1
00:00:00,160 --> 00:00:03,360
Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from coast to coast am on

2
00:00:03,520 --> 00:00:06,280
Speaker 1: iHeart Radio. When you wrote The God Part of the

3
00:00:06,320 --> 00:00:08,920
Speaker 1: Brain several years ago, what wasn't that got you going?

4
00:00:09,160 --> 00:00:14,600
Speaker 1: What compelled you to write it? Uh? Well, you know,

5
00:00:14,720 --> 00:00:21,120
Speaker 1: after a lifetime of questioning, what is the nature of

6
00:00:21,160 --> 00:00:25,120
Speaker 1: my reality? More or less? Am I a spiritual being?

7
00:00:26,680 --> 00:00:30,280
Speaker 1: Or am I a physical being? When I die? Am

8
00:00:30,280 --> 00:00:33,360
Speaker 1: I ashes to ashes? Dust to dust? Or is there

9
00:00:33,400 --> 00:00:38,360
Speaker 1: some ethereal soulful you know, element within me that will

10
00:00:38,440 --> 00:00:41,199
Speaker 1: live forever? You know, that was sort of one of

11
00:00:41,200 --> 00:00:44,160
Speaker 1: the a as it is with many of us. It

12
00:00:44,200 --> 00:00:47,520
Speaker 1: was one of the driving questions in my life. And

13
00:00:47,560 --> 00:00:50,240
Speaker 1: I read a lot of studied a lot of philosophy,

14
00:00:50,280 --> 00:00:54,680
Speaker 1: a lot of science, and when I, you know, just

15
00:00:54,720 --> 00:00:57,240
Speaker 1: so happened. I was in Germany at the time, working

16
00:00:57,280 --> 00:01:00,400
Speaker 1: for a film company, and I sot of had an

17
00:01:00,400 --> 00:01:06,280
Speaker 1: epiphany and came up with this solution. And once I did,

18
00:01:06,400 --> 00:01:09,560
Speaker 1: I realized I was onto something novel that is sort

19
00:01:09,600 --> 00:01:13,839
Speaker 1: of a culmination of what I'd been searching for. So

20
00:01:14,000 --> 00:01:16,679
Speaker 1: I was motivated to come back to New York and

21
00:01:16,720 --> 00:01:20,920
Speaker 1: they took off a few years and wrote it. But

22
00:01:21,319 --> 00:01:23,800
Speaker 1: you know, that was the motivation was that I felt

23
00:01:23,800 --> 00:01:26,880
Speaker 1: that I had stumbled onto something that no one else

24
00:01:26,920 --> 00:01:31,920
Speaker 1: had really come up with as of yet. Um so,

25
00:01:32,360 --> 00:01:34,800
Speaker 1: so yeah, I felt they needed to do this. And

26
00:01:34,880 --> 00:01:38,360
Speaker 1: the god part of the brain is it's controversial because

27
00:01:38,400 --> 00:01:40,120
Speaker 1: you know, there are a lot of people who will

28
00:01:40,160 --> 00:01:43,160
Speaker 1: say there is a god, and we'll get into your

29
00:01:43,160 --> 00:01:46,520
Speaker 1: reasons why you don't think there is, but we'll talk

30
00:01:46,600 --> 00:01:48,840
Speaker 1: about the wiring of the brain. But it is, it

31
00:01:48,920 --> 00:01:52,040
Speaker 1: is controversial. Over the years now, over the last several

32
00:01:52,120 --> 00:01:56,200
Speaker 1: years that it's been out, what has been the response been.

33
00:01:56,280 --> 00:01:58,680
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's been selling well, but I mean,

34
00:01:59,000 --> 00:02:02,320
Speaker 1: are people sending you hate emails? You get favorable emails?

35
00:02:02,360 --> 00:02:07,040
Speaker 1: What happens? Um, Well, sure, when you're telling the world

36
00:02:07,120 --> 00:02:11,000
Speaker 1: that you know that there's a neuroscience that can prove

37
00:02:11,120 --> 00:02:14,840
Speaker 1: there is no spiritual reality, that there is no god,

38
00:02:15,440 --> 00:02:20,760
Speaker 1: that all the religions they believe in are fictitious, that

39
00:02:20,800 --> 00:02:24,799
Speaker 1: there is no soul, there is no afterlife. That's certainly

40
00:02:25,880 --> 00:02:29,839
Speaker 1: you know, annoys a few people, and and yes, I've

41
00:02:29,880 --> 00:02:34,680
Speaker 1: gotten I've gotten death threats, I've gotten hate mail. That's

42
00:02:34,720 --> 00:02:37,800
Speaker 1: that's the fringe, you know, for the most part, at

43
00:02:37,880 --> 00:02:41,519
Speaker 1: least from the scientific community, and from the secular community,

44
00:02:42,040 --> 00:02:46,880
Speaker 1: from academics, etc. I've received, you know, nothing but high praise,

45
00:02:47,560 --> 00:02:51,280
Speaker 1: but certainly for you know, people who are entrenched in

46
00:02:51,360 --> 00:02:55,440
Speaker 1: their beliefs, they take offense to what I write. So yeah,

47
00:02:55,480 --> 00:02:58,799
Speaker 1: I've gotten some angry, some angry, bitter stuff. And then

48
00:02:58,840 --> 00:03:02,239
Speaker 1: some other people who you know, took a lighter approach,

49
00:03:02,280 --> 00:03:05,080
Speaker 1: and we're like, you know, we pray for your soul

50
00:03:05,520 --> 00:03:09,560
Speaker 1: and hope that you find the light of God and

51
00:03:09,720 --> 00:03:14,040
Speaker 1: don't burn in hell. So you know, it goes both ways. Well,

52
00:03:14,120 --> 00:03:17,600
Speaker 1: and and you know, death threats uncalled for with just

53
00:03:17,720 --> 00:03:21,280
Speaker 1: about anything. But my god, these are your views, whether yeah,

54
00:03:21,360 --> 00:03:24,120
Speaker 1: you would think, I mean, they're your views. Whether we

55
00:03:24,240 --> 00:03:26,200
Speaker 1: agree with you or not, it's not the point. But

56
00:03:26,320 --> 00:03:29,240
Speaker 1: you don't, you know, go after somebody and try to

57
00:03:29,520 --> 00:03:31,959
Speaker 1: you know, threaten to kill them because you don't agree

58
00:03:31,960 --> 00:03:34,400
Speaker 1: with them. Oh my gosh. Right, Well, it's a nice

59
00:03:34,480 --> 00:03:37,120
Speaker 1: thought that one wouldn't. But if we if all we

60
00:03:37,160 --> 00:03:39,680
Speaker 1: have to do is you know, open any given history

61
00:03:39,760 --> 00:03:42,880
Speaker 1: book to see that the history of man is, you know,

62
00:03:43,120 --> 00:03:48,640
Speaker 1: is spotted with religious wars, with crusades, with inquisitions, with

63
00:03:48,640 --> 00:03:52,280
Speaker 1: with jihad's. I mean, you know, from the beginning and

64
00:03:52,320 --> 00:03:55,280
Speaker 1: That's part of what I write about the destructive you know,

65
00:03:55,400 --> 00:03:59,400
Speaker 1: influence of this of this instinct in us, that it

66
00:03:59,800 --> 00:04:03,520
Speaker 1: it riles us up to fanaticism to the point that

67
00:04:03,560 --> 00:04:06,120
Speaker 1: we're willing to strap a vest on ourselves and walking

68
00:04:06,160 --> 00:04:09,480
Speaker 1: to a supermarket in the name of our gods. So

69
00:04:09,640 --> 00:04:12,200
Speaker 1: I'm not the first person who's who's felt the wrath

70
00:04:12,280 --> 00:04:15,720
Speaker 1: of an angry religious person, and sadly you won't be

71
00:04:15,760 --> 00:04:21,599
Speaker 1: the last. Correct What was that aha moment for you

72
00:04:21,760 --> 00:04:24,440
Speaker 1: when you started putting together the guard part of the brain?

73
00:04:24,920 --> 00:04:28,960
Speaker 1: Was there some episode that occurred in your life. It's

74
00:04:28,960 --> 00:04:31,960
Speaker 1: a good question. It wasn't an episode, it was it

75
00:04:32,040 --> 00:04:37,600
Speaker 1: was and there was an aha momentum. So, you know,

76
00:04:37,680 --> 00:04:39,920
Speaker 1: I was living in Germany. I was working for a

77
00:04:39,920 --> 00:04:45,320
Speaker 1: film company. I had sold the screenplay to this European

78
00:04:45,360 --> 00:04:47,720
Speaker 1: film company and they offered me a job, and I

79
00:04:47,800 --> 00:04:53,120
Speaker 1: was contemplating working there and moving there, and I, you know,

80
00:04:53,200 --> 00:04:54,960
Speaker 1: for a second, I thought, you know what, you know,

81
00:04:55,000 --> 00:04:59,120
Speaker 1: I studied philosophy. I was very entrenched in science and

82
00:04:59,200 --> 00:05:02,240
Speaker 1: philosophy when I was younger, and I felt like, all right,

83
00:05:02,279 --> 00:05:05,599
Speaker 1: I'm about to take a job, you know, I'm giving

84
00:05:05,680 --> 00:05:09,359
Speaker 1: up the life of you know, putting down my toga

85
00:05:09,440 --> 00:05:13,880
Speaker 1: and you know, giving up the philosophical realm to embrace

86
00:05:13,960 --> 00:05:17,320
Speaker 1: the material world and take a job and accept the salary.

87
00:05:17,839 --> 00:05:20,240
Speaker 1: And I felt a little saddened by that that I

88
00:05:20,320 --> 00:05:23,359
Speaker 1: kind of felt like I would was putting my philosophical

89
00:05:23,480 --> 00:05:27,440
Speaker 1: self aside. And you know, one has to feed themselves

90
00:05:27,440 --> 00:05:29,240
Speaker 1: and keep a roof on their head. And I said,

91
00:05:29,279 --> 00:05:31,680
Speaker 1: you know what, fine, I'm gonna have to live my

92
00:05:31,720 --> 00:05:34,400
Speaker 1: life and that's the way it is. But I said,

93
00:05:34,400 --> 00:05:37,640
Speaker 1: you know what, every flunce every five years, just for

94
00:05:37,720 --> 00:05:40,800
Speaker 1: the heck of it, I'm gonna revisit the question. And

95
00:05:40,839 --> 00:05:42,880
Speaker 1: I said, before I tell them yes that I'm gonna

96
00:05:42,880 --> 00:05:46,440
Speaker 1: take this job, I just said I'll revisit it now.

97
00:05:46,520 --> 00:05:48,800
Speaker 1: And I closed the script that I was working on,

98
00:05:48,839 --> 00:05:52,560
Speaker 1: and I literally I typed out onto the screen. I

99
00:05:52,640 --> 00:05:56,760
Speaker 1: was like, well, I'll readdress the question once more. I

100
00:05:56,800 --> 00:06:00,159
Speaker 1: haven't really thought about these things in a while. Like

101
00:06:00,200 --> 00:06:02,839
Speaker 1: so in the last year since I've last thought about

102
00:06:02,880 --> 00:06:05,960
Speaker 1: any of this, you know, has anything changed? Have I

103
00:06:06,040 --> 00:06:10,960
Speaker 1: witnessed any miracles? Have I seen anything that you know,

104
00:06:11,240 --> 00:06:15,080
Speaker 1: has has changed my outlook on life, that I see

105
00:06:15,160 --> 00:06:18,360
Speaker 1: things differently, that I believe that maybe I've witnessed something

106
00:06:18,400 --> 00:06:21,000
Speaker 1: that has given me a sense of faith that maybe

107
00:06:21,000 --> 00:06:24,440
Speaker 1: there is some spiritual reality. And I was like, no, no, no,

108
00:06:24,520 --> 00:06:29,480
Speaker 1: of course, you know, nothing's happened. I've had no epiphanies,

109
00:06:29,640 --> 00:06:32,200
Speaker 1: you know. So I type down on the computer. I'm like,

110
00:06:32,360 --> 00:06:36,839
Speaker 1: in the last years, have I come across anything that

111
00:06:37,160 --> 00:06:39,360
Speaker 1: has given me any reason to believe that I could

112
00:06:39,360 --> 00:06:44,279
Speaker 1: say I have absolute knowledge of God or certain knowledge

113
00:06:44,279 --> 00:06:48,520
Speaker 1: of a God. And I was like, you know, I

114
00:06:48,560 --> 00:06:52,640
Speaker 1: was like, no, you know, there's there's there's nothing. And

115
00:06:52,680 --> 00:06:57,120
Speaker 1: then I had my epiphany. I was like, huh. I

116
00:06:57,240 --> 00:07:00,440
Speaker 1: was like, there actually is something I can say with

117
00:07:00,640 --> 00:07:03,560
Speaker 1: certain knowledge of God. I was like, this isn't the

118
00:07:03,680 --> 00:07:06,359
Speaker 1: kernel that I was kind of hoping for. But sometimes

119
00:07:06,400 --> 00:07:11,320
Speaker 1: things taken an unexpected and strange angle that you weren't foreseeing.

120
00:07:11,480 --> 00:07:16,200
Speaker 1: I was going to say, sometimes God works in mysterious way. Exactly,

121
00:07:16,320 --> 00:07:19,560
Speaker 1: Sometimes God works in mysterious ways. So I was like,

122
00:07:19,600 --> 00:07:23,960
Speaker 1: there actually is something I can say with certainty of God.

123
00:07:24,200 --> 00:07:26,760
Speaker 1: It's sitting on the computer screen in front of me.

124
00:07:27,040 --> 00:07:30,720
Speaker 1: It's a word. I was like, it's a tangible thing.

125
00:07:31,080 --> 00:07:33,440
Speaker 1: If I say it, I can hear it in Brail,

126
00:07:33,560 --> 00:07:38,240
Speaker 1: I can touch it God is a word. I was like, Okay,

127
00:07:38,560 --> 00:07:42,240
Speaker 1: that's interesting. Wasn't expecting to go there, but I was like, okay,

128
00:07:42,280 --> 00:07:45,280
Speaker 1: So in all the science that I've studied, what does

129
00:07:45,320 --> 00:07:49,640
Speaker 1: science say about words? Well, it's a human convention, it's

130
00:07:49,640 --> 00:07:55,080
Speaker 1: a human contrivance. It originates from the brain, because we

131
00:07:55,120 --> 00:07:57,560
Speaker 1: are a linguistic animal, and we have parts of our

132
00:07:57,600 --> 00:08:02,120
Speaker 1: brain that generate our linguistic ability. So I was like, okay, interesting,

133
00:08:02,680 --> 00:08:07,800
Speaker 1: So God is a word. Words come from the human brain. Moreover,

134
00:08:07,920 --> 00:08:11,680
Speaker 1: I said, and it's a word that exists in every

135
00:08:11,760 --> 00:08:17,240
Speaker 1: culture that I've ever studied. Anthropologically speaking, every culture has

136
00:08:17,280 --> 00:08:20,520
Speaker 1: believed in some form of a god. Every culture has

137
00:08:20,520 --> 00:08:23,640
Speaker 1: had a word for soul or spirit in their vocabulary.

138
00:08:24,960 --> 00:08:27,280
Speaker 1: So I was like, h well, what does science say

139
00:08:27,280 --> 00:08:33,120
Speaker 1: about universal behavioral pattern And what science says about universal

140
00:08:33,160 --> 00:08:37,080
Speaker 1: behavioral patterns is that they are wired into us. The

141
00:08:37,160 --> 00:08:40,560
Speaker 1: fact that all dogs bark, and cats meow, and beavers

142
00:08:40,600 --> 00:08:44,679
Speaker 1: build dams, or humans have language, it's not an accident,

143
00:08:44,720 --> 00:08:48,760
Speaker 1: it's not a coincidence. It's because it's wired into our brains.

144
00:08:49,200 --> 00:08:51,920
Speaker 1: There are parts of our brain. In cats, there's what

145
00:08:51,960 --> 00:08:54,560
Speaker 1: we could call the meow part of its brain, a

146
00:08:54,640 --> 00:08:59,920
Speaker 1: specific region responsible for generating that specific behavior. In human

147
00:09:00,280 --> 00:09:04,840
Speaker 1: every culture has had language. Again, not an accident. It's

148
00:09:04,880 --> 00:09:07,200
Speaker 1: because it's wired into our brain. And with the help

149
00:09:07,240 --> 00:09:10,360
Speaker 1: of neuroscience, we now know about the Wernicke's area in

150
00:09:10,400 --> 00:09:14,000
Speaker 1: the broken area and the angular gyrus, parts of the

151
00:09:14,080 --> 00:09:17,760
Speaker 1: brain that are specific to our language capacities. If you

152
00:09:17,920 --> 00:09:20,440
Speaker 1: damage one of those parts, you'll suffer what's called a

153
00:09:20,520 --> 00:09:24,240
Speaker 1: linguistic of phasia, a loss of an impairment to some

154
00:09:24,360 --> 00:09:27,880
Speaker 1: aspect of your ability to either comprehend language or to

155
00:09:27,920 --> 00:09:32,480
Speaker 1: communicate it. So I suddenly realize. One could apply that

156
00:09:32,640 --> 00:09:36,359
Speaker 1: to the fact that every human culture, no matter how isolated,

157
00:09:36,440 --> 00:09:41,240
Speaker 1: has believed in some form of a spiritual reality, suggesting

158
00:09:41,280 --> 00:09:45,439
Speaker 1: that humans are genetically predisposed that there we are hardwired,

159
00:09:45,480 --> 00:09:48,400
Speaker 1: that there must be parts of the brain that compel

160
00:09:48,520 --> 00:09:52,960
Speaker 1: us to perceive reality from this particular bend. But if

161
00:09:53,280 --> 00:09:58,520
Speaker 1: we're hardwired, if we're hardwired, though, there are people who

162
00:09:58,640 --> 00:10:03,600
Speaker 1: don't believe a you don't believe what happened to the wiring?

163
00:10:03,679 --> 00:10:07,280
Speaker 1: And you let me refer you to chapter eleven. Why

164
00:10:07,360 --> 00:10:10,760
Speaker 1: are there atheists? Is the chapter in my right? All right?

165
00:10:10,840 --> 00:10:12,800
Speaker 1: And it's and and yeah, and it's a. It's an

166
00:10:12,800 --> 00:10:15,240
Speaker 1: excellent question, so much so that it prompted me to

167
00:10:15,240 --> 00:10:17,360
Speaker 1: write a chapter on it. And I'll give you the

168
00:10:17,400 --> 00:10:19,760
Speaker 1: answer that I came up with. Okay, which is now

169
00:10:19,840 --> 00:10:24,880
Speaker 1: which is now an established part of cognitive science. So

170
00:10:25,960 --> 00:10:29,720
Speaker 1: for every cognitive trait we possess, we form to a

171
00:10:29,760 --> 00:10:32,720
Speaker 1: bell curve for every physical trait that we possess. So

172
00:10:32,760 --> 00:10:35,880
Speaker 1: if you take a population of any given thousand people

173
00:10:36,760 --> 00:10:40,679
Speaker 1: and you measured let's us say some physical characteristic like height,

174
00:10:41,280 --> 00:10:43,280
Speaker 1: you would find that they would form to a bell

175
00:10:43,400 --> 00:10:47,840
Speaker 1: curve that basically the the average person would fall into

176
00:10:47,840 --> 00:10:51,240
Speaker 1: the range of what we would call average height, the

177
00:10:51,360 --> 00:10:54,360
Speaker 1: bell you know, the hump of the bell curve. But

178
00:10:54,480 --> 00:10:57,959
Speaker 1: on the tapering extremes there would be a certain subsection

179
00:10:58,040 --> 00:11:02,160
Speaker 1: of people, a minority on one end who are excessively short,

180
00:11:02,200 --> 00:11:05,199
Speaker 1: and on one end who are excessively tall, taller than

181
00:11:05,240 --> 00:11:07,959
Speaker 1: the mean, shorter than the mean. Well, the same thing

182
00:11:08,240 --> 00:11:13,040
Speaker 1: holds true for cognitive traits. So, for instance, humans are

183
00:11:13,080 --> 00:11:17,880
Speaker 1: a musical animal. We're inherently musical. You go to any

184
00:11:17,920 --> 00:11:20,880
Speaker 1: culture in the world, they will bang on things to

185
00:11:21,000 --> 00:11:27,600
Speaker 1: make music. People will sing. However, it's a cognitive trait

186
00:11:27,760 --> 00:11:31,559
Speaker 1: because of human variation, genetic variants, we all come out

187
00:11:31,600 --> 00:11:34,679
Speaker 1: a little bit different. So if we were to look

188
00:11:34,720 --> 00:11:37,960
Speaker 1: at the bell curve of musicality, we would find that

189
00:11:38,000 --> 00:11:41,320
Speaker 1: the average person possessive what we possesses, what we could

190
00:11:41,360 --> 00:11:46,560
Speaker 1: call average musical potential. And on the tapering extremes, however,

191
00:11:46,600 --> 00:11:50,400
Speaker 1: there's a smaller cross section of individuals from any given

192
00:11:50,480 --> 00:11:54,239
Speaker 1: society who will have either on one end a diminished

193
00:11:54,360 --> 00:11:58,280
Speaker 1: musical capacity. On one end, there people born tone death right,

194
00:11:58,360 --> 00:12:01,199
Speaker 1: and on the other extreme there are people born savants,

195
00:12:01,360 --> 00:12:04,439
Speaker 1: people who from a young age, if you play them

196
00:12:04,440 --> 00:12:07,880
Speaker 1: a Beethoven sonata at age five, they can play it

197
00:12:08,000 --> 00:12:11,439
Speaker 1: note for note, without even having ever taking a piano lesson.

198
00:12:11,679 --> 00:12:16,559
Speaker 1: They can sit right down and go and do it perfectly, exactly.

199
00:12:16,720 --> 00:12:19,640
Speaker 1: And again, on the other extreme, you got people born

200
00:12:19,720 --> 00:12:22,400
Speaker 1: tone deaf. They could have had Beethoven and Mozart as

201
00:12:22,400 --> 00:12:25,199
Speaker 1: their personal tutors, and they'll be lucky if they can

202
00:12:25,240 --> 00:12:30,280
Speaker 1: grow up to sing Happy Birthday. So and I've heard

203
00:12:30,280 --> 00:12:32,160
Speaker 1: of some of them. I've heard some of them try

204
00:12:32,200 --> 00:12:34,880
Speaker 1: to sing that too. I might be one of them.

205
00:12:35,480 --> 00:12:40,640
Speaker 1: I mean a karaoke house, so so yeah, So basically

206
00:12:40,720 --> 00:12:46,600
Speaker 1: I applied that principle to spirituality and religiosity, and found

207
00:12:46,679 --> 00:12:50,440
Speaker 1: that same thing applies that the average human from any

208
00:12:50,480 --> 00:12:55,280
Speaker 1: culture possesses what we would call an average sense of religion,

209
00:12:55,320 --> 00:13:00,440
Speaker 1: an average sense of spirituality, a belief in transcendental beings,

210
00:13:00,520 --> 00:13:04,679
Speaker 1: in a spirit of soul. And on the tapering extremes, however,

211
00:13:04,760 --> 00:13:07,800
Speaker 1: you're gonna have some people who are hyper religious. They're

212
00:13:07,800 --> 00:13:10,839
Speaker 1: gonna be people in every society who are like born

213
00:13:10,920 --> 00:13:13,160
Speaker 1: with the spirit in them, who who can get up

214
00:13:13,160 --> 00:13:16,800
Speaker 1: at the pulpit and from as children, deliver a heartfelt

215
00:13:16,960 --> 00:13:21,120
Speaker 1: sermon about God, about belief, and on the other extreme

216
00:13:21,200 --> 00:13:23,480
Speaker 1: of people who just are like, I don't get it,

217
00:13:23,600 --> 00:13:26,720
Speaker 1: I don't care. I'd rather be out there playing ball

218
00:13:27,120 --> 00:13:29,840
Speaker 1: than sitting in the church listening to this mumbo jumbo.

219
00:13:30,640 --> 00:13:34,120
Speaker 1: So basically, it's, if you know, the solution I came

220
00:13:34,200 --> 00:13:37,760
Speaker 1: up with his genetic variation, that there's a cross section

221
00:13:37,840 --> 00:13:42,440
Speaker 1: of people from every population who just don't care. They

222
00:13:42,440 --> 00:13:47,160
Speaker 1: don't get it, they're not interested. It doesn't appeal to them.

223
00:13:47,480 --> 00:13:50,559
Speaker 1: They'll never understand why some people. And I've had people

224
00:13:50,640 --> 00:13:54,400
Speaker 1: write to me, people who've read my book, who've written

225
00:13:54,440 --> 00:13:56,800
Speaker 1: me things like, you know, thank you so much for

226
00:13:56,880 --> 00:13:59,600
Speaker 1: writing this. You know, I grew up in a religious household.

227
00:14:00,240 --> 00:14:03,400
Speaker 1: I'm in a family with like five other children. Ever

228
00:14:03,480 --> 00:14:05,960
Speaker 1: since I was a child, we would drag it to church.

229
00:14:06,280 --> 00:14:10,200
Speaker 1: My whole family speaks in tongues, you know, they collapse,

230
00:14:10,320 --> 00:14:12,840
Speaker 1: they go into some of the like it looks like

231
00:14:12,880 --> 00:14:15,920
Speaker 1: an epileptic seizure, and my whole life, I looked at

232
00:14:15,920 --> 00:14:18,920
Speaker 1: them and I would kind of almost pretend I felt

233
00:14:19,000 --> 00:14:21,880
Speaker 1: that way, but I was just acting because I never did.

234
00:14:21,960 --> 00:14:24,080
Speaker 1: And then I read your book and I was like, oh,

235
00:14:24,120 --> 00:14:26,560
Speaker 1: I get it. I just don't care. It's not in

236
00:14:26,600 --> 00:14:32,520
Speaker 1: my wiring too. So so anyway, there there's your solution

237
00:14:32,640 --> 00:14:35,960
Speaker 1: for why are there atheists? Chapter eleven in the God

238
00:14:36,040 --> 00:14:39,440
Speaker 1: part of the brain. Is the wiring a natural phenomenon

239
00:14:39,680 --> 00:14:45,400
Speaker 1: or is it a fluke? What might it be? Hm? Again,

240
00:14:45,760 --> 00:14:50,080
Speaker 1: good question. So as I was writing this, I realized,

241
00:14:50,160 --> 00:14:52,120
Speaker 1: all right, you know, I can't just sort of throw

242
00:14:52,160 --> 00:14:55,520
Speaker 1: out this theory without some rationale behind it, because if

243
00:14:55,520 --> 00:14:58,640
Speaker 1: I'm going to be talking about it as an evolutionary adaptation,

244
00:14:59,360 --> 00:15:02,960
Speaker 1: things in nature don't evolve for no reason. You know,

245
00:15:03,080 --> 00:15:07,880
Speaker 1: animals develop a certain coloring to camouflage. It's not an accident.

246
00:15:08,200 --> 00:15:11,640
Speaker 1: It's for a specific reason. You won't have an animal

247
00:15:12,120 --> 00:15:14,880
Speaker 1: you know that lives in a green forest suddenly coming

248
00:15:14,920 --> 00:15:17,920
Speaker 1: out bright red as a means to camouflage. They'll all

249
00:15:17,920 --> 00:15:23,320
Speaker 1: get eaten. Right, So there's there's a reasoning behind how

250
00:15:23,360 --> 00:15:27,720
Speaker 1: how evolution works and how you know, how how environmental

251
00:15:27,800 --> 00:15:30,960
Speaker 1: selectionism works. So it's like, so what was it about

252
00:15:31,080 --> 00:15:35,080
Speaker 1: humans that would have prompted something like this? And as

253
00:15:35,080 --> 00:15:36,800
Speaker 1: I thought about it, I was like, okay, well what

254
00:15:36,920 --> 00:15:40,800
Speaker 1: makes humans unique against all the other creatures? I was like, well,

255
00:15:40,880 --> 00:15:44,240
Speaker 1: We've got music, we've got math, we have language, but

256
00:15:44,360 --> 00:15:48,400
Speaker 1: more than anything, we have self conscious awareness. We're we're

257
00:15:48,400 --> 00:15:53,360
Speaker 1: the first self aware organism. We're the only organism that

258
00:15:53,760 --> 00:15:57,720
Speaker 1: can say I am I exist, And that made us

259
00:15:57,760 --> 00:16:01,720
Speaker 1: the most powerful species on earth because unlike any other animal,

260
00:16:02,240 --> 00:16:06,120
Speaker 1: for instance, if it gets cold, whereas other animals either

261
00:16:06,160 --> 00:16:08,560
Speaker 1: have to huddle into a cut you into a cave,

262
00:16:09,120 --> 00:16:11,880
Speaker 1: or if as a real shift in the environment, have

263
00:16:12,000 --> 00:16:14,920
Speaker 1: to wait millions of years to evolve a thicker code

264
00:16:14,960 --> 00:16:17,920
Speaker 1: of fur, humans can say I am cold, and we

265
00:16:17,960 --> 00:16:20,200
Speaker 1: can sew ourselves a code of fur in an hour,

266
00:16:20,600 --> 00:16:25,040
Speaker 1: that's right. Or build a house with a fireplace or something,

267
00:16:25,160 --> 00:16:28,400
Speaker 1: or build wings if we think it might be advantageous

268
00:16:28,400 --> 00:16:30,640
Speaker 1: to fly, we don't have to sit back and wait

269
00:16:30,960 --> 00:16:35,280
Speaker 1: to evolve wings. We can build them for ourselves. So,

270
00:16:35,320 --> 00:16:38,680
Speaker 1: as a result of self conscious awareness, humans have the

271
00:16:38,720 --> 00:16:42,960
Speaker 1: power of self modification. Listen to more Coast to Coast

272
00:16:42,960 --> 00:16:46,680
Speaker 1: am every weeknight at one am Eastern, and go to

273
00:16:46,720 --> 00:16:48,800
Speaker 1: Coast to Coast am dot com for more