way, I would never force a church to perform a gay wedding. I would never force a mosque or a temple or anything else to do it. But and if but as long as the the civil rights are the exact same regardless of the nature of the relationship, then I think That's fine. That's the promise of America, the equal protection under the law and individual rights. But again, I have no problem with religious liberty related to this. I would not force a a baker to bake any specific So you agree. Oh absolutely, absolutely. And by the way, we all know that. We all know that. Remove being gay for a second. Would anyone force a Muslim baker to bake a cake of the Prophet Muhammad in drag. Everyone knows you wouldn't force someone to do that anymore. T shirt maker to make t shirts for the Westboro Baptist Church. Precisely. Exactly. Yeah. Precisely. So these things are a two-way road and and unfortunately the media and the left generally don't deal with them in any level of Honesty, so they just say now it's all about bigotry and everything. Anyway. While I have no doubt that much of your audience has their own personal religious beliefs on marriage. Again, I would not I would not impose on them, nor would I want them to impose on my my civil liberties. But I think what has happened here is that when when a movement ends, meaning when a movement accomplishes what it has set out to do. So for the most part it was about marriage. When you got marriage equality. You're supposed to kind of wrap up. You're supposed to like take the win. You're supposed to take the win and go for it. We thought it would be it, right? It's not. It just keeps going, doesn't it? Yeah. But the but see, and the and this is a this is a really important point to make. You have to make distinction between the average gay person out there. So For someone watching this, they might know Peter Thiel or Douglas Murray. Yes. Or the or Spencer Clavin. There are incredible, I'm just giving you some conservative voices, but these are these are great people who happen to be gay and conservative. Uh that you would allow them to li live the life they wish and and become fully actualized and hopefully become functional members of society and all of those things. Um, but what the activists decided was, oh We're not just gonna stop. I mean HRC, there's millions and millions of dollars behind that. Glad there's millions and millions of dollars. There are media enterprises behind that. They have to keep it going. So they almost overnight a m moved on. to this trans thing. And that was not that was not anything that anyone if you would have said to the to the gay man who in 1979 was was protesting at Stonewall because they didn't want to have to be at bars that were underground with speakeasies and whatever, because they might get rated. and arrested. And if you would have said to them, oh, flash forward 25 years, you're gonna have gay marriage, they would have said, okay, we're done. Holy cow, it worked. Oh, well it's a it's a giant money operation. You have to understand that. The average gay person out there who you don't see on TV. And is not the nearly the caricature that you're gonna see at these. ridiculous parades or any of these things. They just want to live and let live and be left alone. But there is a machine in place that has that has pushed all of this nonsense, which is why if you think about it this way, Frank. How are you wake up every day, there's another ridiculous trans story, another ridiculous But you never see functional trans people out there living their life. You know, every now and again you'll see someone that's kind of roughly functional, but my point is. This is being pushed in a very, I would say, almost like an AI way. It's it's an idea being pushed on us, not something that naturally is bottom up. What would naturally bubble from the bottom up. would be the fight for equality. But unfortunately, as Chris Rock said in the special about twenty years ago, the cops need a certain amount of crime. And the activist class need a certain amount of activism. And it's it's very sad what they've done because as I said, I I've been treated with almost nothing but love. There are some exclusions to this. Um by by Christians particularly, evangelicals almost the at the highest. But Christians broadly Um And that the activists have now made this into something so twisted that has now turned some of the Christians uh against it is is really unfortunate. Well, Dave, I see so many people in the comments of your YouTube videos. They're Christians. They love you. They they love the work you're doing. And they of course want you to become a Christian. Uh that's what Christians, you know, we believe in the Great Commission. We want everybody to enter enter heaven on the blood of Jesus. What do you think about the the Christian message of grace, which basically says we don't earn eternal life by doing good works? It's not about being good or bad. It's about trusting in the sacrifice that Jesus made. So he forgives us of our sins and then he gives us his righteousness. message resonate with you? Is that something you would say? I want to embrace that if it's really true. Well, first off, I wish we had more time for this, 'cause this is gonna open up a whole other can of worms. We talked about this a little bit, uh, when I had you on the show relative to I just had a a a really a life changing or I would say life affirming trip to Israel. the history and the and obviously the the Judeo-Christian values that lead to a lot of the political things that we've discussed and all that. On the grace notion in and of itself. We all could use more grace right now. We w almost without question, and I include myself in that, you know, social media has made us very graceless, if that's a word. Society, by and large, could use a lot of grace. I would say on on religion specifically. Um I um I was born Jewish, which is the religion of my father and my grandfather and my great grandfather, and we can go back literally thousands too. And by the way, Jesus was and Jesus that Jesus guy was a Jew. Don't tell don't tell Ilhan Omar and Rashida Talib, because they don't think any Jews ever lived in Judea and Samaria and they don't know where the story of Hanukkah came from and all that. Uh so that that that is the the religion and the traditions and um history of my people. So that is That is what I am connected to. That is not to denigrate or dismiss. the idea of Jesus Christ for a Christian. Um, but I think those are different things. And I actually think, you know, Judaism is not a religion of proselytizing. So Jews are not usually out there. Sometimes people convert to Judaism, but it's it's pretty freaking tough to do. But Jews A are more You have your religion, we have our religion, let it be. Christianity obviously is a religion Aimed at converting more people and things of that nature. I I'm let's put it this way, I am not gonna be converted. I know I know what my history and traditions are, but but in no way I I don't think that makes me better than anybody or worse than anybody or any anything else. Um, it makes us different and I would say we're Cousins in in the quest for truth. Oh, well we are, yeah, 'cause as we talked about on the show that we recorded earlier that Christianity, in my view, anyway, is just what the old testament predicts that there's going to be a savior. He's going to come, he's going to be at the sacrifice. And By trusting in him. we can ultimately be forgiven. Uh, but yeah, we we're running out of time here. We got four minutes left and you got something else to do. So let me just ask you a couple of questions about what's going on at the Rubin Report. Um, any any new stuff coming up that people ought to know about or you want them to know about, our audience to know about, how do people get in contact with you, follow you, all that stuff. Sure. Well we do the show every day at eleven a.m. on YouTube Rumble and on Locals. Locals, of course, is the tech company that I started that eventually merged with Rumble. You know, you want to talk about modern miracles. I start this little tech company just to solve a problem for myself. I didn't want to be on Patreon anymore. which was a subscription network. I felt it was too controlled by big tech. I start this little company that wasn't even called locals at the time. At first it was I didn't even have a name. It was just my little tech operation to build a subscription network for me. We thought wow, this thing's working. Let's build a company. We build locals. We eventually merge with Rumble. And I as I have said on uh on Tucker's show a couple of times, you know, if David beat Goliath. then I believe that Dave can beat Google. And I really do believe that. I believe that that's um people always ask me what my favorite biblical story is. It's like, in some ways that's the most cliche, maybe Noah, Noah's Ark is maybe a little bit more. But the idea that the little guy can beat the big guy, that it really is possible when you think it's impossible. You think that that Rome will never fall, you think that Google is too big. These things do not last forever. And I think if you really know that and you know David, who eventually became king of Israel, but was at this time, you know, a young kid with a slingshot could be. This Goliath. Um, it makes you realize that you have some power in your life. So that's really what I tried to do. And we have a big uphill battle, you know, as as Rumble is now really the number one competitor with YouTube on the video side, but we're trying to compete with Amazon AWS on the server side. That's a whole bunch of tech jargon. Um but I I just believe that I believe that if you build it, they will come and I believe that that the little guy can beat the big guy. So you just you just keep plowing away and and Kinda hoping and praying and Maybe some good things will happen. Well, I saw quite a quite a number of podcasters are on locals right now. I went to locals.com. So that's a way that If if your favorite podcaster goes on locals, you can support them without going through Patreon. Am I right about that? Exactly. We build you a subscription network. And by the way, you owe you Frank, you should be on there. I mean. You own all of it. All we are doing, it's very different. The model that we built is very different than the model that traditionally big tech does. You know, big tech, you're the product. It's all free. But free really means that you are the product, meaning they are data mining you. What we do with locals is you own the email list. You own the community. We are built it's sort of the way I always muted is when we build you a c a locals community and you've got a newsfeed and Pictures and video. people can communicate with you and all of those things and obviously we have an iOS app. Android app and all that. My feeling was, why don't we treat it as if when a when a builder builds a home. He's responsible for building that home. You move into that house, he's not responsible anymore. And that's what we do. So everyone's locals community is different. We you can police your community as you see fit, if you're If you want to ban people for whatever reason, you can, but they're not banned off the locals platform. They're just out of your house. The same way if someone comes into my house and tells me that I'm a, you know, a bunch of horrible names. gonna let you stay in my house, but I guess you could go across the street and do it. So we've tried to treat this with as much maturity and um I would say freedom as possible. And if you do that I think more and more people see it and that's why the company's done well and you know, we got we still got a major uphill battle, but if that David guy could do it. As I said. Dave, it's been a pleasure having you on. Thank you so much. My pleasure, Frank. Friends, I want you to go to therubenreport.com. Make sure you check it out on Rumble. Check make sure you check it out on YouTube. Your website, the Rubenreport.com, Dave, is that right? No the. No the. We're like Facebook. We drop the the. So you drop rubenreport.com or or rubenreport.locals.com. And friends if you want sane ideas in a crazy world. Check him out and it's every day, so you'll get some insights every day. There's there's long form, there's short form, there's something for everybody up there, friends, so check it out, Dave. Great pleasure. We'll do this again. Frank, absolutely, you're a fine host. I'll talk to you soon. God bless you, sir. Thanks.