Speaker 1: Welcome to our classic episode for this evening. Fellow conspiracy realist,
Speaker 1: We've done it. We're two for oh with accidentally lining
Speaker 1: up classics. Right exactly. Yeah, as our guest super producer
Speaker 1: Dave Coustan called the most recent episode we did on
Speaker 1: the weird origins of Christmas Jesus stuff. Yes, yeah, When
Speaker 1: was Jesus Christ actually born? What role did pre existing
Speaker 1: religious practices play in the modern celebrations and rituals of
Speaker 1: Christianity today? It's a deep question. It's a sensitive subject
Speaker 1: for some people. In this classic episode, we advanced to you,
Speaker 1: fellow listeners, that religious syncretism may be the ultimate conspiracy.
Speaker 2: Mm and guess what. The next classic after this one
Speaker 2: is going to the dark side of all this.
Speaker 1: We're going three for h All right, let's jump.
Speaker 3: In from UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History
Speaker 3: is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now
Speaker 3: or learn this stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 3: A production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works.
Speaker 2: Hello, Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt
Speaker 2: nol Is on a musical adventure.
Speaker 1: They call me Ben. We are joined as always with
Speaker 1: our super producer Paul Mission Control decond. Most importantly, you
Speaker 1: are here and that makes this stuff they don't want
Speaker 1: you to know. Matt, as everyone turned into our live
Speaker 1: show has already learned. Congratulations are due to you, my
Speaker 1: old friend. You have made it ten years right, ten
Speaker 1: year anniversary.
Speaker 2: Oh man, it was huge. It was really great, and honestly,
Speaker 2: I couldn't be happier.
Speaker 1: That's fantastic. That's fantastic. Someone also recently asked us, I
Speaker 1: don't know whether you saw this about the age of
Speaker 1: stuff they don't want you to know, going back to
Speaker 1: the YouTube days.
Speaker 2: You know, I think we're ten maybe eleven at this point.
Speaker 1: Are we ten maybe eleven?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're in between.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's crazy. So that means that this show started
Speaker 1: around the time you got married.
Speaker 2: That's right. It was part of my vows, made vowels
Speaker 2: to my wife in to you guys.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, weird. Yep, that explains a lot. I know kidding.
Speaker 1: We are having a great though busy time here at
Speaker 1: the top secret stuff they don't want, you know, studio
Speaker 1: with a publicly available address, because we're traveling a lot.
Speaker 1: We're making some waves and we are still we're still
Speaker 1: delving into new and strange things, at least as far
Speaker 1: as this show is concerned, because one of the new
Speaker 1: and strange things that we're delving into today is a very,
Speaker 1: very old thing. We are delving into the story of
Speaker 1: some of the legitimately oldest conspiracy theories in human history,
Speaker 1: not just written history, not just oral history. The capital
Speaker 1: h whole thing. Today's episode, you see, is about religion
Speaker 1: before the dawn of recorded history. This has been one
Speaker 1: of humanity's most inspiring, divisive and if we are being
Speaker 1: brutally honest, dangerous debates.
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely. And just to put this out there, as
Speaker 2: we do every time we talk about something like this,
Speaker 2: we at this show will never tell you what to
Speaker 2: believe or what not to believe. That is your own thing.
Speaker 2: What we will do is discuss lot of these things.
Speaker 2: And Dan, if you're listening and driving to work, that
Speaker 2: means you.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's right, yes, thank you so much, Dan Harmon.
Speaker 1: We do have eyes and ears scattered around various places
Speaker 1: in the English speaking world. We appreciate, we appreciate your time.
Speaker 1: Did you get a chance to listen to that clip?
Speaker 2: Now? I did? I really hope he doesn't feel too
Speaker 2: bad about listening to this show after talking about it openly.
Speaker 1: Well, I want to point out also also, I would
Speaker 1: hope this is abundantly clear to anyone listening to the show.
Speaker 1: We're not Nazis, nor do we identify with or give
Speaker 1: any consideration too categorically, any ideas of racial or religious supremacy.
Speaker 1: That sort of stuff is just the lowest form of thinking,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Oh?
Speaker 2: Absolutely, But you know with that, With that said, it
Speaker 2: was really cool to to hear our show spoken by
Speaker 2: somebody that you know, we we genuinely appreciate his work,
Speaker 2: so thanks.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and I respected a brilliant writer and unfailingly
Speaker 1: honest too, which is a rare commodity in these our
Speaker 1: modern days. Here's here's hoping the best we can hope now, Matt,
Speaker 1: is that we do not get ruthlessly lampooned on some
Speaker 1: episode of Frick and Morty.
Speaker 2: Oh or should we hope that?
Speaker 1: Either way? What a what a way to go? And
Speaker 1: I like that. We're also we're also being careful to
Speaker 1: talk about avoiding prejudices and discriminations as we enter into
Speaker 1: one of the most discriminatory and prejudiced parts of the
Speaker 1: human experience, religion. You know what would the what if
Speaker 1: if we were trying to sell religion to some extraterrestrial
Speaker 1: species or someone with somebow never heard of it? The
Speaker 1: taglines are you know, there's a multitude of them, but
Speaker 1: they're also pretty distressing. Again, if we're being honest religion.
Speaker 1: You know, in the byline is a lot of good
Speaker 1: people died.
Speaker 2: And an uncountable number of people have died over the
Speaker 2: years because of persecution by varying sects of religion. But
Speaker 2: you know that doesn't mean it's all bad, right.
Speaker 1: Sure, Yeah, While there is no way to estimate how
Speaker 1: many people have died due to religious conflicts over the
Speaker 1: course of this strange experiment we call the human species,
Speaker 1: there's also no way to estimate how many people have
Speaker 1: been physically saved by another person's religious principles. You know,
Speaker 1: someone has their finger on the button for a bomb
Speaker 1: or their finger on the trigger of a gun, and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, there's some sort of distant echo
Speaker 1: internal monologue in their heads saying thou shalt not something something,
Speaker 1: and they say, I will not be a force of
Speaker 1: evil today, Or.
Speaker 2: Just by the simple kind words of one person to
Speaker 2: another that saved the life of another, or the giving
Speaker 2: of food or the selflessness that exists in many, if
Speaker 2: not most religions.
Speaker 1: Sure, yeah, in a very real way, spiritual beliefs taught
Speaker 1: empathy to many people. Go, however, knowing that we cannot
Speaker 1: estimate the number of people who died, and we cannot
Speaker 1: estimate the number of people who were saved physically again
Speaker 1: not spiritually, we can sadly and tragically safely assume that
Speaker 1: the number of people who died due to religion far
Speaker 1: outweighs the number of people who are saved to a
Speaker 1: religion so far, you know what I mean? Maybe twenty
Speaker 1: twenty will be the big ear for all of us.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, we also can't continue without stating the fairly obvious.
Speaker 2: But maybe something we don't think about very often is
Speaker 2: that religion can be used as a a control structure
Speaker 2: for the masses, a control structure for the mind essentially.
Speaker 1: And opiate of the masses.
Speaker 2: Yeah, any quote goes yeah, I mean it can be
Speaker 2: used in those ways if wielded. It's tough to even
Speaker 2: talk about a lot of times, because if wielded by
Speaker 2: an improper power, or by a power or someone with
Speaker 2: intentions to do so, it's possible at least.
Speaker 1: I'm going to say that I'm going to take it
Speaker 1: a little bit further. Maybe what I did for here,
Speaker 1: which is fine, I am going to argue that, at
Speaker 1: least from a social perspective or a sociological perspective, all
Speaker 1: religion is a means of controlling a group of people.
Speaker 1: That doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad way to control
Speaker 1: a group of people, because there are a lot of
Speaker 1: ancient texts that have restrictions or constraints that may seem
Speaker 1: oddly specific right in the modern day, but if you
Speaker 1: look at the time which these were created, a lot
Speaker 1: of them were things like health code concerns, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. It might say, you know, insert God
Speaker 1: here says not to consume this animal because it's unclean,
Speaker 1: when the reality may have been don't consume this animal
Speaker 1: because it will give you trickonosis or something and you
Speaker 1: will die.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1: And the same thing with like rules about hey, don't
Speaker 1: sleep with your family members because it's it's what's bad
Speaker 1: for the goose is bad for the gander genetically.
Speaker 2: Yeah, or even something is as simple as you know,
Speaker 2: try not to be jealous of other people, you know,
Speaker 2: like that it's it's a simple idea. But if you
Speaker 2: can encode that in someone, you can probably make society
Speaker 2: a little bit better or at least at large by
Speaker 2: controlling them.
Speaker 1: Agreed. See again, it's it's rules of the road for
Speaker 1: a group to survive. In this show, we're going to
Speaker 1: explore the basics of religion as currently understood from an
Speaker 1: academic and an historical perspective. We are not going to
Speaker 1: make any attempt to proselytize you, and we won't We
Speaker 1: certainly will not try to grade one belief system as
Speaker 1: better or worse than another. We're not qualified, and to
Speaker 1: be honest, there is no one alive or dead who
Speaker 1: was qualified, is qualified, or will be qualified to do so.
Speaker 1: Oh man, I know, I know hyperbole, right, and I
Speaker 1: would be glad to be wrong. If there is someone
Speaker 1: who is genuinely some sort of omniscient religious authority bullieve
Speaker 1: for you.
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure there's at least two people somewhere in
Speaker 2: Arizona that could probably fit that bill.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, right to us. Please we are a conspiracy
Speaker 1: at iHeartRadio dot com. Instead of doing that, instead of
Speaker 1: you know, lauding one religion or vilifying another, or trying
Speaker 1: to convert you to one of our self manufactured religions.
Speaker 1: We are going to delve headfirst into the one of
Speaker 1: the strangest, longest running conspiracy theories in history, and that
Speaker 1: is the idea of secret religions. Here are the facts.
Speaker 2: Okay, So when we're when we're saying religion, what we're
Speaker 2: really talking about here, we're just going to hit some
Speaker 2: of these basic points, right, sure, religion, we're talking about
Speaker 2: the worship of a god, some kind of supernatural being
Speaker 2: or a pantheon of beings gods in that in that case,
Speaker 2: and in their ability to exert some kind of power
Speaker 2: over humans or or the earth, or some other physical
Speaker 2: aspect that we encounter.
Speaker 1: Or the or your access to the spiritual world.
Speaker 2: Ryes.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, So the idea there being that there is
Speaker 1: a god of everything, maybe right, a yahweh, or there
Speaker 1: is a god that controls certain aspects of the world,
Speaker 1: right like a hades, right, a.
Speaker 2: God of the world's And that's very general though, because
Speaker 2: that doesn't encompass all.
Speaker 1: Religions, right right, That's the thing, this definition is not
Speaker 1: entirely correct. Not all religions have what we would recognize
Speaker 1: as a supreme deity. Some religions just have precepts like
Speaker 1: don't kill people because it will make things worse for you, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then we have to arrive at a more inclusive definition,
Speaker 1: or maybe more comprehensive definition. If we're trying to fit
Speaker 1: everything that's ever been called a religion into one definition,
Speaker 1: we would say something like all religion is a cultural
Speaker 1: system of practices, traditions, values, and beliefs, often accompanied by
Speaker 1: psychotext locations. I add rituals. That's that's pretty good, because
Speaker 1: it's so damnably broad. Yeah, and this leads us to
Speaker 1: a huge controversy, a controversy that's probably never going to
Speaker 1: be solved even now, even today as you listen to
Speaker 1: this as we record it in twenty nineteen, there is
Speaker 1: no scholarly agreement over what exactly makes something religion. Like,
Speaker 1: think of all the things in the world that are
Speaker 1: not religions but fit that second definition. We're talking about
Speaker 1: some nerd fandom, right, watching the people who get together
Speaker 1: to watch Rocky horror picture show.
Speaker 2: Oh so yeah, some multi level marketing schemes.
Speaker 1: There we go, sports fandom, right, this is what we
Speaker 1: do for our team to increase their chances of getting
Speaker 1: to the super Bowl and people believe in it. I
Speaker 1: gotta wear my green pants or whatever.
Speaker 2: Right, thou shalt not say that certain play whilst in
Speaker 2: a theater.
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly exactly. And now let's exit stage left, pursued
Speaker 1: by a bear to look into the history of religion.
Speaker 1: How did we get to this crazy place where billions
Speaker 1: of people the world are defining their lives and living
Speaker 1: their lives according to something that billions of other people
Speaker 1: think is either misguided or inaccurate or complete hogwash. The
Speaker 1: weird thing is we've been working on this conundrum for
Speaker 1: the longest time. Asking where religion begins is a lot
Speaker 1: like asking who the first person to discover fire was right,
Speaker 1: there's not a clear answer. We're not going to find
Speaker 1: one unless something very surprising happens in today's episode. The
Speaker 1: best we can guess is that again, religion predates the
Speaker 1: written word and recorded history. At first, that sounds impressive,
Speaker 1: but written history only really kicks into gear five thousand
Speaker 1: years ago or so, which is a drop in the bucket.
Speaker 1: It's not a long time. Humans were around way before then,
Speaker 1: it just took us a while to start writing the
Speaker 1: down in full. The oldest known writing currently is a
Speaker 1: limestone tablet. It's called the Kish tablet from Sumer. It's
Speaker 1: around dates backed around thirty five hundred BCE, and it's
Speaker 1: in a weird spot because if you look at it,
Speaker 1: it's pictograms. It's an assemblage of pictograms. But it represents
Speaker 1: a kind of awkward transition from proto writing to syllabic
Speaker 1: writing of what would later be recognized as quinea form.
Speaker 1: Syllabic writing, of course, is the kind of writing that
Speaker 1: you would see English rendered into on a page. Right,
Speaker 1: you have different you have different symbols representing different sounds
Speaker 1: or groups of sounds, and you arrange them into things
Speaker 1: and holy smokes, by golly, by gum. When you pronounce
Speaker 1: those correctly, they make a spell the living language.
Speaker 2: Oh I love where you took that when you said syllabic.
Speaker 2: In my mind, I really was thinking about the art
Speaker 2: of chiseling stone tablets. I apologize that that's where my
Speaker 2: brain went.
Speaker 1: No, but I mean it makes sense too. Can you
Speaker 1: imagine how frustrated the authors and the thinkers of old
Speaker 1: would be with our creative aptitude today. It's so easy
Speaker 1: to write a book today. All you have to do
Speaker 1: is not get distracted you can get a you can
Speaker 1: get a pen and a piece of paper for free,
Speaker 1: pretty much.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but good luck not getting distracted.
Speaker 1: Good luck not getting distracted. Yes, so that's where we are.
Speaker 1: We know this stuff existed forever, and there's some fascinating
Speaker 1: physiological processes at play and the human mind. From everything
Speaker 1: we can find, human beings seem hardwired for these sorts
Speaker 1: of belief structures. And we see this because what we
Speaker 1: would call religion today likely independently in many, many parts
Speaker 1: of the world, and was probably most often tied to
Speaker 1: natural cycles of the earth, right, crops growing, the harvest season, birth, death, winter,
Speaker 1: what time is the sun coming up, when's the eclipse?
Speaker 1: That kind of jazz. And then also in step with
Speaker 1: that veneration and fear of the dead, those who have
Speaker 1: passed beyond, let's weigh that body down with rocks, but
Speaker 1: in a respectful manner so they're not pissed at us later.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, in those big questions that are endlessen have
Speaker 2: been around forever and probably will never leave us, because
Speaker 2: there may never be a concrete answer of what happens
Speaker 2: to us after we die.
Speaker 1: Right right exactly. We do, however, know the oldest universally
Speaker 1: agreed recorded religion. We have been able to get a
Speaker 1: ballpark sense of where and when that begin.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, sure. So the old recorded religion goes all
Speaker 2: the way back to Mesopotamia, and a lot of the
Speaker 2: practices that we know about from here likely began as
Speaker 2: the worship of some kind of natural forces, as Ben
Speaker 2: was speaking about earlier, seeking some you know, supernatural intercession
Speaker 2: for crops, I mean, making sure that we have enough
Speaker 2: food to feed all the humans that are around us,
Speaker 2: as well as feed the animals that we need to
Speaker 2: sustain our lives. And also you know, trying to avoid
Speaker 2: some kind of natural disaster that exists within their part
Speaker 2: of the world, to say a tornado or flooding or
Speaker 2: something to that effect. And you know, when you're thinking,
Speaker 2: when you're thinking about the Mesopotamians and what they what
Speaker 2: their beliefs were back then, you have to first start
Speaker 2: with knowing that they were polytheistic, meaning they worshiped several
Speaker 2: major gods and then numerous, well thousands at least of
Speaker 2: minor gods.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm, yeah, exactly. Each Mesopotamian city, whether Sumerian, Acadian, Babylonian, Assyrian,
Speaker 1: and so on, they not only had the universally recognized
Speaker 1: pantheon of Mesopotamian gods, they also had their own patron
Speaker 1: god or goddess. So for a good analog of this,
Speaker 1: if you're familiar with US cities, imagine, just for the
Speaker 1: sake of argument, the entire country had the same polytheistic religion.
Speaker 1: But in addition to the pantheon that everybody in the
Speaker 1: country agreed upon, each city had its own specific god.
Speaker 1: A god for Los Angeles, a god for Chicago, right right,
Speaker 1: a god for I don't know, Spokane or Syracuse. You know.
Speaker 1: That's the sort of environment in which these people lived,
Speaker 1: and each Mesopotamian era or culture had different aspects, expressions,
Speaker 1: or interpretations of the gods. This is something we see
Speaker 1: again in Greco Roman culture. For instance, Marduk got A
Speaker 1: Babylon for example, was also known in summer, but he
Speaker 1: was Inky or Ea. This practice, this kind of complicated
Speaker 1: cultural exchange, had its heyday from around thirty five hundred
Speaker 1: BCE where we see the Kish tablet, to about four
Speaker 1: hundred AD. At that point, this pre existing religion began
Speaker 1: to be supplanted by Syriac Christianity.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the way it gets supplanted is not always
Speaker 2: the most peaceful thing or method. But it is important
Speaker 2: to note that this kind of transitioning, if you're living
Speaker 2: in one space, one area, the transitioning of religion as
Speaker 2: some overlay with that area, it's not rare. It's pretty
Speaker 2: dang common, and most often, like we were saying, it's
Speaker 2: not as though they it's an on off switch, right
Speaker 2: with Let's say, if Buddhism moves in to an area,
Speaker 2: it doesn't just turn over to Buddhism. That's kind of obvious,
Speaker 2: but in our minds sometimes we separate things like that
Speaker 2: just to make it easier, Right, But this is a
Speaker 2: one giant crossfade that occurs when an area is transitioning
Speaker 2: from one religion to the next, and sometimes that belief
Speaker 2: system ends up morphing in becoming something new when it's
Speaker 2: two or more combining.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, like a brand new package, same great taste,
Speaker 1: you know, if you were buying religions at a grocery store.
Speaker 2: Or maybe same rough package, but the taste is got
Speaker 2: a little extra spice to it.
Speaker 1: There we go, there we go with new ingredients. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I think that's a more apt comparison that you've
Speaker 1: just made. And this goes to a larger point. It's
Speaker 1: something that I think escapes a lot of us. It
Speaker 1: definitely escaped me when I was a kid in history
Speaker 1: class or you know, reading various dusty tomes. Because of
Speaker 1: the huge, huge disparity between the average human life span
Speaker 1: and the length of time that it takes a global
Speaker 1: or large spread systemic change to occur. Because of that disparity,
Speaker 1: we have a terrible on the ground perspective of what
Speaker 1: history is, how it's happening. It is so incredibly rare
Speaker 1: to be a person or people who can look around
Speaker 1: in the present day, whatever that is, and say, oh,
Speaker 1: this this is a huge event in history. We can
Speaker 1: do it now. I hate to quote Fox News here,
Speaker 1: but now, more than ever, we can be aware of
Speaker 1: those moments because we can communicate on a global scale
Speaker 1: so quickly. Right, people around the world watched the moon landing,
Speaker 1: and everybody kind of got it was a big deal,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? But four hundred, five hundred,
Speaker 1: six hundred years ago, not to mention even further back,
Speaker 1: if you were living in a town, you would see
Speaker 1: the change of history, or you would see the tide
Speaker 1: of history turn on a slower intergenerational axis. Maybe you
Speaker 1: were raised, for instance, Christian, but your older relatives, who
Speaker 1: maybe said they were also Christian, still had a lot
Speaker 1: of practices and beliefs that were veneration of ancestors or
Speaker 1: worship of a polytheistic assemblage of gods, and so for you,
Speaker 1: that would be the reality. That would be how things
Speaker 1: always were, and then you would die, and then your
Speaker 1: children or your offspring or younger people in your area,
Speaker 1: if the Christian religion was on the rise, they would
Speaker 1: always be Christians, but maybe they would still have a
Speaker 1: couple of traditions that they didn't really understand. You just
Speaker 1: always did that because Grandma did it.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean, Oh you can. I mean
Speaker 2: because we mentioned my wife earlier, I would say that
Speaker 2: there's a lot of that that exists within her families,
Speaker 2: you know, the varying branches of her family, as you
Speaker 2: know Santareaan. Things like that make their way into Catholicism
Speaker 2: as some of those older traditions morph into things that
Speaker 2: you would do for the church. Essentially, it's fascinating.
Speaker 1: And a little bit of foreshadowing here. I like that
Speaker 1: met because this means that some of these practices had
Speaker 1: to continue in secret. They became conspiratorial due to the
Speaker 1: repressive policies of the dominant state governments or religions which
Speaker 1: usually were hand in hand and inseparable. Right, God is
Speaker 1: the King and so on. Somehow, plucky little tykes that
Speaker 1: we are, humanity manages to survive this very strange cyclical practice,
Speaker 1: this battle of ideas and ideology, and it leads us today.
Speaker 1: So what is the state of religion today? As far
Speaker 1: as we understand it. We have some statistics, and we
Speaker 1: have some inspiring news. It turns out that several very
Speaker 1: ancient religions have survived this strange cycle, this strange war
Speaker 1: of ideas, and we'll explore them in depth after a
Speaker 1: word from our sponsors.
Speaker 2: Yes, we're back. And as we were saying, some of
Speaker 2: these quieter religions have survived in the corners of the world,
Speaker 2: in places where you may not expect to find them.
Speaker 2: And we're going to talk as well about some of
Speaker 2: the oldest existing religions where we're going to jump into
Speaker 2: a lot of statistics, as you mentioned right now, about
Speaker 2: what our religious world looks like today.
Speaker 1: Right, So, according to all official sources and even to
Speaker 1: anecdotal stories, you can find in oral traditions. Many ancient
Speaker 1: religions have more or less completely died out. They were
Speaker 1: supplanted by a newer spiritual rival, or they were as
Speaker 1: you as you mentioned earlier, man in or grocery store analogy,
Speaker 1: they were absorbed into a more popular system. It's interesting too,
Speaker 1: when you listen to or you read transcriptions of oral
Speaker 1: retellings and folk tales, because religious wars are sometimes depicted
Speaker 1: not as arguments over ideology or spiritual values. They're depicted
Speaker 1: as wars of survival and attrition against strange people. Right
Speaker 1: like when we did our episode on the people of
Speaker 1: the Steca.
Speaker 2: Right, oh yeah.
Speaker 1: In North America or what's now called North America, they
Speaker 1: the antagonistic people, so called giants Tea, were not depicted
Speaker 1: as people who had a different lifestyle or rich spiritual culture.
Speaker 1: They were just a rival group competing for resources. And
Speaker 1: then later this kind of stuff gets airbrushed, gets the
Speaker 1: made for TV treatment, and then some other community leader
Speaker 1: comes along and says, oh no, no, no, no, no no no.
Speaker 1: I mean, the war wasn't really about fresh water or
Speaker 1: grazing land. It was that our God told us to
Speaker 1: do it, and that's why we did the right thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Mara Tuk told us to go over here. We
Speaker 2: Babylonians took over all of this land because we were
Speaker 2: told to right right.
Speaker 1: And I love that you point this out. Because the
Speaker 1: rule is usually that religions will die or be absorbed
Speaker 1: into a different model over time. You will not, for example,
Speaker 1: find a ton of at least publicly accessible temples and
Speaker 1: churches dedicated to worshiping Marduk or Marduk or Marduk.
Speaker 2: Yeah exactly.
Speaker 1: You will, however, find that, despite that, despite that unpleasant fact,
Speaker 1: that many religions of ancient times have enormous staying power
Speaker 1: even today. People will usually say that the oldest known
Speaker 1: existing religion, extant religion is Hinduism. It originated in the
Speaker 1: Indus River Valley part of modern day Pakistan, sometime around
Speaker 1: twenty five hundred BCE, were possibly earlier. And just to
Speaker 1: stop on that point for a second, it's a little
Speaker 1: bit difficult to pinpoint the origin of Hinduism because, unlike
Speaker 1: some other religions, it doesn't have a particular founder that
Speaker 1: one can point to. There's no Ahura Mazda, no Moses, Abraham,
Speaker 1: Jesus and so on. It also doesn't have a scene,
Speaker 1: a Bible, a Torah, a Quran, and this leads scholars
Speaker 1: to conclude that what we call Hinduism today is an
Speaker 1: amalgamation of a great number of pre existing traditions and beliefs.
Speaker 1: The question then becomes how far back to those traditions
Speaker 1: and beliefs? Date is it five thousand years? Is this
Speaker 1: a situation where some of these beliefs and practices predate
Speaker 1: the written word? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Does it go back to the viamanas and back to
Speaker 2: the stars?
Speaker 1: Right? Like? This is a thing that people probably drop
Speaker 1: acid and talk about all the time, But as far
Speaker 1: as proving that, it's very difficult. So we just know
Speaker 1: that at some point around at least twenty five hundred BCE,
Speaker 1: these things all came together into what we call Hinduism.
Speaker 1: The oldest script is the rig Veda, also believed to
Speaker 1: be ancient thousands and thousands years old, and the next
Speaker 1: oldest religion that is still around today is Judaism.
Speaker 2: That's correct. I would like to say that Hinduism did
Speaker 2: something very smart in keeping or having staying power with
Speaker 2: their religion because they invented reincarnation, which meant that everybody
Speaker 2: who's ever worshiped Hinduism made it back here somehow discovered discovered,
Speaker 2: and that, of course is a joke. I do not
Speaker 2: mean to insult anyone's beliefs. Okay, yes, you're absolutely right.
Speaker 2: The next oldest would be Judaism because that it originates
Speaker 2: in the Southern Levant. We talked about that area before,
Speaker 2: and it was founded by the biblical Moses that a
Speaker 2: lot of us do know. But the Jewish history traces
Speaker 2: it back to earlier than Abraham, and the most important
Speaker 2: religious text here was the Torah. Of course, it still
Speaker 2: is the Torah, and it's part of a larger work.
Speaker 1: What is it called the or the Hebrew Bible. You'll
Speaker 1: hear it called as well. And this is interesting because
Speaker 1: similar to Hinduism, you know, there's that there's this official founding,
Speaker 1: right or this official this is Judaism kind of moment.
Speaker 1: But but Jewish history traces back before then, right, yes,
Speaker 1: as a people, and there's a lot of historical work
Speaker 1: done there. And then let's say the third ancient, oldest
Speaker 1: extant religion Zoroastrianism, originating in Persia modern day Iran around
Speaker 1: fifteen hundred BCE. All three of these religions still have
Speaker 1: adherents today. Of the three, Zoroastrianism is probably the smallest,
Speaker 1: as an estimated two hundred thousand followers around the world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, by far right.
Speaker 1: And it's important to state that there are a couple
Speaker 1: of couple of issues with the with calling those three
Speaker 1: the oldest extant religions, but we'll get to them in
Speaker 1: a second. Let's look at the largest religions today. We
Speaker 1: pulled some numbers from a couple of places, including the
Speaker 1: Pew Research Foundation, and the Pew Research Foundation along with
Speaker 1: some other folks, broke it down this way, and he said,
Speaker 1: the largest religion in the world today is Christianity at
Speaker 1: an estimated two point three billion followers.
Speaker 2: And then Islam comes in at number two with one
Speaker 2: point eight billion.
Speaker 1: People, Hinduism still at it quite successful one point one
Speaker 1: billion people.
Speaker 2: And Buddhism comes in at about half a billion.
Speaker 1: And then let's group a bunch of other religions together
Speaker 1: into what's called folk religions. That would be point four billion,
Speaker 1: which I feel is a little bit of a cop out.
Speaker 1: But there's another group we skipped over, which is if
Speaker 1: we included this, this would be the third largest religion
Speaker 1: one point two billion people in the world. Consider themselves
Speaker 1: unaffiliated with any particular belief system, and in many places
Speaker 1: on Earth, this group seems to be on the rise. Okay,
Speaker 1: we tease some issues with these numbers. Here's the problem.
Speaker 1: These numbers are tricky and in no small way misleading,
Speaker 1: because anybody who practices one of the faiths mentioned at
Speaker 1: any part in the show up to now is saying, Hey,
Speaker 1: they're lumping in a lot of really different things together,
Speaker 1: different offshoots, denominations and so on. And some of these,
Speaker 1: like the various flavors of Protestant Christianity, would seem to
Speaker 1: have a lot in common, right, but not necessarily not
Speaker 1: necessarily right, there's still are they still different enough that
Speaker 1: they would you know, some of them would rather not
Speaker 1: be lumped in together with all these other people who
Speaker 1: got in their opinion, Christianity wrong. And then other groups
Speaker 1: like Shia or Sunni Islam practitioners are more or less
Speaker 1: bitterly opposed and would not, as a result, be particularly
Speaker 1: thrilled to be lumped into a category either. They would say, no,
Speaker 1: we are different because we have the line of the
Speaker 1: profit correct. And these people not only got it wrong,
Speaker 1: but refuse to see the lights. So do not include
Speaker 1: us with them, and then you know, if push to
Speaker 1: the point, they probably still be like, well, they're still Muslims,
Speaker 1: so they got that part right. Oh yeah, so there's
Speaker 1: still like not as bad as an apostate or not
Speaker 1: as bad as a non Muslim, but still it's important.
Speaker 1: We're different. Why are you calling us the same? Well?
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, Well in a lot of a lot of
Speaker 2: this goes back to those people that we mentioned there
Speaker 2: are unaffiliated in any way with some kind of religion,
Speaker 2: and that goes right back, or the rise in that
Speaker 2: number goes back to the secular thinking that exists in
Speaker 2: our world now and has always existed. But again, it's
Speaker 2: it's morphed a little over time as science continues to improve,
Speaker 2: as technology improves, as the need for explaining a lot
Speaker 2: of these things morphs for us because we're kind of
Speaker 2: replacing a lot of that with these little black boxes
Speaker 2: in our hands that we carry around. It's it's so
Speaker 2: odd the way these big questions kind of get get
Speaker 2: not answered sufficiently, but they feel like they're maybe not
Speaker 2: as important.
Speaker 1: They get reframed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: And that leads us to the rise of the secular mind.
Speaker 1: Those one point two billion people you're mentioning. So this
Speaker 1: is weird because it's a real time, real world example
Speaker 1: of what we're talking about. What did you call it?
Speaker 1: That when we look at that gigantic cross fade of
Speaker 1: one belief system to another. And here's a great example
Speaker 1: of it. There's this funny tragicomic practice that occurs around
Speaker 1: times of political or social strife in countries across the world. Many,
Speaker 1: many countries do this. It's not just the US, although
Speaker 1: perhaps we have the most clownish reputation for it. Here's
Speaker 1: what happens. Something's going wrong domestically abroad, times are tough.
Speaker 1: Politicians and spiritual figures when seeking a boost in approval
Speaker 1: ratings or a way to distract the population from genuine
Speaker 1: physical problems and concerns, we'll start railing about human beings
Speaker 1: turning away from the true path, whatever that true path
Speaker 1: might be. And the argument goes that there's this lack
Speaker 1: of religious faith and that's the real cause at the
Speaker 1: root of whatever problem are currently being encountered. The economy
Speaker 1: is bad, will people turn their back on God? And
Speaker 1: that not you know, the fed rate or rising corporatocracy
Speaker 1: that explains it, And.
Speaker 2: It doesn't it remind you of the crops are really
Speaker 2: bad this season. We haven't been sacrificing enough. We need
Speaker 2: to continue the sacrifices, right.
Speaker 1: And there's another a darker side of this too, where
Speaker 1: they may say the lack of faith is not only
Speaker 1: the reason for something going wrong, it is a sin,
Speaker 1: and this sin may only be we may only be
Speaker 1: redeemed through a specific set of actions. In the past,
Speaker 1: one of the go to actions has been waging war
Speaker 1: on a community nearby, adjacent to you, in the next valley,
Speaker 1: over the pass, or so on.
Speaker 2: In order to save them from the terrible things happening
Speaker 2: under the rule of whatever king or religion exists over there.
Speaker 1: Whatever infernal, unclean bag god. Right, Yeah, so we have
Speaker 1: to we have to kill these people to save their souls,
Speaker 1: which sounds crazy when we put it into one sentence,
Speaker 1: but we guarantee you that is one hundred percent real
Speaker 1: logic that has been deployed countless times. One great example
Speaker 1: of this, I know we're getting we're getting kind of
Speaker 1: bleak here, so let's maybe do a comparatively benign example.
Speaker 1: This is one that you and Mission Control and I
Speaker 1: all grew up with here in the US and you
Speaker 1: probably heard this too at some point. The good old
Speaker 1: Christmas debate gets rolled out, rolled out every every few
Speaker 1: years in the United States, and you know this. One
Speaker 1: Christmas season starts and then a politician or maybe a
Speaker 1: Christian spiritual figure on some sort or another goes on
Speaker 1: the media and decries the horrific practice of saying Happy
Speaker 1: Holidays rather than Merry Christmas. Woe unto you, they imply,
Speaker 1: for this country has lost its way, and this small
Speaker 1: phrase is a tiny reflection of everything going to absolute
Speaker 1: hell in a handbasket unless you do what I I mean,
Speaker 1: God tells you to do, right. Yeah, And it goes
Speaker 1: further than that. You'll hear the argument that secular values
Speaker 1: are in and of themselves religions. Right. There are people
Speaker 1: who are like you have to watch out for the
Speaker 1: rise of secular humanity. The idea of being good without
Speaker 1: God is tricking you. It's a front for a different thing.
Speaker 1: It's still a religion. It's insidious, it's sinister, and that's
Speaker 1: how they get you.
Speaker 2: For more on this, listen to our episode on the
Speaker 2: Origins of Christmas, and also watch our video because it
Speaker 2: really really brings the holiday cheer. When you start learning
Speaker 2: about what it actually is.
Speaker 1: And again, this is not in any way to denigrate
Speaker 1: people faith. No, this is a way that cynical, very
Speaker 1: cynical people manipulate innocent people who probably just want the
Speaker 1: same things as everyone else listening. Right, you want to
Speaker 1: feel like you're very good at stuff. You want to
Speaker 1: feel like you are comfortable with the world around you
Speaker 1: and your place in it. You want to love and
Speaker 1: be loved. That's not that hard. Everybody deserves that. But
Speaker 1: we're also very susceptible to someone trying to play to
Speaker 1: our fears for their own benefit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it works with me more often than not, unfortunately,
Speaker 2: but it does go even further. It doesn't stup there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, that's the thing. Okay. All of these estimates,
Speaker 1: these definitions, these historical milestones, they all rely entirely upon
Speaker 1: our understanding of revealed public religions. Revealed religion be religion
Speaker 1: based on divine revelation. Right, God took some form and
Speaker 1: told us how to stop screwing up so bad, told
Speaker 1: us you know, how to live better, how to do
Speaker 1: the right thing with our collective life. So we're basing
Speaker 1: everything up to this point on religions that we know
Speaker 1: exist and The question is, what if there is more
Speaker 1: to this story? What if there are religions and belief
Speaker 1: systems that don't like Islam or Christianity ask their adherence
Speaker 1: to advertise the faith. What if there are religions that
Speaker 1: don't want to convert a bunch of new followers. What
Speaker 1: if there are secret religions? And what if they exist
Speaker 1: in the modern day?
Speaker 2: And we'll talk about that right after a quick word
Speaker 2: from our sponsor.
Speaker 1: Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 2: Well, the easy answer here is yes, oddly enough, And
Speaker 2: it could be argued that, you know, by the virtue
Speaker 2: of these things being secret, and this is crazy, I
Speaker 2: know these religions are in and of themselves in some
Speaker 2: way a conspiracy, just by the fact that there are
Speaker 2: groups of people who've been trying to hide them and
Speaker 2: working together in secret to keep them secret.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's sort of the Church of sh So, yes,
Speaker 1: we're entering a realm of strange and possibly disturbing speculation here.
Speaker 1: Let's start with the most easily provable cases. We'll move
Speaker 1: to the plausible, and then we'll hit that deep water
Speaker 1: for a second. We'll see what we mean in a moment.
Speaker 1: No caathulo, I promise.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we'll also talk about in a few of
Speaker 2: these cases how that crossfade is occurring. Then you can
Speaker 2: kind of see it in these specific religions.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, so first off, real proven secret religions, the
Speaker 1: mystery schools. O oh, yes, there's some of the most famous.
Speaker 1: So the Greco Roman world was no stranger to secret religions.
Speaker 1: These were specific referred to as mystery religions.
Speaker 2: It sounds sinister, mystery school mystery religion, like there's something
Speaker 2: really wrong going there, or it's it's bad, But a
Speaker 2: lot of times it's just mysterious, y'all.
Speaker 1: It's just it's not for you unless you're on the inside, right,
Speaker 1: unless you're connected exactly. These practices originate in pre existing
Speaker 1: tribal ceremonies. These were performed by people all throughout the world,
Speaker 1: and a lot of these practices were things that we
Speaker 1: could maybe see or encounter analogs of or descendants of today,
Speaker 1: but we we don't know exactly what they did. A
Speaker 1: lot of that will be lost to history. In the
Speaker 1: tribal communities where these practices originate, every member of the community,
Speaker 1: the clan, or the village was initiated and then you know,
Speaker 1: they were brought in to become a member of this
Speaker 1: school or this belief system. But in Greece, initiation became
Speaker 1: a matter of personal choice, meaning that the people who
Speaker 1: would induct you, they could decide whether or not you
Speaker 1: didn't automatically deserve to be inducted, and you didn't automatically
Speaker 1: have to. You could say no. It might be very
Speaker 1: politically or even physically dangerous for you, but you could
Speaker 1: say no absolutely.
Speaker 2: And you know, several of these mystery religions reached the
Speaker 2: highest levels of their popularity within the first three centuries
Speaker 2: a d. But again, the origin of a lot of
Speaker 2: these goes back to much earlier centuries in Greek history.
Speaker 2: And a lot of these mystery religions, as little as
Speaker 2: we actually do know about them, we do know that
Speaker 2: they had things in common. A lot of these were,
Speaker 2: you know, meals that would be eaten together with people
Speaker 2: who were like minded or believe the same things. There
Speaker 2: would be some form of physical movement that venerated something right,
Speaker 2: a dance of some kind, and other ceremonies like that,
Speaker 2: and there a lot of times be or probably the
Speaker 2: most important, let's say, would be the initiation rites that
Speaker 2: occur for every new member that joins officially into the group.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. And examples of these mystery religions, we have
Speaker 1: a few, even if we don't know a ton about
Speaker 1: their specific practices. We have followers of Dionysus, right, We
Speaker 1: had the Elucinian mysteries. These were the earliest and most
Speaker 1: famous of the mystery cults. Again, I know the sea word,
Speaker 1: but that's what they were often called.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and a lot of times it was the
Speaker 2: extreme or this is just my opinion here, but a
Speaker 2: lot of it tended to be the extreme worship of
Speaker 2: one or you know, one or two or maybe just
Speaker 2: one of the gods that are worshiped within the pantheon
Speaker 2: of the Greek gods. You would have a specific cult
Speaker 2: of Mithra or a cult of this or a cult
Speaker 2: of that, right, and that those kind of end up
Speaker 2: becoming many of the mystery religions, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And this one group we're talking about, they lasted
Speaker 1: for over one thousand years again, a thousand years of
Speaker 1: which we are aware. Yeah, so we don't know what
Speaker 1: else was going on. And there's something else it's fascinating
Speaker 1: about this. So at this time, there wasn't really a
Speaker 1: separation between a secret cult or a mystery school and
Speaker 1: a secular secret society. You know, a bunch of people
Speaker 1: maybe in Turkey want to start a society with closed
Speaker 1: door meetings to form a better fire brigade. Right in
Speaker 1: ancient times, that's a true story. In the suspicious eyes
Speaker 1: of leaders at the time, both these secular interest groups
Speaker 1: and these religiously motivated groups were dangerous because they had
Speaker 1: the possibility of becoming avenues for conspiracy and revolution. And
Speaker 1: thus these groups, whenever possible, were subverted exterminated, or if
Speaker 1: it was expedient to do so, they would be you know,
Speaker 1: they would have public officials join them. Yeah, and these
Speaker 1: kind of societies still still carry on. The big question
Speaker 1: is whether or not they still have claws and things
Speaker 1: or if they're just kind of old boys clubs, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And what you're talking about there having an official
Speaker 2: join one of these secret groups, it's an attempt to
Speaker 2: either absorb it into another of the larger religious systems
Speaker 2: probably and or just making it not so strange to
Speaker 2: then allow those people. You know, again, it's strategic and
Speaker 2: if you're thinking about it this way, to bring it
Speaker 2: into the fold. And that's where we get into that
Speaker 2: thing we discussed earlier religious syncretism where that cross fade,
Speaker 2: where we're right in the middle of it. Yes, where
Speaker 2: one becomes another one plus one equals three. It's interesting stuff.
Speaker 1: That's a good way to say it, Matt. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is the blending of two or more religious belief systems
Speaker 1: into what essentially becomes a whole new system one plus
Speaker 1: one equals three, or the incorporation of unrelated beliefs into
Speaker 1: an existing religious tradition. This can occur for a lot
Speaker 1: of reasons. It commonly happens obviously in geographic areas where
Speaker 1: multiple religions exist close together and at once and they're
Speaker 1: active in the culture. Or and this is the dirty side,
Speaker 1: is where you find a lot of the more extreme
Speaker 1: examples when a culture is conquered and the conquerors don't
Speaker 1: just bring weapons, they also bring their religious beliefs. Convert
Speaker 1: or die, right, or convert and physically die. But don't worry.
Speaker 1: We're saving your soul and you can be a slave
Speaker 1: forever in our paradise. Right, Oh for sure. True story. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: at least that was the pitch. So the thing that's
Speaker 1: weird about this is that unless the unless the culture
Speaker 1: being attacked is entirely eradicated, their pre existing beliefs and
Speaker 1: practices will continue on and then we end up with
Speaker 1: things like we end up with things like gnosticism, or
Speaker 1: we end up with things like offshoots earlier forms of
Speaker 1: existing religions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and just something a little more like Greco Buddhism
Speaker 2: or what is the name of the other one own
Speaker 2: historians as Christianity was moving into China. I mean, there's
Speaker 2: a lot of really interesting things there to talk about.
Speaker 2: That it's less stuff they don't want you to know,
Speaker 2: but it's more stuff you miss in history class. But again,
Speaker 2: it's fascinating.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting too, because I would argue that there
Speaker 1: is a lot of stuff they don't want you to
Speaker 1: know in aspects of religious syncretism, because religious syncretism can
Speaker 1: also exist in a very powerful form as coded protests,
Speaker 1: and this is evidenced by the practices of repressed native
Speaker 1: people under the thumb of colonizers or imperialists. One example,
Speaker 1: which I believe we mentioned on the show before, is
Speaker 1: the idea of folk saints. So I didn't really know
Speaker 1: about folk saints until I had spent some time in
Speaker 1: Central America and I made friends with one a Mayan
Speaker 1: deity who was called San Simon when I encountered his
Speaker 1: worshipers or his admirers. San Simone originally started life as
Speaker 1: a started whatever the deity version of life is. San
Speaker 1: Simon was originally a mountain god in the Maya religion,
Speaker 1: and he was also known as Machimone. Today he's considered
Speaker 1: the patron saint of health's crops, marriage, business, revenge, and death.
Speaker 1: I know, it's kind of a weird. Wow, it's a
Speaker 1: weird group, right.
Speaker 2: When you're saying patron saint, you mean like in Catholicism,
Speaker 2: like he is a saint or is it? Ah?
Speaker 1: Yes, okay, So folk saints are people venerated or deities
Speaker 1: venerated as saints, but not officially canonized, recognized by the church.
Speaker 1: See what we see here is a process of taking
Speaker 1: a pre existing belief and saying, Okay, yes, saints, we
Speaker 1: get it. We already have those, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Thanks, but no thanks saints, but no saints not worth.
Speaker 2: It, or at least we can add a few more
Speaker 2: to the roster.
Speaker 1: Right. And another example of religious syncretism as a form
Speaker 1: of protest would be the way that Vudun in Benin
Speaker 1: or Voodoo Haiti or however you wish to pronounce it
Speaker 1: had to confront and adapt with Catholicism, right, and so
Speaker 1: we have.
Speaker 2: I mean that's where you get Santaia mm hmmm.
Speaker 1: Or Condoble for instance. Yeah, this is where the brutal
Speaker 1: Catholic forces would think that they had successfully converted the people.
Speaker 1: But the people were just using that Catholic imagery to
Speaker 1: be a stand in for their original practices, which they
Speaker 1: didn't didn't really have an intention of changing. Because if
Speaker 1: you want to change someone's mind, one of the worst
Speaker 1: ways to do it is to threaten them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but if you did take it on in that way,
Speaker 2: you could at least appease the colonizers when in close quarters. Right.
Speaker 1: We'd love to hear your examples of religious syncretism. This
Speaker 1: is a widespread phenomenon. We know that a lot of
Speaker 1: ancient belief systems in smaller communities may maybe practiced still today,
Speaker 1: having been I don't want to say contaminated or adulterated,
Speaker 1: but having been influenced by different different religions that they
Speaker 1: somehow encountered.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would have to say, just really fast. As
Speaker 2: I mentioned here, today is the first time, and I
Speaker 2: don't know how this occurred. The first time that I
Speaker 2: realized that it was Greek influence that gives us depictions
Speaker 2: of a human Buddha within Buddhism, I did not realize
Speaker 2: that at all. But it's because of trade routes that
Speaker 2: existed and just the influence of people from Greece who
Speaker 2: you know, had certain religious beliefs, who then as they
Speaker 2: move forward and are continuing on encounter Buddhism, they enjoy,
Speaker 2: you know, they believe that, let's say, more than they
Speaker 2: believe their other original traditional beliefs. Then they start to
Speaker 2: follow Buddhism, and as they're thinking about Buddha, they rather
Speaker 2: than seeing it symbolically the way it's been represented for
Speaker 2: hundreds and hundreds of years, they truly imagine Buddha as
Speaker 2: the man, as this human being, you know, son of
Speaker 2: a virgin woman. And they begin using their culture that
Speaker 2: exists within them and the way they view art, the
Speaker 2: way they think about these things, and they apply it
Speaker 2: to Buddha. And that was fascinating to me. I know,
Speaker 2: there's a long witted way to say, just like the
Speaker 2: statues that in my mind are of Buddha are really.
Speaker 1: Greek, Yeah, or at the very least heavily heavily influenced, Yes,
Speaker 1: exactly by that frame. And there's a word for that, right, Matt.
Speaker 2: Yes, vocabulary word of the day everyone interpretatio greika. And
Speaker 2: that just means essentially interpreting the world by really through
Speaker 2: Greek eyes or by Greek means.
Speaker 1: And these are just some of the numerous examples. Please
Speaker 1: please please let us know other examples. You've seen. This
Speaker 1: stuff is endlessly fascinating, Yeah.
Speaker 2: And it's really just interpreting all of the other religions,
Speaker 2: the gods, all the things that people from you know,
Speaker 2: from that time, from that early civilization, as they're encountering
Speaker 2: these other things, how they view them.
Speaker 1: And it's strange because when you think about it, religious
Speaker 1: syncretism could, at its best be a very inclusive approach
Speaker 1: to belief. There are other things that are very much
Speaker 1: not syncretic, or at least no longer are. There are
Speaker 1: religions that are entirely dictated by lineage. These are, in short,
Speaker 1: clubs you cannot join, if you are most of the
Speaker 1: people who will ever listen to this show. You cannot
Speaker 1: join some religions no matter what you do, no matter
Speaker 1: how good you are, how helpful, how noble, etc. You
Speaker 1: just didn't have a chance since the day you were
Speaker 1: born because of who your parents were. One great example
Speaker 1: of this, with which I have some personal experience is
Speaker 1: a group called the Druze. The Drews are a unique
Speaker 1: people and belief system who originated in Egypt, but have
Speaker 1: spread across the world, with a lot of concentrations in Lebanon, Syria, Israel,
Speaker 1: and Jordan. The religion's membership is predicated on these certain lineages,
Speaker 1: and this means that one cannot convert to this religion,
Speaker 1: one cannot become a Druz. They also practice a form
Speaker 1: of religious syncretism in a way I'm interested to hear
Speaker 1: what you think about this. To avoid persecution, especially in
Speaker 1: very religiously conservative areas, they would publicly adopt a religion
Speaker 1: if they had to, but they would continue to practice
Speaker 1: their own real belief system in secret. Dru's religion is
Speaker 1: seen as an outgrowth of Islam that incorporates elements of Judaism, Christianity,
Speaker 1: but it's different from all of those religions. Greek philosophy
Speaker 1: here you go, and what people have described as problematically
Speaker 1: as Asiatic thought heavily influenced the foundation of the religion,
Speaker 1: and they add some ideas and still have some ideas
Speaker 1: that were pretty out there. They were pretty hot takes
Speaker 1: for their time. They said we should get rid of slavery,
Speaker 1: which used to be a very hot take and sadly
Speaker 1: in some parts of the Middle East, is still a
Speaker 1: hot take today. They said we should separate church and state,
Speaker 1: again still a hot take, and this put them at
Speaker 1: very high risk of persecution in more conservative areas. If
Speaker 1: you are not a Druiz, you will not be privy
Speaker 1: to various rites and practices because again it's not for you.
Speaker 1: That does inherently make it, at least some degree a
Speaker 1: secret religion. Doesn't mean they're sinister, doesn't mean they're out
Speaker 1: to get anyone. And I actually, through marriage, am related
Speaker 1: to several Drews.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well I have Notrews, to be very clear, and
Speaker 1: I never will be because the way the religion is
Speaker 1: organized on a socio cultural, even biological level.
Speaker 2: Well, have you twenty three and meters or ancestry yourself,
Speaker 2: because maybe you are Drews, because it'd be hard to
Speaker 2: fight against if you did. You did a test.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it works that way, and it's
Speaker 1: also kind of you know, people's beliefs are important to them.
Speaker 1: I don't want to be one of those, actually, right right,
Speaker 1: So I want me two percent in you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. I think that's kind of disrespectful, you know, even.
Speaker 2: For me even to talk about it in this way
Speaker 2: that I am apologies.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, I think as long as we are
Speaker 1: respecting the boundaries that that a group has set, absolutely,
Speaker 1: that's the best we can do. There are other similar
Speaker 1: cases of that.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, sorry, I wanted to bring this up earlier.
Speaker 2: We were talking about this sec religions. Yes, our episode
Speaker 2: on worshiping Satan, the devil Lucifer or anything like that,
Speaker 2: we've talked about it in a whole episode. And you know,
Speaker 2: are they actually real anyone who worships some version of that?
Speaker 2: And there is one group of people that we've mentioned before,
Speaker 2: I believe on this show that you had talked to
Speaker 2: me about. They're called the Yazidi.
Speaker 1: Yes, a little bit Luciferian, I might say, because of
Speaker 1: the differences in doctrine here, which will be very brief.
Speaker 1: We could delve into that in a separate episode. Okay,
Speaker 1: they've been vilified before, as quote unquote devil worshipers. And
Speaker 1: that's entirely because non Yezity populations have associated this melick
Speaker 1: Tause character with the Islamic or Arab named for satan
Speaker 1: Is ities for themselves find that offensive and don't clearly
Speaker 1: don't agree. There's not, as far as we know, a
Speaker 1: community of people who says, yes, there is a divine
Speaker 1: good God and we're with a bad one. There's nobody,
Speaker 1: there's there's not yet a provable community of people who
Speaker 1: are at that level of edge lordism. I think most
Speaker 1: most communities generally tend to be a little more well
Speaker 1: adjusted than that, but it is plausible.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: I would say it's more likely than not that many
Speaker 1: local religions have existed for a long time and exist
Speaker 1: today more or less unknown to outsiders. Let's call these
Speaker 1: like insular community systems or insular tribal religions. And I
Speaker 1: thought you would appreciate this one, Matt. And let's just
Speaker 1: go to an extreme example. What are the spiritual beliefs
Speaker 1: of the people on North Sentinel Island?
Speaker 2: How would we know that?
Speaker 1: We don't this belligerent community. Google it if you have,
Speaker 1: If you some have not heard of, this is a
Speaker 1: fascinating story that Matt and I have been tracking for
Speaker 1: God since twenty thirteen or so. We learned about it
Speaker 1: in twenty twelve. For thousands of years, the people on
Speaker 1: this island have been on their own since around the
Speaker 1: Stone Age. They likely have a religion, because again, humans
Speaker 1: are hardwired to generate and propagate these sorts of belief systems,
Speaker 1: but their religion has been so far removed from any
Speaker 1: other belief system on the planet. They have not encountered
Speaker 1: some form of religious syncretism. Right.
Speaker 2: Oh you're oh wow, so impure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so, in a way, this may be like one
Speaker 1: of the oldest un I don't want to say adulterated again,
Speaker 1: but like one of the old on mixtapes, you know.
Speaker 1: And also just like the drus You and I and
Speaker 1: everybody listening probably cannot join them. They in their few
Speaker 1: encounters with the outside world in modern history, they have
Speaker 1: made that abundantly clear. And the only time that they've
Speaker 1: been successfully members of that community have been successfully taken out
Speaker 1: of the community. It was disastrous, and it's no wonder
Speaker 1: that they doubled down on putting a big keepout sign
Speaker 1: to the rest of the planet.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, absolutely well, that's a real world example. What
Speaker 2: if we wanted to go down the rabbit hole a
Speaker 2: little bit further, What if we get to something that
Speaker 2: maybe isn't even necessarily a religion, it's a maybe a
Speaker 2: closer to a society, but it does have religious belief
Speaker 2: perhaps built into it.
Speaker 1: Whatever. Could you be talking about the illuminati? That's right,
Speaker 1: that's right, fellow conspiracy realists. You know them, you love them,
Speaker 1: You expected them to show up here in this episode,
Speaker 1: and you were right, So congratulations. For hundreds of years,
Speaker 1: there have been rumors that have for being diplomatic, varying
Speaker 1: levels of credibility, arguing that the world is actually run
Speaker 1: by a group of incredibly powerful people, that they are
Speaker 1: all real pills, but somehow they cooperate together, and they
Speaker 1: have their own secret religion. They profess one religion publicly,
Speaker 1: but they practice this other religion that is meant for
Speaker 1: the elite and the elite alone. And you'll hear various
Speaker 1: fringe researchers or i would say fringe speculators saying that
Speaker 1: you know, they secretly continue the ancient mystery schools, right,
Speaker 1: or some Mesopotamian polytheistic religion, and that they consider things
Speaker 1: like Christianity or Buddhism, or need any younger religions tools
Speaker 1: to control the masses manipulation systems for slaves. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: there's no lack of let's say this again in a
Speaker 1: diplomatic but accurate way, there's no lack of people claiming
Speaker 1: to have evidence that this is true. Yeah.
Speaker 2: All I would say, Ben, is that the answers to
Speaker 2: our questions about the Illuminati all exist on a stone
Speaker 2: castle on the top of a hill with a man
Speaker 2: who is known only as the songwriter, and if you
Speaker 2: seek under the silver lake you may find him.
Speaker 1: They talk about Philip K.
Speaker 2: Dick. No, what is this. It's one of the first
Speaker 2: times I've ever been able to reference something without you
Speaker 2: know what, I'm knowing what I'm talking about. So I'm
Speaker 2: really really happy about it, and I'm gonna wait for
Speaker 2: you to learn about what it is when people write
Speaker 2: to us.
Speaker 1: Interesting. Yeah, okay, because at first I was thinking man
Speaker 1: the high castle, but maybe I've just been I'm so
Speaker 1: excited switched because yeah, maybe I'm Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's obscure. I promise you it's obscure.
Speaker 1: And is it cool? It's really does the reference work?
Speaker 2: I don't know, but we'll just have they were great. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think I think it's cool.
Speaker 1: Oh, thank you man, I'm excited.
Speaker 2: Nintendo Power is involved as well.
Speaker 1: Is this Castle Vania? No way, I think hearing Castle
Speaker 1: is just throwing me.
Speaker 2: It's actually not too far up.
Speaker 1: But it is a video game. No it's not a
Speaker 1: video game.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: Wow, Yes, there's a mystery afoot. How appropriate for this episode.
Speaker 1: So while I'm caught shading on this, yeah, I'm flummis,
Speaker 1: I'm stumped. We know that there are different, different things
Speaker 1: that are purported to be evidence of an existence of
Speaker 1: a sinister, secret religion practiced by some relatively anonymous cabal
Speaker 1: of people. Right, yeah, and some of these things are real.
Speaker 1: The Bohemian Grove does have this ritual called the Cremation
Speaker 1: of Care, wherein they ritualistically burn an effigy and they
Speaker 1: get really weird about it. It seems to be a
Speaker 1: rich boys club. But for people who believe that there
Speaker 1: is a secret religion in play, this is a smoking gun, yes,
Speaker 1: or I should say a smoking effigy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're you're I mean, you're correct, that's what it is.
Speaker 2: For those people. It's it's tough though, because we can't
Speaker 2: really we can't fully prove anything like that, you know,
Speaker 2: is it truly religious belief just because they, you know,
Speaker 2: do something. If someone participates in something like the cremation
Speaker 2: of care ritual, right, doesn't mean that they actually believe
Speaker 2: a whole separate set of beliefs and that they're all
Speaker 2: working together for some goal. That's why it's so difficult
Speaker 2: for us to really explore something like the Illuminati, because
Speaker 2: we know there's that real thing called the Bavarian Illuminati
Speaker 2: that we've talked about numerous times. Yeah, yeah, but like
Speaker 2: right now, I mean, if someone is in a secret
Speaker 2: religion like that, they're not gonna Nobody's gonna talk to
Speaker 2: me or you.
Speaker 1: They might they might talk to him.
Speaker 2: They might talk to you.
Speaker 1: They might talk to they might talk to all of us,
Speaker 1: they know what, speak only to Paul.
Speaker 2: We need to get Dan Harmon on the case, because
Speaker 2: they'll definitely talk to him. They'll like strike up a conversation,
Speaker 2: you know, something Rick said and then he's in.
Speaker 1: There's a problem, though, Matt. If something like that existed,
Speaker 1: and if it was that powerful, then why would we
Speaker 1: be able to talk about it so openly and so easily,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Because we did a what
Speaker 1: three part series on the so called Illuminati, and I
Speaker 1: think we did. I think we did a pretty good
Speaker 1: job of of separating some facts from some fiction and
Speaker 1: fancy there. But again, that's that's the biggest argument. If
Speaker 1: it were something that existed, it were dangerous, it were
Speaker 1: a potent force in the world, then why it's okay.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like the wija board argument. If there
Speaker 1: is a way to reliably contact the afterlife, if if
Speaker 1: we if we say that people, some part of us
Speaker 1: exist after the corporeal body no longer functions, then would
Speaker 1: the way to contact the afterlife really be a mass
Speaker 1: produced board game by Parker Brothers? Has has Is it
Speaker 1: possible that just goes to real? And they're like, why
Speaker 1: is no one taking this wija board thing? Seriously? It's
Speaker 1: our one chance to talk to you. It just it
Speaker 1: doesn't match up, you know. And I don't mean to
Speaker 1: I don't mean to sound dismissive of that. I'm just
Speaker 1: saying that if the if there is some secret evil religion,
Speaker 1: and if it's real, then I don't understand why they
Speaker 1: haven't reached out to us or you know, done something.
Speaker 1: I know, maybe I'm whistling in the graveyard, or maybe
Speaker 1: I'm maybe I'm I'm not daring anybody to do anything crazy. Yes,
Speaker 1: I'm just saying that's one of the biggest pieces of
Speaker 1: evidence against that stuff existing. That doesn't prove it doesn't exist.
Speaker 1: The same thing with evil religions, the ideas of secret Satanists,
Speaker 1: which you already mentioned, but it does. This all leads
Speaker 1: us to one concrete answer. This is one of those
Speaker 1: episodes where we do have an answer. The answer is, yes,
Speaker 1: secret religions do exist. They do exist today to one
Speaker 1: degree or another. They may not be exactly what we're
Speaker 1: thinking of or what fiction wants us to believe, but yes,
Speaker 1: there are secret rituals and practices, and there are value systems.
Speaker 1: If we define secret as things that not everybody has
Speaker 1: access to, then yeah, of course those exist and they
Speaker 1: probably will exist. The only question then is how much
Speaker 1: or how little influenced do they have on the world
Speaker 1: in which we live today? Does it matter to you?
Speaker 1: Are you? Are you going to be resentful of people
Speaker 1: who have their own belief system if it doesn't affect
Speaker 1: you just I mean, so, it's a tough thing to
Speaker 1: deal with as humans, But you know, some things are
Speaker 1: just not for you.
Speaker 2: For me, the biggest question for today, after everything we've
Speaker 2: talked about, is how much did some tiny secret religion
Speaker 2: with you know, a small group of people practiced and believed.
Speaker 2: How much did that secret religion influence whatever your religious
Speaker 2: beliefs are right now? And you know, if you if
Speaker 2: you follow one of the larger movements and traditions and
Speaker 2: religions today, how much did a lot of these smaller,
Speaker 2: secretive religions back in the day changers.
Speaker 1: That's a great question, And I'd also like to say,
Speaker 1: and it just to build on that that faith as
Speaker 1: we understand it, regardless what your specific spiritual belief system
Speaker 1: or religious belief may be, faith is a uniquely human superpower.
Speaker 1: We don't have a very good definition of what intelligence is.
Speaker 1: We are closer and closer, like the more we learn
Speaker 1: about intelligence and these amazing baffling machines we call the brain,
Speaker 1: the more we learn that we have a lot in
Speaker 1: common with animals that we used to think we're not
Speaker 1: super intelligent, like Corvid and elephants, cetaceans and so on.
Speaker 1: But the one thing that still differentiates us is this
Speaker 1: ability to imagine an unseen world. You know, and I'm
Speaker 1: using unseen because I don't want to say, you know,
Speaker 1: for some people in our audience today, some of us
Speaker 1: listening will probably say, I think you mean made up,
Speaker 1: But I don't want to say made up. I want
Speaker 1: to say unseen, because I know this is a very personal,
Speaker 1: very real thing for a lot of people.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, the concepts of parallel dimensions are certainly not unscientific,
Speaker 2: right I mean, or at least within the thought of
Speaker 2: these things and anything that you would compare to a heaven,
Speaker 2: a hell, whatever you want to call it, a purgatory,
Speaker 2: all those things that would or could be just considered
Speaker 2: a parallel dimension that exists simultaneously next to ours.
Speaker 1: There we go, and maybe a good way to phrase
Speaker 1: it is as a series of questions. Do elephants have gods?
Speaker 1: Do corphans have gods? Do dolphins have gods? The answer,
Speaker 1: as far as we know is no. From everything we
Speaker 1: have seen, there is one flavor of life in this planet,
Speaker 1: and therefore the entirety of our experience that has the
Speaker 1: capacity to pursue this soorl of mental system, and it's us.
Speaker 1: This is you know, I got a quote Spider Man,
Speaker 1: with great power comes great responsibility. We're the only living
Speaker 1: things that can do this, and regardless of how we
Speaker 1: may feel on individual levels about individual examples of this,
Speaker 1: we have to sit back and admit that is astonishing.
Speaker 1: I don't know where else to go with this. You
Speaker 1: know what I mean? Is a world without this kind
Speaker 1: of capability better? I would argue no, because that same
Speaker 1: kind of almost said hutsba. But that same kind of
Speaker 1: ability is what drives us toward these innovations that again,
Speaker 1: no other living creature has been able to do yet
Speaker 1: so far as we know. Absolutely, and that's our classic
Speaker 1: episode for this evening. We can't wait to hear your thoughts.
Speaker 1: It's right let us know what you think. You can
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