1
00:00:00,520 --> 00:00:05,040
Speaker 1: Welcome to our classic episode for this evening. Fellow conspiracy realist,

2
00:00:05,160 --> 00:00:08,640
Speaker 1: We've done it. We're two for oh with accidentally lining

3
00:00:08,720 --> 00:00:13,640
Speaker 1: up classics. Right exactly. Yeah, as our guest super producer

4
00:00:13,840 --> 00:00:17,200
Speaker 1: Dave Coustan called the most recent episode we did on

5
00:00:17,360 --> 00:00:21,079
Speaker 1: the weird origins of Christmas Jesus stuff. Yes, yeah, When

6
00:00:21,200 --> 00:00:25,680
Speaker 1: was Jesus Christ actually born? What role did pre existing

7
00:00:25,960 --> 00:00:30,960
Speaker 1: religious practices play in the modern celebrations and rituals of

8
00:00:31,040 --> 00:00:34,800
Speaker 1: Christianity today? It's a deep question. It's a sensitive subject

9
00:00:34,840 --> 00:00:38,519
Speaker 1: for some people. In this classic episode, we advanced to you,

10
00:00:39,080 --> 00:00:43,400
Speaker 1: fellow listeners, that religious syncretism may be the ultimate conspiracy.

11
00:00:43,920 --> 00:00:48,280
Speaker 2: Mm and guess what. The next classic after this one

12
00:00:49,200 --> 00:00:52,080
Speaker 2: is going to the dark side of all this.

13
00:00:52,440 --> 00:00:55,000
Speaker 1: We're going three for h All right, let's jump.

14
00:00:54,920 --> 00:01:00,480
Speaker 3: In from UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History

15
00:01:00,600 --> 00:01:04,200
Speaker 3: is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now

16
00:01:04,959 --> 00:01:07,120
Speaker 3: or learn this stuff they don't want you to know.

17
00:01:08,040 --> 00:01:12,880
Speaker 3: A production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works.

18
00:01:20,160 --> 00:01:23,000
Speaker 2: Hello, Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt

19
00:01:23,280 --> 00:01:25,320
Speaker 2: nol Is on a musical adventure.

20
00:01:25,560 --> 00:01:28,000
Speaker 1: They call me Ben. We are joined as always with

21
00:01:28,080 --> 00:01:33,560
Speaker 1: our super producer Paul Mission Control decond. Most importantly, you

22
00:01:33,720 --> 00:01:37,400
Speaker 1: are here and that makes this stuff they don't want

23
00:01:37,480 --> 00:01:41,840
Speaker 1: you to know. Matt, as everyone turned into our live

24
00:01:41,920 --> 00:01:47,800
Speaker 1: show has already learned. Congratulations are due to you, my

25
00:01:47,920 --> 00:01:52,720
Speaker 1: old friend. You have made it ten years right, ten

26
00:01:52,800 --> 00:01:53,640
Speaker 1: year anniversary.

27
00:01:53,800 --> 00:01:57,600
Speaker 2: Oh man, it was huge. It was really great, and honestly,

28
00:01:57,720 --> 00:01:58,680
Speaker 2: I couldn't be happier.

29
00:01:59,240 --> 00:02:04,400
Speaker 1: That's fantastic. That's fantastic. Someone also recently asked us, I

30
00:02:04,440 --> 00:02:08,800
Speaker 1: don't know whether you saw this about the age of

31
00:02:08,919 --> 00:02:11,160
Speaker 1: stuff they don't want you to know, going back to

32
00:02:11,200 --> 00:02:12,200
Speaker 1: the YouTube days.

33
00:02:12,840 --> 00:02:16,560
Speaker 2: You know, I think we're ten maybe eleven at this point.

34
00:02:16,639 --> 00:02:18,239
Speaker 1: Are we ten maybe eleven?

35
00:02:18,400 --> 00:02:19,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're in between.

36
00:02:19,639 --> 00:02:24,919
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's crazy. So that means that this show started

37
00:02:24,960 --> 00:02:26,480
Speaker 1: around the time you got married.

38
00:02:26,680 --> 00:02:31,720
Speaker 2: That's right. It was part of my vows, made vowels

39
00:02:31,760 --> 00:02:34,480
Speaker 2: to my wife in to you guys.

40
00:02:34,800 --> 00:02:40,840
Speaker 1: Oh wow, weird. Yep, that explains a lot. I know kidding.

41
00:02:41,000 --> 00:02:46,359
Speaker 1: We are having a great though busy time here at

42
00:02:46,400 --> 00:02:49,320
Speaker 1: the top secret stuff they don't want, you know, studio

43
00:02:50,080 --> 00:02:54,280
Speaker 1: with a publicly available address, because we're traveling a lot.

44
00:02:54,440 --> 00:02:59,919
Speaker 1: We're making some waves and we are still we're still

45
00:03:00,120 --> 00:03:04,400
Speaker 1: delving into new and strange things, at least as far

46
00:03:04,400 --> 00:03:06,840
Speaker 1: as this show is concerned, because one of the new

47
00:03:06,880 --> 00:03:11,280
Speaker 1: and strange things that we're delving into today is a very,

48
00:03:11,360 --> 00:03:15,160
Speaker 1: very old thing. We are delving into the story of

49
00:03:15,400 --> 00:03:23,040
Speaker 1: some of the legitimately oldest conspiracy theories in human history,

50
00:03:23,840 --> 00:03:28,160
Speaker 1: not just written history, not just oral history. The capital

51
00:03:28,360 --> 00:03:32,960
Speaker 1: h whole thing. Today's episode, you see, is about religion

52
00:03:33,280 --> 00:03:36,560
Speaker 1: before the dawn of recorded history. This has been one

53
00:03:36,600 --> 00:03:41,440
Speaker 1: of humanity's most inspiring, divisive and if we are being

54
00:03:41,520 --> 00:03:44,680
Speaker 1: brutally honest, dangerous debates.

55
00:03:45,120 --> 00:03:48,480
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely. And just to put this out there, as

56
00:03:48,520 --> 00:03:50,680
Speaker 2: we do every time we talk about something like this,

57
00:03:51,200 --> 00:03:53,480
Speaker 2: we at this show will never tell you what to

58
00:03:53,520 --> 00:03:57,240
Speaker 2: believe or what not to believe. That is your own thing.

59
00:03:57,640 --> 00:04:00,800
Speaker 2: What we will do is discuss lot of these things.

60
00:04:00,840 --> 00:04:03,880
Speaker 2: And Dan, if you're listening and driving to work, that

61
00:04:04,000 --> 00:04:04,560
Speaker 2: means you.

62
00:04:04,960 --> 00:04:09,560
Speaker 1: Oh, that's right, yes, thank you so much, Dan Harmon.

63
00:04:09,720 --> 00:04:13,760
Speaker 1: We do have eyes and ears scattered around various places

64
00:04:13,800 --> 00:04:18,360
Speaker 1: in the English speaking world. We appreciate, we appreciate your time.

65
00:04:18,360 --> 00:04:19,880
Speaker 1: Did you get a chance to listen to that clip?

66
00:04:19,880 --> 00:04:23,360
Speaker 2: Now? I did? I really hope he doesn't feel too

67
00:04:23,440 --> 00:04:27,320
Speaker 2: bad about listening to this show after talking about it openly.

68
00:04:27,720 --> 00:04:31,359
Speaker 1: Well, I want to point out also also, I would

69
00:04:31,480 --> 00:04:35,880
Speaker 1: hope this is abundantly clear to anyone listening to the show.

70
00:04:36,320 --> 00:04:41,880
Speaker 1: We're not Nazis, nor do we identify with or give

71
00:04:42,080 --> 00:04:50,760
Speaker 1: any consideration too categorically, any ideas of racial or religious supremacy.

72
00:04:51,120 --> 00:04:56,320
Speaker 1: That sort of stuff is just the lowest form of thinking,

73
00:04:56,560 --> 00:04:57,440
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Oh?

74
00:04:57,480 --> 00:05:01,360
Speaker 2: Absolutely, But you know with that, With that said, it

75
00:05:01,400 --> 00:05:06,520
Speaker 2: was really cool to to hear our show spoken by

76
00:05:06,600 --> 00:05:09,800
Speaker 2: somebody that you know, we we genuinely appreciate his work,

77
00:05:09,880 --> 00:05:10,719
Speaker 2: so thanks.

78
00:05:10,720 --> 00:05:14,960
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and I respected a brilliant writer and unfailingly

79
00:05:15,200 --> 00:05:19,000
Speaker 1: honest too, which is a rare commodity in these our

80
00:05:19,240 --> 00:05:22,960
Speaker 1: modern days. Here's here's hoping the best we can hope now, Matt,

81
00:05:23,240 --> 00:05:27,159
Speaker 1: is that we do not get ruthlessly lampooned on some

82
00:05:27,400 --> 00:05:29,000
Speaker 1: episode of Frick and Morty.

83
00:05:29,920 --> 00:05:32,400
Speaker 2: Oh or should we hope that?

84
00:05:32,640 --> 00:05:35,120
Speaker 1: Either way? What a what a way to go? And

85
00:05:35,160 --> 00:05:38,440
Speaker 1: I like that. We're also we're also being careful to

86
00:05:38,520 --> 00:05:44,440
Speaker 1: talk about avoiding prejudices and discriminations as we enter into

87
00:05:44,600 --> 00:05:48,400
Speaker 1: one of the most discriminatory and prejudiced parts of the

88
00:05:48,520 --> 00:05:53,080
Speaker 1: human experience, religion. You know what would the what if

89
00:05:53,560 --> 00:05:58,560
Speaker 1: if we were trying to sell religion to some extraterrestrial

90
00:05:58,920 --> 00:06:02,240
Speaker 1: species or someone with somebow never heard of it? The

91
00:06:02,320 --> 00:06:06,200
Speaker 1: taglines are you know, there's a multitude of them, but

92
00:06:06,240 --> 00:06:09,680
Speaker 1: they're also pretty distressing. Again, if we're being honest religion.

93
00:06:10,360 --> 00:06:12,240
Speaker 1: You know, in the byline is a lot of good

94
00:06:12,279 --> 00:06:13,200
Speaker 1: people died.

95
00:06:13,880 --> 00:06:17,359
Speaker 2: And an uncountable number of people have died over the

96
00:06:17,440 --> 00:06:21,880
Speaker 2: years because of persecution by varying sects of religion. But

97
00:06:22,839 --> 00:06:24,800
Speaker 2: you know that doesn't mean it's all bad, right.

98
00:06:24,920 --> 00:06:28,640
Speaker 1: Sure, Yeah, While there is no way to estimate how

99
00:06:28,640 --> 00:06:32,800
Speaker 1: many people have died due to religious conflicts over the

100
00:06:32,839 --> 00:06:35,880
Speaker 1: course of this strange experiment we call the human species,

101
00:06:36,120 --> 00:06:39,200
Speaker 1: there's also no way to estimate how many people have

102
00:06:39,279 --> 00:06:43,960
Speaker 1: been physically saved by another person's religious principles. You know,

103
00:06:44,320 --> 00:06:48,520
Speaker 1: someone has their finger on the button for a bomb

104
00:06:48,640 --> 00:06:51,200
Speaker 1: or their finger on the trigger of a gun, and

105
00:06:51,279 --> 00:06:54,359
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, there's some sort of distant echo

106
00:06:54,760 --> 00:06:59,120
Speaker 1: internal monologue in their heads saying thou shalt not something something,

107
00:06:59,400 --> 00:07:01,400
Speaker 1: and they say, I will not be a force of

108
00:07:01,440 --> 00:07:02,480
Speaker 1: evil today, Or.

109
00:07:02,480 --> 00:07:05,279
Speaker 2: Just by the simple kind words of one person to

110
00:07:05,360 --> 00:07:09,520
Speaker 2: another that saved the life of another, or the giving

111
00:07:09,600 --> 00:07:14,120
Speaker 2: of food or the selflessness that exists in many, if

112
00:07:14,160 --> 00:07:15,240
Speaker 2: not most religions.

113
00:07:15,280 --> 00:07:20,680
Speaker 1: Sure, yeah, in a very real way, spiritual beliefs taught

114
00:07:21,080 --> 00:07:25,600
Speaker 1: empathy to many people. Go, however, knowing that we cannot

115
00:07:25,720 --> 00:07:28,400
Speaker 1: estimate the number of people who died, and we cannot

116
00:07:28,480 --> 00:07:31,640
Speaker 1: estimate the number of people who were saved physically again

117
00:07:31,720 --> 00:07:37,680
Speaker 1: not spiritually, we can sadly and tragically safely assume that

118
00:07:37,720 --> 00:07:40,480
Speaker 1: the number of people who died due to religion far

119
00:07:40,560 --> 00:07:43,480
Speaker 1: outweighs the number of people who are saved to a

120
00:07:43,600 --> 00:07:46,760
Speaker 1: religion so far, you know what I mean? Maybe twenty

121
00:07:46,840 --> 00:07:48,520
Speaker 1: twenty will be the big ear for all of us.

122
00:07:48,680 --> 00:07:54,160
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, we also can't continue without stating the fairly obvious.

123
00:07:54,200 --> 00:07:57,280
Speaker 2: But maybe something we don't think about very often is

124
00:07:57,320 --> 00:08:02,160
Speaker 2: that religion can be used as a a control structure

125
00:08:02,240 --> 00:08:06,360
Speaker 2: for the masses, a control structure for the mind essentially.

126
00:08:06,040 --> 00:08:07,440
Speaker 1: And opiate of the masses.

127
00:08:07,600 --> 00:08:09,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, any quote goes yeah, I mean it can be

128
00:08:10,000 --> 00:08:14,960
Speaker 2: used in those ways if wielded. It's tough to even

129
00:08:14,960 --> 00:08:16,880
Speaker 2: talk about a lot of times, because if wielded by

130
00:08:17,240 --> 00:08:20,480
Speaker 2: an improper power, or by a power or someone with

131
00:08:20,560 --> 00:08:24,360
Speaker 2: intentions to do so, it's possible at least.

132
00:08:24,240 --> 00:08:25,600
Speaker 1: I'm going to say that I'm going to take it

133
00:08:25,640 --> 00:08:27,680
Speaker 1: a little bit further. Maybe what I did for here,

134
00:08:27,720 --> 00:08:32,320
Speaker 1: which is fine, I am going to argue that, at

135
00:08:32,400 --> 00:08:36,920
Speaker 1: least from a social perspective or a sociological perspective, all

136
00:08:37,080 --> 00:08:41,560
Speaker 1: religion is a means of controlling a group of people.

137
00:08:42,200 --> 00:08:46,360
Speaker 1: That doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad way to control

138
00:08:46,480 --> 00:08:49,320
Speaker 1: a group of people, because there are a lot of

139
00:08:49,640 --> 00:08:54,079
Speaker 1: ancient texts that have restrictions or constraints that may seem

140
00:08:55,040 --> 00:08:58,920
Speaker 1: oddly specific right in the modern day, but if you

141
00:08:59,040 --> 00:09:02,400
Speaker 1: look at the time which these were created, a lot

142
00:09:02,440 --> 00:09:05,839
Speaker 1: of them were things like health code concerns, you know

143
00:09:05,880 --> 00:09:08,439
Speaker 1: what I mean. It might say, you know, insert God

144
00:09:08,480 --> 00:09:11,520
Speaker 1: here says not to consume this animal because it's unclean,

145
00:09:11,960 --> 00:09:15,000
Speaker 1: when the reality may have been don't consume this animal

146
00:09:15,080 --> 00:09:17,440
Speaker 1: because it will give you trickonosis or something and you

147
00:09:17,480 --> 00:09:17,960
Speaker 1: will die.

148
00:09:18,200 --> 00:09:18,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know.

149
00:09:19,480 --> 00:09:23,400
Speaker 1: And the same thing with like rules about hey, don't

150
00:09:23,440 --> 00:09:27,600
Speaker 1: sleep with your family members because it's it's what's bad

151
00:09:27,640 --> 00:09:30,360
Speaker 1: for the goose is bad for the gander genetically.

152
00:09:29,880 --> 00:09:32,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, or even something is as simple as you know,

153
00:09:32,280 --> 00:09:34,880
Speaker 2: try not to be jealous of other people, you know,

154
00:09:35,000 --> 00:09:37,400
Speaker 2: like that it's it's a simple idea. But if you

155
00:09:37,400 --> 00:09:41,120
Speaker 2: can encode that in someone, you can probably make society

156
00:09:41,160 --> 00:09:43,559
Speaker 2: a little bit better or at least at large by

157
00:09:43,600 --> 00:09:44,280
Speaker 2: controlling them.

158
00:09:44,679 --> 00:09:50,000
Speaker 1: Agreed. See again, it's it's rules of the road for

159
00:09:50,240 --> 00:09:53,320
Speaker 1: a group to survive. In this show, we're going to

160
00:09:53,360 --> 00:09:56,920
Speaker 1: explore the basics of religion as currently understood from an

161
00:09:56,960 --> 00:10:01,160
Speaker 1: academic and an historical perspective. We are not going to

162
00:10:01,200 --> 00:10:04,480
Speaker 1: make any attempt to proselytize you, and we won't We

163
00:10:04,559 --> 00:10:09,360
Speaker 1: certainly will not try to grade one belief system as

164
00:10:09,640 --> 00:10:14,640
Speaker 1: better or worse than another. We're not qualified, and to

165
00:10:14,679 --> 00:10:17,400
Speaker 1: be honest, there is no one alive or dead who

166
00:10:17,520 --> 00:10:21,240
Speaker 1: was qualified, is qualified, or will be qualified to do so.

167
00:10:21,520 --> 00:10:24,800
Speaker 1: Oh man, I know, I know hyperbole, right, and I

168
00:10:24,800 --> 00:10:27,000
Speaker 1: would be glad to be wrong. If there is someone

169
00:10:27,080 --> 00:10:33,320
Speaker 1: who is genuinely some sort of omniscient religious authority bullieve

170
00:10:33,400 --> 00:10:33,600
Speaker 1: for you.

171
00:10:33,840 --> 00:10:38,040
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure there's at least two people somewhere in

172
00:10:38,080 --> 00:10:40,000
Speaker 2: Arizona that could probably fit that bill.

173
00:10:40,200 --> 00:10:43,559
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, right to us. Please we are a conspiracy

174
00:10:43,720 --> 00:10:48,600
Speaker 1: at iHeartRadio dot com. Instead of doing that, instead of

175
00:10:49,120 --> 00:10:56,120
Speaker 1: you know, lauding one religion or vilifying another, or trying

176
00:10:56,200 --> 00:11:01,160
Speaker 1: to convert you to one of our self manufactured religions.

177
00:11:01,400 --> 00:11:04,600
Speaker 1: We are going to delve headfirst into the one of

178
00:11:04,600 --> 00:11:08,520
Speaker 1: the strangest, longest running conspiracy theories in history, and that

179
00:11:08,720 --> 00:11:14,000
Speaker 1: is the idea of secret religions. Here are the facts.

180
00:11:14,280 --> 00:11:16,559
Speaker 2: Okay, So when we're when we're saying religion, what we're

181
00:11:16,640 --> 00:11:18,400
Speaker 2: really talking about here, we're just going to hit some

182
00:11:18,480 --> 00:11:21,040
Speaker 2: of these basic points, right, sure, religion, we're talking about

183
00:11:21,080 --> 00:11:24,680
Speaker 2: the worship of a god, some kind of supernatural being

184
00:11:25,120 --> 00:11:29,720
Speaker 2: or a pantheon of beings gods in that in that case,

185
00:11:29,960 --> 00:11:32,440
Speaker 2: and in their ability to exert some kind of power

186
00:11:32,600 --> 00:11:36,720
Speaker 2: over humans or or the earth, or some other physical

187
00:11:36,840 --> 00:11:39,400
Speaker 2: aspect that we encounter.

188
00:11:39,440 --> 00:11:42,280
Speaker 1: Or the or your access to the spiritual world.

189
00:11:42,440 --> 00:11:42,840
Speaker 2: Ryes.

190
00:11:42,960 --> 00:11:47,240
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, So the idea there being that there is

191
00:11:48,200 --> 00:11:52,080
Speaker 1: a god of everything, maybe right, a yahweh, or there

192
00:11:52,200 --> 00:11:56,720
Speaker 1: is a god that controls certain aspects of the world,

193
00:11:56,880 --> 00:11:59,400
Speaker 1: right like a hades, right, a.

194
00:11:59,440 --> 00:12:02,319
Speaker 2: God of the world's And that's very general though, because

195
00:12:02,320 --> 00:12:03,880
Speaker 2: that doesn't encompass all.

196
00:12:03,720 --> 00:12:07,480
Speaker 1: Religions, right right, That's the thing, this definition is not

197
00:12:07,800 --> 00:12:11,680
Speaker 1: entirely correct. Not all religions have what we would recognize

198
00:12:11,840 --> 00:12:16,280
Speaker 1: as a supreme deity. Some religions just have precepts like

199
00:12:16,480 --> 00:12:22,400
Speaker 1: don't kill people because it will make things worse for you, right, Yeah,

200
00:12:22,480 --> 00:12:26,240
Speaker 1: and then we have to arrive at a more inclusive definition,

201
00:12:26,360 --> 00:12:29,880
Speaker 1: or maybe more comprehensive definition. If we're trying to fit

202
00:12:29,960 --> 00:12:33,079
Speaker 1: everything that's ever been called a religion into one definition,

203
00:12:33,440 --> 00:12:37,880
Speaker 1: we would say something like all religion is a cultural

204
00:12:37,960 --> 00:12:42,400
Speaker 1: system of practices, traditions, values, and beliefs, often accompanied by

205
00:12:42,400 --> 00:12:47,560
Speaker 1: psychotext locations. I add rituals. That's that's pretty good, because

206
00:12:47,600 --> 00:12:51,720
Speaker 1: it's so damnably broad. Yeah, and this leads us to

207
00:12:52,040 --> 00:12:55,480
Speaker 1: a huge controversy, a controversy that's probably never going to

208
00:12:55,520 --> 00:12:58,599
Speaker 1: be solved even now, even today as you listen to

209
00:12:58,720 --> 00:13:01,600
Speaker 1: this as we record it in twenty nineteen, there is

210
00:13:01,760 --> 00:13:07,480
Speaker 1: no scholarly agreement over what exactly makes something religion. Like,

211
00:13:07,559 --> 00:13:10,480
Speaker 1: think of all the things in the world that are

212
00:13:10,559 --> 00:13:15,840
Speaker 1: not religions but fit that second definition. We're talking about

213
00:13:15,960 --> 00:13:21,160
Speaker 1: some nerd fandom, right, watching the people who get together

214
00:13:21,240 --> 00:13:23,160
Speaker 1: to watch Rocky horror picture show.

215
00:13:23,400 --> 00:13:27,559
Speaker 2: Oh so yeah, some multi level marketing schemes.

216
00:13:27,120 --> 00:13:31,120
Speaker 1: There we go, sports fandom, right, this is what we

217
00:13:31,240 --> 00:13:34,520
Speaker 1: do for our team to increase their chances of getting

218
00:13:34,520 --> 00:13:36,720
Speaker 1: to the super Bowl and people believe in it. I

219
00:13:36,760 --> 00:13:38,520
Speaker 1: gotta wear my green pants or whatever.

220
00:13:38,720 --> 00:13:43,040
Speaker 2: Right, thou shalt not say that certain play whilst in

221
00:13:43,080 --> 00:13:43,440
Speaker 2: a theater.

222
00:13:44,080 --> 00:13:50,640
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly exactly. And now let's exit stage left, pursued

223
00:13:50,679 --> 00:13:54,480
Speaker 1: by a bear to look into the history of religion.

224
00:13:54,559 --> 00:13:58,920
Speaker 1: How did we get to this crazy place where billions

225
00:13:58,920 --> 00:14:03,240
Speaker 1: of people the world are defining their lives and living

226
00:14:03,280 --> 00:14:07,040
Speaker 1: their lives according to something that billions of other people

227
00:14:07,520 --> 00:14:13,880
Speaker 1: think is either misguided or inaccurate or complete hogwash. The

228
00:14:13,920 --> 00:14:18,439
Speaker 1: weird thing is we've been working on this conundrum for

229
00:14:18,520 --> 00:14:24,440
Speaker 1: the longest time. Asking where religion begins is a lot

230
00:14:24,600 --> 00:14:29,960
Speaker 1: like asking who the first person to discover fire was right,

231
00:14:30,320 --> 00:14:33,040
Speaker 1: there's not a clear answer. We're not going to find

232
00:14:33,120 --> 00:14:37,600
Speaker 1: one unless something very surprising happens in today's episode. The

233
00:14:37,640 --> 00:14:40,600
Speaker 1: best we can guess is that again, religion predates the

234
00:14:40,600 --> 00:14:44,600
Speaker 1: written word and recorded history. At first, that sounds impressive,

235
00:14:45,160 --> 00:14:49,920
Speaker 1: but written history only really kicks into gear five thousand

236
00:14:50,000 --> 00:14:52,840
Speaker 1: years ago or so, which is a drop in the bucket.

237
00:14:52,880 --> 00:14:55,800
Speaker 1: It's not a long time. Humans were around way before then,

238
00:14:56,440 --> 00:14:59,880
Speaker 1: it just took us a while to start writing the

239
00:15:00,320 --> 00:15:06,000
Speaker 1: down in full. The oldest known writing currently is a

240
00:15:06,160 --> 00:15:10,120
Speaker 1: limestone tablet. It's called the Kish tablet from Sumer. It's

241
00:15:10,160 --> 00:15:15,000
Speaker 1: around dates backed around thirty five hundred BCE, and it's

242
00:15:15,480 --> 00:15:19,520
Speaker 1: in a weird spot because if you look at it,

243
00:15:18,800 --> 00:15:24,120
Speaker 1: it's pictograms. It's an assemblage of pictograms. But it represents

244
00:15:24,520 --> 00:15:30,480
Speaker 1: a kind of awkward transition from proto writing to syllabic

245
00:15:30,560 --> 00:15:34,200
Speaker 1: writing of what would later be recognized as quinea form.

246
00:15:35,000 --> 00:15:39,160
Speaker 1: Syllabic writing, of course, is the kind of writing that

247
00:15:39,240 --> 00:15:42,560
Speaker 1: you would see English rendered into on a page. Right,

248
00:15:42,960 --> 00:15:46,760
Speaker 1: you have different you have different symbols representing different sounds

249
00:15:46,800 --> 00:15:49,120
Speaker 1: or groups of sounds, and you arrange them into things

250
00:15:49,480 --> 00:15:53,200
Speaker 1: and holy smokes, by golly, by gum. When you pronounce

251
00:15:53,240 --> 00:15:57,000
Speaker 1: those correctly, they make a spell the living language.

252
00:15:57,240 --> 00:15:59,880
Speaker 2: Oh I love where you took that when you said syllabic.

253
00:16:00,320 --> 00:16:02,520
Speaker 2: In my mind, I really was thinking about the art

254
00:16:02,600 --> 00:16:06,720
Speaker 2: of chiseling stone tablets. I apologize that that's where my

255
00:16:06,720 --> 00:16:07,160
Speaker 2: brain went.

256
00:16:07,280 --> 00:16:09,880
Speaker 1: No, but I mean it makes sense too. Can you

257
00:16:09,960 --> 00:16:17,000
Speaker 1: imagine how frustrated the authors and the thinkers of old

258
00:16:17,480 --> 00:16:23,200
Speaker 1: would be with our creative aptitude today. It's so easy

259
00:16:23,240 --> 00:16:25,560
Speaker 1: to write a book today. All you have to do

260
00:16:26,000 --> 00:16:28,800
Speaker 1: is not get distracted you can get a you can

261
00:16:28,800 --> 00:16:31,160
Speaker 1: get a pen and a piece of paper for free,

262
00:16:31,320 --> 00:16:31,920
Speaker 1: pretty much.

263
00:16:32,480 --> 00:16:34,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, but good luck not getting distracted.

264
00:16:34,880 --> 00:16:39,600
Speaker 1: Good luck not getting distracted. Yes, so that's where we are.

265
00:16:40,000 --> 00:16:43,280
Speaker 1: We know this stuff existed forever, and there's some fascinating

266
00:16:43,280 --> 00:16:48,600
Speaker 1: physiological processes at play and the human mind. From everything

267
00:16:48,640 --> 00:16:53,560
Speaker 1: we can find, human beings seem hardwired for these sorts

268
00:16:53,600 --> 00:16:57,520
Speaker 1: of belief structures. And we see this because what we

269
00:16:57,560 --> 00:17:02,720
Speaker 1: would call religion today likely independently in many, many parts

270
00:17:02,720 --> 00:17:06,000
Speaker 1: of the world, and was probably most often tied to

271
00:17:06,119 --> 00:17:14,320
Speaker 1: natural cycles of the earth, right, crops growing, the harvest season, birth, death, winter,

272
00:17:14,760 --> 00:17:17,240
Speaker 1: what time is the sun coming up, when's the eclipse?

273
00:17:17,359 --> 00:17:21,159
Speaker 1: That kind of jazz. And then also in step with

274
00:17:21,240 --> 00:17:25,520
Speaker 1: that veneration and fear of the dead, those who have

275
00:17:25,600 --> 00:17:29,439
Speaker 1: passed beyond, let's weigh that body down with rocks, but

276
00:17:29,560 --> 00:17:32,200
Speaker 1: in a respectful manner so they're not pissed at us later.

277
00:17:32,480 --> 00:17:36,960
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, in those big questions that are endlessen have

278
00:17:37,080 --> 00:17:39,680
Speaker 2: been around forever and probably will never leave us, because

279
00:17:39,720 --> 00:17:43,080
Speaker 2: there may never be a concrete answer of what happens

280
00:17:43,119 --> 00:17:44,360
Speaker 2: to us after we die.

281
00:17:44,600 --> 00:17:51,119
Speaker 1: Right right exactly. We do, however, know the oldest universally

282
00:17:51,119 --> 00:17:55,000
Speaker 1: agreed recorded religion. We have been able to get a

283
00:17:55,040 --> 00:17:57,640
Speaker 1: ballpark sense of where and when that begin.

284
00:17:58,400 --> 00:18:02,280
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, sure. So the old recorded religion goes all

285
00:18:02,320 --> 00:18:05,800
Speaker 2: the way back to Mesopotamia, and a lot of the

286
00:18:05,840 --> 00:18:08,680
Speaker 2: practices that we know about from here likely began as

287
00:18:08,720 --> 00:18:11,199
Speaker 2: the worship of some kind of natural forces, as Ben

288
00:18:11,320 --> 00:18:17,400
Speaker 2: was speaking about earlier, seeking some you know, supernatural intercession

289
00:18:17,520 --> 00:18:20,160
Speaker 2: for crops, I mean, making sure that we have enough

290
00:18:20,160 --> 00:18:22,479
Speaker 2: food to feed all the humans that are around us,

291
00:18:22,520 --> 00:18:25,639
Speaker 2: as well as feed the animals that we need to

292
00:18:25,680 --> 00:18:28,560
Speaker 2: sustain our lives. And also you know, trying to avoid

293
00:18:28,680 --> 00:18:31,960
Speaker 2: some kind of natural disaster that exists within their part

294
00:18:31,960 --> 00:18:34,800
Speaker 2: of the world, to say a tornado or flooding or

295
00:18:34,840 --> 00:18:38,240
Speaker 2: something to that effect. And you know, when you're thinking,

296
00:18:38,760 --> 00:18:41,720
Speaker 2: when you're thinking about the Mesopotamians and what they what

297
00:18:41,720 --> 00:18:44,520
Speaker 2: their beliefs were back then, you have to first start

298
00:18:44,560 --> 00:18:48,440
Speaker 2: with knowing that they were polytheistic, meaning they worshiped several

299
00:18:48,520 --> 00:18:52,959
Speaker 2: major gods and then numerous, well thousands at least of

300
00:18:53,200 --> 00:18:54,000
Speaker 2: minor gods.

301
00:18:54,400 --> 00:19:01,040
Speaker 1: Mm hmm, yeah, exactly. Each Mesopotamian city, whether Sumerian, Acadian, Babylonian, Assyrian,

302
00:19:01,080 --> 00:19:05,360
Speaker 1: and so on, they not only had the universally recognized

303
00:19:05,400 --> 00:19:09,680
Speaker 1: pantheon of Mesopotamian gods, they also had their own patron

304
00:19:09,800 --> 00:19:15,119
Speaker 1: god or goddess. So for a good analog of this,

305
00:19:15,440 --> 00:19:19,480
Speaker 1: if you're familiar with US cities, imagine, just for the

306
00:19:19,520 --> 00:19:24,200
Speaker 1: sake of argument, the entire country had the same polytheistic religion.

307
00:19:24,840 --> 00:19:29,040
Speaker 1: But in addition to the pantheon that everybody in the

308
00:19:29,040 --> 00:19:34,720
Speaker 1: country agreed upon, each city had its own specific god.

309
00:19:34,800 --> 00:19:39,480
Speaker 1: A god for Los Angeles, a god for Chicago, right right,

310
00:19:39,600 --> 00:19:43,760
Speaker 1: a god for I don't know, Spokane or Syracuse. You know.

311
00:19:44,640 --> 00:19:48,960
Speaker 1: That's the sort of environment in which these people lived,

312
00:19:49,320 --> 00:19:54,840
Speaker 1: and each Mesopotamian era or culture had different aspects, expressions,

313
00:19:54,920 --> 00:19:57,800
Speaker 1: or interpretations of the gods. This is something we see

314
00:19:57,800 --> 00:20:03,359
Speaker 1: again in Greco Roman culture. For instance, Marduk got A

315
00:20:03,440 --> 00:20:07,359
Speaker 1: Babylon for example, was also known in summer, but he

316
00:20:07,480 --> 00:20:12,160
Speaker 1: was Inky or Ea. This practice, this kind of complicated

317
00:20:12,240 --> 00:20:16,200
Speaker 1: cultural exchange, had its heyday from around thirty five hundred

318
00:20:16,240 --> 00:20:18,800
Speaker 1: BCE where we see the Kish tablet, to about four

319
00:20:18,920 --> 00:20:25,000
Speaker 1: hundred AD. At that point, this pre existing religion began

320
00:20:25,080 --> 00:20:28,480
Speaker 1: to be supplanted by Syriac Christianity.

321
00:20:29,240 --> 00:20:33,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the way it gets supplanted is not always

322
00:20:33,560 --> 00:20:37,680
Speaker 2: the most peaceful thing or method. But it is important

323
00:20:37,720 --> 00:20:41,400
Speaker 2: to note that this kind of transitioning, if you're living

324
00:20:41,440 --> 00:20:45,400
Speaker 2: in one space, one area, the transitioning of religion as

325
00:20:45,440 --> 00:20:49,959
Speaker 2: some overlay with that area, it's not rare. It's pretty

326
00:20:50,160 --> 00:20:55,040
Speaker 2: dang common, and most often, like we were saying, it's

327
00:20:55,119 --> 00:20:57,840
Speaker 2: not as though they it's an on off switch, right

328
00:20:58,119 --> 00:21:00,560
Speaker 2: with Let's say, if Buddhism moves in to an area,

329
00:21:00,800 --> 00:21:03,400
Speaker 2: it doesn't just turn over to Buddhism. That's kind of obvious,

330
00:21:03,440 --> 00:21:07,360
Speaker 2: but in our minds sometimes we separate things like that

331
00:21:07,480 --> 00:21:09,600
Speaker 2: just to make it easier, Right, But this is a

332
00:21:09,880 --> 00:21:14,600
Speaker 2: one giant crossfade that occurs when an area is transitioning

333
00:21:14,640 --> 00:21:19,080
Speaker 2: from one religion to the next, and sometimes that belief

334
00:21:19,160 --> 00:21:24,440
Speaker 2: system ends up morphing in becoming something new when it's

335
00:21:24,600 --> 00:21:26,000
Speaker 2: two or more combining.

336
00:21:26,119 --> 00:21:30,000
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, like a brand new package, same great taste,

337
00:21:30,240 --> 00:21:32,920
Speaker 1: you know, if you were buying religions at a grocery store.

338
00:21:33,000 --> 00:21:39,160
Speaker 2: Or maybe same rough package, but the taste is got

339
00:21:39,160 --> 00:21:40,479
Speaker 2: a little extra spice to it.

340
00:21:40,560 --> 00:21:44,120
Speaker 1: There we go, there we go with new ingredients. Yeah,

341
00:21:44,359 --> 00:21:48,200
Speaker 1: so I think that's a more apt comparison that you've

342
00:21:48,280 --> 00:21:51,960
Speaker 1: just made. And this goes to a larger point. It's

343
00:21:52,000 --> 00:21:55,000
Speaker 1: something that I think escapes a lot of us. It

344
00:21:55,000 --> 00:21:58,320
Speaker 1: definitely escaped me when I was a kid in history

345
00:21:58,359 --> 00:22:05,000
Speaker 1: class or you know, reading various dusty tomes. Because of

346
00:22:05,200 --> 00:22:10,879
Speaker 1: the huge, huge disparity between the average human life span

347
00:22:11,680 --> 00:22:14,720
Speaker 1: and the length of time that it takes a global

348
00:22:14,800 --> 00:22:19,400
Speaker 1: or large spread systemic change to occur. Because of that disparity,

349
00:22:20,160 --> 00:22:24,679
Speaker 1: we have a terrible on the ground perspective of what

350
00:22:24,880 --> 00:22:29,160
Speaker 1: history is, how it's happening. It is so incredibly rare

351
00:22:29,760 --> 00:22:34,040
Speaker 1: to be a person or people who can look around

352
00:22:34,359 --> 00:22:37,240
Speaker 1: in the present day, whatever that is, and say, oh,

353
00:22:37,560 --> 00:22:40,960
Speaker 1: this this is a huge event in history. We can

354
00:22:41,000 --> 00:22:43,440
Speaker 1: do it now. I hate to quote Fox News here,

355
00:22:43,480 --> 00:22:45,960
Speaker 1: but now, more than ever, we can be aware of

356
00:22:46,000 --> 00:22:49,760
Speaker 1: those moments because we can communicate on a global scale

357
00:22:49,800 --> 00:22:54,240
Speaker 1: so quickly. Right, people around the world watched the moon landing,

358
00:22:54,520 --> 00:22:57,439
Speaker 1: and everybody kind of got it was a big deal,

359
00:22:57,680 --> 00:23:00,679
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? But four hundred, five hundred,

360
00:23:00,800 --> 00:23:05,359
Speaker 1: six hundred years ago, not to mention even further back,

361
00:23:06,080 --> 00:23:09,520
Speaker 1: if you were living in a town, you would see

362
00:23:09,960 --> 00:23:12,080
Speaker 1: the change of history, or you would see the tide

363
00:23:12,080 --> 00:23:16,879
Speaker 1: of history turn on a slower intergenerational axis. Maybe you

364
00:23:17,320 --> 00:23:24,679
Speaker 1: were raised, for instance, Christian, but your older relatives, who

365
00:23:24,720 --> 00:23:27,560
Speaker 1: maybe said they were also Christian, still had a lot

366
00:23:27,600 --> 00:23:32,040
Speaker 1: of practices and beliefs that were veneration of ancestors or

367
00:23:32,960 --> 00:23:37,480
Speaker 1: worship of a polytheistic assemblage of gods, and so for you,

368
00:23:37,800 --> 00:23:39,879
Speaker 1: that would be the reality. That would be how things

369
00:23:39,920 --> 00:23:43,719
Speaker 1: always were, and then you would die, and then your

370
00:23:43,920 --> 00:23:46,959
Speaker 1: children or your offspring or younger people in your area,

371
00:23:47,640 --> 00:23:50,600
Speaker 1: if the Christian religion was on the rise, they would

372
00:23:50,600 --> 00:23:52,879
Speaker 1: always be Christians, but maybe they would still have a

373
00:23:52,920 --> 00:23:55,439
Speaker 1: couple of traditions that they didn't really understand. You just

374
00:23:55,480 --> 00:23:57,119
Speaker 1: always did that because Grandma did it.

375
00:23:57,200 --> 00:23:59,120
Speaker 2: You know what I mean, Oh you can. I mean

376
00:24:00,080 --> 00:24:02,159
Speaker 2: because we mentioned my wife earlier, I would say that

377
00:24:02,240 --> 00:24:05,119
Speaker 2: there's a lot of that that exists within her families,

378
00:24:05,880 --> 00:24:08,439
Speaker 2: you know, the varying branches of her family, as you

379
00:24:08,480 --> 00:24:11,760
Speaker 2: know Santareaan. Things like that make their way into Catholicism

380
00:24:11,880 --> 00:24:17,639
Speaker 2: as some of those older traditions morph into things that

381
00:24:17,680 --> 00:24:22,959
Speaker 2: you would do for the church. Essentially, it's fascinating.

382
00:24:22,480 --> 00:24:24,680
Speaker 1: And a little bit of foreshadowing here. I like that

383
00:24:24,760 --> 00:24:29,560
Speaker 1: met because this means that some of these practices had

384
00:24:29,560 --> 00:24:35,560
Speaker 1: to continue in secret. They became conspiratorial due to the

385
00:24:35,600 --> 00:24:40,760
Speaker 1: repressive policies of the dominant state governments or religions which

386
00:24:41,680 --> 00:24:45,960
Speaker 1: usually were hand in hand and inseparable. Right, God is

387
00:24:46,000 --> 00:24:50,840
Speaker 1: the King and so on. Somehow, plucky little tykes that

388
00:24:50,920 --> 00:24:56,640
Speaker 1: we are, humanity manages to survive this very strange cyclical practice,

389
00:24:56,680 --> 00:25:01,480
Speaker 1: this battle of ideas and ideology, and it leads us today.

390
00:25:01,880 --> 00:25:04,680
Speaker 1: So what is the state of religion today? As far

391
00:25:04,720 --> 00:25:08,400
Speaker 1: as we understand it. We have some statistics, and we

392
00:25:08,440 --> 00:25:12,320
Speaker 1: have some inspiring news. It turns out that several very

393
00:25:12,400 --> 00:25:18,440
Speaker 1: ancient religions have survived this strange cycle, this strange war

394
00:25:18,600 --> 00:25:22,320
Speaker 1: of ideas, and we'll explore them in depth after a

395
00:25:22,359 --> 00:25:29,439
Speaker 1: word from our sponsors.

396
00:25:30,040 --> 00:25:32,919
Speaker 2: Yes, we're back. And as we were saying, some of

397
00:25:32,960 --> 00:25:37,639
Speaker 2: these quieter religions have survived in the corners of the world,

398
00:25:37,720 --> 00:25:40,200
Speaker 2: in places where you may not expect to find them.

399
00:25:40,640 --> 00:25:43,359
Speaker 2: And we're going to talk as well about some of

400
00:25:43,400 --> 00:25:47,640
Speaker 2: the oldest existing religions where we're going to jump into

401
00:25:47,720 --> 00:25:50,280
Speaker 2: a lot of statistics, as you mentioned right now, about

402
00:25:50,320 --> 00:25:52,840
Speaker 2: what our religious world looks like today.

403
00:25:53,680 --> 00:25:58,040
Speaker 1: Right, So, according to all official sources and even to

404
00:25:59,359 --> 00:26:03,520
Speaker 1: anecdotal stories, you can find in oral traditions. Many ancient

405
00:26:03,560 --> 00:26:07,240
Speaker 1: religions have more or less completely died out. They were

406
00:26:07,280 --> 00:26:10,720
Speaker 1: supplanted by a newer spiritual rival, or they were as

407
00:26:10,720 --> 00:26:14,000
Speaker 1: you as you mentioned earlier, man in or grocery store analogy,

408
00:26:14,160 --> 00:26:18,479
Speaker 1: they were absorbed into a more popular system. It's interesting too,

409
00:26:18,520 --> 00:26:23,480
Speaker 1: when you listen to or you read transcriptions of oral

410
00:26:23,560 --> 00:26:29,399
Speaker 1: retellings and folk tales, because religious wars are sometimes depicted

411
00:26:30,359 --> 00:26:37,520
Speaker 1: not as arguments over ideology or spiritual values. They're depicted

412
00:26:37,560 --> 00:26:42,760
Speaker 1: as wars of survival and attrition against strange people. Right

413
00:26:42,880 --> 00:26:46,240
Speaker 1: like when we did our episode on the people of

414
00:26:46,320 --> 00:26:47,840
Speaker 1: the Steca.

415
00:26:47,880 --> 00:26:48,680
Speaker 2: Right, oh yeah.

416
00:26:49,000 --> 00:26:53,840
Speaker 1: In North America or what's now called North America, they

417
00:26:54,080 --> 00:27:00,840
Speaker 1: the antagonistic people, so called giants Tea, were not depicted

418
00:27:00,960 --> 00:27:08,200
Speaker 1: as people who had a different lifestyle or rich spiritual culture.

419
00:27:08,600 --> 00:27:13,760
Speaker 1: They were just a rival group competing for resources. And

420
00:27:13,800 --> 00:27:18,960
Speaker 1: then later this kind of stuff gets airbrushed, gets the

421
00:27:19,000 --> 00:27:23,080
Speaker 1: made for TV treatment, and then some other community leader

422
00:27:23,160 --> 00:27:26,119
Speaker 1: comes along and says, oh no, no, no, no, no no no.

423
00:27:26,240 --> 00:27:30,919
Speaker 1: I mean, the war wasn't really about fresh water or

424
00:27:30,960 --> 00:27:34,600
Speaker 1: grazing land. It was that our God told us to

425
00:27:34,680 --> 00:27:36,560
Speaker 1: do it, and that's why we did the right thing.

426
00:27:37,200 --> 00:27:41,159
Speaker 2: Yeah, Mara Tuk told us to go over here. We

427
00:27:42,119 --> 00:27:45,920
Speaker 2: Babylonians took over all of this land because we were

428
00:27:46,160 --> 00:27:47,680
Speaker 2: told to right right.

429
00:27:48,240 --> 00:27:51,840
Speaker 1: And I love that you point this out. Because the

430
00:27:52,080 --> 00:27:57,240
Speaker 1: rule is usually that religions will die or be absorbed

431
00:27:57,240 --> 00:28:00,520
Speaker 1: into a different model over time. You will not, for example,

432
00:28:00,960 --> 00:28:05,119
Speaker 1: find a ton of at least publicly accessible temples and

433
00:28:05,240 --> 00:28:12,560
Speaker 1: churches dedicated to worshiping Marduk or Marduk or Marduk.

434
00:28:12,240 --> 00:28:12,960
Speaker 2: Yeah exactly.

435
00:28:13,520 --> 00:28:17,960
Speaker 1: You will, however, find that, despite that, despite that unpleasant fact,

436
00:28:18,359 --> 00:28:24,600
Speaker 1: that many religions of ancient times have enormous staying power

437
00:28:24,680 --> 00:28:29,200
Speaker 1: even today. People will usually say that the oldest known

438
00:28:29,240 --> 00:28:33,679
Speaker 1: existing religion, extant religion is Hinduism. It originated in the

439
00:28:33,720 --> 00:28:38,360
Speaker 1: Indus River Valley part of modern day Pakistan, sometime around

440
00:28:38,520 --> 00:28:43,120
Speaker 1: twenty five hundred BCE, were possibly earlier. And just to

441
00:28:43,160 --> 00:28:45,240
Speaker 1: stop on that point for a second, it's a little

442
00:28:45,240 --> 00:28:49,360
Speaker 1: bit difficult to pinpoint the origin of Hinduism because, unlike

443
00:28:49,400 --> 00:28:53,080
Speaker 1: some other religions, it doesn't have a particular founder that

444
00:28:53,160 --> 00:28:56,960
Speaker 1: one can point to. There's no Ahura Mazda, no Moses, Abraham,

445
00:28:57,080 --> 00:28:59,920
Speaker 1: Jesus and so on. It also doesn't have a scene,

446
00:29:00,960 --> 00:29:05,040
Speaker 1: a Bible, a Torah, a Quran, and this leads scholars

447
00:29:05,080 --> 00:29:08,040
Speaker 1: to conclude that what we call Hinduism today is an

448
00:29:08,080 --> 00:29:12,600
Speaker 1: amalgamation of a great number of pre existing traditions and beliefs.

449
00:29:13,000 --> 00:29:17,160
Speaker 1: The question then becomes how far back to those traditions

450
00:29:17,160 --> 00:29:21,880
Speaker 1: and beliefs? Date is it five thousand years? Is this

451
00:29:21,920 --> 00:29:25,480
Speaker 1: a situation where some of these beliefs and practices predate

452
00:29:25,800 --> 00:29:27,280
Speaker 1: the written word? Yeah?

453
00:29:27,360 --> 00:29:29,880
Speaker 2: Does it go back to the viamanas and back to

454
00:29:29,960 --> 00:29:30,640
Speaker 2: the stars?

455
00:29:31,360 --> 00:29:36,400
Speaker 1: Right? Like? This is a thing that people probably drop

456
00:29:36,480 --> 00:29:40,160
Speaker 1: acid and talk about all the time, But as far

457
00:29:40,200 --> 00:29:44,320
Speaker 1: as proving that, it's very difficult. So we just know

458
00:29:44,440 --> 00:29:48,120
Speaker 1: that at some point around at least twenty five hundred BCE,

459
00:29:48,920 --> 00:29:52,600
Speaker 1: these things all came together into what we call Hinduism.

460
00:29:52,960 --> 00:29:57,760
Speaker 1: The oldest script is the rig Veda, also believed to

461
00:29:57,800 --> 00:30:01,920
Speaker 1: be ancient thousands and thousands years old, and the next

462
00:30:02,040 --> 00:30:05,720
Speaker 1: oldest religion that is still around today is Judaism.

463
00:30:05,880 --> 00:30:10,840
Speaker 2: That's correct. I would like to say that Hinduism did

464
00:30:10,920 --> 00:30:14,800
Speaker 2: something very smart in keeping or having staying power with

465
00:30:14,920 --> 00:30:20,520
Speaker 2: their religion because they invented reincarnation, which meant that everybody

466
00:30:20,600 --> 00:30:26,120
Speaker 2: who's ever worshiped Hinduism made it back here somehow discovered discovered,

467
00:30:26,200 --> 00:30:28,040
Speaker 2: and that, of course is a joke. I do not

468
00:30:28,160 --> 00:30:32,600
Speaker 2: mean to insult anyone's beliefs. Okay, yes, you're absolutely right.

469
00:30:32,600 --> 00:30:37,080
Speaker 2: The next oldest would be Judaism because that it originates

470
00:30:37,080 --> 00:30:40,000
Speaker 2: in the Southern Levant. We talked about that area before,

471
00:30:40,360 --> 00:30:43,840
Speaker 2: and it was founded by the biblical Moses that a

472
00:30:43,920 --> 00:30:47,719
Speaker 2: lot of us do know. But the Jewish history traces

473
00:30:47,760 --> 00:30:51,920
Speaker 2: it back to earlier than Abraham, and the most important

474
00:30:51,960 --> 00:30:54,600
Speaker 2: religious text here was the Torah. Of course, it still

475
00:30:54,640 --> 00:30:57,120
Speaker 2: is the Torah, and it's part of a larger work.

476
00:30:58,240 --> 00:31:03,200
Speaker 1: What is it called the or the Hebrew Bible. You'll

477
00:31:03,240 --> 00:31:07,000
Speaker 1: hear it called as well. And this is interesting because

478
00:31:07,160 --> 00:31:12,840
Speaker 1: similar to Hinduism, you know, there's that there's this official founding,

479
00:31:13,240 --> 00:31:17,680
Speaker 1: right or this official this is Judaism kind of moment.

480
00:31:17,960 --> 00:31:23,880
Speaker 1: But but Jewish history traces back before then, right, yes,

481
00:31:24,280 --> 00:31:27,240
Speaker 1: as a people, and there's a lot of historical work

482
00:31:27,280 --> 00:31:33,600
Speaker 1: done there. And then let's say the third ancient, oldest

483
00:31:33,640 --> 00:31:40,080
Speaker 1: extant religion Zoroastrianism, originating in Persia modern day Iran around

484
00:31:40,160 --> 00:31:44,200
Speaker 1: fifteen hundred BCE. All three of these religions still have

485
00:31:44,400 --> 00:31:49,920
Speaker 1: adherents today. Of the three, Zoroastrianism is probably the smallest,

486
00:31:50,000 --> 00:31:53,240
Speaker 1: as an estimated two hundred thousand followers around the world.

487
00:31:53,320 --> 00:31:54,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, by far right.

488
00:31:54,840 --> 00:31:58,600
Speaker 1: And it's important to state that there are a couple

489
00:31:58,640 --> 00:32:04,760
Speaker 1: of couple of issues with the with calling those three

490
00:32:04,880 --> 00:32:08,320
Speaker 1: the oldest extant religions, but we'll get to them in

491
00:32:08,360 --> 00:32:14,000
Speaker 1: a second. Let's look at the largest religions today. We

492
00:32:14,080 --> 00:32:17,400
Speaker 1: pulled some numbers from a couple of places, including the

493
00:32:17,440 --> 00:32:21,120
Speaker 1: Pew Research Foundation, and the Pew Research Foundation along with

494
00:32:21,160 --> 00:32:24,760
Speaker 1: some other folks, broke it down this way, and he said,

495
00:32:24,760 --> 00:32:28,360
Speaker 1: the largest religion in the world today is Christianity at

496
00:32:28,400 --> 00:32:32,040
Speaker 1: an estimated two point three billion followers.

497
00:32:31,880 --> 00:32:34,040
Speaker 2: And then Islam comes in at number two with one

498
00:32:34,080 --> 00:32:35,680
Speaker 2: point eight billion.

499
00:32:35,280 --> 00:32:41,520
Speaker 1: People, Hinduism still at it quite successful one point one

500
00:32:41,680 --> 00:32:42,960
Speaker 1: billion people.

501
00:32:42,800 --> 00:32:45,400
Speaker 2: And Buddhism comes in at about half a billion.

502
00:32:46,200 --> 00:32:49,880
Speaker 1: And then let's group a bunch of other religions together

503
00:32:49,920 --> 00:32:53,480
Speaker 1: into what's called folk religions. That would be point four billion,

504
00:32:54,400 --> 00:32:56,360
Speaker 1: which I feel is a little bit of a cop out.

505
00:32:56,520 --> 00:33:01,920
Speaker 1: But there's another group we skipped over, which is if

506
00:33:02,000 --> 00:33:05,880
Speaker 1: we included this, this would be the third largest religion

507
00:33:06,400 --> 00:33:09,959
Speaker 1: one point two billion people in the world. Consider themselves

508
00:33:10,080 --> 00:33:14,760
Speaker 1: unaffiliated with any particular belief system, and in many places

509
00:33:14,760 --> 00:33:18,400
Speaker 1: on Earth, this group seems to be on the rise. Okay,

510
00:33:18,440 --> 00:33:21,120
Speaker 1: we tease some issues with these numbers. Here's the problem.

511
00:33:21,280 --> 00:33:25,280
Speaker 1: These numbers are tricky and in no small way misleading,

512
00:33:25,640 --> 00:33:30,240
Speaker 1: because anybody who practices one of the faiths mentioned at

513
00:33:30,320 --> 00:33:33,520
Speaker 1: any part in the show up to now is saying, Hey,

514
00:33:34,200 --> 00:33:38,040
Speaker 1: they're lumping in a lot of really different things together,

515
00:33:38,240 --> 00:33:41,880
Speaker 1: different offshoots, denominations and so on. And some of these,

516
00:33:41,960 --> 00:33:48,400
Speaker 1: like the various flavors of Protestant Christianity, would seem to

517
00:33:48,440 --> 00:33:52,160
Speaker 1: have a lot in common, right, but not necessarily not

518
00:33:52,200 --> 00:33:56,520
Speaker 1: necessarily right, there's still are they still different enough that

519
00:33:56,600 --> 00:33:59,520
Speaker 1: they would you know, some of them would rather not

520
00:33:59,600 --> 00:34:03,600
Speaker 1: be lumped in together with all these other people who

521
00:34:03,640 --> 00:34:07,560
Speaker 1: got in their opinion, Christianity wrong. And then other groups

522
00:34:08,040 --> 00:34:13,759
Speaker 1: like Shia or Sunni Islam practitioners are more or less

523
00:34:13,840 --> 00:34:18,160
Speaker 1: bitterly opposed and would not, as a result, be particularly

524
00:34:18,160 --> 00:34:21,359
Speaker 1: thrilled to be lumped into a category either. They would say, no,

525
00:34:21,800 --> 00:34:24,880
Speaker 1: we are different because we have the line of the

526
00:34:24,880 --> 00:34:29,160
Speaker 1: profit correct. And these people not only got it wrong,

527
00:34:29,480 --> 00:34:32,400
Speaker 1: but refuse to see the lights. So do not include

528
00:34:32,440 --> 00:34:34,840
Speaker 1: us with them, and then you know, if push to

529
00:34:34,840 --> 00:34:39,080
Speaker 1: the point, they probably still be like, well, they're still Muslims,

530
00:34:39,080 --> 00:34:41,960
Speaker 1: so they got that part right. Oh yeah, so there's

531
00:34:42,000 --> 00:34:46,000
Speaker 1: still like not as bad as an apostate or not

532
00:34:46,239 --> 00:34:49,400
Speaker 1: as bad as a non Muslim, but still it's important.

533
00:34:49,520 --> 00:34:52,000
Speaker 1: We're different. Why are you calling us the same? Well?

534
00:34:52,080 --> 00:34:55,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, Well in a lot of a lot of

535
00:34:55,360 --> 00:34:58,480
Speaker 2: this goes back to those people that we mentioned there

536
00:34:58,600 --> 00:35:01,800
Speaker 2: are unaffiliated in any way with some kind of religion,

537
00:35:02,160 --> 00:35:05,239
Speaker 2: and that goes right back, or the rise in that

538
00:35:05,320 --> 00:35:09,799
Speaker 2: number goes back to the secular thinking that exists in

539
00:35:09,840 --> 00:35:13,879
Speaker 2: our world now and has always existed. But again, it's

540
00:35:13,960 --> 00:35:18,240
Speaker 2: it's morphed a little over time as science continues to improve,

541
00:35:18,280 --> 00:35:23,319
Speaker 2: as technology improves, as the need for explaining a lot

542
00:35:23,360 --> 00:35:26,600
Speaker 2: of these things morphs for us because we're kind of

543
00:35:26,640 --> 00:35:31,520
Speaker 2: replacing a lot of that with these little black boxes

544
00:35:31,520 --> 00:35:34,480
Speaker 2: in our hands that we carry around. It's it's so

545
00:35:34,600 --> 00:35:39,880
Speaker 2: odd the way these big questions kind of get get

546
00:35:40,600 --> 00:35:44,080
Speaker 2: not answered sufficiently, but they feel like they're maybe not

547
00:35:44,160 --> 00:35:44,840
Speaker 2: as important.

548
00:35:45,280 --> 00:35:46,319
Speaker 1: They get reframed.

549
00:35:46,520 --> 00:35:48,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly exactly.

550
00:35:48,760 --> 00:35:52,280
Speaker 1: And that leads us to the rise of the secular mind.

551
00:35:52,320 --> 00:35:57,279
Speaker 1: Those one point two billion people you're mentioning. So this

552
00:35:57,440 --> 00:36:02,320
Speaker 1: is weird because it's a real time, real world example

553
00:36:02,400 --> 00:36:05,520
Speaker 1: of what we're talking about. What did you call it?

554
00:36:05,560 --> 00:36:09,279
Speaker 1: That when we look at that gigantic cross fade of

555
00:36:09,360 --> 00:36:12,560
Speaker 1: one belief system to another. And here's a great example

556
00:36:12,600 --> 00:36:18,440
Speaker 1: of it. There's this funny tragicomic practice that occurs around

557
00:36:18,440 --> 00:36:23,000
Speaker 1: times of political or social strife in countries across the world. Many,

558
00:36:23,040 --> 00:36:25,760
Speaker 1: many countries do this. It's not just the US, although

559
00:36:25,800 --> 00:36:29,080
Speaker 1: perhaps we have the most clownish reputation for it. Here's

560
00:36:29,120 --> 00:36:33,719
Speaker 1: what happens. Something's going wrong domestically abroad, times are tough.

561
00:36:34,520 --> 00:36:38,960
Speaker 1: Politicians and spiritual figures when seeking a boost in approval

562
00:36:39,080 --> 00:36:43,160
Speaker 1: ratings or a way to distract the population from genuine

563
00:36:43,160 --> 00:36:47,520
Speaker 1: physical problems and concerns, we'll start railing about human beings

564
00:36:47,600 --> 00:36:50,680
Speaker 1: turning away from the true path, whatever that true path

565
00:36:51,239 --> 00:36:54,640
Speaker 1: might be. And the argument goes that there's this lack

566
00:36:54,719 --> 00:36:58,120
Speaker 1: of religious faith and that's the real cause at the

567
00:36:58,239 --> 00:37:02,880
Speaker 1: root of whatever problem are currently being encountered. The economy

568
00:37:02,960 --> 00:37:05,879
Speaker 1: is bad, will people turn their back on God? And

569
00:37:06,000 --> 00:37:11,560
Speaker 1: that not you know, the fed rate or rising corporatocracy

570
00:37:11,719 --> 00:37:14,799
Speaker 1: that explains it, And.

571
00:37:14,000 --> 00:37:17,040
Speaker 2: It doesn't it remind you of the crops are really

572
00:37:17,040 --> 00:37:21,040
Speaker 2: bad this season. We haven't been sacrificing enough. We need

573
00:37:21,080 --> 00:37:23,280
Speaker 2: to continue the sacrifices, right.

574
00:37:23,680 --> 00:37:27,360
Speaker 1: And there's another a darker side of this too, where

575
00:37:27,480 --> 00:37:30,359
Speaker 1: they may say the lack of faith is not only

576
00:37:30,440 --> 00:37:33,120
Speaker 1: the reason for something going wrong, it is a sin,

577
00:37:33,520 --> 00:37:36,960
Speaker 1: and this sin may only be we may only be

578
00:37:37,080 --> 00:37:41,880
Speaker 1: redeemed through a specific set of actions. In the past,

579
00:37:42,160 --> 00:37:44,839
Speaker 1: one of the go to actions has been waging war

580
00:37:44,960 --> 00:37:49,120
Speaker 1: on a community nearby, adjacent to you, in the next valley,

581
00:37:49,160 --> 00:37:50,520
Speaker 1: over the pass, or so on.

582
00:37:50,960 --> 00:37:54,240
Speaker 2: In order to save them from the terrible things happening

583
00:37:54,440 --> 00:37:58,080
Speaker 2: under the rule of whatever king or religion exists over there.

584
00:37:57,960 --> 00:38:02,000
Speaker 1: Whatever infernal, unclean bag god. Right, Yeah, so we have

585
00:38:02,080 --> 00:38:06,040
Speaker 1: to we have to kill these people to save their souls,

586
00:38:07,160 --> 00:38:10,960
Speaker 1: which sounds crazy when we put it into one sentence,

587
00:38:11,600 --> 00:38:14,640
Speaker 1: but we guarantee you that is one hundred percent real

588
00:38:14,760 --> 00:38:19,840
Speaker 1: logic that has been deployed countless times. One great example

589
00:38:19,840 --> 00:38:21,880
Speaker 1: of this, I know we're getting we're getting kind of

590
00:38:21,920 --> 00:38:26,200
Speaker 1: bleak here, so let's maybe do a comparatively benign example.

591
00:38:26,360 --> 00:38:31,120
Speaker 1: This is one that you and Mission Control and I

592
00:38:31,160 --> 00:38:33,480
Speaker 1: all grew up with here in the US and you

593
00:38:33,680 --> 00:38:38,359
Speaker 1: probably heard this too at some point. The good old

594
00:38:38,480 --> 00:38:43,160
Speaker 1: Christmas debate gets rolled out, rolled out every every few

595
00:38:43,239 --> 00:38:45,879
Speaker 1: years in the United States, and you know this. One

596
00:38:46,440 --> 00:38:50,880
Speaker 1: Christmas season starts and then a politician or maybe a

597
00:38:51,000 --> 00:38:57,120
Speaker 1: Christian spiritual figure on some sort or another goes on

598
00:38:57,200 --> 00:39:00,840
Speaker 1: the media and decries the horrific practice of saying Happy

599
00:39:00,880 --> 00:39:05,600
Speaker 1: Holidays rather than Merry Christmas. Woe unto you, they imply,

600
00:39:05,760 --> 00:39:08,520
Speaker 1: for this country has lost its way, and this small

601
00:39:08,520 --> 00:39:13,320
Speaker 1: phrase is a tiny reflection of everything going to absolute

602
00:39:13,440 --> 00:39:17,200
Speaker 1: hell in a handbasket unless you do what I I mean,

603
00:39:17,360 --> 00:39:21,319
Speaker 1: God tells you to do, right. Yeah, And it goes

604
00:39:21,360 --> 00:39:24,200
Speaker 1: further than that. You'll hear the argument that secular values

605
00:39:24,280 --> 00:39:28,600
Speaker 1: are in and of themselves religions. Right. There are people

606
00:39:28,600 --> 00:39:29,960
Speaker 1: who are like you have to watch out for the

607
00:39:30,040 --> 00:39:33,640
Speaker 1: rise of secular humanity. The idea of being good without

608
00:39:33,680 --> 00:39:37,200
Speaker 1: God is tricking you. It's a front for a different thing.

609
00:39:37,440 --> 00:39:41,359
Speaker 1: It's still a religion. It's insidious, it's sinister, and that's

610
00:39:41,400 --> 00:39:42,200
Speaker 1: how they get you.

611
00:39:42,920 --> 00:39:45,080
Speaker 2: For more on this, listen to our episode on the

612
00:39:45,120 --> 00:39:48,920
Speaker 2: Origins of Christmas, and also watch our video because it

613
00:39:49,080 --> 00:39:53,399
Speaker 2: really really brings the holiday cheer. When you start learning

614
00:39:53,480 --> 00:39:55,480
Speaker 2: about what it actually is.

615
00:39:55,760 --> 00:39:59,279
Speaker 1: And again, this is not in any way to denigrate

616
00:39:59,680 --> 00:40:04,839
Speaker 1: people faith. No, this is a way that cynical, very

617
00:40:04,880 --> 00:40:11,200
Speaker 1: cynical people manipulate innocent people who probably just want the

618
00:40:11,239 --> 00:40:14,360
Speaker 1: same things as everyone else listening. Right, you want to

619
00:40:14,400 --> 00:40:16,600
Speaker 1: feel like you're very good at stuff. You want to

620
00:40:16,600 --> 00:40:19,360
Speaker 1: feel like you are comfortable with the world around you

621
00:40:19,440 --> 00:40:21,400
Speaker 1: and your place in it. You want to love and

622
00:40:21,480 --> 00:40:25,759
Speaker 1: be loved. That's not that hard. Everybody deserves that. But

623
00:40:25,880 --> 00:40:30,279
Speaker 1: we're also very susceptible to someone trying to play to

624
00:40:30,360 --> 00:40:33,600
Speaker 1: our fears for their own benefit.

625
00:40:34,160 --> 00:40:37,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, it works with me more often than not, unfortunately,

626
00:40:38,280 --> 00:40:41,360
Speaker 2: but it does go even further. It doesn't stup there.

627
00:40:41,800 --> 00:40:44,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, that's the thing. Okay. All of these estimates,

628
00:40:44,920 --> 00:40:49,359
Speaker 1: these definitions, these historical milestones, they all rely entirely upon

629
00:40:49,760 --> 00:40:57,760
Speaker 1: our understanding of revealed public religions. Revealed religion be religion

630
00:40:57,800 --> 00:41:04,520
Speaker 1: based on divine revelation. Right, God took some form and

631
00:41:04,719 --> 00:41:08,600
Speaker 1: told us how to stop screwing up so bad, told

632
00:41:08,680 --> 00:41:11,879
Speaker 1: us you know, how to live better, how to do

633
00:41:11,960 --> 00:41:15,760
Speaker 1: the right thing with our collective life. So we're basing

634
00:41:16,000 --> 00:41:19,840
Speaker 1: everything up to this point on religions that we know

635
00:41:20,080 --> 00:41:22,759
Speaker 1: exist and The question is, what if there is more

636
00:41:22,800 --> 00:41:25,640
Speaker 1: to this story? What if there are religions and belief

637
00:41:25,680 --> 00:41:30,080
Speaker 1: systems that don't like Islam or Christianity ask their adherence

638
00:41:30,120 --> 00:41:32,640
Speaker 1: to advertise the faith. What if there are religions that

639
00:41:32,800 --> 00:41:36,719
Speaker 1: don't want to convert a bunch of new followers. What

640
00:41:36,760 --> 00:41:41,600
Speaker 1: if there are secret religions? And what if they exist

641
00:41:41,960 --> 00:41:42,879
Speaker 1: in the modern day?

642
00:41:43,160 --> 00:41:45,240
Speaker 2: And we'll talk about that right after a quick word

643
00:41:45,280 --> 00:41:46,280
Speaker 2: from our sponsor.

644
00:41:52,640 --> 00:41:54,360
Speaker 1: Here's where it gets crazy.

645
00:41:54,920 --> 00:42:01,440
Speaker 2: Well, the easy answer here is yes, oddly enough, And

646
00:42:01,640 --> 00:42:04,440
Speaker 2: it could be argued that, you know, by the virtue

647
00:42:04,680 --> 00:42:06,880
Speaker 2: of these things being secret, and this is crazy, I

648
00:42:06,920 --> 00:42:11,120
Speaker 2: know these religions are in and of themselves in some

649
00:42:11,280 --> 00:42:14,279
Speaker 2: way a conspiracy, just by the fact that there are

650
00:42:14,280 --> 00:42:16,319
Speaker 2: groups of people who've been trying to hide them and

651
00:42:16,400 --> 00:42:19,120
Speaker 2: working together in secret to keep them secret.

652
00:42:19,280 --> 00:42:23,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's sort of the Church of sh So, yes,

653
00:42:23,600 --> 00:42:28,040
Speaker 1: we're entering a realm of strange and possibly disturbing speculation here.

654
00:42:28,320 --> 00:42:31,759
Speaker 1: Let's start with the most easily provable cases. We'll move

655
00:42:31,800 --> 00:42:34,959
Speaker 1: to the plausible, and then we'll hit that deep water

656
00:42:35,080 --> 00:42:36,799
Speaker 1: for a second. We'll see what we mean in a moment.

657
00:42:36,920 --> 00:42:38,400
Speaker 1: No caathulo, I promise.

658
00:42:38,200 --> 00:42:40,319
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we'll also talk about in a few of

659
00:42:40,360 --> 00:42:43,680
Speaker 2: these cases how that crossfade is occurring. Then you can

660
00:42:43,760 --> 00:42:46,400
Speaker 2: kind of see it in these specific religions.

661
00:42:46,520 --> 00:42:52,080
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, so first off, real proven secret religions, the

662
00:42:52,120 --> 00:42:55,120
Speaker 1: mystery schools. O oh, yes, there's some of the most famous.

663
00:42:55,160 --> 00:42:58,840
Speaker 1: So the Greco Roman world was no stranger to secret religions.

664
00:42:59,200 --> 00:43:02,880
Speaker 1: These were specific referred to as mystery religions.

665
00:43:03,000 --> 00:43:07,360
Speaker 2: It sounds sinister, mystery school mystery religion, like there's something

666
00:43:07,480 --> 00:43:11,160
Speaker 2: really wrong going there, or it's it's bad, But a

667
00:43:11,160 --> 00:43:13,840
Speaker 2: lot of times it's just mysterious, y'all.

668
00:43:14,640 --> 00:43:18,359
Speaker 1: It's just it's not for you unless you're on the inside, right,

669
00:43:18,440 --> 00:43:22,160
Speaker 1: unless you're connected exactly. These practices originate in pre existing

670
00:43:22,239 --> 00:43:27,360
Speaker 1: tribal ceremonies. These were performed by people all throughout the world,

671
00:43:27,480 --> 00:43:30,560
Speaker 1: and a lot of these practices were things that we

672
00:43:30,640 --> 00:43:35,440
Speaker 1: could maybe see or encounter analogs of or descendants of today,

673
00:43:35,520 --> 00:43:38,719
Speaker 1: but we we don't know exactly what they did. A

674
00:43:38,800 --> 00:43:41,560
Speaker 1: lot of that will be lost to history. In the

675
00:43:41,880 --> 00:43:47,680
Speaker 1: tribal communities where these practices originate, every member of the community,

676
00:43:48,000 --> 00:43:52,279
Speaker 1: the clan, or the village was initiated and then you know,

677
00:43:52,320 --> 00:43:55,200
Speaker 1: they were brought in to become a member of this

678
00:43:55,360 --> 00:43:59,760
Speaker 1: school or this belief system. But in Greece, initiation became

679
00:44:00,080 --> 00:44:04,040
Speaker 1: a matter of personal choice, meaning that the people who

680
00:44:04,080 --> 00:44:07,160
Speaker 1: would induct you, they could decide whether or not you

681
00:44:07,200 --> 00:44:11,399
Speaker 1: didn't automatically deserve to be inducted, and you didn't automatically

682
00:44:11,440 --> 00:44:13,839
Speaker 1: have to. You could say no. It might be very

683
00:44:13,880 --> 00:44:17,600
Speaker 1: politically or even physically dangerous for you, but you could

684
00:44:17,600 --> 00:44:19,200
Speaker 1: say no absolutely.

685
00:44:19,719 --> 00:44:22,880
Speaker 2: And you know, several of these mystery religions reached the

686
00:44:23,640 --> 00:44:28,080
Speaker 2: highest levels of their popularity within the first three centuries

687
00:44:28,160 --> 00:44:32,040
Speaker 2: a d. But again, the origin of a lot of

688
00:44:32,080 --> 00:44:37,040
Speaker 2: these goes back to much earlier centuries in Greek history.

689
00:44:37,600 --> 00:44:40,000
Speaker 2: And a lot of these mystery religions, as little as

690
00:44:40,040 --> 00:44:42,680
Speaker 2: we actually do know about them, we do know that

691
00:44:42,680 --> 00:44:44,760
Speaker 2: they had things in common. A lot of these were,

692
00:44:44,880 --> 00:44:47,160
Speaker 2: you know, meals that would be eaten together with people

693
00:44:47,200 --> 00:44:51,120
Speaker 2: who were like minded or believe the same things. There

694
00:44:51,160 --> 00:44:56,160
Speaker 2: would be some form of physical movement that venerated something right,

695
00:44:56,239 --> 00:44:59,319
Speaker 2: a dance of some kind, and other ceremonies like that,

696
00:44:59,680 --> 00:45:02,680
Speaker 2: and there a lot of times be or probably the

697
00:45:02,680 --> 00:45:06,880
Speaker 2: most important, let's say, would be the initiation rites that

698
00:45:06,960 --> 00:45:10,840
Speaker 2: occur for every new member that joins officially into the group.

699
00:45:11,560 --> 00:45:17,040
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. And examples of these mystery religions, we have

700
00:45:17,120 --> 00:45:19,160
Speaker 1: a few, even if we don't know a ton about

701
00:45:19,160 --> 00:45:23,640
Speaker 1: their specific practices. We have followers of Dionysus, right, We

702
00:45:23,719 --> 00:45:27,400
Speaker 1: had the Elucinian mysteries. These were the earliest and most

703
00:45:27,480 --> 00:45:31,640
Speaker 1: famous of the mystery cults. Again, I know the sea word,

704
00:45:31,719 --> 00:45:33,359
Speaker 1: but that's what they were often called.

705
00:45:33,440 --> 00:45:35,160
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and a lot of times it was the

706
00:45:35,560 --> 00:45:39,239
Speaker 2: extreme or this is just my opinion here, but a

707
00:45:39,280 --> 00:45:42,799
Speaker 2: lot of it tended to be the extreme worship of

708
00:45:43,160 --> 00:45:45,920
Speaker 2: one or you know, one or two or maybe just

709
00:45:46,000 --> 00:45:49,520
Speaker 2: one of the gods that are worshiped within the pantheon

710
00:45:50,000 --> 00:45:53,280
Speaker 2: of the Greek gods. You would have a specific cult

711
00:45:53,280 --> 00:45:55,360
Speaker 2: of Mithra or a cult of this or a cult

712
00:45:55,400 --> 00:45:57,839
Speaker 2: of that, right, and that those kind of end up

713
00:45:57,840 --> 00:46:01,919
Speaker 2: becoming many of the mystery religions, right.

714
00:46:02,040 --> 00:46:06,600
Speaker 1: Yeah. And this one group we're talking about, they lasted

715
00:46:06,640 --> 00:46:09,480
Speaker 1: for over one thousand years again, a thousand years of

716
00:46:09,520 --> 00:46:12,959
Speaker 1: which we are aware. Yeah, so we don't know what

717
00:46:13,000 --> 00:46:16,160
Speaker 1: else was going on. And there's something else it's fascinating

718
00:46:16,200 --> 00:46:18,920
Speaker 1: about this. So at this time, there wasn't really a

719
00:46:19,160 --> 00:46:25,600
Speaker 1: separation between a secret cult or a mystery school and

720
00:46:25,840 --> 00:46:30,080
Speaker 1: a secular secret society. You know, a bunch of people

721
00:46:30,120 --> 00:46:33,960
Speaker 1: maybe in Turkey want to start a society with closed

722
00:46:33,960 --> 00:46:37,719
Speaker 1: door meetings to form a better fire brigade. Right in

723
00:46:37,800 --> 00:46:42,000
Speaker 1: ancient times, that's a true story. In the suspicious eyes

724
00:46:42,080 --> 00:46:46,239
Speaker 1: of leaders at the time, both these secular interest groups

725
00:46:46,280 --> 00:46:51,040
Speaker 1: and these religiously motivated groups were dangerous because they had

726
00:46:51,400 --> 00:46:55,680
Speaker 1: the possibility of becoming avenues for conspiracy and revolution. And

727
00:46:55,719 --> 00:47:01,520
Speaker 1: thus these groups, whenever possible, were subverted exterminated, or if

728
00:47:01,560 --> 00:47:04,680
Speaker 1: it was expedient to do so, they would be you know,

729
00:47:04,800 --> 00:47:08,640
Speaker 1: they would have public officials join them. Yeah, and these

730
00:47:08,719 --> 00:47:12,680
Speaker 1: kind of societies still still carry on. The big question

731
00:47:12,880 --> 00:47:15,080
Speaker 1: is whether or not they still have claws and things

732
00:47:15,280 --> 00:47:18,640
Speaker 1: or if they're just kind of old boys clubs, right.

733
00:47:18,760 --> 00:47:22,000
Speaker 2: Yeah. And what you're talking about there having an official

734
00:47:22,160 --> 00:47:25,719
Speaker 2: join one of these secret groups, it's an attempt to

735
00:47:26,320 --> 00:47:32,280
Speaker 2: either absorb it into another of the larger religious systems

736
00:47:32,280 --> 00:47:37,000
Speaker 2: probably and or just making it not so strange to

737
00:47:37,160 --> 00:47:41,000
Speaker 2: then allow those people. You know, again, it's strategic and

738
00:47:41,080 --> 00:47:43,120
Speaker 2: if you're thinking about it this way, to bring it

739
00:47:43,160 --> 00:47:46,560
Speaker 2: into the fold. And that's where we get into that

740
00:47:46,640 --> 00:47:50,720
Speaker 2: thing we discussed earlier religious syncretism where that cross fade,

741
00:47:50,719 --> 00:47:53,680
Speaker 2: where we're right in the middle of it. Yes, where

742
00:47:53,719 --> 00:47:59,200
Speaker 2: one becomes another one plus one equals three. It's interesting stuff.

743
00:47:59,320 --> 00:48:01,000
Speaker 1: That's a good way to say it, Matt. Yeah, this

744
00:48:01,160 --> 00:48:04,719
Speaker 1: is the blending of two or more religious belief systems

745
00:48:04,760 --> 00:48:08,000
Speaker 1: into what essentially becomes a whole new system one plus

746
00:48:08,000 --> 00:48:13,640
Speaker 1: one equals three, or the incorporation of unrelated beliefs into

747
00:48:13,680 --> 00:48:17,080
Speaker 1: an existing religious tradition. This can occur for a lot

748
00:48:17,120 --> 00:48:23,600
Speaker 1: of reasons. It commonly happens obviously in geographic areas where

749
00:48:23,680 --> 00:48:27,239
Speaker 1: multiple religions exist close together and at once and they're

750
00:48:27,280 --> 00:48:31,040
Speaker 1: active in the culture. Or and this is the dirty side,

751
00:48:31,120 --> 00:48:32,640
Speaker 1: is where you find a lot of the more extreme

752
00:48:32,680 --> 00:48:36,200
Speaker 1: examples when a culture is conquered and the conquerors don't

753
00:48:36,239 --> 00:48:40,280
Speaker 1: just bring weapons, they also bring their religious beliefs. Convert

754
00:48:40,520 --> 00:48:43,920
Speaker 1: or die, right, or convert and physically die. But don't worry.

755
00:48:43,960 --> 00:48:46,160
Speaker 1: We're saving your soul and you can be a slave

756
00:48:46,239 --> 00:48:50,360
Speaker 1: forever in our paradise. Right, Oh for sure. True story. Unfortunately,

757
00:48:50,719 --> 00:48:55,520
Speaker 1: at least that was the pitch. So the thing that's

758
00:48:55,560 --> 00:49:01,320
Speaker 1: weird about this is that unless the unless the culture

759
00:49:01,320 --> 00:49:06,080
Speaker 1: being attacked is entirely eradicated, their pre existing beliefs and

760
00:49:06,120 --> 00:49:09,600
Speaker 1: practices will continue on and then we end up with

761
00:49:09,680 --> 00:49:13,360
Speaker 1: things like we end up with things like gnosticism, or

762
00:49:13,360 --> 00:49:16,200
Speaker 1: we end up with things like offshoots earlier forms of

763
00:49:16,400 --> 00:49:17,680
Speaker 1: existing religions.

764
00:49:17,880 --> 00:49:20,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, and just something a little more like Greco Buddhism

765
00:49:21,080 --> 00:49:24,520
Speaker 2: or what is the name of the other one own

766
00:49:24,680 --> 00:49:29,279
Speaker 2: historians as Christianity was moving into China. I mean, there's

767
00:49:29,320 --> 00:49:32,880
Speaker 2: a lot of really interesting things there to talk about.

768
00:49:32,920 --> 00:49:34,920
Speaker 2: That it's less stuff they don't want you to know,

769
00:49:35,080 --> 00:49:38,359
Speaker 2: but it's more stuff you miss in history class. But again,

770
00:49:38,400 --> 00:49:39,960
Speaker 2: it's fascinating.

771
00:49:39,760 --> 00:49:43,920
Speaker 1: And it's interesting too, because I would argue that there

772
00:49:44,000 --> 00:49:45,719
Speaker 1: is a lot of stuff they don't want you to

773
00:49:45,800 --> 00:49:51,680
Speaker 1: know in aspects of religious syncretism, because religious syncretism can

774
00:49:51,719 --> 00:49:55,680
Speaker 1: also exist in a very powerful form as coded protests,

775
00:49:55,760 --> 00:49:59,680
Speaker 1: and this is evidenced by the practices of repressed native

776
00:49:59,719 --> 00:50:05,200
Speaker 1: people under the thumb of colonizers or imperialists. One example,

777
00:50:05,760 --> 00:50:09,120
Speaker 1: which I believe we mentioned on the show before, is

778
00:50:09,239 --> 00:50:13,200
Speaker 1: the idea of folk saints. So I didn't really know

779
00:50:13,239 --> 00:50:15,440
Speaker 1: about folk saints until I had spent some time in

780
00:50:15,440 --> 00:50:19,720
Speaker 1: Central America and I made friends with one a Mayan

781
00:50:20,000 --> 00:50:24,040
Speaker 1: deity who was called San Simon when I encountered his

782
00:50:25,080 --> 00:50:31,080
Speaker 1: worshipers or his admirers. San Simone originally started life as

783
00:50:31,200 --> 00:50:36,719
Speaker 1: a started whatever the deity version of life is. San

784
00:50:36,760 --> 00:50:42,320
Speaker 1: Simon was originally a mountain god in the Maya religion,

785
00:50:42,880 --> 00:50:47,360
Speaker 1: and he was also known as Machimone. Today he's considered

786
00:50:47,400 --> 00:50:52,840
Speaker 1: the patron saint of health's crops, marriage, business, revenge, and death.

787
00:50:53,719 --> 00:50:56,440
Speaker 1: I know, it's kind of a weird. Wow, it's a

788
00:50:56,480 --> 00:50:57,279
Speaker 1: weird group, right.

789
00:50:57,360 --> 00:51:01,200
Speaker 2: When you're saying patron saint, you mean like in Catholicism,

790
00:51:01,280 --> 00:51:04,680
Speaker 2: like he is a saint or is it? Ah?

791
00:51:04,800 --> 00:51:09,200
Speaker 1: Yes, okay, So folk saints are people venerated or deities

792
00:51:09,280 --> 00:51:16,040
Speaker 1: venerated as saints, but not officially canonized, recognized by the church.

793
00:51:16,560 --> 00:51:20,640
Speaker 1: See what we see here is a process of taking

794
00:51:20,719 --> 00:51:25,160
Speaker 1: a pre existing belief and saying, Okay, yes, saints, we

795
00:51:25,280 --> 00:51:28,520
Speaker 1: get it. We already have those, you know what I mean?

796
00:51:28,680 --> 00:51:28,919
Speaker 2: Yeah?

797
00:51:28,960 --> 00:51:34,720
Speaker 1: Thanks, but no thanks saints, but no saints not worth.

798
00:51:34,560 --> 00:51:36,560
Speaker 2: It, or at least we can add a few more

799
00:51:36,600 --> 00:51:37,200
Speaker 2: to the roster.

800
00:51:37,760 --> 00:51:40,879
Speaker 1: Right. And another example of religious syncretism as a form

801
00:51:40,920 --> 00:51:47,040
Speaker 1: of protest would be the way that Vudun in Benin

802
00:51:47,239 --> 00:51:50,480
Speaker 1: or Voodoo Haiti or however you wish to pronounce it

803
00:51:51,239 --> 00:51:57,839
Speaker 1: had to confront and adapt with Catholicism, right, and so

804
00:51:58,080 --> 00:51:58,560
Speaker 1: we have.

805
00:52:00,320 --> 00:52:02,719
Speaker 2: I mean that's where you get Santaia mm hmmm.

806
00:52:02,680 --> 00:52:08,560
Speaker 1: Or Condoble for instance. Yeah, this is where the brutal

807
00:52:08,760 --> 00:52:13,840
Speaker 1: Catholic forces would think that they had successfully converted the people.

808
00:52:13,880 --> 00:52:19,160
Speaker 1: But the people were just using that Catholic imagery to

809
00:52:19,200 --> 00:52:23,839
Speaker 1: be a stand in for their original practices, which they

810
00:52:23,880 --> 00:52:27,680
Speaker 1: didn't didn't really have an intention of changing. Because if

811
00:52:27,719 --> 00:52:29,840
Speaker 1: you want to change someone's mind, one of the worst

812
00:52:29,920 --> 00:52:32,760
Speaker 1: ways to do it is to threaten them.

813
00:52:32,960 --> 00:52:35,799
Speaker 2: Yeah, but if you did take it on in that way,

814
00:52:35,840 --> 00:52:39,680
Speaker 2: you could at least appease the colonizers when in close quarters. Right.

815
00:52:41,120 --> 00:52:45,600
Speaker 1: We'd love to hear your examples of religious syncretism. This

816
00:52:45,200 --> 00:52:49,319
Speaker 1: is a widespread phenomenon. We know that a lot of

817
00:52:50,120 --> 00:52:56,360
Speaker 1: ancient belief systems in smaller communities may maybe practiced still today,

818
00:52:57,120 --> 00:53:00,600
Speaker 1: having been I don't want to say contaminated or adulterated,

819
00:53:00,600 --> 00:53:06,440
Speaker 1: but having been influenced by different different religions that they

820
00:53:06,520 --> 00:53:07,400
Speaker 1: somehow encountered.

821
00:53:07,640 --> 00:53:09,839
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would have to say, just really fast. As

822
00:53:09,840 --> 00:53:12,800
Speaker 2: I mentioned here, today is the first time, and I

823
00:53:12,800 --> 00:53:15,080
Speaker 2: don't know how this occurred. The first time that I

824
00:53:15,160 --> 00:53:21,680
Speaker 2: realized that it was Greek influence that gives us depictions

825
00:53:21,920 --> 00:53:25,840
Speaker 2: of a human Buddha within Buddhism, I did not realize

826
00:53:25,920 --> 00:53:28,640
Speaker 2: that at all. But it's because of trade routes that

827
00:53:28,760 --> 00:53:36,040
Speaker 2: existed and just the influence of people from Greece who

828
00:53:36,200 --> 00:53:39,560
Speaker 2: you know, had certain religious beliefs, who then as they

829
00:53:39,600 --> 00:53:43,960
Speaker 2: move forward and are continuing on encounter Buddhism, they enjoy,

830
00:53:44,200 --> 00:53:46,839
Speaker 2: you know, they believe that, let's say, more than they

831
00:53:47,239 --> 00:53:50,680
Speaker 2: believe their other original traditional beliefs. Then they start to

832
00:53:50,760 --> 00:53:56,959
Speaker 2: follow Buddhism, and as they're thinking about Buddha, they rather

833
00:53:57,000 --> 00:53:59,680
Speaker 2: than seeing it symbolically the way it's been represented for

834
00:54:00,040 --> 00:54:03,960
Speaker 2: hundreds and hundreds of years, they truly imagine Buddha as

835
00:54:04,080 --> 00:54:07,759
Speaker 2: the man, as this human being, you know, son of

836
00:54:07,800 --> 00:54:13,279
Speaker 2: a virgin woman. And they begin using their culture that

837
00:54:13,400 --> 00:54:15,560
Speaker 2: exists within them and the way they view art, the

838
00:54:15,600 --> 00:54:18,319
Speaker 2: way they think about these things, and they apply it

839
00:54:18,960 --> 00:54:21,040
Speaker 2: to Buddha. And that was fascinating to me. I know,

840
00:54:21,040 --> 00:54:22,960
Speaker 2: there's a long witted way to say, just like the

841
00:54:23,040 --> 00:54:26,440
Speaker 2: statues that in my mind are of Buddha are really.

842
00:54:26,239 --> 00:54:30,640
Speaker 1: Greek, Yeah, or at the very least heavily heavily influenced, Yes,

843
00:54:30,680 --> 00:54:35,000
Speaker 1: exactly by that frame. And there's a word for that, right, Matt.

844
00:54:35,120 --> 00:54:40,040
Speaker 2: Yes, vocabulary word of the day everyone interpretatio greika. And

845
00:54:40,080 --> 00:54:46,439
Speaker 2: that just means essentially interpreting the world by really through

846
00:54:46,520 --> 00:54:48,520
Speaker 2: Greek eyes or by Greek means.

847
00:54:49,040 --> 00:54:52,160
Speaker 1: And these are just some of the numerous examples. Please

848
00:54:52,280 --> 00:54:55,000
Speaker 1: please please let us know other examples. You've seen. This

849
00:54:55,000 --> 00:54:57,400
Speaker 1: stuff is endlessly fascinating, Yeah.

850
00:54:57,200 --> 00:55:00,920
Speaker 2: And it's really just interpreting all of the other religions,

851
00:55:01,040 --> 00:55:05,239
Speaker 2: the gods, all the things that people from you know,

852
00:55:06,000 --> 00:55:09,960
Speaker 2: from that time, from that early civilization, as they're encountering

853
00:55:10,000 --> 00:55:11,960
Speaker 2: these other things, how they view them.

854
00:55:12,120 --> 00:55:14,520
Speaker 1: And it's strange because when you think about it, religious

855
00:55:14,520 --> 00:55:19,320
Speaker 1: syncretism could, at its best be a very inclusive approach

856
00:55:19,400 --> 00:55:22,600
Speaker 1: to belief. There are other things that are very much

857
00:55:22,880 --> 00:55:26,719
Speaker 1: not syncretic, or at least no longer are. There are

858
00:55:26,800 --> 00:55:31,000
Speaker 1: religions that are entirely dictated by lineage. These are, in short,

859
00:55:31,080 --> 00:55:36,560
Speaker 1: clubs you cannot join, if you are most of the

860
00:55:36,640 --> 00:55:40,480
Speaker 1: people who will ever listen to this show. You cannot

861
00:55:40,640 --> 00:55:44,200
Speaker 1: join some religions no matter what you do, no matter

862
00:55:44,239 --> 00:55:48,280
Speaker 1: how good you are, how helpful, how noble, etc. You

863
00:55:48,360 --> 00:55:50,520
Speaker 1: just didn't have a chance since the day you were

864
00:55:50,560 --> 00:55:54,800
Speaker 1: born because of who your parents were. One great example

865
00:55:54,840 --> 00:55:58,200
Speaker 1: of this, with which I have some personal experience is

866
00:55:58,400 --> 00:56:05,200
Speaker 1: a group called the Druze. The Drews are a unique

867
00:56:05,400 --> 00:56:09,680
Speaker 1: people and belief system who originated in Egypt, but have

868
00:56:09,719 --> 00:56:15,840
Speaker 1: spread across the world, with a lot of concentrations in Lebanon, Syria, Israel,

869
00:56:15,920 --> 00:56:21,239
Speaker 1: and Jordan. The religion's membership is predicated on these certain lineages,

870
00:56:21,320 --> 00:56:26,000
Speaker 1: and this means that one cannot convert to this religion,

871
00:56:26,200 --> 00:56:30,920
Speaker 1: one cannot become a Druz. They also practice a form

872
00:56:31,080 --> 00:56:35,120
Speaker 1: of religious syncretism in a way I'm interested to hear

873
00:56:35,160 --> 00:56:38,520
Speaker 1: what you think about this. To avoid persecution, especially in

874
00:56:38,640 --> 00:56:43,360
Speaker 1: very religiously conservative areas, they would publicly adopt a religion

875
00:56:43,520 --> 00:56:45,880
Speaker 1: if they had to, but they would continue to practice

876
00:56:45,920 --> 00:56:50,520
Speaker 1: their own real belief system in secret. Dru's religion is

877
00:56:50,560 --> 00:56:55,640
Speaker 1: seen as an outgrowth of Islam that incorporates elements of Judaism, Christianity,

878
00:56:55,719 --> 00:56:59,520
Speaker 1: but it's different from all of those religions. Greek philosophy

879
00:56:59,560 --> 00:57:04,240
Speaker 1: here you go, and what people have described as problematically

880
00:57:04,320 --> 00:57:08,520
Speaker 1: as Asiatic thought heavily influenced the foundation of the religion,

881
00:57:08,840 --> 00:57:12,000
Speaker 1: and they add some ideas and still have some ideas

882
00:57:12,239 --> 00:57:15,200
Speaker 1: that were pretty out there. They were pretty hot takes

883
00:57:15,440 --> 00:57:18,400
Speaker 1: for their time. They said we should get rid of slavery,

884
00:57:18,720 --> 00:57:21,440
Speaker 1: which used to be a very hot take and sadly

885
00:57:21,680 --> 00:57:25,120
Speaker 1: in some parts of the Middle East, is still a

886
00:57:25,160 --> 00:57:28,960
Speaker 1: hot take today. They said we should separate church and state,

887
00:57:29,120 --> 00:57:32,160
Speaker 1: again still a hot take, and this put them at

888
00:57:32,560 --> 00:57:38,040
Speaker 1: very high risk of persecution in more conservative areas. If

889
00:57:38,080 --> 00:57:41,240
Speaker 1: you are not a Druiz, you will not be privy

890
00:57:41,360 --> 00:57:46,880
Speaker 1: to various rites and practices because again it's not for you.

891
00:57:47,400 --> 00:57:51,160
Speaker 1: That does inherently make it, at least some degree a

892
00:57:51,280 --> 00:57:55,360
Speaker 1: secret religion. Doesn't mean they're sinister, doesn't mean they're out

893
00:57:55,400 --> 00:58:00,120
Speaker 1: to get anyone. And I actually, through marriage, am related

894
00:58:00,760 --> 00:58:02,440
Speaker 1: to several Drews.

895
00:58:02,760 --> 00:58:03,120
Speaker 2: Wow.

896
00:58:03,360 --> 00:58:06,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well I have Notrews, to be very clear, and

897
00:58:06,440 --> 00:58:09,160
Speaker 1: I never will be because the way the religion is

898
00:58:09,280 --> 00:58:13,160
Speaker 1: organized on a socio cultural, even biological level.

899
00:58:13,640 --> 00:58:17,240
Speaker 2: Well, have you twenty three and meters or ancestry yourself,

900
00:58:18,800 --> 00:58:23,080
Speaker 2: because maybe you are Drews, because it'd be hard to

901
00:58:23,080 --> 00:58:26,520
Speaker 2: fight against if you did. You did a test.

902
00:58:26,840 --> 00:58:28,640
Speaker 1: I don't know if it works that way, and it's

903
00:58:28,680 --> 00:58:34,520
Speaker 1: also kind of you know, people's beliefs are important to them.

904
00:58:35,000 --> 00:58:40,800
Speaker 1: I don't want to be one of those, actually, right right,

905
00:58:40,960 --> 00:58:43,680
Speaker 1: So I want me two percent in you know what

906
00:58:43,720 --> 00:58:48,040
Speaker 1: I mean. I think that's kind of disrespectful, you know, even.

907
00:58:47,760 --> 00:58:49,840
Speaker 2: For me even to talk about it in this way

908
00:58:49,880 --> 00:58:51,760
Speaker 2: that I am apologies.

909
00:58:51,320 --> 00:58:53,560
Speaker 1: No, no, no, I think as long as we are

910
00:58:53,600 --> 00:58:59,200
Speaker 1: respecting the boundaries that that a group has set, absolutely,

911
00:58:59,200 --> 00:59:02,040
Speaker 1: that's the best we can do. There are other similar

912
00:59:02,120 --> 00:59:02,880
Speaker 1: cases of that.

913
00:59:03,200 --> 00:59:06,040
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, sorry, I wanted to bring this up earlier.

914
00:59:06,760 --> 00:59:10,480
Speaker 2: We were talking about this sec religions. Yes, our episode

915
00:59:10,600 --> 00:59:15,520
Speaker 2: on worshiping Satan, the devil Lucifer or anything like that,

916
00:59:15,560 --> 00:59:18,600
Speaker 2: we've talked about it in a whole episode. And you know,

917
00:59:18,640 --> 00:59:22,160
Speaker 2: are they actually real anyone who worships some version of that?

918
00:59:22,680 --> 00:59:26,920
Speaker 2: And there is one group of people that we've mentioned before,

919
00:59:27,560 --> 00:59:31,400
Speaker 2: I believe on this show that you had talked to

920
00:59:31,480 --> 00:59:32,920
Speaker 2: me about. They're called the Yazidi.

921
00:59:33,880 --> 00:59:40,600
Speaker 1: Yes, a little bit Luciferian, I might say, because of

922
00:59:40,680 --> 00:59:44,360
Speaker 1: the differences in doctrine here, which will be very brief.

923
00:59:44,400 --> 00:59:46,680
Speaker 1: We could delve into that in a separate episode. Okay,

924
00:59:47,000 --> 00:59:53,520
Speaker 1: they've been vilified before, as quote unquote devil worshipers. And

925
00:59:53,560 --> 00:59:57,840
Speaker 1: that's entirely because non Yezity populations have associated this melick

926
00:59:57,920 --> 01:00:03,480
Speaker 1: Tause character with the Islamic or Arab named for satan

927
01:00:04,920 --> 01:00:10,800
Speaker 1: Is ities for themselves find that offensive and don't clearly

928
01:00:10,840 --> 01:00:13,400
Speaker 1: don't agree. There's not, as far as we know, a

929
01:00:13,480 --> 01:00:17,360
Speaker 1: community of people who says, yes, there is a divine

930
01:00:17,440 --> 01:00:21,600
Speaker 1: good God and we're with a bad one. There's nobody,

931
01:00:21,640 --> 01:00:25,520
Speaker 1: there's there's not yet a provable community of people who

932
01:00:25,520 --> 01:00:29,000
Speaker 1: are at that level of edge lordism. I think most

933
01:00:29,160 --> 01:00:31,600
Speaker 1: most communities generally tend to be a little more well

934
01:00:31,600 --> 01:00:36,720
Speaker 1: adjusted than that, but it is plausible.

935
01:00:37,120 --> 01:00:37,200
Speaker 2: Now.

936
01:00:37,160 --> 01:00:40,360
Speaker 1: I would say it's more likely than not that many

937
01:00:40,480 --> 01:00:44,560
Speaker 1: local religions have existed for a long time and exist

938
01:00:44,640 --> 01:00:48,680
Speaker 1: today more or less unknown to outsiders. Let's call these

939
01:00:48,760 --> 01:00:52,840
Speaker 1: like insular community systems or insular tribal religions. And I

940
01:00:52,840 --> 01:00:55,040
Speaker 1: thought you would appreciate this one, Matt. And let's just

941
01:00:55,040 --> 01:00:59,240
Speaker 1: go to an extreme example. What are the spiritual beliefs

942
01:00:59,400 --> 01:01:02,000
Speaker 1: of the people on North Sentinel Island?

943
01:01:02,920 --> 01:01:03,960
Speaker 2: How would we know that?

944
01:01:04,640 --> 01:01:08,400
Speaker 1: We don't this belligerent community. Google it if you have,

945
01:01:08,560 --> 01:01:10,280
Speaker 1: If you some have not heard of, this is a

946
01:01:10,320 --> 01:01:12,760
Speaker 1: fascinating story that Matt and I have been tracking for

947
01:01:13,560 --> 01:01:18,000
Speaker 1: God since twenty thirteen or so. We learned about it

948
01:01:18,040 --> 01:01:22,160
Speaker 1: in twenty twelve. For thousands of years, the people on

949
01:01:22,200 --> 01:01:25,280
Speaker 1: this island have been on their own since around the

950
01:01:25,440 --> 01:01:30,600
Speaker 1: Stone Age. They likely have a religion, because again, humans

951
01:01:30,600 --> 01:01:34,400
Speaker 1: are hardwired to generate and propagate these sorts of belief systems,

952
01:01:34,880 --> 01:01:39,040
Speaker 1: but their religion has been so far removed from any

953
01:01:39,160 --> 01:01:43,320
Speaker 1: other belief system on the planet. They have not encountered

954
01:01:43,400 --> 01:01:45,960
Speaker 1: some form of religious syncretism. Right.

955
01:01:46,120 --> 01:01:49,040
Speaker 2: Oh you're oh wow, so impure.

956
01:01:49,360 --> 01:01:53,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, so, in a way, this may be like one

957
01:01:53,080 --> 01:01:58,200
Speaker 1: of the oldest un I don't want to say adulterated again,

958
01:01:58,280 --> 01:02:03,840
Speaker 1: but like one of the old on mixtapes, you know.

959
01:02:03,960 --> 01:02:08,240
Speaker 1: And also just like the drus You and I and

960
01:02:08,280 --> 01:02:12,320
Speaker 1: everybody listening probably cannot join them. They in their few

961
01:02:12,640 --> 01:02:15,720
Speaker 1: encounters with the outside world in modern history, they have

962
01:02:15,840 --> 01:02:19,320
Speaker 1: made that abundantly clear. And the only time that they've

963
01:02:19,320 --> 01:02:22,800
Speaker 1: been successfully members of that community have been successfully taken out

964
01:02:22,800 --> 01:02:27,400
Speaker 1: of the community. It was disastrous, and it's no wonder

965
01:02:27,400 --> 01:02:31,439
Speaker 1: that they doubled down on putting a big keepout sign

966
01:02:31,760 --> 01:02:32,760
Speaker 1: to the rest of the planet.

967
01:02:32,800 --> 01:02:38,160
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, absolutely well, that's a real world example. What

968
01:02:38,280 --> 01:02:41,000
Speaker 2: if we wanted to go down the rabbit hole a

969
01:02:41,000 --> 01:02:44,720
Speaker 2: little bit further, What if we get to something that

970
01:02:44,800 --> 01:02:49,160
Speaker 2: maybe isn't even necessarily a religion, it's a maybe a

971
01:02:49,240 --> 01:02:52,840
Speaker 2: closer to a society, but it does have religious belief

972
01:02:53,000 --> 01:02:54,320
Speaker 2: perhaps built into it.

973
01:02:54,520 --> 01:02:58,160
Speaker 1: Whatever. Could you be talking about the illuminati? That's right,

974
01:02:58,520 --> 01:03:01,680
Speaker 1: that's right, fellow conspiracy realists. You know them, you love them,

975
01:03:01,720 --> 01:03:04,480
Speaker 1: You expected them to show up here in this episode,

976
01:03:04,520 --> 01:03:09,560
Speaker 1: and you were right, So congratulations. For hundreds of years,

977
01:03:10,200 --> 01:03:14,680
Speaker 1: there have been rumors that have for being diplomatic, varying

978
01:03:14,800 --> 01:03:19,320
Speaker 1: levels of credibility, arguing that the world is actually run

979
01:03:19,400 --> 01:03:22,520
Speaker 1: by a group of incredibly powerful people, that they are

980
01:03:22,560 --> 01:03:27,360
Speaker 1: all real pills, but somehow they cooperate together, and they

981
01:03:27,400 --> 01:03:31,280
Speaker 1: have their own secret religion. They profess one religion publicly,

982
01:03:31,960 --> 01:03:35,760
Speaker 1: but they practice this other religion that is meant for

983
01:03:36,120 --> 01:03:39,920
Speaker 1: the elite and the elite alone. And you'll hear various

984
01:03:40,240 --> 01:03:45,400
Speaker 1: fringe researchers or i would say fringe speculators saying that

985
01:03:45,800 --> 01:03:51,360
Speaker 1: you know, they secretly continue the ancient mystery schools, right,

986
01:03:51,560 --> 01:03:56,240
Speaker 1: or some Mesopotamian polytheistic religion, and that they consider things

987
01:03:56,280 --> 01:04:01,920
Speaker 1: like Christianity or Buddhism, or need any younger religions tools

988
01:04:01,960 --> 01:04:06,880
Speaker 1: to control the masses manipulation systems for slaves. Yeah, and

989
01:04:07,360 --> 01:04:12,840
Speaker 1: there's no lack of let's say this again in a

990
01:04:12,880 --> 01:04:19,040
Speaker 1: diplomatic but accurate way, there's no lack of people claiming

991
01:04:19,360 --> 01:04:22,640
Speaker 1: to have evidence that this is true. Yeah.

992
01:04:23,520 --> 01:04:29,640
Speaker 2: All I would say, Ben, is that the answers to

993
01:04:30,560 --> 01:04:35,120
Speaker 2: our questions about the Illuminati all exist on a stone

994
01:04:35,200 --> 01:04:38,320
Speaker 2: castle on the top of a hill with a man

995
01:04:38,360 --> 01:04:41,960
Speaker 2: who is known only as the songwriter, and if you

996
01:04:42,120 --> 01:04:47,040
Speaker 2: seek under the silver lake you may find him.

997
01:04:47,200 --> 01:04:48,400
Speaker 1: They talk about Philip K.

998
01:04:48,520 --> 01:04:51,360
Speaker 2: Dick. No, what is this. It's one of the first

999
01:04:51,360 --> 01:04:54,400
Speaker 2: times I've ever been able to reference something without you

1000
01:04:54,440 --> 01:04:56,480
Speaker 2: know what, I'm knowing what I'm talking about. So I'm

1001
01:04:56,520 --> 01:04:59,000
Speaker 2: really really happy about it, and I'm gonna wait for

1002
01:04:59,040 --> 01:05:01,760
Speaker 2: you to learn about what it is when people write

1003
01:05:01,760 --> 01:05:02,280
Speaker 2: to us.

1004
01:05:02,280 --> 01:05:04,880
Speaker 1: Interesting. Yeah, okay, because at first I was thinking man

1005
01:05:04,920 --> 01:05:07,480
Speaker 1: the high castle, but maybe I've just been I'm so

1006
01:05:07,560 --> 01:05:11,520
Speaker 1: excited switched because yeah, maybe I'm Yeah.

1007
01:05:11,760 --> 01:05:13,600
Speaker 2: It's obscure. I promise you it's obscure.

1008
01:05:13,680 --> 01:05:16,960
Speaker 1: And is it cool? It's really does the reference work?

1009
01:05:19,080 --> 01:05:21,080
Speaker 2: I don't know, but we'll just have they were great. Yeah,

1010
01:05:21,120 --> 01:05:22,080
Speaker 2: I think I think it's cool.

1011
01:05:22,640 --> 01:05:24,520
Speaker 1: Oh, thank you man, I'm excited.

1012
01:05:25,040 --> 01:05:26,800
Speaker 2: Nintendo Power is involved as well.

1013
01:05:26,880 --> 01:05:31,320
Speaker 1: Is this Castle Vania? No way, I think hearing Castle

1014
01:05:31,440 --> 01:05:32,240
Speaker 1: is just throwing me.

1015
01:05:32,480 --> 01:05:33,800
Speaker 2: It's actually not too far up.

1016
01:05:33,800 --> 01:05:36,520
Speaker 1: But it is a video game. No it's not a

1017
01:05:36,600 --> 01:05:37,120
Speaker 1: video game.

1018
01:05:37,280 --> 01:05:37,480
Speaker 2: No.

1019
01:05:38,480 --> 01:05:43,400
Speaker 1: Wow, Yes, there's a mystery afoot. How appropriate for this episode.

1020
01:05:43,800 --> 01:05:48,240
Speaker 1: So while I'm caught shading on this, yeah, I'm flummis,

1021
01:05:48,640 --> 01:05:54,360
Speaker 1: I'm stumped. We know that there are different, different things

1022
01:05:54,400 --> 01:05:56,960
Speaker 1: that are purported to be evidence of an existence of

1023
01:05:57,040 --> 01:06:03,800
Speaker 1: a sinister, secret religion practiced by some relatively anonymous cabal

1024
01:06:04,040 --> 01:06:07,880
Speaker 1: of people. Right, yeah, and some of these things are real.

1025
01:06:08,720 --> 01:06:13,400
Speaker 1: The Bohemian Grove does have this ritual called the Cremation

1026
01:06:13,680 --> 01:06:18,560
Speaker 1: of Care, wherein they ritualistically burn an effigy and they

1027
01:06:18,600 --> 01:06:21,400
Speaker 1: get really weird about it. It seems to be a

1028
01:06:21,520 --> 01:06:25,080
Speaker 1: rich boys club. But for people who believe that there

1029
01:06:25,120 --> 01:06:30,320
Speaker 1: is a secret religion in play, this is a smoking gun, yes,

1030
01:06:30,720 --> 01:06:33,200
Speaker 1: or I should say a smoking effigy.

1031
01:06:33,280 --> 01:06:36,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're you're I mean, you're correct, that's what it is.

1032
01:06:36,320 --> 01:06:41,080
Speaker 2: For those people. It's it's tough though, because we can't

1033
01:06:41,120 --> 01:06:44,840
Speaker 2: really we can't fully prove anything like that, you know,

1034
01:06:44,960 --> 01:06:48,200
Speaker 2: is it truly religious belief just because they, you know,

1035
01:06:48,520 --> 01:06:51,200
Speaker 2: do something. If someone participates in something like the cremation

1036
01:06:51,240 --> 01:06:54,640
Speaker 2: of care ritual, right, doesn't mean that they actually believe

1037
01:06:54,920 --> 01:06:58,000
Speaker 2: a whole separate set of beliefs and that they're all

1038
01:06:58,000 --> 01:07:00,920
Speaker 2: working together for some goal. That's why it's so difficult

1039
01:07:01,000 --> 01:07:06,080
Speaker 2: for us to really explore something like the Illuminati, because

1040
01:07:06,080 --> 01:07:08,760
Speaker 2: we know there's that real thing called the Bavarian Illuminati

1041
01:07:08,760 --> 01:07:12,000
Speaker 2: that we've talked about numerous times. Yeah, yeah, but like

1042
01:07:12,760 --> 01:07:15,680
Speaker 2: right now, I mean, if someone is in a secret

1043
01:07:15,720 --> 01:07:19,040
Speaker 2: religion like that, they're not gonna Nobody's gonna talk to

1044
01:07:19,080 --> 01:07:19,880
Speaker 2: me or you.

1045
01:07:20,320 --> 01:07:21,520
Speaker 1: They might they might talk to him.

1046
01:07:21,520 --> 01:07:22,000
Speaker 2: They might talk to you.

1047
01:07:22,120 --> 01:07:23,720
Speaker 1: They might talk to they might talk to all of us,

1048
01:07:23,800 --> 01:07:25,360
Speaker 1: they know what, speak only to Paul.

1049
01:07:25,520 --> 01:07:27,479
Speaker 2: We need to get Dan Harmon on the case, because

1050
01:07:27,520 --> 01:07:30,880
Speaker 2: they'll definitely talk to him. They'll like strike up a conversation,

1051
01:07:31,480 --> 01:07:34,200
Speaker 2: you know, something Rick said and then he's in.

1052
01:07:35,000 --> 01:07:37,400
Speaker 1: There's a problem, though, Matt. If something like that existed,

1053
01:07:37,680 --> 01:07:42,840
Speaker 1: and if it was that powerful, then why would we

1054
01:07:43,040 --> 01:07:47,800
Speaker 1: be able to talk about it so openly and so easily,

1055
01:07:48,120 --> 01:07:51,400
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Because we did a what

1056
01:07:51,680 --> 01:07:56,560
Speaker 1: three part series on the so called Illuminati, and I

1057
01:07:56,560 --> 01:07:58,840
Speaker 1: think we did. I think we did a pretty good

1058
01:07:58,920 --> 01:08:04,000
Speaker 1: job of of separating some facts from some fiction and

1059
01:08:04,040 --> 01:08:08,880
Speaker 1: fancy there. But again, that's that's the biggest argument. If

1060
01:08:09,280 --> 01:08:11,640
Speaker 1: it were something that existed, it were dangerous, it were

1061
01:08:11,680 --> 01:08:17,200
Speaker 1: a potent force in the world, then why it's okay.

1062
01:08:17,280 --> 01:08:20,800
Speaker 1: It's kind of like the wija board argument. If there

1063
01:08:20,880 --> 01:08:24,880
Speaker 1: is a way to reliably contact the afterlife, if if

1064
01:08:24,920 --> 01:08:27,519
Speaker 1: we if we say that people, some part of us

1065
01:08:27,560 --> 01:08:32,360
Speaker 1: exist after the corporeal body no longer functions, then would

1066
01:08:32,439 --> 01:08:36,000
Speaker 1: the way to contact the afterlife really be a mass

1067
01:08:36,000 --> 01:08:41,559
Speaker 1: produced board game by Parker Brothers? Has has Is it

1068
01:08:41,640 --> 01:08:44,400
Speaker 1: possible that just goes to real? And they're like, why

1069
01:08:44,520 --> 01:08:47,160
Speaker 1: is no one taking this wija board thing? Seriously? It's

1070
01:08:47,200 --> 01:08:49,559
Speaker 1: our one chance to talk to you. It just it

1071
01:08:49,600 --> 01:08:51,479
Speaker 1: doesn't match up, you know. And I don't mean to

1072
01:08:51,840 --> 01:08:54,200
Speaker 1: I don't mean to sound dismissive of that. I'm just

1073
01:08:54,240 --> 01:08:58,719
Speaker 1: saying that if the if there is some secret evil religion,

1074
01:08:58,840 --> 01:09:02,439
Speaker 1: and if it's real, then I don't understand why they

1075
01:09:02,479 --> 01:09:06,479
Speaker 1: haven't reached out to us or you know, done something.

1076
01:09:06,479 --> 01:09:08,840
Speaker 1: I know, maybe I'm whistling in the graveyard, or maybe

1077
01:09:08,840 --> 01:09:14,960
Speaker 1: I'm maybe I'm I'm not daring anybody to do anything crazy. Yes,

1078
01:09:15,040 --> 01:09:17,840
Speaker 1: I'm just saying that's one of the biggest pieces of

1079
01:09:17,880 --> 01:09:22,080
Speaker 1: evidence against that stuff existing. That doesn't prove it doesn't exist.

1080
01:09:22,840 --> 01:09:26,200
Speaker 1: The same thing with evil religions, the ideas of secret Satanists,

1081
01:09:26,200 --> 01:09:29,479
Speaker 1: which you already mentioned, but it does. This all leads

1082
01:09:29,560 --> 01:09:33,680
Speaker 1: us to one concrete answer. This is one of those

1083
01:09:33,680 --> 01:09:38,000
Speaker 1: episodes where we do have an answer. The answer is, yes,

1084
01:09:38,720 --> 01:09:43,320
Speaker 1: secret religions do exist. They do exist today to one

1085
01:09:43,360 --> 01:09:45,920
Speaker 1: degree or another. They may not be exactly what we're

1086
01:09:45,960 --> 01:09:49,080
Speaker 1: thinking of or what fiction wants us to believe, but yes,

1087
01:09:49,160 --> 01:09:53,920
Speaker 1: there are secret rituals and practices, and there are value systems.

1088
01:09:53,960 --> 01:09:57,080
Speaker 1: If we define secret as things that not everybody has

1089
01:09:57,120 --> 01:10:00,240
Speaker 1: access to, then yeah, of course those exist and they

1090
01:10:00,240 --> 01:10:03,800
Speaker 1: probably will exist. The only question then is how much

1091
01:10:03,920 --> 01:10:06,479
Speaker 1: or how little influenced do they have on the world

1092
01:10:06,520 --> 01:10:10,320
Speaker 1: in which we live today? Does it matter to you?

1093
01:10:11,120 --> 01:10:13,719
Speaker 1: Are you? Are you going to be resentful of people

1094
01:10:13,920 --> 01:10:17,439
Speaker 1: who have their own belief system if it doesn't affect

1095
01:10:17,479 --> 01:10:20,760
Speaker 1: you just I mean, so, it's a tough thing to

1096
01:10:20,800 --> 01:10:23,439
Speaker 1: deal with as humans, But you know, some things are

1097
01:10:23,479 --> 01:10:24,080
Speaker 1: just not for you.

1098
01:10:26,080 --> 01:10:29,400
Speaker 2: For me, the biggest question for today, after everything we've

1099
01:10:29,439 --> 01:10:33,880
Speaker 2: talked about, is how much did some tiny secret religion

1100
01:10:34,240 --> 01:10:37,200
Speaker 2: with you know, a small group of people practiced and believed.

1101
01:10:37,439 --> 01:10:42,639
Speaker 2: How much did that secret religion influence whatever your religious

1102
01:10:42,640 --> 01:10:45,519
Speaker 2: beliefs are right now? And you know, if you if

1103
01:10:45,560 --> 01:10:50,160
Speaker 2: you follow one of the larger movements and traditions and

1104
01:10:50,200 --> 01:10:53,679
Speaker 2: religions today, how much did a lot of these smaller,

1105
01:10:53,760 --> 01:10:57,320
Speaker 2: secretive religions back in the day changers.

1106
01:10:58,040 --> 01:11:01,200
Speaker 1: That's a great question, And I'd also like to say,

1107
01:11:02,200 --> 01:11:06,439
Speaker 1: and it just to build on that that faith as

1108
01:11:06,479 --> 01:11:10,400
Speaker 1: we understand it, regardless what your specific spiritual belief system

1109
01:11:10,479 --> 01:11:17,240
Speaker 1: or religious belief may be, faith is a uniquely human superpower.

1110
01:11:18,200 --> 01:11:23,120
Speaker 1: We don't have a very good definition of what intelligence is.

1111
01:11:24,160 --> 01:11:28,080
Speaker 1: We are closer and closer, like the more we learn

1112
01:11:28,200 --> 01:11:32,559
Speaker 1: about intelligence and these amazing baffling machines we call the brain,

1113
01:11:33,320 --> 01:11:35,360
Speaker 1: the more we learn that we have a lot in

1114
01:11:35,400 --> 01:11:37,880
Speaker 1: common with animals that we used to think we're not

1115
01:11:38,160 --> 01:11:42,200
Speaker 1: super intelligent, like Corvid and elephants, cetaceans and so on.

1116
01:11:42,680 --> 01:11:46,200
Speaker 1: But the one thing that still differentiates us is this

1117
01:11:46,439 --> 01:11:52,040
Speaker 1: ability to imagine an unseen world. You know, and I'm

1118
01:11:52,280 --> 01:11:56,400
Speaker 1: using unseen because I don't want to say, you know,

1119
01:11:56,479 --> 01:11:58,680
Speaker 1: for some people in our audience today, some of us

1120
01:11:58,720 --> 01:12:01,240
Speaker 1: listening will probably say, I think you mean made up,

1121
01:12:01,479 --> 01:12:03,000
Speaker 1: But I don't want to say made up. I want

1122
01:12:03,040 --> 01:12:05,719
Speaker 1: to say unseen, because I know this is a very personal,

1123
01:12:05,960 --> 01:12:07,639
Speaker 1: very real thing for a lot of people.

1124
01:12:07,800 --> 01:12:13,640
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, the concepts of parallel dimensions are certainly not unscientific,

1125
01:12:14,240 --> 01:12:16,800
Speaker 2: right I mean, or at least within the thought of

1126
01:12:16,840 --> 01:12:21,400
Speaker 2: these things and anything that you would compare to a heaven,

1127
01:12:21,439 --> 01:12:24,120
Speaker 2: a hell, whatever you want to call it, a purgatory,

1128
01:12:24,160 --> 01:12:27,320
Speaker 2: all those things that would or could be just considered

1129
01:12:27,360 --> 01:12:30,880
Speaker 2: a parallel dimension that exists simultaneously next to ours.

1130
01:12:31,080 --> 01:12:34,320
Speaker 1: There we go, and maybe a good way to phrase

1131
01:12:34,360 --> 01:12:39,280
Speaker 1: it is as a series of questions. Do elephants have gods?

1132
01:12:40,360 --> 01:12:43,559
Speaker 1: Do corphans have gods? Do dolphins have gods? The answer,

1133
01:12:43,560 --> 01:12:47,880
Speaker 1: as far as we know is no. From everything we

1134
01:12:47,960 --> 01:12:54,040
Speaker 1: have seen, there is one flavor of life in this planet,

1135
01:12:54,040 --> 01:12:57,040
Speaker 1: and therefore the entirety of our experience that has the

1136
01:12:57,120 --> 01:13:02,639
Speaker 1: capacity to pursue this soorl of mental system, and it's us.

1137
01:13:03,800 --> 01:13:06,519
Speaker 1: This is you know, I got a quote Spider Man,

1138
01:13:06,560 --> 01:13:10,000
Speaker 1: with great power comes great responsibility. We're the only living

1139
01:13:10,040 --> 01:13:13,160
Speaker 1: things that can do this, and regardless of how we

1140
01:13:13,240 --> 01:13:16,960
Speaker 1: may feel on individual levels about individual examples of this,

1141
01:13:17,400 --> 01:13:20,000
Speaker 1: we have to sit back and admit that is astonishing.

1142
01:13:20,320 --> 01:13:22,160
Speaker 1: I don't know where else to go with this. You

1143
01:13:22,200 --> 01:13:25,280
Speaker 1: know what I mean? Is a world without this kind

1144
01:13:25,280 --> 01:13:29,880
Speaker 1: of capability better? I would argue no, because that same

1145
01:13:30,080 --> 01:13:36,080
Speaker 1: kind of almost said hutsba. But that same kind of

1146
01:13:36,600 --> 01:13:42,599
Speaker 1: ability is what drives us toward these innovations that again,

1147
01:13:42,680 --> 01:13:45,240
Speaker 1: no other living creature has been able to do yet

1148
01:13:45,400 --> 01:13:51,800
Speaker 1: so far as we know. Absolutely, and that's our classic

1149
01:13:51,960 --> 01:13:55,679
Speaker 1: episode for this evening. We can't wait to hear your thoughts.

1150
01:13:55,720 --> 01:13:57,040
Speaker 1: It's right let us know what you think. You can

1151
01:13:57,120 --> 01:13:59,479
Speaker 1: reach to the ham A Conspiracy Stuff where we exist

1152
01:13:59,479 --> 01:14:03,439
Speaker 1: on Facebook, book x and YouTube on Instagram and TikTok

1153
01:14:03,479 --> 01:14:04,599
Speaker 1: or Conspiracy Stuff Show.

1154
01:14:04,640 --> 01:14:06,880
Speaker 2: If you want to call us dial one eight three

1155
01:14:07,000 --> 01:14:12,160
Speaker 2: three STDWYTK that's our voicemail system. You've got three minutes,

1156
01:14:12,200 --> 01:14:14,400
Speaker 2: give yourself a cool nickname and let us know if

1157
01:14:14,400 --> 01:14:16,479
Speaker 2: we can use your name and message on the air.

1158
01:14:16,800 --> 01:14:18,360
Speaker 2: If you got more to say than can fit in

1159
01:14:18,400 --> 01:14:21,200
Speaker 2: that voicemail, why not instead send us a good old

1160
01:14:21,240 --> 01:14:22,000
Speaker 2: fashioned email.

1161
01:14:22,240 --> 01:14:25,160
Speaker 1: We are the entities that read every single piece of

1162
01:14:25,160 --> 01:14:29,600
Speaker 1: correspondence we receive, be aware, yet not afraid. Sometimes the

1163
01:14:29,680 --> 01:14:51,960
Speaker 1: void writes back conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.

1164
01:14:52,160 --> 01:14:54,200
Speaker 2: Stuff they don't want you to know is a production

1165
01:14:54,320 --> 01:14:58,560
Speaker 2: of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio

1166
01:14:58,600 --> 01:15:01,799
Speaker 2: app Apple Podcasts, wherever you listen to your favorite shows.