1. The Devil's Advocate

Time Stamp: 8:07

* The Human Experience* What does it mean to be human?https://www.bbcearth.com/blog/?article=what-does-it-mean-to-be-human* We are one species of primate that emerged from the dry savannahs of East Africa just over 100,000 years ago and began a migration that continues to today.* We weren’t the strongest animal, but we had an unusually large brain and held ourselves upright, giving us a high vantage to scan the distant horizon for enemies, and the freedom to use our hands for other purposes.* We might have continued our short life of hunting, savagery, and brutishness right through to today, but for one important development - language. Other animals could communicate, but we evolved astonishing vocal ability, able to create sounds that represented not just objects, but also concepts. We learned how to express ideas. We could speak of danger, hope, and love. We became storytellers, able to weave together common narratives about who we are and how we should live.* Twelve thousand years ago, we learned how to domesticate plants and other animals for food, and were able to settle in one place. We became a social animal, building complex communities that become kingdoms, learning to trade with each other using a concept called money.* By 2500 years ago, a small group of humans in Southern Europe and the Middle East started to ask big questions about who we were. What is the best way to live? What is a good life? What does it mean to be human? How we responded to these questions is how we built our civilisation, art, and philosophy. * Five hundred years ago, the scientific revolution began, allowing us to harness the resources of our planet to live longer and more productive lives.* When the digital revolution began only 50 years ago, the world shrank. We became a global village, our hopes and dreams converted into an infinite stream of ones and zeroes echoing throughout cyberspace. Today, we stand astride the world as a god, with both the power to destroy our own planet and to create life.* We may even be the last of our species to be fully human as bio-technology and artifical intellligence begin to rip apart the very core of who we are.* As we discover more about reality, we continue our ascent into insignificance, becoming a vanishing footnote in space and time, a speck of dust in the vastness of the universe. But to be human is to be at the centre of our own universe, to experience life in all its colours and all its potential.* Are Satanists truly different from other humans?* Why is it so important to BE different?* It is trite, but the vast majority of humans, regardless of age, ethnicity, culture and religion share the same experiences. * We want connection* We want safety* We want meaning* I have often said we can be distilled into two ideas: We create and we destroy.* I am no longer sure that is it.

2. Infernal Informant

Time Stamp: 35:58

* Women’s March in Austin draws crowds in protest of Supreme Court nomineehttps://www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/womens-march-in-austin-draws-crowds-in-protest-of-supreme-court-nominee/* Outside the Texas State Capitol Saturday, cultural battles and heightened emotions playe...