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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.

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Speaker 3: My name is Robert Lamb and I am Joe McCormick.

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Speaker 3: And today we're coming back to revisit a series that

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Speaker 3: we started a few weeks ago. We ended up going

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Speaker 3: off and doing some other stuff in the meantime, but

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Speaker 3: today we're coming back. This series was called The Thing

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Speaker 3: Before the Beginning.

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Speaker 2: That's right, what existed before the creation or emergence of

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Speaker 2: the universe of reality itself. It's a big one. So

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Speaker 2: this is one of the reasons we figured, Hey, even

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Speaker 2: after a couple of weeks, folks are still going to

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Speaker 2: be interested in this. Lord knows we are.

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Speaker 3: Sorry. If I was just looking around all over the place,

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Speaker 3: I realized we started recording without me popping rob out

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Speaker 3: into the little window that I put you in. Folks

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Speaker 3: at home, I don't know if you know that we

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Speaker 3: have to arrange things on our screens just right and

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Speaker 3: just so. I was just messing around with that. Okay, Now,

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Speaker 3: everything's where it should be there.

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Speaker 2: You have two screens, though, right.

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Speaker 3: I do, but I only look at one while I'm recording.

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Speaker 3: Oh okay, I mean if I look at the other one,

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Speaker 3: it's gonna be really weird. I'm like down here.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess I technically have two screens because there's

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Speaker 2: also the little camera screen.

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Speaker 3: But that's just me.

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Speaker 2: I don't want to look at that. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I'm looking at you up here. I got

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Speaker 3: my notes here, so I think we're all good now.

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Speaker 3: But yeah, anyway, so we are talking about what existed

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Speaker 3: before the creation event in creation stories. Now, this might

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Speaker 3: seem like a paradoxical question, because like, how can there

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Speaker 3: be something before the creation of the world, But it's

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Speaker 3: really not paradoxical, because, as we talked about in the

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Speaker 3: last couple of episodes, most creation narratives actually do not

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Speaker 3: describe a universe being brought into existence from a state

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Speaker 3: of total nothingness. Instead, most creation stories describe the beginning

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Speaker 3: as some kind of ordering or transformation of a previously

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Speaker 3: existing state of affairs into a stage of some sort

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Speaker 3: where the history of the gods or of human beings

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Speaker 3: can take place. So in the first episode, we talked

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Speaker 3: about the Chinese story of Pengu, the ancient coiled one,

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Speaker 3: who emerges inside a cosmic egg from a formless, misty

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Speaker 3: primordial state known as the Wuji pengu is often described

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Speaker 3: as a hairy giant who manages to separate the essences

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Speaker 3: of yin from yang and pushes or holds the sky

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Speaker 3: up from the earth. We also talked about the biblical

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Speaker 3: creation story in Genesis chapter one, which is interesting for

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Speaker 3: a bunch of reasons. For one thing, it is commonly

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Speaker 3: misunderstood as a creation ex nihilo, a creation of the

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Speaker 3: world from nothing, when actually scholars now pretty much agree

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Speaker 3: that it is a story of a God bringing order

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Speaker 3: and furnishings into a pre existing world. That pre existing

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Speaker 3: world is described as one of dark, deep cosmic waters.

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Speaker 3: We also talked about the Babylonian epic of creation, the

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Speaker 3: Inuma a leash, which you could think of as having

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Speaker 3: two different creation events and thus two different states before creation.

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Speaker 3: So the first is a time when the sky above

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Speaker 3: and the earth below were without names, implying a very

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Speaker 3: interesting kind of spiritual non existence by virtue of the

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Speaker 3: fact that they are not acknowledged in language. And so

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Speaker 3: you have that you have the essences of fresh water

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Speaker 3: and salt water, which are named beings known as apsu

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Speaker 3: and tiamot, respectively. These essences are mixed and swirling and

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Speaker 3: This mixing gives rise to a sort of first creation

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Speaker 3: and the issue of the first generations of gods and

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Speaker 3: goddesses from the mingled waters. Then you've got a second

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Speaker 3: creation event, that is the creation by combat story, where

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Speaker 3: the younger god Marduke wages war against the saltwater goddess

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Speaker 3: Tiamot and against her monsters, and then fashions the heavens

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Speaker 3: and the earth out of the dead body of his enemy.

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Speaker 3: In the second episode, we talked about an interesting creation

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Speaker 3: account from Maori traditions, in which the pre creation state

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Speaker 3: is this tight loving embrace between the skyfather Rungi and

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Speaker 3: the earth mother Papa, and we talked about how the

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Speaker 3: act of ordering emerges when their children, who are crushed

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Speaker 3: between them, pushed them apart so that they can have

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Speaker 3: space and so that light can be let in. This one,

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Speaker 3: I thought was really notable because it describes the pre

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Speaker 3: creation state in human relational terms, so not like dark

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Speaker 3: waters or a great void of welter and waste, but

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Speaker 3: an eternal gesture of love which has to be broken

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Speaker 3: before history can happen. We also talked about the Aztec

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Speaker 3: creation account known as the Legend of the Five Sons.

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Speaker 3: This one is interesting in that it posits before the

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Speaker 3: creation of this world, there was another world, similar in

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Speaker 3: some ways but very different in others. And then before

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Speaker 3: that there was another world, and going back, five ages

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Speaker 3: characterized by five different suns. And so there's a cycle

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Speaker 3: of creation and destruction and creation anew in this account.

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Speaker 3: And we're back today to talk about more.

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Speaker 2: All right, Well, what do we have up for us

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Speaker 2: first here? Ja?

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Speaker 3: Well, one that I wanted to talk about because I

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Speaker 3: thought it was interesting and because it's so different from

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Speaker 3: the stories we've talked about so far, is an account

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Speaker 3: of the ordering of the world and commentary on the

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Speaker 3: mysteries of the previous state in the creation hymn of

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Speaker 3: the rig Veda. So, the rig Veda is a large

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Speaker 3: collection of early Sanskrit hymns, considered the most ancient surviving

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Speaker 3: Vedic text, making it foundational to the later development of Hinduism.

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Speaker 3: I've seen different dates proposed for the origin of the Rigveda.

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Speaker 3: My Oxford Companion to World Mythology suggests that at least

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Speaker 3: some of the hymns go back to between seventeen hundred

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Speaker 3: and two thousand BCE. Other sources say more like fifteen

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Speaker 3: hundred to twelve hundred BCE, and these are texts that

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Speaker 3: would have been propagated through systems of memorization and oral

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Speaker 3: transmission long before they were actually written down. They're thought

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Speaker 3: to have emerged from the northwestern Indian subcontinent, sort of

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Speaker 3: around the region of Punjab, and the hymns of the

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Speaker 3: Rigveda are organized into ten circles or mandolas, which you

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Speaker 3: can think of like individual volumes or long chapters. So

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Speaker 3: interesting thing about creation within the Rigveda. Broadly, multiple hymns

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Speaker 3: of the Rigveda make reference to the creation of the world,

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Speaker 3: and thus this corpus actually gives multiple very different accounts

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Speaker 3: of creation. Some indicate a creation through combat, kind of

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Speaker 3: like we see in the Inuma a Leash, but with

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Speaker 3: very different details. Other stories tell about a separation of

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Speaker 3: the sky from the earth, like we see in the

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Speaker 3: Chinese story of Pengu or in the Maori creation story.

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Speaker 3: Others make suggestions about acts of sacrifice as the origin

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Speaker 3: of the world and of human beings. And I think

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Speaker 3: this multiplicity of different creation stories within the same corpus

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Speaker 3: in itself has interesting implications for how believers in the

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Speaker 3: rig Veda as a sacred text would thus start to

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Speaker 3: think about creation in a religious context. If you have

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Speaker 3: multiple totally different stories all coming from this authoritative religious text, Like,

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Speaker 3: how does that affect the way you think about you know,

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Speaker 3: the text itself and about the creation. Maybe we can

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Speaker 3: come back to that in a minute. But the one

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Speaker 3: hymn that I wanted to look at in particular from

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Speaker 3: the Rigveda is known as the Creation hymn or the

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Speaker 3: Nasadia Sukta, which is ordered as hymn number one twenty

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Speaker 3: nine in the tenth Mandola. Now a note about translations here.

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Speaker 3: The Rigveda is famously difficult to translate, rob, I bet

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Speaker 3: you've read about this before, Like, its original language is

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Speaker 3: full of spiritually intellectually freighted words and phrases that have

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Speaker 3: all these secondary meanings and ambiguities. Also, it is an

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Speaker 3: archaic text, so some meanings are difficult to reach across history.

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Speaker 3: Translations tend to be crowded with footnotes trying to explain

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Speaker 3: complexities that can't really be captured in a straight translation

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Speaker 3: of the text itself. So I cannot do justice to

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Speaker 3: all of that or compare a bunch of different translations

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Speaker 3: in the time we have here, So please just take

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Speaker 3: this section with the caveat that basically all translations of

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Speaker 3: the rig Veda are going to be compromises in some

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Speaker 3: way that fail to get at some aspects of the original.

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Speaker 3: And you could say this is true of all ancient texts,

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Speaker 3: but it seems to be especially true of the of

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Speaker 3: the Vedas in general and of the rig Veda.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, in general, we are never the intended readers of

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Speaker 2: a text like this.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. So with that caveat, the main translation I'm going

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Speaker 3: to refer to here is the one in the Penguin

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Speaker 3: Classics edition by the scholar Wendy Donager of the University

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Speaker 3: of Chicago. So the creation Him begins like this, There

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Speaker 3: was neither non existence nor existence. Then there was neither

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Speaker 3: the realm of space nor the sky, which is beyond

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Speaker 3: what stirred? Where in whose protection? Was there water bottomlessly deep?

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Speaker 3: And just a note on the line in there what's

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Speaker 3: stirred and the part what's stirred? Where in whose protection?

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Speaker 3: Donager as a footnote saying that this verb stirred here

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Speaker 3: is often used to describe the motion of breath, which

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Speaker 3: itself brings in a new ambiguity that I like, because

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Speaker 3: I wonder does that mean stirring as in breath falling

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Speaker 3: upon something and moving it, or stirring as in breathing

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Speaker 3: in itself.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. That's a great point because as a modern reader

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Speaker 2: reading this translation, I think stirred within this context, I

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Speaker 2: think something stirring within the depths.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, but.

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Speaker 2: Maybe depending on how you interpret interpret the breath, you

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Speaker 2: can maybe get halfway there. But yeah, fascinating.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. So this is the first verse of this creation hymn,

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Speaker 3: and I'd love that it begins with not with a

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Speaker 3: statement of what happened at the beginning. It begins with

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Speaker 3: a statement of negation and paradox Like it says there

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Speaker 3: was neither non existence nor existence, which is I think

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Speaker 3: intentionally provocative and paradoxical because that's like violating the law

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Speaker 3: of excluded middle. It's saying there was neither a nor

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Speaker 3: not ah. And then it also begins so it's got

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Speaker 3: the the negation in paradox, and then it's got questions.

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Speaker 3: Instead of saying telling you what stirred, it says what stirred?

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Speaker 3: Where in whose protection? Was their water? Not there was water,

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Speaker 3: but was their water? Was it bottomlessly deep?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? Almost makes me think of the poetry of Blake

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Speaker 2: you know, you know what immortal hand or eye you know,

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Speaker 2: And by asking these questions, you know, it makes the

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Speaker 2: answer more ambiguous and more majestic.

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Speaker 3: Well, I think, like Blake. From what I've read, a

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Speaker 3: major purpose of this hymn is it is often interpreted

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Speaker 3: as meaning to provoke wonder. But anyway it goes on.

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Speaker 3: There's a second verse that says there was neither death

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Speaker 3: nor immortality. Then again a kind of paradox, neither death

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Speaker 3: nor immortality. Then there was no distinguishing sign of night

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Speaker 3: nor of day that one breathed. And this phrase that one.

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Speaker 3: In other translations, I've seen it rendered as something like

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Speaker 3: that one thing, so you could think of it maybe

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Speaker 3: like that. But Donnagier here has it as that one

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Speaker 3: that one breathed, windless by its own impulse. Other than

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Speaker 3: that there was nothing beyond darkness, was hidden by darkness

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Speaker 3: in the beginning, with no distinguishing sign. All this was water,

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Speaker 3: the life force that was covered with emptiness. That one

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Speaker 3: arose through the power of heat. Desire came upon that

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Speaker 3: one in the beginning. That was the first seed of mind.

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Speaker 3: Poets seeking in their heart with wisdom found the bond

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Speaker 3: of existence in non existence. Their cord was ended across

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Speaker 3: was there below? Was there above? There were seed placers,

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Speaker 3: there were powers, there was impulse beneath, there was giving

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Speaker 3: forth above? Who really knows? Who will hear proclaim it?

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Speaker 3: Whence was it produced? Whence is this creation? The gods

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Speaker 3: came afterwards with the creation of this universe? Who then

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Speaker 3: knows whence it has arisen? So I like that point there, though.

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Speaker 3: You know, gods often play a role in the creation

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Speaker 3: of the world in stories, you know, within the Vedas

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Speaker 3: and in other traditions. But here it's saying the gods

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Speaker 3: came later with the creation of the universe, So what

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Speaker 3: brought this earlier state into being? And then finally, the

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Speaker 3: last verse is whence this creation has arisen? Perhaps it

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Speaker 3: formed itself, or perhaps it did not. The one who

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Speaker 3: looks down on it in the highest heaven only he knows,

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Speaker 3: or perhaps he does not know. Hm nice I thought this.

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Speaker 3: This is such an interesting contrast to many of the

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Speaker 3: other stories we've seen so far, and again, like the

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Speaker 3: Rigveda does not lack references to more traditional creation stories

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Speaker 3: like we talked about, But here, rather than telling a

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Speaker 3: story like this happened to bring the world into existence?

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Speaker 3: This creation narrative is at its heart questions and expressions

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Speaker 3: of skepticism, encouraging the reader or the listener, the person

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Speaker 3: engaging with this hymn, to have questions and doubts of

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Speaker 3: their own and to kind of think about what it

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Speaker 3: means for things to exist. I do like that. One

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Speaker 3: of the few things that it seems to posit sort

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Speaker 3: of confidently or definitively is something about there being a

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Speaker 3: mind principle at the beginning of things, though not attributing

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Speaker 3: it to any particular person. Like it's talking about desire

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Speaker 3: coming upon this unnamed one, that one at the beginning

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Speaker 3: had some kind of desire, and this was the first

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Speaker 3: seed of mind, and this seems to be a power

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Speaker 3: that gives rise to other things. But then it's never

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Speaker 3: described in explicit like creative terms. It doesn't go from

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Speaker 3: there to saying, therefore God created X, Y, and Z.

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Speaker 2: It's interesting how when you think of a creation myth

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Speaker 2: in which everything is described in statements, it is inevitably

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Speaker 2: going to produce questions in the mind of the reader

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Speaker 2: or the listener. Here we're establishing it via questions, which

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Speaker 2: in a way kind of creates an ambiguous certainty if

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Speaker 2: that makes sense in the mind of the reader or

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Speaker 2: the listener, you know, like it's not like, do the

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Speaker 2: questions have formed the mental image, rather than us being

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Speaker 2: given a mental image, than then we have questions.

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Speaker 3: About Yeah, that's true. That there's almost there's a way

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Speaker 3: in which you can have more confidence in a mystery,

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Speaker 3: because if you're given a story and told to believe it,

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Speaker 3: then naturally one must have doubts. But if instead you

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Speaker 3: are you are posed a question and told it is

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Speaker 3: a mystery, I mean, how can you argue with that?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, yeah. If you definitively say well, this individual was, say,

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Speaker 2: the son of the gods, the son of this god

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Speaker 2: or that goddess, then well then you got to describe

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Speaker 2: how that happened and what were the ramifications of that,

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Speaker 2: and what was the why of that. But if it's

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Speaker 2: just no one knows who this individual was, what was

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Speaker 2: their origin? Were they the child of a god? Were

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Speaker 2: they a mortal who became to halfway divine? You know,

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Speaker 2: if you ask it in that sense, it's like, oh, yeah,

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Speaker 2: nobody knows. Maybe it's all those things at once superposition.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, And I love the last statement too, where it's saying, uh,

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Speaker 3: you know, nobody really knows the answer to this mystery.

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Speaker 3: What what create? What caused creation to arise? What brought

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Speaker 3: the world into existence from this state of Again, I

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Speaker 3: love how it's saying before that it's not nothingness. The

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Speaker 3: pre creation state here is not nothingness. It is neither

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Speaker 3: existence nor non existence, which is somehow less than nothingness.

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Speaker 3: It is a contradiction in terms. Yeah, but oh but anyway, Yeah,

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Speaker 3: I only did the second half. I only did the

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Speaker 3: first half of that statement because I got interested in that. So, yeah,

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Speaker 3: it begins with this logical contradiction or this neither existence

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Speaker 3: nor non existence. When existence comes, what brings it into existence?

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Speaker 3: We get this claim that well maybe it is only

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Speaker 3: the one in the highest heaven who knows, but maybe

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Speaker 3: he does not know.

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Speaker 2: And then they go on to write, if you know,

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Speaker 2: write it down and send it to the following address.

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Speaker 3: So anyway, I really like this him and I think

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Speaker 3: this is a really interesting contrast to the things we've

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Speaker 3: talked about before in multiple ways, Like I love the questions,

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Speaker 3: the role of questions in establishing the pre creation state

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Speaker 3: and the act of creation, the the implicit and explicit

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Speaker 3: encouraging of of questions in the mind of the listener,

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Speaker 3: the raising of doubts, and the closest thing that it

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Speaker 3: really gets to describing the pre creation state is the

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Speaker 3: use of logical contradictions and paradoxes.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, which which kind of situates is a

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Speaker 2: thing outside of reason, outside of our our even our

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Speaker 2: ability to understand it. I love this. All right. Well, let's, uh, Lena,

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Speaker 2: let's return briefly, at least to Egyptian mythology. You know,

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Speaker 2: we we've discussed Egyptian mythology multiple times on the show before,

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Speaker 2: and we may have I think we alluded to it

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Speaker 2: in passing in the previous and stuff elements of the

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Speaker 2: thing before the beginning, just pointing out that, well, you know, this,

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Speaker 2: this line of thought, or this particular mythology, it has

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Speaker 2: some parallels in Egyptian pod and all. So I want

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Speaker 2: to bring up a specific Egyptian creation myth here. And

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Speaker 2: in bringing this up, we're going to end up touching

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Speaker 2: on a couple of pre creation ideas that we've already

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Speaker 2: discussed in other examples. One, of course, is common to

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Speaker 2: so many different religions, and that is the idea of

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Speaker 2: primordial waters.

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Speaker 3: Water is big, big, in the pre creation space. A

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Speaker 3: lot of people are thinking about water there exactly.

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Speaker 2: Yes. And then the second idea is that that the

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Speaker 2: pre creation state is a thing that also continues to

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Speaker 2: exist either within its own pocket dimension or beyond the

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Speaker 2: boundaries of creation, and maybe at least by certain individuals

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Speaker 2: and certainly divine individuals can still be reached and interacted with.

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Speaker 3: That is really interesting. Yeah. That so that the pre

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Speaker 3: creation world is not just something that exists in the past.

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Speaker 3: It was what the world was once like and has

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Speaker 3: now been totally transformed. You could imagine the world we

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Speaker 3: live in as maybe a subset of reality that has

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Speaker 3: been transformed into the world we know, but that somewhere

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Speaker 3: else there is the world that was before and it's

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Speaker 3: still like that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And you know, part of this is certainly

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Speaker 2: as we'll get into with the we've discussed this before.

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Speaker 2: How with the ancient Egyptians, a lot of their belief system,

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Speaker 2: it is, is informed by the importance of the nile.

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Speaker 2: It is it is shaped by the movement of water,

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Speaker 2: and so in one on one level, there is the

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Speaker 2: idea that water is flowing from a source to a destination,

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Speaker 2: and then there are these you know, we have this

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Speaker 2: periodic surges in floods, and that's going to have both

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Speaker 2: destructive and creative ramifications. But you can easily imagine like, okay,

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Speaker 2: we have all this water, This water is important, it

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Speaker 2: must come from somewhere. And what is water like when

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Speaker 2: it's not doing anything? It is stagnant, it's still, it's dark.

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Speaker 2: And so we get into similar ideas here. So, as

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Speaker 2: we've of course discussed in the show, you can't just

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Speaker 2: talk about Egyptian ancient Egyptian mythology as if it's a

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Speaker 2: single codified thing. Rather, we're dealing with an array of

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Speaker 2: beliefs and traditions that exist across time and across different

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Speaker 2: parts of Egypt over the course of many thousands of years.

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Speaker 2: So there are actually multiple creation myths. But worth discussing

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Speaker 2: for our purposes here especially is that of none or

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Speaker 2: noun or none. It's sometimes spelled in English as noun

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Speaker 2: like a noun or nune like a holy sister of

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Speaker 2: the cloth. And this is the personification of the prime

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Speaker 2: evil ocean. So the prime evolution in Egyptian mythology consisted

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Speaker 2: of the waters of chaos, a kind of vast stagnant potentiality,

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Speaker 2: the prime evil matter here was dark, moist, boundaryless. And

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Speaker 2: these attributes are embodied in a group of primordial deities,

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Speaker 2: all the Ogdode of Hermopolis. The exact makeup of this

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Speaker 2: group varies from one telling or tradition to the next,

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Speaker 2: but it generally consists of eight deities consisting of four

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Speaker 2: male and female counterparts representing about four qualities of the

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Speaker 2: primeval waters. So the lineup is kind of like the Avengers.

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Speaker 2: It's going to vary, but you know, but in this case,

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Speaker 2: all the different lineups of the Ogdode are going to

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Speaker 2: include none. None is often included in this kind of

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Speaker 2: frog headed form, and he's included alongside his female counterpart nonet.

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Speaker 2: And according to Geraldine Pinch in Egyptian Mythology, in one

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Speaker 2: of my main books that I look to for this

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Speaker 2: sort of thing, quote obeying some primitive instinct unquote, the

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Speaker 2: Ogdode comes together to form the Primeval Mound. This is

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Speaker 2: the first emergence of land from the prime evil ocean,

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Speaker 2: and this would serve as the center of the un

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Speaker 2: universe and the place where subsequent creation happens. Think of

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Speaker 2: it as like base camp for all creation, and it

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Speaker 2: remains a place of continuous creation and renewal.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so in one literal sense, you can think about

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Speaker 3: this because it's easier to do things on land if

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Speaker 3: you just think about human organizational activities, you know, ordering,

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Speaker 3: it's easier to take place on land. You can build stuff,

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Speaker 3: you can sort things. But also I think it's important

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Speaker 3: to think about the raising of the land from the

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Speaker 3: primordial waters as an act of separation. You are making

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Speaker 3: a distinction between two places or two types of things.

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Speaker 3: And like so many of these creation myths, somehow they

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Speaker 3: focus on an act of separation or distinction drawing, like

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Speaker 3: you take a previously undifferentiated place or substance and you

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Speaker 3: separate it into two different things, and then you have

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Speaker 3: the beginnings of order.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and you see that with the octode here as well,

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Speaker 2: because it's like they are all they all kind of

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Speaker 2: seem to emerge out of descriptions. They're almost like linguistic

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Speaker 2: attributes of the primeval waters. So they are like they're

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Speaker 2: kind of like the the the hashtags, they're the they're

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Speaker 2: the word cloud for the the primeval matter. And then

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Speaker 2: they become personifications of that and separated into male and

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Speaker 2: female energies. So the prime evil Waters of none, embodied

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Speaker 2: again by the god and goddess None and None that

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Speaker 2: they continue to exist. This continues to exist, these waters

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Speaker 2: both above the stars and beyond the boundaries of creation,

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Speaker 2: feeding the life giving waters of the rivers and the ocean.

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Speaker 2: So here we get back to what I mentioned earlier,

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Speaker 2: the idea of like the river being all important. Where

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Speaker 2: does the water come from? Well, the water has its

400
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Speaker 2: source in this stagnant potentiality. Now I'm going to keep

401
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Speaker 2: referring to the entity as none, but again it also

402
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Speaker 2: exists in the feminine as none, and Pinch refers to

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Speaker 2: the entity as an it the oldest of beings, the

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Speaker 2: father of the gods, but also something with an eternal

405
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Speaker 2: potential to create life, a demi urge and quote a

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Speaker 2: kind of instinctive movement towards consciousness. But again within this,

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Speaker 2: within this context here it is also a place that

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Speaker 2: may be returned to and has a like a has

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Speaker 2: a lot of renewing energy. And here's an example of it.

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Speaker 2: We've discussed the god Ra or Ray, the Egyptian god

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Speaker 2: of the sun, and how during the day he's piloting

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Speaker 2: the sun barge across the sky. It's a movement of

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Speaker 2: the Sun and then in the evening what happens goes

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Speaker 2: down into the underworld and traverses the underworld. But there's

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Speaker 2: something else that happens down there as well. He also

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Speaker 2: undergoes regeneration in the nun so And this is interesting

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Speaker 2: because again None is both the water and also the

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Speaker 2: personification of the waters. And in some ancient Egyptian iconography

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Speaker 2: you will see None pictured as a giant, like a

420
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Speaker 2: like a male giant raising the sun barge, the solar

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Speaker 2: barge out of the waters above his head like bench

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Speaker 2: pressing it back up and and and therefore playing a

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Speaker 2: vital role in just continual you know, nightly renewal of

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Speaker 2: the energy of the Sun and of the Sun God.

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Speaker 3: Very interesting that this implies, at least in a metaphorical

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Speaker 3: sense of belief in the constant returning to the pre

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Speaker 3: creation state, like every night there is some kind of

428
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Speaker 3: recommunion with what the world was like before it was created. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, because as we've talked about before, like the voyage

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Speaker 2: of the sun barge is one in which there are

431
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Speaker 2: enemies there they have to be fought off like it's

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Speaker 2: it's it is a it is a cycle that is perpetual,

433
00:26:55,920 --> 00:26:58,800
Speaker 2: but not all the way guaranteed. And you know, certain

434
00:26:58,840 --> 00:27:00,840
Speaker 2: things have to be observed in this world and in

435
00:27:00,880 --> 00:27:02,760
Speaker 2: other worlds for this to continue.

436
00:27:02,960 --> 00:27:06,040
Speaker 3: That's right. I mean a big part of Egyptian religious

437
00:27:06,119 --> 00:27:10,560
Speaker 3: ritual was humans engaging in rituals that were designed to

438
00:27:10,800 --> 00:27:14,639
Speaker 3: help the sun, the god raw and the sun barge

439
00:27:14,680 --> 00:27:17,640
Speaker 3: on its journey through the underworld. So like we have

440
00:27:17,720 --> 00:27:21,200
Speaker 3: to do rituals to help the god make the journey

441
00:27:21,240 --> 00:27:22,679
Speaker 3: and make sure that he succeeds.

442
00:27:23,119 --> 00:27:28,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, And so in all this all creation is

443
00:27:29,119 --> 00:27:33,000
Speaker 2: realized in the nun as well. And also there's this

444
00:27:33,080 --> 00:27:35,760
Speaker 2: other little tidbit that pinch mentions that, and that is

445
00:27:35,800 --> 00:27:39,120
Speaker 2: that in some tellings, the world will end one day

446
00:27:39,280 --> 00:27:45,359
Speaker 2: when the creator and slash creators, you know, the creative

447
00:27:45,680 --> 00:27:47,439
Speaker 2: almost you can think of it less in terms of

448
00:27:47,440 --> 00:27:50,280
Speaker 2: a creator entity, but sort of like the creative movement

449
00:27:50,640 --> 00:27:53,439
Speaker 2: returns to the nun. So in a sense, again, if

450
00:27:53,440 --> 00:27:55,920
Speaker 2: we come back to the idea of a great expansion,

451
00:27:56,760 --> 00:27:58,639
Speaker 2: we kind of get into the idea of a great

452
00:27:58,640 --> 00:28:03,240
Speaker 2: collapse that one day everything will just return to primordial,

453
00:28:03,840 --> 00:28:07,840
Speaker 2: stagnant potentiality, and then maybe it will come out again.

454
00:28:07,920 --> 00:28:10,240
Speaker 2: Maybe we'll get the same pattern throughout history.

455
00:28:11,280 --> 00:28:13,640
Speaker 3: If only we could get this exact same pattern again,

456
00:28:13,760 --> 00:28:14,560
Speaker 3: wouldn't that be great?

457
00:28:15,960 --> 00:28:18,040
Speaker 2: Well, maybe the next one will be better, right, hopefully.

458
00:28:18,080 --> 00:28:21,160
Speaker 2: It is kind of like the Aztec model, where each

459
00:28:21,600 --> 00:28:24,640
Speaker 2: new draft is an improvement. Uh. You know, you don't

460
00:28:24,640 --> 00:28:26,560
Speaker 2: want you you don't want your sixth draft to be

461
00:28:26,600 --> 00:28:29,000
Speaker 2: worse than your fifth. Maybe there shouldn't have been a

462
00:28:29,000 --> 00:28:31,520
Speaker 2: fifth draft. Maybe fifth should have been final, that sort

463
00:28:31,560 --> 00:28:34,760
Speaker 2: of thing. All right, So obviously this is this is

464
00:28:34,800 --> 00:28:37,200
Speaker 2: a case. And like most like all these examples we've

465
00:28:37,200 --> 00:28:39,920
Speaker 2: been discussing, these are cases where you're you're dealing with

466
00:28:41,880 --> 00:28:46,480
Speaker 2: generally the ancient world. You're dealing with ancient peoples asking,

467
00:28:46,640 --> 00:28:50,560
Speaker 2: you know, deep complex questions about the nature of reality

468
00:28:50,600 --> 00:28:54,840
Speaker 2: and their place in reality, you know, informed by their

469
00:28:54,840 --> 00:29:00,239
Speaker 2: observations of the world, deep human contemplation. Uh. And and

470
00:29:00,320 --> 00:29:04,160
Speaker 2: also other religious influences of the time, either something that

471
00:29:04,240 --> 00:29:07,360
Speaker 2: was practiced in their own culture or has been brought

472
00:29:07,400 --> 00:29:10,320
Speaker 2: in from another culture. But I think it would be

473
00:29:10,400 --> 00:29:15,240
Speaker 2: an interesting exercise here to look at a few recent

474
00:29:15,440 --> 00:29:19,760
Speaker 2: religious movements, new religious movements to consider what happens when

475
00:29:19,800 --> 00:29:24,120
Speaker 2: you throw in some modern influences, especially the idea that

476
00:29:24,160 --> 00:29:28,280
Speaker 2: these would be religious movements that emerge during the scientific age.

477
00:29:28,520 --> 00:29:32,280
Speaker 2: That's not to say that these are necessarily science informed religions,

478
00:29:32,880 --> 00:29:36,480
Speaker 2: but they are at least culturally informed by a world

479
00:29:36,840 --> 00:29:39,520
Speaker 2: that is shaped by science as well as science fiction.

480
00:29:40,520 --> 00:29:45,360
Speaker 3: I would say that a lot of recently formed religions,

481
00:29:45,400 --> 00:29:50,040
Speaker 3: in my view, they partake of the esthetics of science.

482
00:29:50,120 --> 00:29:54,400
Speaker 3: They don't make necessarily functional use of science, but there

483
00:29:54,520 --> 00:29:58,680
Speaker 3: is a sort of poetry or the language of science

484
00:29:58,760 --> 00:30:01,360
Speaker 3: that they try to incorporate rate into their beliefs.

485
00:30:01,800 --> 00:30:03,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, and at the same time they may do the

486
00:30:03,760 --> 00:30:06,840
Speaker 2: same with ancient religion as well. I mean, we see

487
00:30:06,840 --> 00:30:11,600
Speaker 2: this in esoteric thought and in mysticism all the time,

488
00:30:12,000 --> 00:30:16,920
Speaker 2: where you're also drawing on these ancient practices and you know,

489
00:30:17,040 --> 00:30:18,960
Speaker 2: depending on how you're doing it, who's doing it, and

490
00:30:19,000 --> 00:30:22,120
Speaker 2: so forth, and as well as intention, you know, they

491
00:30:22,240 --> 00:30:25,200
Speaker 2: might be rather accurate. You might be you know, bringing

492
00:30:25,240 --> 00:30:29,480
Speaker 2: in some of these concepts and actually slightly reworking them

493
00:30:29,480 --> 00:30:32,719
Speaker 2: in a way where they function better for certain populations

494
00:30:32,720 --> 00:30:35,640
Speaker 2: of the modern world while still retaining their value. Or

495
00:30:35,640 --> 00:30:38,760
Speaker 2: it could be entirely superficial, you know, where you're just

496
00:30:38,800 --> 00:30:42,800
Speaker 2: taking the dressings of something ancient and using it to

497
00:30:42,840 --> 00:30:45,640
Speaker 2: sell something new. I mean, it's going to run the

498
00:30:45,640 --> 00:30:46,920
Speaker 2: gamut of possibility here.

499
00:30:47,440 --> 00:30:49,360
Speaker 3: There are a lot of reasons to bring in things

500
00:30:49,400 --> 00:30:51,840
Speaker 3: that are ancient, but one of them is that antiquity

501
00:30:51,880 --> 00:30:55,160
Speaker 3: brings implied authority. When you say something is very old,

502
00:30:55,320 --> 00:30:58,080
Speaker 3: people are like, oh, well that's something I should pay attention.

503
00:30:57,760 --> 00:31:00,640
Speaker 2: To, which, of course is an interesting scenario to consider

504
00:31:00,640 --> 00:31:03,120
Speaker 2: it with a new religious movement something, you know, where

505
00:31:03,400 --> 00:31:06,160
Speaker 2: somebody's come along and they're like, this is this is

506
00:31:06,200 --> 00:31:09,040
Speaker 2: the new path, this is the way, and they're going

507
00:31:09,160 --> 00:31:12,000
Speaker 2: to lean on maybe some ancient and some sort of

508
00:31:12,040 --> 00:31:16,560
Speaker 2: ancient knowledge one way or another in order to prop

509
00:31:16,600 --> 00:31:19,640
Speaker 2: it up. And that is not to not to not

510
00:31:19,760 --> 00:31:22,600
Speaker 2: to you know, disparage this idea, because of course we

511
00:31:22,600 --> 00:31:24,840
Speaker 2: look at any of these ancient religions, all of these

512
00:31:24,840 --> 00:31:27,520
Speaker 2: were new religions at one point. You know, none of

513
00:31:27,560 --> 00:31:32,640
Speaker 2: these actually like predates the first humans who advanced them.

514
00:31:32,680 --> 00:31:35,480
Speaker 2: You know, again, they may be influenced by earlier models

515
00:31:34,800 --> 00:31:40,120
Speaker 2: and and always were, but yeah, any ancient religion was

516
00:31:40,120 --> 00:31:43,120
Speaker 2: once a new religious movement. We just continue to do this.

517
00:31:43,120 --> 00:31:45,920
Speaker 2: This is a continual human practice. Either you're going to

518
00:31:46,000 --> 00:31:48,800
Speaker 2: reach the point and it makes sense too the world changes,

519
00:31:48,840 --> 00:31:55,200
Speaker 2: culture changes, you either have to continually create new drafts

520
00:31:55,240 --> 00:31:59,400
Speaker 2: of a particular religion, or you have to change ourselves

521
00:31:59,400 --> 00:32:01,640
Speaker 2: to match an old model of religion, or you come

522
00:32:01,720 --> 00:32:04,560
Speaker 2: up with something to some extent entirely new.

523
00:32:06,400 --> 00:32:07,760
Speaker 3: I don't know if I've ever put it in these

524
00:32:07,840 --> 00:32:10,560
Speaker 3: terms before, but I just had the thought, I wonder

525
00:32:10,720 --> 00:32:16,040
Speaker 3: if a lot of the venerable and respectable seeming aspects

526
00:32:16,040 --> 00:32:22,200
Speaker 3: of older religions are actually things that traditions mature into

527
00:32:22,920 --> 00:32:25,920
Speaker 3: the results of things existing for a long time and

528
00:32:26,000 --> 00:32:29,720
Speaker 3: evolving and maturing. That would kind of run counter to

529
00:32:29,760 --> 00:32:31,840
Speaker 3: an intuition that a lot of people have that things

530
00:32:31,960 --> 00:32:36,120
Speaker 3: begin pure and then devolve from there. I wonder if

531
00:32:36,120 --> 00:32:40,320
Speaker 3: some religions actually gain a lot of respectability over time

532
00:32:40,440 --> 00:32:42,320
Speaker 3: as they sort of evolve and grow.

533
00:32:43,080 --> 00:32:46,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean certainly they're you know, we could

534
00:32:46,560 --> 00:32:49,479
Speaker 2: we could easily get into the nuances and the history

535
00:32:49,520 --> 00:32:52,239
Speaker 2: of various new religions, where you know, early on, there

536
00:32:52,240 --> 00:32:55,280
Speaker 2: are a lot of places where you can misstep, certainly

537
00:32:55,280 --> 00:32:58,600
Speaker 2: if you're in an area where everything isn't completely codified

538
00:32:58,880 --> 00:33:02,800
Speaker 2: and is highly controlled by you know, one or two individuals.

539
00:33:02,120 --> 00:33:02,840
Speaker 3: That sort of thing.

540
00:33:04,040 --> 00:33:06,920
Speaker 2: But then again, there are counterexamples of that as well.

541
00:33:07,880 --> 00:33:09,880
Speaker 2: So for our purposes here, I don't want to get

542
00:33:09,880 --> 00:33:12,920
Speaker 2: two into the weeds. This is all fascinating, but I

543
00:33:12,960 --> 00:33:15,400
Speaker 2: want to try and focus mostly on the idea of

544
00:33:15,400 --> 00:33:18,560
Speaker 2: pre creation in some of these religions, without really getting

545
00:33:18,560 --> 00:33:21,680
Speaker 2: into much in the way of, you know, discussing like

546
00:33:22,400 --> 00:33:25,200
Speaker 2: the values or the criticism of any of these religious models,

547
00:33:25,400 --> 00:33:28,040
Speaker 2: and again kind of basing it broadly in the idea

548
00:33:28,120 --> 00:33:31,400
Speaker 2: that all religions were new at one point, and there's

549
00:33:31,440 --> 00:33:34,400
Speaker 2: nothing there's nothing strange about there being new religions today.

550
00:33:36,120 --> 00:33:38,640
Speaker 2: I'm going to begin with with all three of these

551
00:33:38,640 --> 00:33:41,600
Speaker 2: are ones that I think everyone has heard of, but

552
00:33:41,640 --> 00:33:44,880
Speaker 2: maybe you're not as up on exactly what they seem

553
00:33:44,920 --> 00:33:48,160
Speaker 2: to be saying about this strange idea of the thing

554
00:33:48,240 --> 00:33:51,600
Speaker 2: that existed before reality. So I want to start with

555
00:33:51,680 --> 00:33:55,960
Speaker 2: the Raelian Movement. This is an international atheistic UFO religion

556
00:33:56,040 --> 00:34:01,680
Speaker 2: founded by the French religious leader Rayel born nineteen forty six.

557
00:34:02,640 --> 00:34:06,520
Speaker 2: This religion is based on his alleged UFO experiences in

558
00:34:06,600 --> 00:34:10,280
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy three. As of this recording, he is still alive.

559
00:34:10,360 --> 00:34:13,120
Speaker 2: So this is kind of a this is an interesting

560
00:34:13,160 --> 00:34:15,200
Speaker 2: example and that this is a new religious movement in

561
00:34:15,239 --> 00:34:18,239
Speaker 2: which the founder is still living and presumably active in

562
00:34:18,280 --> 00:34:20,480
Speaker 2: the faith. So I'm not going to get it. As

563
00:34:20,520 --> 00:34:21,719
Speaker 2: with all these I'm not going to get into all

564
00:34:21,760 --> 00:34:25,520
Speaker 2: the teachings, but the Raelian movement teaches that life on

565
00:34:25,560 --> 00:34:31,719
Speaker 2: Earth originated via directed panspermia, so like directed seating of

566
00:34:31,800 --> 00:34:35,560
Speaker 2: the planet's life twenty five thousand years ago by aliens

567
00:34:35,640 --> 00:34:42,839
Speaker 2: known as the elhem However, mirroring modern conceptions of eternity

568
00:34:42,920 --> 00:34:48,040
Speaker 2: and some cosmological models, Raelian teachings contend that there simply

569
00:34:48,280 --> 00:34:52,640
Speaker 2: is no beginning and there's also no end. Both space

570
00:34:52,680 --> 00:34:56,520
Speaker 2: and time are boundless, and their chief religious symbol of

571
00:34:56,640 --> 00:35:00,080
Speaker 2: infinity is a combination of the Star of David and

572
00:35:00,080 --> 00:35:02,799
Speaker 2: the swastika, meant to convey some sense of all of this.

573
00:35:04,200 --> 00:35:06,600
Speaker 2: I'm going to read from their website that this is

574
00:35:06,640 --> 00:35:09,359
Speaker 2: certainly one of those one of the modern religious movements

575
00:35:09,360 --> 00:35:11,120
Speaker 2: where they have a lot of information on their websites

576
00:35:11,160 --> 00:35:13,080
Speaker 2: and you can just go and just read exactly what

577
00:35:13,080 --> 00:35:17,480
Speaker 2: they are saying about themselves, and this is what they say,

578
00:35:17,560 --> 00:35:21,760
Speaker 2: quote the extraterrestrials who created humankind, and laboratories have proven

579
00:35:21,840 --> 00:35:25,560
Speaker 2: that the infinitely small and the infinitely large have the

580
00:35:25,600 --> 00:35:29,200
Speaker 2: same structure. The atoms in our hands contain tiny galaxies,

581
00:35:29,200 --> 00:35:33,399
Speaker 2: which themselves contain planets and minuscule humanities, and our own

582
00:35:33,440 --> 00:35:35,960
Speaker 2: galaxy is a tiny particle and a huge atom that

583
00:35:36,040 --> 00:35:40,440
Speaker 2: forms part of an immense world, etc. At infintium. So

584
00:35:40,560 --> 00:35:43,680
Speaker 2: powers of ten basically, except with like little universes inside

585
00:35:43,719 --> 00:35:47,759
Speaker 2: us and our entire universes inside of something inside of

586
00:35:48,520 --> 00:35:51,080
Speaker 2: a macro world, and it just goes on forever. There's

587
00:35:51,120 --> 00:35:54,440
Speaker 2: no beginning, there's no end. And it does match up

588
00:35:54,440 --> 00:35:58,440
Speaker 2: with you to some extent with numerous cosmological hypotheses that

589
00:35:58,480 --> 00:36:00,920
Speaker 2: have featured on one level or another, the idea of

590
00:36:00,960 --> 00:36:02,840
Speaker 2: a cosmos without true beginning around.

591
00:36:03,040 --> 00:36:06,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, the universe is beginning from other universes and seeding

592
00:36:06,600 --> 00:36:11,879
Speaker 3: other universes beyond. I don't know of anybody. I don't

593
00:36:11,880 --> 00:36:14,920
Speaker 3: know of any theories that say, like atoms actually have

594
00:36:15,080 --> 00:36:19,320
Speaker 3: universes inside them. Maybe somebody thinks that with scientific basis,

595
00:36:19,320 --> 00:36:20,200
Speaker 3: so I kind of doubt it.

596
00:36:20,480 --> 00:36:22,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you're getting more into the realm of

597
00:36:23,880 --> 00:36:27,560
Speaker 2: mysticism here when you start considering that. But you know,

598
00:36:28,280 --> 00:36:30,759
Speaker 2: in another way, it kind of rubs up against the

599
00:36:30,840 --> 00:36:35,920
Speaker 2: idea of many worlds, right, I mean, they're being a

600
00:36:36,040 --> 00:36:39,640
Speaker 2: multiverse out there, that sort of thing. So again, I

601
00:36:39,680 --> 00:36:42,799
Speaker 2: think there's an important distinction to be made here, Like

602
00:36:42,800 --> 00:36:45,040
Speaker 2: we're not making the case and I don't think we're

603
00:36:45,080 --> 00:36:48,440
Speaker 2: not discussing it anyway as if these are examples of

604
00:36:48,600 --> 00:36:53,600
Speaker 2: scientifically informed religions, but they are religions that have emerged

605
00:36:53,840 --> 00:36:58,040
Speaker 2: within a scientifically literate culture, and therefore they are going

606
00:36:58,040 --> 00:37:01,120
Speaker 2: to at least rub up against these scientific concepts.

607
00:37:01,239 --> 00:37:04,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, that is interesting. Yeah, and in a way, you know,

608
00:37:04,600 --> 00:37:06,920
Speaker 3: you think about it, that might not actually be different

609
00:37:07,160 --> 00:37:11,040
Speaker 3: than ancient creation stories. It's just that we have more

610
00:37:11,360 --> 00:37:14,959
Speaker 3: and different knowledge that we think of as scientific about

611
00:37:14,960 --> 00:37:17,239
Speaker 3: the world. I mean, you know, ancient cultures didn't really

612
00:37:17,280 --> 00:37:19,719
Speaker 3: have a concept of scientific but they would have had

613
00:37:20,200 --> 00:37:24,800
Speaker 3: understandings of the natural world that included maybe complex knowledge

614
00:37:24,800 --> 00:37:26,879
Speaker 3: about how to do certain things. You know, you can

615
00:37:26,920 --> 00:37:31,760
Speaker 3: imagine creation accounts that involve things about technology, things about

616
00:37:31,800 --> 00:37:36,160
Speaker 3: agriculture and metal working and building of structures, things like that,

617
00:37:36,200 --> 00:37:39,680
Speaker 3: all these things that are sort of physical discoveries about

618
00:37:39,680 --> 00:37:42,200
Speaker 3: how things work in the universe and things we can

619
00:37:42,280 --> 00:37:46,040
Speaker 3: do with the substances around us, and that knowledge, like

620
00:37:46,200 --> 00:37:51,239
Speaker 3: secular functional knowledge is included into the creation accounts of

621
00:37:51,280 --> 00:37:52,560
Speaker 3: old Yeah.

622
00:37:52,560 --> 00:38:05,600
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I think that's an important point all right. Now,

623
00:38:05,600 --> 00:38:10,200
Speaker 2: in talking about scientifically informed or inspired religions, we of

624
00:38:10,200 --> 00:38:12,840
Speaker 2: course have to talk about one of the big ones,

625
00:38:12,840 --> 00:38:17,080
Speaker 2: at least in name Scientology, founded by science fiction author l.

626
00:38:17,160 --> 00:38:20,600
Speaker 2: Ron Hubbard who lived nineteen eleven through nineteen eighty six.

627
00:38:21,520 --> 00:38:24,600
Speaker 2: He claimed to have developed the teachings through this is

628
00:38:24,680 --> 00:38:30,359
Speaker 2: rather interesting through experimentation rather than divine revelation, at least

629
00:38:30,360 --> 00:38:33,320
Speaker 2: in the hard sense. And I think this is rather interesting.

630
00:38:33,400 --> 00:38:36,960
Speaker 2: You know that the idea that it's not that I

631
00:38:36,960 --> 00:38:40,360
Speaker 2: have gone back and discovered something in ancient writings or

632
00:38:40,440 --> 00:38:43,640
Speaker 2: I have you know, uncovered some forgotten tone of knowledge.

633
00:38:44,080 --> 00:38:47,160
Speaker 2: This is like a product of my own research, in

634
00:38:47,200 --> 00:38:49,560
Speaker 2: my own like sort of lab work.

635
00:38:50,160 --> 00:38:55,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's funny. I one day, when I was long

636
00:38:56,000 --> 00:38:58,000
Speaker 3: long ago, there was a day when I was basically

637
00:38:58,040 --> 00:39:01,120
Speaker 3: stuck in a library all day with no ability to

638
00:39:01,120 --> 00:39:03,480
Speaker 3: go anywhere or do anything. So I was just wandering

639
00:39:03,520 --> 00:39:05,759
Speaker 3: around and I found a copy of Dianetics in the

640
00:39:05,800 --> 00:39:08,959
Speaker 3: library and I started reading it. I remember actually being

641
00:39:09,000 --> 00:39:12,120
Speaker 3: disappointed and thinking that it would be more interesting than

642
00:39:12,160 --> 00:39:14,520
Speaker 3: it was. It's got a slog for me.

643
00:39:14,880 --> 00:39:18,239
Speaker 2: I had, I had, I had a similar experience with it.

644
00:39:18,520 --> 00:39:20,719
Speaker 2: You know, I was, I was interested, I was, you know,

645
00:39:20,760 --> 00:39:23,319
Speaker 2: has a volcano on the front for crying out loud? Yeah,

646
00:39:23,360 --> 00:39:25,000
Speaker 2: it seems like it's going to be dynamic. It had

647
00:39:25,040 --> 00:39:28,520
Speaker 2: some pretty cool television commercials back in the day, and

648
00:39:28,560 --> 00:39:32,000
Speaker 2: I assume they're still probably doing some TV commercials. And

649
00:39:32,000 --> 00:39:33,960
Speaker 2: and then when I started reading it, it like starts off

650
00:39:34,080 --> 00:39:39,440
Speaker 2: very confrontational and and and in general, I can sometimes

651
00:39:39,560 --> 00:39:42,920
Speaker 2: I can find Hubbard's writing a bit hard to crack.

652
00:39:43,040 --> 00:39:45,479
Speaker 2: I mean not to and that's not even necessarily a knock.

653
00:39:45,480 --> 00:39:48,080
Speaker 2: It's like we're talking about like ancient religious texts that

654
00:39:48,120 --> 00:39:53,480
Speaker 2: are difficult to understand and maybe intentionally a bit cryptic

655
00:39:53,640 --> 00:39:57,080
Speaker 2: and suggestive. And you can certainly find that in scientology

656
00:39:57,080 --> 00:40:01,680
Speaker 2: writings as well, again perhaps intended, but anyway, the broader

657
00:40:01,760 --> 00:40:06,719
Speaker 2: teachings of scientology involve a number of philosophical and psychiatric

658
00:40:06,800 --> 00:40:12,000
Speaker 2: concepts ideas from Western esoteric practices, along with some definite

659
00:40:12,040 --> 00:40:15,080
Speaker 2: Sci Fi related concepts. And I'm not going to pretend

660
00:40:15,080 --> 00:40:17,480
Speaker 2: to be an expert on scientology or its teachings, and

661
00:40:17,520 --> 00:40:20,920
Speaker 2: I'm not a scientologist, but I'm to understand that the

662
00:40:20,960 --> 00:40:24,759
Speaker 2: basic idea is that the universe we experience is the

663
00:40:26,000 --> 00:40:30,200
Speaker 2: mess the nest the matter, energy and space time universe,

664
00:40:30,600 --> 00:40:33,880
Speaker 2: and this was born seventy six sorry, seventy six trillion

665
00:40:33,960 --> 00:40:37,360
Speaker 2: years ago out of a pre existing static universe of

666
00:40:37,480 --> 00:40:42,360
Speaker 2: pure Thetan energy, So a universe composed all of Thetans,

667
00:40:42,760 --> 00:40:47,160
Speaker 2: spiritual beings and our true selves. But then the Thetans

668
00:40:47,200 --> 00:40:51,359
Speaker 2: become lost in their own creation something to this effect. So,

669
00:40:51,440 --> 00:40:54,799
Speaker 2: as far as I understand it as a non scientologist,

670
00:40:54,880 --> 00:40:57,000
Speaker 2: the idea is that prior to the beginning, you just

671
00:40:57,040 --> 00:41:00,480
Speaker 2: have like a pure sort of communal spiritual existence, but

672
00:41:00,520 --> 00:41:02,440
Speaker 2: also one that you could think of is kind of

673
00:41:03,920 --> 00:41:05,880
Speaker 2: you know, having a lot in common with these ideas

674
00:41:05,880 --> 00:41:11,040
Speaker 2: of pure potentiality as well. But but then that you

675
00:41:11,040 --> 00:41:13,879
Speaker 2: could also I think you can directly compare this too

676
00:41:13,920 --> 00:41:17,480
Speaker 2: to sort of a you know, it has a certain

677
00:41:17,800 --> 00:41:21,759
Speaker 2: what prelaps arian energy as well. The idea that that

678
00:41:22,040 --> 00:41:26,400
Speaker 2: through scientology, the practitioner is trying to sort of return

679
00:41:26,840 --> 00:41:30,600
Speaker 2: to that condition before this reality and sort of reconnect

680
00:41:30,960 --> 00:41:35,440
Speaker 2: with the Thetan that they are slash were, And this

681
00:41:35,480 --> 00:41:38,680
Speaker 2: also brings in various concepts of human potential as well.

682
00:41:38,800 --> 00:41:40,799
Speaker 2: Like I have to I have to find my true

683
00:41:40,800 --> 00:41:43,960
Speaker 2: potential by connecting with the pure energy being that I

684
00:41:44,239 --> 00:41:48,759
Speaker 2: was in the sort of the realm of potentiality that

685
00:41:48,800 --> 00:41:50,240
Speaker 2: existed before our universe.

686
00:41:51,560 --> 00:41:53,880
Speaker 3: So the return to Eden is in this case that

687
00:41:53,920 --> 00:41:56,040
Speaker 3: it's the return to the pure Thetan energy.

688
00:41:56,760 --> 00:42:00,799
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And and again you can you can kind

689
00:42:00,800 --> 00:42:03,520
Speaker 2: of compare that to even the ancient Egyptian model. We

690
00:42:03,520 --> 00:42:06,440
Speaker 2: were just discussing the idea that there's some sort of

691
00:42:06,520 --> 00:42:11,319
Speaker 2: renewal to be found in the pre creation existence, and

692
00:42:11,400 --> 00:42:14,440
Speaker 2: there is some connection between where we are now and

693
00:42:14,480 --> 00:42:18,520
Speaker 2: what we are now, and that like vital pre existing energy.

694
00:42:19,320 --> 00:42:23,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I guess I created accidentally. They're created some

695
00:42:23,239 --> 00:42:26,600
Speaker 3: of the wrong implications by saying Eden, because Eden is

696
00:42:26,640 --> 00:42:28,960
Speaker 3: not a pre created state. It's just the good state.

697
00:42:29,200 --> 00:42:30,759
Speaker 2: Yeah, the good state.

698
00:42:31,000 --> 00:42:32,800
Speaker 3: But that's very much the created state.

699
00:42:33,040 --> 00:42:36,000
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah. And then I do not know, there

700
00:42:36,000 --> 00:42:40,440
Speaker 2: may be something else in scientology that explores what existed

701
00:42:40,480 --> 00:42:43,920
Speaker 2: before the Thetans, or perhaps Thetans I may be mispronouncing it,

702
00:42:44,840 --> 00:42:45,879
Speaker 2: what existed before them.

703
00:42:45,880 --> 00:42:46,200
Speaker 3: I don't know.

704
00:42:46,239 --> 00:42:51,080
Speaker 2: Maybe they're they're a constant state that always existed. I

705
00:42:51,320 --> 00:42:54,680
Speaker 2: suspect that might be the case, all right, And then

706
00:42:54,719 --> 00:42:57,880
Speaker 2: one more to discuss. This one is by far the

707
00:42:57,960 --> 00:43:01,480
Speaker 2: largest and much larger than the aforementioned groups, and generally

708
00:43:01,520 --> 00:43:04,840
Speaker 2: considered the most successful new religious movement of the past

709
00:43:04,840 --> 00:43:07,120
Speaker 2: couple of centuries, and that is the Church of Jesus

710
00:43:07,200 --> 00:43:10,360
Speaker 2: Christ of Latter day Saints, founded by Joseph Smith in

711
00:43:10,400 --> 00:43:14,000
Speaker 2: eighteen thirty. And it is easy to forget that this

712
00:43:14,080 --> 00:43:17,000
Speaker 2: too is a religion that, despite its connection to older

713
00:43:17,120 --> 00:43:21,200
Speaker 2: Christian traditions and its use of scriptures that invoke this

714
00:43:21,280 --> 00:43:25,520
Speaker 2: feeling of ancient time, it's easy to forget that this too,

715
00:43:25,560 --> 00:43:29,320
Speaker 2: is a religion that really takes shape and takes off

716
00:43:29,640 --> 00:43:33,160
Speaker 2: in the scientific age. And we see that reflected. We've

717
00:43:33,160 --> 00:43:35,319
Speaker 2: discussed this a little bit on the show before in

718
00:43:35,400 --> 00:43:39,880
Speaker 2: some of the ways that it is space friendly. Again

719
00:43:40,280 --> 00:43:43,040
Speaker 2: not making the case that any of these new religious

720
00:43:43,040 --> 00:43:47,520
Speaker 2: movements are necessarily science informed, but it has been observed

721
00:43:47,560 --> 00:43:49,840
Speaker 2: that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

722
00:43:49,880 --> 00:43:55,719
Speaker 2: is largely space friendly, explicitly stating that there are other

723
00:43:55,840 --> 00:44:01,040
Speaker 2: inhabited planets, so at least, you know, acknowledging a modern

724
00:44:01,280 --> 00:44:07,440
Speaker 2: understanding of the cosmos and in incorporating that into its worldview,

725
00:44:07,520 --> 00:44:10,440
Speaker 2: and you know, into some of its ideas of what

726
00:44:10,560 --> 00:44:11,080
Speaker 2: came before.

727
00:44:11,360 --> 00:44:13,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, you don't have to say that the

728
00:44:14,120 --> 00:44:17,440
Speaker 3: scientific ideas taken on board are necessarily all that complex.

729
00:44:17,840 --> 00:44:21,240
Speaker 3: Just to acknowledge that this is like a post Galileo religion.

730
00:44:21,360 --> 00:44:24,080
Speaker 3: This is a religion from the age in which it

731
00:44:24,160 --> 00:44:27,759
Speaker 3: is a It is common knowledge that the other planets

732
00:44:27,840 --> 00:44:30,560
Speaker 3: are not just like movable points of light in the

733
00:44:30,640 --> 00:44:33,040
Speaker 3: sky that move on different patterns than the rest of

734
00:44:33,080 --> 00:44:37,920
Speaker 3: the stars, that they are spheres of like rock and gas,

735
00:44:37,920 --> 00:44:40,239
Speaker 3: and there are other things like you could walk on

736
00:44:40,280 --> 00:44:41,680
Speaker 3: the other planets.

737
00:44:41,360 --> 00:44:44,440
Speaker 2: Right, And therefore it's acknowledged that there there is life

738
00:44:44,440 --> 00:44:47,319
Speaker 2: on other planets, and and then that has to be

739
00:44:47,360 --> 00:44:50,360
Speaker 2: theologically worked out to some degree, which is not something

740
00:44:50,360 --> 00:44:55,480
Speaker 2: that comes up in like you know, ancient Christian or

741
00:44:55,520 --> 00:44:59,600
Speaker 2: Jewish thought. You know, like nobody's saying, but wait, what

742
00:44:59,680 --> 00:45:02,640
Speaker 2: about people potentially living on other planets? Like what are

743
00:45:02,640 --> 00:45:04,600
Speaker 2: you talking about? That's not going with it's not going

744
00:45:04,600 --> 00:45:09,320
Speaker 2: in the book. Yeah. So we again, as we've mentioned before,

745
00:45:09,360 --> 00:45:13,960
Speaker 2: you know, several notable prominent NASA figures were LDS members,

746
00:45:14,000 --> 00:45:17,560
Speaker 2: including fourth and seventh NASA Administrator James C. Fletcher. So

747
00:45:17,600 --> 00:45:19,080
Speaker 2: I think a strong case can be made for being

748
00:45:19,120 --> 00:45:21,920
Speaker 2: like a space friendly religion and some extent to some extent,

749
00:45:22,360 --> 00:45:25,400
Speaker 2: but coming back to the bigger question. According to the

750
00:45:25,480 --> 00:45:27,360
Speaker 2: Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter day Saints, what

751
00:45:27,520 --> 00:45:30,319
Speaker 2: comes before the beginning then? And how does this rub

752
00:45:30,440 --> 00:45:34,640
Speaker 2: up against modern scientific concepts. Well, it's spelled out on

753
00:45:34,719 --> 00:45:37,480
Speaker 2: their website, so again this is coming more or less

754
00:45:37,920 --> 00:45:41,600
Speaker 2: directly from the Church. The idea is that Jesus Christ,

755
00:45:41,960 --> 00:45:44,720
Speaker 2: under the direction of the heavenly Father, is not creating

756
00:45:44,760 --> 00:45:47,680
Speaker 2: things out of magic, is not snapping his fingers and

757
00:45:47,719 --> 00:45:51,960
Speaker 2: making things pop into existence. He is organizing pre existing matter.

758
00:45:52,480 --> 00:45:54,480
Speaker 3: Obviously, there's going to be a difference here in that

759
00:45:54,640 --> 00:46:00,080
Speaker 3: it names and asserts Jesus as the creator, but at

760
00:46:00,160 --> 00:46:03,080
Speaker 3: least in the aspect that it is an organization of

761
00:46:03,120 --> 00:46:07,600
Speaker 3: some pre existing material world rather than a creation ex nihilo.

762
00:46:08,440 --> 00:46:12,640
Speaker 3: It's interesting in that that is actually what the Christian

763
00:46:12,760 --> 00:46:17,400
Speaker 3: and Jewish creation narrative in its original text does say,

764
00:46:17,680 --> 00:46:21,759
Speaker 3: Like the text of Genesis is an ordering narrative, not

765
00:46:21,840 --> 00:46:27,000
Speaker 3: a creation x nihilo narrative, but it is commonly misunderstood

766
00:46:27,080 --> 00:46:30,759
Speaker 3: as a creation x nihilo narrative. So it's funny that

767
00:46:30,760 --> 00:46:34,200
Speaker 3: that this is like a making more explicit something that

768
00:46:34,480 --> 00:46:39,440
Speaker 3: is true about the original text but is often misunderstood

769
00:46:39,440 --> 00:46:41,000
Speaker 3: by believers in that text.

770
00:46:41,400 --> 00:46:45,360
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, So, so of reacting to the misunderstanding and

771
00:46:45,400 --> 00:46:49,000
Speaker 2: the interpretation that is kind of like you know, common

772
00:46:49,080 --> 00:46:53,200
Speaker 2: to the world and then pushing against that and instead

773
00:46:53,320 --> 00:46:57,640
Speaker 2: like adhering to say that the law of the conservation

774
00:46:57,760 --> 00:47:00,840
Speaker 2: of mass and energy and saying like, you know, no, no,

775
00:47:00,880 --> 00:47:05,080
Speaker 2: we're not saying that the divine architect just made all

776
00:47:05,080 --> 00:47:09,040
Speaker 2: the materials. No, the divine architect move things around. And

777
00:47:09,080 --> 00:47:11,239
Speaker 2: in fact, I'm going to read here from the this

778
00:47:11,320 --> 00:47:15,920
Speaker 2: is the from the LDS Book of Abraham. This is

779
00:47:15,960 --> 00:47:18,600
Speaker 2: three twenty four from their website.

780
00:47:18,719 --> 00:47:19,040
Speaker 3: Quote.

781
00:47:19,080 --> 00:47:22,160
Speaker 2: And there stood one among them that was like unto God,

782
00:47:22,239 --> 00:47:25,360
Speaker 2: and he said, unto those who were with him, we

783
00:47:25,440 --> 00:47:28,120
Speaker 2: will go down, for there is space there, and we

784
00:47:28,160 --> 00:47:30,600
Speaker 2: will take of these materials and we will make an

785
00:47:30,640 --> 00:47:35,440
Speaker 2: earth where on these may dwell. Okay, So yeah, so

786
00:47:35,680 --> 00:47:38,200
Speaker 2: God is an organizer. God is God is architect, God

787
00:47:38,239 --> 00:47:41,239
Speaker 2: is builder, as opposed to you know, a snap of

788
00:47:41,239 --> 00:47:43,280
Speaker 2: the fingers and things you know, pop into existence.

789
00:47:44,360 --> 00:47:46,239
Speaker 3: Well, you know what, actually, I do want to come

790
00:47:46,280 --> 00:47:48,719
Speaker 3: back on that, because there is a I think there

791
00:47:48,800 --> 00:47:52,520
Speaker 3: are things in the Genesis narrative where God does bring

792
00:47:52,640 --> 00:47:55,560
Speaker 3: things into existence that didn't exist before, Like he speaks

793
00:47:55,600 --> 00:47:58,640
Speaker 3: things into existence, such as light. It seems like that

794
00:47:59,080 --> 00:48:01,480
Speaker 3: he says, let their light, and then there is light.

795
00:48:02,000 --> 00:48:04,120
Speaker 3: But it's just that he doesn't do that with the

796
00:48:04,160 --> 00:48:07,480
Speaker 3: world itself. There is already a material world, and he

797
00:48:07,640 --> 00:48:11,600
Speaker 3: organizes that and then additional things he brings into existence

798
00:48:11,640 --> 00:48:12,920
Speaker 3: by speaking their names.

799
00:48:13,440 --> 00:48:17,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, so so again, Yeah, I think it's

800
00:48:17,640 --> 00:48:20,440
Speaker 2: fascinating how you know, these these newer religions like the

801
00:48:20,440 --> 00:48:24,640
Speaker 2: older religions. You know, they're ultimately answering the same questions.

802
00:48:24,960 --> 00:48:28,560
Speaker 2: They're using a lot of the same answers, but the

803
00:48:28,600 --> 00:48:31,080
Speaker 2: way they're rolled out, you know, again, sometimes they have

804
00:48:31,200 --> 00:48:34,600
Speaker 2: to there's an effort to make them adhere a little

805
00:48:34,640 --> 00:48:37,880
Speaker 2: more to the modern world as we understand it, and

806
00:48:37,920 --> 00:48:39,920
Speaker 2: to fit into like yeah, like you said, like in

807
00:48:39,960 --> 00:48:42,840
Speaker 2: the ancient world, it was fitting in with social knowledge

808
00:48:43,080 --> 00:48:47,560
Speaker 2: and say agricultural technological understanding, you know, crafting knowledge, that

809
00:48:47,600 --> 00:48:51,680
Speaker 2: sort of thing. Whatever the the readily accessible metaphors were,

810
00:48:52,080 --> 00:48:54,319
Speaker 2: and today the metaphors are different. In the future, the

811
00:48:54,360 --> 00:48:57,320
Speaker 2: metaphors will be different, Like what are the new religious

812
00:48:57,320 --> 00:49:01,560
Speaker 2: movements of the future going to be rolling out. I mean,

813
00:49:01,920 --> 00:49:03,880
Speaker 2: my main hope is that humans are still involved in

814
00:49:03,920 --> 00:49:09,920
Speaker 2: the process of creating these uh these stories, but you know, inherently,

815
00:49:10,239 --> 00:49:16,800
Speaker 2: inevitably they're going to draw on some different contemporary knowledge

816
00:49:16,840 --> 00:49:17,600
Speaker 2: sets to do so.

817
00:49:18,080 --> 00:49:32,279
Speaker 3: Yeah. Interesting, I wonder if there are any religions yet

818
00:49:32,360 --> 00:49:36,960
Speaker 3: that have a creation account, essentially a creation by biological evolution.

819
00:49:38,600 --> 00:49:40,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great question. I think we should come

820
00:49:40,680 --> 00:49:44,560
Speaker 2: back to that in a future episode, you know, evolution

821
00:49:45,520 --> 00:49:48,200
Speaker 2: and at least the if not the creation of new

822
00:49:48,320 --> 00:49:50,640
Speaker 2: religious movements, but the up we can even discuss, like

823
00:49:50,680 --> 00:49:55,560
Speaker 2: the the tweaking of understanding regarding these older faiths as

824
00:49:55,600 --> 00:50:00,640
Speaker 2: well incorporating evolutionary knowledge instead of you know, completely rejecting it.

825
00:50:01,040 --> 00:50:03,000
Speaker 3: Yeah. But I don't know. I'm trying to imagine the

826
00:50:03,040 --> 00:50:06,320
Speaker 3: particulars of how evolution would really work as a creation narrative.

827
00:50:06,320 --> 00:50:07,800
Speaker 3: I'm not I'm not sure it really works.

828
00:50:08,080 --> 00:50:10,960
Speaker 2: I don't well that would entail I mean, one of

829
00:50:11,000 --> 00:50:13,760
Speaker 2: the it also depends on, As with all of these things,

830
00:50:14,040 --> 00:50:16,960
Speaker 2: it also depends on like how deep into the concept

831
00:50:17,040 --> 00:50:20,600
Speaker 2: you're getting. So with evolution, for example, I think it

832
00:50:20,640 --> 00:50:24,040
Speaker 2: is is very logical to say to take a view

833
00:50:24,120 --> 00:50:26,480
Speaker 2: that if there is a divine creator, then that divine

834
00:50:26,480 --> 00:50:31,120
Speaker 2: creator sets certain acts in motion. But you get into

835
00:50:31,160 --> 00:50:34,520
Speaker 2: this with evolution. You also have the situation where well,

836
00:50:34,680 --> 00:50:37,839
Speaker 2: sometimes it at least from our human perspective, that is,

837
00:50:37,880 --> 00:50:39,920
Speaker 2: you know, perhaps incomplete compared doing it, you know, in

838
00:50:40,000 --> 00:50:43,720
Speaker 2: kind of like divine entity. Evolution can appear very cruel.

839
00:50:44,160 --> 00:50:44,520
Speaker 3: It can.

840
00:50:45,239 --> 00:50:49,080
Speaker 2: It can take directions that you know, end up being

841
00:50:49,160 --> 00:50:52,759
Speaker 2: dead ends and so forth. So it raises additional theological

842
00:50:52,880 --> 00:50:56,640
Speaker 2: questions like why, you know, why would the divine force

843
00:50:56,719 --> 00:50:58,880
Speaker 2: set this act in motion if it was going to

844
00:50:59,520 --> 00:51:02,560
Speaker 2: end and say the creation of a parasite that blinds

845
00:51:02,640 --> 00:51:07,480
Speaker 2: children or something. You know. So, yeah, there's a there's

846
00:51:07,480 --> 00:51:08,640
Speaker 2: a lot to unravel there.

847
00:51:09,160 --> 00:51:12,080
Speaker 3: I guess another question, if our world was created via

848
00:51:12,120 --> 00:51:16,560
Speaker 3: evolution would be what what part of the evolutionary model

849
00:51:16,840 --> 00:51:20,560
Speaker 3: is the world? Is the world the I don't know,

850
00:51:20,640 --> 00:51:23,880
Speaker 3: a cell or an organism as a whole, or is

851
00:51:23,920 --> 00:51:26,719
Speaker 3: it like a gene or a mutation? You know, like

852
00:51:27,239 --> 00:51:28,760
Speaker 3: I guess is our world a mutation?

853
00:51:29,600 --> 00:51:32,600
Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean we get into the model presented in

854
00:51:32,600 --> 00:51:36,560
Speaker 2: really Scott's Prometheus, right where exactly the engineers set things

855
00:51:36,600 --> 00:51:40,080
Speaker 2: in motion and they have maybe a certain agenda in mind,

856
00:51:40,080 --> 00:51:42,800
Speaker 2: but also accidents happen, and then those accidents have to

857
00:51:42,840 --> 00:51:43,840
Speaker 2: be corrected later on.

858
00:51:44,120 --> 00:51:45,280
Speaker 3: That is my religion.

859
00:51:45,400 --> 00:51:48,239
Speaker 2: Yeah, it does kind of come back to the Church

860
00:51:48,239 --> 00:51:50,879
Speaker 2: of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints in a sense.

861
00:51:50,960 --> 00:51:53,520
Speaker 2: I was reading a little bit about how this idea

862
00:51:53,840 --> 00:51:59,160
Speaker 2: of a creator who is, you know, adjusting some sort

863
00:51:59,160 --> 00:52:03,920
Speaker 2: of pre existing it kind of sort of reframed. It's

864
00:52:03,920 --> 00:52:07,319
Speaker 2: almost like when a new I'm not making the case

865
00:52:07,320 --> 00:52:10,040
Speaker 2: that this is directly what's involved here, but it's kind

866
00:52:10,040 --> 00:52:13,160
Speaker 2: of like, imagine you have a new boss arrive on

867
00:52:13,200 --> 00:52:17,439
Speaker 2: the scene. They get to sort of establish themselves as

868
00:52:17,880 --> 00:52:21,680
Speaker 2: the guy who's fixing stuff. You know, I'm instituting changes

869
00:52:21,719 --> 00:52:25,520
Speaker 2: that are improving the company, and if there are problems beforehand,

870
00:52:25,560 --> 00:52:27,360
Speaker 2: well that's that's kind of out of my hands. But

871
00:52:27,400 --> 00:52:29,960
Speaker 2: I'm just here to fix things. I'm the good guy boss.

872
00:52:30,000 --> 00:52:31,520
Speaker 2: And so in a way it kind of you can

873
00:52:31,560 --> 00:52:35,560
Speaker 2: get into this area where you're establishing a creator deity

874
00:52:35,680 --> 00:52:38,799
Speaker 2: as as a complete good guide boss. To some extent,

875
00:52:38,840 --> 00:52:40,920
Speaker 2: I don't know, it gets messy, it gets complicated, because

876
00:52:40,960 --> 00:52:43,560
Speaker 2: you know that is that's the These are the problems

877
00:52:43,600 --> 00:52:46,720
Speaker 2: of theology, and then we have to justify the ways

878
00:52:46,719 --> 00:52:51,000
Speaker 2: of God demand and that ultimately is the role of poets.

879
00:52:51,600 --> 00:52:54,080
Speaker 3: Okay, does that do it? For part three of I

880
00:52:54,080 --> 00:52:54,400
Speaker 3: think so?

881
00:52:54,560 --> 00:52:57,319
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, I feel myself beginning to ramble here, because again,

882
00:52:57,360 --> 00:52:59,520
Speaker 2: they can go in so many different directions with this.

883
00:52:59,840 --> 00:53:02,759
Speaker 2: I will say that certainly, if anyone out there, if

884
00:53:02,800 --> 00:53:06,960
Speaker 2: you were you know, a current or past adherent to

885
00:53:07,000 --> 00:53:10,600
Speaker 2: any of the religious faces that we've discussed here, and

886
00:53:10,640 --> 00:53:12,680
Speaker 2: you want to write in with your additional thoughts on it,

887
00:53:12,760 --> 00:53:15,319
Speaker 2: or if we got something wrong, yeah, do write in.

888
00:53:15,360 --> 00:53:17,319
Speaker 2: We would love to hear from you and potentially hash

889
00:53:17,360 --> 00:53:19,040
Speaker 2: that out in a future episode of Stuff to Blow

890
00:53:19,040 --> 00:53:21,319
Speaker 2: your Mind listener mail, which we run those about once

891
00:53:21,360 --> 00:53:25,000
Speaker 2: a month. Yeah, so write in. We'd love to hear

892
00:53:25,000 --> 00:53:27,520
Speaker 2: from you. And we will also just go ahead and say, hey,

893
00:53:27,600 --> 00:53:29,640
Speaker 2: if you wherever you happen to listen to the show

894
00:53:29,840 --> 00:53:32,160
Speaker 2: or watch the show, if you're watching on Netflix, if

895
00:53:32,160 --> 00:53:35,000
Speaker 2: there is a way to throw us some stars, throw

896
00:53:35,080 --> 00:53:37,719
Speaker 2: us some thumbs up, one thumbs up, two thumbs up,

897
00:53:38,640 --> 00:53:42,839
Speaker 2: star ratings, written reviews, whatever the case may be. If

898
00:53:42,880 --> 00:53:45,799
Speaker 2: it's positive, leave it, throw it into the system. This

899
00:53:45,880 --> 00:53:47,360
Speaker 2: helps us out in the long run.

900
00:53:47,880 --> 00:53:51,040
Speaker 3: Even more than that. Subscribe, Please subscribe or if you

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00:53:51,080 --> 00:53:54,040
Speaker 3: get your podcasts and on Netflix, you can click the

902
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Speaker 3: remind Me button. Okay, huge, thanks as always to our

903
00:53:58,480 --> 00:54:01,440
Speaker 3: excellent audio producer Jay J. Pauseway. If you would like

904
00:54:01,480 --> 00:54:03,480
Speaker 3: to get in touch with us with feedback on this

905
00:54:03,520 --> 00:54:06,320
Speaker 3: episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future,

906
00:54:06,400 --> 00:54:08,399
Speaker 3: or just to say hello, you can email us at

907
00:54:08,480 --> 00:54:18,920
Speaker 3: contact stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

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00:54:19,040 --> 00:54:22,000
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