Speaker 1: Hey, Welcome to Stuff to blow your mind. My name
Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday.
Speaker 1: Time for a Vault episode. Going into the Vault, this
Speaker 1: time to explore the world of religion. This episode originally
Speaker 1: aired March twenty nine, and it is about the concept
Speaker 1: of hyper real religion. Yeah, this is a This is
Speaker 1: a fascinating topic. It gets into areas such as the
Speaker 1: flying spaghetti monster, the Jedi religion, Jedi religion or sad
Speaker 1: devotion to that ancient religion is no match for the
Speaker 1: power of this space station. Is that body says? It
Speaker 1: sounds right? Yeah. Basically, the idea of modern humans picking
Speaker 1: and choosing their religions, not only from the religions of
Speaker 1: the ancient world or or even new religions that have
Speaker 1: popped up in recent decades, but just going straight to
Speaker 1: the fictional world, going to fictional religions that that that
Speaker 1: they know are fictional, and finding some sort of inspiration
Speaker 1: or worldview in them, something they can latch onto. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is one of my favorites we've done. So we
Speaker 1: hope you out there enjoyed this episode on hyper real religion.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, you're welcome to Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm Joe McCormick,
Speaker 1: and I want to share with you a modern legend.
Speaker 1: You've probably heard this one before. It it's one of
Speaker 1: the most persistent rumors of the modern age, the l
Speaker 1: Ron Hubbard Robert A. Heinland bar bet. You know this one, Robert, Yes, Now,
Speaker 1: I looked into it and I couldn't find any convincing
Speaker 1: evidence that this bet ever actually took place, so it's
Speaker 1: probably just more of a legend than than a real
Speaker 1: historical account. But the legend I always heard goes something
Speaker 1: like this, You've got l Ron Hubbard and Robert A.
Speaker 1: Island to science fiction authors of the twentieth century, and
Speaker 1: they're sitting in a bar. They don't walk into a bar,
Speaker 1: I guess. I suppose they have to walk into the
Speaker 1: bar first if they don't take coverboards, or maybe they
Speaker 1: power arm or stamp into the bar. But anyway, they're
Speaker 1: in the bar. They're down in some Bruskis and this
Speaker 1: is probably some time, I would guess in the late
Speaker 1: nineteen forties, and they are discussing the best way to
Speaker 1: make a ton of money, because let's face it, writing
Speaker 1: science fiction doesn't always pay amazingly right, and at this
Speaker 1: point in both of them in his career, they are
Speaker 1: sci fi writers. Yeah, very much. Uh So Hubbard has
Speaker 1: an opinion. L Ron Hubbard says, you know, the best
Speaker 1: strategy is really to take advantage of the common people's
Speaker 1: desire for transcendence and salvation. So he says, quote religion,
Speaker 1: that's where the real money is. And Hubbard boasts that
Speaker 1: he could invent a religion and make millions. Of course,
Speaker 1: Hinland box at this, that sounds kind of extravagant. So
Speaker 1: they make a bet can he do it? Can he
Speaker 1: not do it? And by the end of the century
Speaker 1: there are at least tens of thousands of Scientologists in
Speaker 1: the world. The Church of Scientology claims millions of of
Speaker 1: adherents those numbers. Who knows what the real numbers are,
Speaker 1: but it seems like at least tens of thousands. And
Speaker 1: Scientology is the sci fi religion founded on the teachings
Speaker 1: of l. Ron Hubbard. Yeah, and it has official religious
Speaker 1: status in numerous countries. So even though this bat probably
Speaker 1: did not take place, like it's one of those things
Speaker 1: where yes, it could have if you really crunch it,
Speaker 1: but there's an absolutely no documentation. Yeah, there's no good
Speaker 1: evidence for it. And and in fact, we we we
Speaker 1: probably really should emphasize that because apparently there in the
Speaker 1: past there have been some legal actions against people who
Speaker 1: promulgate this as if it were true. So probably not true.
Speaker 1: But why is the rumors so persistent? Everybody's heard this, right,
Speaker 1: I bet you sitting at home or sitting standing running
Speaker 1: wherever you are listening, I bet you've heard some version
Speaker 1: of this before, right, So you could chalk it up
Speaker 1: to people's just gen real distaste for scientology. There there's
Speaker 1: a lot of antipathy out there, right, there's no sortage
Speaker 1: of scientology criticism, uh and and lampooning on the internet
Speaker 1: these days. Right. But you could also say that this
Speaker 1: kind of story sticks in the mind and merits repeating
Speaker 1: simply because of the sheer audacity of it. It offends
Speaker 1: our most basic sensibilities about what religion is and is
Speaker 1: supposed to be creating a religion out of thin air,
Speaker 1: just on a whim, coming up with a new religion.
Speaker 1: Something about it seems fiercely wrong, just nakedly perverse. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I think so. I think yeah. On one hand,
Speaker 1: it does seem like sheer audacity that somebody would just
Speaker 1: create it wholesale. Though, of course, as we'll discuss to
Speaker 1: a large extent, nobody creates a religion wholesale. You're building
Speaker 1: it out of existing parts. It's all kind of like
Speaker 1: that first Iron Man suit that that that Stark builds
Speaker 1: in the first Iron Man filming, just builds out of
Speaker 1: all the stuff that's laying around and then he uses
Speaker 1: that to his advantage. And that's I think. I would
Speaker 1: argue that that's what you see in most of these cases,
Speaker 1: though the particular suit of religious armor changes depending on
Speaker 1: the quality of the ingredients. Yeah. And I would say
Speaker 1: this relates back to something we talked about in our
Speaker 1: Techno Religion for the Masses episodes, which is that I
Speaker 1: personally think that a lot of the power we attribute
Speaker 1: to religion lies in our chronological alienation from its origins
Speaker 1: and from its contents. I mean it comes down to
Speaker 1: sort of like, what does someone want from a religion?
Speaker 1: What does one want from a god? They want something
Speaker 1: greater than themselves, something that stands outside of themselves. What
Speaker 1: better way than to have something that stands outside of
Speaker 1: not only your lifespan, but even your generation, outside of
Speaker 1: your your your era, even you know it's calling to
Speaker 1: you from a distant place slash time. Some of the
Speaker 1: power comes from the mystery of its separation. That's sort
Speaker 1: of what holiness is. It's way less impressive if it
Speaker 1: seems to spring from the very ground we walk on
Speaker 1: from day to day. And and yet all religions start somewhere.
Speaker 1: No religion can have always been ancient, because every religion
Speaker 1: that exists today, even the one you believe in, you
Speaker 1: would you would have to admit, has an origin. It
Speaker 1: started at some point people started believing in this thing. Uh.
Speaker 1: Though most are probably not the result of a single
Speaker 1: moment of creativity, whether inspired by gambling and Brusque's and whatnot.
Speaker 1: I mean, they're probably from gradual evolutions of beliefs, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: new ideas that suddenly get picked up by, in many
Speaker 1: cases a charismatic individual who is bringing this to people
Speaker 1: or you know, it ties into UH two shifts and
Speaker 1: changes in the structure of society and UH and then
Speaker 1: in our sort of and then when you layer over
Speaker 1: the mythic UH materials as well you're gonna throw in
Speaker 1: some miracles. You're gonna throw in some some fantastic occurrences,
Speaker 1: golden books falling out of the sky or emerging from
Speaker 1: the ground. Right, Yeah, But this is what we want
Speaker 1: to talk about today, right, So it's the beginnings of
Speaker 1: religious movements, and especially on those that draw from sources
Speaker 1: other than direct spiritual revelation. So you might have a
Speaker 1: movement that starts with somebody thinks they've received a message
Speaker 1: from God or from other worldly powers, from a supernatural agent,
Speaker 1: and then they deliver that message and found a new religion.
Speaker 1: You've got those, But we want to talk about what
Speaker 1: happens when something that everybody recognizes as a fiction or
Speaker 1: an in joke or a prank or a fan club
Speaker 1: takes on the mantle of religion and genuine sanctity. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when does it become an actual religion? And I know
Speaker 1: that some of you might be thinking, well, what does
Speaker 1: any of this have to do with science and the
Speaker 1: flag of science that is up there over stuff to
Speaker 1: buy your mind? Well a lot, actually, because because most
Speaker 1: of what we're gonna talk about is occurring, if not
Speaker 1: right now, then at least in the scientific age. And
Speaker 1: I believe that that that the the age of science,
Speaker 1: this age of a reason has a lot to do
Speaker 1: with the emergence of hyper real religions. Absolutely, and I
Speaker 1: think we would be remiss if we did not begin
Speaker 1: this discussion with one of the most popular jokes turned
Speaker 1: religions of our modern age, and that is postafarianism. Yes,
Speaker 1: and and I do want to just throw in real
Speaker 1: quick this. Of course, the the word postafarianism is is
Speaker 1: a play on Rastafarianism, and I do I do want
Speaker 1: to just point out that we are aware that adherents
Speaker 1: of the Rastafari faith uh often do not like the
Speaker 1: term Rastafarianism. So it's kind of like there's a little
Speaker 1: bit of of insult to Rastafari adherents built into postafarianism.
Speaker 1: Well maybe for that, for that reason, we could avoid
Speaker 1: it and just say flying spaghetti monsterism. Well we I
Speaker 1: think we can refer to either just what I just
Speaker 1: thought it was important to it ignore knowlledge that yes,
Speaker 1: uh uh, there's I don't think it was intentional, but
Speaker 1: they're the postaparianism could be deemed offensive by some out there, certainly,
Speaker 1: And if you're already lost, we need to back up
Speaker 1: because In order for this to make sense, we've got
Speaker 1: to start with a brief bit of historical context, especially
Speaker 1: for those of you who live outside the United States
Speaker 1: and aren't familiar with the school creationism controversy that's gone
Speaker 1: on in the United States, I'd say mostly in the
Speaker 1: last twenty years or so many twenty years. So in
Speaker 1: the United States, we have a constitutional doctrine of separation
Speaker 1: of church and State, and this is traditionally interpreted to
Speaker 1: say that private citizens can believe whatever they want. You have,
Speaker 1: whatever religious beliefs you want. An agents of the government
Speaker 1: can't interfere with that, but also agents of the government
Speaker 1: can't use their civil authority to punish or promote particular
Speaker 1: religious ideas. Right. And for the most part, that works
Speaker 1: pretty well, except where there's this crossover where on one
Speaker 1: side the science book is saying, uh, there's this thing
Speaker 1: called evolution, there were these things called dinosaurs. This is
Speaker 1: the basic timeline as a science understands it versus more
Speaker 1: fundamentalist and literal interpretations of biblical tradition. Right. And this
Speaker 1: is the most common example in the United States of
Speaker 1: a conflict between between separate between the sort of individual
Speaker 1: beliefs of people who work for the government, and the
Speaker 1: the idea that civil servants of the government shouldn't be
Speaker 1: using their power to inflict their religious beliefs on other people.
Speaker 1: Uh So, a large percent of Americans are what we
Speaker 1: would call Young Earth creationists. And what does that mean. Well,
Speaker 1: a gallop pole released in June found that forty two
Speaker 1: percent of Americans said they agreed with the following statement
Speaker 1: quote God created human beings pretty much in their present
Speaker 1: form at one time within the last ten thousand years
Speaker 1: or so, which is of course complete nonsense, right, And
Speaker 1: if you're listening to this podcast, I'm just gonna go
Speaker 1: and assume you do not believe this. Yeah, as you
Speaker 1: could guess, this entails a rejection of biological evolution and
Speaker 1: common descent usually, uh, pretty much all of geology, radiometric dating,
Speaker 1: all mainstream scientific thinking about fossils and paleontology, probably a
Speaker 1: lot of astronomy and astrophysics too, for example, the creation
Speaker 1: of the Solar System and the formation of galaxies, and
Speaker 1: probably plenty of other things. You could just generally say
Speaker 1: that Young Earth creationism is a belief that encounters generalized
Speaker 1: to difficulty when held alongside a scientific picture of our world. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's the the rejection of the best modern scientific understanding
Speaker 1: of how the world works, and the acceptance of and
Speaker 1: the reliance upon a sort of modern untangling of ancient
Speaker 1: Babylonian right. So, but the problem is plenty of civil
Speaker 1: servants in the United States, especially people who might be
Speaker 1: teachers in public schools or a proving curricular or textbook
Speaker 1: selection for public schools, hold these beliefs themselves, and they
Speaker 1: sometimes try to promote these beliefs and their consequences in
Speaker 1: what are supposed to be secular, religiously neutral classes for
Speaker 1: all students. And this can take a lot of forms.
Speaker 1: At one extreme, it might have biology classes teaching about
Speaker 1: the Garden of Eden and Noah's Ark as an alternative
Speaker 1: evolutionary theory. At the other end, it might be less
Speaker 1: overt than that, and it might just insist on biology
Speaker 1: classes including materials prepared by creationists that sort of cast vague,
Speaker 1: unfounded doubts on modern biology, or that uh teach children
Speaker 1: scientifically false arguments against evolution, like you know, things you've
Speaker 1: heard before, like there are no transitional fossils and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. And obviously this has led to lots of
Speaker 1: social conflict, big public debates and lots of court cases.
Speaker 1: One example of such a court case occurs very close
Speaker 1: to home for us here in Cobb County, Georgia, which
Speaker 1: is includes northern suburbs of Atlanta. And on March twenty,
Speaker 1: two thousand to the public school officials in Cobb County
Speaker 1: approved a measure requiring biology textbooks to wear a sticker
Speaker 1: on the inside cover that has the following statement. It says,
Speaker 1: evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin
Speaker 1: of living living things. Uh And in two thousand five,
Speaker 1: this was ruled unconstitutional by U. S District Judge Clarence Cooper,
Speaker 1: who said of this ruling quote, by denigrating evolution, the
Speaker 1: school board appears to be endorsing the well known prevailing
Speaker 1: alternative theory creationism or variations thereof, even though the sticker
Speaker 1: does not specifically reference the alternative theories. Uh and this
Speaker 1: gets us back to the monster in question, the spaghetti monster.
Speaker 1: Where where did this come from? Well? This originates with
Speaker 1: a protest, Yeah, a protest against the inclusion of statements
Speaker 1: like the stickers like this in science textbooks. Like the
Speaker 1: basic idea here is Hey, if this nonsense is going
Speaker 1: to be presented as an alter native to our science.
Speaker 1: How about this nonsense? How about I just blatantly make
Speaker 1: something up, just completely off the top of my head,
Speaker 1: just the craziest thing you can imagine. Let's put that
Speaker 1: in there as well. Yeah, and this of course takes
Speaker 1: this to Kansas. Yeah to two thousand five, when the
Speaker 1: Kansas State Board of Education had decided to allow intelligent
Speaker 1: design the sort of a moniker of creationism, you might
Speaker 1: call it, like a marketing term to make it seem
Speaker 1: more scientific, like to add a lexicon of scientific vocabulary
Speaker 1: to uh, to creationism. And they said that they wanted
Speaker 1: to introduce this into the curriculum as an as an
Speaker 1: alternative to evolution, you know, teach both theories. So uh.
Speaker 1: Then twenty five year old physics graduate Bobby Henderson wrote
Speaker 1: what is known as the Open Letter to the Kansas
Speaker 1: School Board, published online in two thousand five, to present
Speaker 1: his vision for religious inclusivity in the science classroom. Robert,
Speaker 1: would you like to read a select quote from the
Speaker 1: le I shall quote. I am writing you with much concern,
Speaker 1: after having read of your hearing, to decide whether the
Speaker 1: alternative theory of intelligent design should be taught along with
Speaker 1: the theory of evolution. Let us remember that there are
Speaker 1: multiple theories of intelligent design. I and many others around
Speaker 1: the world are of the strong belief that the universe
Speaker 1: was created by a flying spaghetti monster. Right. So, throughout
Speaker 1: this letter, Henderson goes on to critique and satirize the
Speaker 1: intelligent design arguments by showing how the claims of flying
Speaker 1: spaghetti monsterism, though they might appear to conflict with scientists
Speaker 1: around the world, don't actually because the flying spaghetti monster
Speaker 1: reaches out with his newly appendages to tweak the results
Speaker 1: of experiments so that we will be tricked into believing
Speaker 1: in an evolutionary model of the old Earth. Uh. And
Speaker 1: he goes on also to insist that when flying spaghetti
Speaker 1: monsterism is taught in science classrooms, the teacher must wear
Speaker 1: full pirate regalia. Quote. The concise explanation for this is
Speaker 1: that he becomes angry if we don't. Yeah. So, and
Speaker 1: of course this leads to um wonderful depictions of the
Speaker 1: flying spaghetti monster, yeah, of which you've all seen before, right,
Speaker 1: the meme very much. It started as a bit of satire,
Speaker 1: a joke on this religious social movement that the author
Speaker 1: of this letter opposed, but it really took on a
Speaker 1: life of its own. It became a meme, it became
Speaker 1: picked up on the internet. So there's artwork, Like you said,
Speaker 1: there's uh, it's a whole living library of self referential
Speaker 1: humor based around this original idea of a flying spaghetti monster,
Speaker 1: including actually becoming some form of church. Yeah. I mean
Speaker 1: it's interesting to look at the evolution of the joke.
Speaker 1: I mean I'm often just taken by the visual depictions
Speaker 1: because I feel like those really pick up a lot
Speaker 1: of steam. And the spaghetti monster itself is funny looking.
Speaker 1: It kind of looks like testicles, So it's it's it's
Speaker 1: inherently goofy. It has meatballs, by the way, it's a
Speaker 1: it's a large pile of spaghetti flying through the sky
Speaker 1: with eyes and meatballs generally too, and and and yeah,
Speaker 1: to your point, like a lot of it's kind of
Speaker 1: a community assembled mythos as well, like everyone, all sorts
Speaker 1: of little bits and pieces are thrown in kind of
Speaker 1: willy nilly to create this overall faith. And it's one
Speaker 1: of those the theology is not all top down, sort
Speaker 1: of bottom up theology. Yeah, and it's it's one of
Speaker 1: those jokes that I think over the years, Like when
Speaker 1: I first heard it, I was kind of like, didn't
Speaker 1: get the joke, and then I got the joke, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, Okay, I get it. But then the joke,
Speaker 1: it's the joke just keeps going. People keep telling it
Speaker 1: to the point where it's not really that funny anymore.
Speaker 1: But you know, it's kind of like having that that
Speaker 1: friend in high school who loves Monty Python so much
Speaker 1: that they won't Yeah, they're just fit a reference or
Speaker 1: half a skit into every conversation. Like that's kind of
Speaker 1: how I feel about Pastafari. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: know exactly what you mean. And also I would say
Speaker 1: that in some cases it evolved from a specific satire
Speaker 1: of of teaching of Young Earth creationism in public schools
Speaker 1: to become a more general critique of of religion across
Speaker 1: the board, which I think is not necessarily what the
Speaker 1: author originally intended, right, But yeah, that's definitely becomes kind
Speaker 1: of a you know, an atheistic protest religion, um, and
Speaker 1: it serves a useful purpose there, I think, you know it.
Speaker 1: It's it. It continually argues, hey, um, why do we
Speaker 1: believe that in the things we believe in. You know,
Speaker 1: why is this valuable? And this isn't um and you know,
Speaker 1: as a joke goes it is it has proven to
Speaker 1: be effective, you know, in the way that jokes can
Speaker 1: often tear down the most formidable walls in our society
Speaker 1: but also piss people off royally. Now, I can take
Speaker 1: the other side for a second and say that I
Speaker 1: can understand why some religious people would be less than
Speaker 1: impressed with this joke as it exists today, because, let's
Speaker 1: be fair, in a lot of cases, it does seem
Speaker 1: to represent a just sort of generalized critique, and critique
Speaker 1: might be a generous word of of religion without much
Speaker 1: attempt to understand people's religions or doctrines and the values
Speaker 1: they provide to the people that hold them. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: is you can just look at as a kind of shallow,
Speaker 1: outsider mockery. Yeah, and I and I definitely, you know,
Speaker 1: I can definitely relate to some of those feelings about it,
Speaker 1: you know, over the years, because at times I have
Speaker 1: felt like, not only is it a joke that I
Speaker 1: maybe don't don't get or I don't find its funny,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I could also see where it's a little
Speaker 1: a little offensive, you know, because you're it's kind of
Speaker 1: like you're taking just three minutes to throw up a
Speaker 1: spaghetti monster image to rebuke a person's lifetime of faith,
Speaker 1: you know, to to rebuke their their their cultural heritage
Speaker 1: in many cases. But as we said, this is becoming
Speaker 1: a new heritage of its own. And I'm I'm curious
Speaker 1: us to see what the Church of the Flying Spaghetti
Speaker 1: Monster looks like in twenty years. Yeah. I think for
Speaker 1: the most part, for most people, it's it's remains that
Speaker 1: bumper sticker level of involvement. You know, it is just
Speaker 1: something you throw up on social media or stick on
Speaker 1: the back of your car. Other people have taken it
Speaker 1: to two greater extremes, going in and trying to get
Speaker 1: their official um you know state I D with a
Speaker 1: colander on their head, which is of course one of
Speaker 1: the other articles of faith for the adherents, and UH
Speaker 1: and other folks have pushed for official religious status, which
Speaker 1: is is really taking it to the next level, saying
Speaker 1: not only is our joke religion jokey, but it is
Speaker 1: actually a religion, or it is as real religion as
Speaker 1: your religion, and we want the government to recognize that fact,
Speaker 1: and I think there are some governments that have recognized it, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: at least the Netherlands and New Zealand to to some degree.
Speaker 1: That the Netherlands where that was where we saw the
Speaker 1: most recent headlines about it, and apparently they had to
Speaker 1: they had to prove that it wasn't just a fad,
Speaker 1: that it was an actual thing that people believed in
Speaker 1: and that they had like a marriage ritual, uh, that
Speaker 1: sort of thing, so that it was it's the kind
Speaker 1: of thing that people are invested in enough that it is,
Speaker 1: you know, potentially a part of your life. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: this leads us to the realization that a religion need
Speaker 1: not be ancient in order to be followed. So I
Speaker 1: stand by what I said earlier about a lot of
Speaker 1: the aesthetic power of religion does seem to come from
Speaker 1: its antiquity and its chronological alienation, the sort of alien
Speaker 1: holiness of the distant past. But this doesn't mean you
Speaker 1: can't create religions in the modern day that gain a following. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean we've already mentioned Rastafari, which is an abrahammock religion, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, certainly with a lot of elements that are
Speaker 1: based in deep history. But it also venerated uh then
Speaker 1: Emperor of Ethiopia highly Selassi, you know. And it's it's
Speaker 1: it's certainly a religion I would love to to look
Speaker 1: at in greater depth at some point in the future.
Speaker 1: But yeah, you have a situation where it's it's in
Speaker 1: the past, it's it's taking place in the present. And
Speaker 1: I mean, to have your Messiah live and and die
Speaker 1: within the lifespan of the faith, uh and to see
Speaker 1: that sort of happen in in recent history, it's fascinating. Well,
Speaker 1: how about how about Joseph Smith and the Latter day Saints.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean there's another good one. Um, it's
Speaker 1: the origins date back around eighteen thirty. This is a
Speaker 1: millennialist religion that preach the impending second Coming, continuing revelations
Speaker 1: and uh uh an identity and values that I guess
Speaker 1: you'd say we're more grounded in the temporary setting. So
Speaker 1: you know, it's America. It's there's a modern cosmology, very
Speaker 1: American religion. Yeah, very much. So. If if you don't
Speaker 1: realize that this is the name, the official name of
Speaker 1: the Mormons, it's the Church of Jesus Christ of the
Speaker 1: Latter day Saints, and it too, of course, sprang up
Speaker 1: around a single charismatic individual. And uh, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: actually a very interesting religion to look at in terms
Speaker 1: of science as well, um, in the in since it's
Speaker 1: since it is more of a more closely tied to
Speaker 1: our scientific age, you do find elements of it that
Speaker 1: are that that conflict less with modern scientific cosmology, such
Speaker 1: as the the idea that there are other planets and
Speaker 1: that there is a potential for life on other worlds.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, though even without the introduction of new holy
Speaker 1: texts such as the Book of Mormon, you could point
Speaker 1: out that lots of modern Christians have adapted their beliefs
Speaker 1: to include modern science. Oh certainly. I mean, when we
Speaker 1: look at the numbers from from that Gallup poll, only
Speaker 1: forty two percent of Americans adhered to a literal understanding
Speaker 1: of the Bible, and so that's obviously not even maybe
Speaker 1: that's like half of Christians or something in America. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean you can certainly still be a Christian according
Speaker 1: to me anyway. I mean, this is going to very
Speaker 1: depending on who's who's serving in your Christianity, but um, yeah,
Speaker 1: you can still be a Christian and not believe that
Speaker 1: there was a literal garden of eaton. You can still
Speaker 1: look at something like Noah's ark uh and and really
Speaker 1: and and view it as mythology without and view it
Speaker 1: as mythology, not in the as a dismissal, but understanding
Speaker 1: the power of myth and the necessity of myth uh
Speaker 1: in our culture right. Well, or you might not even
Speaker 1: put it in those terms. You might just say like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a story that's part of our received
Speaker 1: tradition and I accepted as a story. But I but
Speaker 1: also I wouldn't deny what the evidence in the lab says.
Speaker 1: I mean that would be foolish. So so one is
Speaker 1: science and one is my religion, and you know that
Speaker 1: you don't have to smash them together in a particle
Speaker 1: collider of my brain. Yeah, I mean you can. You can.
Speaker 1: You can look at it as literature. You can look
Speaker 1: at it as mythology if you want. You can look
Speaker 1: at it as some sort of a literal historical document.
Speaker 1: But to do so is to throw out our modern
Speaker 1: understanding of the world. Yeah, so how about the other
Speaker 1: uh recently created religion that we open with talking about scientology,
Speaker 1: Like we said, the bar Bet story probably isn't true,
Speaker 1: but scientology certainly is a religion explicitly created in the
Speaker 1: twentieth century. That's right, nineteen four UM contemporary individual focused
Speaker 1: movement elements of science fiction, New age philosophy, and the
Speaker 1: psycho analysis, though it also has historically been anti psychiatry.
Speaker 1: UM and Uh. I think it's sort of almost uh
Speaker 1: positions itself as an alternative to psychiatry. Yes, yeah, I
Speaker 1: think very much so, um and one of them. We're
Speaker 1: not going to go in deep into all the mysteries
Speaker 1: of scientology here, but it essentially says that we're all
Speaker 1: alien souls called Theton's that bounce around from life to life.
Speaker 1: One attempts to free oneself from this cycle and train
Speaker 1: their true self. So it's kind of like space Buddhism,
Speaker 1: which you know, I with without getting into the other details,
Speaker 1: I could get behind the idea of some space Buddhism.
Speaker 1: I could see the appeal in the abstract at least, though,
Speaker 1: as you note, it is a pretty divisive religion. Everybody's
Speaker 1: got an opinion on it. Yeah, it's hard to find
Speaker 1: and I'm I'm one of those people that I would
Speaker 1: love to see more. Just like objective down the middle
Speaker 1: coverage of scientology. But for the most part it's either
Speaker 1: I mean, certainly, just researching online you're gonna find one
Speaker 1: voice or the other in very drastically different positions on
Speaker 1: the matter. Now, any of the religions that we've mentioned
Speaker 1: so far, you can definitely go at them and point
Speaker 1: out at least little bits and pieces that don't match
Speaker 1: up with our scientific understanding of reality. You can say, hey,
Speaker 1: bees didn't have four legs. As we've mentioned in previous episodes,
Speaker 1: there were no New World horses prior to UH, to
Speaker 1: the colonial presence UH in North America. You hold on,
Speaker 1: how is that relevant? Um? Some criticize, you know, the
Speaker 1: Book of Mormon and point to UH passages about horses
Speaker 1: and and use this as a, you know, a sort
Speaker 1: of rallying point for Oh, you're totally full of it,
Speaker 1: because this thing doesn't match up with with real life. Likewise,
Speaker 1: you can say, oh, there're no demonic space aliens, there
Speaker 1: no there was no Zen, New etcetera. But as we're
Speaker 1: about to discuss, there are religions or hyper religions as
Speaker 1: they're they're sometimes called, in which there is definite fiction
Speaker 1: going on, like the whole bedrock for the faith is
Speaker 1: fiction where not everybody agrees that fiction nobody and the
Speaker 1: people on the inside. Yeah, So it's not a situation
Speaker 1: where someone is having to say, well, you know, this
Speaker 1: one little detail about horses or bees or what have you,
Speaker 1: it doesn't match up, because X, Y and Z they're saying, oh, no,
Speaker 1: I fully agree with you. This is all fiction. But
Speaker 1: the thing that comes out of that fiction is real.
Speaker 1: We're talking about religions that draw inspiration from fictional narratives
Speaker 1: that don't claim to adhere to reality at all. And
Speaker 1: here we're going to get into a little bit of
Speaker 1: the work of a sort of cultural critic and sociologist
Speaker 1: named Adam Possum I and possum Eze got a it's
Speaker 1: got a book that came out in two thousand five
Speaker 1: called Religion and Popular Culture a hyper real Testament like
Speaker 1: that title, uh. And in this book he he builds
Speaker 1: on some postmodern social theory. Now, don't worry, we're not
Speaker 1: going to get too into the weeds of social theory
Speaker 1: and post modern criticism. But basically here's how it goes.
Speaker 1: It says the twentieth century represents a turn from traditional
Speaker 1: cultural structures to individualized consumer experiences driven by capitalism. So
Speaker 1: just think about that for a second. Oh, and he says,
Speaker 1: of course this extends to religion. And so if you
Speaker 1: think about that, it's sort of saying that instead of
Speaker 1: having a structure like a community accountable to one another
Speaker 1: that gathers to pray and worship, in the received antique tradition,
Speaker 1: people consume their religion individually in the same way they
Speaker 1: do their shopping and their media perience is religion becomes
Speaker 1: a co modified, consume arized thing that you you can
Speaker 1: pick off the shelf and take home with you. And
Speaker 1: I'm not sure I totally agree, but I think there
Speaker 1: is at least a grain of truth to this. Uh.
Speaker 1: Simply by looking at the esthetics of religion in America today,
Speaker 1: you could point to, for example, I think the rise
Speaker 1: of televangelism, TV ministry networks. You can change the channel
Speaker 1: at home religious participation on your own time with the
Speaker 1: TV program. You could also look at megachurches, which I
Speaker 1: think are a really interesting cultural phenomenon. I have huge congregations,
Speaker 1: and what's the point of the huge congregation. Well, if
Speaker 1: you wanted to look at it from this critical point
Speaker 1: of view, you could say, really a huge congregation like
Speaker 1: that provides each individual church go or a kind of
Speaker 1: Walmart level of anonymity. You don't have to have a
Speaker 1: personal relationship. You just go and sort of consume as
Speaker 1: another face in the crowd as on your own time,
Speaker 1: on your own terms. Now off or is that also
Speaker 1: can be The very thing about a mega church that
Speaker 1: would turn someone away is that they want to go
Speaker 1: into a church. They want to be recognized, they want
Speaker 1: to be an individual, the want of a community exactly.
Speaker 1: But then also you could look at their attention grabbing
Speaker 1: multimedia experiences like let's, you know, let's watch Pastor Trent
Speaker 1: rock out with the praise band on the JumboTron, which
Speaker 1: there there's certainly plenty of that. And sometimes they've even
Speaker 1: got truly built in shopping experiences. You've got coffee shops,
Speaker 1: bookstores and the church and stuff like that. And so
Speaker 1: this is the work that I think possum I is
Speaker 1: building on. And so possum I when he gets to
Speaker 1: the concept of hyper real religion, he makes a comparison
Speaker 1: between trends in fantasy literature and trends in religion. And
Speaker 1: so he starts out by looking at fantasy fiction, and
Speaker 1: he says He says essentially that fantasy fiction has this
Speaker 1: traditional library of tropes, styles, and contents from which it
Speaker 1: usually draws, like sword and sorcery fiction. He possum I
Speaker 1: claims that this is based mostly on chival ric or
Speaker 1: medieval romance like the R three and cycle, you know,
Speaker 1: King Arthur in those kind of stories, that they form
Speaker 1: the library of things which the modern fantasy author can
Speaker 1: now reach in and grab and put together in his
Speaker 1: or her own way. And so among the standard library
Speaker 1: of tropes or things like magic, creatures, thieves, warriors, druids, wizards, orcs, elves,
Speaker 1: what else, oh, gelatinous cubes. Yeah, all the standard dunez
Speaker 1: and dragons, characters, creatures and tropes for sure. But then
Speaker 1: possum My points to an interesting development in the history
Speaker 1: of fantasy, which he singles out as the two thousand
Speaker 1: two video game Kingdom Hearts. Now, I've never played this of,
Speaker 1: you know, but I'm familiar with the with the series,
Speaker 1: especially it's it's crossovers with like Disney material. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I did not expect Kingdom Hearts to show up in
Speaker 1: the material. But this is exactly what he points out.
Speaker 1: I think it's a really interesting point. He says, So, okay,
Speaker 1: Kingdom Hearts is a video game following a very traditional
Speaker 1: fantasy put in some ways, it has a traditional fantasy
Speaker 1: plot structure. There's a quest, there's a main character who
Speaker 1: has a sort of symbolic sword and uh, and the
Speaker 1: main character is seeking reunification with friends who are lost.
Speaker 1: It all sounds like this could be Tolkien or something.
Speaker 1: But instead of having all of just the regular dungeons
Speaker 1: and dragons, chivalry, you know, the nights and the elves
Speaker 1: and the orcs and all that, it's got characters from
Speaker 1: Disney movies. Like you say, so, it's got characters from
Speaker 1: Aladdin and Peter Pan and a hundred and one Dalmatians
Speaker 1: and Alice in Wonderland. And so he's looking at this
Speaker 1: as saying, huh, So, when you put yourself in the
Speaker 1: fantasy mindset, you kind of have to uh accept as
Speaker 1: real all of the tropes that are being pulled from
Speaker 1: the the antique library of medieval and fantasy tropes like
Speaker 1: wizards and stuff like that. That's the real material that
Speaker 1: you work with within the fantasy realm. But this is
Speaker 1: binging in all this stuff where people are explicitly familiar
Speaker 1: with the origins Disney movies. Disney movies they saw when
Speaker 1: they were a kid, and now they're part of the
Speaker 1: fantasy library. Huh. Yeah, this is I mean, this just
Speaker 1: makes me think about walking around the office here and
Speaker 1: how stuff works. Uh. You go by each desk and
Speaker 1: everyone has at least it seems like one figurine, right,
Speaker 1: one action figure, some sort of pop culture comic bookie
Speaker 1: character that is serving as kind of uh, kind of
Speaker 1: an avatar, kind of an icon, kind of uh, kind
Speaker 1: of a holy artifact, a little god, a little shrine
Speaker 1: at your desk. Yeah, exactly. I mean, like like I
Speaker 1: think about in my own situation, like I carry a
Speaker 1: Ganesha in my pocket, Ganesha being of course that the Hindu,
Speaker 1: a little elephant deity, the remover of obstacles, um and
Speaker 1: and so you know, I carry him around as a
Speaker 1: kind of a good good luck token. But on my
Speaker 1: desk here at work, I also have a gammera and
Speaker 1: a tom Servo, which very fine idols. Yeah, and they
Speaker 1: kind of what they kind of embody certain you know,
Speaker 1: maybe not completely thought out ideas, but they embody certain
Speaker 1: nostalgic powers and thematic powers that I kind of draw
Speaker 1: in a draw on as I work. Gammera has stuff
Speaker 1: we can all get behind. He loves all children, It's right.
Speaker 1: He's a friend of children. And he breathes fire and flies,
Speaker 1: so he's you know, he's he's a he's a powerful
Speaker 1: force to to to, to turn to. So anytime there's
Speaker 1: a bat in your vicinity that begins to emit rays
Speaker 1: you know that you have Gammera on your side. Exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But you know, to what extent are all these little
Speaker 1: little creatures and a little toy? I mean, they are
Speaker 1: all kind of religious icons. They're kind of the gods
Speaker 1: of the New Age, right, Yeah, And so we should
Speaker 1: note about possum I before we continue that. In the
Speaker 1: academic community postmodern religious and cultural criticism, there's been you know,
Speaker 1: a ton of ink spill debating the merits of possum eze,
Speaker 1: definitions and analysis. We're not going to get into all that.
Speaker 1: We're we're not going to get into these debates. We
Speaker 1: can just focus on that the example itself, basically the
Speaker 1: subjective analysis. So if there's nothing definite about any of it, yeah,
Speaker 1: but but it does it does make a lot of
Speaker 1: sense in this one. We're discussing it here, But essentially,
Speaker 1: the idea is creating religions inspired by source material that
Speaker 1: the religion's own adherents except to be fiction. Well, let's
Speaker 1: run through some examples of this, because I mean, I
Speaker 1: know it's if you're not familiar with this, your your
Speaker 1: brain is probably going in circles here, like how do
Speaker 1: you base a religion? It's one thing to say, oh,
Speaker 1: I get some inspiration from a gammera, but how would
Speaker 1: you actually have a gammera based faith. Well, do you
Speaker 1: mind if I talk about the Jedi first? Talk about
Speaker 1: the Jedi? Okay, so how about Jedi is M. Have you?
Speaker 1: Have you folks heard of this jedi Ism, Jeddism or
Speaker 1: jeddi is M. Jedism always makes me think of Jed
Speaker 1: from Beverly Hillbillies. It's the religion of Jed clamp At. Yes,
Speaker 1: because he came across the Black Gold, so he must
Speaker 1: be inspired. Yes he would God let him there. But anyway,
Speaker 1: that no, jed Edi is Um is a Star Wars
Speaker 1: inspired religion that takes after the Jedi, the Jedi knights
Speaker 1: of the Star Wars universe. Who are the heroes? I mean,
Speaker 1: I probably don't need to explain the Star Wars context you,
Speaker 1: I assume you've seen it. If not, suffice to say, they're,
Speaker 1: you know, a quasi mystical religious order of good guys
Speaker 1: facing off against an evil empire. Well evil in quotation,
Speaker 1: I don't know how evil they actually were. But but oh,
Speaker 1: so you've got a bone to pick there, Well, it's
Speaker 1: it's not really worth picking at this point, never mind. Okay,
Speaker 1: So anyway, in my best judgment, Jedi pretty clearly began
Speaker 1: as a joke. It just explicitly a joke. Uh. First example,
Speaker 1: the two thousand one since this phenomenon, so around the
Speaker 1: time of the year two thousand one, there was a
Speaker 1: widespread international email campaign urging people to list Jedi as
Speaker 1: their religion on official census forms. And it worked. It worked,
Speaker 1: according to the BBC. In the two thousand one UK
Speaker 1: since US three hundred ninety thousand, one hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: seven people, which amounted to about zero point seven percent
Speaker 1: of the population at the time, listed their religion as
Speaker 1: some variation on Jedi on that census Jedi or Jedi
Speaker 1: Knight something like. That same year, according to the Sydney
Speaker 1: Morning Herald, seventy thousand, five hundred and nine Australians, or
Speaker 1: about zero point three seven percent of Australians registered as
Speaker 1: Jedi on on the two thousand one census. So at
Speaker 1: the time, I think everybody assumed this was sort of
Speaker 1: like flying spaghetti monsterism. It's a joke carried out by
Speaker 1: atheists and secularists, maybe trying to point out something about
Speaker 1: the arbitrary nous of people's religious beliefs. Maybe they thought
Speaker 1: they were making a point. Maybe they didn't even think
Speaker 1: they were making a point. Maybe they just thought it
Speaker 1: was funny to say I'm a Jedi instead of to
Speaker 1: say no religion or none or something. Yeah, and it's
Speaker 1: probably the kind of thing where in many of these cases,
Speaker 1: not a tremendous a tremendous amount thought is not going
Speaker 1: into this. It's it's just kind of a gut reaction.
Speaker 1: But the roots may run a little deeper than they're
Speaker 1: conscious off. Yeah. So that was two thousand one. But
Speaker 1: if you look at the website now of the Temple
Speaker 1: of the Jedi Order, and if you listen to their spokespeople,
Speaker 1: it starts to seem less and less like a joke
Speaker 1: or even a statement in order to make a point.
Speaker 1: If you look at them. Now, the Jedi have beliefs,
Speaker 1: they have doctrines, they have credle statements, and it sounds
Speaker 1: to me perhaps unsettlingly sincere, I don't mean unsettling as
Speaker 1: in I'm mocking them. I just mean it's surprising. So
Speaker 1: I want to read a couple of little things from
Speaker 1: the Temple of the Jedi Order. These are These are
Speaker 1: statements they have. One is the Jedi Code, and there
Speaker 1: are two versions of it. I want to read the
Speaker 1: simplified version. The Jedi Code reads emotion yet peace, Ignorance yet, knowledge,
Speaker 1: Passion yet, serenity, chaos us yet, harmony, death yet the Force. Okay,
Speaker 1: that sounds pleasingly mystic and and deep. Yeah, okay. There's
Speaker 1: also a Jedi creed, believe it or not, so that
Speaker 1: this is their creed. I am a Jedi, an instrument
Speaker 1: of peace where there is hatred. I shall bring love
Speaker 1: where there is injury, pardon where there is doubt, faith
Speaker 1: where there is despair, hope where there is darkness, light,
Speaker 1: and where there is sadness joy. I am a Jedi.
Speaker 1: I shall never seek so much to be consoled as
Speaker 1: to console, to be understood, as to understand, to be
Speaker 1: loved as to love, for it is in giving that
Speaker 1: we receive, it is in pardoning that we're pardoned, and
Speaker 1: it is in dying that we're born to eternal life.
Speaker 1: The forces with me always, for I am a Jedi. Okay,
Speaker 1: so this makes me instantly wonder are we are we
Speaker 1: witnessing here the evolution of faith or the evolution of
Speaker 1: the joke? Are we are we kind of in like
Speaker 1: the Andy Kaufman uh period of the joke where we're
Speaker 1: just forced to feel kind of confused and maybe a
Speaker 1: little uncomfortable about where we stand, uh in bit versus reality?
Speaker 1: I don't know, because I so first of all, that
Speaker 1: creed I read there, they said they claimed that is
Speaker 1: actually adapted from a traditional prayer of St. Francis of ASSISI.
Speaker 1: Um so that's sort of interesting that they're adapting traditional
Speaker 1: religious materials. But I also listened to an interview with
Speaker 1: the spokesperson from the organization, the Temple of the Jedi,
Speaker 1: and you know what, he seemed to me like a
Speaker 1: level headed guy who was not playing a prank. In fact,
Speaker 1: he the weirdest thing was he didn't even seem like
Speaker 1: all that obsessive of a Star Wars fan. Umh. And
Speaker 1: he so he explained that all the Jedi believe in
Speaker 1: the Force, but the Jedi need not believe in like
Speaker 1: a literal physical reality of the Force as an energy
Speaker 1: field that's around us and binds us. Though apparently you
Speaker 1: can believe in that instead. He made it sound like
Speaker 1: the Force can be defined however you like. It can
Speaker 1: be a physical reality, it can be a metaphor for
Speaker 1: the interconnectedness of the universe, or it can be something
Speaker 1: else entirely pretty much whatever you want. He seemed very
Speaker 1: earnest and serious about Jedism being taken seriously as a religion, or,
Speaker 1: if not a religion, as a sort of philosophy accorded
Speaker 1: the same cultural respect as a religion. Well, it's interesting,
Speaker 1: right because you're what is that what is Star Wars
Speaker 1: but sort of a rehashing and reassemblage of various uh
Speaker 1: mythic tropes, right, yeah, And he pointed to exactly this thing.
Speaker 1: He said, Star Wars doesn't exist in a vacuum, you know,
Speaker 1: yet it draws on traditional philosophies and religions, and so
Speaker 1: we're essentially using Star Wars as as a metaphorical way
Speaker 1: to go back to these ancient traditions. So it's kind
Speaker 1: of like, hey, I really love Star Wars. Why do
Speaker 1: I love Star Wars? And then if the answer is, well,
Speaker 1: some of these belief systems are kind of appealing to me.
Speaker 1: If you then explore the roots of those things and
Speaker 1: began to find meaning in the roots of those things
Speaker 1: without abandoning that initial science fiction lens by continuing to
Speaker 1: have that be a part of your your I'm hesitant
Speaker 1: to say worldview, but let's say your your spiritual construction.
Speaker 1: Then you you have yourself a hyper real religion. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but the Star Wars universe is not the only one
Speaker 1: that has created movements like this. I think there are
Speaker 1: others that I would say chart a similar path. It
Speaker 1: looks to me, and like I have to admit, as
Speaker 1: with all these I'm an outsider, So you know, I
Speaker 1: can't speak as a Jedi or something, and I don't
Speaker 1: want to diminish people's experiences in that faith or in
Speaker 1: any other faith. But what I'll say is, it looks
Speaker 1: to me like it definitely started as a joke. Well,
Speaker 1: and it it and it took on a seriousness and
Speaker 1: and there are others like that, like, well, that's just
Speaker 1: like your opinion. Man, right, how about the Dude. That's right.
Speaker 1: Dudaism is another big one. Um, I assume we also
Speaker 1: have some Big Lebowski fans, I should hope. So yeah,
Speaker 1: The Big Lebowski, the Coen Brothers. Uh, just wonderful film
Speaker 1: and it didn't really do well when it came out,
Speaker 1: but it's one of those that has continued to just
Speaker 1: gaining a cult following conventions and even its own hyper
Speaker 1: real religion in the form of Dudaism. So it's basically
Speaker 1: all boils down to the dude abides right. Um, it's
Speaker 1: a dude centric philosophy and lifestyle, more or less a
Speaker 1: modern pop culture take on on Dalloism dallasm. I've heard
Speaker 1: it described also as having a lot of similarities to
Speaker 1: Zen Buddhism. Yeah, indeed, it's you know, it's a little
Speaker 1: it's chill, it's uh, it's peaceful, it's uh, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's all of the positive aspects of the dude, um,
Speaker 1: without some of his more you know, reckless or laziness. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the funny things is that the
Speaker 1: thing about the dude is that he's chill. But throughout
Speaker 1: much of the movie, the Dude is not chill. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the the dude gets a little irritated, and uh and
Speaker 1: and and is even criticized by the stranger for his
Speaker 1: his vulgar language. So it's it's it's one of the
Speaker 1: This is another great example, though, where you when you
Speaker 1: look at Dudaism and you see the the people who
Speaker 1: follow it or at least like to talk about it,
Speaker 1: It all does begin in that kind of bumper sticker area,
Speaker 1: like it's fun to say, hey, what's your religion? Oh,
Speaker 1: it's Dudaism, you know, because I really love this movie.
Speaker 1: But you see the same thing, right, You see individuals
Speaker 1: who seem to follow the roots of it or sort
Speaker 1: of ask themself questions, well, if Dudaism were a real faith,
Speaker 1: if it were a real philosophy, what would what would
Speaker 1: his tenants be? What would be what? What would I
Speaker 1: need to understand? And then they sort of follow it
Speaker 1: backwards into um, you know, more historical modes of belief. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think this would encounter the same kind of
Speaker 1: criticisms from outsiders that all these others would. People would
Speaker 1: be like, wait a second, hold on, what do you
Speaker 1: mean do you really believe in Judaism? Is that really
Speaker 1: your religion. Well, it's kind of it kind of makes
Speaker 1: me think of you remember win App. Oh yeah, the
Speaker 1: old like MP three player that we all had. That's
Speaker 1: the thing. You had different skins, right, we all have
Speaker 1: the same program, but we use different skins that appeal
Speaker 1: to us personally. Since you have like a tool skin
Speaker 1: on win App, I think I had some sort of
Speaker 1: like horrible blood splattery one or something like that. It was,
Speaker 1: it was nice and dark and moody. But but I
Speaker 1: can't help but feel like we encounter something something similar
Speaker 1: with these hyper real religions that we're discussing, where the
Speaker 1: actual mode of beliefs, the actual mechanics are either something
Speaker 1: old or something cobbled together from other beliefs, But it's
Speaker 1: that skin that brings us in. That skin is unique
Speaker 1: and appeals to us. I got another one. I was
Speaker 1: trying to tell Rachel last night about Jeddism, my wife Rachel,
Speaker 1: about Jedis to convert her or or to Jedism. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: just to explain it. And she was like, oh, I
Speaker 1: bet there is this for Lord of the Rings and
Speaker 1: and what do you know that there are there are
Speaker 1: Tolkien inspired religious ideas, which is very interesting to me
Speaker 1: because I would say that in some ways Tolkien is
Speaker 1: sort of adapting Christianity to a fantasy setting, or at
Speaker 1: least some ideas of Christianity. It's not like an explicit
Speaker 1: one to one metaphor, but a lot of his messages
Speaker 1: I think in Lord of the Rings are Christian ones. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's these sort of sort of vague Tolkien asked neopagan religions.
Speaker 1: They're they're interesting because you had the book itself. They're
Speaker 1: they're often these arguments, you know, people saying, oh, this
Speaker 1: is a pagan work, and and it's they're the pagan
Speaker 1: elements are what's important here. Other saying no, it's inherently
Speaker 1: a Christian work. Other people saying it's a it's a
Speaker 1: synthesis of the two um. And maybe all these arguments
Speaker 1: there are ultimately kind of silly, but you, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a very popular work, and especially out of the
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies where you saw people are really into Tolkien.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of good there's still a lot of
Speaker 1: you know, Coulter cultural energy going on. It's in Led
Speaker 1: Zeppelin albums, all Zeppelin albums, and it it has a
Speaker 1: lot of power to it. It has a lot of um,
Speaker 1: it has a lot of depth to it. You can
Speaker 1: just go completely crazy, uh, filling in all the details
Speaker 1: in your mind about the world of Tolkien. We maybe
Speaker 1: don't advise that. No, Well, you go for it if
Speaker 1: you want. Um. I mean, that's one thing I always
Speaker 1: enjoy about the various sci fi and fantasy properties that
Speaker 1: that really engage me is if there's a really rich mythos,
Speaker 1: they're either one that is explicitly um laid out for
Speaker 1: you or one where they are all these holes that
Speaker 1: you can't help but fill in the details yourself. You know,
Speaker 1: we were talking about this concept of hyper real religions
Speaker 1: and uh, and Christian Sega, our other host, brought Satanism
Speaker 1: to mind. That's right. Um. And if anyone remembers the
Speaker 1: Satanic Panic episode that Christian and I did, I guess
Speaker 1: about a year ago. Know, um, as we discussed in
Speaker 1: that Satanism like never really existed, certainly not in the
Speaker 1: way that that it was presented in during the Satanic Panic, Right.
Speaker 1: I mean I would say that what you have as Satanism,
Speaker 1: people who would actually claim this religion is almost explicitly
Speaker 1: an atheistic religion, right. Yeah, And generally when we talk
Speaker 1: about Satanism. We're talking about Lavay and Satanism, which was
Speaker 1: comes from the Church of Satan, found in nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: six by Anton LaVey. Was you know, ultimately it's an
Speaker 1: atheistic individualist philosophy. It's UH with more than a dash
Speaker 1: of of drama, symbolism, fun. It's about messing with the
Speaker 1: squares and and putting on a you know, a fun show. Well,
Speaker 1: in some ways I think it has a lot in
Speaker 1: common with the Flying Spaghetti Monster is um and that
Speaker 1: it's it's maybe more than this, but in in some
Speaker 1: ways you could think of it as a massive prank. Yes,
Speaker 1: very much so um And And I think lave I
Speaker 1: think was was pretty straightforward about I mean, this is
Speaker 1: a guy that came from sort of Carney roots at
Speaker 1: the very Carney faith, and and I love it. You
Speaker 1: can't help it but get involved with the trappings of it,
Speaker 1: especially as the years roll by and it becomes a
Speaker 1: part of uh, you know, an entire segment of of music. Right,
Speaker 1: you get into all this death metal that has varying
Speaker 1: degrees of satanic elements. All right, but I think it's
Speaker 1: time to turn to psychology to try to see what
Speaker 1: we can figure out about what people are actually trying
Speaker 1: to get out of these religious beliefs. It seems fairly
Speaker 1: clear what people get out of traditional religious beliefs where
Speaker 1: there is at the core of them the assumption of
Speaker 1: a real revelation about the metaphysical nature of reality. Um,
Speaker 1: maybe not in all of them, but in lots of them.
Speaker 1: But in these religious beliefs that are in some way
Speaker 1: based on what everybody agrees is fiction. What what is
Speaker 1: the goal of the seeker of the adherent? Well, one
Speaker 1: take on this comes from Carol mq sax Invented Religions, Imagination,
Speaker 1: Fiction and Faith, and she posits that invented religions, such
Speaker 1: as the ones we're discussing here, they demonstrate that what
Speaker 1: meaning hungry humans really want is a powerful narrative, particularly
Speaker 1: one in which unseen agents affect causality in our world
Speaker 1: and in our lives. Okay, so maybe saying that even
Speaker 1: if we don't agree that the narratives refer to a
Speaker 1: thing that's literally true, just participation in the narrative is enough. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, like the fictional realm becomes the place where
Speaker 1: it is okay to dream, whereas to to dream in
Speaker 1: the more real world of of sort of you know
Speaker 1: religious history that is, uh, that's that is sometimes seen
Speaker 1: as a bit weird in some circles. Well, that relates
Speaker 1: to something that we that I know, we read a
Speaker 1: little bit about about why fantasy is popular these days.
Speaker 1: It actually reminds me of of some thoughts, some observations
Speaker 1: that are Scott Baker made our Scott Baker himself being
Speaker 1: a uh successful and in my opinion highly talented um
Speaker 1: fantasy writer himself background in philosophy, and also he works
Speaker 1: a fair amount of neuroscience into his into his creations.
Speaker 1: But um. In his paper that published on science fiction
Speaker 1: and Fantasy, World, Wine, Fantasy and Whine now Um, he
Speaker 1: says that fantasy is quote the primary literary response to
Speaker 1: what is often called the contemporary crisis of meaning. So
Speaker 1: the idea here is that we live in an age
Speaker 1: of reason and science. We have all sorts of myth
Speaker 1: erasing answers for how the world works, so so long
Speaker 1: as we don't require teleological answers. So this get in
Speaker 1: other words, this gets down to, you know, we have
Speaker 1: all these answers about how, say, the solar system works,
Speaker 1: how life works, but we don't have the wise, Right,
Speaker 1: that's the stuff that that is beyond science. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: almost says science is essentially created too reliable of a
Speaker 1: tool for finding correct answers about reality, and so reliable
Speaker 1: in fact, that it has left us with nihilism. Uh.
Speaker 1: Now we we don't necessarily need to agree with that
Speaker 1: perspective to say that. Certainly a lot of people probably
Speaker 1: feel this way that if science is the only socially
Speaker 1: legitimate way of of asserting that something is definitely true,
Speaker 1: where do you get your meaning of life from? Yeah?
Speaker 1: If science is not going to give that to you,
Speaker 1: and it can lead to a sense of kind of despair,
Speaker 1: of hopelessness, of emptiness. You know, what is life really
Speaker 1: all about? I mean, who cares if I can finally
Speaker 1: understand the mysteries of the of quantum physics. If if
Speaker 1: what it reveals is that there's no way to answer
Speaker 1: the question of the meaning of life. Yeah, so you
Speaker 1: end up turning to fantasy um, and to a certain
Speaker 1: certain extent science fiction, but largely we're talking about fantasy.
Speaker 1: You're trying to turn to these fantastic stories, uh, in
Speaker 1: which you can find if not find that meaning for yourself,
Speaker 1: then you at least embodied characters who find that meaning
Speaker 1: and world and live in a world where life and
Speaker 1: in the individual has significance. Now, I I personally probably
Speaker 1: wouldn't agree with big or that this is what this
Speaker 1: is what is entailed by the scientific view of the world.
Speaker 1: But I can certainly see how if you do go
Speaker 1: to that conclusion, fantasy could provide a very powerful escape
Speaker 1: from it. Right. And you know, I do have to
Speaker 1: say our Scott Baker's own work, his Um Second Apocalypse series,
Speaker 1: he he crowns these cads. It's definitely dark fantasy, but
Speaker 1: he grounds these many of these characters, uh, in this
Speaker 1: this very believable philosophical place that is at times like you,
Speaker 1: at times you're loot, you lose yourself in the story,
Speaker 1: in the narrative, in the world. But other times he
Speaker 1: forces the reader to to really ask some troubling questions
Speaker 1: about about who we are and how we work as individuals. Um. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: I would say that his critique of fantasy genre UM
Speaker 1: does not apply to everything within that realm, and it
Speaker 1: certainly doesn't apply to all readers. Come back to the question, right,
Speaker 1: what modern religious individuals want? So he would say maybe,
Speaker 1: meaning right, he would say meaning he would tie it
Speaker 1: into this idea he he coined the term the semantic apocalypse. Uh,
Speaker 1: this idea that we are either at the point where
Speaker 1: we're approaching this point where we just we're just completely
Speaker 1: stupefied by the lack of meaning in our lives and
Speaker 1: in the world. But then again, I mean, I'm sure
Speaker 1: there have been some scientific studies that look into what
Speaker 1: it is that people want out of religions in general. Uh.
Speaker 1: There have, yeah, and one in particular. And again, this
Speaker 1: is when we're talking about papers and studies about religion.
Speaker 1: This is all ultimately, you know, subjective analysis. Uh, So
Speaker 1: feel free to disagree and our idea with us and uh,
Speaker 1: but in this case, uh. According to Ohio State University
Speaker 1: professor Stephen rice Offer, an author of the two thousand
Speaker 1: sixteen book, uh, The Sixteen Strivings for God, he says
Speaker 1: people have sixteen basic desires. I liked these interesting. Yeah, Acceptance, curiosity, eating, family, honor, idealism, independence, order,
Speaker 1: physical activity, power, romance, saving, social contact, status, tranquility, and vengeance.
Speaker 1: And then a pretty good list. I was trying to
Speaker 1: think of things other than that. Yeah, though, I think
Speaker 1: he covered all the basics there and you can't help
Speaker 1: but look at that list and sort of check things
Speaker 1: off in your head as you look at your own
Speaker 1: either your own religious beliefs, your spiritualism, or your the
Speaker 1: fantasy that you're into. Um. But he developed this Rice
Speaker 1: motivation profile that measures how much people value each of
Speaker 1: these sixteen goals, and he administered it to a hundred
Speaker 1: thousand plus people, and he found that the appeal of
Speaker 1: any given religion relates to how it responds to one
Speaker 1: or more of those desires. Uh, and it competes with
Speaker 1: secular society to meet those desires. So, so think about it,
Speaker 1: in what ways can both traditional religions and hyper real
Speaker 1: religions meet in any of these desires such as uh? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean stuff like curiosity. I can doubt only see
Speaker 1: the appeal of that because one of the things that
Speaker 1: always drew me into actual religions and continues to draw
Speaker 1: me into actual religions is the mystery and the creativity,
Speaker 1: the the interplay and narratives of these gods and heroes. Right,
Speaker 1: It's what brings me into uh to you know, reading
Speaker 1: a Hinduism, and brings me into reading a uh, you
Speaker 1: know about ancient Egypt. It brings me into reading you know,
Speaker 1: various fantasy novels as well. Well. I mean, in some cases,
Speaker 1: I think this might grow out of a slight disconnect
Speaker 1: between the things we need, you know, these things we
Speaker 1: strive for and desire, versus what we really know is
Speaker 1: appropriate in modern society, given that we've started to think
Speaker 1: out ethical issues in a secular way. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you can say that there's really a good, widely
Speaker 1: agreed upon, secular justification for things like a desire for honor,
Speaker 1: And yet the ancient structures of fantasy, or of traditional
Speaker 1: religions or something like that might all include concepts of
Speaker 1: honor that can sort of legitimate this desire that we
Speaker 1: have biologically, even if we can't think of a good
Speaker 1: reason to seek honor. Yeah, it makes more something like
Speaker 1: honor often makes more sense in a simplified and highly
Speaker 1: symbolic world than it does and you know, the minutia
Speaker 1: of real life. Yeah, um, you know. Likewise, something like vengeance,
Speaker 1: which made the list, Like vengeance is something that in
Speaker 1: your own life, like vengeance is kind of ikey um,
Speaker 1: well yeah, and it's the thing we all desire, but
Speaker 1: most of us would probably agree we sort of know
Speaker 1: better than to try to get it right. But like
Speaker 1: a religious faith, you know, you have some sort of
Speaker 1: hell doctrine in there, an outsource vengeance, I'd say, I
Speaker 1: don't have to get revenge something bad might happen to
Speaker 1: you outside of my control. Yeah, and and and likewise,
Speaker 1: we continually turn to fictional models of what vengeance might
Speaker 1: consist of. I mean, revenge tails have always been popular,
Speaker 1: will continue to be popular, and again they often fall
Speaker 1: back on a simplified and highly symbolic world. You know,
Speaker 1: I wonder if studies on religious experience would indicate that
Speaker 1: that hyper reality could become or is becoming, the new
Speaker 1: norm for religious experiences. Yeah. It often reminds me of
Speaker 1: the line in Big Trouble, Little China from the Sorcerer
Speaker 1: egg Shin, who talks about Chinese modes of belief in
Speaker 1: saying that it's like a salad bar that you choose,
Speaker 1: you take what you like, and you leave the rest. Uh.
Speaker 1: In this case, the character was referring to Confusism and
Speaker 1: Taoism and and uh and and uh and and also
Speaker 1: Buddhism as well. But but yeah, I I find that
Speaker 1: increasingly in my own life that I do that that
Speaker 1: I kind of take what I want from these various models,
Speaker 1: including some fictional models, and and incorporated into my sort
Speaker 1: of religious, spiritual worldview. There's actually a two thousand fifteen
Speaker 1: study from the University of Evansville published in American Sociological View,
Speaker 1: and it took a pretty thorough look at the way
Speaker 1: Americans process religion and science. So the author's crunch data
Speaker 1: from three waves of the General Social Survey and found
Speaker 1: that US adults hold one of three perspectives based on
Speaker 1: their knowledge and attitudes about science and religion. Now, the
Speaker 1: first two are long established, but the third isn't is,
Speaker 1: according to the author's entirely new. So there's a modern perspective,
Speaker 1: a worldview that favors science over religion, and that scored Okay,
Speaker 1: science Trump's religion. That's that's that version. Then there's a
Speaker 1: traditional perspective, a worldview that favors religion over science, which
Speaker 1: you know to interpret that that that score as you will.
Speaker 1: But then the third one is the post secular perspective,
Speaker 1: a worldview that values both science and religion, but quote
Speaker 1: rejects science in favor of religion when it comes to
Speaker 1: topics such as creation and evolution. And that scored. So
Speaker 1: that is kind of the salad bar situation in action
Speaker 1: there right, where the individual is willing to favor science
Speaker 1: and religion, in fact, favor science over religion, except for
Speaker 1: those places where it becomes um, teleologically difficult, where if
Speaker 1: not overt issues of meaning come into play, then at
Speaker 1: least implied um meaning, you know, implied issues of meaning.
Speaker 1: So you know, it's like like, ultimately, I think there
Speaker 1: can be a strong case to be made that what
Speaker 1: does it matter if if life evolved or of the
Speaker 1: hand of God shaped it, But if your interpretation sees
Speaker 1: one vision version as problematic or threatening to the overall
Speaker 1: religious structure in your head, then you then in this case,
Speaker 1: you're gonna favor that religious construct over the science. And
Speaker 1: a separate question I think would be just what are
Speaker 1: the triggers that cause people to view these things as
Speaker 1: in conflict anyway? Like, some people are obviously hold both
Speaker 1: views in their heads without trouble, and some people perceive
Speaker 1: a conflict. Um I'm not sure what makes the difference,
Speaker 1: but it seems significant. Yeah, so yeah, So what we're
Speaker 1: talking about here that the post secular perspective. It's not
Speaker 1: a mere midpoint between the traditional and the modern but
Speaker 1: rather a unique way of looking at reality through the
Speaker 1: combined lenses of science and religion. So you can think
Speaker 1: of it as a as kind of a hybrid view.
Speaker 1: And I think that the hyper real religions that we're
Speaker 1: looking at are kind kind of represent a high red
Speaker 1: view of a different, slightly different form where instead of
Speaker 1: rejecting the science that that that threatens, meaning, we're going
Speaker 1: to just we're going to outsource the religion into a
Speaker 1: sort of a safe bucket, into the bucket of fiction,
Speaker 1: and then build from there. I think that's an interesting
Speaker 1: way of looking at it. Like we said, I mean
Speaker 1: a lot of these people who have these beliefs, I
Speaker 1: get the sense are basically uh non basically material list humanists,
Speaker 1: Like they typically have humanist values, they could subscribe to
Speaker 1: the humanist manifesto, and they typically don't believe in uh
Speaker 1: spirits or something anything other than the natural world. That
Speaker 1: certainly isn't the case for all of them, but that
Speaker 1: seems to be a dominant way of thinking. But like,
Speaker 1: like as we know from Buddhism and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: you need not be a supernaturalist in order to be
Speaker 1: a religious person, right, Yeah, And there are ways of engaging.
Speaker 1: I mean, just for Buddhism on its on its own.
Speaker 1: You can take a very sort of abstract philosophical approach
Speaker 1: to Buddhism where you don't literally believe in life to
Speaker 1: life reincarnation, or you can take you can take one
Speaker 1: that is very traditional and ultimately you know it's it's
Speaker 1: all about being fearful and responding from a place of
Speaker 1: fear in terms of what your your next incarnation will
Speaker 1: consist of. I had another idea based in psychology, about
Speaker 1: what might explain some of this. I mean, I certainly
Speaker 1: wouldn't want to say that all of it could is
Speaker 1: explained by this, but it could explain some of the
Speaker 1: transition from joke religions into real religions. And it would
Speaker 1: be based in the idea of sunk costs, choice, supportive bias,
Speaker 1: and post purchase rationalization. So let's say you spend a
Speaker 1: lot of money on a new lawnmower. Okay, I can't
Speaker 1: imagine it happening in my case, but yeah, you've mowed
Speaker 1: the lawn a few times, and you start to worry
Speaker 1: that maybe you didn't spend your money all that well,
Speaker 1: So you start to engage in an internal conversation, which
Speaker 1: is a form of choice supportive bias, a bias towards
Speaker 1: validating the choice you already made. That's called post purchase rationalization.
Speaker 1: You start coming up with the reasons why you know
Speaker 1: this really was a good way to spend my money.
Speaker 1: I think I did the right thing by spending the
Speaker 1: money on this lawnmower, because it could sort of lead
Speaker 1: to some unpleasant cognitive dissonance. If you don't come to
Speaker 1: that conclusion, you can think, man, I really screwed up.
Speaker 1: I shouldn't have gone down this road. So it's kind
Speaker 1: of kind of gets into the area if I read
Speaker 1: Dune three times or more times than that, even maybe
Speaker 1: it wasn't just a good book. Maybe it wasn't just
Speaker 1: a great book, but maybe it was a book that
Speaker 1: was so meaningful that it is that it achieves kind
Speaker 1: of a spiritual level exactly, or in another way, it
Speaker 1: could be true that Let's say if you spent a
Speaker 1: lot of time and effort just carrying out a joke,
Speaker 1: just on a prank religion. Let's say you start spending
Speaker 1: time on Judaism because you love the Big Lebowski and
Speaker 1: because it's funny. It's funny to pretend that there's a
Speaker 1: dude religion. But after realizing how much sunk costs you've
Speaker 1: incurred in your own time and energy over a long
Speaker 1: period of time, you start seeking ways to rationalize the
Speaker 1: purchase of these beliefs by saying, huh uh, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe if if I've spent three hundred hours on Dudaism,
Speaker 1: was it really just a joke? Maybe it wasn't just
Speaker 1: a joke. Maybe there's really some meaning in this. And
Speaker 1: and that's not even to say that the meaning you
Speaker 1: find is invalid if that's your method that of coming
Speaker 1: to that meaning. I would say that that conclusions reached
Speaker 1: through choice supportive bias aren't necessarily untrue conclusions. I think
Speaker 1: in many cases, the time and financial investment involved here,
Speaker 1: it just forces you to double down on something that
Speaker 1: you were already inclined to support or inclined to buy into.
Speaker 1: You know, It's it's like I already thought this was
Speaker 1: a great idea, but now that I've I've potentially wasted
Speaker 1: this much time on it, it's definitely a great idea.
Speaker 1: One other thing I wanted to note, I was interested
Speaker 1: to see what you thought of this, is that these
Speaker 1: religions the hyper real religions, especially like Jedi is m
Speaker 1: and Judaism, seemed to be very much creatures of the Internet.
Speaker 1: In fact, even I mentioned that I listened to an
Speaker 1: interview with the spokesperson of the Jedi Temple. The guy
Speaker 1: who I listened to explicitly pointed to the introduction of
Speaker 1: Internet fan communities and forums in the nineteen nineties as
Speaker 1: the thing that made the Jedi religion possible. And so
Speaker 1: that makes me wonder how the Internet has changed what's
Speaker 1: possible in terms of social movements and the birth of religions. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, the Internet has made it possible to to
Speaker 1: find those communities of people that share your belief You
Speaker 1: might be the only person in your small town that
Speaker 1: loves Star Wars as much as you do, but the
Speaker 1: Internet allows you to find all those other individuals who
Speaker 1: are as invested, and you find the community in your
Speaker 1: fandom that that one could you know, that would pre
Speaker 1: one could previously find, perhaps only in something like a religion.
Speaker 1: You're finding that religious community in your fandom. But then again,
Speaker 1: I come back to the question. I mean, I have
Speaker 1: to wonder what the evolution of this looks like over
Speaker 1: a long time. Could you ever reach the point where
Speaker 1: there are jeddi Ists who believe in the truth of
Speaker 1: jedi Is m so firmly that they would actually come
Speaker 1: to the position of the creationists we talked about at
Speaker 1: the beginning, where they would want their views taught as
Speaker 1: an alternative to modern science ends in schools, where they
Speaker 1: would say, you know, I I don't just say that
Speaker 1: this is a useful framework for my life. That kind
Speaker 1: of makes sense to me. I say, this is how
Speaker 1: reality is, and I've got the exclusive truth. Uh, I
Speaker 1: mean I it's hard to imagine with the jedi Ists
Speaker 1: of today, who, like we said, seemed to be just
Speaker 1: sort of like a taking from the salad bar of
Speaker 1: interesting ideas. But who knows what would be possible in
Speaker 1: the future. Yeah, well, it seems to me it would
Speaker 1: be less of a conflict between between science and this
Speaker 1: kind of storytelling mythology, but would be more a conflict
Speaker 1: between mythology. So would be more in line with a
Speaker 1: jedi Is saying, Hey, if you're going to teach the
Speaker 1: children about Greek mythology, uh, then and if you're going
Speaker 1: to teach them about you know, about Hinduism or some
Speaker 1: of these other um, you know, modes of sort of
Speaker 1: mythological belief, and you have to teach them about our
Speaker 1: mode as well, because yeah, because our mode has all
Speaker 1: of those old ideas, but it's been kind of purified
Speaker 1: through the lens of of modern culture. Well, I will
Speaker 1: say I do believe Obi wan Kenobi is much wiser
Speaker 1: than most of the Greek gods. He's he's a very
Speaker 1: wise individual. It's hard not to. Oh, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Some of his choices in the prequels may have been
Speaker 1: I'm not even talking about that. That's heretical. Heretic, Yes, blasphemy. Robert,
Speaker 1: what's your own personal choice for hyper real religion? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, um, like if if you had to go
Speaker 1: with one, I could see myself as a follower of
Speaker 1: annasurmbor Kellis, the aspect emperor of the three season our
Speaker 1: Scott Baker's Second Apocalypse saga. Um, okay, I don't know
Speaker 1: anything about that. It's pretty it's pretty rich and deep
Speaker 1: and uh, that is one where there are segments in
Speaker 1: those books where I've keep they come back to me.
Speaker 1: I think about little motifs that he rolls out, and like,
Speaker 1: some of it is as meaningful as any you know,
Speaker 1: actual religion. Actual mythology in my life. Likewise the doom universe. Hey,
Speaker 1: I am right with you there. In fact, I think
Speaker 1: some of the some of the liturgical formulas of the
Speaker 1: done universe are absolutely useful in the real world, and
Speaker 1: you don't have to buy into the reality of done
Speaker 1: at all. I'd say try the Litany against Fear sometime. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you are feeling fear, say these words, I must
Speaker 1: not fear. Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the
Speaker 1: little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear.
Speaker 1: I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
Speaker 1: And when it has gone past, I will turn the
Speaker 1: inner eye to see the path, and where the fear
Speaker 1: has gone, there will be nothing. Only I will remain. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I have. I have seriously taken some some
Speaker 1: strength and comfort from from from those words and in
Speaker 1: the past. Yeah, I mean, they sort of take on
Speaker 1: the nature of a proverb where it's not necessarily it's
Speaker 1: not the authority of the text that gives it its power,
Speaker 1: it's self evidently powerful. It's a it's a piece of
Speaker 1: literature that you you don't even need to know where
Speaker 1: it came from in order for it to be effective exactly.
Speaker 1: So how about you, what what hyper real religion would
Speaker 1: you turn to cha? Well, besides that, you know, I
Speaker 1: do love the Litany against Fear, but my own personal
Speaker 1: choice for years was you know, Facebook. He used to
Speaker 1: ask you what your religion is, and I was like, well,
Speaker 1: that's none of your business. Facebook. So I'm gonna say
Speaker 1: Fulsa Doom. Right, the Temple of Set from the from
Speaker 1: James Earl Jones and the Schwarzenegger Conan the Barbarian movie.
Speaker 1: I'm to understand Thulsa Doom is kind of different in
Speaker 1: other media, right, Yeah, but my opinion is that he
Speaker 1: gained perfection in that film. Yeah, I James Earl Jones,
Speaker 1: he's the perfect Fulsa Doom. He's a great villain, but
Speaker 1: he's a very profound and literary villain, very charismatic. What
Speaker 1: is steel compared to the hand that wields it? He
Speaker 1: has the whole message that flesh is stronger than steel
Speaker 1: because steel is just a tool. The flesh is the will.
Speaker 1: And I can get behind that. I see what he's
Speaker 1: getting at. Yeah, and plus the parties looked pretty cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, cannibal stew, giant snakes and uh, lots of
Speaker 1: lounging around. Yeah, well one more thing. I mean, I
Speaker 1: have to admit that there's there's ever so slight a
Speaker 1: temptation to some jedi Ism. I'm not saying I would
Speaker 1: ever be a jedi Ist, but I can get a
Speaker 1: little misty when I think about the fact that luminous
Speaker 1: beings are we not this crude matter? All right, Well,
Speaker 1: there you have it. Hyper real religions kind of a
Speaker 1: you know, an examination of of where we are in
Speaker 1: terms of modern religious faith and and fandom, where we've
Speaker 1: come from, and perhaps a new way to sort of
Speaker 1: look at these these old religions as well. Of course,
Speaker 1: we want to hear from everyone else out there. Do
Speaker 1: any of you guys and gals follow a hyper real religion?
Speaker 1: Do we have any uh unutologists the audience that want
Speaker 1: to speak up about about Altman, about Church of the SubGenius. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Church of the SubGenius. They're a number of big ones
Speaker 1: that we didn't we didn't even have time to get
Speaker 1: to in this podcast. So we would love to hear
Speaker 1: from any and all of you about that, And sincerely,
Speaker 1: if you want to let us know what you truly
Speaker 1: love about this religion and why you consider it a
Speaker 1: real faith. Please share. Yeah, yeah, I do so, we will.
Speaker 1: We will keep an open mind and encourage everyone else
Speaker 1: keep an open mind about it as well. Um. In
Speaker 1: the meantime, check us out of Stuff to Blow your
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