A Secular Case For Calling War Evil

“Civilization will die” is a sentence that should freeze a country in its tracks, especially when it’s tied to war and the casual suggestion of catastrophic escalation. We take that line seriously and follow where it leads: to questions about nuclear brinkmanship, moral language, and why even secular commentators reach for words like evil when leaders talk about killing civilians as if it’s normal.

We also spend time on the part that surprised us most: a defense of faith as a kind of humility, not a demand for theocracy. In a pluralistic democracy, we don’t need religious rule, but we do need restraint, respect, and the ability to recognize human limits. That’s why the conversation about mocking Islam, mocking Christianity, and using sacred language as a taunt matters. We unpack the symbolism around the inauguration Bible detail too, not as a purity test, but as a window into whether political norms are treated as real commitments or disposable costumes.

Then we zoom out to the system that made this moment possible. Iraq War accountability that never happened. Torture and rendition without prosecutions. Bankers bailed out with almost no consequences. We argue that impunity teaches the worst lesson imaginable: there are no laws, only power. The final question is pointed and practical: if you’re inside government and you know where this is going, do you have the courage to resign, cause a scandal, and force the public to look?

If this conversation hits you, subscribe, share it with a friend who’s still trying to “wait and see,” and leave us a review. What would accountability and courage look like right now?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 1:14

So obviously you're mocking the religion of wrong. Okay. If you think a religion, that's a good idea. But by the way, no decent person mocks other people's religions. You may have a problem with the theology, presumably you do if it's not your religion, and you can explain what that is. But to mock other people's faith is to mock the idea of faith itself. And we should never mock that. Because at its core is the acknowledgement that we are not in charge of the universe. We did not build it. We won't be here at the end of it. We can destroy life. We cannot create it because we are not God. The message of all faith at the biggest picture level is the message in our Bible, which is you are not God. And only if you think you are do you talk this way. But it's not just mockery of Islam. No president should mock Islam. That's not your job. This is not a theocracy. We don't go to war with other theocracies to find out which theocracy is more effective. We are not a theocracy. And God willing, we never will be. Because theocracies corrupt the religion. No, this is a mockery, not just of Islam. It's a mockery of Christianity. To send out a tweet with the F-word on Easter morning promising the murder of civilians and then saying, praise be to Allah without explaining any of it, you are mocking me and every other Christian because we're Christians. We can't support that. That is evil. That is an intentional desecration of beauty and truth, which is the definition of evil.

SPEAKER_02 2:52

So defending Islam, didn't think I would see it in my lifetime. But the bigger thing that he's talking about there is uh the departure. First of all, major political implication here. This is the biggest shot Tucker's taken. I, you know, I I took a shot at Trump on Tucker's show, and I will admit it's not really just about Tucker, but Joe Kent as well. But there was this, you know, like, oh, it's Israel's war and kind of the bad boyars, like the Tsar has bad advisors. But like that's out the window now. Like it's very obvious. This is Trump. It would look, it we had to be honest about it, you know, and now it's just so obvious, I think, to everyone. But I think with the Easter message and now the departure of the open straight, and now this morning, civilization will die. This is, I mean, genuinely probably one of the most insane statements by a president at war ever in modern history. And when you open the door to nuclear weapons, like he is in that statement, it actually does. That is the time to start talking about good and evil and humanity. And I'm a secular person, as people know, but like this is then the time, I think, to be talking in explicitly apocalyptic terms. And yeah, religion is gonna be a part of that.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

Right. Yeah, no, agree. I I'm secular too, and so I I really like avoid you know, phrases like good and evil. Right, same. Um but you're right, like it there's no other way to describe this this sort of thing. And I am I'm somebody who, even though I'm secular, I I have I don't have the like Bill Maher like hatred for religion. I did when I was a teenager. I don't know. Sure, yeah, it's a it's a normal, it's a normal teen thing. Um but as you grow older, you're like you see the beauty and the wisdom. Yeah, and he expresses it, I think, you know, quite quite well, that like that there is beauty in faith, and it and it is rooted in uh faith in humanity ultimately, that and it is in a kind of Islamic submission, um, or a a sense that there's something greater than us, and that we have to all uh love each other. Um and that that part is that part's terrific and essential to what it means to be a human. And Tucker, yes, just absolutely obliterating him on it on every level.

The Bible Oath Controversy

SPEAKER_00 5:14

Let's let's roll uh F2 as well. On inauguration day, the president did not take his his oath of office with his hand on the Bible. His wife stood next to him holding it. I was about 15 feet away and saw it, but he did not put his hand on the Bible. And that should have been maybe a clue that we need to pause and think about what is this? Why wouldn't you put your hand on the Bible? If you don't believe in the Bible, you think it's just a book. There's no cause to you to put your hand on it, just kind of following the protocol, going along with the traditional presidents do it. Why are you doing it? And you're not doing it intentionally. You're choosing not to put your hand in the Bible when you take that oath. That suggests not that you don't believe it's real. Because if you didn't believe it was real, why would you care? You put on the costume and take it off, it doesn't matter. That suggests you know it is real and you're rejecting it intentionally. You know what you're doing. And you're doing it anyway. That is that will never be. That can never be justified, that is always wrong. It can be expedient. We need to do this. It doesn't mean it's right, it's the most wrong thing. And we should always remember that what we do will be done to us. Live by the destruction of civilian infrastructure, live by the killing of children, the bombing of elementary schools and colleges. And you will die, and your children will die by those same things. That's just a fact.

SPEAKER_01 6:55

Yeah. Uh and I was thinking about that a lot as he was uh I I watched this last night and listened to it again a little bit again this morning. It is a very interesting observation, actually, because his point is to me correct that if you actually are just a straight up atheist. Like you or I, yeah, just put your yeah, I don't care. I'll put my put my hand on the book. It's a book. Yeah. Like if that's if that's what you believe.

SPEAKER_02 7:21

I have two Bibles in my house.

unknown 7:22

Right.

SPEAKER_02 7:22

There is a Gita too. Yeah. I've got a Quran.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

Interesting books. Right. There's something profound in that gap between his hand and the and the Bible, which I guess people are gonna now owe and fact check as much as they possibly can. If you noticed if they're no, I haven't.

SPEAKER_02 7:38

Um all I've seen actually. Oh, by the way, breaking news. Here's a response. President Trump has responded. He'll come across. Tucker is a low IQ person that has absolutely no idea what's going on. He calls me all the time. I don't respond to his calls, I don't deal with him. I like dealing with smart people, not fools. Liar.

SPEAKER_01 7:55

He says he likes to be surrounded by losers.

SPEAKER_02 7:57

Yes, that's right. Uh the best part, too, is when Tucker does call him, it's usually to try to say, because as he said openly, I try to maintain an open mind so that I can try to talk to him about things like, hey, don't do this.

SPEAKER_01 8:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:11

Uh right. And then the latest time that he attempted uh to, you know, get some sort of the latest time that he tried to make contact with Trump, he was told, he told me this explicitly on the air, so I'm not like uh I'm not breaking any confidences, that he was told even by the White House, don't bother coming, because we are being he's being shown polls that a 95% of people support this war.

SPEAKER_00 8:33

Yeah.

Complicity And A Time To Resign

Iraq War Impunity And Blowback

SPEAKER_02 8:33

That's that's the reality of where we are. Look, I do think this is commendable and important from Tucker, and I do think at this point, any of us who were, you know, who were in any way like supportive of Trump or were supportive of the Trump project or boosted for years many of the people who work now in the Trump administration, like I alluded to earlier, it's over. This is a time of choosing. If you do not resign by the time of 8 p.m. and that's when the bombs are going to drop, you are in this. We will never forgive you. We never look Trump for me, it was already long ago over. But I do think with for everybody else at this point, low level and all the way up, you all talked a big game about the Iraq war. If you stay for one second when we're going to destroy a civilized, call us a panic in. I don't care. You people have the power of God in your hands, as Trump Tucker is saying, which alludes to what? To power to destroy great civilizations. Also, I was just looking this morning. Apparently, uh there the one of the only parallel to Trump's civilization, civilization will die, quote, is from uh please forgive me, I'm not as read up on Greek history, but it is the Delphic Oracle said to Crossius of Lydia in the histories that if you cross the Hallis, you will destroy a great empire. But the irony is that he thought that the great empire was Persia, so he attacked Cyrus the Great, aka Iran of that time, but what actually happened is his own kingdom was destroyed. Right, that's right. Right. So this isn't even talking about Jesus. Well, let's take it back to the Greek gods and of what they were trying to tell us about this. That's the only comparison that we have here. So if you have complicity in that, it is so beyond over. You're done. We will never defend you, protect you. In fact, we should go to the greatest lengths possible that if you did not do what you could to stop this when you had real power in your hands, you are now beyond complicit, and we will treat you the way that we should have dealt with George W. Bush, with Dick Cheney, with Paul Wolfowitz, and with every single other person. In fact, my lesson from all of this, Ryan, is we didn't do enough to punish the people who were complicit in the Iraq War. We should make it clear. Like, I I'm I'm I'm about to dye my hair pink. We're going for truth and reconciliation, bitch.

SPEAKER_01 10:55

That's exactly right. Yeah, it's and in 2009 when Obama came in, he's his he had this famous quote where he said, Well, we're looking forward, not backward. Yeah. Right. And the left at the time, what little there was if it absolutely freaked out, making the argument you cannot allow that to be businesses. Yes. Yes. If if you don't have some consequences for somebody, and the next two years, there are many opportunities for consequences. There's an entire movie about the Senate torture report that was circular. I remember that was circulating. And um this and the Obama administration's intelligence apparatus doing everything it could to suppress this report and and water it down and make it make sure that there were no prosecutions. You didn't even have to go after Bush and Chaney and Wolfowiss, which I thought at the time you should, and I think you're right today, that we should have. You could go after some mid-level, even you know, slightly higher CIA officials that engaged in torture and rendition. Even just that small amount of criminal accountability is a is a shot at the heart of that impunity and would and and would and could have reshaped how people think about what's what's allowable. You follow that up by bailing out the bankers and not prosecuting any of them as well. Instead, you went after like Joe Judice for like some mortgage fraud. That was like the extent of the prosecutions, and it created this sense that the swamp was in control, and so you needed somebody who alone can fix it, and so he comes in and he, instead of fixing it, absorbs the lesson that there are no laws. Yes, and there are no consequences. I can do whatever I want.

SPEAKER_02 12:37

See, this is why, you know, a lot of people attacked the hell out of us at the time, Ryan. This is why Russia Gate was such a disaster. It resuscitated all of these Bush-era neocons like Bill Kristol and Liz Cheney and all of these other people who were elevated, it exonerated them. And in service of not actually looking at what really happened. In service of what really happened, exactly. It became Russia data and not, oh, we screwed up generation of policy and all of it. And that, I mean, I know attack to said it so often at the time, but it is so deeply true. And then now you have those very same people whitewashed, uh famously now trying to control whether people are allowed to talk to Hassan Biker. It's like bitch that out in the Iraq War. And you're like, Yeah, what are we doing here?

25th Amendment And Courage Tests

SPEAKER_01 13:21

You know, who do you think you're talking to? And so one of the guys that's been tightest with Trump and taken so many arrows for him was Alex Jones. Yes. Uh, he's now calling for the 25th Amendment, and so is Marjorie Taylor Green. Marjorie Taylor Green. Um, do you see any is there any movement inside the administration? I don't see it. I mean, obviously not for the 25th Amendment, but like earlier profile.

SPEAKER_02 13:45

About JD Vance, I mean, wouldn't it be him? I said I understand that he would be the person who has to do it. He's gonna care more about his career. Sad to say, you know, thought I knew somebody different, but the truth is that we didn't. Is that absolute power does corrupt absolutely? And I've read about it in a book. It is another thing to experience it on a deeply visceral and a personal level. Now is the time for action to literally save the world from the precipice of disaster. This is what people do movies about, and now you find yourself a central character. And it's not just about him, it's about all the other people who surround Donald Trump, who are inside of the White House. Do they have the courage, you know, to actually do something about let's let's even put the 25th Amendment aside. Offer your resignation, right? Create a titanic political scandal. Do you have the courage to do something like that? And I think the answer right now is pretty clearly no. Uh so we're in it now.

SPEAKER_01 14:35

And the iron, yeah. The irony is if all you care about cynically is your own personal advancement, showing courage in this moment is actually the way to advance your own individual interests. Anyone who stands up to this at this moment will be rewarded by the public and by the global public, and but particularly by the American public, as Tucker clearly knows, and you know, we could have a whole conversation about the electoral implications, all of that, but it feels crass in this in this moment of absolute desperation for the entire world. But if you are cynical in this moment, the play is courage, not well, you maybe Mr. President, right? Go go ahead and do it. You're you're the greatest Mr. President ever.

Closing Thoughts And Tomorrow’s Show

SPEAKER_02 15:23

Which the problem, though, is ironically, that might be the only way to do it. If you were in power. That's the story that they always tell themselves is that, oh, well, we have to gas him up in order to get him, you know, to get him to do what we want. But at this point, things are so dire. Like there's only one language, right? That Joe can't. By the way, look, Joe can't, maybe he didn't change anything, but he created a problem, right? He created a problem. Create problems, resign, do something, all right? Because look, maybe you can't stop Trump. And it probably is unstoppable. That's the truth. The way that the Constitution, the nuclear codes, and all of that work, and look, you know, this fantasy, because it's not gonna happen, all right? If he wants to do it, he's gonna do it. And I mean, look, I I hate to say that, let me tell you. Uh, but at the very least, for whoever of us survive, you know, you need to be able to put it down in the book. X and Y and Z did something whenever they could. Tucker's joined, he's done whatever he could. I did what I could, I guess, you know, at a certain point. Uh where we're just YouTubers. Like we're looking for people who are in power for God's sake. Right? And for them, outside of Kent, we've seen nothing. Yeah. Nothing. All right. Uh very depressing show. I apologize, but I mean, when you set the tone from the beginning of Civilization Will Die, that's probably the least fun bro show we've ever done. I would believe so. Yeah. All right. Well, uh, Ryan and Emily will be on tomorrow. Hopefully, not for a very historic show. So you'll see them all then, and we'll continue to give you a special coverage uh as much as we can. And I guess Ryan and I are gonna go do the anime. Every question is gonna be about the civilization will die, true. Uh, so there you go.