Reza Aslan (scholar of sociology of religion)

[0] Welcome, welcome, welcome to armchair, expert, experts on expert.

[1] I'm Dax Shepherd.

[2] I'm joined by Lily Padman.

[3] Hi.

[4] Hi there.

[5] We have a very fun dancey, dancing, dancey episode today.

[6] We haven't had one like this in a bit.

[7] No. So it was really fun.

[8] And I really appreciated the education we received on the history of the Bible.

[9] Yeah.

[10] It was fascinating.

[11] It really was.

[12] Our guest today is Reza Aslan, who is a leading expert on world religions.

[13] He's also a best -selling author, Professor and an M .E .M .P. Body nominated producer.

[14] He had a hugely popular book called Zellet, The Life in Times of Jesus of Nazareth.

[15] And he has a new book out right now on a very fascinating topic called An American Martyr in Persia, the epic life and tragic death of Howard Baskerville.

[16] Very timely that we would learn pretty much the history of Iran.

[17] Great episode.

[18] Danzy Dance.

[19] Love Drezza.

[20] Please enjoy.

[21] Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad free right now.

[22] Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.

[23] Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts.

[24] He's an armchair expert.

[25] My wife has gifts for your wife.

[26] Oh, wow.

[27] So these are actually for your kids.

[28] Okay.

[29] So my wife created Kiva, her new company, they create these boxes, which are basically like family, volunteer, activity, empathy, path.

[30] So this one is for refugees.

[31] And it's like kids.

[32] Like you do it with your family.

[33] Right, right, right.

[34] This one's water.

[35] This one's food.

[36] I feel like I should try one of the kid -friendly projects.

[37] I think maybe you and I should.

[38] Start with kid -friendly and then we'll move up.

[39] I'm not a misanthrope.

[40] I live with someone who's very, very actively trying to.

[41] I'm much more a Republican in that.

[42] I'm like a one -on -one person.

[43] I have a friend who needs help.

[44] I'm the epitome of that empathy experiment where it's like you show people one child that's starving.

[45] I'm like, where are they?

[46] I'll fly wherever to get her and her brother.

[47] Now I'm like, eh.

[48] You care less.

[49] At least they have each other.

[50] And I'm like, yeah, they're fine.

[51] Once you show the village, I'm like, y 'all are fucked.

[52] I don't know.

[53] Someone's there got to figure this out.

[54] I think if we're going to give some compassion to you, it's because you feel so helpless and you can't handle it.

[55] Yeah, it's not a good feeling for me. The problem is like, how do you talk about this shit to your kids without freaking them out?

[56] And also by making them feel like they can do something about it.

[57] Yeah.

[58] You're like, if you're talking to your kid about global hunger and then you're like, good night, honey.

[59] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[60] Here's what it is in a way that you could understand it.

[61] And you can actually do something about it.

[62] Here's something that you can do.

[63] You can do something at home and you can make this thing and send it to a homeless kid.

[64] It makes them feel like, oh, there's problems and I can do something about it.

[65] I don't want to say it wrong.

[66] I have anxiety.

[67] Reza?

[68] Yeah.

[69] That's right.

[70] Reza Aslan.

[71] Reza Aslan.

[72] Easy.

[73] I prefer that it was Reza.

[74] Because when I was looking, I was like, could be Reza?

[75] No. Because there's only one consonant between that.

[76] It's Reza.

[77] It would be R -E -E.

[78] People sometimes say Reza, and I'm like, they're trying to make it fancier.

[79] So the one advantage I have.

[80] And I came to America, like I was, I think seven or eight years old.

[81] My last name, there's like a whole genre of people who freak the fuck out because of Narnia.

[82] I was like, what are you talking about?

[83] I've never read these.

[84] Yeah, it's the lion.

[85] Oh.

[86] The Christ figure.

[87] You'll take anything that works, especially if you're an immigrant kid.

[88] Okay, so you have a very fascinating background.

[89] I want to go through briefly the history of Iran, Persia, because I have a really thin understanding of it.

[90] Mine really probably starts in the 70s.

[91] Sure, yeah.

[92] And as I remember it, basically there had been a British -appointed public.

[93] puppeteer autocratic leader that was favorable to the oil industry?

[94] That's the story of most of the Middle East, because most of the Middle East was colonized by Europeans.

[95] And then when colonialism ended and the white people wrapped up and left, they left behind these puppet governments, usually monarchs, who were very quickly overthrown.

[96] And most of these countries descended into military dictatorships, etc. That's the story of Iraq, basically.

[97] It's the story of Jordan.

[98] But Iran was never colonized, but it did become sort of like the staging ground for the Great Game.

[99] You know that phrase that you heard like in history class?

[100] No, tell me, I like it.

[101] The Great Game was sort of the principal, global conflict between the British Empire and the Russian Empire.

[102] During a large swath of the 19th century and the early 20th century, these two empires basically fought for control over the natural resources of the Middle East.

[103] And Persia, as it was known back then, sort of became the primary playing ground for it.

[104] And so a lot of Persia's history, despite the fact that it was never directly colonized, there was never a white empire that showed up and kind of took over, it still was very much carved up into zones of influence.

[105] And the British and the Russian empire spent a huge chunk of the 19th and early part of the 20th century using the government.

[106] At first it was mostly trade routes.

[107] We got to have access to the Persian Gulf.

[108] We got to make sure that we can get our stuff from east to west in a very easy way.

[109] And then at the beginning of the 20th century, the British who had carved up the south.

[110] The British kind of had the south and the Russians had the north.

[111] The British struck oil.

[112] And then, of course, it was a Russian revolution.

[113] And so the Bolshevik government basically said to Iran, hey, sorry for the manipulation and the destruction of your culture.

[114] We're going to let you go.

[115] all the millions of rubles that you owe us.

[116] We're going to forget all of that.

[117] We're going to remove all of our troops.

[118] And the British and the South thought, that is such a great thing to do.

[119] We should do the exact same thing and give you freedom.

[120] Just kidding.

[121] The British in the South said, that's all worse.

[122] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[123] And at that point, really about the 20s, is when the British government kind of stepped in and because of its access to oil and because of, you know, everything that was going on And with the run -up to the First World War, they essentially took over the entire country.

[124] Again, not directly through the Shahs.

[125] And the Shahs, under a different name, we would call what?

[126] Shaw is just a Persian word for king.

[127] Wonderful.

[128] Okay, so there's a series of kings.

[129] There's a series of revolutions.

[130] There's three prior to 1979.

[131] So the 20th century was just a century of revolutions in Iran.

[132] It starts in 1906, the very first democratic revolution in the Middle East.

[133] This is the topic of your book, the epic life and tragic death of Howard Baskerville, we're now into his story.

[134] That's right.

[135] Because that's the first revolution.

[136] That's right.

[137] The first revolution.

[138] It's called the Persian constitutional revolution.

[139] And it was a coalition of young, zealous, a lot of them, Western educated intellectuals, the merchant class.

[140] And then, and I think this surprises a lot of people, the clerics, the Ayatollahs.

[141] They all got together and said, the Shah is a dictator.

[142] there is no law here.

[143] It's whatever he says it is.

[144] Our national identities under attack.

[145] Our natural resources are being sold off to the British and to the Russians.

[146] And by the way, all that money is going to the Shah.

[147] It's not like it's being dispersed to the country.

[148] And so they rallied together and they had this revolution and the revolution resulted in a constitution, very progressive constitution and a parliament.

[149] And so for a brief while, Iran became a constitutional monarchy.

[150] And then to your point about the book, so that was in 1906, the Shah, his name is Muzaffar ad -Din, he signs the constitution, and then three days later dies.

[151] I think it's relevant to also put into the equation that Persia is Shiite, Muslim.

[152] That's right.

[153] Their neighbor Iraq is primarily Sunni.

[154] No, Iraq is about 60 % Shia, and Iran is like 95 % Shia.

[155] So the division between those two countries at that point.

[156] point historically already exists or no?

[157] No, at this point, there's no such thing.

[158] There's harmony between them.

[159] There's just the Persian Empire and then there's the stuff that British control.

[160] So he signs his constitution.

[161] He dies three days later.

[162] And then his son, this 35 -year -old piece of shit, one of these almost comically villainous monarchs that show me. Yeah, exactly.

[163] Like the Jaffrey of the Middle East.

[164] His name is Muhammad Ali.

[165] Not that, Muhammad Ali.

[166] This would be the one name of him.

[167] No, I'll remember post -interview.

[168] Muhammad Ali has been told all of his life that God has birthed him to become the Shah.

[169] His father basically gave all that power away.

[170] And so he becomes Shah.

[171] And with his Russian backers, he essentially tears up the Constitution.

[172] He rolls cannons to the Parliament building, blows up the Parliament building with the parliamentarian still inside.

[173] They were literally having a session.

[174] No, kidding.

[175] Can I answer really quick, how long had this constitutional parliament?

[176] elementary monarchy existed before Muhammad Ali blows it up.

[177] A year.

[178] He's reclaiming the country for the shaws of the past, going all the way back to ancient Iran when we ruled the world and we shall rule one more time and the country is mine again.

[179] And through divinity.

[180] And then he launches this war against the revolutionaries.

[181] Essentially reclaims all of Persia back for the crown except for one town, this town in the northwest of the country called Tabriz.

[182] And that's the town that this kid, Howard Baskerville, suddenly shows up in.

[183] And Baskerville is a 22 -year -old Christian missionary from Nebraska.

[184] But highly educated, right?

[185] Yeah, he went to Princeton.

[186] He went there right after Wilson becomes the president of Princeton University.

[187] And Woodrow Wilson is a complicated character because on the one hand, he basically created international relations as we know it.

[188] He helped win World War I. He created the League of Nations, which was the forerunner to the United Nations.

[189] He had this incredible idea that democracy is the gift of God.

[190] All people should be free, and it's the role of America to make sure that all people are free in the world.

[191] The Wilson Doctrine, is that a thing?

[192] That's right.

[193] Yes.

[194] He was also an unrepentant racist.

[195] He supported the Confederacy long after the end of the Civil War.

[196] He was still like, the Confederacy should have won, man. But what he did do is that he created.

[197] essentially what we now know as the college electives system.

[198] The electoral college?

[199] No. You know, you would go to college and you take electives.

[200] were you thinking the same thing?

[201] I'm sorry.

[202] I'm glad I said that.

[203] I'm like, oh, he got that backwards.

[204] No, no, no. Also, I think it predates me. But anyways, let's roll.

[205] Electives, you know, you go to college and you're like, I'll take an art history class because I love it.

[206] I took jazz history.

[207] Exactly.

[208] So basketball shows up.

[209] He's there to study Christian ministry.

[210] So that's what he does for his first two years.

[211] He's got his nose in the Bible.

[212] He's doing what he's supposed to do.

[213] He's going to be a minister just like his dad and just like his grandfather, just like his whole family is all Presbyterian ministers.

[214] Like Shaw's almost.

[215] Exactly.

[216] This is a real person.

[217] Howard Basketball is a real person.

[218] Okay, because I also know you've done some fiction.

[219] Yes.

[220] Are you referencing his book on Jesus?

[221] Well, and left of all.

[222] Whoa.

[223] Oh, he jumped right in there.

[224] Anyway, sorry.

[225] We'll get there.

[226] I was sitting right there on a platter.

[227] But anyway, junior year, he's got to take an elective.

[228] So he takes it with Woodrow Wilson.

[229] and it's a course on like jurisprudence.

[230] And he's hearing this whole stuff about how God's plan for the world is freedom.

[231] Democracy is the gift of God on earth.

[232] Well, you would think with the concept of free will that it's kind of baked into the old book religions, if God's granting free will to his or her children, it seems like all governments that would come out of it.

[233] This is a principle that's older than any of these governments we're talking about.

[234] Yes.

[235] But the idea that human beings should have.

[236] have a say in the decisions that rule their lives, that their dignity should be respected, that their most basic rights should be guaranteed, that the law should actually be written down somewhere so that you can point to it and say, that's not how it's done.

[237] That seems so obvious, but for so much of the world, as we're even seeing today, that most basic thing is not a given.

[238] And that's the message that Woodrow Wilson pounded into Howard basketball's mind.

[239] And so when he graduates, instead of going back to Nebraska, going back to South Dakota and becoming a country preacher, he's like, all right, I'm going to go become a missionary and I'm going to go and see the world a little bit.

[240] And much to a chagrin, he gets posted to Persia, which is like the last place.

[241] Okay, so it wasn't calculated on his end.

[242] He's not like, I'm going to specifically go teach English and spread the word of God in a place that's already struggling.

[243] He just got a sign.

[244] Yeah, he desperately wanted to go to China.

[245] He wrote numerous letters to the head of the Presbyterian mission saying, obviously, I'll go wherever you think it's best.

[246] But I've been talking to God and God really, really wants me to go to China.

[247] Maybe Japan.

[248] China or Japan, I really think that's where God is calling me. I mean, obviously, you know best.

[249] And they were like, no, you're going to Persia.

[250] And this was the last place that he wanted to go because he had read all these terrible reports, not just about Persia.

[251] He's reading these missionaries who are there who are writing like these dispatches back.

[252] They're like, every sin in the decalogue is ever present in Persia and add to that the most abominable sin of Sodom.

[253] And he's like, what?

[254] I don't want to go to Persia.

[255] Now, really quick, because I want to know what his marching orders were, was he there to proselytize, to convert?

[256] He's got a double job.

[257] So his job is to teach.

[258] There's a mission school there.

[259] So he's teaching English and history.

[260] The promulgation of Christ is the point of the school.

[261] Every non -Persian who is teaching there is a missionary.

[262] He is there to preach the gospel.

[263] His term for it was to do the Mohammedan work, which was to convert Muslims to Christ.

[264] They would seem to me to be one of the least receptive to that, because they have their own religion.

[265] Definitely they're less receptive than the Chinese and the Japanese were at the time.

[266] Right, right.

[267] And also, at the time, such conversions were illegal.

[268] So he's like a C .I. But at the same time, this mission that he's a part of in Tabriz is this beloved mission.

[269] And it's been there for years.

[270] And the people who run it, they're called the Wilson's.

[271] Most of them are born in Persia.

[272] They refer to themselves as Persians.

[273] They're so deeply a part of the community that while there's very little evidence that they actually were all that successful in converting anyone, they were beloved in the community.

[274] And also one thing that's important to understand about Tabriz.

[275] Tabriz is a border town.

[276] And so it's enormously religiously diverse.

[277] There are Christians there, Jews, they're Muslims, Shia and Sunni.

[278] Exactly.

[279] They're Buddhists and Zoroastrians.

[280] The Baha 'i, it's a huge Baha 'i community.

[281] Some Scientologists sprinkled in.

[282] So, you know, it's a religiously sophisticated place.

[283] And they're doing their best.

[284] They're trying their hardest.

[285] But the truth of the matter is that the primary people that they were converting were indigenous Christians to American evangelical Christianity.

[286] That's what they were there to do.

[287] So they knew that it was going to be very hard to convince a Muslim to become a Christian.

[288] But there are ancient Christian communities, communities that date themselves all the way back to the apostles, Chaldeans, Assyrians, Armenians, Nestorians, and these American evangelical Christians were like, you're not doing it, right?

[289] And we're going to come and tell you how to do it.

[290] So that was, honestly, their primary focus.

[291] Yeah, yeah.

[292] If they picked up a couple straight, Muslims along the way.

[293] All the back.

[294] Yeah, bonus points.

[295] So he shows up smack dab in the middle of this revolution in the town that then becomes, because all the revolutionaries flee to it, the center of the revolution against the Shah.

[296] He's there for the first year.

[297] First of all, he loves his students.

[298] His students love him.

[299] He loves Persian culture.

[300] He loves Persian food.

[301] He falls in love.

[302] With a Persian lady?

[303] Well, she's American, but she was born in Persia.

[304] She's the daughter of the headmaster of the school.

[305] Perfect.

[306] He's riding horses and he's boxing and he's playing tennis and he's having the time of his life.

[307] He's like, this is the greatest job.

[308] Fuck China.

[309] Fuck Japan.

[310] I remember the best time ever.

[311] But it's in the midst of this incredible unprecedented revolution.

[312] And he's young himself.

[313] 22.

[314] He's told repeatedly by the church.

[315] It's none of your business.

[316] You're here to save souls, not lives.

[317] You're here to preach the gospel.

[318] We're not here to promote politics or promote democracy.

[319] Of course, we're on the side of the revolutionaries.

[320] Of course, the Shah is a violent, psychotic despot.

[321] Not your problem.

[322] And he's being told by the State Department, this revolution has no hope in succeeding.

[323] They actually get a memo from the State Department.

[324] Know that the U .S. government's position is that there is no such thing as democracy in the Muslim world, that Islam implies autocracy, and that any American who takes part in it will be tried for treason.

[325] Was that Shah, King Joffrey, Muhammad Ali, was he making any contracts with America?

[326] Americans were like, what the fuck is Persia anyway?

[327] Yeah.

[328] We don't even know.

[329] It was all just the British and the Russians at this point.

[330] They were hopping on with the British, whatever the British said.

[331] Yeah.

[332] And also, they don't have anything we need.

[333] They don't have anything we want.

[334] Right.

[335] Don't rock the boat.

[336] There's some rumblings about maybe some kind of oil.

[337] in the South, but who knows?

[338] And in any case, the British own it all anyway.

[339] Don't rock the boat, none of your business.

[340] And he does for about a year.

[341] He puts his head down.

[342] He teaches his classes.

[343] But this is Woodrow Wilson student.

[344] And he's looking out of his window.

[345] And he is seeing people like literally dying for their most basic rights.

[346] He has landed smack dab in a revolution that he's only read about in books.

[347] The situation is getting worse and worse.

[348] At a certain point, the Shah's troops.

[349] come to Tabriz, they try to take over the town for a few months, but they can't.

[350] The revolutionaries are too strong.

[351] And so then the Shah is like, all right, we can't defeat you.

[352] We're just going to starve you to death.

[353] And so the Shah encircles the entire town and then slowly cuts off all water, cuts off all food.

[354] And then the town just starves to death.

[355] Oh, my God.

[356] And in the midst of this, the church keeps saying, none your business, none your business.

[357] The State Department keeps saying none of your business.

[358] Yeah, and now I'm starving.

[359] And now, Baskerville just can't anymore.

[360] He's watching his own students going off to fight and not coming back.

[361] Meanwhile, he's teaching them about American history and the American Revolution.

[362] The hypocrisy becomes so much that one day he just can't do it anymore.

[363] And so he stands in front of his students and he says, I can't ignore the suffering on the streets anymore.

[364] I'm quitting the teaching job.

[365] I'm quitting my missionary post.

[366] And I'm going to go and fight in this sort of crazy made for Hollywood.

[367] moment, his students get up and go with him.

[368] So they join the revolution.

[369] The State Department obviously comes to him and says, you're an American.

[370] You can't fight in a foreign war.

[371] Come back home or we're going to have to arrest you for treason.

[372] And this, at that point, 24 -year -old kid says, all right, and he hands over his passport.

[373] And he says, I guess I'm not American anymore.

[374] Wow.

[375] Because what it means to be American means to help people fight for their most basic right.

[376] What it means to be Christian is not to just like preach this gospel because it ain't working, but to actually do what Jesus would have done, which is like, go and sacrifice myself with these people for their most basic rights.

[377] It's really tricky to imagine what Jesus would do, because on one hand, also, Jesus would turn the other cheek.

[378] You'd be getting starved and harm.

[379] Well, I mean, it literally says turn the other cheek, right?

[380] Those are his words.

[381] Those are his words, but there's a context to that.

[382] Jesus was engaged in his own revolution against a ruthless.

[383] foreign entity that was taking away the most basic rights of the Jews in the first century of Palestine, yeah.

[384] Pontius Pilate.

[385] Yeah.

[386] But at the very least, putting your faith into practice, what does it mean to be preaching Christianity to people who are starving on the streets and fighting for their most basic rights?

[387] But this is the heart of the confusion of the book and the religion and all this stuff is, on one hand, yes, what you're saying holds true with some tenets and principles, at least I understand that are in there.

[388] And then yet so many others, it violates.

[389] Yeah.

[390] Hence the complexity of...

[391] Well, yeah, that's the whole thing.

[392] It's Jesus often isn't reflected 100 % in the books.

[393] I know, but he was a pacifist and he willingly died.

[394] Do not say that I have come to bring peace on earth.

[395] I have not come to bring peace on earth.

[396] I have come to bring the sword, Jesus says, in the gospel of Mark.

[397] Jesus was not a pacifist.

[398] Jesus came, in his own words, to declare the kingdom of God on earth.

[399] That meant to remove the kingdom of Rome from Israel.

[400] Jesus was a radical, zealous revolutionary, not the celestial, airy, fairy guide that has no interest in the things of this world that right -wing Christians have turned them into.

[401] He's the opposite of that.

[402] Read my book, Zelead, everybody?

[403] thanks.

[404] I know.

[405] Over a million people have.

[406] New York Times best seller.

[407] Okay, we can move right past it, but I just will say I could get six other biblical scholars on here to point out all of his pacifists quotes.

[408] Yes, they do exist.

[409] He put up no fight when they came for him.

[410] Or did he?

[411] Sort of.

[412] Okay.

[413] I mean, it's a very long story.

[414] We could definitely get back to not just what Jesus represents, but how to really understand what religion is and why you could get six other people here who would say six different things.

[415] I'll tell you why it scares me is because a jihad, a holy war, killing infidels, anytime anyone's got marching orders from this whatever version you want, 3 ,000, 2 ,000, 1 ,000, 800 -year -old book, and it could ever be part of the marching orders for revolution or committing, even if justified, a homicide in defense of the revolution.

[416] I'm just going to throw a flag in the air.

[417] It just scares me. All right, let's do this.

[418] We're going to do it anyway.

[419] You know what I'm saying?

[420] I like that he might say, I'm going to fight to die for democracy.

[421] It's clean, I dig it.

[422] To go, oh, my work as a Christian is now best served in a military conflict, just either leave Christianity out of it and just keep it on the democratic tip.

[423] Because any time people are motivated by an old, old book, and an omnipresent thing entity in the sky and they're taking direction from it, I'm nervous.

[424] And you should be.

[425] Okay.

[426] And the reason that you should be is because religion means whatever, the religious person says it means.

[427] There is no such thing as religion in a vacuum.

[428] In fact, there's no such thing as Christianity.

[429] There's no such thing as Islam.

[430] There's no such thing as Buddhism.

[431] There's only Islam's, Christianity's, Buddhisms.

[432] The power of scripture comes from the reader.

[433] Without interpretation, it's just words on a page and it means nothing.

[434] And this is why.

[435] The same Hebrew Bible that says, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, also says slaughter every man, woman, and child who does not worship Yahweh.

[436] The same Jesus, who said turn the other cheek, said, I've come to bring the sword, not peace.

[437] The same Quran that says, if you've killed one person, it's as though you've killed all of humanity, says slay the idolater, wherever you find them.

[438] It is everything.

[439] That's what it is.

[440] It is everything.

[441] So you could say religion has been responsible for some horrific things in the world, 100 % true.

[442] It has also been responsible for some incredible things.

[443] The civil rights movement was a religious movement.

[444] So is Jim Jones.

[445] You can't say, okay, but Martin Luther King was right about Christianity and Jim Jones was wrong about Christianity.

[446] There's no such thing as right or wrong when it comes to religion because it is 100 % subjective.

[447] But that doesn't mean that religion itself is some rarefied thing.

[448] That's true of every ideology.

[449] The problem that we have in this country right now is not religion, it's nationalism.

[450] And nationalism has killed far more people just in the last hundred years than 2 ,000 years of religion has, the greatest most bestial acts of human violence.

[451] First of all, it all happened in the last 100 years and have almost been strictly as a result of nationalism, communism, Marxism, and we will use any ideology to kill each other.

[452] And it's hard.

[453] It's very, very hard to kind of wrap your head around this because it feels like it's not right.

[454] But we think that there's something unique or special about religion, that people are more zealous about religion than they are about other ideologies.

[455] I can tell you why some of us think that.

[456] Because I can defeat Marxism.

[457] It's happened.

[458] It has proven, if you're going to have a centralized government making all local decisions, it will not work.

[459] We've run the experiment now.

[460] 58 different times all over every corner of the world.

[461] This idea has been put to bed.

[462] It doesn't work.

[463] You know, the Nazi movement.

[464] It has been proven, Germans are not superior.

[465] You know, you can defeat ideologies.

[466] You cannot defeat faith.

[467] So it's scary.

[468] And yes, the numbers, I don't disagree.

[469] Although we've got to bring in the crusades.

[470] There's a lot of stuff we've got to bring in.

[471] We've got to bring in what part of nation state and nationalism is really in defense of national religion.

[472] It's very complex.

[473] But one can't defeat that ideology.

[474] It's impervious to counterfacts.

[475] It's impervious to a record of results.

[476] Unlike communism, Marxism, fascism, all these things have been defeated.

[477] Those stories played out.

[478] We're going to have other stories that are flawed.

[479] But at least we can move on from them.

[480] The one that's really scary about religion, for me, and you're an atheist, you're like, this fucking story is going to keep coming up forever.

[481] This idea that religion is going to go away one day is a fantasy.

[482] not how it's going to, it'll change, it's always changing.

[483] Yeah, yeah.

[484] And I will say that Mao killed tens of thousands of religious people, priests, nuns in the name of atheism.

[485] Uh -huh, sure.

[486] So religion does have this kind of claim of absolutism that makes it...

[487] It's non -falsifiable.

[488] Right.

[489] But it is defeatable.

[490] It's defeatable by other interpretations of that religion.

[491] In other words, religious violence can be defeated by religious peace.

[492] religious misogyny can be defeated by religious feminism.

[493] So that's why I say, like, you can't say one is right and one is wrong.

[494] By no way is am I sitting here advocating for religion.

[495] No, you're doing what I do, and I respect it.

[496] I tip my hat to it, which is like, I can be in either side of an argument to defend or criticize Scientology.

[497] Me too.

[498] I just wait until someone declares their position.

[499] I take the opposite one, because I can defend both.

[500] And so I think that's very much what you're doing.

[501] And you're right.

[502] It's not the significant acts of terrorism.

[503] not the significant driver of world wars.

[504] That is all true.

[505] This is a great example.

[506] So Muhammad Ali Shah is starving his own citizens because his idea of God is telling him that's what you got to do because you're the leader.

[507] Howard Baskerville is putting himself in harm's way, denying everything his mission, his citizenship, his American identity, all of that stuff, to fight alongside people he barely knows because of the same reason.

[508] And that's it.

[509] That's the stickiness and the ugliness and the beauty of faith.

[510] And it keeps me employed.

[511] I don't know what else to say.

[512] No, I mean, you have a master's and a PhD and you know the sociology and the history.

[513] So it's sidebar.

[514] This is because this is really fascinating.

[515] You, of course, were raised Muslim.

[516] You converted to Christianity at 15.

[517] That's right.

[518] Evangelical.

[519] And then back to Islam.

[520] What age was that?

[521] Early 20s.

[522] Okay, so we definitely need to hear the psychology behind why all the steps.

[523] Yeah, yeah.

[524] This is a good sidebar.

[525] Okay.

[526] So born in Iran, so culturally Muslim, just like so many people are culturally religious.

[527] It's not a thing that you think about.

[528] There's cultural Scientologists here, I know.

[529] I'm friends with Al -Tabu.

[530] They're like, I have two buckets for them.

[531] Truly, if you found it and sought it out versus you were raised in it.

[532] I think I probably didn't even know it was a Muslim until I came to the U .S. After the 79 Revolution, came here at a time in which it was not cool to be either Iranian or Muslim.

[533] This was at the heart of the Iran hostage crisis, you know, 444 days.

[534] And just kind of tried my hardest to pretend that I wasn't.

[535] You acted like you were Latino?

[536] Yeah, I told everybody I was Mexican.

[537] Wow.

[538] Were you successful in pulling that off?

[539] Totally.

[540] Oh, okay, great.

[541] Yeah, no, I would just walk around going like, O'Dalee.

[542] Uh -huh.

[543] You're appropriate.

[544] Yeah, I learned how to break dance.

[545] That helped.

[546] Wow.

[547] A lot of white kids, and this is normal, don't know the difference.

[548] A lot of people thought my mom and her sisters were black.

[549] Like, they didn't know.

[550] How about your acting coach?

[551] And my acting coach said I should play black, and that was not that long ago.

[552] Yeah, but they don't know.

[553] It's in the 70s and in 80s.

[554] No examples on television.

[555] You're the sole Persian neighbor they have.

[556] Also, I grew up in Dinuba, Fresno, and so, like, everybody was Mexican.

[557] So it was very easy to just be like, see.

[558] But, you know, I'd always been interested in religion.

[559] And also, I lived through the Iranian Revolution.

[560] So even though I was a child, I had this kind of very visceral experience of the power that religion has to transform a society for good.

[561] and for bad.

[562] So you were six -ish, seven?

[563] Oh, seven, yeah.

[564] Seven, dramatic departure?

[565] It was wake up, get your shit, let's go.

[566] Because your parents would have been on the other side of it?

[567] Well, so I did come from kind of a wealthy land -owning family.

[568] Those are the families that, like, lost everything.

[569] Because most of the people that ended up in Encino, that big wave.

[570] I don't think, I'm not stereotyping.

[571] No, yeah, legitimately.

[572] We call it Terangeles.

[573] Okay, Tarangeles.

[574] Yeah, so Enino, that age group is pretty consistent.

[575] It is mostly kind of wealthy Persians who live.

[576] left in 79.

[577] We came with nothing.

[578] We came after the revolution.

[579] Those guys came before the revolution, so they took their bank accounts with them.

[580] They saw Kami.

[581] Yeah.

[582] My dad was a hardcore Kami atheist.

[583] And so he was excited about the revolution.

[584] And then Khomeini showed up.

[585] After the Shah left, Khomeini came and he was like, I'm not interested in politics.

[586] I just want to be left alone.

[587] I want to go back to my family.

[588] He was in exile all this time.

[589] And my dad was like, bullshit.

[590] shit.

[591] I don't trust the word coming out of this guy's mouth.

[592] We are leaving before they close this thing down.

[593] And an Ayatollah, so I'm clear, that's the supreme leader.

[594] Iatollah coming.

[595] He is the supreme leader.

[596] This was before there was an Islamic Republic.

[597] But yes.

[598] So Ayatollah is just a title.

[599] It's like a level that Shia cleric reaches.

[600] Right.

[601] Is it the pope?

[602] No. There is no such thing.

[603] Or maybe a bishop.

[604] Because there's a grand Ayatollah.

[605] Oh.

[606] Grand Ayatola is the cardinal.

[607] That's the hot shot.

[608] And Ayatollah is the.

[609] the bishop.

[610] But crucially, in Islam, there is no Pope.

[611] There is no singular authority.

[612] And that was by design from the beginning.

[613] When the Prophet Muhammad died and it was time to find someone to replace him, there was a conscious decision made that that person would have no religious power whatsoever.

[614] They'd have to be divided the power.

[615] Yes.

[616] Islam invented the division of religion and politics.

[617] That had never existed before.

[618] Khomeini's sort of genius idea was we should create the perfect society.

[619] And Shiism, like Christianity, is a messianic religion.

[620] So there's this idea that like a Messiah figure will come at the end of time and build the perfect society.

[621] And interestingly, this idea exists in Christianity.

[622] She was called millinarianism.

[623] But Khomeini had this idea.

[624] It was like, look, instead of sitting around waiting for the Messiah to come and build the perfect society, we should build the perfect society.

[625] Then the Messiah will come.

[626] Sure.

[627] His idea was the way you build the perfect society is the representatives of that messianic figure should be the ones to run it.

[628] And so he created this completely unique, never really talked about before version that we now know as the Islamic Republic of Iran.

[629] There's a lot of layers happening, right?

[630] There is a democratically elected president there, but above all of it is the Ayatollah.

[631] And again, there are many, many Ayatollahs, and there are many, many grand Ayatollahs.

[632] But this concept of the Supreme Leader was something that Khomeini invented, whole cloth himself.

[633] And then he named himself Supreme Leader.

[634] It's like giving yourself a name.

[635] Exactly.

[636] It's not cool.

[637] A Pope with political power, that's exactly the way to think about it.

[638] And that's never existed in Islam.

[639] It's never existed in Shia.

[640] Islam's a completely new idea.

[641] And it was considered absolutely heretical everywhere else in the Muslim world.

[642] And to this day, there are still many, many grand Ayatollahs and Ayatollahs who think that the idea is sinful and disgusting.

[643] What supreme leader are they on?

[644] The second one.

[645] Just to make life more complex.

[646] complicated.

[647] His name is Chaminé.

[648] Yeah.

[649] Not Khomeini.

[650] Oh, come on.

[651] But Khomeini.

[652] No relation.

[653] But there's another name.

[654] It's three words, right?

[655] Well, his first name.

[656] But we just call him, you know, the Ayatollah Khomeini.

[657] Okay.

[658] So right now, am I right, though, that there is a supreme leader in Iran currently?

[659] But then there is a democratic government.

[660] There is a government that's elected.

[661] There is a legislature.

[662] There is a judiciary.

[663] Adimajad was the president.

[664] He had been elected by the people.

[665] Yes.

[666] Yes.

[667] The elections are exactly what we would call free and fair.

[668] You do get a choice of candidates, but that choice is vetted by the Supreme Leader.

[669] But it's still a choice.

[670] It's still four or five different people, but it doesn't matter because the president and the legislature and the judiciary can do whatever the hell they want to, but the Supreme Leader has veto power over everything.

[671] And the Supreme Leader is also crucially the commander -in -chief.

[672] Oh, wow.

[673] And there's two different police forces there?

[674] Right.

[675] So there's an army and then it also has a police force just like you would normally have.

[676] But there's this third group in Iran called the Revolutionary Guard.

[677] This is the Morality police?

[678] Well, no, the morality police is just a completely different part of it.

[679] So the Revolutionary Guard, again, doesn't really exist anywhere else.

[680] Here's what happened in 1979.

[681] The revolution started in 77.

[682] The thing that made it succeed is that eventually the military switch sides.

[683] And the military basically was like, you know what?

[684] We're with the revolutionaries.

[685] The Shah's got to go.

[686] And that's when it was over.

[687] Right.

[688] When Khomeini became the supreme leader, he remembered that.

[689] And he was like, we need a separate military.

[690] A military whose sole purpose is to essentially function as my personal bodyguard.

[691] Right.

[692] And this is the revolutionary guard.

[693] And he gave the revolutionary guard enormous power and leeway.

[694] Now, this goes to the complexity of the situation in Iran.

[695] In those 40 years, the Revolutionary Guard has become not just the most powerful force in Iran, but far more powerful than the Supreme Leader, far more powerful.

[696] Oh, wow.

[697] Oh.

[698] And do they have like a singular general that's popular?

[699] Yes, they do.

[700] And does he keep getting rid of those guys?

[701] No, but they are a military intelligence apparatus.

[702] It's like if our FBI and our CIA was one unit.

[703] But also, they control a lot of industry.

[704] They've become enormously wealthy by monopolizing industry, like the concrete industry.

[705] They're a mafia.

[706] So they're plutocrats too.

[707] And they're very smart about staying in the shadows as much as possible.

[708] They know that it's the patina of piety, the patina of the supreme leader that keeps shit in control.

[709] But Iran watchers know that at this point, the clerics are just fucking puppets.

[710] that this mafia slash military slash intelligence slash police force is running the country.

[711] Do they have a charismatic leader?

[712] No, and they don't need one and they don't want one.

[713] They don't want a head on the snake because then you can cut off the head.

[714] That's right.

[715] And it doesn't really matter for them.

[716] And the other thing is important to understand about the Revolutionary Guard is that not like they're particularly pious.

[717] There's this whole argument being had right now.

[718] We should let women wear whatever they want to.

[719] The Revolutionary Guard would be perfectly happy to let women wear whatever they want.

[720] to as long as they just shut the fuck up and go back home yeah stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare we've all been there turning to the internet to self -diagnose our inexplicable pains debilitating body aches sudden fevers and strange rashes though our minds tend to spiral to worst -case scenarios it's usually nothing but for an unlucky few these unsuspecting symptoms can start the clock ticking on a terrifying medical mystery.

[721] Like the unexplainable death of a retired firefighter, whose body was found at home by his son, except it looked like he had been cremated, or the time when an entire town started jumping from buildings and seeing tigers on their ceilings.

[722] Hey listeners, it's Mr. Ballin here, and I'm here to tell you about my podcast.

[723] It's called Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries.

[724] Each terrifying true story will be sure to keep you up at night.

[725] Follow Mr. Ballin's medical mysteries wherever you get your podcasts.

[726] Prime members can listen early and add free on Amazon music.

[727] What's up, guys?

[728] This your girl Kiki, and my podcast is back with a new season.

[729] And let me tell you, it's too good.

[730] And I'm diving into the brains of entertainment's best and brightest, okay?

[731] Every episode, I bring on a friend and have a real conversation.

[732] And I don't mean just friends.

[733] I mean the likes of Amy Polar, Kell Mitchell, Vivica Fox.

[734] The list goes on.

[735] So follow, watch, and listen to Baby.

[736] This is Kiki Palmer on the Wondery app.

[737] wherever you get your podcast.

[738] So who's this other group?

[739] The morality police, they're called the Bessage.

[740] The best way to put it is that it's sort of vigilantes who have been given uniforms.

[741] Almost like volunteer firefighters?

[742] Yes.

[743] They themselves are primarily from poor communities.

[744] They themselves tend to be more pious.

[745] And they have carte blanche to harass people.

[746] And it's not just like, hey, your hijab is wrong.

[747] it's if they see a tattoo or you two are sitting too close to each other nobody's in charge of them honestly there's no other way to put it except that it's just like a bunch of kids who have been empowered by the state to harass people So the state is quote managing They're empowered by the government Right okay The government says this is our morality And then they empower these brown shirts They can't arrest you But they can detain you They can harass you 90 % of the time you just hand over a fiver and say, go fuck yourself.

[748] So this woman that right now has led to all these demonstrations, she had been taken into custody, correct?

[749] Right.

[750] So what they can do is call upon the authorities to come and take you.

[751] Or they can detain you or they can take you to the prison or a holding place so that the police can then deal with you.

[752] But they themselves are not police.

[753] They're citizens, arresters.

[754] Wow.

[755] You know what this reminds me of too?

[756] It's semi -remanicent of in the cadre system in communism, how you had all these people empowered to find out who was talking.

[757] That's exactly what it is.

[758] They hang out in parks.

[759] They hang out on restaurants.

[760] They hang out on ski slopes.

[761] Nightclubs?

[762] They got to be all over there.

[763] They're not really nightclubs.

[764] They're more private parties.

[765] They do that too.

[766] They like get wind of private parties or they hear music.

[767] They're Debbie Downers.

[768] They're Debbie Downer.

[769] But if they can detain you, there's still legit fear around it.

[770] What's really kind of freaked people out about what happened to Masa Amini, the woman who was murdered, is that, especially in places like Tehran, this is an incredibly cosmopolitan city.

[771] For a long, long time, people had learned to just kind of navigate around the problem.

[772] The loose hijab is just a standard thing.

[773] I mean, you see these beautiful women on the streets of Tehran, you know, with these like, Hermes, hijabes.

[774] It's just like barely holding on gorgeous makeup.

[775] Or you would see like guys, you know, with long hair or punk styles.

[776] And this is technically forbidden.

[777] And yes, they would get harassed a lot.

[778] But like I said, you learn to navigate around that.

[779] And so much of this is just about giving the right bribe.

[780] And also, a lot of these videos have been circulating on social media.

[781] A lot of people would just fight back now.

[782] They'd say like, fix your hijabob.

[783] And they'd be like, go fuck yourself.

[784] You know, don't tell me what to do.

[785] Don't touch me and all that stuff.

[786] Over the last year or so, however, with the election of this new president, Abraham Reisi, with the end of the nuclear accords, which really began to open Iran up.

[787] And there was this huge amount of hope for Iran with the absolute collapse of the economy in Iran.

[788] I mean, you got half the population living under the poverty line.

[789] You have 50 % inflation, you know.

[790] We're like bitching about 5 % in.

[791] In this kind of moment of instability where like the government is hugely unpopular, it's these kinds of things, these little let's ratchet up the morality.

[792] Let's remind them who's in charge.

[793] And so a lot of Iranians have been saying that over the last year it's gotten worse.

[794] The harassing has gotten worse.

[795] You're not able to get away with it the way that you used to be able to get away with it.

[796] And what happened to Masa Amini was sort of the last straw.

[797] It was like that moment where it just absolutely opened the flood.

[798] Critical mass. That's exactly the way to think about it.

[799] Yeah.

[800] So I don't mean to make light of the morality police.

[801] They are a huge, huge problem in Iran, but they're more just a terrible nuisance than they are the Gestapo.

[802] Right.

[803] Okay.

[804] Back to 1979.

[805] Your dad was fearful of the Ayatollah Khomeini becoming the supreme leader, which in fact happens.

[806] You came here.

[807] We came here.

[808] And once we got to America, my dad was like, great.

[809] Well, we don't have to pretend anymore.

[810] No more religion.

[811] It's done.

[812] I didn't grow up with any kind of religion, but I was always really fascinated by religion.

[813] And then when I was in high school, I went to this youth camp, this kind of Christian youth camp.

[814] How'd they get you?

[815] I was just telling this story.

[816] I want to go to Cedar Point as an amusement park about three hours away.

[817] And my friend was like, you know, we're going to go in three weeks if you want to start coming to youth group.

[818] It's fun.

[819] We're all having a great time.

[820] My friends are going.

[821] They're very inclusive.

[822] But I heard the gospel story.

[823] for the first time and there's a reason why they call it the greatest story ever told it's a good story it has stood the test is really really i don't know people talk about godfather in two thousand years i hope they do but it probably won't make the cut who knows yeah can you remember what aspect of it you found attractive you are born in sin and you're going to die and you're going to only son, his only begotten son, slash himself slash Holy Spirit.

[824] Why?

[825] Don't worry about it.

[826] Don't worry about it.

[827] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[828] Put it back on the shelf.

[829] Yeah.

[830] And he died for your sins.

[831] And all you got to do is believe in his name.

[832] That's it.

[833] It's an easy buy -in.

[834] You have eternal life.

[835] You will be in paradise forever.

[836] I'd never heard anything like that before in my life.

[837] I was like, the ultimate ROI.

[838] Yes, the greatest thing I have ever heard in my life.

[839] And I don't do anything half -assed.

[840] And so I just was like, okay.

[841] And I just spent the next few years, basically preaching that same thing to everyone, whether they wanted to hear it or not.

[842] And then when I went to college, I knew I wanted to be a writer.

[843] You can't tell your immigrant parents are going to be a writer.

[844] Think how Monica's parents feel.

[845] I told them being an actress.

[846] I told my mom, I wanted to be a writer.

[847] And she's like, who's stopping you from writing?

[848] Go be a doctor.

[849] Yeah.

[850] Pick up a law degree.

[851] Yeah.

[852] Well, wait, speaking of your parents, what did they think of this Christian movement?

[853] It had to drive your dad nuts.

[854] Yes, I converted my mother to Christianity.

[855] I converted my sister to Christianity because I don't want him to burn in hell.

[856] Sure.

[857] And my dad was like, we left Iran so that we wouldn't have to deal with this.

[858] And here it is again.

[859] He was not very happy.

[860] But when I went to college, I decided, okay, well, I'm going to study religion and I'll start with Christianity.

[861] And what I discovered was that basically everything that I thought I knew about Jesus, about Christianity, about the birth of the religion, about its meaning and its significance.

[862] It was all wrong.

[863] I learned who the historical Jesus was, not the Christ.

[864] The actual illiterate, uneducated, impoverished peasant who led a revolution against the world's most powerful empire.

[865] And that guy was so much more interesting.

[866] I'm with you.

[867] I could jump on with people being super fascinated by.

[868] Jesus Christ, because minimally, here's a guy who did not build a single temple in his honor.

[869] He didn't erect anything.

[870] He didn't pass anything on to a future generation.

[871] This person's the most charismatic person to ever walk on the planet, arguably.

[872] That's fascinating.

[873] A real human that lived here that you and I are fucking talking about 2 ,000 years later, and I'm passionate about it and you're passing.

[874] That's wild.

[875] Taking nothing away from the prophet Muhammad.

[876] The truth is Jesus and Muhammad had an enormous amount of common with each other.

[877] Muhammad also was confronted with an absolutely intolerable situation in which you were either very rich or everybody else.

[878] He saw starvation and he saw marginalization and oppression and he did something about it.

[879] These both are socioeconomic movements, really.

[880] That's what religion is.

[881] Muhammad died never intending to start a new religion.

[882] The word Islam doesn't exist in the Quran.

[883] He says repeatedly, this is not a new.

[884] message.

[885] This is not a new message.

[886] This is the same message that was given to the prophets before me. Jesus died a Jew.

[887] He was not interested in starting a new religion.

[888] He was a Jew preaching Judaism to other Jews.

[889] The Buddha was not a Buddhist.

[890] He was a Hindu.

[891] He was a Hindu preaching Hinduism to other Hindus.

[892] What they were focused on was cultural and social and economic change.

[893] Did Muhammad not create the five pillars who created the five pillars.

[894] His followers, the next generation.

[895] Nowhere in the Quran is it like, these are the five pillars, you know.

[896] Same with Christianity.

[897] Jesus died.

[898] He didn't write any books.

[899] He couldn't read.

[900] Yeah, neither could any of his followers.

[901] Ninety -eight percent of Jews were illiterate in Jesus' time.

[902] You know, who wasn't illiterate was the Greeks and the Romans.

[903] And they're the ones who created Christianity.

[904] It all comes back to something that you were saying earlier, which was get through the religion to the actual founder.

[905] And the chasm between Muhammad and Islam, the chasm between Jesus and Christianity is enormous.

[906] I have a very good friend.

[907] We go to the same AA meetings.

[908] And I'm regularly in a social situation where he is trying to relay this great, profound thing he heard in the meeting.

[909] And I was also in the meeting.

[910] And I hear his version of it.

[911] And I'm literally thinking, like, well, A, there's no way these people are finding this that inspiring.

[912] And B, that is not at all what was said.

[913] Although I know he heard the correct thing, him articulating it after the fact is in his strong suit.

[914] All these people who wrote all of these texts were trying to remember what Muhammad said to them and what Jesus said to them.

[915] And I'm just saying, I witness it.

[916] And sometimes it's one day later.

[917] 100%.

[918] It's a game of telephone.

[919] The worst version possible because it's actually hundreds of years between it.

[920] Absolutely nothing Jesus said was written down.

[921] In the case of Muhammad, it is true that.

[922] especially the last decade or so.

[923] Because the difference between Muhammad and Jesus is that Muhammad was successful.

[924] And that's 800 ,000, the 7th century.

[925] It actually worked for him.

[926] Jesus was Van Gogh, and he was Picasso.

[927] He had to see his work appreciated.

[928] Exactly.

[929] Yeah, yeah.

[930] And so, at least in Muhammad's time, there were a group of people around him who were like, we should remember this.

[931] There's no evidence that they wrote it down at that time, but they did memorize it.

[932] We're known as the Kura.

[933] We're the people who remember.

[934] The oral history.

[935] Yeah, exactly.

[936] And then after Muhammad's death, about a generation later, there was this notion that we should probably write that stuff down.

[937] So get the people.

[938] What did he say?

[939] Do you think it was largely remembered in songs, some of them?

[940] A huge amount of the Quran actually is poetry.

[941] And so it's easier to remember.

[942] But in the case of Jesus.

[943] He was hanging on with a hooker.

[944] Yeah, nobody knew what was happening here.

[945] It was a three -year revolution.

[946] And by the way, at least on the surface, seem to have failed miserably.

[947] And also, Jesus said very clearly, I'll be right back.

[948] So Jesus's early followers got rid of all their possessions and moved into the temple and waited.

[949] It was only after they started to die that people were like, you know what, we should probably write this shit down.

[950] Right.

[951] So the first words ever written down about Jesus, he dies in the early 30s, were in the mid to late 50s.

[952] So at least, you know, 25 years or so.

[953] I had lots of great classes at UCLA.

[954] And there's not a chance in hell I could get anything above 10 % right of what someone said that.

[955] Better yet, if it was you and your buddy, you would have two completely different views.

[956] Oh, yeah.

[957] You and your siblings, right?

[958] Don't you remember exact same events differently?

[959] That's why there are dozens of Gospels.

[960] Even the four that we have in the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, they're all over the place.

[961] What were the first words written?

[962] The first words written about him were actually by this guy named Paul.

[963] He's known as the Apostle Paul.

[964] Never knew Jesus.

[965] Never met him.

[966] Never met Jesus.

[967] He was a Pharisee.

[968] He was a Roman citizen, a Greek speaker, highly intelligent.

[969] Long after Jesus died, he claims to have had this spiritual experience in which he, like, comes face to face with the risen Jesus.

[970] And he starts receiving all this message from Jesus about what his ministry was about.

[971] Meanwhile, the actual disciples are a bunch of illiterate peasants in Jerusalem.

[972] They got to be aging at this point.

[973] They start hearing these rumors about this Pharisee.

[974] who's going around saying he's getting messages from the risen Jesus.

[975] And they're like, I'm sorry?

[976] What?

[977] Bro.

[978] So this is in the book of Acts.

[979] They summon him to Jerusalem and be like, what the hell are you saying?

[980] And what Paul is saying is insane.

[981] Paul is saying, Jesus isn't a man. He's pure God.

[982] He's made of light and he's eternal.

[983] Before the world began, when Adam and Eve disobeyed God, they got original sin.

[984] There's no such thing as sin in the old.

[985] Testament.

[986] And there's no devil.

[987] There's no such thing as the devil.

[988] I know that the Jews don't have a devil, which is great.

[989] And the snake is just a snake.

[990] That's all the snake is.

[991] Sure.

[992] But Paul is saying, no, no, no, it wasn't a snake.

[993] It was the devil.

[994] And that's when sin came in.

[995] And we're all in sin.

[996] And Jesus died to wash us of sin.

[997] If you believe in his name, then you will go to heaven.

[998] You will become a new genus of person.

[999] So the thing that you liked, Paul came up with the off the dome.

[1000] Or what we now call Christianity.

[1001] 100 % Paul's imagination, just makes this thing up.

[1002] Sure.

[1003] And Paul says, forget about Judaism, forget about the law of Moses.

[1004] None of that matters anymore.

[1005] You don't need to be circumcised anymore.

[1006] You don't have to do.

[1007] No more covenant with Yahweh.

[1008] Anyone can become a Christian now.

[1009] So the disciples hear this, including Jesus' brother, James, here this.

[1010] Wait, he has a brother?

[1011] He has four brothers.

[1012] Yeah.

[1013] Really quick.

[1014] The manger he was brought into.

[1015] He must actually be the son of Mary.

[1016] Or no, is that, yes.

[1017] He is the son of Mary.

[1018] Right.

[1019] He was not born in a manger.

[1020] He was not born in Bethlehem.

[1021] Okay.

[1022] He was born in Nazareth.

[1023] She wasn't a virgin.

[1024] Well, hold on.

[1025] Obviously.

[1026] I'm just trying to make both things work.

[1027] Even for the folks who believe that Mary was a virgin, do they know Mary went on to have three more sons?

[1028] Yes.

[1029] This is before there's any such thing as virgin birth.

[1030] This is before a gospel is written.

[1031] This is before any story about Jesus is written down.

[1032] This is before anything about Jesus.

[1033] Jesus is written down.

[1034] What birth order was he?

[1035] Jesus was first, James was second.

[1036] Okay.

[1037] Paul's out there saying Jesus is a pure light and all this stuff.

[1038] And James, who is in charge of Christianity, after Jesus' death, summons Paul to Jerusalem and be like, what the hell are you talking about?

[1039] Stop telling people this stuff.

[1040] That is not true.

[1041] We are Jews, and you have to become a Jew if you want to join our movement.

[1042] They do have this very long debate.

[1043] It's very funny because it's in the book of Acts in the New Testament.

[1044] about the circumcision thing.

[1045] And eventually James concedes, fine.

[1046] You don't have to cut off the skin on your penis if you want to become part of us.

[1047] We get how that could be a real...

[1048] That was Paul's big barrier venture.

[1049] That could be a real deterrent.

[1050] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1051] But everything else, we're Jews.

[1052] This is Judaism.

[1053] Stop calling it something else.

[1054] Had he named it yet?

[1055] No, but Paul is the one who starts calling Jesus the Christ.

[1056] Okay.

[1057] Now, Christ is just the Greek word for Messiah.

[1058] all the disciples thought that he was the Messiah.

[1059] But Messiah means something completely different in Judaism.

[1060] Messiah just means the guy who reestablishes the kingdom of David on Earth.

[1061] Right, because the Jews believe in a Messiah.

[1062] They just don't believe Jesus was the Messiah.

[1063] They're still waiting for the Messiah.

[1064] Yes, they're still patiently waiting.

[1065] Paul was like, no, no, no, he was the Messiah, but Messiah means something completely different.

[1066] And the kingdom that he's talking about is not even an earthly kingdom.

[1067] It's a heavenly kingdom.

[1068] Paul is the Colonel Parker.

[1069] Oh, I see what you're going to say.

[1070] He's creating an industry out of...

[1071] He's creating Elvis.

[1072] Yes.

[1073] That's right.

[1074] What's really curious is he's obviously loud and charismatic and getting attention on his own, yet he doesn't choose to embellish his own importance.

[1075] No, no, he most definitely does.

[1076] Oh, he does.

[1077] Okay.

[1078] There's 21 books in the New Testament, and 11 of them are either by Paul or about Paul.

[1079] So he goes around and he starts creating these Christian communities everywhere.

[1080] A lot of non -Jewish Christian communities because his whole thing is, this is for everyone.

[1081] And he's writing this shit down.

[1082] This is the key right here.

[1083] He's writing these letters.

[1084] This is what Jesus was.

[1085] This is what he meant.

[1086] This is what he said.

[1087] Eventually, he gets the riot act from the disciples who are like, that's not what Jesus said.

[1088] I know because I bunked with him.

[1089] And you better stop it right now.

[1090] And Paul does because you can't argue with the disciples.

[1091] And then what the disciples do is they send their own emissaries to all of the communities.

[1092] that Paul has created to basically fix things.

[1093] So have you ever noticed that there's a one Corinthians and a two Corinthians, that there's a first Galatians and a second Galatians?

[1094] So Paul writes a letter to these communities, to the Galatians.

[1095] This is what Jesus wants from you.

[1096] Then in Second Galatians, the letter usually begins with some other people showed up and they told you that that's not what Jesus said.

[1097] There are wolves and sheep's clothing.

[1098] Do not listen to them.

[1099] Sure, they call themselves the apostle, but I'm the apostle too.

[1100] I'm an apostle.

[1101] They were chosen by Jesus.

[1102] Sure, I'll give you that.

[1103] But Jesus picked me when I was in the womb.

[1104] They were chosen by the earthly Jesus.

[1105] I was chosen by the heavenly Jesus.

[1106] Fast forward to 66.

[1107] The book is Paul's book.

[1108] So here's what happens.

[1109] Right now, the only thing that is written down ever about Jesus are all these letters that Paul writes.

[1110] It's now 66, James is dead, Paul is dead, Peter is dead, all these big important figures are dead.

[1111] And in 66, something extraordinary happens, which is that revolution that Jesus was trying to do 35 years earlier actually happens.

[1112] The Jews rise up, they kick the Romans out of the Holy Land.

[1113] It's a fucking miracle.

[1114] The greatest empire of the world has ever known.

[1115] Now, it turns out Rome is busy with its own civil war.

[1116] But nevertheless, Israel is liberated.

[1117] this is the kingdom of God and for four magical years they keep the Romans at bay and then the Romans eventually they settle their own civil war and someone's like hey whatever happened to Israel we should go and just kill everybody and that's what they do they show up and they slaughter everyone they burn Jerusalem to the ground they burn the temple to the ground Josephus the historian says it's as though the city never existed when Rome is done And the first church is gone.

[1118] Everything is gone and dead.

[1119] And the Jews that remain that actually survive are scattered into the Roman Empire.

[1120] Now, at this point, the only thing about Jesus that exists, it's not his original church, it's not as disciples, it's not as apostles, is these fucking letters from Paul.

[1121] Yeah.

[1122] A year later is when the first gospel about Jesus is written.

[1123] What does that gospel writer do?

[1124] He's got stories, obviously, but what he has is Paul.

[1125] Yeah.

[1126] And so this thing that Paul invented, this thing that he got excoriated for by Jesus' followers, happens to be the only thing that exists, and that becomes Christianity.

[1127] Okay, now I got a really radical pitch for you.

[1128] You're not going to like this.

[1129] Is Paul not perhaps the most charismatic man in history?

[1130] Because really we're not actually obsessed with Jesus.

[1131] we are obsessed with Paul's imagination of Jesus.

[1132] So is it not Paul perhaps that created a story that has stood the test of time more than the man, Jesus Christ?

[1133] Here is honestly the primary difference between Paul and Jesus.

[1134] What Jesus is preaching is unpalatable.

[1135] It's impossible.

[1136] Jesus is preaching the reversal of the social order.

[1137] Blessed are the weak, the meek.

[1138] the powerless, the poor, woe to the rich and the hungry.

[1139] How do we know that's a quote if only Paul's written the shit down?

[1140] Okay, there is this thing called Q, and it's a document that we don't actually have access to.

[1141] But what we do know is that these four gospels were written miles apart from each other by people who did not know each other or have any connection with each other.

[1142] But strangely, there are these similarities in all of them.

[1143] certain things that Jesus says in every one of them.

[1144] What we know is that that indicates that there must have been a kind of Jesus' greatest sayings.

[1145] Now, the thing about Paul, Paul never ever quotes a single word that Jesus ever said because he was not there and he didn't hear anything.

[1146] He never quotes a single thing that Jesus ever did.

[1147] Paul is just talking about himself and what he thinks this religion is supposed to be.

[1148] But the radical nature of what Jesus is envisioning is a world in which the top and the bottom switch places, not in which we're all equal.

[1149] Woe to you who are fed for you shall go hungry.

[1150] The first shall be last and the last shall be first.

[1151] That's not we're all the same.

[1152] We're all getting together.

[1153] That's not redistribute the wealth.

[1154] No, this is punitive.

[1155] Paul says Jesus couldn't care less about anything of this world.

[1156] It doesn't matter.

[1157] Rich, poor, Jew, Gentile.

[1158] we're all the same.

[1159] All you got to do is believe in his name.

[1160] You don't have to cut off the thing at the end of your penis.

[1161] You don't have to eat kosher.

[1162] You don't have to do anything.

[1163] All you got to do is believe in his name.

[1164] That is a very appealing version of this.

[1165] And so Greeks and Romans and, you know, everyone is like, this is what I want.

[1166] And so the same empire that killed Jesus, three and a half centuries later, becomes Christian.

[1167] Yeah.

[1168] Yeah.

[1169] Yeah.

[1170] I hear that story and I'm like, holy shit.

[1171] A, I don't want to be a Christian anymore.

[1172] I want to be a follower of Jesus.

[1173] That sounds compelling to me. And secondly, I'm learning about what religion is.

[1174] And when you study the religions of the world, it becomes difficult to take any one of them all that seriously any longer.

[1175] You know, certainly it becomes very difficult to take any of their truth claims.

[1176] Can I add in, if you look at it from an anthropological lens of what types of religion rise from?

[1177] from which types of environments, it becomes very correlated and predictable.

[1178] Absolutely.

[1179] When you live between two flooding rivers, you have one version of God.

[1180] When you live on the Nile, on a fertile crescent, and it's predictable, you get another kind of when you're in the Indus Valley, you get a nicer or less hostile guy.

[1181] And the other thing that you start to notice is there's a very fancy term for it, which is patterns of religious phenomena.

[1182] But it's essentially, you start to realize, oh, holy shit, it's all the same thing.

[1183] Oftentimes, they're saying it in the same way.

[1184] They're using the same myths.

[1185] There's like 14 versions of a flood narrative.

[1186] And so the big kind of aha moment that I had when studying religion was the best way to think about what religion actually is.

[1187] It's a language made up of symbols and metaphors that allow you to communicate what is fundamentally inexpressible.

[1188] That feeling that you can call it whatever you want to.

[1189] Faith, transcendence, ultimate reality, being.

[1190] There's like a million words for it.

[1191] But that thing about being human, it's hard to talk about that stuff.

[1192] Religion says, here's a language, use it.

[1193] And what I decided that I was going to be was the universal translator.

[1194] I'm going to learn all these languages.

[1195] And then I'll be able to say to people, you're saying the same thing.

[1196] But you have anchored into Islam.

[1197] So how did you decide?

[1198] I'm both an expert on religion, but I'm also a person of faith.

[1199] I do believe in God, though my definition of God is probably different than a lot of other people's definitions.

[1200] I do believe that there is a transcendent reality.

[1201] And when I talk about faith, I make sure that I'm always talking about it as a form of emotion.

[1202] Because that's what faith is.

[1203] Faith is an emotion, like love.

[1204] If someone tells you, like, describe love, it's the experience that you've had.

[1205] Like, you can't really describe it.

[1206] Well, take a run at it, but, you know.

[1207] I have had certain experiences in my life that have made me realize that there is more to reality than this material world.

[1208] And I wanted a language so that I could talk about it.

[1209] But the language that is most comfortable to me is the language of Islam.

[1210] But I'm not a Muslim because I think Islam is more right.

[1211] There's no such thing as more right.

[1212] I just like the metaphors.

[1213] You prefer speaking that language.

[1214] Yeah.

[1215] The thing that the Buddha once said, which I think is really profound, which is that if you want to strike water, you don't dig six, one, foot wells.

[1216] You dig one six -foot well.

[1217] Islam is my six -foot well.

[1218] But what the Buddha meant was, okay, that's your well.

[1219] But the water is the water that everybody's drinking from.

[1220] Like, just pick a fucking well.

[1221] The well is not important.

[1222] It's the water that's important.

[1223] But get your own well.

[1224] I think that's what's animated my spirituality and my sort of academic and intellectual pursuits.

[1225] That was a party.

[1226] We can cut this if you want.

[1227] And I don't know the details of it.

[1228] I just know because we've had our own experiences with Sam Harris.

[1229] You two have a history, right?

[1230] We do.

[1231] There's a whole thing.

[1232] Oh, I don't know about that.

[1233] It goes back.

[1234] Yeah, I'm curious.

[1235] Can you just tell us what's been going on?

[1236] My problem with Sam is that he has what I think is an unsophisticated view of what religion actually is.

[1237] He can find something bad about religion and be like, there you go, you know?

[1238] And I'm like, yeah, that's true.

[1239] And there's good and some people are bad and some people are good.

[1240] I think Sam has a difficult time with this notion that scripture without interpretation is words on a page.

[1241] He thinks, and I think a lot of people would agree with him, that people derive their values from their scriptures.

[1242] And that is absolutely false.

[1243] People do not derive their values from their scriptures.

[1244] People insert their values into their scriptures.

[1245] Well, the scripture itself is a projection of man. The scripture itself begins as a projection of man. And you put a projection on a projection.

[1246] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1247] Like, that's what you are doing.

[1248] If you're a misogynist, I can give you a dozen verses in the Bible that will support your misogyny.

[1249] If you're a feminist, I can give you a dozen verses in the same fucking Bible to support your feminism.

[1250] it's about who you are and what you bring to the text.

[1251] And I think that Sam and Dawkins does this too.

[1252] They think that religious people are robots and the text is software.

[1253] Is their code?

[1254] Yeah.

[1255] The text says, do this and they go and do that.

[1256] And it's a very unsophisticated way of thinking about it.

[1257] But then if you can garner whatever you want, why do you need it?

[1258] We can do this.

[1259] Yeah.

[1260] I'm having a blast.

[1261] So religion is a man -made phenomenon.

[1262] It was created by human beings, and we can trace it with some measure of confidence to about maybe 11, 12, maybe 13 ,000 or 14 ,000 years ago.

[1263] But really, not much further than that.

[1264] Faith, which is this fundamental belief that the mind and the body are separate and unique, that there is a reality that is beyond what my empirical senses can see.

[1265] Faith is a weird word, so I use the word religious impulse.

[1266] The impulse towards religious thinking is evolutionary and biological.

[1267] We can trace the religious impulse hundreds of thousands of years.

[1268] We can trace it in Neanderthals.

[1269] We can trace it to before Homo sapiens existed as a species.

[1270] And we know cognitive theorists have proven that whatever that impulse is, It is evolutionary and universal.

[1271] And that means it has existed in all places, at all times, and as I say, even before we existed.

[1272] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[1273] I think Yuval does a great job of explaining in Sapiens the evolutionary benefit, the group cohesion that grew out of a shared belief system, a shared story.

[1274] Right.

[1275] And he's wrong.

[1276] Oh, now you and I'm on dance.

[1277] Now hold on, hold on, because this is a very, I mean, Dirkheim said this 200 years before he did.

[1278] So there is no more real significant debate over that part.

[1279] Then hominids have believed something was happening for as long as we're.

[1280] And that it's evolutionary and that it's always been there and that it's in our brain.

[1281] Well, well, hold on.

[1282] You've got to be more specific about it's evolutionary.

[1283] What I mean by evolutionary is that it has always existed.

[1284] in our species, it is a part of our normal cognitive processes, it's embedded in our brain, it exists in species of humans before us.

[1285] There's no more argument about that part.

[1286] The argument now is, why?

[1287] Yvall's explanation is that it creates social cohesion.

[1288] Yeah.

[1289] That's an explanation that started with Emil Dirkheim 200 years ago, and it's an explanation that has been debunked.

[1290] How so?

[1291] And the reason for that is twofold.

[1292] Number one, for religious, to be an adaptive advantage insofar as it creates social cohesion.

[1293] So that's why it exists.

[1294] Well, there's two problems with that.

[1295] Number one is that kinship, not agreement on a set of symbols and metaphors, is how social cohesion actually evolved and kept us from killing each other.

[1296] The people in your cave were related to you.

[1297] Kinship ordered populations had a max capacity of 100 to 150.

[1298] And yet faith, or whatever this religious impulse means, existed then.

[1299] So it didn't come about when we started building cities and villages.

[1300] You're saying specifically that faith is the evolutionary component.

[1301] That's not what anyone's saying.

[1302] Let's just be clear about that.

[1303] Our capacity to believe in a similar story, that could be money, that could be a bartering system, that could be any number of things, religion and or faith is one of the, the many things that we could grab onto.

[1304] It's not singularly faith.

[1305] Right.

[1306] But the reason that I'm saying that the social cohesion argument as the answer for why we have the cognitive ability for this, the reason it doesn't work is that by the time religion or the religious impulse, whatever it is, actually comes in play and becomes useful as a form of social cohesion, it's existed for 100 ,000 years already.

[1307] So 100 ,000 years before there was any need for social cohesion, we have archaeological evidence, material evidence of the existence of what we would now refer to as what's that evidence you're saying is over 100 ,000 years.

[1308] We have gravesites that show clear ceremonial aspects to it, meaning that there was an idea that whatever this world was, it continues.

[1309] So you need your this and you need your that.

[1310] You're imposing a lot of thoughts on those I have archaeology classes.

[1311] I know what's in those sites.

[1312] They're also elephant grave sites, and they bring things.

[1313] And there's no reason to think that elephants don't also have that higher capacity.

[1314] But you're making, I think now you're making the religiously.

[1315] Well, hold on.

[1316] You're supposing a lot about what the elephant's motive is.

[1317] And you're supposing a lot about what the human motive was at that point.

[1318] You're 100 % right that there is some measure of debate about whether the ceremonial aspects indicate belief in an afterlife.

[1319] I would say that the vast majority of scholars would say that it does.

[1320] Well, it's unknowable.

[1321] It's completely unknowable.

[1322] But we don't need to go back 100 ,000 years.

[1323] We have 40 ,000, 50 ,000 -year -old expressions of idols, which clearly represent ceremonial belief.

[1324] And this is, again, long before we're talking about cities or villages or large populations, we have obviously cave paintings, and there's a lot of arguments about whether the cave paintings, themselves represent any kind of religious belief, but when you see these amalgamation of figures, these shamanistic figures who are like half human, half animal, who are clearly engaged in some kind of ceremonial behavior, that is the religious impulse.

[1325] Now, you could say, well, maybe it's not religion the way that we think about it, but again, this is before there is any such thing as religion.

[1326] You could see the temples that clearly indicate ceremonial behavior.

[1327] So I guess what I'm trying to say here is don't confuse the function.

[1328] I got to point out one more thing.

[1329] I just got to say I add one thing.

[1330] The Neolithic revolution and the explosion in civilizations also coincides with a switch in subsistence.

[1331] You've always not saying that the reason we created civilizations of 10 ,000 people was because we believed in God.

[1332] That's not what was being said.

[1333] We went to agriculture.

[1334] That allowed us to expand.

[1335] Now we also had this propensity to believe in shared story.

[1336] Now you could argue what that shared story was.

[1337] Now, once we're living in civilizations that are agricultural base and now you have specialists working, now you have merchants, now you have traders.

[1338] Now what allowed those populations competing with other big populations to be dominant is the ones that had a shared barter system, a shared religion.

[1339] Those then quickly outpaced the hunting and gathering societies that were only operating on kinship.

[1340] Correct.

[1341] This is what I was saying is that don't confuse the function of a thing with its reason.

[1342] That would be akin to saying that we had our gallbladder for 100 ,000 years before it was actually useful.

[1343] So the reason that we had the gallbladder is so that by the time we were in this position, it would be useful.

[1344] If the gallbladder at one time helped us process a seed that we haven't eaten for 40 ,000 years and it's now vesigal, and then now we start eating gluten and by God this thing helps with gluten, that would be a mystery.

[1345] So just because we had this capacity to believe in this shared story, does not mean that it was not being used or that it was not just being used for another thing that you and I don't know about.

[1346] Okay, good.

[1347] That's what he is saying.

[1348] You can't say that religion is an adaptive advantage because it creates social cohesion.

[1349] Because it existed long before there was any kind of social cohesion outside of kinship.

[1350] Right.

[1351] I think it served one purpose that then served a second purpose.

[1352] So the question is, what is that purpose?

[1353] The first purpose.

[1354] I'll tell you, culture.

[1355] No?

[1356] Yes.

[1357] What makes us so different from every other animal is that we can pass on everything that was learned prior to us getting here and we can leapfrog.

[1358] That is the whole reason human is a dominant species is that we get downloaded software when we're born into a community and everything that took hundreds of thousands of years to learn get taught to us in six years.

[1359] Right, but the question is, is that passing down of information a product of the ability of the mind to think religiously.

[1360] We can model unlike other animals.

[1361] So before we get out into a fight with a lion, we can model that out in our heads.

[1362] We can create the story in our head.

[1363] We have an imagination.

[1364] So, oh, I might do this.

[1365] I might need that.

[1366] Oh, but what if I drop that?

[1367] I better have this backup thing.

[1368] Our ability to model cognitively is a huge separation from us and the other animals, which is really why we're so dominant is because we can predict the future.

[1369] So what you're saying is actually very much in two, tune with sort of the consensus thinking right now, which is that this sort of universal evolutionary impulse towards religious thinking that we have isn't independent.

[1370] It is actually the result of other important cognitive processes that we have that do actually help us survive and adapt.

[1371] And almost like an accidental echo, the universe.

[1372] The universality of religious impulse came from it.

[1373] Yeah.

[1374] Are you saying you agree with that?

[1375] I'm saying we don't know.

[1376] That's the best answer.

[1377] Yeah, yeah.

[1378] That's what I think.

[1379] Of course, an equally unknowable, but equally good answer is that's just how we're made.

[1380] We are made to think this way.

[1381] This is how we're supposed to be.

[1382] We're supposed to actually use that part of our brain that makes you say there's more.

[1383] There's something beyond this.

[1384] And I want to be there.

[1385] I want to touch it.

[1386] I want to feel it.

[1387] To me, that's as equally good of an answer.

[1388] and you don't need to bring God into it.

[1389] I'm not saying like we were designed to be this way on purpose.

[1390] I just mean to say that we now have numerous studies that show that we are actually born with this sort of innate capacity for substance dualism, this idea that I was saying before, this idea that the body and mind are separate and unique, that regardless of where you are, if you were raised in a religious household or an irreligious household, whether you were raised in America or in Indonesia or wherever else, that children have this ability it's something that you have to unlearn in other words and so again this is a vestige of an ancient mind and we can talk about all the different reasons why that's there maybe it is an accident a byproduct of something else maybe it is to create social cohesion at a time you're seeing the difference between body and mind just so I understand you're talking about consciousness you can replace the word mind with soul if you want to that whatever you are you are more than your material self that is a belief that you are born with.

[1391] It's not a belief that you have to learn.

[1392] How do you know that?

[1393] I don't have that, by the way.

[1394] Well, you did.

[1395] You did.

[1396] You just unlearned it.

[1397] No, no. I think I am a mass of cells and electricity, and I don't think that the spirit.

[1398] There's been a number of cities.

[1399] The most famous was done by Justin Barrett, who's a cognitive psychiatrist.

[1400] And it's exactly what I just told you.

[1401] He went around the world and surveyed kids under five.

[1402] And he surveyed them in traditional villages and metropolitan cities.

[1403] He surveyed them growing up in a fundamentalist evangelical household and an atheistic household.

[1404] And he asked them a series of the sort of, you know...

[1405] What are the questions?

[1406] I don't know how you can determine a five -year -old thinks it has a soul.

[1407] We do know that they...

[1408] I'm a little suspicious of this study.

[1409] I'd have to read it.

[1410] Again, we don't use the word soul because soul is a loaded word.

[1411] It's a Western word.

[1412] Honestly, I don't know the exact questions that he asked.

[1413] But they'd be really important right now, don't you agree?

[1414] If we're going to agree that I was born with it.

[1415] I also want to say that this wasn't just some dude walking off the street.

[1416] He is a peer -reviewed scientific studies.

[1417] I am a believer in the social sciences.

[1418] There are a million well -intentioned psychologists that discovered a lot of stuff.

[1419] And they didn't.

[1420] The perpetrators of the Stanford prison experiment, they themselves did not realize they were the subjects in the exact experiment.

[1421] So let's just be clear that at Stanford, the most famous experiment we know of, those scientists didn't know, they were the subjects of the experiment.

[1422] It turns out the marshmallow test is bullshit.

[1423] Right.

[1424] And yes, I hear you.

[1425] So just I can only put so much stock, A, I haven't even read it.

[1426] But B, it's quite possible that this person, I had a theory about humans, and he devised some questions.

[1427] I would have to know the questions.

[1428] We do know that kids have more of the chemical release that, like, you get when you do shrooms.

[1429] Yeah, they haven't formed completely this division in their brain.

[1430] Yeah.

[1431] So they do believe we're more of a one.

[1432] We do know that about kids.

[1433] We know that the hardware that creates ego and self isn't formed enough to have a sense of ego and stuff like we have.

[1434] There are peer -reviewed and currently scientific valid studies that have shown this.

[1435] Will these studies possibly be overturned in a decade from now?

[1436] Like the marshmallow study was possibly that's how science works.

[1437] Yeah, yeah.

[1438] But right now there is evidence, and you can take the evidence for what it's worth, that indicates this, that indicates that whatever this thing is, we're born with the ability to think this way.

[1439] I agree we're born with the ability to think this way.

[1440] I don't know that I'm going to co -sign on we are born with this.

[1441] As you've had experiences, and I respect them, I'm not here to challenge them.

[1442] I would never try to tell you you haven't had these experiences.

[1443] I'm not Sam on this spectrum.

[1444] I think it's a waste of time to convince people they haven't experienced what they've experienced.

[1445] I also think that you're right in that there are forces much stronger than the print on the page.

[1446] I don't think it addresses the upriver problem that we see.

[1447] I'm not Sam.

[1448] I was told to pray on my knees at four years old by my grandparents.

[1449] And I said on my knees going, there's absolutely nobody listening to this.

[1450] But I have to keep doing it in case there is and they're right.

[1451] They are smart.

[1452] I knew in my heart that this was the Easter Bunny.

[1453] That's what I've known.

[1454] So it's very hard for me to accept that I was born believing in God and then I lost it.

[1455] I hear you.

[1456] And I completely accept that.

[1457] You respect that.

[1458] I respect that.

[1459] But you do think everyone's born, believing.

[1460] Not believing God.

[1461] I think that everybody, I think that whatever this is, it is a cognitive process.

[1462] It is the result of chemical reactions in the brain.

[1463] It's the result of chemicals that we all have.

[1464] It's a biological function.

[1465] So we began this whole rabbit hole by.

[1466] saying, why do we even need it?

[1467] And my answer was, it's just a way that our brain works.

[1468] Yeah, we feel it.

[1469] And how we express it is what we nowadays refer to as religion.

[1470] So the question of, won't religion go away one day?

[1471] Well, maybe if our brains change, I suppose.

[1472] But could you have faith in something and not have to place it within these certain wells, but know that there's water?

[1473] You can create your own well.

[1474] People mountain climb.

[1475] Do you think we are?

[1476] are unique from other animals?

[1477] And I mean like literally we're different from the other animals.

[1478] I'm not sure.

[1479] And a secondary question to that is, well, okay, if this is just chemical reaction in the brain, can we just recreate the chemical reaction in a robot?

[1480] The answer is yes.

[1481] That to me is the real crucial differences I think I see with people of faith and myself, which is I just think we're an animal.

[1482] My hunch is you don't think we're just an animal.

[1483] It's not that I, don't think we're an animal.

[1484] The question is, are we in this way unique from other species?

[1485] And my answer is, if you have a brain that has the capability to create this chemical reaction that gives you the sense of transcendence, then that's it.

[1486] If an elephant has that ability, and there's some indication that recess monkeys and elephants, a couple of species that have this exact same function, are they capable of spiritual thought?

[1487] Yeah.

[1488] If we create an AI and we give that AI the same abilities, will that AI believe in God?

[1489] Yes.

[1490] Does that negate my belief in God?

[1491] Or more sort of to the point, back to the Sam Harris argument about this, which is that, oh, well, it's just chemical reactions in your brain, so it's not real.

[1492] So I'm going to psychoanalyze Sam, which is this is a man who has great, great fear.

[1493] He'd feel a lot safer in a world where there was no free will, that if every molecule was known, we could predict what the reaction would follow.

[1494] I think for him, the notion that there is no free will and that we are everything you're saying, we're just a series of chemical reactions that adhere to all the principles of chemistry, physics, and everything else, that everything would be noble, and that makes him feel safe.

[1495] I don't believe that.

[1496] personally.

[1497] I don't think humans are knowable.

[1498] I don't think if we knew everything that was happening anatomically, I don't think there's a single algorithm that predicts I'm sitting here sober with you.

[1499] You go down the list.

[1500] What would be a 0 .000 -1 chance of this in the algorithms predicting that?

[1501] I don't believe that.

[1502] The irony is you're saying religion is like a derivative of science.

[1503] Yes.

[1504] That they're connected ultimately.

[1505] Again, religion is a man -made institution.

[1506] Symbols and metaphors that human beings created to help us communicate this crazy shit going on in our brain.

[1507] And understand our reality.

[1508] Crazy shit in our brain, it's just how our brains work.

[1509] Yeah.

[1510] That's the other part that I think is missing from the Harris analysis is this experiential existence is as relevant as all others.

[1511] Because it's not empirical doesn't mean it's as relevant.

[1512] He would probably be likely to try to defeat a Republican in an argument.

[1513] about climate change or the border with facts and data and not recognize that bigger than facts and data are emotions and you should be attempting to quench the fear that this person has.

[1514] If you have any hope of actually persuading them, your facts and data are completely irrelevant.

[1515] So there's just like half of the conversation is off the table because it's not empirical.

[1516] That's why I was saying faith is an emotion like love because you can't talk a person into loving someone or not loving someone.

[1517] Like this idea that you could like talk someone out of faith or talk them into faith or whatever the case may be.

[1518] It's about who you are.

[1519] It's your experiences in this world.

[1520] I very much want you to stay believing exactly as you do.

[1521] And I don't have any interest in debunking your religion.

[1522] I hope you sense that from me. Absolutely.

[1523] And I have the same way.

[1524] I have no interest in converting anybody to anything.

[1525] Doesn't seem like me. I think anyone that finds a series of rituals and steps in their life that create mild contentment and keep you out of jail and mildly productive, I'm co -signing on that.

[1526] And maybe it's yoga.

[1527] Yeah.

[1528] It's running.

[1529] Maybe it's football.

[1530] Maybe it's Judaism.

[1531] Yeah.

[1532] This is the great irony of my particular field.

[1533] There is no universally recognized definition for religion.

[1534] Like I am an expert in a field that has no definition because we don't know.

[1535] There's no definition of religion that we all agree on.

[1536] That's replicatable.

[1537] And by the way, for hundreds of years of the study of religion, most of it has been what is religion.

[1538] Okay, great.

[1539] And I hope you don't feel like we wasted all your time when we could be talking about our good man, Howard Baskerville.

[1540] So after he makes his decision and he starts fighting, what happens after that?

[1541] So April 20th, 1909, there's no more food left in the city.

[1542] There's really nothing left to do but try to break this siege.

[1543] And so he and his students, there's about 11 of them, before the sun rises, decide they're going to make their way through this orchard, and they're going to break through the siege, and they're going to go get food and get help for the city.

[1544] They get up to the Shaw's troops, they engage them, and in the midst of the firefight, basketball gets shot in the heart.

[1545] His students manage to rescue him and carry him back out of the orchard in the middle of this firefight, but he died.

[1546] And the international attention starts to embarrass the Russians and the British because they're the ones who are backing the Shah.

[1547] And so they force the Shah to declare a ceasefire so that food can be brought into the city.

[1548] The revolutionaries use that ceasefire and Baskerville's death as a galvanizing thing.

[1549] They break through the siege.

[1550] They march from Tabriz to Tehran.

[1551] They bring the Shah down, throw them into exile, recreate the constant.

[1552] institution, rebuild the parliament, new elections, and the very, very first act of this new parliament is to declare this 24 -year -old evangelical Christian kid from Nebraska to be a hero and a martyr for Iran.

[1553] Wow.

[1554] His tomb is still in Tabriz for generations.

[1555] It was a pilgrimage site.

[1556] People used to come from all over the country.

[1557] You said the corners are worn off.

[1558] Yeah, exactly.

[1559] There's a bust of him.

[1560] When I was a kid growing up in Iran, there were schools and streets and coffee shops named Baskerville.

[1561] Why did it go away?

[1562] The 79 revolution, it didn't start out this way, but it became a deeply anti -American movement.

[1563] And the memory of Howard Baskerville was just kind of wiped from the history books in Iran.

[1564] Nowadays, it's hard to find anyone under 70 who has heard of this kid.

[1565] Generations he was known as Iran's Lafayette.

[1566] And now, not even in Tabriz, hardly anyone knows who he is.

[1567] Which is better than in America because in America, no one.

[1568] ever knew who he was.

[1569] Do you know what I mean?

[1570] And so it's a story that I've always known.

[1571] It's like, oh yeah, George Washington cut down the cherry tree.

[1572] Like, who told you that?

[1573] I don't know.

[1574] It just heard it.

[1575] Same with me. Like, there was always in the back of my mind the story of this kid named Howard Baskerville who came from America and he fought in Iran for freedom against the Shah and he died and he was this hero.

[1576] But that's kind of all I knew about him.

[1577] What was most surprising as you got deeper into it?

[1578] There's a lot about the story that was crazy about just the revolution.

[1579] itself and the way that it worked.

[1580] But the most surprising thing about it was for a hundred and something years, there have been all this, I mean all this, it's like only 10 people care.

[1581] But amongst those 10 people who care, there's been a lot of sort of conversations about why he did what he did.

[1582] Did he leave Christianity?

[1583] Did he become a Muslim?

[1584] Is that what happened?

[1585] He has this very famous line where he says, I am Persia's.

[1586] And people were like, oh, so he stopped being an American and he became a Persian.

[1587] That's why, you know, he did what he.

[1588] There's this constant trying to figure out, like, why would he do this?

[1589] Why would he die on behalf of a cause that wasn't his, a people that he barely knew, a country that's 10 ,000 miles away from him?

[1590] Why would he do this?

[1591] And then I found all these letters that he wrote.

[1592] Oh, really?

[1593] A letter to his mom, letter to the American consul where he literally says in no uncertain terms, I am doing this not because of abandoned Christianity, but because this is what it means to be a Christian.

[1594] Yeah.

[1595] It means being willing to sacrifice yourself for people who are being downtrodden and marginalized and oppressed.

[1596] I'm not doing this because I abandoned my American citizenship.

[1597] This is what it means to be an American.

[1598] The State Department is saying there's no such thing as Muslim democracy don't do this.

[1599] And he's like, democracy is either universal or it's not.

[1600] It's either confined only to Christians or it's not.

[1601] And I believe it's not.

[1602] And I truly believe that looking at where we are right now, where far from promoting democracy in the rest of the world, like we're barely interested in democracy here anymore, we're at a time in which whatever you think about religion and whatever you think about Christianity, that this is a force that in America has married itself to the most despicable parts of the far right and seems almost fully focused on making sure that the rest of us have to live according to whatever their particular viewpoint.

[1603] point is.

[1604] And here's a kid who 116 years ago was like, that's not what Christianity is, that's not what Americanism is, that's not what democracy is, and I'm going to go and die for it.

[1605] And no one has heard about this kid.

[1606] So in essence, it sounds like what you are drawn to is fighting for democracy.

[1607] No. It's not.

[1608] What I'm drawn to is putting your beliefs into practice.

[1609] James, the brother of Jesus, has his own letter in the New Testament.

[1610] It's called the Epistle of James.

[1611] He didn't write it because he's illiterate.

[1612] One of his followers wrote it, but it represents his beliefs.

[1613] He says in this letter, what is my favorite Bible verse, which is, faith without works is dead.

[1614] That's an A -A saying.

[1615] It is?

[1616] Faith.

[1617] And he's actually talking to Paul, by the way, because Paul is like, you don't have to do anything.

[1618] Works don't matter.

[1619] There's nothing that you can do to be saved.

[1620] salvation is a gift from Jesus all you got to do is believe in him nothing else and James is like what the fuck are you talking about James says I'll show you my faith by my works and whether you're a religious person or a faithful person or not well works great in sobriety there you go yeah people would love to be so ashamed and humiliated by themselves one morning that they could decide never to drink again i .e. faith and that that will carry them through the day and into the future And only work will do that.

[1621] Yeah.

[1622] I am animated by people who put their beliefs into practice.

[1623] Whether it's Jesus or Muhammad or some 22 -year -old kid in the middle of fucking nowhere.

[1624] That's what I consider to be a hero.

[1625] And I just think that nowadays more than ever, not just because of all the shit between America and Iran, obviously, there's something really interesting about this American kid who died for Iran and who is a hero in Iran or used to be a hero.

[1626] Do you think we should be doing something currently?

[1627] Is this perfect bad timing for this book?

[1628] It is perfect bad timing, yeah.

[1629] This is a book about a kid who died in Iran's first revolution.

[1630] And the very exact same things that those people were fighting for 116 years ago, a say in the decisions that ruled their lives, freedom to make their own choices.

[1631] A hundred and 16 years later and Iranians are on the streets still fighting for that exact same thing.

[1632] So it's a little depressing.

[1633] We have a version of that happening here, too.

[1634] Yeah.

[1635] For women.

[1636] If I could say what we need is a new generation of American Baskervilles, people who are like, no, I'm going to fight for other people's rights.

[1637] That's what I'm going to do.

[1638] You know, and I should talk about it.

[1639] I'm not going to tweet about it.

[1640] I'm going to actually put my body in the way.

[1641] I'm going to actually put my faith into practice.

[1642] Yeah.

[1643] Emerging that.

[1644] And I'm also for the personality types, Adam Grant told us about that I suffer.

[1645] from.

[1646] I hope if you are an individualist, you're minimally helping like three people.

[1647] Maybe it's not your appetite to tackle the global issue, but by God, you should be being of service to something other than yourself.

[1648] You can still have your actions match your beliefs in life whether or not it's outward.

[1649] Philanthropics.

[1650] Yeah.

[1651] It doesn't have to be in the world stage.

[1652] Like, what good are beliefs if you don't actually put them into practice?

[1653] It's bullshit.

[1654] Yeah.

[1655] When people tell you, like, I'm the type of person.

[1656] it's blank.

[1657] I don't know.

[1658] You are what you do.

[1659] That's what Adam Grant would say, by the way.

[1660] 1 ,000 %.

[1661] Okay, Reza, you have so much going on.

[1662] You're teaching, creative writing that you see Riverside.

[1663] That's incredible.

[1664] You co -hosts with Rain.

[1665] We love Rain.

[1666] We love him.

[1667] He's the best.

[1668] Serious thinker.

[1669] Also, your book, which we ended up talking a tonne about, Zellat, the Life and Times of Jesus Nazareth.

[1670] A, you won a James Joyce Award for that.

[1671] That's incredible.

[1672] It's being turned into a movie.

[1673] that you're writing with someone else.

[1674] Yes.

[1675] So good luck on that.

[1676] Also, a producer on Leftovers, producer on a bunch of other great shows.

[1677] Emmy nominated everything.

[1678] You're fantastic.

[1679] This has been a blast.

[1680] I love the dance.

[1681] Thank you for coming so much in person.

[1682] I really, really enjoyed this.

[1683] I'm so glad.

[1684] Can I go pee now?

[1685] Yes.

[1686] We'll let you off the hook.

[1687] You can be where you're at.

[1688] You can use the bathroom.

[1689] The sky's the limit.

[1690] Thank you so much.

[1691] That was so much fun, guys.

[1692] And now my favorite part of the show, the fact check with my soulmate Monica Padman.

[1693] Okay, dokey.

[1694] We have a lot to talk about.

[1695] We do?

[1696] Yeah.

[1697] I love when we have a lot to talk about.

[1698] First and foremost, the Tesla situation.

[1699] It's worse.

[1700] It's gotten worse?

[1701] It's gotten way worse.

[1702] The investation?

[1703] Yes.

[1704] Oh, my God.

[1705] Do you think they're giving away Tesla's, perhaps, and we just don't know it?

[1706] I think, and Laura, I told Laura this.

[1707] And she said, yeah, I bet they just released a bunch.

[1708] So I think it's real.

[1709] There was a clog in the system, and then now it's opened up.

[1710] Abundant.

[1711] I was trying to take some pictures of them, but then I thought, oh, this is ridiculous, because they're everywhere.

[1712] I'm just taking pictures all day long.

[1713] Yeah, and you're going to add to the danger.

[1714] Yeah.

[1715] Yes.

[1716] It's already too dangerous.

[1717] With the infestation, now if you're photographing all of them.

[1718] Life is so dangerous.

[1719] It's really dangerous.

[1720] Yeah.

[1721] So anyway, just update.

[1722] They're everywhere.

[1723] Be careful.

[1724] Do you think, would you recommend that people, like, tourists, come just to see, like, the locusts?

[1725] Like, you might want to be a tourist that checks out the locust infestation.

[1726] Should people fly here to check this out?

[1727] They could.

[1728] They need to come prepared.

[1729] Okay.

[1730] With their best defensive driving skills?

[1731] It's like dark tourists.

[1732] Like, they're here to see something scary, but then they might get killed.

[1733] That's true.

[1734] By the silent killer, Tesla.

[1735] White Tesla.

[1736] Do you want to hear my update from yesterday?

[1737] Yes.

[1738] A little discouraging of a day.

[1739] Tell everyone what you were doing first.

[1740] Okay, so I went to the track yesterday.

[1741] I haven't been, I don't know, six months maybe more.

[1742] Yeah.

[1743] Since I got my new cool race bike road course.

[1744] So headline, this is a Monica story.

[1745] I love it.

[1746] I feel like it's a Monica story.

[1747] So it goes nowhere.

[1748] Well, yes, exactly.

[1749] Nothing virtually, nothing happened.

[1750] Okay, Sunday, race ended.

[1751] I'm like, oh, great, I've got plenty of time to go get my motorcycle from car lease, put it in the back, fill up my gas tanks.

[1752] I had a little list.

[1753] First thing, go out to the truck.

[1754] I've been ignoring the windshield wipers for just too long.

[1755] The rubber's ripping off now.

[1756] Okay.

[1757] So I'm like, oh, I have wipers in the back.

[1758] I bought three years ago as meaning to install.

[1759] I go to install them, and this isn't a brag.

[1760] I'm mechanical.

[1761] You are.

[1762] That's objective.

[1763] Yes.

[1764] So the windshield wiper replacement blades come with a little piece in the middle.

[1765] and then two additional pieces depending on what type of wiper you have.

[1766] So you snap one of those extra pieces on the end of your wiper and then put the blade on.

[1767] So I'm monkeying with that.

[1768] It is like the worst IQ puzzle you've ever tried to do.

[1769] I can't get these things to line up.

[1770] I come to find out is that the middle piece that had come installed, pre -installed, shouldn't have been there.

[1771] So I had to break both of those out and then use one of the two additional.

[1772] Whatever.

[1773] It was like a 40 -minute ordeal to put windshield wipers on.

[1774] So I'm worried like, Huh, that was, that was supposed to be 30 seconds.

[1775] Yeah.

[1776] Then I'm like going through all my gear.

[1777] Where are my gloves?

[1778] Very specific gloves for the track that go with my race suit.

[1779] They're not in the tub with all my race gear.

[1780] Start searching the entire house.

[1781] This goes on for an hour and a half.

[1782] No. I'm looking under every single, like picking up things that couldn't possibly have gloves in them.

[1783] Do you know what I'm saying?

[1784] Do you know when you get desperate?

[1785] You looked inside Delta sock or something.

[1786] Exactly.

[1787] In a pair of her shoes.

[1788] I wonder if they got stuffed in her shoes in her closet.

[1789] Which they could have, knowing her.

[1790] Anyways, that's a good hour and a half.

[1791] I finally find a box labeled Traxas part.

[1792] Those are my remote control cars.

[1793] Right.

[1794] I take that box apart, bottom of it, and my gloves are there.

[1795] Holy shit, wow.

[1796] So I'm not about two and a half hours behind of when I was going to pick up the motorcycle.

[1797] Go to Carly's, pick the motorcycle up.

[1798] Go straight to the gas station.

[1799] I got to put gas in the bike, and I got to put it in my five gallon gas can.

[1800] I fill up the truck with diesel.

[1801] Then I'm standing on the back of the pickup truck filling up my five gallon gas can.

[1802] Feeling, failing, feeling, feeling, oh, do -da -do -do, do, do, kind of watching, because now I'm right at the corner of Hillhurst and Los Felis.

[1803] My gas station, yeah.

[1804] Yes, looking for you, looking just randomly.

[1805] I could have been there.

[1806] Could have been there looking at people come out of stamp, going to mess hall.

[1807] My gas is out, and it turned out on Sunday, so I definitely could have been there.

[1808] We just missed each other.

[1809] So I'm distracted.

[1810] Okay.

[1811] All of a sudden I hear fluid draining, right?

[1812] Like, I hear the sound of liquid splashing.

[1813] And it's coming from underneath my truck.

[1814] So I, like, lean my head.

[1815] over the side of the truck, and it's coming out from right where my gas tank is on the truck.

[1816] And I think, did I overfill the diesel?

[1817] Somehow now this thing has a bleeder valve and it's letting it out.

[1818] Thinking about all that, now it's really coming out.

[1819] Then I look down at my feet.

[1820] The five gallon can I'm filling is sliced at the bottom because it was in a stack of all this construction ship.

[1821] So someone punctured this tank in the middle of the construction thing.

[1822] I have now pumped $38 worth of gas into this can that is now gushing out everywhere all over the truck and all over the gas station.

[1823] All of a sudden the guy's inside.

[1824] They get wind of it.

[1825] They shut down the pump.

[1826] They run out.

[1827] They got kitty litter.

[1828] I'm embarrassed.

[1829] Oh, my God, guys.

[1830] I'm so sorry.

[1831] It's all right.

[1832] It's all right.

[1833] No, no. This is ridiculous.

[1834] I've just flooded the gas station.

[1835] Oh, I'm sorry.

[1836] Did you cry?

[1837] I didn't cry.

[1838] But at this point, post gloves, windshield wipers.

[1839] That's a lot.

[1840] It was like starting to get a little crazy.

[1841] So as I jump out of the truck and I'm now surveying how much gas is just pouring out of the bed of the truck, I notice, oh, oh, the rear.

[1842] tire is about to explode it has bulged on one side it's a bit dry rodded and that's not making it 130 miles up to button willow so i'm like oh my god if i don't deal with this right now i'm going to have a blowout tomorrow on the side of the road it's going to be much harder to deal with it bring the truck home i don't have any tools they're all in my bus my bus is in texas oh my god go over to carlies scratch together some tools is it 10 p .m we're getting around Well, I can tell you because of what comes next.

[1843] Okay.

[1844] We're probably around five.

[1845] One of my plan now is to get the spare off the truck and put it on.

[1846] First, I think I have backup wheels at Carleys.

[1847] I go over there.

[1848] No, I just save the rims, not the tires.

[1849] Then I come back here.

[1850] Now I'm trying to lower the spare tire sits under the truck bed, and you put this long rod in the bumper, and you spin it, and it slowly lowers down the spare tire.

[1851] It's complicated.

[1852] Yeah.

[1853] Trying, trying, trying.

[1854] It will not catch.

[1855] I'm putting the rod in, then I'm pulling out, putting the rod in.

[1856] I get so frustrated.

[1857] I'm like, well, this isn't happening.

[1858] I'm not getting the spare down.

[1859] Something's fucking broken with the little nub inside for the spare.

[1860] Now I'm high tailing it to every tire shop in L .A. Because they all close at six.

[1861] I'm all the way out in Culver City.

[1862] I've gone to five of them.

[1863] No one has the size tire I need.

[1864] I'm now.

[1865] Culver City?

[1866] Yeah, at this point, I'm having to be responsible and go like, how many signs would one person need before they wouldn't go to the track.

[1867] Now I'm getting superstitious.

[1868] Wow, I didn't even go.

[1869] I can't believe I didn't go there.

[1870] I'm shocked you didn't.

[1871] That seems like where you would have gone.

[1872] Well, I guess like, because I knew you're fine.

[1873] Yeah, Morty.

[1874] It's post track.

[1875] Yes.

[1876] Okay.

[1877] So then I'm like, well, I'm going to have to figure out, I'm going to have to figure out.

[1878] Under the truck, I like figure out.

[1879] Wait, what happened in Culver City?

[1880] Oh, no one ever had the tires.

[1881] So I just place after place after place.

[1882] I come, I struck out entirely.

[1883] And then I get back to the driveway.

[1884] And now I get under the truck and I'm monkeying with the linkage and I figure, oh, the tube's not connected to the thing.

[1885] I finally get that connected.

[1886] I then lower down the spare finally.

[1887] Now I put the spare up next to the rear tire, realize it's shorter because I have aftermarket wheels and tires on the truck.

[1888] You can't have a smaller tire on one side than the other in the back because you have a differential.

[1889] And it'll stress out the differential the entire ride back and forth 300 miles.

[1890] That's not an option.

[1891] So now I have to put the spare tire on the front of the truck, change those tires, then move the front tire back to the rear of the truck.

[1892] By the time all this concluded, it was now 8 o 'clock at night.

[1893] Oh, my God.

[1894] And my level of exhaustion, I just haven't had any time I can remember.

[1895] I went to bed at 8 .30.

[1896] I had to say to Kristen like, I'm so sorry, but I'm just out.

[1897] It was Game of Thrones night.

[1898] It was a lot of things.

[1899] I went to bed at 8 .30.

[1900] I woke up at six to go to the track thinking, I didn't sleep all that great, but whatever.

[1901] Yeah.

[1902] Thinking I'll feel better tomorrow.

[1903] Well, I got up, I didn't feel that great.

[1904] Oh, no. I was very exhausted.

[1905] Yeah.

[1906] So I drive up to the track, 125 miles away.

[1907] Also, because the tire is smaller in front, it's pulling to the right.

[1908] So I'm kind of fighting the steering wheel the whole ride.

[1909] Oh, my God.

[1910] Okay.

[1911] I get up there.

[1912] Okay, fuck it.

[1913] We're at the track now.

[1914] Unload my bike.

[1915] Mind you, I was supposed to pack a cooler.

[1916] Ran on time for that.

[1917] I was supposed to pack a chair.

[1918] About nine things I didn't bring.

[1919] that I would need for the track.

[1920] Get there, go to put on my suit that I haven't worn in probably nine months, I guess.

[1921] Yeah.

[1922] My leathers that were made for me. Yeah, custom.

[1923] Custom, they're gorgeous.

[1924] Alpine stars, beautiful bullseye, my signature bullseys.

[1925] They are really nice.

[1926] They're cool.

[1927] I can't get them on.

[1928] My thighs are too big.

[1929] I would not have predicted that my, I had gains in my thighs.

[1930] Wow, that's exciting.

[1931] You love that.

[1932] Both flattering, I guess, or like encouraging, Now, oh my God, I can't get them up over my thighs.

[1933] Wow, this is interesting because this is all you've ever wanted.

[1934] All ever wanted was to be a thigh guy like Max.

[1935] Yeah, and turns out it bit you.

[1936] It was my downfall.

[1937] Now, again, the leather suit is a one -piece suit.

[1938] You go legs first.

[1939] So if you can't get it up over your thighs, it's not tall enough in back.

[1940] Now, I already have the two shoulder surgery.

[1941] So already getting into the suit is a real drag for the shoulders.

[1942] Steve DeCastro has to help me It's already a thing on a good day When my thighs fit in the suit I am jerking on them I am fucking getting I'm trying my hardest to get them over my thighs It's incredible I feel like these stories I hear Of someone trying to squeeze into a four But they've become a seven or something So I am jerking and tugging And jerking and tugging And then I get them up just high enough To get my shoulders And I throw out my right shoulder I'm now in the suit And I, Monica, I'm exhausted Are you a big boy in a little?

[1943] What is it?

[1944] Big boy in a little coat.

[1945] Yeah, jacket coat.

[1946] Big boy.

[1947] Is it?

[1948] Big guy in a little suit.

[1949] Big guy in a little suit.

[1950] Okay.

[1951] I'm so uncomfortable.

[1952] Also, zipping it up was not easy.

[1953] Forget the thighs.

[1954] Okay.

[1955] The whole thing's tight.

[1956] I'm clearly 15 pounds heavier.

[1957] Oh, God.

[1958] Again, a 15 pounds I worked hard to get in them I'm happy about, but not now.

[1959] You're a big boy now.

[1960] Too big.

[1961] Can barely breathe.

[1962] Arms are a little tight.

[1963] And you need to move a lot on the bike, right?

[1964] You got to jump off left and right, left and right.

[1965] I don't like this.

[1966] My thought is, well, it's leather.

[1967] So leather will stretch.

[1968] It's going to get easier and easier the whole day.

[1969] This is the worst it'll be.

[1970] I'm trying to tell myself, you have a good attitude.

[1971] I'm also sweating bullets now.

[1972] It's 9 a .m. and I look like I'm in the sauna.

[1973] Just getting into the suit.

[1974] Oh, God.

[1975] And now I'm in a full leather suit, and it's 91 degrees up.

[1976] Oh, my God.

[1977] Yeah.

[1978] hop on the bike for the first session and it's a fine first session okay they're 20 minutes sessions C group B group A group so I go out first a group session ride for 20 minutes and the whole time I'm like I am I am sore and I am tired and the suit is not allowing me to do what I need to do come back in I'm pretty discouraged get off the bike now here's another thing normally in between sessions you take your top of your suit off and you let hang around your waist and your shirtless So you can cool off because it's 91 and you're sweaty.

[1979] But I can't get the, I'm not, I can't take the suit off because I'll never get back into it.

[1980] So I'm sitting for the 40 minutes between the sessions, just dripping sweat.

[1981] I'm guzzling water.

[1982] Go back out for my second session and now things start to click, second session.

[1983] Okay.

[1984] I start running 207s.

[1985] I'm happy with that.

[1986] Okay.

[1987] So I'm running 207s, pretty good, feeling great.

[1988] Come back in.

[1989] Okay, good.

[1990] That was kind of worth it.

[1991] sit again for another 40 minutes sweating sweating sweating get back out there for the third session i'm going into the last turn on the straightaway i go to downshift oh that feels weird what's going on i glanced down all my um shifting linkage has fallen off the motorcycle so i'm in six gear going into this turn you need to really go from six down to third and then on to the straightaway did you fall no i didn't fall i didn't fall but i had to nurse it off the track and ride in the sand, come back in.

[1992] Suffice to say, I'm pretty discouraged now.

[1993] My motorcycle, the linkage fell off.

[1994] I've never had that.

[1995] 17 years going to the track.

[1996] I get the bike back into the pits.

[1997] Luckily, I'm with several mechanics.

[1998] A big shout out, Sasan.

[1999] He owns a motorcycle shop, metric moto down in Marina Del Rey.

[2000] Love the guy.

[2001] He's got some parts, thank God, because I lost parts.

[2002] I get everything back together and I decide I'm taking a session off because now I'm so hot and then it's a lunch break so now I do I take my suit off yeah big tactical error okay lunch fix the linkage skip a section back on would would be the fourth session I get myself back into that suit it's now wet oh my god oh my god it requires even more help for more people to get me in this suit you also you don't watch friends so you don't understand this but there's an episode where Ross is trying to put on he has these leather paint And then he takes them off to go to the bathroom and he's sweating from the pants so he can't get them back on.

[2003] And he's on a date and it's hilarious.

[2004] Oh, this is identical.

[2005] Hoodwinksie.

[2006] Yeah, hi jinks.

[2007] Hi, jinks, thank you.

[2008] I was having that exact experience with the track.

[2009] Okay, all this is to say, I go back out for my fourth session.

[2010] Okay.

[2011] I'm not able to move much in the suit.

[2012] And then I can't really downshift.

[2013] The linkage is back on, but something's not letting me go down to gears when I need to.

[2014] it's fucking with me I start looking at my lap times now I'm running 214 so I've lost seven seconds I can't downshift and I get a leg cramp in the middle of a turn anyways I came in I only rode for like 15 of the 20 minute session came in I was like well that's that again another shout out to Sasan he figured out what was going out with the linkage he rebuilt the whole thing now it's functional but I loaded up my shit and then I went home I'm so proud of you So, it's my first disastrous trip, I'd say, to the track.

[2015] I'm really sorry that happened because I know how much it means to you and you were looking forward to it so much.

[2016] I was, I was.

[2017] That's okay.

[2018] I'm going to go back out next month.

[2019] I'm not going to have a bigger suit and my linkage will work and I'll have it.

[2020] Easier day loading.

[2021] But I'm really proud that you came in early.

[2022] Well, okay, great.

[2023] So I got out Steve DeCastro.

[2024] You know, he's my doppelganger as far as physicality.

[2025] He was driven over by a car famously.

[2026] He's a stunt man. He's got a lot of stuff.

[2027] So he was struggling him yesterday, but too, his wrist hurt really bad, blah, blah, blah.

[2028] He stayed.

[2029] He did.

[2030] Yeah, he's like, you're gone.

[2031] And I'm like, he wasn't shaming me. He's just like, you're bouncing.

[2032] I'm like, yeah, I've had enough.

[2033] I'm starting to ride bad, and I think it'd be dangerous if I continued.

[2034] Okay, have fun.

[2035] I'm just getting off of the exit to get home, and I get a call from Steve.

[2036] And he goes, oh, I should have gone with you.

[2037] I threw my back out.

[2038] Oh, no. Oh, my God.

[2039] I couldn't get my suit off.

[2040] It took several guys to pull.

[2041] Oh, my God, what is happening?

[2042] I know, it was a total physical comedy yesterday.

[2043] All these men needing help to take this?

[2044] Yes, like babies.

[2045] All these aging babies with injuries.

[2046] So he threw his back out.

[2047] He couldn't get his suit out.

[2048] He needed two guys to pull the legs off his suit.

[2049] He couldn't load his motorcycle.

[2050] He couldn't load any of his gear, and he limped into his truck and was just beginning to drive home.

[2051] Oh.

[2052] You guys.

[2053] Yeah, we made it.

[2054] No one got hurt.

[2055] No one got hurt.

[2056] Oh, my God.

[2057] Well, I am really proud of you.

[2058] I know how hard that was for you to do.

[2059] Yeah, my ego does not want to leave early or do 2 -14s.

[2060] Of course.

[2061] I would feel the same, but I'm proud of you.

[2062] Kind of a moniker story?

[2063] Yeah, definitely.

[2064] Well, the fact that it became friends, I guess you tell more Seinfeld ones and mine sound like they lean more towards friends.

[2065] Okay, but I'm going to play the clip, okay?

[2066] Oh, wonderful.

[2067] Because you'll love it.

[2068] And ding, ding, ding, ding, there's a part about paste.

[2069] No. Yes.

[2070] Okay, ready?

[2071] Joey, it's Ross.

[2072] I need some help.

[2073] Camels not here.

[2074] Well, you can help me. Okay.

[2075] Listen, I'm in Elizabeth's bathroom.

[2076] Nice.

[2077] Nice.

[2078] I got really hot in my leather pants, so I took them off, but they must have shrunk from there, The sweat or something or my legs expanded from the heat.

[2079] But I can't get them back on, Joey.

[2080] I can't.

[2081] That is quite a situation.

[2082] Do you see any, like, powder?

[2083] Powder, yeah, yeah, I have powder.

[2084] Good, good, okay.

[2085] Sprinkle some of that on your legs.

[2086] It'll absorb some of the moisture, and then you can get your pants back on.

[2087] Yeah, hold on.

[2088] Do you see powder?

[2089] Yes, I see powders.

[2090] For the audience, he's thoroughly covered in talc.

[2091] You're not coming on, man. You see any, oh, Vaseline.

[2092] Vaseline.

[2093] I say lotion.

[2094] I have lotion.

[2095] Will that work?

[2096] Yes, will that work?

[2097] You okay?

[2098] There's still not coming on, man, and the lotion and the powder have made a paste.

[2099] Really?

[2100] What color is it?

[2101] What difference does that make?

[2102] Well, I'll just, if the paste matches the pants, you can make yourself a pair of paste pants and you won't want all the difference.

[2103] Paste pants.

[2104] That was my favorite show.

[2105] Did you like that?

[2106] Did it, um, ring up a better?

[2107] what happened.

[2108] Oh, that's really funny.

[2109] Okay.

[2110] That was a great story.

[2111] I want to tell people something that happened to me. Okay.

[2112] So on Friday, we all had a really fun adventure.

[2113] The three of us, plus Kristen, plus David.

[2114] Yes.

[2115] For flightless bird, we did something fun.

[2116] With Michael Vittal.

[2117] Voltajio.

[2118] Should we say that?

[2119] Okay.

[2120] We did something really fun with Michael Vultagio, top chef, so exciting.

[2121] Turns out to be the sweetest guy on planet Earth, additional.

[2122] Yes, and his fiance, Brea, we had dinner, at Michael's house.

[2123] So this is a big deal for Rob and I, because we understand what this means to be.

[2124] You knew going in what this meant.

[2125] I was a little in the dark.

[2126] Sure, and so was David.

[2127] Yeah.

[2128] But I, but we knew, so we were very excited.

[2129] We get there, it's so fun, we're all just chatting and talking.

[2130] And all of a sudden, I like kind of, I'm wearing white.

[2131] shorts and a white shirt and a blazer but I looked down and I was like like my leg was just bleeding what because I had scratched a scab I didn't realize oh my god I thought this story was going somewhere different you thought I thought your flies had arrived yes yes well that's what it would look like if anyone saw so well I was like oh my god what is happening but then I realized oh yeah I just scratched so I must have scratched so I must have scratched a bug bite or something but I got so I like felt like I was a middle school like I didn't know what to do like I didn't want to say oh my gosh I'm bleeding I need to go I was like no one can know about this okay Rob did you notice no thank God because you would just be embarrassed to have a bleeding leg I think I don't know I don't know I don't know I mean this is like high pressure situation I have talked to my therapist about what happened I guess I was just like oh I'll be like the gross girl yeah I felt like I'll be gross like I'll be gross like No, it's that gross.

[2132] This is how it used to operate.

[2133] Like, no one could know anything.

[2134] Right.

[2135] You just couldn't draw any attention to yourself that wasn't...

[2136] Positive.

[2137] A hundred percent positive.

[2138] You were positive was positive.

[2139] Exactly.

[2140] Wouldn't you have loved someone else be bleeding in to take care of them, though?

[2141] Yeah, but it doesn't work the other way.

[2142] And it was like a lot of blood at this point.

[2143] What part of your leg?

[2144] So I think that's where it was.

[2145] Oh, okay.

[2146] Shian.

[2147] Yeah.

[2148] So I just was talking.

[2149] and then I kind of like waited for a moment and then I...

[2150] You were dabbing secretly?

[2151] No, there was nothing to dab.

[2152] It was dripping.

[2153] Oh my God.

[2154] So then I like bent down and I just like smashed it with my hand.

[2155] Like tried to like pick, you know, like...

[2156] Make it go away.

[2157] Yeah.

[2158] Like clean it with my hand basically.

[2159] And you weren't worried then they had blood all over your hand.

[2160] Well, then I of course had blood all over my hand.

[2161] Okay.

[2162] This is all at the table?

[2163] No, this is what we're standing around the island.

[2164] Oh, okay.

[2165] All kind of chatting.

[2166] But everyone's sort of in their own words.

[2167] I mean, I'm staring at Michael.

[2168] We're talking and then I'm just like kind of doing this other thing.

[2169] Right, a little distracted.

[2170] I wonder if you detected it.

[2171] I know.

[2172] I would have known you were wrestling with something.

[2173] You would have noticed probably.

[2174] But Rob at one point started saying something to Michael, so he got diverted a little bit.

[2175] So then I could really like smash it around my leg so it didn't look so noticeable.

[2176] Yeah.

[2177] Did it cross your mind to just go to the bathroom?

[2178] Yeah.

[2179] I was waiting, though, until I had smashed it enough before I went to the bathroom.

[2180] because if I was like, where's the bathroom?

[2181] They would see the blood.

[2182] Got you, got you, got you.

[2183] So I had to wait until I smeared it.

[2184] So then I did, and then I'm rubbing my hands together because to get the blood smashed.

[2185] I guess I was just like, my technique was smashed.

[2186] Eventually I was just like, is there a restroom?

[2187] And then I went, then I cleaned up.

[2188] Okay.

[2189] Wow, what an experience.

[2190] I didn't even know that had happened.

[2191] So when I got there, nobody knew.

[2192] You had already had that whole experience.

[2193] Okay.

[2194] Well, you would have seemed cool as a cucumber, by the, the time I got there.

[2195] Thank you.

[2196] By then it was fine.

[2197] I was clean.

[2198] Oh, this is a cute travel vessel you have.

[2199] Thank you.

[2200] It was, oh, this is another thing that happened.

[2201] It was in the trunk of my car.

[2202] So, okay.

[2203] So Rob, David, and I drove together.

[2204] This was a big point of contention because I didn't want to ride with Rob because I don't like riding in Teslas.

[2205] Yeah, because you get a little car sick.

[2206] Exactly.

[2207] And nothing to do with Rob's driving.

[2208] So I was like, let's take my car.

[2209] You said, actually, you said, why don't you take your car then?

[2210] Yeah, you got this gorgeous car.

[2211] Exactly.

[2212] Built for the highway.

[2213] way.

[2214] Yeah.

[2215] So I went to my car to drive to Rob's to pick up Rob and David.

[2216] And I'm like, oh, fuck.

[2217] The back seat, it's like a mess.

[2218] It's a mess in here.

[2219] Yeah.

[2220] So then I just grab all the shit and I throw it in the trunk.

[2221] Now, I've done that like six or seven times, you know, over the past year.

[2222] So the trunk is full.

[2223] Yes, it's at max capacity.

[2224] It's full of junk.

[2225] Ding, ding, ding, ding.

[2226] friends, Monica's closet.

[2227] People will know.

[2228] Okay.

[2229] But the inside looked great at this point, so I'm like, it's fine.

[2230] No one won't notice.

[2231] And then I go, I drive up.

[2232] They have stuff.

[2233] They're walking in, and I'm about to say, hey, put it in the back.

[2234] And they had already popped the trunk open.

[2235] Oh, were you embarrassed?

[2236] And I was like, no, no!

[2237] Oh, you screamed.

[2238] Things exploded everywhere.

[2239] Spring noises.

[2240] It's like, don't open.

[2241] It's like I had a body in there.

[2242] I was like, dumb!

[2243] It's like when I reacted to you drinking my phlegm.

[2244] Yes, yes.

[2245] And anyways, it was too late.

[2246] They had already seen the chaos.

[2247] They saw the skeletons in the closet.

[2248] Literally.

[2249] And they still loved you.

[2250] I don't know.

[2251] Rob, did your opinion of Monica go down at all?

[2252] No, no, no. Oh, yeah.

[2253] David said I was deranged.

[2254] Oh, that sounds like a compliment from him.

[2255] Yeah.

[2256] So anyway, I cleaned it this weekend.

[2257] Oh, wonderful.

[2258] And I found this old mug.

[2259] Oh, it's gorgeous.

[2260] That's what Natalie's trunk looks like.

[2261] So that's fine.

[2262] I mean.

[2263] It's not not what Kristen's trunk looks like.

[2264] Yeah, true.

[2265] It's just, it's hard to be a woman in 2022.

[2266] I know.

[2267] You guys have a lot of different pressures.

[2268] Yeah.

[2269] I blame it on this.

[2270] I don't have a house where I can pull up right in front of the house.

[2271] Right.

[2272] You'd have to lug a bunch of stuff from a carport.

[2273] Exactly.

[2274] Which I did yesterday.

[2275] I went to a public sidewalk.

[2276] Yeah.

[2277] It's a hold to do.

[2278] You don't want to be paparazzi photographed holding a bunch of random items and dirty clothes.

[2279] And like two hats.

[2280] Two, yes.

[2281] Three coffee mugs.

[2282] Like, Monica spotted in many hats, loves coffee.

[2283] Anyway, so that was a secret that happened with my blood.

[2284] Oh, I would have spotted it.

[2285] I know.

[2286] I'm glad you weren't there.

[2287] You'd have been like, Monica, you're bleeding.

[2288] Oh, everybody.

[2289] Monica's bleeding.

[2290] Your first aid kit.

[2291] Everyone help.

[2292] Oh, yeah.

[2293] Anywho.

[2294] Okay, so this is for Reza.

[2295] A fancy dance episode.

[2296] Really fun.

[2297] dance.

[2298] Okay, he said Iraq is 60 % Shia and Iran is 95 % Shia.

[2299] That's pretty accurate.

[2300] So for Iran, 90 to 95%, and for Iraq 64 to 69.

[2301] I just started watching.

[2302] There's a four -part doc on HBO that came out recently about the hostage crisis of 79.

[2303] And I'm only through the first part of it, but it's super fascinating.

[2304] I wish I had watched it before we talked to Reza, because the Shaw was a very fascinating creature.

[2305] He was like kind of an international movie star.

[2306] He was like throwing these outrageously lavished parties for hundreds of millions of dollars, and the Iranians were getting very upset about it, and he hung out with fancy people nonstop.

[2307] He was a guest all the time at the White House.

[2308] He's very popular.

[2309] And he's a dick.

[2310] When they would ask him like, you know, the people are upset with the amount of money you spent on this recent birthday party, he just didn't give a shit.

[2311] Wow.

[2312] I need to watch that because I don't know enough about that.

[2313] Yeah, it's pretty interesting.

[2314] Also, to see Tehran in 1979, no headscarves, no hijabs, no hijabs.

[2315] Everyone just looks like they're in Paris.

[2316] I know.

[2317] It's fascinating.

[2318] There was some images that went around.

[2319] They went around actually right after the Roe stuff a couple of months ago or whatever, because this is how quickly things can change.

[2320] Yes, that's what was boggling me as I was watching.

[2321] It was like, wow, all these people who were just living out loud.

[2322] I know.

[2323] Okay, well, speaking of that, we talked about the morality police a little bit.

[2324] Yeah, yeah.

[2325] He was kind of confusing the way he explained it, right?

[2326] Like they're in tightness.

[2327] Like vigilantes, but they're also, they can't be vigilantes if they are empowered by the government.

[2328] Right.

[2329] So they are.

[2330] It sounds like they were like mall cops.

[2331] Yeah, like they're definitely.

[2332] They have some authority, but not really.

[2333] Exactly.

[2334] It's pretty confusing.

[2335] What I was afraid was going to be a takeaway is that they're not that.

[2336] Oh, right, because he had said people just kind of learn to ignore it.

[2337] Yeah, which I think in some cases, yes, but then also then people do get detained.

[2338] Yeah.

[2339] He was like, well, they can detain you, but they can't arrest you, but what's the difference to me?

[2340] It's the same thing.

[2341] So I just want to make sure that I think that's extremely bad.

[2342] You too, yes.

[2343] I am not mitigating the...

[2344] And it sounds like the last people you'd want to be empowered, too.

[2345] It doesn't sound like they have training or any kind.

[2346] It just sounds like their tattletails, professional tattels.

[2347] Yeah, and then they like sometimes assault you and there's no regular...

[2348] It's like really bad.

[2349] Anyway, okay, so Reza said that there's been studies showing that kids are kind of born...

[2350] Oh, I'm so glad you looked this up.

[2351] I wanted to look up and read this.

[2352] Yeah, I know you did.

[2353] Okay, so this is in science.

[2354] Staley.

[2355] This is Justin Barrett.

[2356] This is out of Oxford in 2011.

[2357] New research finds that humans have natural tendencies to believe in gods and an afterlife.

[2358] Research suggests that people across many different cultures instinctively believe that some part of their mind's soul or spirit lives on after death.

[2359] The studies demonstrate that people are natural, quote, duelists, finding it easy to conceive of the separation of the mind and the body.

[2360] A three -year international research project, 1 .9 million pound project involved 57 researchers who conducted over 40 separate studies in 20 countries representing a diverse range of cultures.

[2361] The studies, both analytical and empirical, conclude that humans are predisposed to believe in gods and an afterlife.

[2362] The researchers point out that the project was not setting out to prove the existence of God or otherwise, but sought to find out whether concepts such as gods and an afterlife appear to be entirely taught or basic expressions of human nature.

[2363] I just really want to point out quickly that the intent of this study was to find out if we were predisposed.

[2364] And Reza said that we are all born believing in it and we have to unlearn it.

[2365] So that's just really quick.

[2366] That's a huge distinction from what he said and what the...

[2367] Do you think so?

[2368] Yeah, if we're predisposed, like we're predisposed to love status.

[2369] We're predisposed to eat too much food.

[2370] We're predisposed to do a lot of things.

[2371] It doesn't mean he said we're born believing in God.

[2372] We're believing in this dualistic mind.

[2373] soul.

[2374] He did make that clear.

[2375] Yeah.

[2376] And that I had to unlearn it.

[2377] Yeah, that as you get older.

[2378] Yeah.

[2379] But because I have a predisposition to believe in the supernatural doesn't mean I did.

[2380] It doesn't mean that everyone does.

[2381] Right.

[2382] That is true.

[2383] That's a big, big difference.

[2384] That is true.

[2385] Okay, so here's some stuff.

[2386] This study suggests that children below the age of five find it easier to believe in some superhuman properties and to understand similar human limitations.

[2387] Children were asked whether their mother would know the contents of a in which she could not see.

[2388] Children, age three, believe that their mother and God would always know the contents, but by the age of four, children start to understand that their mothers are not all -seeing and all -knowing.

[2389] However, children may continue to believe in all -seeing, all -knowing supernatural agents such as God or gods.

[2390] Barrett said, this project does not set out to prove God or gods exist, just because we find it easier to think in a particular way does not mean that it is true, in fact.

[2391] If we look at why religious beliefs and practices persistent societies across the world, we conclude that individuals bound by religious ties might be more likely to cooperate as societies.

[2392] Interestingly, we found that religion is less likely to thrive in populations living in cities in developed nations where there is already a strong social support network.

[2393] That's kind of what you said.

[2394] Okay.

[2395] Okay, wait, and then there was this, no, that's not what I want.

[2396] Wrong hyperlink.

[2397] There was a Vox one as well.

[2398] Okay, so this Vox article also talks about that experiment, but then says a news study out earlier this year.

[2399] This was 2014.

[2400] Okay.

[2401] Pushes against Barrett's conclusion, published in the July issue of cognitive science.

[2402] The article presents findings that seem to show that children's belief in the supernatural are the result of their education.

[2403] Further argued the researchers, quote, exposure to religious ideas has a powerful impact on children's differentiation between reality and fiction.

[2404] The study found that childhood exposure to religious ideas, may influence children's conception of what could actually happen.

[2405] She also told me her research suggests that Barrett's born believer's thesis is wrong, that children don't possess a, quote, innate bias towards religious belief.

[2406] They conducted their research by, they gave a total of 66 kindergartners three different narratives.

[2407] One, religious, two historical, and three fantastical.

[2408] An example of one was telling the kids the story of Moses parting the Red Sea.

[2409] then they changed the story in two ways For the historical version They told the same story of Moses And the Israelites crossing the Red Sea But they took out all the references to God And miracles Moses crossed the water in a boat For the fantastical version God was replaced with some other fantasy mechanism All across the board Children thought the historical narratives were true When it came to religious stories predictably children Spam When it came to religious stories predictably children raised in religious settings classified them as true while kids raised in secular setting classified them as fictional that is interesting yeah yeah the way you would conduct these tests would be everything yeah i liked him so much me too i didn't agree with him on that one point but i loved the master class in the bible he gave us and me too and i also really appreciated that he kind of made the distinction it's people's interpretation all of it it's a language Language to communicate, language and symbol to communicate these feelings of something bigger.

[2410] Yeah, that are hard to communicate.

[2411] Yeah, I really like that.

[2412] He was like, that's just a language I prefer speaking, and I like that.

[2413] And then this is ironic.

[2414] I actually liked that his premise was we were all born believing in something bigger.

[2415] Mm -hmm.

[2416] Because at some point, I was like, is he just playing a game?

[2417] He's like, I choose Islam, but I don't think it's really important.

[2418] I don't think it's one better than another.

[2419] I started thinking, is he really agnostic and he's just perpetuate?

[2420] But once he got to that point, I was like, no, no, he legit believes in an omnipresence.

[2421] Well, he definitely does because he's like searched, like the Christianity and the back.

[2422] Anyway, I really, really liked the episode.

[2423] It was really good.

[2424] Me too.

[2425] And that's all.

[2426] That was everything.

[2427] Yeah.

[2428] Well, I love you.

[2429] I love you.

[2430] Is there anything else we need to talk about?

[2431] Your dazzling outfit?

[2432] We have a guest.

[2433] coming on.

[2434] We have a fashionista.

[2435] Apex fashionista.

[2436] So you are.

[2437] I'm intimidated.

[2438] Luckily, it's Zoom.

[2439] Really quick.

[2440] Tell me about the sweater.

[2441] It's outrageous.

[2442] Oh, thank you.

[2443] I got it at Mohawk General Store.

[2444] It's not the row.

[2445] Okay.

[2446] It's pink.

[2447] It's knit.

[2448] It has a turtleneck.

[2449] It's oversized.

[2450] It has blue flowers.

[2451] Yeah.

[2452] When the photos come up for this episode, every comment I will get, whoa.

[2453] Be, tell us where Monica's sweater is from.

[2454] And I pair.

[2455] it with an army green silk skirt from j crew shout out j crew they're back turn in a corner they are back high fashion they're doing amazing stuff over there so i might get one get one a silk skirt get yellow now that i wear hair and pants i might be i might be ready well brad pitt your style icon we're here all right i love you follow armchair expert on the wondery app follow armchair expert on the Wondry app, Amazon music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[2456] You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple podcasts.

[2457] Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondry .com slash survey.