Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard XX
[0] I'm David Farrier, a New Zealander, who ended up accidentally marooned in America, and I want to grasp what makes this country tick.
[1] Now, I arrived in America last year to start work on a new documentary.
[2] That job came and went, and it was time to head back home, but I discovered I had a slight problem.
[3] Good afternoon, everyone.
[4] We are now a matter of hours away from an unprecedented lockdown of our country in order to combat an unprecedented virus that left unchecked would have an unacceptable toll on New Zealanders.
[5] New Zealand had closed its borders to keep COVID out.
[6] To get back home, I'd have to secure a place in a managed isolation facility.
[7] And that wasn't easy.
[8] Every few weeks, there'd be a lottery.
[9] Where a few thousand slots were made available to get back home.
[10] The only trouble is, about 30 ,000 other Kiwis are trying to get those two spots.
[11] In short, getting back to New Zealand is like the Hunger Games.
[12] Welcome, welcome.
[13] The time has come in the 74th annual Hunger Games.
[14] I kept losing the battle.
[15] So I've decided to stay here.
[16] To make it my home.
[17] But that's my problem, because this isn't my home.
[18] I don't have a home.
[19] I don't have a social security number.
[20] I don't have a driver's license.
[21] I don't understand how football works.
[22] This all needs to change.
[23] I want to grasp what makes this country tick and what makes it so great.
[24] And so terrible and so wonderful and mostly so confusing.
[25] I have a million things to learn, but I want to start out small.
[26] I want to learn about religion here in America.
[27] Because around 70 % of Americans call themselves Christian.
[28] And from what I can tell, Christianity here has gotten pretty, well, American.
[29] Franchised in a hundred different ways and truly embedded in the culture here.
[30] So, sit down in that pew, open that Bible, and turn to the bit about David.
[31] This is the religion episode.
[32] Flyless, flightless bird touchdown in America.
[33] I'm a flyless bird touchdown in America.
[34] So, David, I would have picked something a little less explosive as your first.
[35] I mean, of all the things to try to navigate.
[36] You went right at it.
[37] I just figure if we start with like the biggest, potentially most controversial thing we could possibly ever tackle.
[38] Yeah.
[39] Then the rest of the show will be a walk in the park.
[40] First of all, I'm so excited to hear you learn about all these weird things because I do think in general, many of us here don't really know how a lot of these things work.
[41] Like fantasy football.
[42] Probably 60 % of people don't know what the hell.
[43] I don't.
[44] Right?
[45] I don't know anything about fantasy football.
[46] I feel like when you live in a place and you're just used to everything around you, and if you don't know it, it's embarrassing.
[47] to bring it up.
[48] It's too late.
[49] You idiot.
[50] Like, why do you not know about this thing?
[51] You're so stupid.
[52] Whereas I get to be completely stupid here because I legitimately don't know much about this country.
[53] It sort of gives me an excuse to like figure these things out.
[54] Yes, you got like a dumb, dumb pass.
[55] I got a dumb pass.
[56] I can be a complete dumb dumb.
[57] And I think with religion, it's the best way to come into things.
[58] Because if you come in, I think, with too much preconceived sort of notions in your brain, it's going to go wrong.
[59] Well, right.
[60] That's me. You just described me to a team.
[61] I could never tackle this because it would be innately offensive to the people I was talking to because they know where I stand, unfortunately.
[62] You have a big opinion.
[63] I have too big of an opinion.
[64] So what's thrilling to me is because you do such great journalistic work in general, I've actually come to believe I'm going to learn something today, which I'm just telling you as an egomaniac.
[65] There's a big tip of my hat to you, David.
[66] Thank you.
[67] I mean, I hope so.
[68] And I don't want to be too judgmental with this thing.
[69] Because also, obviously, we all come with baggage with certain things.
[70] And I've got baggage with religion as well.
[71] But I like to think that if you have a discussion like this, it can sort of be open and not too closed off to other points of view.
[72] Well, I think I even shared with you when we talked about doing this show, I have a, I think often an objective view on us and the ways we could be better.
[73] And yet, when it's presented by an outsider, my patriotism flares up.
[74] And I don't even think of myself as overly patriotic or geolistic.
[75] What gives you the right to come into my country and start talking about it like that?
[76] Yeah.
[77] It's popped up here and there where I was like, oh, wow, I guess I, yeah.
[78] Like, I love John Oliver, right?
[79] I think he does a great job.
[80] He's walked the line pretty well, but I've also seen ones where I was like, well, then fucking go.
[81] That's the kind of knee jerk for me. If it gets too critical, then it's like, well, then fucking go, pal.
[82] Yeah, since I've been here, by the way, everyone thinks I'm British because they're like, oh, you talk exactly like John Oliver.
[83] I like to think it's a subtle difference between.
[84] like him too well like a super hot super tall sexual john oliver i'll take that yeah i mean we've both got glasses we've got probably slightly annoying voices yeah like if john oliver was the lord of a sex club then that's david yeah unless you escape here and go on a trip or something it's hard to know how religious we are like when you go to europe you start kind of getting a sense that it's much different and then even when you hear the other world leaders talk about us they have to confront the fact that we're deeply, deeply Christian.
[85] Absolutely.
[86] And I think in America, it's linked to politics in a way that's so, so intense, that in New Zealand, it is to a degree, but nothing like here.
[87] Yeah, we're kind of unique, right, in this marriage, even though it's separated.
[88] Oh, yeah.
[89] Well, yeah, this idea of the separation of church and state, it doesn't exist in any kind of real way.
[90] The biggest controversy I feel like in New Zealand, I'm born on Christmas Day, right, which is a funny thing.
[91] Jesus.
[92] And Bethlehem, add that.
[93] And Bethlehem.
[94] So the biggest controversy we ever had in Bethlehem was when this pizza chain called Hell Pizza opened.
[95] Oh.
[96] And it's the idea like Hal Pizza, it's like this wacky brand and all their pizzas are called like Lucifer and greed and gluttony and stuff.
[97] But that was a big story in Bethlehem.
[98] Because that's like evil has reached Bethlehem.
[99] First of all, do you know, we have Lucifer's pizza.
[100] I had no idea.
[101] And the best part is, not only do we have, fuck, do you think that was the original starter of Hell's Pizza down in Bethlehem?
[102] That may well as a name.
[103] Because listen, here is the outgoing message when you call Lucifer's.
[104] I encourage you to do it.
[105] Either you ring, ring, ring.
[106] Thank you for calling Lucifer's Pizza.
[107] We have two locations, Mowroes and Hellhouse.
[108] If you're calling for our Hellhouse location, press one.
[109] If you'd like on Marrow's location, press two.
[110] Oh my gosh.
[111] So that's Australian or New Zealand.
[112] Well, we found, I thought it was Australian.
[113] It turned out it was New Zealand.
[114] Someone hit us.
[115] So, hells.
[116] So this is crazy.
[117] me. So a New Zealander runs Lucifer's.
[118] I wonder if that is linked to help.
[119] I mean, this is going to be an episode, obviously, that I haven't planned.
[120] Or maybe of armchair and dangerous, because this is a conspiracy theory if I ever heard one.
[121] Is it good pizza?
[122] Fuck yes.
[123] The other thing that I want to be a bit sensitive in the show is that I don't want to like come in here and just stample over America with my New Zealand point of view.
[124] So I think every episode we do, I want to just go out and talk to people that I meet wherever I am and sort of get their take on things.
[125] I think it feels like an important thing to do.
[126] So this is people's takes on religion.
[127] I know nothing about religion in America, and I was wondering if you could tell me your thoughts on religion in the United States.
[128] For me personally, it means a faith in something bigger than myself, an example of a life that could lead to joy and hope.
[129] I think when I read exactly what Jesus words are, it's simple and makes sense and produces goodness in people's lives.
[130] It's definitely a hot topic.
[131] Like I would say, personally, I'm a humanistic Jew.
[132] I haven't really found a congregation in New York City, even though I've been here for 15 years.
[133] I think people should find their own way of things to believe in, you know, what works for you.
[134] I don't think that the Jesus or this should be forced on you.
[135] I created my own religion.
[136] Tell me about your religion.
[137] What is your religion?
[138] My religion is the Holy Church of St. Lupus Day, Christ, the hound of God.
[139] Sounds incredible.
[140] If you don't want to believe there's a God in heaven or a devil in hell, which I really don't because if the devil was really existing, he would be ruling already.
[141] Like if I was the devil, as an example, I would have people building pyramids bigger than the ones in Egypt made out of gold or statues.
[142] I would be ruling the world.
[143] I'll be on the throne.
[144] I have a statue sticking out of the atmosphere with my arms crossed, or if there are aliens, they would come and see who rules the planet.
[145] It's a really good point.
[146] The main thing I feel being in America is that religion and politics are tied together in a way that doesn't exist somewhere like New Zealand.
[147] That's what I find so fascinating.
[148] I mean, definitely.
[149] And while it should be a division of church and state, it's certainly not.
[150] I have a girlfriend who read the Bible in her state high school.
[151] So it doesn't really make much sense.
[152] Politics shouldn't be involved in religion at all.
[153] I think that everybody has the right to have their own beliefs and no one should be judged for it.
[154] I'm religious.
[155] I believe in God.
[156] Some of our friends don't, and that's fine.
[157] What is the biggest religion in America?
[158] Do you know?
[159] Honestly, I don't know, but if I had to take a guess, I would say Christianity.
[160] And he was right.
[161] Christianity is the biggest one here.
[162] But yeah, I really like that guy that had his own religion.
[163] I'd never thought about making my own, but it's always an option.
[164] Well, you are David from Bethlehem after all.
[165] It's all laid out for me, right?
[166] Yeah, exactly.
[167] I don't want to be critical of that guy because he's the best person you talk to by far.
[168] he was great but a little hint of irony that he thinks religion should stay out of politics and yet when he's satan or i think that's who he was playing in that role play he will build a statue so tall that the aliens will see who rules the earth that's kind of an innately political slightly political state that he's the ruler of this world come see me yeah it's like putting lennon or stalin all over every building he did it without even realizing that he was doing it Which is, yeah, the big issue, I guess, that people have with so many big religions.
[169] Once you get a big structure in place, you've got some people that are going to be up higher, some people down lower, and then it gets tricky.
[170] Well, yeah, I do think that religion has great intentions.
[171] All of them do.
[172] And it's to help people and lead people and give you a lane.
[173] And hope.
[174] And hope, exactly.
[175] And it can be beautiful, but it can also really get out of control.
[176] Yeah, I'd even go so far as to say that none of the religions in themselves, are flawed, but generally the men who execute the premise of the organization, they seem to obscure everything in a dark way.
[177] Yeah, that's incredibly fair, I think.
[178] There are pieces, though.
[179] There are problematic pieces in these texts.
[180] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, in the text.
[181] But if you just look at kind of the horrific history of it, you know, putting Galileo in prison, all these kind of crimes against science, crimes against marginalized people, crimes against, you know, driving us into single family homes, which is a bizarre thing we all live in, and maybe not the best for us, all these things.
[182] Those were human decisions.
[183] Yes.
[184] That really took some liberties with the text, applied them in interesting ways.
[185] People who we know who are very religious and have used only for positive growth, believe that.
[186] Like, they believe that humans have bastardized kind of this holy way of living.
[187] Yeah.
[188] You said earlier Dex, it's like literally the biggest thing I could have possibly picked.
[189] I wanted to narrow it down slightly.
[190] And so I sort of chosen to focus on Christianity because it is the biggest faith here in the United States.
[191] Yeah.
[192] And so, yeah, as always, in every episode, I want to present a little documentary and we can sort of chat about it afterwards.
[193] But this one is my documentary about religion.
[194] Well, you've got to go Christianity.
[195] It's like if you come to America and talk about cars, you're going to talk about Chevrolet.
[196] You're going to talk about General Motors or Ford.
[197] You know, if you're going to get into the world of MMA, you go talk to Connor McGregor.
[198] Yeah, you can't get nice.
[199] Today, yeah.
[200] Oh, Connor.
[201] You know.
[202] I'm wearing Connor McGregor's pants today for people who don't know and can't see.
[203] Would you like to describe my monica?
[204] Um, yes, they are a plaid dress pant.
[205] They're skin tight.
[206] They're very tight.
[207] White and dark gray plaid, but like a thin plaid, uh, gorgeous.
[208] Paper thin, paper thin.
[209] You could tell my religion, ding, ding, ding, ding.
[210] If you look close enough at my crotch.
[211] You know what else?
[212] Connor loves besides MMA?
[213] Tell me. Religion.
[214] It actually took me a while to decide on the best person to educate me about how Christianity works in America.
[215] I mean, who's best to talk to?
[216] Do I find an old scholarly theologian from Yale?
[217] Or do I look for a total outsider?
[218] An atheist?
[219] No, that'd be too biased against Christianity.
[220] Maybe I could go for the middle ground, a lazy agnostic who can't make up their mind.
[221] Or I could talk to a Christian.
[222] There are over 200 million of them here in America.
[223] But which one to pick?
[224] In the name of Jesus!
[225] Oh, thank you, Jesus.
[226] Standing in the office of the prophet of God, I execute judgment on you, COVID -19.
[227] I execute judgment on you, Satan.
[228] You destroyer, you kill her, you get out, you break your power.
[229] Copeland was a step too far.
[230] So I rang Megaturch leader Joel Osteen's publicist to request an interview.
[231] And we talked for ages, and they said they'd get back to me, but they never did.
[232] Joel was probably still busy paying back his $4 million loan to the government.
[233] But then I stumbled on the perfect person to quiz about all this.
[234] I called him up immediately and explained what I was doing.
[235] Hey, Mike, how are you?
[236] Good, David.
[237] How are you?
[238] I'm really good.
[239] Hey, thanks so much.
[240] Embarking on this quest to learn every possible thing about America.
[241] Now, that's a project.
[242] And Mike McHagg was up for the challenge.
[243] Up for the challenge of getting me up to speed on American Christianity.
[244] I think I'm into religion the way some people are into Harry Potter or Star Wars or Hunger Games or whatever.
[245] I'm like a fan of religion.
[246] Yeah, you're a religion nerd.
[247] You're a religion fanboy.
[248] Yes.
[249] As well as being a Christian, Mike is also a science advisor and story consultant, working with studios like Marvel Films.
[250] See, Mike is into Christianity and science.
[251] He grew up as a Baptist, just like I did, but then he left that behind and became a hardcore atheist.
[252] I'm just your average ordinary Southern Baptist turned atheist turned mystic.
[253] I grew up in, you know, some of the really conservative, fundamentalist wings of American white evangelical Christianity.
[254] I didn't know that.
[255] I just thought it was Christian and that that was the right way to be.
[256] Yeah, totally normal.
[257] Totally normal.
[258] I actually liked my faith because I appreciated the clarity of moral guidance and an understanding of what it meant to be a good person.
[259] And I probably would still be evangelical today except life happens.
[260] My dad, who was a minister in our church, ended up having an affair.
[261] which is like not that big a deal.
[262] But when he was like the minister at the church and I was an adult deacon, that really caused a real crisis of confidence for me. And so as I wanted to help exhort my dad back into a right relationship with God, I went on a really intense period of Bible study.
[263] And I'm autistic.
[264] And so I read very quickly and I retain what I read.
[265] And so sitting down with the Bible for the first time, it was not a text that held together terribly well in terms of narrow.
[266] narrative cohesion, let's just say it that way.
[267] And I also love science.
[268] And so, you know, when I read in Genesis, like a very clear claim that trees were made before stars in the order of creation, that did not really fit with how I understand the periodic table.
[269] As in the stardust in trees, but how did that get there if the Bible tells us the stars were created after the trees?
[270] So, Mike became an atheist.
[271] For him, it was a big life change.
[272] moment.
[273] His whole worldview collapsed.
[274] His entire belief system came undone.
[275] I just realized God's not a thing.
[276] I was a kid who didn't have any friends.
[277] You're classic nerd.
[278] So the personal evangelical Jesus thing was really important to me because it meant I had a friend.
[279] And so there was a lot of grief.
[280] I got through it and I was pretty happy and I started talking to my family about my lack of belief and what came mex for us and to make a very long story short, I wrote a book about it even.
[281] You know, I had a mystical experience.
[282] I felt like I was in the direct presence of the divine.
[283] Okay, so this gets a bit weird.
[284] Mike told me he heard voices and saw a light, a light right in front of him that drifted towards him and took up his whole frame of sight.
[285] He wasn't on LSD, he wasn't on dope, he wasn't Hi.
[286] So if you're like me, you're thinking that maybe Mike lost the plot, had an episode of some kind.
[287] But here's the thing.
[288] Mike thought that too.
[289] I thought the most likely cause for this mystical experience was probably like a tumor somewhere in my brain.
[290] So I went to see a neurologist.
[291] And I said, look, I think I have brain cancer.
[292] And the neurologist is like, why do you think you have brain cancer?
[293] I said, well, I'm saying flashing lights.
[294] I'm hearing voices that aren't there.
[295] And I'm having feelings of profound transcendence.
[296] And the neurologist said, okay, that's worth a look.
[297] So I got a cat scan in an MRI, no tumor, no lesion.
[298] And so I was left with two things.
[299] One, a world that made more sense without God in it, and this feeling of profound love.
[300] And so I started trying to get to the root of that.
[301] And that led me not only to study world history in a way I had not before, but also a really deep dive into the neurology and physiology of religious experiences to try to figure out what happened to me and what was useful that could be integrated into my life.
[302] Stay tuned for more flightless bird.
[303] We'll be right back after a word from our sponsors.
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[338] You are so perfect for me to be talking to.
[339] I'm kind of stuck in America at the moment because I can't get back to New Zealand.
[340] And I look around to all the churches and I certainly look at some of the mega churches, which is what I as in New Zealand to kind of associate American Christianity with these giant buildings.
[341] It's a big question, but how do you see religion, specifically Christianity in America?
[342] Is this a good place to be a Christian?
[343] On the balance, no. No. America's strange mass proliferation of faith traditions and cults and all that kind of stuff is the only possible conclusion from the way this country architected itself.
[344] There are lots of nations, especially European nations on earth, that have truly ancient Christian traditions within them.
[345] But they've always had an affiliation with the state.
[346] So there's a state church in most European nations.
[347] And you get to the United States, and they got some pretty wild ideas.
[348] And basically it's like everybody gets to choose for themselves what faith they're going to be a part of.
[349] And the state doesn't favor one.
[350] All right.
[351] So there's no Pope, for instance.
[352] There's no big boss.
[353] There's no central religious authority whatsoever, which creates two things.
[354] Number one, almost an exchange market of religious traditions trying to sell themselves to adherence to become viable.
[355] So there's like a competitive mindset.
[356] And then for me, as someone who thinks natural selection is such a great way to understand many natural phenomena involving living things, you create selection pressures on religions to adapt and be the fittest for the current social context.
[357] And so that creates, number one, a lot of religious experimentation.
[358] And number two, people shop around for whatever tradition they like the most.
[359] And there are a lot to shop for.
[360] Anglicanism, Calvinism, Methodism, Pentecostalism, Baptists, Disciples of Christ, Presbyterians, the United Church of Christ, the list goes on and on and on.
[361] American religion mutates and adapts rapidly compared to many world faiths.
[362] There's actually a tremendous instability about it, which actually makes it spread really fast, both in our country and then because we're America, we love to export our way of thinking, in which critics I agree with would colonizing to the whole world.
[363] And so you see American -style denominations and megachurches kind of propagating across the planet in a way that is almost terrifying.
[364] It's true.
[365] We do have megachurches in New Zealand, and they're a lot like American megachurches, complete with charismatic passes and snappy suits, slick back hair, glowing skin, gold watches, and nice shoes.
[366] These passes are usually wealthy, their congregation less so.
[367] And that's always felt strange to me. I don't understand how does the money come into it.
[368] You've got these incredibly wealthy people.
[369] You're literally giving them your money, you know, 10 % and above.
[370] What makes that a good idea?
[371] Because the affluence of it and the money is so strange to me, as is the political alignment.
[372] American Christians to me seem to idolize in politics, the people that are least Christian in their behavior and what they do.
[373] It's like, I literally don't understand.
[374] understand the huge dissonance there.
[375] Can you please explain those very simple things to me?
[376] Let's start with the money, then go to the power.
[377] You know, America is a brilliant marketing machine.
[378] If I start to talk about America, some people are going to bristle because they're going to read me as unpatriotic.
[379] But I throw darts at this country because I love it and I think it could be better.
[380] I don't say things about America because I hate it.
[381] And the brilliant propaganda of America is that it's the land of opportunity.
[382] and it has receipts, right?
[383] So you can point to people who grew up in poverty and are now millionaires.
[384] There are those success stories.
[385] And the propaganda that comes out of that is if you work hard, anyone can achieve huge levels of economic success in the United States, which is factually incorrect.
[386] Some small percentage of people who work very hard will achieve something in the system.
[387] but we know statistically the vast majority of hardworking people in the United States are born poor and stay poor.
[388] So now you have American religion doing what?
[389] Trying to thrive in a religious marketplace through adaptation.
[390] And so when you theologize that notion, you get things like the prosperity gospel, where God wants you to be rich.
[391] You live in the richest country in the world, this land of opportunity, and God wants you to be successful.
[392] Only it's not just hard work that makes you success.
[393] it's faithfulness to the scriptures and of course the scriptures include tithing and tithing is a good hook I used to tithe when I went to church as a teenager in New Zealand and part of what made it appealing is that every time there was a natural disaster the church would spend a whole Sunday talking about what they're done with our tithe dollars we were the first responders with food and first aid before the slow government till the Red Cross got there because we had already raised money in advance.
[394] And from the perspective of a Christian, not only are they helping people, they're also helping people's souls, because whatever disaster is being attended to, chances are they'll offer it with a side dish of Christian preaching.
[395] And that feels really good.
[396] You feel like, so I've been giving a huge percentage of my earnings to a church, and then that church is giving a huge percentage of its earnings to this other organization that is now really doing what we say we're about, and that's helping people.
[397] So that between those two things, number one, the kind of America's success propaganda, and number two, religious organizations really are often the first to a disaster scene, but they attach it to other messaging.
[398] So that's why Christians happily tithe.
[399] And if you're into the prosperity breed of evangelical Christianity, then you believe the more money you put into the church, the more money God will give you, both on earth and up in heaven, which is a big bonus.
[400] Next minute, you've got ministers with private jets and ten houses.
[401] Then there's the other question I had.
[402] Why evangelical Christians so tied up in politics?
[403] In New Zealand, we're proud of the separation between church and state.
[404] But in America, they talk about a separation, but to me it's not very separate.
[405] Religion and politics is like a big pot of sickly soup, all mixed in together.
[406] This is one of the greatest men.
[407] And before we start out, we'd like to pray over him.
[408] And President Trump, these are some of their greatest faith leaders because we know that prayer makes a difference.
[409] Americans are famously ahistoric in their awareness, right?
[410] Like there's today and there's tomorrow.
[411] Yesterday is not a thing.
[412] But if you go back and you look at how evangelicalism emerged, back to the late 1800s and early 1900s, theological liberalism was carrying, the day.
[413] I mean, we talk about people right now as having liberal ideas about God.
[414] But you got to this very distant, abstract, impersonal, cosmic God in almost all American churches.
[415] People were very civic -minded.
[416] There was a focus on contemplative practice, not electrifying stuff until one evangelical put on a suit and started bringing tent revivals to cities.
[417] And that was the Reverend Billy Graham.
[418] You say, Billy, do you believe in demons?
[419] I surely do.
[420] And Jesus confronted demons time after time, and he could cast them out.
[421] And people that were insane under the powers of demons would regain their sanity.
[422] Billy Graham was such a good communicator and was so sophisticated that when he described to a bunch of mainline Protestants, a God that knew them personally and loved them personally, wow, that really lit people up.
[423] And so when Billy Graham's doing these crusades, thousands of mainline Protestants would come down and get saved.
[424] And Billy Graham not only converts literally millions of people to evangelical Christianity, he also spends time with every American president.
[425] Whereas the mainline Protestants had this pretty important and entrenched notion of a separation between church and state, Billy Graham starts saying, through his actions, we've got to be involved in spiritually inspiring our political leaders.
[426] Once that seed is planted, increasingly ambitious actors over time get more and more involved in politics.
[427] And so Christianity and politics became intertwined in American culture.
[428] I mean, if you talk to an evangelical Christian in the 50s about abortion, they probably wouldn't even care.
[429] They'd say throw that question over to the Catholics.
[430] But that's all changed now.
[431] The showdown over abortion across this country, in fact, protesters outside the homes of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
[432] And tonight with the Republican leader, Mitch McConnell and the Senate, is now saying about the possibility of a federal abortion ban if Roe v. Wade is overturned.
[433] I'm going to choose a religion.
[434] Why would I choose Christianity?
[435] Because the bad seems quite bad to me. Sure.
[436] The bad is quite bad.
[437] That's why I don't really do a lot of public work around.
[438] around Christianity anymore.
[439] But personally, no, I absolutely still identify as a Christian.
[440] I want to be really clear.
[441] I think whatever happens when we die happens to everybody.
[442] And I want to be really clear that whatever created all that we experience created everybody and that nobody has special or privileged access to what came before or what comes after.
[443] So I'm a Christian for a couple of reasons.
[444] Number one, gosh, how many hours have I invested in understanding English versions of Hebrew scriptures and the New Testament.
[445] I'm incredibly conversant in Christian theologies and Christian language.
[446] And a lot of people, they leave Christianity behind and they like kind of ape, like really unsophisticated interpretations of Eastern religious traditions.
[447] And I'm just not interested in colonizing somebody else's religion.
[448] I'm a terrible person to ask if you're like, convince me why Christianity.
[449] I can't, I won't, I'm just not interested in that.
[450] But when I pray, based on neurological conditioning, when I invoke the name of Jesus, something happens in me. And because for me, faith is such a truly personal pursuit, I just lean into that.
[451] Stay tuned for more flightless bird.
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[477] At this point, I started wondering, is Mike's brain just more wired for Christianity than mine is?
[478] Are his neurons connected in a way that sees him leaning into Christianity while I lean away from it?
[479] How much does your brain chemistry have to do with whether you're a religious person or not?
[480] I think, uh, a lot.
[481] And there's science behind this.
[482] And some of the clues are found in one of the craziest stories I've ever heard.
[483] In the 50s and 60s to try to treat very severe forms of epilepsy, neurosurgeons would sever the corpus callosum, the channel of nerves that connect the two hemispheres of the brain together, and they were shocked to find that when you sever the corpus callosum and someone wakes up, they seem completely unaffected.
[484] It seemed to do nothing.
[485] What actually happens, though, is we have two hemispheres of our brain.
[486] They talk alongside it, but both of our hemispheres of our brain are pretty self -sufficient.
[487] And so they can kind of go on through life and it created a phenomenon for those patients called alien hand syndrome where they would find that their non -dominate hand often was no longer under their control.
[488] So someone might take a shirt off of a hanger and then their other hand grabs it and hangs it back up.
[489] So they wanted to figure out what was going on and they started devising experiments to isolate the two halves of the brain so that you can use a mirror, set up with a monitor to display messages on only one side of the field of vision so that you can talk to each side of the brain.
[490] And the problem is only the left brain and most people can speak.
[491] The right brain cannot speak.
[492] So in order to let the right hemisphere communicate, they train people to basically scrabble tiles to talk.
[493] So if you ask a question on the left brain, the left brain speaks out loud.
[494] If you ask a question of the right brain, the alien hand will answer with Scrabble tiles.
[495] They asked one patient in particular if he was a Christian and he said yes and no longer using scrabble tiles but now a pointing device his right brain said no one half of the brain was a believer and the other half was not and I actually think what that person became was the first honest religious person in the world because our consciousness, the way we perceive ourselves as a single observer watching the world and reacting to it is not accurate in terms of how our brains work.
[496] The different structures in our brain compete and get into conflict every moment of our lives about what we're going to do and yeah, what we're going to believe.
[497] And so at the time I read that study, I was so happy because I was trying to figure out like, am I a Christian?
[498] am I an atheist?
[499] And in that moment I went, parts of my brain are Christian and parts of my brain are atheistic.
[500] And maybe I just need to stop trying to browbeat one part of my brain in submission and just let them do what they do and be honest about the fact that I'm not a rational machine.
[501] I'm an evolved biological organism who has competing impulses designed to help me survive.
[502] Probably in the old school tradition of Christianity I was raised with like one half of you is going to heaven and one half is like down into the fiery pits of hell, right?
[503] Same.
[504] I really liked talking to Mike and maybe that's because I had something in common with him.
[505] I grew up as a Baptist, just like Mike did.
[506] I grew up believing that if I believed in Jesus, I'd go to heaven.
[507] Like a literal heaven, white heaven, with gold columns and singing angels.
[508] bliss for all eternity.
[509] But that meant I also grew up believing that if I strayed from Christianity, if I gave it up, I'd spend an eternity in the lower depths of hell and being poked and prodded by a devil like in that little NASX video, but less sexy.
[510] So I know this is weird, but I find it a bit scary and unsettling talking to Mike.
[511] Because if he's right and Christianity has got something going for it, what if all that hell stuff is actually true as well?
[512] I know it's really stupid to believe that.
[513] I'm 38.
[514] I don't believe in Santa.
[515] Why would I believe in hell?
[516] But there's a bit of me, a tiny little bit, that still worries about it.
[517] So my last question to Mike was about that.
[518] Is that normal?
[519] Being an adult, non -religious person who's a teeny bit scared of hell.
[520] What you're talking about is inevitable and unavoidable because of how brains work.
[521] When we learn something new that happens on the outer layer.
[522] of our brain in the neocortex.
[523] That's when we have a very cognitive understanding.
[524] I mean, think about trying to learn to ride a bike.
[525] At first, you have to think, like, I got a pedal and I got a steer.
[526] You're thinking, thinking, thinking, and it's exhausting.
[527] It literally makes you tired.
[528] But as you learn to ride a bike that moves from this kind of outer neocortex into deeper structures in the brain where it gets encoded.
[529] And it becomes very neurologically efficient.
[530] If I go 10 years without getting on a bicycle and then get on one, after about three seconds, my body goes, oh, yeah, I know how to do this.
[531] Well, your childhood religious beliefs are at that same level of encoding as riding a bicycle.
[532] And so even though you might have changed your thoughts out here in the neocortex, your amygdala still affiliates because of childhood conditioning, unright belief with eternal damnation.
[533] It is probably not possible to completely eliminate that reflex in many people who grew up in deeply religious, fundamentalist households.
[534] yeah fuck but what we can do instead is trust what scientists and mental health experts have to tell us and that is that the things from our childhood that helped us survive aren't bad but they're there so when things stop working for us old survival strategies that's when we have to wire up new survival strategies so for me my strategy when i would have the like oh my gosh i'm a heretic postate I'm going to hell, I would stop and I would say to that part of my brain, thank you for trying to keep me safe.
[535] And then kind of give myself just a little hug because that's just me trying to take care of me. And when you change that little hack, that posture of gratitude, that literally changes your neurochemistry in a few seconds.
[536] And it tends to cause feelings of fear and anxiety to subside.
[537] And then because neurons that fire together wire together today, when I have a, oh my gosh, I'm going to hell reaction, I'm not even aware of it because my brain so quickly shifts into that gratitude posture.
[538] I've conditioned myself out of that response.
[539] And listen, that only took like 10 years of really intensive therapeutic work.
[540] This is day one for me. So thank you.
[541] I appreciate it.
[542] So fascinating.
[543] Oh, so much there.
[544] What a ride.
[545] He's a trip.
[546] So what part Monica jumps out is the most fascinating.
[547] Okay.
[548] I mean, the brain portion, the test of...
[549] The corpus callosum.
[550] Yes, is obviously incredibly fascinating.
[551] I also want to say the bravery that it takes for someone who has grown up believing a thing to look in word and be like, I don't know if this makes sense anymore.
[552] is extreme.
[553] Yeah, and I think people go through that at different stages.
[554] I went through it quite late, which is quite weird.
[555] Yeah.
[556] I feel like I'm already an adult.
[557] I was in my 20s.
[558] So that was like a very strange process to go through.
[559] Well, when you hear him explain it in the way you did with the bicycle analogy, which I think is perfect, it makes total sense.
[560] I love that analogy because if you forced me to unlearn to ride a bike, it couldn't happen.
[561] You're never going to put me on a bicycle.
[562] I'm going to, oh, fuck, how does it work?
[563] I'm like, I did.
[564] I know.
[565] Oh, congratulations.
[566] So you could probably unlearn anything.
[567] You better make sure you don't unlearn how to breathe.
[568] Watch out, Monica.
[569] It's going to be a terrible trait you've got.
[570] Yeah, the brain thing was fucking awesome.
[571] I wanted to see if, A, different ethnicities are more or less right or left brain dominant.
[572] It'd be really curious to me to find out if you mapped the globe, you saw spikes or valleys.
[573] I want to know all those things, all of those things.
[574] And they kind of win the experiments that he was talking about.
[575] about, they did some quite funny ones, like, there was a patient, and they said, like, do you have a crush on the nurse?
[576] He thought he was answering, no, I don't, but his little scrabble hand was being like, yeah, I'm in love with him.
[577] What if he didn't know?
[578] And then he saw the tiles and was like mortified, just went bright red.
[579] I mean, I love that so much.
[580] Across the board, take it out of religion.
[581] It just literally proves scientifically that you can hold two opposing opinions.
[582] at the same time.
[583] Emotions, opinions, thoughts.
[584] Yes.
[585] And we are always fighting that.
[586] We want it to be black and white.
[587] We want to think this and this only.
[588] And we can't.
[589] Yeah, totally.
[590] It's such a stronger urge.
[591] I know exactly what you believe and to be able to define it so clearly.
[592] And that's just not the way we function at all.
[593] Falling away from Christianity for me was such a weird thing because for ages, I tried to hold on to it, but whilst also enjoying the things I liked.
[594] So I liked, when I sort of was at high school, I got into a lot of metal music.
[595] Metal music, the lyrics are quite satanic, you know, a bit naughty.
[596] It's what it's all about.
[597] I wanted to listen to this music, but I'd go through my albums and I'd like say, Can't Listen to Track 3 because that's one is like too anti -religious.
[598] And so I ended up with this record collection that was like curated so I could function as a Christian.
[599] It's a version of just the tip you were playing.
[600] Yeah, it was no, exactly.
[601] Yeah, exactly.
[602] And so it's such a funny thing.
[603] And like, you do that with enough aspects of your life.
[604] and suddenly you're like, why am I holding on to this thing?
[605] Yeah.
[606] Yeah, I guess you take baby steps in or out.
[607] Yeah, totally.
[608] Again, it's brave, though.
[609] It's brave to get to the point where you're like, what am I doing?
[610] Yeah.
[611] And I would also say, like, I would think about these thoughts and maybe criticisms or just explanations of the American version of Christianity.
[612] It's like, this isn't even actually an attack on Christianity in any way, in my mind.
[613] We have a very unique version of it.
[614] The etymology of it is very fascinating.
[615] 80.
[616] I didn't know until I heard this, David, how we got to this point where we have 83 ,000 different versions of it.
[617] If you were English, in fact, I just had a friend tell me that their father, when they joined the RAF, the Royal Air Force, the box was to check Church of England or non -religious.
[618] All right.
[619] Those are the two.
[620] And that was only in the whatever 40s or 50s.
[621] There wasn't other options that if you're Christian, you're Church of England.
[622] So I do think about it as like, imagine Ray Kroc started McDonald's.
[623] And then the franchisees got to do whatever worked best in their town.
[624] Well, we got to have some barbecue options.
[625] Well, we got to have some egg rolls in this town.
[626] McDonald's would mean virtually nothing other than the name.
[627] Uh -huh.
[628] Completely.
[629] The system works.
[630] In addition to it becoming so fractured and fragmented here and so many different options, the same thing happened that happened in the marketplace, which is if you're a car guy, you'll go, I'm a Ford guy.
[631] I've drive Ford trucks.
[632] It's a religion.
[633] I'm a Mopar guy.
[634] I'm a Chevy guy.
[635] It defines you.
[636] I'm an Apple guy.
[637] I'm a Coca -Cola.
[638] I know, but no one was going to say in England, I'm a church of England guy.
[639] Because you're like, yeah, everyone is.
[640] There's nothing to separate you.
[641] So there becomes an identity when you have so many different factions.
[642] You couldn't have made Christian your primary identity in England because it didn't say anything about you.
[643] You didn't have teams.
[644] You didn't have separate teams.
[645] You're Catholic.
[646] Yeah.
[647] Duff.
[648] We live in Italy.
[649] We're all Catholic.
[650] But here, your neighbors would be Baptist.
[651] Oh, I'm Evangelica.
[652] Oh, I'm Protestant.
[653] Oh, I'm Lutheran.
[654] Oh, I'm Minowit.
[655] Wow.
[656] Yeah, which is a shorthand as well to like telling people what you believe and what is important to you.
[657] What club you're in.
[658] It is so American because it is built on, in my opinion, a very strong, wonderful ideal, which is that there should be a separation between what the government or the state or one person, one group tells you.
[659] Like, we should have control over our individual actions.
[660] I mean, it's a liberty concept, essentially.
[661] But then it comes.
[662] comes with all of this other stuff.
[663] It turns into a marketplace.
[664] Yes.
[665] Flashiest best idea wins.
[666] Completely was.
[667] The thing that I find so funny about megachurches is when they started getting cafes and like fancier, fancier things inside and things to draw you in.
[668] Because they are trying to all out -compete each other to get your attention with very human things.
[669] Like I want to have a yummy coffee when I go to my Sunday service.
[670] Well, as you should.
[671] I want everywhere I go to have a Starbucks in the bathroom.
[672] So I can hop in there, take a squirt.
[673] We should have mentioned Mormons in there a little bit, too, because originally there's just Catholicism.
[674] And then Martin Luther King comes along.
[675] He's got Protestantism.
[676] Yes.
[677] And basically his unique concept is you don't need an intermediary.
[678] You don't need a priest.
[679] You have a relationship with God, and you need to read the book.
[680] And then he embarked on this mass literacy program, which was very successful.
[681] And then that's what arrives here is basically that.
[682] So then Joseph Smith took it a step further and was like, you're not just going to chat with God, but you'll receive revelations as well and prophecies.
[683] It's like a great bonus to have, right?
[684] Yeah, so again, upped your involvement.
[685] And by the way, it's 101.
[686] It's like if you want great employees, give them some ownership.
[687] Make them feel like they're a part of it.
[688] If you let people in on the ownership side, everyone's going to like it more.
[689] Yeah, I'd never thought about Mormonism in that way before.
[690] And we don't really have many Mormons in New Zealand.
[691] It's just not something I've given a great deal of thought to.
[692] Yeah, I was just talking to Huey down south, and he's not Mormon.
[693] He's Baptist, I believe.
[694] He's like, yeah, you just can't do better than having all Mormon neighbors.
[695] And I was like, absolutely.
[696] I've never met someone that didn't live all among Mormons where they weren't delighted.
[697] Super industrious, very family oriented, clean, clean cities.
[698] You know, it would be unfair to say it's one thing or the other.
[699] It just comes with all this interesting stuff.
[700] Yeah.
[701] It is so, I go ahead.
[702] No, it's just.
[703] Let it rip.
[704] For me, Mormonism is in its own compartment because we, know when it was created.
[705] Like, we know that timeline.
[706] And Scientology is a similar thing where it's like, you know the beginning, you know the people.
[707] And so it makes it for me much easier to disregard.
[708] It's like, okay, because that was in the timeline of our, you know, existence, not ours, but, you know, you can place psychology on it much better than the Christianity or Judaism or Hinduism.
[709] Totally.
[710] I think there's still like a lot of murkiness about people don't know who wrote the Bible or how that was even constructed.
[711] that document.
[712] There's like a dreamy quality to it, I think.
[713] I didn't realize Billy Graham had that big of a role.
[714] No, neither did I. Four million folks he converted.
[715] Just his big tent revivals, which still happened.
[716] That's the other thing that blew my mind.
[717] I didn't understand here in America that those big tent revivals are still going on.
[718] Yeah.
[719] Like, it's a good way to get people on board.
[720] How rockin was Bethlehem?
[721] Because where I grew up, it was pretty fucking boring.
[722] And we would have this Paul Bunyan fair.
[723] And the rides were shit.
[724] They were fucking garbage.
[725] And the popcorn booths suck but man we we counted down the days of that fucking fair church was pretty boring for me growing up i went to a lot of baptist churches where they'd get you though was like youth group so like your friend would be like i'll come and watch this movie like we're watching this thing or we're going bowling or we're doing something fun that's how it got you in with the fun activities outside of church i did it did you yes and i felt so uncomfortable because i wasn't christian but i was kind of pretending to be, like even when friends would ask, like, what religion are you?
[726] I'd be like, I don't know.
[727] Like, I like didn't want to say.
[728] And that.
[729] Look at that.
[730] I did not want to say.
[731] I was very embarrassed.
[732] Yeah, but you went to some youth group kind of things.
[733] Yeah, like, yeah, my friend was going to like fun youth group.
[734] But did she like, do you want to come?
[735] I'd say yes.
[736] And then the whole time I'd just be like, what's happening?
[737] I too went.
[738] I had a good buddy, Nick, in junior high, who I loved.
[739] And he was very active in it.
[740] He kept inviting me. And then I eventually felt guilty enough to go and I went to a few things.
[741] And his youth pastor got up and the speech he gave us was he used to be a devil worshipper.
[742] Oh.
[743] And he hung with many devil worshipers.
[744] And one of them was so powerful that when they would drive around in the car, he could activate all the lights green.
[745] Oh, that's very devilish.
[746] And all the kids were really like that now explains it all.
[747] And I just, again, I'm just such a cynic or a skeptic.
[748] I was like, first of all, you have devil qualities.
[749] Is that what you're going to do, turn the light screen?
[750] Let's fucking have some bank doors fall open or something, you know?
[751] Yeah.
[752] But Christianity, it is.
[753] The trend is slowly moving down.
[754] Increasingly in America, more people are agnostic or atheist or some sort of like non -god belief system going on.
[755] There's also a fascinating thing where it's like, and this has happened in the past with music, what's like we export it and then it gets re -imported back.
[756] So like some people in my extended family love a megachurch preacher from the Philippines.
[757] Right.
[758] So it's like it left here, went to the Philippines.
[759] There's a super charismatic Filipino preacher that now has got a big following here.
[760] That's a very amazing cycle.
[761] We kind of export our culture and then it comes back like the automobile.
[762] Now all of a sudden these other places make a cooler automobile.
[763] You know, that's very...
[764] I can't wait to one of our New Zealand megachurch preachers becomes like a big hit over here in the United States.
[765] That would be amazing.
[766] And isn't Bieber a disciple or a follower of?
[767] Beaver was or is Hill Song.
[768] That was his big thing.
[769] for a while.
[770] Hillsong Church.
[771] Was there an Australian megachurch originally?
[772] They're an example of it, actually.
[773] I guess they copied America, started in Australia, and have now got big churches here.
[774] You got an American living Canadian following an Australian megachurch based originally.
[775] Globalism.
[776] Wow.
[777] It's just this big circle jerk.
[778] Cross -pollination.
[779] A mega -religion.
[780] But it does go to show how big and powerful that group is in America that we haven't had a non -Christian president ever.
[781] And part of that is because you need that group.
[782] So even though it's 60 % or whatever, they're a strong 60.
[783] No, they're passionate because it's everything.
[784] It's like heaven and hell.
[785] It's like a huge thing.
[786] They don't hold it lightly.
[787] So of course they're going to vote for that Christian president.
[788] And as my fellow atheist will point out that the thing you will never see is an atheist president.
[789] You'll see a black president.
[790] You'll see a female president.
[791] We had a Catholic president.
[792] You're not going to see a president and says, I don't believe in God.
[793] I hope eventually.
[794] Well, it'll be the last is what I'm saying.
[795] Yeah, and it is what you were saying about earlier.
[796] I find it almost as irritating when you have someone who is such a strong atheist as someone who is so incredibly religious that they won't stop talking about it and telling you how bad or stupid you are.
[797] I just don't like the notion of anyone trying to convert everyone to how they think.
[798] That could be an atheist, a Christian, a Catholic, you name it.
[799] They're the same, ultimately.
[800] They're on opposite ends of the spectrum, but they're doing the exact same thing.
[801] stolitizing.
[802] I used to get very annoyed when Christian friends would try and sort of convert me back to Christianity, but then also what made me less annoyed about that is that in their minds, they are literally, they're trying to save you from an eternity in hell.
[803] So I always remind myself, it would be insulting if they weren't trying to save me back.
[804] I try and remind myself of that occasionally.
[805] I couldn't agree more.
[806] We have family members that are concerned that we haven't baptized our children or that we're not religious.
[807] And I go, I get it, man. If I believed I was going to heaven and my children weren't going to join me. It's all I would think about.
[808] It would be a huge, huge panic.
[809] I totally get it.
[810] I do want to advocate for people watching the Tammy Faye show.
[811] It's so good.
[812] And I was watching with our good friend, Perfect 10 Charlie.
[813] I've seen it too.
[814] Yeah.
[815] Oh, did you like it?
[816] Yeah, it's really fun.
[817] It's just a great insight into how those brains work.
[818] Charlie was like, I think I'm going to memorize the Bible.
[819] Like, I'm going to dedicate the time because what was fascinating is like everything exists in the Bible.
[820] Like, Anyone who's trying to make a single narrative out of it, it's preposterous.
[821] There's a scene where the religious educator is trying to shame one of the other people, that they shouldn't be sexual, and then he hits them with some other scripture, and then he hits them with another verse.
[822] All the verses of every angle virtually exists.
[823] Absolutely.
[824] Literally, you can just pick.
[825] It's the perfect cherry -picking book.
[826] It is.
[827] It's all there.
[828] Every side of every argument virtually is in there.
[829] Yeah.
[830] I think what also is interesting about Eyes of Tammy Fay, that's the name of the movie.
[831] When they're even in their private bedroom, Tammy and.
[832] Jim.
[833] Jim is swindling everyone.
[834] He's saying God's putting a lot of pressure on me. Justifying what he's doing.
[835] We all think they scammed everyone, which they did.
[836] But he really still believes that.
[837] It's not like he in his own private bedroom is like, okay, so this is what we're going to do and this is how we're going to do it.
[838] And it's so complicated because it is a scheme, but he has convinced himself that it's what God wants.
[839] Yeah, absolutely.
[840] Else the guilt would be too much for him, I suppose.
[841] Because that's the thing with all of these.
[842] Is this a grift or is this a personal belief or is it a combination of both?
[843] The most heartbreaking thing for me is that if the movie's correct, she didn't finish fucking Gary.
[844] She had not been fucked in forever.
[845] And then she's finally getting fucked.
[846] And she's telling him how big he is.
[847] She's loving it and the water breaks.
[848] So that's all Charlie and I talked about for the next two hours.
[849] I'm like, I pray that they just showed us one of the times.
[850] They please say they fucked.
[851] Please say she got hammered good once because she had to go on TV and fucking take it on the chin.
[852] I hope she came.
[853] I hope they fucked a bunch of times.
[854] If that's really what happened, midway through this great fuck, her water broke and they had to go to the hospital, that is, I can't recover from that.
[855] That's incredible.
[856] It wasn't my takeaway, but it is tragic.
[857] Religion, look, it's a powerful force, isn't it?
[858] I still am amazed that we're literally counting the years since Jesus was born.
[859] That's how big it is.
[860] The whole, the way we look at time is all linked back.
[861] How many years ago Jesus was born.
[862] It's crazy.
[863] And God, we trust.
[864] It's on our money.
[865] You really love Christianity here in the States.
[866] That's my takeaway.
[867] It's maybe very aware, because in New Zealand, I'll go to dinner parties or friends' houses, and I'll be dismissive of Christianity sometimes.
[868] I get a bit Ricky Javis on it.
[869] I'm a bit arrogant about it.
[870] Whereas here, I won't do that now because I've done a few times I've put myself in it, because I realize I'm surrounded by a bunch of people who are Christians.
[871] And I'm like, oh, okay, that's right.
[872] I'm grateful.
[873] I think I used to be the other version of an atheist that I said before before having all these Christian friends that came into my life through Kristen.
[874] I don't want to take away the wonderful thing that it adds to certain people's lives that I know.
[875] You don't want to be rude.
[876] I love it for them.
[877] Yeah.
[878] And I don't want to shit on their thing.
[879] Yeah.
[880] That's not what friends do.
[881] It's not what friends are for.
[882] I promise that future episodes will be not all as deep.
[883] and his dance as religion.
[884] Some will be.
[885] Oh, I hope they.
[886] You know, we'll get into some weird stuff.
[887] I hope they get deeper and denser.
[888] I learned so much.
[889] Good.
[890] I'm going to, I learn a lot.
[891] I'm going to cut my corpus collar.
[892] No, this doctor's going to cut his corpus callosum.
[893] We'll get out those scribble tiles.
[894] Love you, David.
[895] I am so excited to watch you learn all about America and in doing so educate us because I didn't know that shit.
[896] I want to be a good American.
[897] You're a goodest American.