WEBVTT - More Religion and Conspiracy Theories (with Drew McCoy) 0:00:01.880 --> 0:00:05.000 I'm John Cipher and I'm Jerry O'Shea. I was a 0:00:05.000 --> 0:00:08.360 CIA officer stationed around the world in high threat posts 0:00:08.360 --> 0:00:10.080 in Europe, Russia, and in Asia. 0:00:10.119 --> 0:00:13.200 And I served in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East 0:00:13.280 --> 0:00:17.360 and in war zones. We sometimes created conspiracies to deceive 0:00:17.400 --> 0:00:18.360 our adversaries. 0:00:18.600 --> 0:00:22.280 Now we're going to use our expertise to deconstruct conspiracy 0:00:22.320 --> 0:00:24.079 theories large and small. 0:00:24.360 --> 0:00:25.240 Could they be true? 0:00:25.520 --> 0:00:26.800 Or are we being manipulated? 0:00:27.320 --> 0:00:29.400 This is mission implausible. 0:00:31.800 --> 0:00:34.479 This is part two of our interview with Adam's friend 0:00:34.560 --> 0:00:37.600 Drew McCoy. Drew McCoy as a host of the podcast 0:00:37.880 --> 0:00:42.040 Genetically Modified Skeptic. Last week we were discussing the overlap 0:00:42.159 --> 0:00:45.919 between religion and conspiratorial thinking. So let's pick up where 0:00:45.920 --> 0:00:47.520 we left off for part two. 0:00:48.560 --> 0:00:50.959 I got a not a long PERI Rasia. I got 0:00:50.960 --> 0:00:54.760 a question for you. How do you view the conflation 0:00:55.040 --> 0:00:59.760 now between the Trumpest movement and evangelicals where Trump himself 0:00:59.880 --> 0:01:03.320 is fulfilling biblical prophecies according to some people, right, so 0:01:03.680 --> 0:01:06.200 this itself is a conspiracy theory that Trump is not 0:01:06.440 --> 0:01:09.520 if he plays in his own realizes this thing that 0:01:09.959 --> 0:01:12.959 the world is screwed up in God sent Trump. He 0:01:13.040 --> 0:01:15.280 plays this himself, and he plays into this. How do 0:01:15.360 --> 0:01:19.319 you view that the sort of the religiousification of trump Ism. 0:01:19.520 --> 0:01:23.640 Well, Trump is a populist, right, so he's saying that 0:01:23.680 --> 0:01:27.680 there's this big conspiracy against him, against the common man. 0:01:28.120 --> 0:01:30.840 They need to drain the swamp, they need to abolish 0:01:30.920 --> 0:01:33.520 the deep state, all of these things. And this just 0:01:33.760 --> 0:01:36.280 has a hand in hand relationship with pre existing pre 0:01:36.400 --> 0:01:41.840 Trump Evangelical Christian theology. We believe that the world was 0:01:42.080 --> 0:01:45.880 ruled by the prince of this world, Satan. That's something 0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:48.440 that I was raised to believe and is to be 0:01:48.560 --> 0:01:53.280 sold this idea that, oh, all of my political opponents, 0:01:53.320 --> 0:01:55.680 everyone that's against the Trump brand is just a part 0:01:55.680 --> 0:01:58.280 of the deep state, a part of a Satanic conspiracy theory. 0:01:58.760 --> 0:02:01.160 It's the most natural thing in the world. It's the 0:02:01.320 --> 0:02:04.680 easiest thing to possibly see coming if you grew up 0:02:04.720 --> 0:02:05.919 in the evangelical world. 0:02:06.280 --> 0:02:08.040 I think for those of us not in the world, 0:02:08.120 --> 0:02:10.120 it's one of the great puzzles of our age, Like, 0:02:10.200 --> 0:02:13.680 how is it possible that these people who got so 0:02:13.960 --> 0:02:21.320 outraged by Bill Clinton's now almost quaintctions a blowjob could 0:02:21.400 --> 0:02:25.959 embrace this theatrically libertine. I mean the only way he 0:02:26.080 --> 0:02:29.400 describes himself is as immoral, I mean literally playing with 0:02:30.080 --> 0:02:34.400 the ideas of incest and constant sexual immorality. So for 0:02:34.800 --> 0:02:38.440 I think, for us outside, it just seems utterly confounding. 0:02:38.480 --> 0:02:40.200 It just makes no sense. But you're saying, for you, 0:02:40.280 --> 0:02:43.760 it's there's no mystery, it's just obvious. Yeah. 0:02:43.919 --> 0:02:45.720 I think a lot of people from the outside see 0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:48.960 Christianity and religion in general is nothing more than a 0:02:49.200 --> 0:02:52.400 moral framework, and the moral framework of any given religion 0:02:52.680 --> 0:02:57.280 is usually very important and somewhat central. But people from 0:02:57.360 --> 0:03:01.120 the outside looking into something like evangelical as will not 0:03:01.400 --> 0:03:06.440 see the narrative framework, the interpretive framework for just everyday 0:03:06.480 --> 0:03:11.079 life that occurs in these circles. So while yes, evangelicals 0:03:11.080 --> 0:03:15.280 are very puritanical about sex and drugs and to a 0:03:15.280 --> 0:03:20.440 certain extent, alcohol, certainly they don't approve of making sexually 0:03:20.440 --> 0:03:24.000 suggestive comments about your own children, that's for sure. They 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:30.440 do see a deeply dualistic reality in everything, and when 0:03:30.440 --> 0:03:34.680 someone comes along and says that they represent pure good 0:03:34.800 --> 0:03:39.280 fighting pure evil, that's a pretty strong selling point, especially 0:03:39.320 --> 0:03:44.040 when you are able to hit on points like bureaucracy 0:03:44.200 --> 0:03:48.280 itself is flooded with people who are fundamentally evil, which 0:03:48.320 --> 0:03:52.920 is like a subplot in the evangelical Christian narrative. So 0:03:53.280 --> 0:03:55.480 we really can't get hung up too much on just 0:03:55.640 --> 0:04:00.280 thinking of anything within religion, anything within evangelicalism, as just 0:04:00.600 --> 0:04:02.600 some kind of moral framework for people to follow. We 0:04:02.680 --> 0:04:05.000 have to look at the stories, the myths, the legends 0:04:05.000 --> 0:04:07.119 that they tell themselves in everyday life that they teach 0:04:07.200 --> 0:04:07.760 their children. 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:10.600 But if someone like Biden had done the same myths 0:04:10.600 --> 0:04:12.880 and said, you know, I'm finding evil, would that have worked. 0:04:12.920 --> 0:04:15.040 It seems to me that it already fits into a 0:04:15.160 --> 0:04:16.360 narrative of right wing. 0:04:16.480 --> 0:04:19.560 It's really hard to say. I do think that Biden 0:04:19.640 --> 0:04:23.000 probably would have had a harder time going against somebody 0:04:23.040 --> 0:04:26.400 who does not have any prior affiliation with the Catholic Church. 0:04:26.960 --> 0:04:30.799 The evangelical vote used to be quite anti Catholic. Now 0:04:30.839 --> 0:04:34.200 it's getting a lot more ecumenical. In order to vote 0:04:34.200 --> 0:04:36.960 for someone like Trump, in order to support people like 0:04:37.160 --> 0:04:39.719 pundits like Matt Walsh and Michael Knowles who are Catholic, 0:04:39.920 --> 0:04:42.719 it's got to become more ecumenical. But I think that 0:04:42.839 --> 0:04:46.600 if you were to put two candidates in opposite opposition 0:04:46.680 --> 0:04:49.640 to each other, all things being equal, except for one 0:04:49.720 --> 0:04:53.520 having more of a Protestant background, like Trump, arguably versus 0:04:53.640 --> 0:04:57.080 Joe Biden, who's a long time Catholic. I would see 0:04:57.279 --> 0:05:00.599 the person with more of a Protestant background probably out. 0:05:00.800 --> 0:05:04.240 On the ecumenical part on gob Smith, that someone like 0:05:04.320 --> 0:05:09.200 Tulci Giebert, someone who belongs to a breakaway Hari Krishna 0:05:09.440 --> 0:05:13.680 sect that believes that this guy Chris Butler is the 0:05:13.880 --> 0:05:18.440 literal word of God on earth and must be obeyed. 0:05:19.080 --> 0:05:23.279 And someone like this running in charge of CIA and 0:05:23.320 --> 0:05:28.520 the US intelligence community. I'm shocked that the evangelical community 0:05:28.560 --> 0:05:31.240 is like fine with it, and it seems to me 0:05:31.839 --> 0:05:35.320 that almost the Great Man is more important than anything. 0:05:35.800 --> 0:05:38.479 I also want to ask how you escaped from that mindset. 0:05:38.560 --> 0:05:40.200 I mean, everything we talked about on this show. I 0:05:40.240 --> 0:05:43.600 was looking at some statistics. Twenty seven percent of evangelical 0:05:43.680 --> 0:05:48.240 Christians believe QAnon is mostly true, highest group by far, 0:05:48.360 --> 0:05:52.600 I think, double any other group. Over sixty percent believe 0:05:52.720 --> 0:05:56.200 that the election was stolen. In twenty twenty, fifty five 0:05:56.200 --> 0:05:59.480 percent believed that there's a deep state that you guys 0:05:59.520 --> 0:06:05.080 are representatives of that is controlling outcome. So that doesn't 0:06:05.120 --> 0:06:08.039 feel like a very practical political project that we just 0:06:08.080 --> 0:06:11.320 have to take fifty five percent of evangelical Christians and 0:06:11.360 --> 0:06:13.960 get them to no longer be evangelical Christians, which we 0:06:14.000 --> 0:06:16.039 don't want to do in and of itself. It's just 0:06:16.120 --> 0:06:18.080 how do you break the conspiracy theory? 0:06:18.440 --> 0:06:21.360 I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that. I don't 0:06:21.480 --> 0:06:25.479 think that when it comes to evangelicals and conspiracy theories, 0:06:25.839 --> 0:06:28.760 that the call is only coming from inside the house 0:06:28.960 --> 0:06:34.040 at this point. I think that the evangelical conspiracy mill, 0:06:34.560 --> 0:06:38.680 the circling the wagons to protect religious identity infrastructure that's 0:06:38.720 --> 0:06:43.200 in place, is the only thing that is producing conspiracy theories. 0:06:43.240 --> 0:06:47.159 I think that the fact that evangelicals have harved a 0:06:47.320 --> 0:06:51.520 path in American society so strongly of working with governments 0:06:51.680 --> 0:06:54.760 ken Ham's Ark encounter, being able to work with local 0:06:54.760 --> 0:06:57.640 governments in Kentucky in order to get taxpayer dollars to 0:06:57.760 --> 0:07:01.680 support his mission of building a Noah's Ark based theme 0:07:01.760 --> 0:07:05.520 park for fundamentalist Christians, his project of getting DVDs that 0:07:05.880 --> 0:07:09.600 talk about creation quote science and sending them to schools 0:07:09.640 --> 0:07:13.680 to be actually used a science curriculum. That path having 0:07:13.720 --> 0:07:17.600 been carved in American society means that kind of morally 0:07:17.640 --> 0:07:20.400 flexible grifters who don't care about religion, they don't care 0:07:20.400 --> 0:07:23.760 about the Gospel or anything like this, can just jump 0:07:23.800 --> 0:07:27.080 directly in that path that's already been carved. They can 0:07:27.120 --> 0:07:29.480 copy it, and then they can also prey on an 0:07:29.520 --> 0:07:33.280 audience that has been psychologically primed to accept conspiracy theories 0:07:33.640 --> 0:07:36.440 when it comes to something like QAnon. I don't think 0:07:36.560 --> 0:07:39.840 that it is the most devout of evangelicals that are 0:07:39.880 --> 0:07:43.400 actually taking that up. I think it's people who identify 0:07:43.560 --> 0:07:47.760 as evangelical, yes, and maybe we're primed to accept things 0:07:47.760 --> 0:07:50.960 like conspiracy theories, But I don't think that it's people 0:07:51.040 --> 0:07:54.920 who are in church super regularly, who are really integrated 0:07:54.920 --> 0:07:57.880 into religious community and this sort of thing, you know, 0:07:58.040 --> 0:08:02.480 strong enmeshment in religious life, that are the strongest believers 0:08:02.520 --> 0:08:05.720 in q If you can indulge me in a little 0:08:05.760 --> 0:08:09.640 bit of analysis of some of the psychological components of 0:08:09.640 --> 0:08:13.280 a person who accepts conspiracy theories, if we look at 0:08:13.320 --> 0:08:16.280 the research that we've seen some psychologists do in the past, 0:08:16.920 --> 0:08:20.040 had to twenty years or so. This is I'm sourcing 0:08:20.040 --> 0:08:23.560 this from American studies scholar Peter Knight. He said that 0:08:23.680 --> 0:08:27.040 psychologists have developed an ever more detailed picture of what 0:08:27.080 --> 0:08:30.920 we call the conspiratorial mind. They found correlations between conspiracy 0:08:30.960 --> 0:08:36.760 thinking and personality traits such as paranoia, narcissism, suspiciousness, and cynicism, 0:08:36.800 --> 0:08:41.800 as well as feelings of alienation it's a really important one. Uncertainty, powerlessness, 0:08:41.840 --> 0:08:45.440 that's a really important one. Anxiety and loss of control 0:08:45.679 --> 0:08:49.080 another important one. If we look at the people who 0:08:49.120 --> 0:08:54.000 attend church and are the most enmeshed in evangelical communities, 0:08:54.520 --> 0:08:58.520 these are not poor lonely people. Actually people who go 0:08:58.679 --> 0:09:02.600 to evangelical church, which more often people that go weekly, 0:09:03.200 --> 0:09:06.760 are actually the folks that tend to have more money 0:09:06.920 --> 0:09:10.520 and more power and are just have more stable lives 0:09:10.520 --> 0:09:14.760 in general. So per Ryan Burge, as one becomes more educated, 0:09:14.840 --> 0:09:18.120 the less likely they are as an evangelical to be 0:09:18.280 --> 0:09:23.199 someone who rarely or seldom or never attends church. Now, 0:09:23.200 --> 0:09:25.560 the same is true of income. The richer you get, 0:09:25.640 --> 0:09:30.480 the more likely you are of being a regularly attending evangelical. 0:09:31.160 --> 0:09:34.360 So I think that we need to consider the idea 0:09:34.800 --> 0:09:38.600 that maybe people who are horror people who are not 0:09:38.720 --> 0:09:43.320 in Meshan religious communities that identify as evangelicals might be 0:09:43.360 --> 0:09:45.800 the people who are most up for grabs for like 0:09:45.920 --> 0:09:50.680 morally flexible grifters who pretend to be evangelicals, people like 0:09:50.760 --> 0:09:56.040 Q to gain power to manipulate people. I think that 0:09:56.120 --> 0:10:02.679 it's probably poor, not particularly and meshed lonely people who 0:10:02.720 --> 0:10:07.040 identify as evangelical, who are actually gravitating toward these conspiracies 0:10:07.040 --> 0:10:08.280 in the most extreme way. 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:18.960 Let's take a quick break. We'll be right back, Drew. 0:10:19.120 --> 0:10:22.199 I saw your video about becoming an atheist. I thought 0:10:22.240 --> 0:10:24.920 it was very interesting and very well argued. You've become 0:10:24.920 --> 0:10:27.200 an atheist, obviously there was a community that you were 0:10:27.240 --> 0:10:29.880 in before. What is it that you've kept from your 0:10:29.880 --> 0:10:32.600 past religious belief Have you totally broken from those sort 0:10:32.640 --> 0:10:34.320 of viewer? What is it you still keep even if 0:10:34.320 --> 0:10:36.160 it's not part of a specific religion. 0:10:36.320 --> 0:10:38.400 I do think that I've kept a certain amount of 0:10:38.400 --> 0:10:42.400 the Protestant Christian moral framework. I like to think that 0:10:42.480 --> 0:10:45.040 I'm not as prone to conspiracy theories, but I guess 0:10:45.080 --> 0:10:48.640 maybe that's not entirely for the individual to judge. Always, 0:10:49.360 --> 0:10:55.400 I still cite certain teachings of both the Apostle Paul 0:10:55.559 --> 0:11:00.240 and Jesus as not the moral foundations for my kind 0:11:00.240 --> 0:11:04.520 of moral ideology, but the catalysts or the impetus for 0:11:04.800 --> 0:11:08.280 the moral foundations that I do have. So if you 0:11:08.280 --> 0:11:11.320 look at the story of the Good Samaritan, you know 0:11:11.480 --> 0:11:15.200 found in the Gospel of Luke, there's this idea of 0:11:15.640 --> 0:11:19.199 that you should love and support your neighbor, that you 0:11:19.200 --> 0:11:23.080 should show them kindness, you should express altruism to people 0:11:23.080 --> 0:11:26.120 who are not in your in group, and in fact 0:11:26.440 --> 0:11:29.760 that the ability to do this maybe is the truest 0:11:29.760 --> 0:11:36.640 indication of moral righteousness, or at least centeredness. And that 0:11:36.760 --> 0:11:41.400 is something that I think that very parables focused Protestant 0:11:41.480 --> 0:11:44.640 Christians actually are pretty good at teaching their kids a 0:11:44.720 --> 0:11:46.560 lot of the time. I like to think that my 0:11:46.600 --> 0:11:48.560 parents did a good job of teaching me that kind 0:11:48.640 --> 0:11:51.520 of thing. I definitely credit them for that. I don't 0:11:51.559 --> 0:11:55.040 think that people like my parents, Evangelical Christians who are 0:11:55.120 --> 0:11:58.840 very conspiratorial, do a particularly good job of actually acting 0:11:59.040 --> 0:12:02.000 upon the things they've taught their children. I see myself 0:12:02.040 --> 0:12:05.960 as representative of kind of a generation of Evangelicals who 0:12:06.800 --> 0:12:11.720 took to the moral teachings of Jesus, and we ran 0:12:11.800 --> 0:12:14.360 with them so hard that we ran up against the 0:12:14.440 --> 0:12:19.400 church communities that we saw as betraying them. So in 0:12:19.440 --> 0:12:23.160 a way. I think that becoming an atheist morally speaking, 0:12:23.400 --> 0:12:26.360 was one of the most Christian decisions I have ever made. 0:12:26.920 --> 0:12:30.600 I was taught about discernment, about moral purity, and in 0:12:30.720 --> 0:12:33.560 order to abide by what I thought was right, both 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:37.439 morally and philosophically and scientifically, I had to get out 0:12:37.480 --> 0:12:39.640 of the church community and be something else. 0:12:40.200 --> 0:12:43.360 Was there a damascene moment or cascade of events where 0:12:43.400 --> 0:12:46.880 you woke up one morning and like, yeah, I don't 0:12:46.920 --> 0:12:47.880 believe anymore. 0:12:48.320 --> 0:12:54.560 I describe my exodus from Christianity as a set of 0:12:54.600 --> 0:12:59.839 dominoes falling, and the first domino fell, and then after 0:13:00.080 --> 0:13:03.720 or maybe years, another domino fell, and with every domino 0:13:04.200 --> 0:13:07.920 there's an acceleration of these dominoes falling, and eventually, within 0:13:08.360 --> 0:13:11.560 a period of just a few months, which was right 0:13:11.600 --> 0:13:15.120 around the time when I was graduating from college, most 0:13:15.120 --> 0:13:18.480 of the dominoes started to fall. So it started with 0:13:18.559 --> 0:13:22.280 me really questioning the creation narrative that I was taught, 0:13:22.360 --> 0:13:27.040 and then eventually going into grad school and studying human sexuality. 0:13:27.440 --> 0:13:30.599 It was the moral narrative that homosexuality was an abomination, 0:13:30.880 --> 0:13:33.120 even though, as far as I could tell, trying to 0:13:33.200 --> 0:13:37.120 suppress someone's sexual orientation is actually extremely harmful for them. 0:13:37.280 --> 0:13:40.160 And eventually, you know, that led me to just fundamentally 0:13:40.240 --> 0:13:43.640 questioning the nature of God in existence and of the supernatural. 0:13:44.080 --> 0:13:47.520 And I got to the point again over a matter 0:13:47.559 --> 0:13:52.840 of years of slow deliberation and contemplation into a period 0:13:52.960 --> 0:13:55.680 of a few months, I would say about four months 0:13:55.720 --> 0:14:01.679 of really extremely intense philosophical moral delay liberation that led 0:14:01.720 --> 0:14:05.120 me out of identifying as a Christian. The silver lining 0:14:05.240 --> 0:14:08.520 to the awful experience was that I didn't feel bad 0:14:08.640 --> 0:14:11.640 about finally reading all of the educational books that I 0:14:11.679 --> 0:14:15.080 knew existed but I thought were wrong somehow. So me 0:14:15.160 --> 0:14:17.320 actually being able to read something like the Origin of 0:14:17.320 --> 0:14:20.640 the Species rather than just hearing about it was an 0:14:20.640 --> 0:14:24.960 ecstatic experience for me. But there is only so much 0:14:25.400 --> 0:14:30.800 reading of old, stuffy science books that can distract you 0:14:31.000 --> 0:14:36.200 from social suicide. It was nearly complete social suicide in 0:14:36.240 --> 0:14:38.640 a lot of ways. The reason I started my YouTube 0:14:38.720 --> 0:14:41.480 channel was so that I could vent about all of 0:14:41.480 --> 0:14:44.000 the ideas that were going on in my head. But 0:14:44.680 --> 0:14:46.720 I just didn't have anybody to speak to in real 0:14:46.720 --> 0:14:49.520 life about this. My community around me was all evangelical, 0:14:49.560 --> 0:14:51.520 so I had to go online to talk about it, 0:14:51.840 --> 0:14:56.240 and through that venture things absolutely have gotten better. But 0:14:56.520 --> 0:15:00.000 leaving evangelical circles is, especially when you're going to become 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:04.160 an atheist, is extremely difficult. It sucks for sure. 0:15:05.000 --> 0:15:09.280 There's a parallel in the intelligence community. So historically, some 0:15:09.320 --> 0:15:13.160 of our best agents, people who've spied for SAA were 0:15:13.480 --> 0:15:17.000 true believers in their own systems or their own ideologies 0:15:17.520 --> 0:15:21.240 and the union. They believed in communism. They were some 0:15:21.280 --> 0:15:25.800 of the stars, the best and brightest, and then, almost 0:15:25.840 --> 0:15:29.720 mirroring your own set of experiences, they realized that they 0:15:29.800 --> 0:15:33.360 had been either been had or that try as they might, 0:15:33.640 --> 0:15:37.560 they simply couldn't believe the force of logic and events 0:15:37.560 --> 0:15:41.200 and what they saw led them to break at least internally. 0:15:41.720 --> 0:15:45.360 But they couldn't open a YouTube channel to tell the truth. Instead, 0:15:45.440 --> 0:15:48.520 they would look up someone like John and say, I 0:15:48.600 --> 0:15:50.720 just can't live with myself. I need someone to talk 0:15:50.800 --> 0:15:53.280 to I need to say what I really think, And 0:15:53.320 --> 0:15:55.359 then that flipped off into espionage. 0:15:55.640 --> 0:15:55.920 Yeah. 0:15:56.080 --> 0:16:00.440 I started my channel as a way to help myself 0:16:00.720 --> 0:16:03.800 to vent when I was in a really difficult social situation, 0:16:04.480 --> 0:16:07.000 but eventually the channel became a way to try to 0:16:07.000 --> 0:16:10.280 help other people. I started getting a lot of messages 0:16:10.640 --> 0:16:15.440 a few months in that said things like I'm desperately alone, 0:16:16.120 --> 0:16:20.320 no one supports me. I've never heard anyone say the 0:16:20.360 --> 0:16:26.040 things that you're saying without being heavily criticized or punished, essentially, 0:16:26.600 --> 0:16:28.720 And I just want you to know how therapeutic it 0:16:28.760 --> 0:16:31.680 is for me to know that someone like you even 0:16:31.760 --> 0:16:35.080 exists at all. And these people, these are Americans, people 0:16:35.200 --> 0:16:38.560 in a country with freedom of religion, telling me that 0:16:38.720 --> 0:16:43.040 what I'm saying sounds like something that has been horribly 0:16:43.080 --> 0:16:47.360 suppressed and that you would suffer horrible consequences for saying. Eventually, 0:16:47.440 --> 0:16:49.600 I even started getting some messages where people were saying 0:16:49.640 --> 0:16:53.640 that just consuming my content and knowing that someone like 0:16:53.680 --> 0:16:57.640 me existed helped the person decide against ending their lives. 0:16:58.240 --> 0:17:02.040 And it's it's a honestly, it's a relatable experience. 0:17:02.120 --> 0:17:02.280 You know. 0:17:02.320 --> 0:17:04.880 When I opened that up and read it, I wasn't 0:17:04.920 --> 0:17:08.280 actually very shocked that someone would say that. I was 0:17:08.320 --> 0:17:12.000 maybe surprised that my little YouTube videos made that kind 0:17:12.040 --> 0:17:14.240 of an impact, but I wasn't surprised the person was 0:17:14.280 --> 0:17:16.200 going through that not at all as. 0:17:16.080 --> 0:17:19.280 A CIA off. So one of the most moving episodes 0:17:19.320 --> 0:17:22.440 for me was in the third world country. I'm sitting 0:17:22.480 --> 0:17:24.520 at a bar. I have gotten to know this North 0:17:24.600 --> 0:17:28.080 Korean and he's had his third drink and we're building 0:17:28.119 --> 0:17:31.560 a genuine friendship and he like pulps hard and he 0:17:31.640 --> 0:17:33.760 looks at me. He looks, looks over both of his 0:17:33.800 --> 0:17:37.800 shoulders and he says, I don't really love the great leader. 0:17:38.200 --> 0:17:40.639 And it was like what he said is a death 0:17:40.680 --> 0:17:44.560 sentence if he'd sent this to his mother, anybody he loved. 0:17:44.800 --> 0:17:48.080 And yet sitting across from someone, it was like, I 0:17:48.119 --> 0:17:51.400 can say this, I'm gonna I'm safe here, And it 0:17:51.440 --> 0:17:55.960 was like extraordinarily difficult and dangerous for him to even 0:17:56.240 --> 0:17:57.520 entertain this idea. 0:17:57.800 --> 0:17:59.399 And because you were drunk, you gave him up. 0:18:00.920 --> 0:18:06.119 Yeah, and demon in the sport. But that was something 0:18:06.200 --> 0:18:10.240 I experienced in Iraq, talking to Iraqis who knew in 0:18:10.280 --> 0:18:13.400 their minds they always hated Saddam. Often they would have 0:18:13.480 --> 0:18:16.360 people in their life they could whisper too, but only 0:18:16.400 --> 0:18:21.040 a small number. But still confronting the post Saddam world 0:18:21.160 --> 0:18:24.920 was really disorienting and figuring out how to talk about 0:18:25.359 --> 0:18:27.840 this kind of defining structure of their lives. I mean, 0:18:27.880 --> 0:18:31.000 I remember I was in Baghdad the day Saddam was caught, 0:18:31.040 --> 0:18:33.440 and then if you remember, they had those videos of 0:18:33.520 --> 0:18:36.160 him looking all disheveled and poking around in his mouth. 0:18:36.200 --> 0:18:38.399 I think that was a huge mistake for the US 0:18:38.480 --> 0:18:41.480 to release those videos because it really I think it 0:18:41.640 --> 0:18:45.199 humiliated iraqis. Like I remember sitting with my translator and 0:18:45.320 --> 0:18:49.000 him just sharing like I hated him, but I had 0:18:49.040 --> 0:18:52.080 a lot of pride that I'm from his country. That 0:18:52.320 --> 0:18:54.840 the core narrative of my life was that this all 0:18:54.920 --> 0:18:59.359 powerful genius with superpowers, like we believed on some level 0:18:59.359 --> 0:19:01.600 that he could see you through the TV and knew 0:19:01.600 --> 0:19:04.560 what you were thinking. And to see him that he's 0:19:04.680 --> 0:19:08.600 just this old foolish man who's being pushed around and humiliated, 0:19:08.680 --> 0:19:13.360 that was unbearable. Even though he hated this guy hated Saddam. 0:19:13.840 --> 0:19:17.840 It sure feels like a more muscular evangelicalism is on 0:19:17.840 --> 0:19:22.040 the upswing right now, and that conspiracy theory belief is 0:19:22.080 --> 0:19:24.960 on the upswing right now. Weirdly, the thing you said 0:19:25.000 --> 0:19:30.200 about how it's lonely isolated folks, it's actually somewhat optimistic 0:19:30.240 --> 0:19:33.159 in that maybe that's an avenue that if people have 0:19:33.200 --> 0:19:36.080 more connection more and again, I don't think we have 0:19:36.080 --> 0:19:38.480 an agenda. We want people to have a different religion, 0:19:39.040 --> 0:19:42.440 but we're not for conspiracy theories like we see them 0:19:42.440 --> 0:19:46.000 as a corrosive part of our political system, and if 0:19:46.080 --> 0:19:48.200 fewer people believe to them, it feels like it would 0:19:48.200 --> 0:19:51.080 be better. So are there things we can do other 0:19:51.160 --> 0:19:53.720 than having a kind of podcast where we mock each 0:19:53.720 --> 0:19:56.439 other a lot and occasionally talk about conspiracy theories. 0:19:56.640 --> 0:20:00.680 From my perspective, a thing that combats radicalization, whether it's 0:20:00.800 --> 0:20:06.760 ideological or believing in conspiracy theories, whatever, is mostly human connection. 0:20:07.640 --> 0:20:11.760 It's a bit counterintuitive to say, but the evangelicals that 0:20:11.840 --> 0:20:15.720 I think are peddling conspiracy theories the most are the 0:20:15.800 --> 0:20:18.240 people who are actually not very involved in the kind 0:20:18.240 --> 0:20:20.520 of religious community in real life. They're just spending time 0:20:20.560 --> 0:20:24.000 in online circles and trying to defend their identities while 0:20:24.040 --> 0:20:28.040 being extremely lonely and cut off from anyone through waxing 0:20:28.119 --> 0:20:31.960 poetic about conspiracy theories on four Chan or something like this. 0:20:32.680 --> 0:20:34.119 I think it'd be better for if those people just 0:20:34.200 --> 0:20:36.639 went to church. To be honest, as an atheist, I 0:20:36.720 --> 0:20:41.480 don't agree with the epistemology within evangelical church or in 0:20:41.520 --> 0:20:45.920 any kind of tradition that affirms supernaturalist ideas. But I think, 0:20:45.960 --> 0:20:49.480 just on a practical level, if people are integrated into 0:20:49.480 --> 0:20:52.080 communities in real life more often than I think that 0:20:52.119 --> 0:20:56.400 the underlying factors that predispose you to conspiracy belief start 0:20:56.440 --> 0:20:59.760 to be eroded away. If people are not in their basements, 0:20:59.880 --> 0:21:03.159 or they're den or something, or on their phones just 0:21:03.480 --> 0:21:06.560 peddling conspiracy theories just to feel something. If instead they're 0:21:06.600 --> 0:21:09.480 in the pew and they're singing about something that makes 0:21:09.520 --> 0:21:12.480 them happy and hanging out with people who like them, 0:21:12.640 --> 0:21:14.600 I think they're less of a danger to people like me. 0:21:15.240 --> 0:21:17.400 You've talked to me about it, I know a bit. 0:21:17.440 --> 0:21:20.159 But what is it like with your family now, Like 0:21:20.240 --> 0:21:22.280 they still have the same beliefs right. 0:21:22.400 --> 0:21:26.560 To a certain degree, My family has the same beliefs. 0:21:26.880 --> 0:21:30.080 My parents raise me independent fundamental Baptist, although they go 0:21:30.119 --> 0:21:34.520 to a Southern Baptist church now, which is really similar. 0:21:34.760 --> 0:21:37.720 But they're not white as dogmatic about kind of the 0:21:37.840 --> 0:21:42.560 literalist younger creationism bit. They're a little bit more interested 0:21:42.600 --> 0:21:47.280 in integrating into American society than fundamentalists, who are basically separatists. 0:21:47.840 --> 0:21:52.200 But through the influence of alternative medicine and anti vax 0:21:52.320 --> 0:21:56.920 conspiracy theories. Some people in my immediate family, on my side, 0:21:56.960 --> 0:21:59.680 not on my wife's side, are anti vaxxers who believe 0:21:59.680 --> 0:22:02.919 in re incarnation. They believe in chakras. 0:22:02.560 --> 0:22:04.399 As fundamentalist Christians well. 0:22:04.280 --> 0:22:08.120 As Evangelical Christians sevangelical Christians. The funny thing is that 0:22:08.200 --> 0:22:11.560 I think because of the priming to accept pseudoscience, they 0:22:11.600 --> 0:22:15.800 actually see things like reincarnation and the chakras and essential 0:22:15.800 --> 0:22:20.480 oils and quantum mysticism as all having a scientific basis, 0:22:20.480 --> 0:22:23.720 so they're not in conflict with Christianity. This is how 0:22:23.760 --> 0:22:26.560 God made the world. He made us having a root 0:22:26.640 --> 0:22:29.679 chakra and the heart chakra and things like this. But 0:22:30.280 --> 0:22:33.720 if you want to receive salvation, the plan is basically 0:22:33.720 --> 0:22:35.800 the same that I grew up with, and the moral 0:22:35.880 --> 0:22:38.120 values that I grew up with are basically the same 0:22:38.160 --> 0:22:40.560 for them as well as the whole We need to 0:22:40.680 --> 0:22:42.520 drain the swamp spiritually speak. 0:22:42.720 --> 0:22:45.040 Since you've moved away from and you become an atheist, 0:22:45.200 --> 0:22:48.200 and you said earlier if following the values is not enough, 0:22:48.240 --> 0:22:50.200 you're going to go to hell. How do you deal 0:22:50.280 --> 0:22:52.159 when you deal with your family, who obviously loves you, 0:22:52.200 --> 0:22:53.960 that they think you're going to hell? Or you would 0:22:53.960 --> 0:22:54.640 think you're going to. 0:22:54.600 --> 0:22:57.480 Hell, I should say. The first thing that I was 0:22:57.520 --> 0:23:00.520 concerned about when I came out to my family as 0:23:00.520 --> 0:23:03.520 an atheist was that my parents were going to think 0:23:03.560 --> 0:23:06.760 I was going to Hell. And I couldn't imagine personally 0:23:07.040 --> 0:23:10.639 having a family member, especially a child, that I thought 0:23:10.720 --> 0:23:12.639 was going to burn in hell for all eternity. We 0:23:12.760 --> 0:23:16.240 believed in a literal lake of fire. Its pretty gnarly stuff, 0:23:16.520 --> 0:23:19.040 and so I didn't want to burden them with that. 0:23:19.240 --> 0:23:21.479 Even if I didn't think that it was true, they 0:23:21.480 --> 0:23:24.240 would think it's true, and that's enough. When I came 0:23:24.240 --> 0:23:27.280 out to them, I asked them straight away. I was like, guys, 0:23:27.280 --> 0:23:29.200 I'm an atheist. Do you think I'm going to Hell? 0:23:29.600 --> 0:23:32.960