From Darkness to Light: Unveiling David Ross' Remarkable Journey from Atheistic Satanism to Catholicism

KATHLEEN: I have David Brass here with us today.

KATHLEEN: David converted from atheistic satanism to Catholicism in 2009. He is the creator and host of the CV S podcast where he interviews guests and different worldviews face and philosophy. He lives in Montreal, Quebec Canada with his wife and zero children and works full time in a small family run construction business. Welcome, David.

DAVID: Thank you for having me, Kathleen. It's nice to see you again. Thank you for inviting me to your podcast.

KATHLEEN: I just thought it would be fun to have you on the show and turn arounds fair play. I mean, it was a great time that we had last week and I just want to get your views on things with a different spin on it.

KATHLEEN: I would like you to tell our audience a little bit about your journey of becoming an awakening spirit.

DAVID: Well, the journey is not over taking baby steps. Ok. So bear with me. But don't expect any gems of wisdom from me but we're all on a journey. This is something you and I have in common. We see the potential that we have as humans.

DAVID: We might have different ideas about what that potential is or where it comes from. But I was all over the map for many years and I've settled on Roman Catholicism, but I've always been a seeker. I've always been looking for the truth. You know, on my honeymoon, I did an extended honeymoon with my wife.

DAVID: We traveled around Europe for years with no money but just, sort of like gypsies. I was doing tarot readings and I was steeped in the new age, what I call the new age and, that sort of, spiritualism. Although I always was rather skeptical about the supernatural component.

DAVID: Now I realize the supernatural component is real. But, to make a long story short, I have a very checkered past and in 2009, after having studied philosophy, Western philosophy, intensively as a hobby, I came to believe that Jesus Christ is God and he built a church.

DAVID: And so I joined that church. But, for 25 years I didn't even believe in God. So, the first step was, discovering that I'm not God, that God is God. And that was a huge relief. For me. So that's sort of the outline. And I'll let you have follow up questions if you have any.

KATHLEEN: Well, what caused you to realize that there was a God when you were an avid believer, non-believer, I should say.

DAVID: Yeah. Well, like I said, I was studying philosophy. So my journey has been largely intellectual and that's both good and bad. It's good because the intellect is part of who we are as humans. But it's bad because we're also heart based. We're supposed to have the feelings, emotions and intuition is sort of, I guess the bridge between the heart and, and the the mind.

DAVID: And I'm very intuitive, and I am sensitive and emotional too obviously.

DAVID: But, my journey into monotheism and into the church was largely head based and there is a heart component but it's not, it's not fully integrated. And that's where I'm at in my journey. And I'm really interested in connecting and I was very touched by you. One of the reasons I was touched by you is because you shed some tears and I wasn't expecting that.

DAVID: I don't think you were expecting that. And that's what I want. I want to have access to the emotions. And, you gave me a little bit of encouragement at the end of our talk saying that it's possible to connect in these sorts of things.

DAVID: So, yeah, but my journey to God, even though I was, I was anti God, I was anti-Christ, I was anti Catholic, anti Catholic. My journey to God was largely through metaphysics and looking at ontology and these sorts of things which like I said, are very heady and intellectual, but which have a certain value. Nonetheless, does that answer the question?

KATHLEEN: So, no, I'm just thinking, I'm just trying to come up with the question of where I wanted, where I wanna take this because I think you can have what you want.

KATHLEEN: It's just you have to do the work and when you're choosing to bring God in, there is an element that your heart has to be open to God because when you're asking God for help or assistance or ask him to hold your hand or be carried to take the burden off your shoulders for a while, there's an emotion that's attached to that.

KATHLEEN: There's a feeling that comes through with that. And I'm assuming you have felt that or you wouldn't be in Catholicism at this point. Because for me, that was what worked for me when I thought nobody loved me and nobody cared about me.

KATHLEEN: And I remember going to church and I was in the pits of despair and they sang amazing grace and the tears just welled up and I was sobbing because it was almost like the first time I had ever heard those words.

KATHLEEN: But I heard those words from a place of pain and suffering and understood what that meant and realized that God loved me and that there was something higher than me and that I still had hope to move on. I'm assuming you've had those kind of feelings and experiences I've had.

DAVID: I've had feelings in the Catholic church. We call it constellation. Ok, where God touches you and touches your emotions and you feel his presence and his love and these sorts of things. I've had that and I've had tears but not copious tears. Ok?

DAVID: I have friends and guests on my podcast who have the gift of tears and they have copious tears and that's what I want. And I'm actually I've got a prayer here that's designed to request that gift of tears so I can have copious tears because the saints, most of them had copious tears.

DAVID: I want a real sorrow for sin, contrition. I want to have that palpable feeling of contrition, not just the idea like, yes, I'm sorry for my sins or whatever. And I also want the feeling of love, the love of God. I mean, I can know that I love God. And I could say that I love God and I do love God. And sometimes I feel it often, I don't feel it. So I want to get more into the heart.

DAVID: And I'm not the only person, I'm not the only Christian. I'm not the only Catholic who struggles. And I, maybe it's a cop out to blame my sex, but I am a man. I am a man. Ok. So it's like that's part of the problem. It is part of the problem from what I've seen, I mean, from what I've seen, women just have an easier access to their emotions. Yeah.

KATHLEEN: So that's very true. And we were, we're gonna take a quick commercial break and we will get back with you in just a minute on that.

KATHLEEN: We are here with David Ross.

KATHLEEN: David.

KATHLEEN: My suggestion is open your heart and what that would look like for you is hard to say, but I would say a way to open your heart is, be in nature. Do you go out and hike and be in nature and hug a tree or experience that type? I know that you were a nomad for a while in Europe.

DAVID: Yeah, that was more urban stuff. But, yeah, we get out, my wife and I would get out of the city, the big city in Montreal. We go to the country and it's a hop skip and a jump, and we do a lot of cycling, we go on really long bike rides, like, 8, 10 hour bike rides.

DAVID: And, so there's a lot of beautiful scenery and we have a couple of favorite places, nice waterfall and stuff like that. And yeah, for sure. I mean, that definitely helps. But there's this is a lifelong challenge for me. It's not just since my conversion, my wife used to make fun of me.

DAVID: I'm a robot. I don't have feelings and these sort of things. She's exaggerating, but I do have feelings but, she used to tickle me in order to make me laugh until I cried. She would just tickle, torture me until I laughed and I laughed so hard that I it was like torture.

DAVID: So I ended up crying and she would do this as a sort of therapy to get some of my emotions out because I tend to block my emotions, since childhood. So it's something I'm aware of. Well, before my conversion and my wife's aware of it and she thinks it's funny but sometimes it would have.

KATHLEEN: Experience as a child.

DAVID: Well, we live in a fallen world according to the Christian teaching and that's what I believe. And, there are things in the family that aren't ideal, generations of pain and stuff like that.

DAVID: And I don't know the details but like, two of my aunts have killed themselves and my mother has committed suicide unsuccessfully. And so it's like there's pain, there's pain there. And so has that affected me? Yeah, probably.

DAVID: But yeah. So yeah, there's that and who knows what else.

DAVID: But yeah, so there's trauma, there's trauma for sure. But sometimes because I bottle up my emotions, sometimes I'll go into a laughing fit for no reason or not for no reason. But I find something funny and then it just the emotions come out in a laughing fit.

DAVID: And I have to say that is enjoyable. It's sort of a sublimation of the emotion. It's not really the real emotion. It's sort of a, a tricky way of getting the emotion out. So it's not, it's not as authentic as if I were to cry, but it's still fun. I mean, it's fun having a laughing fit. Right.

KATHLEEN: Oh, it is. Definitely. I know when I have a laughing fit, it's usually when I watch some cat do something stupid or funny because I have four cats. So when they do something and, or you see a video about cats and some of their antics or expressions that they do, I mean, what do you do? You have to laugh and I go into a fit of laughing hysterics where tears are running down my face.

DAVID: It's painful. It's painful.

KATHLEEN: Sometimes it can be because it's hard to believe you can laugh as hard as you do when there's a cat doing that. And I have Felix is sitting here still trying to get out the door for whatever reason. And my partner came in to let the one cat out and here's the other one and I didn't even know Shadow was in. So it's kind of funny.

KATHLEEN: So if you hear banging, it's the cat trying to open the door.

KATHLEEN: He has to be here.

KATHLEEN: Well, have you ever thought of doing, do you have people do any kind of energy work on you or does that no way?

DAVID: No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

KATHLEEN: That's what I figured.

KATHLEEN: Oh, yeah. It's not demonic. Regardless of what you may think. You got to take this the.

DAVID: The church, the church forbids it. So I just try to be obedient to the church.

DAVID: You know, even when I was in the new age. I didn't like Reiki and all that sort of stuff.

DAVID: I shy away from all that anyway. And when I joined the church, the church just says, don't touch it. So I don't touch it, but I'm not judging you or anyone else who, who does it, but I'm not going to do it. You can do it.

KATHLEEN: I'm just asking, I don't know what you do or what you consider.

KATHLEEN: These things are stored in your body. They are stored in your mind. And it's about connecting with that part of that. And there are ways to do it without having to relive that experience or that pain.

KATHLEEN: But it still, you have to look at it and face it. And I know that when I was in Chicago, there was a point where I was in this tsunami of emotion. I don't even know where it came from. It just popped up and, and I remember talking to a girlfriend of mine and, and she's like, what's going on.

KATHLEEN: I said, I don't know, there's just like all this emotional healing that was happening because we have to heal on an emotional level away as well. And when you open your heart, you start feeling and remembering things what triggered that, that I don't know that day.

KATHLEEN: But then I said that there's another tsunami coming and I realized it was when my father had beat me pretty much to a pulp and I threatened that man after that, I said it wasn't so much of the beating that my father had done it was that my mother did nothing. That's what that was, what I took in and internalized.

KATHLEEN: And I didn't even know that thought or emotion was there, but it was such an intense emotion. So when I talked to my mother about it, when I went back to Colorado for a week, she just raised her hands and there was just so much and I don't know, and I don't care.

KATHLEEN: So what do you do with that? Well, gotta find peace with it somehow and it's all OK? But when you've got trauma like you have, there's things are gonna eventually present themselves to you for you to experience that because it's all about really opening up and releasing that because you're holding on to it, which then shuts down the heart because I don't want to feel.

KATHLEEN: But if you shut down your heart, then you're not letting love in and that heart opening is huge. Everything changed for me when I open my heart and the fact that you are taking those steps, I mean, you'll get there.

KATHLEEN: You can't force something like that. Truly, you cannot force facing a trauma like that.

DAVID: I do wanna mention, I do wanna mention that I have concrete lived experience with the the opening of the heart.

DAVID: And it was not a good method. The method was I did some illegal drugs and I ended up having, like, panic attacks and all these sorts of things for a full year, I guess. It's like a little mini mental breakdown that I had in my early twenties, I guess. Like 21. Yeah, 20, 21. And, the upside of the mental breakdown, if you want to call it, that was the rawness of the emotions.

DAVID: Like I was feeling everything and it was like, I appreciated it, the good parts and it was also I was going through a dark period of recovering from all the panic attacks and all the anxiety that was the dark part and the dark part was very dark, but the silver lining was very bright, the silver lining was I felt alive, more than ever, more than ever.

DAVID: And so it's often a crisis that will bring it about. In this case, it was a drug induced mental breakdown. And I do not recommend this and please stay away from drugs, say no to drugs. But there was a silver lining and so I'm just letting you know, I've tasted, I've tasted it and I know what I'm missing, by being calloused and, a little bit, guarded or whatever it is.

DAVID: Like if there were a magic button to hit, I would hit it. But like you said, you can't force it. And, I believe that God's gonna work with me and, because I'm aware that there's a disconnect. I want that and I'm praying for that and you're gonna pray for me.

KATHLEEN: I have a question for you when I, I wanted, when I was in my twenties, I wanted peace of mind. Ok. Well, first of all, I'm gonna backtrack for a minute.

KATHLEEN: I understand about the drugs. I knew that because I did drugs when I was 16, 17 years old and ended up in a drug rehab. So I also knew that drugs can create that. And that's what scared me about drugs was that it can force something upon you when you're not ready. So you lived that experience. So again, I wouldn't recommend doing drugs for anything like that. And yeah, that's just too dangerous of a place to go.

KATHLEEN: But what I was going to say, have you ever thought of saying a rosary novena about having your heart open? Because when I wanted peace of mind, I didn't know how to get it. I didn't even know what peace of mind meant until I got it.

KATHLEEN: And I did a novena on the rosary and when I was done with that novena, I was like, this is what peace of mind is. Oh my God. I mean, it was like all of a sudden all this torturous mind stuff that goes on in your head was gone.

KATHLEEN: So, have you ever thought of doing that? Because the rosary, in my opinion, is one of the most powerful tools that the Catholic church offers.

DAVID: Yeah, I do pray my rosary. And I've done maybe one or two novenas, but it wasn't for really, for my own issues, you know. That's a great idea. And thank you for that. Thank you for the reminder. Like that's a powerful tool. I do pray my rosary. I don't pray it particularly well. You know, because it's difficult and my prayer life is pretty consistent.

DAVID: I do about an hour a day of prayer. But it's not high quality, just because that's the nature of my generally nervous and when I'm in prayer, I'm generally rushing and stuff like that. So, yeah, the prayer life is a key stepping stone to peace and to the head, heart connection and to wholeness and all that.

DAVID: And that's a work in progress and, I complain about it. I complain about my prayer life a lot online just on my podcast, how pathetic my prayer life is. But, God is taking what, what I'm offering every day. I'm offering my prayers.

DAVID: I'm saying my prayers and I'm thinking about what I'm saying, more or less depending on the mood that I'm in or whatever. But yeah, the quality is not quite there yet. But if I could get, if I could get the quality of my prayer life there and do a good rosary, do a good novena like I'm sure that would help. So thank you for that.

KATHLEEN: You're welcome. We're gonna take a quick commercial break and we will be back shortly.

KATHLEEN: We are with David Ross and we were talking to him about saying a novena. So David, since the novena is actually a meditation because when I would do them, and I've noticed that when I do it.

KATHLEEN: And I remember there were times when I did novenas and I thought I fell asleep. And then I later learned that I was in a very, very deep state of meditation because I was still moving forward on the rosary So I would think I would fall asleep. But I wasn't, I just went into a very deep state of meditation, like after the first, whatever they call decadent or whatever it's called.

KATHLEEN: And by the fifth one, halfway through it, I was, I would come back and when I discovered that I was like, oh, thank you God because I thought I was so bad and I was like, shaming God or something, I was whatever guilt, Catholic guilt comes in with that.

KATHLEEN: But what I found when I learned that, have you ever thought of doing deep breaths to help calm yourself down? Because I understand where you're at with that prayer thing. Cause when I used to do it used to make me crazy.

KATHLEEN: But when I started breathing and just calming down or doing it right before I went to bed and then doing a novena really does put you in a deep state of meditation to where you're not gonna have that head trash of.

KATHLEEN: I gotta hurry up and get through this and because God's not judging you, we already know that He, you're doing that all to yourself. You're doing a great job of beating yourself up and God is just sitting there going one day, he's gonna get this and I'll be here when he finally gets it.

KATHLEEN: So I'm just saying that, have you ever had that kind of an experience? Like just take deep breaths or do it right before you fall asleep at night just to find peace with it.

DAVID: Not really, I have nothing against, breathing properly in order to calm down and these sorts of things, there's that's encouraged, by the church, to have the right posture and to breathe properly and these sorts of things. And I have friends who, have a deeper prayer life because they are aware of their breath.

DAVID: And actually one of my friends on the podcast, I've had him on many times. He used to study yoga. So for him, it's just like, he just kept doing the breathing, and, so that really helps him and he was a little bit neurotic when he first converted or reverted back to his childhood faith because he thought, well, yoga, what am I allowed to do?

DAVID: What am I not allowed to do? There's always some human element, like you said, where we're gonna be a bit neurotic, worrying or whatever and God's not worried, but we're worried, God's not worried. But, there's still things that we can do to offend God, like if, you're worshiping or adoring as God something that's not God.

DAVID: I mean, yeah, we should be worried about that. But my friend who was a yoga instructor, he was right with God and he was just a little bit nervous about if he's bringing some of the eastern stuff in with him. But finally, he calmed down with all that and he just uses the breathing techniques and he even stretches his body using what he learned from the east and he's not hung up about it.

DAVID: So, all of this to say that, yeah, breathing and all that sort of thing. I'm not used to doing that. He was so he benefits from it. I'm not. I would have to, look into that and get used to that. I mean, it's pretty basic, right? Just breathe, slowly, breathe in, breathe out.

DAVID: It's like it's not going to take years of study to figure out what the idea is, but it's just a habit like the habit of doing it and that's what virtue is. It's a good habit, and the problem with the virtue is that it needs to take the place of the other habits which are bad habits, which we call vice. So we just have to swap out the bad habits for.

DAVID: Sounds easy. But, on a busy day when you're worried about this, that and the other thing, it's kind of hard to make it a priority to, breathe properly or replace your bad habits with good habits.

KATHLEEN: So I think you need to stop judging everything you do. That's what I think you're judging too much. You're putting too much pressure on yourself for things that don't need any pressure on. Because if you know God, the way I know God, he's not going to have anything. It's a life experience and the fact that you're at least attempting to do that is enough for God. I used to yell at him all the time.

KATHLEEN: My mother used to say, why are you yelling at God? I said, why not? At least I'm talking to him. He doesn't care because the way I looked at it and the way I felt about it, if I'm yelling because I'm raging because I'm hurting and I'm in pain. Well, if nobody knows that and I can do that to God and if I can't do that to God, then he's no God. And that's how I look at it.

KATHLEEN: I had very strong opinions in myself about what I thought God was when you are hurting. And if God loves you, like, they, he claims people, the Catholic church take this away and he wouldn't care if I'm yelling at it. And then my mother said I had to do a hierarchy and I'm like, what the hell are you talking about? A hierarchy? I don't have to go through the hierarchy. I mean, this is not a corporation.

KATHLEEN: I used to get really angry at my mother about this stuff because it's like, what are you talking about? And then I'm listening to you about, well, you gotta do, you gotta sit a certain way and you got to do a stance a certain way and you got to pray a certain way and it's like, no, you don't. No, you don't. No, no, no, I'm not saying that wants to do David with God. He'll accept you.

DAVID: Yeah. Yeah. All I'm saying all I'm doing is acknowledging that one posture is better than another. Just, just like in terms of even working at your computer, like I slouch and shouldn't slouch, and breathing, it's better to have proper deep breathing rather than just constantly having shallow breathing, you know.

DAVID: I'm not saying that the church is very rigid about how to pray and what posture and how to do your breathing. No, I'm not saying that I'm saying that I'm agreeing with you that there are things we can do with our body that will help the spiritual journey.

DAVID: I also wanted to mention, in terms of yelling at God or whatever, like that's very biblical. That's what Jesus did. He wasn't yelling at God, but he was crying out in pain and sorrow and loud lamentations and he was very dramatic, in his prayer life, you know.

DAVID: So, yeah, I'm not afraid of that and that's very, it's very, it's a very Christian way to pray. So, I commend you for that and hopefully one day I'll get there but a little bit, you know, British, stiff upper lip and all that sort of thing, you know.

KATHLEEN: That's right. You're Canadian. That's right. You got all those weird inhibition things going on.

KATHLEEN: Anglo sax in the United States. You wouldn't care, you know.

DAVID: Yeah, I need to be more brash. That's it.

KATHLEEN: Oh, that's so funny.

DAVID: I'm sure I'd like to hear Donald Trump. Donald Trump's prayers. I'm sure they're pretty brash and bold.

KATHLEEN: Oh, God, please. Let's not go down that place with.

KATHLEEN: I just can't even, I can't even deal with it. I just can't do it.

KATHLEEN: My friends and I, it's just stop, just stop. I know you don't like Trump. I don't like Biden. We'll leave it at that. Ok. Let's just agree to disagree with this. You will never convert me into politics on any level, can you? I just don't go down that road.

KATHLEEN: I don't even like talking about it because when I was younger my sister was a poly sci major and, oh, my God, she would practically destroy and if she had a gun she probably would have shot us all because we had different viewpoints and I couldn't handle that. It's like, ok, let's not talk politics. So I learned not to talk politics because it was pretty ugly in my house when we talk politics.

DAVID: Best to avoid it.

KATHLEEN: I know. So, but when we talk about spirituality or God, I mean, that's a different story because that's where there's a playing field that we're on because there's an element that we believe.

KATHLEEN: And even if I don't believe in what you believe in or whatever, I'm evolved enough to where I can open up and listen to your point of view and I have enough experience is just like the questions you asked me on your show or they were pretty I wasn't expecting some of those questions at all. I'm like, well, I can answer them. I don't have a problem.

DAVID: Get your revenge. You can get your revenge now. So it's all good.

KATHLEEN: It's not revenge. My partner said that it's like, don't get revenge. I said, no, this isn't about revenge. This is about taking him on my journey a little bit. Like just skew it a little bit because my concern was how dogmatic are you. And then what happened on that show was way beyond what I expected, dogmatic fundamentals of Catholic dogma. I love it.

KATHLEEN: But I'm just saying there is my, my faith was from Catholicism. I mean, there's no doubt about it. And I think the Catholic church, in my personal opinion, is one of the strongest, and closest to the highest level of spirituality as you can get what the priests have done.

KATHLEEN: And the rules that they put in place for us, I think is where I have my disagreements with. I think if they didn't put all these rules and regulations about birth control and everything else under the sun, that would be a different story, I believe in what the 10 commandments were and what he said.

KATHLEEN: There's a lot of things I believe in that, but then there's a lot that there's so much more out there and what's going to make me a whole rounded person to where I feel more understanding of what God is because part of that was really trying to understand what God was.

KATHLEEN: That's why I went down the eastern. That's why I looked at philosophy because I really wanted to understand what God was and then what it meant to me, who was he, to me? Because we have personal relationships with God. I mean, that's just how I see it.

KATHLEEN: It's, we all have our own personal relationship, whatever that is. And however it looks and I respect anybody that has their relationship with God because at least they have a foundation that helps them when they're in a crisis.

DAVID: Yeah. Well, the basic foundation of my worldview is now that I'm a monotheist is God the Father and nothing can ever take that away from me. You know, my Christianity is a leap of faith and I don't have the philosophical certainty about, Trinity, the incarnation as I do about the existence of the uncalled first cause God the Father.

DAVID: So there's a certain foundation that I have and I know that, some of the attributes of God, he's omnipotent mission. And he's infinite in every pure perfection. So we've got the, the unity, the truth, the beauty, the goodness, all these transcendental. He's infinite in all of those.

DAVID: And he's absolutely simple and that he's not subject to change and these sorts of things. So all of this I have, it's my base, it's my rock and then the layer of Christianity and the Catholicism, the distinctive of my Catholic faith. Those sit on top of that and I could be wrong. I could be wrong. It could belong to a false religion.

DAVID: I don't think I do, but I, I could be wrong.

DAVID: And so that gives me a certain flexibility when it comes to the dogmas, for example, I do believe the dogmas but I could be wrong, so there's this, there's this sort of it gives me a certain fluidity or a more relaxed approach to my religion because my religion is based on the certainty of God and his goodness and that he loves me and all these sorts of things that you and I have in common.

DAVID: You disagree with some of the dogmas in the Catholic church.

DAVID: But, you and I agree about God that he's good and that he loves us, you know. And so, that to me is the base, that's the most certain thing that we have. And if you have that, you know, I'm not saying that we don't need faith, we do need to have faith and we do need to submit.

DAVID: I think we do need to submit to the church that Christ built and Christ did build a church. I believe that. But I believe it on a leap of faith, so all of this to say that, you and I are our fundamental basis I think is the same. And then just when it comes to the leap of faith, you sort of cobbled something together through your own research.

DAVID: And I've just, through my research, I've decided to submit completely to the Catholic church. So, there's a lot that we have in common, right?

KATHLEEN: And there's nothing wrong with that. That's what we as humans are. We're here to learn on our own path to move in our own path and discover who we are in the process. And then we return to God, in my opinion, we go back, we go back into that because I don't believe in the heaven and hell at all.

KATHLEEN: We had that discussion, but we're gonna go ahead and take a quick commercial break and we will touch on that when we get back.

KATHLEEN: We have David Ross in the room with us today and we right before commercial break, he was getting ready to say something about believing in heaven and hell. So David, what are your thoughts?

DAVID: Yeah. Well, I think that we have free will. We can really choose. Our freedom is not absolute. I mean, there are constraints on our free will but it's just natural to conclude that there will be consequences, like in the east, they talk about karma cause and effect you do something and there's a reaction. So I think it's the most natural thing in the world.

DAVID: I don't really need religion to know their consequences to the choices we make. So it's just and the other thing is like if there were no eternal hell then everyone basically gets the same outcome. We all go to heaven, or we're all annihilated or some of us go to heaven, some are annihilated. That's what, some world views say.

DAVID: But to me, it just makes more sense that if the source or the creator, whatever you wanna call God, If he's infinite in his dignity, then the abuses of the free will that he gave us, the consequences are going to be eternal. So, yeah, it's intuitive to me that there's an eternal hell and that there's an eternal heaven. So that's even without religion, I could, that's my intuition.

KATHLEEN: Well, and I also believe that if there is a God and there is no such thing as hell and even if we create our own hells or whatever we do, the Hitler thing still is, I still work through that one sometimes of that whole situation. But if God is all loving and knowing and forgiving, then eventually he would forgive Hitler.

KATHLEEN: You know, the jury is still out because that's the part of faith.

KATHLEEN: I mean, that's where you have to go on faith because we, none of us know none of us know what that is on the other side of death at this point unless I don't know, I just kind of make that decision of what I think it should be and just trust that he's being saved somehow or he's asleep or he's learning on another planet. I don't know how it works over there.

KATHLEEN: But he was here for a reason and I can't imagine. I mean, that's a right of free will and free choice and we all agreed to it somehow or another. You know, there are parts that I still struggle with. I'll give you that.

KATHLEEN: That's why it's like just look to me, just look to myself because that's the only thing I can control.

DAVID: Yeah, you're not gonna go to hell for the sins of Hitler. You know, neither will I So, I often think about Hitler. I have a soft spot in my heart for him because people are so nasty to him. Like, why is he the boogey man? Why is he always the go to guy? Like, I mean, ok, maybe he's evil, maybe he's in hell.

DAVID: Ok. But I feel like it's a bit exaggerated. Like there are plenty of bad guys in history, and I personally think he was human and I love him and I hope I wish him well, I want him to go to heaven and probably have a long stay in purgatory or whatever. But I don't know his heart.

DAVID: I don't know what he did on his deathbed and I don't even know what he did in his life. That's a funny thing. It's like, you can read a history book or textbook or whatever. It's like you should take it with a grain of salt. I'm not saying he was a good guy.

DAVID: I'm not saying that all indications are, he was a bad guy, but I have sympathy for the bad guys. I was a bad guy. I am a bad guy, not as bad as Hitler. But that's the comparison we always make. We always like to say, well, I'm not that bad, I'm not as bad as Hitler, like the poor guy, let's pick on someone.

KATHLEEN: But that comes down to how our bringing is us versus them and that is far from any kind of spirituality of the us versus them. I mean, we're all connected. We don't know what happened to him as a child that caused him to do what he did.

KATHLEEN: We don't know, just like we don't know with some of the people that are in prison. I mean, a lot of this comes from our childhood and not having any tools in how to help ourselves. So, what is it? So there's a cry for love and there's love. That's all there is. So if Hitler's doing what it is, he's doing is a cry for love, that's how we have to look at it. So, what do you do? You love them.

KATHLEEN: When we had some of our presidents in the office and, oh my God, I would watch people go crazy and it's just love them, just love them. That's all you can do. Because what else can we do?

KATHLEEN: So as long as we're loving people that we may not understand or the world is against them, just love them because that's what they need and love because love is transcendental and it's etheric, they're gonna feel it and that's how I look at it is send love to those that really need love because they're hurting on some level.

DAVID: Yeah, I just want to add some, an important distinction that some atheists miss which is that you don't have to like humans, your fellow human, your enemy, whatever it is, your coworker, your boss, you don't have to like them, but you have to love them, right?

DAVID: And some of the atheists they don't understand because they see love on a spectrum. Like I like them. I like them a lot. I really, really, really like them and then I love them. That's not the way it is. Love is on a different dimension from our preferences from our, dispositions and chemistry and all these sorts of things.

DAVID: Those are real. I like you. I have good chemistry with you and I love you but they're on there are different axes, and, so I don't have to like Hitler, but I do have to love him and, if I have, someone that rubs me the wrong way in this world, I don't have to like them, but I have to love them.

DAVID: So I think that's a very important distinction. It's probably something you're well aware of, but I like to throw it out there just in case anyone hadn't thought about it.

KATHLEEN: No, that's very true. So, tell our audience how they can get hold of you.

DAVID: Well, you could go to my website which is woefully neglected like a lot of my social media, but my website is CV S dash podcast.com. And all my social media links are there on the links page. The best place really to see what I've been doing lately is on my YouTube and my handle on YouTube.

DAVID: They started doing the handles with the at it's at C is it Catholic versus, or is it CVS Dash Podcast? I think it's at CVS Dash Podcast. So, yeah, CVS just stands for Catholic versus so anyway, they can find me there. I'm also on Twitter. My handle is at Catholic underscore versus versus being vs. So that's how people can reach me.

DAVID: I've got a small but loyal audience and it's a lot of fun meeting people on the podcast and meeting people like you, I met a lot of people on Pod Match. I want to give a shout out to Pod Match and I'm actually gonna have the host of Pod Match on my podcast. Alex.

KATHLEEN: I got Alex coming on mine too.

DAVID: Oh, no way.

KATHLEEN: Yeah, I sure do.

DAVID: Very cool, nice guy.

KATHLEEN: Well, I want to thank you so much for coming on the show today, David. And it was a lot of fun. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was a different spin of what I normally do. But you know what, that's what this is. It's a journey of an awakening spirit no matter how you look at it.