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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from house stop

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Speaker 1: ward dot com. Hey, you're welcome to stuff to blow

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Speaker 1: your mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick,

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Speaker 1: and I want to share with you a modern legend.

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Speaker 1: Probably heard this one before it. It's one of the

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Speaker 1: most persistent rumors of the modern age, the L Ron

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Speaker 1: Hubbard Robert A. Heinland bar bet. You know this one, Robert, Yes, Now,

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Speaker 1: I looked into it, and I couldn't find any convincing

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Speaker 1: evidence that this bet ever actually took place, so it's

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Speaker 1: probably just more of a legend than than a real

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Speaker 1: historical account. But the legend I always heard goes something

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Speaker 1: like this, You've got L. Ron Hubbard and Robert A.

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Speaker 1: Heinland to science fiction authors of the twentieth century, and

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Speaker 1: they're sitting in a bar. They don't walk into a bar,

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Speaker 1: I guess. I suppose they have to walk into the

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Speaker 1: bar first, if they don't take hoverboards or maybe a

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Speaker 1: power armor stamp into the bar. But anyway, they're in

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Speaker 1: the bar. They're down in some bruskis and this is

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Speaker 1: probably some time I would guess in the late nineteen forties,

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Speaker 1: and they are discussing the best way to make a

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Speaker 1: ton of money, because let's face it, writing science fiction

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Speaker 1: doesn't always pay amazingly right, and at this point in

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Speaker 1: both of them in his career, they are sci fi writers. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: very much so. Uh so Hubbard has an opinion. L

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Speaker 1: Ron Hubbard says, you know, the best strategy is really

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Speaker 1: to take advantage of the common people's desire for transcendence

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Speaker 1: and salvation. So he says, quote religion, that's where the

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Speaker 1: real money is. And Hubbard boasts that he could invent

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Speaker 1: a religion and make millions. Of course, Hinland balks at this.

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Speaker 1: That sounds kind of extravagant. So they make a bet

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Speaker 1: can he do it? Can he not do it? And

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Speaker 1: by the end of the century there are at least

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Speaker 1: tens of thousands of Scientologists in the world. The Church

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Speaker 1: of Scientology claims millions of adherents those numbers. Who knows

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Speaker 1: what the real numbers are, but it seems like at

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Speaker 1: least tens of thousands. And Scientology is the sci fi

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Speaker 1: religion founded on the teachings of l. Ron Hubbard. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it has official religious status in numerous countries. So

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Speaker 1: even though this bat probably did not take place, like

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Speaker 1: it's one of those things where, yes, it could have

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Speaker 1: if you really crunch it, but there's an absolutely no documentation. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's no good evidence for it. And and in fact,

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Speaker 1: we we we probably really should emphasize that because apparently

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Speaker 1: in the past there have been some legal actions against

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Speaker 1: people who promulgate this as if it were true. So

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Speaker 1: probably not true. But why is the rumors so persistent?

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Speaker 1: Everybody's heard this, right, I bet you sitting at home,

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Speaker 1: or sitting standing running wherever you are listening, I bet

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Speaker 1: you've heard some version of this before, right, So you

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Speaker 1: could chalk it up to people's just general distaste for scientology.

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Speaker 1: There there's a lot of antipathy out there, right, there's

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Speaker 1: no sortage of scientology criticism, uh and and lampoon ing

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Speaker 1: on the internet these days. Right, But you could also

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Speaker 1: say that this kind of story sticks in the mind

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Speaker 1: and merits repeating simply because of the sheer audacity of it.

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Speaker 1: It offends our most basic sensibilities about what religion is

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Speaker 1: and is supposed to be creating a religion out of

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Speaker 1: thin air, just on a whim, coming up with a

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Speaker 1: new religion. Something about it seems fiercely wrong, just nakedly perverse. Well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think I think so. I think yeah. On one hand,

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Speaker 1: it does seem like sheer audacity that somebody would just

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Speaker 1: create it wholesale. Though, of course, as we'll discuss to

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Speaker 1: a large extent, nobody creates a religion wholesale. You're building

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Speaker 1: it out of existing parts. It's all kind of like

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Speaker 1: that first Iron Man suit that that that start builds

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Speaker 1: in the first Iron Man film. He just builds it

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Speaker 1: out of all the stuff that's laying around, and then

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Speaker 1: he uses that to his advantage. And that's I think

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Speaker 1: I would argue that that's what you see in most

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Speaker 1: of these cases, though the particular suit of religious armor

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Speaker 1: changes depending on the qual day of the ingredients. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And I would say this relates back to something we

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Speaker 1: talked about in our Techno Religion for the Masses episodes,

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Speaker 1: which is that I personally think that a lot of

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Speaker 1: the power we attribute to religion lies in our chronological

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Speaker 1: alienation from its origins and from its contents. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it comes down to sort of like, what does someone

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Speaker 1: want from a religion? What does one want from a

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Speaker 1: a god? They want something greater than themselves, something that

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Speaker 1: stands outside of themselves. What better way than to have

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Speaker 1: something that stands outside of not only your lifespan, but

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Speaker 1: even your generation, outside of your your your era, even

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Speaker 1: you know it's calling to you from a distant place

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Speaker 1: slash time. Some of the power comes from the mystery

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Speaker 1: of its separation. That's sort of what holiness is. It's

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Speaker 1: way less impressive if it seems to spring from the

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Speaker 1: very ground we walk on from day to day. And

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Speaker 1: and yet all religions start somewhere. No religion can have

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Speaker 1: always been ancient, uh, because every religion that exists today,

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Speaker 1: even the one you believe in, you would you would

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Speaker 1: have to admit, has an origin. It started at some

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Speaker 1: point people started believing in this thing. Uh. Though most

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Speaker 1: are probably not the result of a single moment of creativity,

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Speaker 1: whether inspired by gambling in Bruskys and whatnot. I mean,

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Speaker 1: they're probably from gradual evolutions of beliefs, right, Yeah, new

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Speaker 1: ideas that suddenly get picked up by, in many cases

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Speaker 1: a charismatic individual who is bringing this to people or

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Speaker 1: you know it ties into uh two shifts and changes

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Speaker 1: in the structure of society and uh and then in

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Speaker 1: our sort of in and then when you layer over

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Speaker 1: the mythic uh materials as well. You're gonna throw in

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Speaker 1: some miracles. You're gonna throw in some some fantastic occurrences,

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Speaker 1: golden books falling out of the sky or emerging from

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Speaker 1: the ground. Right, Yeah, But this is what we want

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Speaker 1: to talk about today, right, So it's the beginnings of

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Speaker 1: religious movements, and especially on those that draw from sources

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Speaker 1: other than direct spirit whole revelation. So you might have

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Speaker 1: a movement that starts with somebody thinks they've received a

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Speaker 1: message from God or from other worldly powers, from a

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Speaker 1: supernatural agent, and then they deliver that message and found

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Speaker 1: a new religion. You've got those, But we want to

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Speaker 1: talk about what happens when something that everybody recognizes as

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Speaker 1: a fiction or an in joke or a prank or

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Speaker 1: a fan club takes on the mantle of religion and

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Speaker 1: genuine sanctity. Yeah, when does it become an actual religion?

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Speaker 1: And I know that some of you might be thinking, well,

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Speaker 1: what does any of this have to do with science

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Speaker 1: and the flag of science that is up there over

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Speaker 1: stuff to bow your mind? Well a lot actually, because

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Speaker 1: because most of what we're gonna talk about is occurring,

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Speaker 1: if not right now, than at least in the scientific age.

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Speaker 1: And I believe that that that the the age of science,

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Speaker 1: this age of a reason, has a lot to do

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Speaker 1: with the emergence of hyper real religions. Absolutely, and I

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Speaker 1: think we would be remiss if we did not begin

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Speaker 1: this discussion with one of the most popular jokes turned

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Speaker 1: religions of our modern age, and that is postafarianism. Yes,

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Speaker 1: and and I do want to just throw in real

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Speaker 1: quick this is, of course, the the word postafarianism is

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Speaker 1: is a play on Rastafarianism, and I do I do

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Speaker 1: want to just point out that we are aware that

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Speaker 1: adherents of the Rastafari faith uh often do not like

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Speaker 1: the term Rastafarianism. So it's kind of like there's a

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Speaker 1: little bit of an insult to Rastafari adherents built into postafarianism.

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Speaker 1: Well maybe maybe for that, for that reason, we could

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Speaker 1: avoid it and just say flying spaghetti monsterism. Well we

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Speaker 1: I think we can refer to either just what I

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Speaker 1: just thought it was important to acknowledge that, yes, uh uh,

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Speaker 1: there's I don't think it was intentional, but they're Postafarianism

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Speaker 1: could be deemed offensive by some out there, certainly, and

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Speaker 1: if you're already lost. We need to back up, because

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Speaker 1: in order for this to make sense, we've got to

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Speaker 1: start with a brief bit of historical context, especially for

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Speaker 1: those of you who live outside the United States and

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Speaker 1: aren't familiar with the school creationism controversy that's gone on

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Speaker 1: in the United States, I'd say mostly in the last

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Speaker 1: twenty years or so many twenty years. So in the

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Speaker 1: United States, we have a constitutional doctrine of separation of

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Speaker 1: church and State, and this is traditionally interpreted to say

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Speaker 1: that private citizens can believe whatever they want. You have,

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Speaker 1: whatever religious beliefs you want, an agents of the government

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Speaker 1: can't interfere with that, but also agents of the government

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Speaker 1: can't use their civil authority to punish or promote particular

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Speaker 1: religious ideas. Right. And for the most part, that works

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Speaker 1: pretty well, except where there's this crossover where on one

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Speaker 1: side the science book is saying, uh, there's this thing

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Speaker 1: called evolution. There were these things called dinosaurs. This is

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Speaker 1: the basic timeline as a science understands it versus more

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Speaker 1: fundamentalist and literal interpretations of biblical tradition. Right. And this

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Speaker 1: is the most common example in the United States of

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Speaker 1: a conflict between between separate between the sort of individual

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Speaker 1: beliefs of people who work for the government, and the

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Speaker 1: the idea that civil servants of the government shouldn't be

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Speaker 1: using their power to inflict their religious beliefs on other people.

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Speaker 1: Uh So, a large percent of Americans are what we

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Speaker 1: would call Young Earth creationists. And what does that mean. Well,

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Speaker 1: a Gallop poll released in June found that forty two

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Speaker 1: percent of Americans said they agreed with the following statement

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Speaker 1: quote God created human beings pretty much in their present

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Speaker 1: form at one time within the last ten thousand years

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Speaker 1: or so, which is of course complete nonsense, right, And

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Speaker 1: if you're listening to this podcast, I'm just gonna go

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Speaker 1: and assume you do not believe this. Yeah, as you

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Speaker 1: could guess, this entails a rejection of biological evolution and

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Speaker 1: common descent usually, uh, pretty much all of geology, radiometric dating,

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Speaker 1: all mainstream scientific thinking about fossils and paleontology, probably a

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Speaker 1: lot of astronomy and astrophysics too, for example, the creation

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Speaker 1: of the Solar System and the formation of galaxies, and

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Speaker 1: probably plenty of other things. You could just generally say

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Speaker 1: that Young Earth creationism is a belief that encounters generalized

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Speaker 1: difficulty when held alongside a scientific picture of our world. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's the the rejection of the best modern scientific understanding

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Speaker 1: of how the world works, and the acceptance of and

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Speaker 1: the reliance upon a sort of modern untangling of ancient

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Speaker 1: Babylonian right. So, but the problem is plenty of civil

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Speaker 1: servants in the United States, especially people who might be

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Speaker 1: teachers in public schools or approving curriculum or textbook selection

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Speaker 1: for public schools, hold these beliefs themselves, and they sometimes

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Speaker 1: try to promote these beliefs and their consequences in what

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Speaker 1: are supposed to be secular, religiously neutral classes for all students.

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Speaker 1: And this can take a lot of forms. At one extreme,

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Speaker 1: it might have biology classes teaching about the Garden of

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Speaker 1: Eden and Noah's Ark as an alternative evolutionary theory. At

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Speaker 1: the other end, it might be less overt than that,

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Speaker 1: and it might just insist on biology classes including materials

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Speaker 1: prepared by creationists that sort of cast vague, unfounded doubts

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Speaker 1: on modern biology, or that uh teach children scientifically false

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Speaker 1: arguments against evolution, like you know, things you've heard before,

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Speaker 1: like there are no transitional fossils and stuff like that.

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Speaker 1: And obviously this has led to lots of social conflict,

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Speaker 1: big public debates, and lots of court cases. One example

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Speaker 1: of such a court case occurs very close to home

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Speaker 1: for us here in Cobb County, Georgia, which is includes

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Speaker 1: northern suburbs of Atlanta. And on March twenty, two thousand two,

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Speaker 1: the public school officials in Cobb County approved a measure

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Speaker 1: requiring biology textbooks to wear a sticker on the inside

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Speaker 1: cover that has the following statement. It's says evolution is

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Speaker 1: a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living

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Speaker 1: living things. Uh. And in two thousand five, this was

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Speaker 1: ruled unconstitutional by US District Judge Clarence Cooper, who said,

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Speaker 1: of this ruling quote, by denigrating evolution, the school board

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Speaker 1: appears to be endorsing the well known prevailing alternative theory

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Speaker 1: creationism or variations thereof, even though the sticker does not

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Speaker 1: specifically reference the alternative theories. And this gets us back

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Speaker 1: to the monster in question, the spaghetti monster. Where where

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Speaker 1: did this come from? Well? This originates with a protest, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: a protest against the inclusion of statements like the stickers

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Speaker 1: like this in science textbooks. Like the basic idea here

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Speaker 1: is hey, if this nonsense is going to be presented

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Speaker 1: as an alternative to our science. How about this nonsense?

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Speaker 1: How about I just blatantly make something up, just completely

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Speaker 1: off the top of my head, just the craziest thing

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Speaker 1: you can imagine. Let's put that in there as well. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and this of course takes this to Kansas. Yeah, to

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Speaker 1: two thousand five, when the Kansas State Board of Education

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Speaker 1: had decided to allow intelligent design the sort of a

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Speaker 1: moniker of creationism, you might call it, like a marketing

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Speaker 1: term to make it seem more scientific, like to add

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Speaker 1: a lexicon of scientific vocabulary to h to creationism. And

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Speaker 1: they said that they wanted to introduce this into the

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Speaker 1: curriculum as an as an alternative to evolution, you know,

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Speaker 1: teach both theories. So uh. Then twenty five year old

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Speaker 1: physics graduate Bobby Henderson wrote what is known as the

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Speaker 1: Open Letter to the Kansas School Board, published online in

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Speaker 1: two thousand five, to present his vision for religious inclusivity

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Speaker 1: in the science classroom. Robert, would you like to read

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Speaker 1: a select quote from the letter? I shall quote. I

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Speaker 1: am writing you with much concern, after having read of

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Speaker 1: your hearing to decide whether the alternative theory of intelligent

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Speaker 1: design should be taught along with the theory of evolution.

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Speaker 1: Let us remember that there are multiple theories of intelligent design.

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Speaker 1: I and many others around the world are of the

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Speaker 1: strong belief that the universe was created by a flying

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Speaker 1: spaghetti monster. Right. So throughout this letter, Henderson goes on

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Speaker 1: to critique and satirize the intelligent design arguments by showing

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Speaker 1: how the claims of flying spaghetti monsterism, though they might

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Speaker 1: appear to conflict with scientists around the world, don't actually

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Speaker 1: because the flying spaghetti monster reaches out with his newly

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Speaker 1: appendages to tweak the results of experiments so that we

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Speaker 1: will be tricked into believing in an evolutionary model of

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Speaker 1: the old Earth. Uh. And he goes on also to

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Speaker 1: insist that when flying spaghetti monsterism is taught in science classrooms,

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Speaker 1: the teacher must wear full pirate regalia. Quote. The concise

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Speaker 1: explanation for this is that he becomes angry if we don't. Yeah. So,

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Speaker 1: and of course this leads to um wonderful depictions of

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Speaker 1: the flying spaghetti monster, yeah, which we've all seen before, right.

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Speaker 1: The meme very much. It started as a bit of satire,

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Speaker 1: a joke on this religious social movement that the author

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Speaker 1: of this letter opposed, but it really took on a

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Speaker 1: life of its own. It became a meme, it became

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Speaker 1: picked up on the internet. So there's artwork. Like you said,

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Speaker 1: there's uh, it's a whole living library of self referential

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Speaker 1: humor based around this original idea of a flying spaghetti monster,

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Speaker 1: including actually becoming some form of church. Yeah. I mean

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Speaker 1: it's interesting to look at the evolution of the joke.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I'm often just taken by the visual depiction

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Speaker 1: because I feel like those really pick up a lot

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Speaker 1: of steam. And the spaghetti monster itself is funny looking.

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Speaker 1: It kind of looks like testicles, so it's it's it's

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Speaker 1: inherently goofy. It has meatballs, by the way, it's a

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Speaker 1: it's a large pile of spaghetti flying through the sky

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Speaker 1: with eyes and meatballs generally too, and and and yeah,

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Speaker 1: to your point, like a lot of it's kind of

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Speaker 1: a community, a symbol, myth those as well, Like everyone,

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Speaker 1: all sorts of little bits and pieces are thrown in

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Speaker 1: kind of willy nilly to create this overall faith. And

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Speaker 1: it's one of those the theology is not all top down,

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Speaker 1: sort of bottom up theology. Yeah, and it's it's one

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Speaker 1: of those jokes that I think over the years, like

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Speaker 1: when I first heard it, I was kind of like,

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Speaker 1: didn't get the joke, and then I got the joke.

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Speaker 1: I'm like, Okay, I get it. But then the joke,

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Speaker 1: it's the joke just keeps going. People keep telling it

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Speaker 1: to the point where it's not really that funny anymore.

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Speaker 1: But you know, it's kind of like having that that

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Speaker 1: friend in high school who loves Monty Python so much

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Speaker 1: that they won't they just fit a reference or half

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Speaker 1: a skit into every conversation. Like that's kind of how

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Speaker 1: I feel about Pastafari. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know

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Speaker 1: exactly what you mean. And also I would say that

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Speaker 1: in some cases it evolved from a specific satire of

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Speaker 1: of teaching of Young Earth creationism in public schools to

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Speaker 1: become a more general critique of of religion across the board,

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Speaker 1: which I think is not necessarily what the author originally intended, right,

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Speaker 1: But yeah, that's definitely becomes kind of a you know,

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Speaker 1: an atheistic protest religion, um, and it serves a useful

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Speaker 1: purpose there, I think, you know it. It's it continually argues, hey, um,

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Speaker 1: why do we believe that in the things we believed in.

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Speaker 1: You know, why is this valuable? And this isn't um

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Speaker 1: and you know, as a joke goes it is it

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Speaker 1: has proven to be effective, you know, in the way

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Speaker 1: that jokes can often tear down the most formidable walls

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Speaker 1: in our society but also piss people off royally. Now,

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Speaker 1: I can take the other side for a second and

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Speaker 1: say that I can understand why some religious people would

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Speaker 1: be less than impressed with this joke as it exists today, because,

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Speaker 1: let's be fair, in a lot of cases, it does

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Speaker 1: seem to represent a just sort of generalized critique, and

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Speaker 1: critique might be a generous word of of religion without

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Speaker 1: much attempt to understand people's religions or doctrines and the

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Speaker 1: values they provide to the people that that hold them. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it is you can just look at as a kind

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Speaker 1: of shallow, outsider mockery. Yeah, and I and I definitely,

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Speaker 1: you know, I can definitely relate to some of those

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Speaker 1: feelings about it, you know, over the years, because at

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Speaker 1: times I have felt like, not only is it a

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Speaker 1: joke that I maybe don't don't get or I don't

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Speaker 1: find as funny, but yeah, I could also see where

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Speaker 1: it's a little a little offensive, you know, because you're

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Speaker 1: it's kind of like you're taking just three minutes to

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Speaker 1: throw up a spaghetti monster image to rebuke a person's

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Speaker 1: lifetime of faith, you know, to to rebuke their their

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Speaker 1: their cultural heritage in many cases. But as we said,

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Speaker 1: this is becoming a new heritage of its own. And

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Speaker 1: I'm I'm curious to see what the Church of the

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Speaker 1: Flying Spaghetti Monster looks like in twenty years. Yeah. I

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Speaker 1: think for the most part, for most people, it's it's

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Speaker 1: remains at that bumper sticker level involvement, you know, it

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Speaker 1: is just something you throw up on social media or

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Speaker 1: stick on the back of your car. Other people have

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Speaker 1: taken it to two greater extremes, going in and trying

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Speaker 1: to get their official um, you know state I D

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Speaker 1: with a colander on their head, which is of course

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Speaker 1: one of the other articles of faith for the adherents,

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Speaker 1: and UH and other folks have pushed for official religious status,

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Speaker 1: which is is really taking it to the next level,

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Speaker 1: saying not only is our joke religion jokey, but it

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Speaker 1: is actually a religion, or it is as real religion

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Speaker 1: as your religion. And we want the government to recognize

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Speaker 1: that fact. And I think there are some governments that

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Speaker 1: have recognized it, right, Yeah, at least the Netherlands and

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Speaker 1: New Zealand to to some degree. That the Netherlands where

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Speaker 1: that was where we saw the most recent headlines about it,

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Speaker 1: and apparently they had to they had to prove that

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Speaker 1: it wasn't just a fad, that it was an actual

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Speaker 1: thing that people believed in and that they had like

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Speaker 1: a marriage ritual, uh, that sort of thing, so that

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Speaker 1: it was it's the kind of thing that people are

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Speaker 1: invested in enough that it is, you know, potentially a

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Speaker 1: part of your life. Yeah, and this leads us to

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Speaker 1: the realization that a religion need not be ancient in

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Speaker 1: order to be followed. So I I stand by what

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Speaker 1: I said earlier about a lot of the aesthetic power

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Speaker 1: of religion does seem to come from its antiquity and

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Speaker 1: its chronological alienation sort of alien holiness of the distant past.

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Speaker 1: But this doesn't mean you can't create religions in the

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Speaker 1: modern day that gain a following. Yeah. I mean we've

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Speaker 1: already mentioned Rastafari, which is an Abrahamic religion, uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: certainly with a lot of elements that are based in

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Speaker 1: deep history, but it also venerated uh then Emperor of

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Speaker 1: Ethiopia highly Stilassi, you know. And it's it's it's certainly

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Speaker 1: a religion I would love to look at in greater

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Speaker 1: depth at some point in the future. But yeah, you

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Speaker 1: have a situation where it's it's in the past, it's

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Speaker 1: it's taking place in the present. And I mean to

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Speaker 1: have your Messiah of and and die within the lifespan

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Speaker 1: of the faith, uh and to see that sort of

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Speaker 1: happen in in recent history, it's fascinating. Well, how about

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Speaker 1: how about Joseph Smith and the Latter day Saints. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean there's another good one. Um, it's the origins

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Speaker 1: date back around eighteen thirty. This is a millennialist religion

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Speaker 1: that preach the impending second Coming, continuing revelations and uh

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Speaker 1: uh an identity and values that I guess you'd say

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Speaker 1: we're more grounded in the temporary setting. So you know,

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Speaker 1: it's America. It's there's a modern cosmology, very American religion. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: very much. So. If if you don't realize that this

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Speaker 1: is the name, the official name of the Mormons, the

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Speaker 1: Church of Jesus Christ, of Latter day Saints and it too,

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Speaker 1: of course, sprang up around a single charismatic individual, and uh,

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Speaker 1: it's it's it's actually a very interesting religion to look

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Speaker 1: at in terms of science as well, um, in the

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Speaker 1: in since it's since it is more of a more

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Speaker 1: closely tied to our scientific age, you do find elements

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Speaker 1: of it that are that that conflict less with modern

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Speaker 1: scientific cosmology, such as the the idea that there are

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Speaker 1: other planets and that there is a potential for life

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Speaker 1: on other worlds. Oh yeah, though even without the introduction

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Speaker 1: of new holy texts such as the Book of Mormon,

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Speaker 1: you could point out that lots of modern Christians have

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Speaker 1: adapted their beliefs to include modern science. Oh certainly. I mean,

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Speaker 1: when we look at the numbers from from that Gallup poll,

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Speaker 1: only forty two percent of Americans adhered to a literal

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Speaker 1: understanding of the Bible, and so that's obviously not even

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Speaker 1: maybe that's like half of Christians or something in America. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, you can certainly still be a Christian according

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Speaker 1: to me anyway. I mean, this is going to very

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Speaker 1: depending on who's who's serving you your Christianity, but um, yeah,

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Speaker 1: you can still be a Christian and not believe that

399
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Speaker 1: there was a literal garden of eaton. You can still

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Speaker 1: look at something like Noah's ark uh and and really

401
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Speaker 1: and and view it as mythology without and view it

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Speaker 1: as mythology, not in the as a dismissal, but understanding

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Speaker 1: the power of myth and the necessity of myth uh

404
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Speaker 1: in our culture right. Well, or you might not even

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Speaker 1: put it in those terms. You might just say like, well,

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Speaker 1: you know, it's a story that's part of our received tradition,

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Speaker 1: and I accept it as a story. But I but

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Speaker 1: also I wouldn't deny what the evidence in the lab says.

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Speaker 1: I mean, that would be foolish. So so one is

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Speaker 1: science and one is my religion, and you know you

411
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Speaker 1: don't have to smash them together in a particle collider

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Speaker 1: of my brain. Yeah, I mean you can. You can.

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Speaker 1: You can look at it as literature. You can look

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Speaker 1: at it his mythology if you want. You can look

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Speaker 1: at it as some sort of a literal historical document.

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Speaker 1: But to do so is to throw out our modern

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Speaker 1: understanding of the world. Yeah, so how about the other

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Speaker 1: uh recently created religion that we opened with talking about scientology,

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Speaker 1: Like we said, the bar Bet story probably isn't true,

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Speaker 1: but scientology certainly is a religion explicitly created in the

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Speaker 1: twentieth century. That's right. Nine Um contemporary individual focused movement

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Speaker 1: elements of science fiction, New age philosophy, and the psychoanalysis,

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Speaker 1: though it also has historically been anti psychiatry. Um. And

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Speaker 1: I think it's sort of almost uh positions itself as

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Speaker 1: an alternative to psychiatry. Yes, yeah, I think very much so,

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Speaker 1: um and one of them. We're not gonna go in

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Speaker 1: deep into all the mysteries of scientology here, but it

428
00:24:26,960 --> 00:24:29,800
Speaker 1: essentially says that we're all alien souls called Betan's that

429
00:24:29,840 --> 00:24:32,679
Speaker 1: bounce around from life to life. One attempts to free

430
00:24:32,680 --> 00:24:35,480
Speaker 1: oneself from this cycle and train their true self. So

431
00:24:35,480 --> 00:24:38,760
Speaker 1: it's kind of like space Buddhism, which you know, I

432
00:24:38,840 --> 00:24:40,919
Speaker 1: with without getting into the other details, I could get

433
00:24:40,960 --> 00:24:42,920
Speaker 1: behind the idea of some space Buddhism. I could see

434
00:24:42,960 --> 00:24:45,600
Speaker 1: the appeal in the abstract at least, though, as you note,

435
00:24:45,600 --> 00:24:49,240
Speaker 1: it is a pretty divisive religion. Everybody's got an opinion

436
00:24:49,320 --> 00:24:52,480
Speaker 1: on it. Yeah, it's hard to find and I'm I'm

437
00:24:52,480 --> 00:24:54,040
Speaker 1: one of those people that I would love to see

438
00:24:54,080 --> 00:24:57,640
Speaker 1: more just like objective down the middle coverage of scientology.

439
00:24:57,720 --> 00:25:00,600
Speaker 1: But for the most part it's either U. I mean, certainly,

440
00:25:00,640 --> 00:25:03,320
Speaker 1: just researching online you're gonna find one voice or the

441
00:25:03,320 --> 00:25:07,560
Speaker 1: other in very drastically different positions on the matter. Now,

442
00:25:07,600 --> 00:25:10,159
Speaker 1: any of the religions that we've mentioned so far, you

443
00:25:10,200 --> 00:25:13,800
Speaker 1: can definitely go at them and point out at least

444
00:25:13,840 --> 00:25:17,080
Speaker 1: little bits and pieces that don't match up with our

445
00:25:17,119 --> 00:25:19,920
Speaker 1: scientific understanding of reality. You can say, hey, bees didn't

446
00:25:19,960 --> 00:25:23,000
Speaker 1: have four legs, as we've mentioned in previous episodes. Sure

447
00:25:23,040 --> 00:25:26,159
Speaker 1: there were no New World horses prior to h to

448
00:25:26,359 --> 00:25:31,399
Speaker 1: the colonial presence UH in North America. You told how

449
00:25:31,480 --> 00:25:37,000
Speaker 1: is that relevant? Um? Some criticize, you know, the Book

450
00:25:37,000 --> 00:25:41,080
Speaker 1: of Mormon and point to UH passages about horses and

451
00:25:41,080 --> 00:25:42,760
Speaker 1: and use this as a, you know, a sort of

452
00:25:42,880 --> 00:25:45,200
Speaker 1: rallying point for Oh, you're totally full of it because

453
00:25:45,240 --> 00:25:48,120
Speaker 1: this thing doesn't match up with with real life. Likewise,

454
00:25:48,119 --> 00:25:50,320
Speaker 1: you can say, oh, there's no demonic space, aliens, there

455
00:25:50,359 --> 00:25:53,360
Speaker 1: no there was no z new etcetera. But as we're

456
00:25:53,359 --> 00:25:56,720
Speaker 1: about to discuss, there are religions or hyper religions as

457
00:25:56,760 --> 00:26:01,159
Speaker 1: they're they're sometimes called, in which there is definite fiction

458
00:26:01,240 --> 00:26:04,199
Speaker 1: going on, like the whole Bedrock for the faith is

459
00:26:04,280 --> 00:26:08,159
Speaker 1: fiction where not everybody agrees this fiction nobody and the

460
00:26:08,240 --> 00:26:10,480
Speaker 1: people on the inside. Yeah, So it's not a situation

461
00:26:10,520 --> 00:26:13,080
Speaker 1: where someone is having to say, well, you know, this

462
00:26:13,160 --> 00:26:16,600
Speaker 1: one little detail about horses or bees or what have you.

463
00:26:16,680 --> 00:26:18,879
Speaker 1: It doesn't match up because X Y and is either saying, oh, no,

464
00:26:19,200 --> 00:26:22,560
Speaker 1: I fully agree with you. This is all fiction. But

465
00:26:22,640 --> 00:26:25,760
Speaker 1: the thing that comes out of that fiction is real. Right,

466
00:26:25,800 --> 00:26:29,880
Speaker 1: we're talking about religions that draw inspiration from fictional narratives

467
00:26:29,960 --> 00:26:33,560
Speaker 1: that don't claim to adhere to reality at all. And

468
00:26:33,840 --> 00:26:36,080
Speaker 1: here we're going to get into a little bit of

469
00:26:36,080 --> 00:26:39,240
Speaker 1: the work of a sort of cultural critic and sociologist

470
00:26:39,320 --> 00:26:43,560
Speaker 1: named Adam Possum I And Possum's got a he's got

471
00:26:43,560 --> 00:26:46,840
Speaker 1: a book that came out in two thousand five called

472
00:26:46,960 --> 00:26:53,000
Speaker 1: Religion and Popular Culture a hyper Real Testament like that title, uh,

473
00:26:53,040 --> 00:26:57,720
Speaker 1: And in this book he builds on some postmodern social theory. Now,

474
00:26:57,840 --> 00:26:59,440
Speaker 1: don't worry, we're not going to get too into the

475
00:26:59,480 --> 00:27:03,760
Speaker 1: weeds of social theory and post modern criticism. But basically

476
00:27:03,800 --> 00:27:07,400
Speaker 1: here's how it goes. It says the twentieth century represents

477
00:27:07,400 --> 00:27:14,840
Speaker 1: a turn from traditional cultural structures to individualized consumer experiences

478
00:27:14,960 --> 00:27:19,000
Speaker 1: driven by capitalism. So just think about that for a second. Oh,

479
00:27:19,040 --> 00:27:23,119
Speaker 1: and he says, of course this extends to religion. And

480
00:27:23,160 --> 00:27:24,880
Speaker 1: so if you think about that, it's sort of saying

481
00:27:24,880 --> 00:27:29,080
Speaker 1: that instead of having a structure like a community accountable

482
00:27:29,160 --> 00:27:32,000
Speaker 1: to one another that gathers to pray and worship in

483
00:27:32,040 --> 00:27:38,520
Speaker 1: the received antique tradition, people consume their religion individually in

484
00:27:38,560 --> 00:27:42,639
Speaker 1: the same way they do their shopping and their media experiences.

485
00:27:42,680 --> 00:27:47,920
Speaker 1: Religion becomes a co modified, consume arized thing that you

486
00:27:47,920 --> 00:27:50,600
Speaker 1: you can pick off the shelf and take home with you.

487
00:27:51,119 --> 00:27:53,320
Speaker 1: And I'm not sure I totally agree, but I think

488
00:27:53,359 --> 00:27:55,879
Speaker 1: there is at least a grain of truth to this. Uh.

489
00:27:56,040 --> 00:27:59,719
Speaker 1: Simply by looking at the esthetics of religion in America today,

490
00:28:00,160 --> 00:28:02,280
Speaker 1: you could point to, for example, I think the rise

491
00:28:02,320 --> 00:28:06,119
Speaker 1: of televangelism, TV ministry networks. You can change the channel

492
00:28:06,960 --> 00:28:10,520
Speaker 1: at home religious participation on your own time with a

493
00:28:10,600 --> 00:28:14,120
Speaker 1: TV program. You could also look at mega churches, which

494
00:28:14,160 --> 00:28:17,240
Speaker 1: I think are a really interesting cultural phenomenon. I have

495
00:28:17,480 --> 00:28:21,240
Speaker 1: huge congregations, and what's the point of the huge congregation. Well,

496
00:28:21,280 --> 00:28:23,520
Speaker 1: if you wanted to look at it from this critical

497
00:28:23,520 --> 00:28:26,320
Speaker 1: point of view, you could say, really, a huge congregation

498
00:28:26,400 --> 00:28:29,200
Speaker 1: like that provides each individual church go or a kind

499
00:28:29,200 --> 00:28:32,840
Speaker 1: of Walmart level of anonymity. You don't have to have

500
00:28:32,920 --> 00:28:36,600
Speaker 1: a personal relationship. You just go and sort of consume

501
00:28:37,080 --> 00:28:40,080
Speaker 1: as another face in the crowd, as on your own time,

502
00:28:40,120 --> 00:28:43,760
Speaker 1: on your own terms. Now, of course that also can

503
00:28:43,840 --> 00:28:45,880
Speaker 1: be The very thing about a mega church that would

504
00:28:45,880 --> 00:28:47,520
Speaker 1: turn someone away is that they want to go into

505
00:28:47,520 --> 00:28:49,560
Speaker 1: a church. They want to be recognized, right, they want

506
00:28:49,560 --> 00:28:50,920
Speaker 1: to be an individual, they want a part of a

507
00:28:50,920 --> 00:28:54,160
Speaker 1: community exactly. But then also you could look at their

508
00:28:54,400 --> 00:28:58,120
Speaker 1: attention grabbing multimedia experiences like let's you know, let's watch

509
00:28:58,520 --> 00:29:01,520
Speaker 1: Pastor Trent rock out with the Rays Band on the JumboTron,

510
00:29:02,480 --> 00:29:04,880
Speaker 1: which there there's certainly plenty of that. And sometimes they've

511
00:29:04,920 --> 00:29:08,560
Speaker 1: even got truly built in shopping experiences. You've got coffee shops,

512
00:29:08,560 --> 00:29:11,479
Speaker 1: bookstores and the church and stuff like that. And so

513
00:29:11,520 --> 00:29:13,160
Speaker 1: this is the work that I think possum I is

514
00:29:13,200 --> 00:29:15,840
Speaker 1: building on. And so possum I, when he gets to

515
00:29:15,880 --> 00:29:19,280
Speaker 1: the concept of hyper real religion, he makes a comparison

516
00:29:19,320 --> 00:29:25,280
Speaker 1: between trends in fantasy literature and trends in religion. And

517
00:29:25,320 --> 00:29:27,800
Speaker 1: so he starts out by looking at fantasy fiction and

518
00:29:27,800 --> 00:29:31,200
Speaker 1: he says he says essentially that fantasy fiction has this

519
00:29:31,320 --> 00:29:35,960
Speaker 1: traditional library of tropes, styles, and contents from which it

520
00:29:36,040 --> 00:29:39,760
Speaker 1: usually draws like sword and sorcery fiction. He possum I

521
00:29:39,840 --> 00:29:43,360
Speaker 1: claims that this is based mostly on chivalric or medieval

522
00:29:43,520 --> 00:29:46,280
Speaker 1: romance like the R three and cycle, you know, King

523
00:29:46,360 --> 00:29:49,160
Speaker 1: Arthur and those kind of stories, that they form the

524
00:29:49,840 --> 00:29:53,040
Speaker 1: library of things which the modern fantasy author can now

525
00:29:53,080 --> 00:29:55,400
Speaker 1: reach in and grab and put together in his or

526
00:29:55,440 --> 00:29:59,200
Speaker 1: her own way. And so among the standard library of

527
00:29:59,240 --> 00:30:06,000
Speaker 1: tropes or things, magic, creatures, thieves, warriors, druids, wizards, orcs, elves,

528
00:30:06,720 --> 00:30:10,960
Speaker 1: what else, oh, gelatinous cubes. Yeah, all the standard dungeon

529
00:30:11,000 --> 00:30:15,360
Speaker 1: and dragons, characters, creatures and tropes for sure. But then

530
00:30:15,440 --> 00:30:18,719
Speaker 1: possum My points to an interesting development in the history

531
00:30:18,720 --> 00:30:21,560
Speaker 1: of fantasy, which he singles out as the two thousand

532
00:30:21,560 --> 00:30:24,520
Speaker 1: two video game Kingdom Hearts. Now, I've never played this

533
00:30:24,680 --> 00:30:28,000
Speaker 1: of you know, but I'm familiar with the with the series,

534
00:30:28,080 --> 00:30:31,640
Speaker 1: especially it's it's crossovers with like Disney material. Yeah, I

535
00:30:31,640 --> 00:30:34,200
Speaker 1: did not expect Kingdom Hearts to show up in the material,

536
00:30:34,320 --> 00:30:36,200
Speaker 1: but this is exactly what he points out. I think

537
00:30:36,200 --> 00:30:38,640
Speaker 1: it's a really interesting point. He says, so okay. Kingdom

538
00:30:38,680 --> 00:30:42,200
Speaker 1: Hearts is a video game following a very traditional fantasy plot.

539
00:30:42,240 --> 00:30:46,120
Speaker 1: In some ways, it has a traditional fantasy plot structure.

540
00:30:46,240 --> 00:30:48,800
Speaker 1: There's a quest, there's a main character who has a

541
00:30:49,360 --> 00:30:52,560
Speaker 1: sort of symbolic sword and uh, and the main character

542
00:30:52,640 --> 00:30:56,400
Speaker 1: is seeking reunification with friends who are lost. It all

543
00:30:56,440 --> 00:31:00,880
Speaker 1: sounds like this could be Tolkien or something. But instead

544
00:31:00,920 --> 00:31:05,040
Speaker 1: of having all of just the regular dungeons and dragons, chivalry,

545
00:31:05,600 --> 00:31:07,840
Speaker 1: you know, the knights and the elves and the orcs

546
00:31:07,840 --> 00:31:11,160
Speaker 1: and all that, it's got characters from Disney movies. Like

547
00:31:11,240 --> 00:31:14,000
Speaker 1: you say, so, it's got characters from Aladdin and Peter

548
00:31:14,120 --> 00:31:18,440
Speaker 1: Pan and hundred and one Dalmatians and Alice in Wonderland.

549
00:31:18,680 --> 00:31:22,160
Speaker 1: And so he's looking at this as saying, huh. So,

550
00:31:22,200 --> 00:31:25,320
Speaker 1: when you put yourself in the fantasy mindset, you kind

551
00:31:25,320 --> 00:31:29,280
Speaker 1: of have to uh accept as real all of the

552
00:31:29,320 --> 00:31:32,840
Speaker 1: tropes that are being pulled from the the antique library

553
00:31:33,000 --> 00:31:37,520
Speaker 1: of medieval and fantasy tropes like wizards and stuff like that.

554
00:31:37,520 --> 00:31:40,200
Speaker 1: That's the real material that you work with within the

555
00:31:40,240 --> 00:31:43,080
Speaker 1: fantasy realm. But this is bringing in all this stuff

556
00:31:43,120 --> 00:31:47,560
Speaker 1: where people are explicitly familiar with the origins Disney movies

557
00:31:47,640 --> 00:31:49,760
Speaker 1: Disney movies they saw when they were a kid, and

558
00:31:49,800 --> 00:31:53,880
Speaker 1: now they're part of the Fantasy library. Yeah. This is

559
00:31:53,880 --> 00:31:55,600
Speaker 1: I mean, this just makes me think about walking around

560
00:31:55,600 --> 00:31:58,160
Speaker 1: the office here, how stuff works. Uh, you go by

561
00:31:58,200 --> 00:32:01,720
Speaker 1: each desk and everyone as at least it seems like

562
00:32:02,080 --> 00:32:07,480
Speaker 1: one figuring, right, one action figure, some sort of pop

563
00:32:07,520 --> 00:32:11,600
Speaker 1: culture comic bookie character that is serving as kind of

564
00:32:11,800 --> 00:32:15,040
Speaker 1: uh kind of an avatar, kind of an icon, kind

565
00:32:15,080 --> 00:32:18,520
Speaker 1: of uh kind of a holy artifact, a little god,

566
00:32:18,640 --> 00:32:20,920
Speaker 1: a little shrine at your desk. Yeah, exactly. I mean,

567
00:32:20,960 --> 00:32:24,200
Speaker 1: like like I think about in my own situation, like

568
00:32:24,320 --> 00:32:28,160
Speaker 1: I carry a Ganesha in my pocket, Ganesha being of

569
00:32:28,160 --> 00:32:31,040
Speaker 1: course that the Hindu, a little elephant deity, the remover

570
00:32:31,120 --> 00:32:34,040
Speaker 1: of obstacles, um and and so you know, I carry

571
00:32:34,600 --> 00:32:37,680
Speaker 1: him around as a kind of a good good luck token.

572
00:32:38,040 --> 00:32:40,040
Speaker 1: But on my desk here at work, I also have

573
00:32:40,160 --> 00:32:45,360
Speaker 1: a Gammera and a tom Servo, which very fine idols. Yeah,

574
00:32:45,400 --> 00:32:48,720
Speaker 1: and they kind of what they kind of embody certain

575
00:32:49,040 --> 00:32:51,640
Speaker 1: you know, maybe not completely thought out ideas, but they

576
00:32:51,680 --> 00:32:55,760
Speaker 1: embody certain nostalgic powers and thematic powers that I kind

577
00:32:55,760 --> 00:32:58,280
Speaker 1: of draw in a draw on as I work. Gammera

578
00:32:58,400 --> 00:33:00,760
Speaker 1: has stuff we can all get behind he of all children.

579
00:33:00,760 --> 00:33:03,440
Speaker 1: It's right. He's a friend of children, and he breathes

580
00:33:03,520 --> 00:33:06,960
Speaker 1: fire and flies, so he's you know, he's he's a

581
00:33:07,000 --> 00:33:09,680
Speaker 1: he's a powerful force to to to to turn to.

582
00:33:09,960 --> 00:33:12,640
Speaker 1: So anytime there's a bat in your vicinity that begins

583
00:33:12,680 --> 00:33:15,320
Speaker 1: to emit rays you know that you have gammera on

584
00:33:15,360 --> 00:33:18,080
Speaker 1: your side. Exactly. Yeah, but you know to what extent

585
00:33:18,160 --> 00:33:21,080
Speaker 1: are all these little little creatures and little toy I mean,

586
00:33:21,120 --> 00:33:23,280
Speaker 1: they are all kind of religious icons. They're kind of

587
00:33:23,320 --> 00:33:26,000
Speaker 1: the gods of the New Age, right, Yeah, And so

588
00:33:26,280 --> 00:33:29,560
Speaker 1: we should note about possum I before we continue that.

589
00:33:30,320 --> 00:33:34,920
Speaker 1: In the academic community postmodern religious and cultural criticism, there's

590
00:33:34,960 --> 00:33:37,760
Speaker 1: been you know, a ton of ink spill debating the

591
00:33:37,800 --> 00:33:41,760
Speaker 1: merits of possum eze definitions and analysis. We're not going

592
00:33:41,800 --> 00:33:43,360
Speaker 1: to get into all that. We're we're not going to

593
00:33:43,440 --> 00:33:46,200
Speaker 1: get into these debates. We can just focus on that

594
00:33:46,440 --> 00:33:50,400
Speaker 1: the example itself, basically the all it is subjective analysis.

595
00:33:50,480 --> 00:33:53,520
Speaker 1: So if there's nothing definite about any of it, yeah,

596
00:33:53,640 --> 00:33:55,680
Speaker 1: but it's but it does it does make a lot

597
00:33:55,680 --> 00:33:57,360
Speaker 1: of sense in this one we're discussing it here. But

598
00:33:57,720 --> 00:34:02,080
Speaker 1: essentially the idea is creating religios inspired by source material

599
00:34:02,240 --> 00:34:06,600
Speaker 1: that the religion's own adherents except to be fiction. Well,

600
00:34:06,680 --> 00:34:08,440
Speaker 1: let's run through some examples of this, because I mean,

601
00:34:08,440 --> 00:34:10,279
Speaker 1: I know it's if you're not familiar with this, your

602
00:34:10,320 --> 00:34:12,160
Speaker 1: your brain is probably going in circles here, like how

603
00:34:12,160 --> 00:34:14,120
Speaker 1: do you base a religion? It's one thing to say, oh,

604
00:34:14,120 --> 00:34:16,279
Speaker 1: I get some inspiration from a gammera, but how would

605
00:34:16,280 --> 00:34:18,520
Speaker 1: you actually have a Gambra based faith? Well, do you

606
00:34:18,560 --> 00:34:20,879
Speaker 1: mind if I talk about the Jedi? First? Talk about

607
00:34:20,920 --> 00:34:24,319
Speaker 1: the Jedi? Okay, so how about Jedi is M. Have

608
00:34:24,400 --> 00:34:27,200
Speaker 1: you have you folks heard of this Jedi is M

609
00:34:27,520 --> 00:34:30,560
Speaker 1: Jeddism or Jeddi is M. Jedism always makes me think

610
00:34:30,560 --> 00:34:32,920
Speaker 1: of Jed from Beverly Hill, Billways. It's the religion of

611
00:34:33,000 --> 00:34:37,240
Speaker 1: Jed clamp At. Yes, because he came across the Black Gold,

612
00:34:37,320 --> 00:34:39,880
Speaker 1: so he must be inspired. Yes he would God let

613
00:34:39,960 --> 00:34:43,239
Speaker 1: him there. But anyway, that no, jedi Ism is a

614
00:34:43,440 --> 00:34:46,719
Speaker 1: Star Wars inspired religion that takes after the Jedi, the

615
00:34:46,800 --> 00:34:49,440
Speaker 1: Jedi knights of the Star Wars universe. Who are the heroes?

616
00:34:49,480 --> 00:34:51,680
Speaker 1: I mean, I probably don't need to explain the Star

617
00:34:51,719 --> 00:34:54,080
Speaker 1: Wars context. You I assume you've seen it, if not,

618
00:34:54,680 --> 00:34:59,080
Speaker 1: suffice to say, they're, you know, a quasimistical religious order

619
00:34:59,160 --> 00:35:02,440
Speaker 1: of good guy is facing off against an evil empire.

620
00:35:03,400 --> 00:35:06,000
Speaker 1: Well evil in quotation, I don't know how evil they

621
00:35:06,040 --> 00:35:08,520
Speaker 1: actually were. But but oh so you've got a bone

622
00:35:08,520 --> 00:35:10,759
Speaker 1: to pick there, Well, it's it's not really worth picking

623
00:35:10,760 --> 00:35:14,400
Speaker 1: at this point, never mind. Okay, So anyway, in my

624
00:35:14,440 --> 00:35:18,560
Speaker 1: best judgment, Jedi pretty clearly began as a joke. It

625
00:35:18,680 --> 00:35:22,720
Speaker 1: just explicitly a joke. Uh. First example the two thousand

626
00:35:22,840 --> 00:35:25,359
Speaker 1: one Senceus phenomenon. So around the time of the year

627
00:35:25,360 --> 00:35:30,120
Speaker 1: two thousand one, there was a widespread international email campaign

628
00:35:30,360 --> 00:35:35,200
Speaker 1: urging people to list Jedi as their religion on official

629
00:35:35,320 --> 00:35:39,880
Speaker 1: census forms. And it worked. It worked. According to the BBC,

630
00:35:40,120 --> 00:35:44,600
Speaker 1: In the two thousand one UK census, three hundred ninety thousand,

631
00:35:44,680 --> 00:35:47,880
Speaker 1: one d twenty seven people, which amounted to about zero

632
00:35:47,920 --> 00:35:51,200
Speaker 1: point seven percent of the population at the time, listed

633
00:35:51,239 --> 00:35:55,640
Speaker 1: their religion as some variation on Jedi on that census

634
00:35:55,920 --> 00:36:00,480
Speaker 1: Jedi or Jedi Night something like. That same year, according

635
00:36:00,480 --> 00:36:03,920
Speaker 1: to the Sydney Morning Herald, seventy thousand, five hundred and

636
00:36:04,040 --> 00:36:07,400
Speaker 1: nine Australians are about zero point three seven percent of

637
00:36:07,440 --> 00:36:12,120
Speaker 1: Australians registered as Jedi on on the two thousand one census.

638
00:36:12,160 --> 00:36:14,480
Speaker 1: So at the time, I think everybody assumed this was

639
00:36:14,520 --> 00:36:18,120
Speaker 1: sort of like flying spaghetti monsterism. It's a joke carried

640
00:36:18,160 --> 00:36:22,439
Speaker 1: out by atheists and secularists, maybe trying to point out

641
00:36:22,520 --> 00:36:26,120
Speaker 1: something about the arbitrary nous of people's religious beliefs. Maybe

642
00:36:26,160 --> 00:36:27,839
Speaker 1: they thought they were making a point. Maybe they didn't

643
00:36:27,880 --> 00:36:29,640
Speaker 1: even think they were making a point. Maybe they just

644
00:36:29,760 --> 00:36:33,480
Speaker 1: thought it was funny to say I'm a Jedi instead

645
00:36:33,520 --> 00:36:36,239
Speaker 1: of to say no religion or none or something. Yeah,

646
00:36:36,280 --> 00:36:38,120
Speaker 1: and it's probably the kind of thing where in many

647
00:36:38,120 --> 00:36:40,560
Speaker 1: of these cases, not a tremendous A tremendous now I thought,

648
00:36:40,600 --> 00:36:42,239
Speaker 1: is not going into this. It's it's just kind of

649
00:36:42,239 --> 00:36:45,560
Speaker 1: a gut reaction. But the roots may run a little

650
00:36:45,600 --> 00:36:47,879
Speaker 1: deeper than they're conscious off. Yeah. So that was two

651
00:36:47,880 --> 00:36:51,920
Speaker 1: thousand one. But if you look at the website now

652
00:36:52,600 --> 00:36:55,440
Speaker 1: of the Temple of the Jedi Order, and if you

653
00:36:55,520 --> 00:36:59,160
Speaker 1: listen to their spokespeople, it starts to seem less and

654
00:36:59,239 --> 00:37:02,360
Speaker 1: less like a joke, okay, or even a statement in

655
00:37:02,440 --> 00:37:05,200
Speaker 1: order to make a point. If you look at them now,

656
00:37:05,320 --> 00:37:10,640
Speaker 1: the Jedi have beliefs, they have doctrines. They have credle statements,

657
00:37:11,239 --> 00:37:15,120
Speaker 1: and it sounds to me perhaps unsettlingly sincere, I don't

658
00:37:15,160 --> 00:37:17,520
Speaker 1: mean unsettling as in I'm mocking them. I just mean

659
00:37:18,280 --> 00:37:21,680
Speaker 1: it's surprising. So I want to read a couple of

660
00:37:21,719 --> 00:37:24,920
Speaker 1: little things from the Temple of the Jedi Order. These

661
00:37:24,960 --> 00:37:28,280
Speaker 1: are These are statements they have. One is the Jedi Code,

662
00:37:28,320 --> 00:37:30,040
Speaker 1: and there are two versions of it. I want to

663
00:37:30,040 --> 00:37:35,560
Speaker 1: read the simplified version. The Jedi Code reads emotion yet peace,

664
00:37:36,520 --> 00:37:44,520
Speaker 1: Ignorance yet, knowledge, passion yet serenity, chaos yet, harmony, death

665
00:37:45,120 --> 00:37:52,600
Speaker 1: yet the force that sounds pleasingly my mystic and deep. Yeah. Okay,

666
00:37:52,680 --> 00:37:55,080
Speaker 1: there's also a Jedi creed, believe it or not, so

667
00:37:55,200 --> 00:37:58,480
Speaker 1: that this is their creed. I am a Jedi, an

668
00:37:58,520 --> 00:38:01,680
Speaker 1: instrument of peace. Where there is hatred, I shall bring

669
00:38:01,760 --> 00:38:05,560
Speaker 1: love where there is injury, pardon where there is doubt,

670
00:38:06,000 --> 00:38:10,959
Speaker 1: faith where there is despair, Hope where there is darkness, light,

671
00:38:11,400 --> 00:38:14,880
Speaker 1: and where there is sadness joy. I am a Jedi.

672
00:38:15,480 --> 00:38:18,200
Speaker 1: I shall never seek so much to be consoled as

673
00:38:18,239 --> 00:38:23,040
Speaker 1: to console, to be understood, as to understand, to be loved,

674
00:38:23,160 --> 00:38:26,720
Speaker 1: as to love, For it is in giving that we receive.

675
00:38:27,040 --> 00:38:30,040
Speaker 1: It is in pardoning that we're pardoned, and it is

676
00:38:30,080 --> 00:38:33,400
Speaker 1: in dying that we're born to eternal life. The forces

677
00:38:33,480 --> 00:38:36,560
Speaker 1: with me always for I am a Jedi. Okay, so

678
00:38:36,600 --> 00:38:40,280
Speaker 1: this makes me instantly wonder are we are we witnessing

679
00:38:40,360 --> 00:38:43,919
Speaker 1: here the evolution of a faith or the evolution of

680
00:38:43,960 --> 00:38:46,120
Speaker 1: the joke? Are we are we kind of in like

681
00:38:46,160 --> 00:38:50,239
Speaker 1: the Andy Kaufman uh period of the joke where we're

682
00:38:50,320 --> 00:38:53,040
Speaker 1: just forced to feel kind of confused and maybe a

683
00:38:53,040 --> 00:38:57,760
Speaker 1: little uncomfortable about where we stand, uh in bit versus reality?

684
00:38:58,120 --> 00:39:00,960
Speaker 1: I don't know, because I so first of all, that

685
00:39:01,000 --> 00:39:02,960
Speaker 1: creed I read there, they said they claimed that is

686
00:39:03,000 --> 00:39:06,320
Speaker 1: actually adapted from a traditional prayer of St. Francis of

687
00:39:06,360 --> 00:39:11,000
Speaker 1: assisi um. So that's sort of interesting that they're adapting

688
00:39:11,080 --> 00:39:15,320
Speaker 1: traditional religious materials. But I also listened to an interview

689
00:39:15,840 --> 00:39:19,800
Speaker 1: with the spokesperson from the organization, the Temple of the Jedi,

690
00:39:20,600 --> 00:39:22,719
Speaker 1: and you know what, he seemed to me like a

691
00:39:22,840 --> 00:39:25,760
Speaker 1: level headed guy who was not playing a prank. In fact,

692
00:39:25,800 --> 00:39:27,880
Speaker 1: he the weirdest thing was he didn't even seem like

693
00:39:27,920 --> 00:39:31,799
Speaker 1: all that obsessive of a Star Wars fan. Um. And

694
00:39:31,840 --> 00:39:34,040
Speaker 1: he so he explained that all the Jedi believe in

695
00:39:34,040 --> 00:39:37,640
Speaker 1: the Force, but the Jedi need not believe in like

696
00:39:37,680 --> 00:39:41,040
Speaker 1: a literal physical reality of the Force as an energy

697
00:39:41,080 --> 00:39:43,759
Speaker 1: field that surrounds us and binds us, though apparently you

698
00:39:43,800 --> 00:39:47,319
Speaker 1: can believe in that instead. He made it sound like

699
00:39:47,360 --> 00:39:50,319
Speaker 1: the Force can be defined however you like. He can

700
00:39:50,360 --> 00:39:53,440
Speaker 1: be a physical reality, it can be a metaphor for

701
00:39:53,520 --> 00:39:55,960
Speaker 1: the interconnectedness of the universe, or it can be something

702
00:39:56,040 --> 00:39:59,160
Speaker 1: else entirely pretty much whatever you want. He seemed very

703
00:39:59,239 --> 00:40:04,120
Speaker 1: earnest and serious about Jedism being taken seriously as a religion, or,

704
00:40:04,160 --> 00:40:07,160
Speaker 1: if not a religion, as a sort of philosophy, accorded

705
00:40:07,200 --> 00:40:11,200
Speaker 1: the same cultural respect as a religion. Well it's interesting,

706
00:40:11,280 --> 00:40:15,040
Speaker 1: right because you're, I mean, what is what is Star

707
00:40:15,080 --> 00:40:19,640
Speaker 1: Wars but sort of a rehashing and reassemblage of various

708
00:40:19,800 --> 00:40:23,560
Speaker 1: uh mythic tropes, right, yeah, And he pointed to exactly

709
00:40:23,600 --> 00:40:26,240
Speaker 1: this thing. He said, Star Wars doesn't exist in a vacuum.

710
00:40:26,280 --> 00:40:30,759
Speaker 1: You know, it draws on traditional philosophies and religions, and

711
00:40:30,840 --> 00:40:34,560
Speaker 1: so we're essentially using Star Wars as as a metaphorical

712
00:40:34,560 --> 00:40:37,160
Speaker 1: way to go back to these ancient traditions. So it's

713
00:40:37,239 --> 00:40:39,960
Speaker 1: kind of like, Hey, I really love Star Wars, Why

714
00:40:40,000 --> 00:40:42,000
Speaker 1: do I love Star Wars? And then if the answer

715
00:40:42,080 --> 00:40:43,960
Speaker 1: as well, some of these belief systems are kind of

716
00:40:44,000 --> 00:40:47,400
Speaker 1: appealing to me if you then explore the roots of

717
00:40:47,440 --> 00:40:49,520
Speaker 1: those things and began to find meaning in the roots

718
00:40:49,520 --> 00:40:54,120
Speaker 1: of those things without abandoning that initial science fiction lens

719
00:40:54,360 --> 00:40:57,279
Speaker 1: by continuing to have that be a part of your

720
00:40:57,760 --> 00:41:00,719
Speaker 1: your I'm hesitant to say world view, but let's see

721
00:41:01,000 --> 00:41:06,160
Speaker 1: your your spiritual construction. Then you you have yourself a

722
00:41:06,280 --> 00:41:09,440
Speaker 1: hyper real religion. Yeah, but the Star Wars universe is

723
00:41:09,480 --> 00:41:12,440
Speaker 1: not the only one that has created movements like this.

724
00:41:12,600 --> 00:41:14,799
Speaker 1: I think there are others that I would say chart

725
00:41:14,880 --> 00:41:18,360
Speaker 1: a similar path. It looks to me, and like I

726
00:41:18,520 --> 00:41:21,280
Speaker 1: have to admit, as with all these I'm an outsider,

727
00:41:21,320 --> 00:41:24,240
Speaker 1: so you know, I can't speak as a Jedi or something,

728
00:41:24,280 --> 00:41:27,879
Speaker 1: and I don't want to diminish people's experiences in that

729
00:41:27,960 --> 00:41:30,319
Speaker 1: faith or in any other faith. But what I'll say

730
00:41:30,360 --> 00:41:32,960
Speaker 1: is it looks to me like it definitely started as

731
00:41:33,000 --> 00:41:37,080
Speaker 1: a joke, and it it and it took on a seriousness.

732
00:41:37,080 --> 00:41:39,520
Speaker 1: And and there are others like that, like, well, that's

733
00:41:39,520 --> 00:41:42,360
Speaker 1: just like your opinion, man, right, how about the dude,

734
00:41:42,840 --> 00:41:46,240
Speaker 1: that's right? Dudaism is another big one. Um, I assume

735
00:41:46,320 --> 00:41:48,600
Speaker 1: we also have some Big Lebowski fans, I should hope.

736
00:41:48,640 --> 00:41:51,880
Speaker 1: So yeah, The Big Lebowski, The Cohen Brothers. Uh, just

737
00:41:51,960 --> 00:41:54,160
Speaker 1: wonderful film and it didn't really do well when it

738
00:41:54,239 --> 00:41:56,320
Speaker 1: came out, but it's one of those that has continued

739
00:41:56,360 --> 00:41:59,919
Speaker 1: to just gain a cult following conventions and even it's

740
00:42:00,040 --> 00:42:03,600
Speaker 1: own hyper real religion in the form of Dudaism. So

741
00:42:04,760 --> 00:42:08,360
Speaker 1: it's basically all boils down to the dude abides right. Um,

742
00:42:08,400 --> 00:42:12,040
Speaker 1: it's a dude centric philosophy and lifestyle, more or less

743
00:42:12,040 --> 00:42:16,839
Speaker 1: a modern pop culture take on Daoism dallasm. I've heard

744
00:42:16,840 --> 00:42:19,160
Speaker 1: it described also as having a lot of similarities to

745
00:42:19,239 --> 00:42:22,200
Speaker 1: Zen Buddhism. Yeah. Indeed, it's you know, it's a little

746
00:42:22,320 --> 00:42:26,439
Speaker 1: it's chill, it's uh, it's peaceful, it's uh, it's it's

747
00:42:26,480 --> 00:42:31,759
Speaker 1: it's all of the positive aspects of the dude, um,

748
00:42:32,160 --> 00:42:35,000
Speaker 1: without some of his more you know, reckless or laziness. Well,

749
00:42:35,000 --> 00:42:36,759
Speaker 1: you know, one of the funny things is that the

750
00:42:37,080 --> 00:42:39,720
Speaker 1: thing about the dude is that he's chill, but throughout

751
00:42:39,800 --> 00:42:41,919
Speaker 1: much of the movie, the dude is not chill. Yeah,

752
00:42:41,920 --> 00:42:45,799
Speaker 1: the the dude gets a little irritated and uh, and

753
00:42:45,800 --> 00:42:49,640
Speaker 1: and and is even criticized by the stranger for his

754
00:42:49,640 --> 00:42:53,719
Speaker 1: his vulgar language. So it's it's it's one of the

755
00:42:53,760 --> 00:42:56,120
Speaker 1: This is another great example though, where you when you

756
00:42:56,120 --> 00:42:59,759
Speaker 1: look at Dudaism, you see the people who follow it

757
00:42:59,880 --> 00:43:02,640
Speaker 1: or least like to talk about it. It all does

758
00:43:02,680 --> 00:43:05,200
Speaker 1: begin in that kind of bumper sticker area, like it's

759
00:43:05,200 --> 00:43:07,680
Speaker 1: fun to say, hey, what's your religion? Oh, it's Dudaism,

760
00:43:07,719 --> 00:43:10,880
Speaker 1: you know, because I really love this movie. But you

761
00:43:10,920 --> 00:43:14,440
Speaker 1: see the same thing, right, You see individuals who seem

762
00:43:14,480 --> 00:43:16,759
Speaker 1: to follow the roots of it or sort of ask

763
00:43:16,840 --> 00:43:20,920
Speaker 1: themself questions, Well, if Dudaism were a real faith, if

764
00:43:20,960 --> 00:43:24,800
Speaker 1: it were a real philosophy, what would what would his

765
00:43:24,840 --> 00:43:27,160
Speaker 1: tendants be? What would be what? What would I need

766
00:43:27,200 --> 00:43:29,680
Speaker 1: to understand? And then they sort of follow it backwards

767
00:43:29,719 --> 00:43:34,319
Speaker 1: into um, you know, more historical modes of belief. Yeah,

768
00:43:34,360 --> 00:43:36,680
Speaker 1: and I think this would encounter the same kind of

769
00:43:37,400 --> 00:43:40,520
Speaker 1: criticisms from outsiders that all these others would. People would

770
00:43:40,520 --> 00:43:42,560
Speaker 1: be like, wait a second, hold on, what do you

771
00:43:42,560 --> 00:43:46,000
Speaker 1: mean do you really believe in Dudaism? Is that really

772
00:43:46,040 --> 00:43:48,319
Speaker 1: your religion? Well, it's kind of It kind of makes

773
00:43:48,320 --> 00:43:51,000
Speaker 1: me think of you remember win App Yeah, and the

774
00:43:51,800 --> 00:43:54,720
Speaker 1: like MP three player that we all had our skins.

775
00:43:54,880 --> 00:43:56,879
Speaker 1: That's the thing. You had different skins, right, We all

776
00:43:56,880 --> 00:43:59,480
Speaker 1: had the same program, but we use different skins that

777
00:43:59,560 --> 00:44:02,160
Speaker 1: appeal of us personally. Since you have like a tool

778
00:44:02,520 --> 00:44:05,200
Speaker 1: skin on Winnamp, I think I had some sort of

779
00:44:05,200 --> 00:44:08,400
Speaker 1: like horrible blood splattery one or something like that. It was.

780
00:44:08,640 --> 00:44:11,840
Speaker 1: It was nice and dark and moody. But but I

781
00:44:12,160 --> 00:44:14,880
Speaker 1: can't help but feel like we encounter something something similar

782
00:44:14,920 --> 00:44:18,040
Speaker 1: with these hyper real religions that we're discussing, where the

783
00:44:18,120 --> 00:44:23,800
Speaker 1: actual mode of beliefs, the actual mechanics are either something

784
00:44:23,840 --> 00:44:26,920
Speaker 1: old or something cobbled together from other beliefs. But if

785
00:44:26,920 --> 00:44:30,440
Speaker 1: that skin that brings us in, that skin is unique

786
00:44:30,560 --> 00:44:32,520
Speaker 1: and appeals to us. I got another one. I was

787
00:44:32,600 --> 00:44:37,359
Speaker 1: trying to tell Rachel last night about Jeddism, my wife Rachel,

788
00:44:37,400 --> 00:44:41,040
Speaker 1: about Jedis to convert her or to Jedism. No, no, no,

789
00:44:41,120 --> 00:44:43,440
Speaker 1: just to explain it. And she was like, oh, I

790
00:44:43,480 --> 00:44:45,880
Speaker 1: bet there is this for Lord of the Rings and

791
00:44:45,880 --> 00:44:47,799
Speaker 1: and what do you know that there are there are

792
00:44:47,800 --> 00:44:51,480
Speaker 1: Tolkien inspired religious ideas, which is very interesting to me

793
00:44:51,719 --> 00:44:55,799
Speaker 1: because I would say that in some ways Tolkien is

794
00:44:55,920 --> 00:45:01,000
Speaker 1: sort of adapting Christianity to a fantasy setting. Yeah, or

795
00:45:01,040 --> 00:45:04,040
Speaker 1: at least some ideas of Christianity. It's not like an

796
00:45:04,040 --> 00:45:08,799
Speaker 1: explicit one to one metaphor, but a lot of his messages,

797
00:45:08,920 --> 00:45:11,600
Speaker 1: I think in Lord of the Rings are Christian ones. Yeah,

798
00:45:11,719 --> 00:45:18,359
Speaker 1: it's these sort of sort of vague tolken f neopagan religions.

799
00:45:18,440 --> 00:45:21,640
Speaker 1: They're they're interesting because you have the book itself. They're

800
00:45:21,640 --> 00:45:24,080
Speaker 1: they're often these arguments, you know, people saying, oh, this

801
00:45:24,160 --> 00:45:26,840
Speaker 1: is a pagan work and and it's they're the pagan

802
00:45:26,880 --> 00:45:29,160
Speaker 1: elements or what's important here? Others saying no, it's inherently

803
00:45:29,160 --> 00:45:31,399
Speaker 1: a Christian work. Other people saying it's it's a it's

804
00:45:31,400 --> 00:45:34,600
Speaker 1: a synthesis of the two um And maybe all of

805
00:45:34,640 --> 00:45:38,200
Speaker 1: these arguments there are ultimately kind of silly, but you

806
00:45:38,760 --> 00:45:41,719
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a very popular work, and especially out

807
00:45:41,719 --> 00:45:44,080
Speaker 1: of the you know, the nineteen seventies where you saw

808
00:45:44,400 --> 00:45:46,520
Speaker 1: people are really into Token. There's a lot of good.

809
00:45:46,560 --> 00:45:49,240
Speaker 1: There's still a lot of you know, culture cultural energy

810
00:45:49,320 --> 00:45:52,400
Speaker 1: going on. It's and led Zeppelin albums and all Zeppelin albums.

811
00:45:52,440 --> 00:45:55,120
Speaker 1: Then it it has a lot of power to it.

812
00:45:55,120 --> 00:45:57,640
Speaker 1: It has a lot of um, it has a lot

813
00:45:57,680 --> 00:46:01,239
Speaker 1: of depth to it. You can just go completely crazy, uh,

814
00:46:01,360 --> 00:46:03,400
Speaker 1: filling in all the details in your mind about the

815
00:46:03,920 --> 00:46:07,759
Speaker 1: world of Tolkien. We maybe don't advise that. No, well,

816
00:46:07,880 --> 00:46:09,920
Speaker 1: you go for it if you want. Um. I mean,

817
00:46:10,120 --> 00:46:12,520
Speaker 1: that's one thing I always enjoy about the various sci

818
00:46:12,560 --> 00:46:15,440
Speaker 1: fi and fantasy properties that that really engage me is

819
00:46:15,480 --> 00:46:18,279
Speaker 1: if there's a really rich mythos, they're either one that

820
00:46:18,360 --> 00:46:22,680
Speaker 1: is explicitly um laid out for you or one where

821
00:46:22,680 --> 00:46:24,680
Speaker 1: they are all these holes that you can't help but

822
00:46:24,760 --> 00:46:27,080
Speaker 1: fill in the details yourself. You know, we were talking

823
00:46:27,120 --> 00:46:30,040
Speaker 1: about this concept of hyper real religions and uh, and

824
00:46:30,640 --> 00:46:36,400
Speaker 1: Christian Seger our other host brought Satanism to mind, that's right. Um.

825
00:46:36,440 --> 00:46:40,200
Speaker 1: And if anyone remembers the Satanic Panic episode that Christian

826
00:46:40,239 --> 00:46:43,200
Speaker 1: and I did, I guess about a year ago. Now, Ums,

827
00:46:43,280 --> 00:46:47,560
Speaker 1: we discussed in that Satanism like never really existed, certainly

828
00:46:47,600 --> 00:46:50,680
Speaker 1: not in the way that that it was presented in

829
00:46:50,800 --> 00:46:53,160
Speaker 1: during the Satanic Panic, Right. I mean, I would say

830
00:46:53,200 --> 00:46:56,280
Speaker 1: that what you have as Satanism, people who would actually

831
00:46:56,280 --> 00:47:00,600
Speaker 1: claim this religion is almost explicitly an atheistic religion, right. Yeah,

832
00:47:00,680 --> 00:47:03,759
Speaker 1: And generally when we talk about Satanism, we're talking about

833
00:47:03,880 --> 00:47:07,560
Speaker 1: Lavay and Satanism, which was comes from the Church of Satan,

834
00:47:07,560 --> 00:47:11,040
Speaker 1: found in nineteen sixty six by Anton LaVey. Was you know,

835
00:47:11,120 --> 00:47:17,239
Speaker 1: ultimately it's an atheistic, individualist philosophy. It's UH with more

836
00:47:17,280 --> 00:47:20,520
Speaker 1: than a dash of of drama, symbolism, fun. It's about

837
00:47:20,560 --> 00:47:23,960
Speaker 1: messing with the squares and and putting on a you know,

838
00:47:24,000 --> 00:47:26,319
Speaker 1: a fun show. Well, in some ways I think it

839
00:47:26,360 --> 00:47:28,920
Speaker 1: has a lot in common with the Flying Spaghetti Monster

840
00:47:29,040 --> 00:47:32,680
Speaker 1: is um and that it's it's maybe more than this,

841
00:47:32,760 --> 00:47:34,680
Speaker 1: but in in some ways you can think of it

842
00:47:34,760 --> 00:47:38,399
Speaker 1: as a massive prank. Yes, very much so, UM And

843
00:47:38,840 --> 00:47:41,719
Speaker 1: And I think Leave, I think was was pretty straightforward

844
00:47:41,760 --> 00:47:43,080
Speaker 1: about that. I mean, this is a guy that came

845
00:47:43,120 --> 00:47:46,080
Speaker 1: from sort of Carney roots. It's a very Carney faith

846
00:47:46,200 --> 00:47:48,120
Speaker 1: and and I love it. You can't help it but

847
00:47:48,239 --> 00:47:51,600
Speaker 1: get involved with the trappings of it, especially as the

848
00:47:51,680 --> 00:47:53,759
Speaker 1: years rolled by and it becomes a part of uh,

849
00:47:54,080 --> 00:47:57,960
Speaker 1: you know, an entire segment of of music, right, and

850
00:47:58,000 --> 00:47:59,879
Speaker 1: you get into all this death metal that has very

851
00:48:00,120 --> 00:48:02,799
Speaker 1: degrees of satanic elements. All right, but I think it's

852
00:48:02,840 --> 00:48:05,520
Speaker 1: time to turn to psychology to try to see what

853
00:48:05,560 --> 00:48:08,480
Speaker 1: we can figure out about what people are actually trying

854
00:48:08,520 --> 00:48:11,440
Speaker 1: to get out of these religious beliefs. It seems fairly

855
00:48:11,440 --> 00:48:15,120
Speaker 1: clear what people get out of traditional religious beliefs where

856
00:48:15,239 --> 00:48:18,480
Speaker 1: there is at the core of them the assumption of

857
00:48:18,520 --> 00:48:23,880
Speaker 1: a real revelation about the metaphysical nature of reality. Um,

858
00:48:23,880 --> 00:48:25,839
Speaker 1: maybe not in all of them, but in lots of them.

859
00:48:26,000 --> 00:48:28,480
Speaker 1: But in these religious beliefs that are in some way

860
00:48:28,560 --> 00:48:32,400
Speaker 1: based on what everybody agrees is fiction, what what is

861
00:48:32,440 --> 00:48:36,319
Speaker 1: the goal of the seeker of the adherent? Well, one

862
00:48:36,360 --> 00:48:41,040
Speaker 1: take on this comes from Carol mq Sax Invented Religions, Imagination,

863
00:48:41,080 --> 00:48:44,799
Speaker 1: Fiction and Faith, and she posits that invented religions, such

864
00:48:44,840 --> 00:48:48,080
Speaker 1: as the ones we're discussing here, they demonstrate that what

865
00:48:48,320 --> 00:48:52,319
Speaker 1: meaning hungry humans really want is a powerful narrative, particularly

866
00:48:52,320 --> 00:48:56,200
Speaker 1: one in which unseen agents affect causality in our world

867
00:48:56,280 --> 00:48:59,239
Speaker 1: and in our lives. Okay, so maybe saying that even

868
00:48:59,280 --> 00:49:03,160
Speaker 1: if we don't agree that the narratives refer to a

869
00:49:03,200 --> 00:49:07,560
Speaker 1: thing that's literally true, just participation in the narrative is enough. Yeah,

870
00:49:07,600 --> 00:49:10,600
Speaker 1: I mean, like the fictional realm becomes the place where

871
00:49:10,600 --> 00:49:15,000
Speaker 1: it is okay to dream, whereas to to dream in

872
00:49:15,040 --> 00:49:18,319
Speaker 1: the more real world of of sort of, you know,

873
00:49:18,360 --> 00:49:22,080
Speaker 1: religious history that is Uh, that's that is sometimes seen

874
00:49:22,120 --> 00:49:24,640
Speaker 1: as a bit weird in some circles. Well, that relates

875
00:49:24,680 --> 00:49:26,840
Speaker 1: to something that we that I know, we read a

876
00:49:26,840 --> 00:49:31,040
Speaker 1: little bit about about why fantasy is popular these days.

877
00:49:31,400 --> 00:49:34,960
Speaker 1: It actually reminds me of of some thoughts, some observations

878
00:49:34,960 --> 00:49:37,799
Speaker 1: that are Scott Baker made our Scott Baker himself being

879
00:49:37,880 --> 00:49:42,719
Speaker 1: a successful and in my opinion, highly talented UM fantasy

880
00:49:42,719 --> 00:49:47,120
Speaker 1: writer himself background in philosophy, and also he works a

881
00:49:47,120 --> 00:49:51,520
Speaker 1: fair amount of neuroscience into his into his creations. But um.

882
00:49:51,800 --> 00:49:55,920
Speaker 1: In his paper that published on science fiction and Fantasy

883
00:49:55,920 --> 00:49:59,239
Speaker 1: World Whine Fantasy and Why now Um, he says that

884
00:49:59,280 --> 00:50:02,279
Speaker 1: fantasy is quote the primary literary response to what is

885
00:50:02,320 --> 00:50:05,360
Speaker 1: often called the contemporary crisis of meaning. So the idea

886
00:50:05,400 --> 00:50:06,600
Speaker 1: here is that we live in an age of reason

887
00:50:06,640 --> 00:50:10,120
Speaker 1: and science. We have all sorts of myth erasing answers

888
00:50:10,600 --> 00:50:13,080
Speaker 1: for how the world works, so so long as we

889
00:50:13,160 --> 00:50:16,959
Speaker 1: don't require teleological answers. So this get in other words,

890
00:50:16,960 --> 00:50:19,200
Speaker 1: this gets down to, you know, we have all these

891
00:50:19,239 --> 00:50:23,600
Speaker 1: answers about how, say, the solar system works, how life works,

892
00:50:24,080 --> 00:50:26,240
Speaker 1: but we don't have the wise, right, that's the stuff

893
00:50:26,280 --> 00:50:30,400
Speaker 1: that that is beyond science. Yeah, he almost says science

894
00:50:30,520 --> 00:50:34,160
Speaker 1: is essentially created too reliable of a tool for finding

895
00:50:34,200 --> 00:50:37,400
Speaker 1: correct answers about reality, and so reliable in fact, that

896
00:50:37,480 --> 00:50:41,120
Speaker 1: it has left us with nihilism. Uh. Now, we we

897
00:50:41,360 --> 00:50:44,239
Speaker 1: don't necessarily need to agree with that perspective to say that.

898
00:50:44,480 --> 00:50:47,200
Speaker 1: Certainly a lot of people probably feel this way that

899
00:50:47,280 --> 00:50:52,080
Speaker 1: if science is the only socially legitimate way of of

900
00:50:52,160 --> 00:50:56,520
Speaker 1: asserting that something is definitely true, where do you get

901
00:50:56,560 --> 00:50:59,880
Speaker 1: your meaning of life from? Yeah? If science is not

902
00:51:00,000 --> 00:51:02,000
Speaker 1: going to give that to you, and it can lead

903
00:51:02,040 --> 00:51:05,320
Speaker 1: to a sense of kind of despair, of hopelessness, of emptiness.

904
00:51:05,360 --> 00:51:07,120
Speaker 1: You know, what is life really all about? I mean,

905
00:51:07,160 --> 00:51:10,840
Speaker 1: who cares if I can finally understand the mysteries of

906
00:51:10,920 --> 00:51:14,200
Speaker 1: the quantum physics? If if what it reveals is that

907
00:51:14,520 --> 00:51:16,760
Speaker 1: there's no way to answer the question of the meaning

908
00:51:16,760 --> 00:51:20,919
Speaker 1: of life. Yeah, so you end up turning to fantasy. Um,

909
00:51:21,120 --> 00:51:23,000
Speaker 1: and to a certain a certain extent science fiction, but

910
00:51:23,080 --> 00:51:25,040
Speaker 1: largely we're talking about fantasy. You're trying to turn to

911
00:51:25,120 --> 00:51:29,719
Speaker 1: these fantastic stories, uh, in which you can find if

912
00:51:29,760 --> 00:51:32,080
Speaker 1: not find that meaning for yourself, then you at least

913
00:51:32,080 --> 00:51:35,080
Speaker 1: embody characters who find that meaning and world and live

914
00:51:35,080 --> 00:51:39,359
Speaker 1: in a world where life and in the individual has significance. Now,

915
00:51:39,480 --> 00:51:42,640
Speaker 1: I I personally probably wouldn't agree with Baker that this

916
00:51:42,760 --> 00:51:46,160
Speaker 1: is what this is what is entailed by the scientific

917
00:51:46,200 --> 00:51:48,399
Speaker 1: view of the world. But I can certainly see how

918
00:51:48,440 --> 00:51:51,400
Speaker 1: if you do go to that conclusion, fantasy could provide

919
00:51:51,400 --> 00:51:54,000
Speaker 1: a very powerful escape from it. Right. And you know,

920
00:51:54,120 --> 00:51:56,960
Speaker 1: I do have to say our Scott Baker's own work,

921
00:51:57,120 --> 00:52:01,200
Speaker 1: his UM Second Apocalypse series, he he crowns these case

922
00:52:01,239 --> 00:52:04,200
Speaker 1: it's definitely dark fantasy, but he grounds these many of

923
00:52:04,200 --> 00:52:10,840
Speaker 1: these characters, uh, in this this very believable philosophical place

924
00:52:10,920 --> 00:52:13,520
Speaker 1: that is at times like you, at times you're loot,

925
00:52:13,560 --> 00:52:15,799
Speaker 1: you lose yourself in the story, in the narrative, in

926
00:52:15,800 --> 00:52:18,719
Speaker 1: the world. But other times he forces the reader to

927
00:52:18,719 --> 00:52:22,279
Speaker 1: to really ask some troubling questions about about who we

928
00:52:22,360 --> 00:52:26,200
Speaker 1: are and how we work as individuals. Um. So, yeah,

929
00:52:26,200 --> 00:52:29,400
Speaker 1: I would say that his critique of fantasy genre UM

930
00:52:29,560 --> 00:52:32,200
Speaker 1: does not apply to everything within that realm, and it

931
00:52:32,200 --> 00:52:35,680
Speaker 1: certainly doesn't apply to all readers. It does comes back

932
00:52:35,719 --> 00:52:38,120
Speaker 1: comes back to the question, right, what do modern religious

933
00:52:38,200 --> 00:52:42,080
Speaker 1: individuals want? So he would say maybe meaning right, he

934
00:52:42,080 --> 00:52:44,040
Speaker 1: would say, meaning he would tie it into this idea.

935
00:52:44,120 --> 00:52:47,080
Speaker 1: He he coined the term the semantic apocalypse. Uh, this

936
00:52:47,239 --> 00:52:49,359
Speaker 1: idea that we are either at the point where we're

937
00:52:49,400 --> 00:52:53,279
Speaker 1: approaching this point where we just we're just completely stupefied

938
00:52:53,320 --> 00:52:55,960
Speaker 1: by the lack of meaning in our lives and in

939
00:52:56,000 --> 00:52:58,359
Speaker 1: the world. But then again, I mean, I'm sure there

940
00:52:58,400 --> 00:53:01,439
Speaker 1: have been some scientific study is that look into what

941
00:53:01,600 --> 00:53:06,040
Speaker 1: it is that people want out of religions in general? Uh?

942
00:53:06,080 --> 00:53:09,359
Speaker 1: There have, yeah, and one in particular. And again, this

943
00:53:09,440 --> 00:53:12,720
Speaker 1: is when we're talking about papers and studies about religion.

944
00:53:13,080 --> 00:53:16,480
Speaker 1: This is all ultimately, you know, subjective analysis. Uh, So

945
00:53:16,560 --> 00:53:18,560
Speaker 1: feel free to disagree and our igue with us and

946
00:53:18,680 --> 00:53:21,839
Speaker 1: uh but in this case, Uh. According to Ohio State

947
00:53:21,920 --> 00:53:25,200
Speaker 1: University professor Stephen rice Offer, author of the two thousand

948
00:53:25,280 --> 00:53:29,839
Speaker 1: sixteen book, uh, The Sixteen Strivings for God, he says

949
00:53:29,880 --> 00:53:40,959
Speaker 1: people have sixteen basic desires like these the interesting, Yeah, acceptance, curiosity, eating, family, honor, idealism, independence, order,

950
00:53:41,080 --> 00:53:46,680
Speaker 1: physical activity, power, romance, saving, social contact, status, tranquility, and

951
00:53:46,760 --> 00:53:49,840
Speaker 1: vengeance and any pretty good lists. I was trying to

952
00:53:49,840 --> 00:53:52,319
Speaker 1: think of things other than that. Yeah, though I think

953
00:53:52,400 --> 00:53:54,759
Speaker 1: he covered all the basics there, and you can't help

954
00:53:54,840 --> 00:53:56,919
Speaker 1: but look at that list and sort of check things

955
00:53:56,920 --> 00:53:58,439
Speaker 1: off in your head as you look at your own

956
00:53:58,680 --> 00:54:02,080
Speaker 1: either your own religious leaves, your spiritualism, or your the

957
00:54:02,120 --> 00:54:05,359
Speaker 1: fantasy that you're into. Um. But he developed this Rice

958
00:54:05,440 --> 00:54:09,360
Speaker 1: motivation profile that measures how much people value each of

959
00:54:09,400 --> 00:54:12,960
Speaker 1: these sixteen goals, and he administered it to a hundred

960
00:54:12,960 --> 00:54:16,080
Speaker 1: thousand plus people, and he found that the appeal of

961
00:54:16,120 --> 00:54:19,440
Speaker 1: any given religion relates to how it responds to one

962
00:54:19,640 --> 00:54:23,040
Speaker 1: or more of those desires. Uh, and it competes with

963
00:54:23,120 --> 00:54:27,600
Speaker 1: secular society to meet those desires. So, so think about it,

964
00:54:27,680 --> 00:54:30,680
Speaker 1: in what ways can both traditional religions and hyper real

965
00:54:30,719 --> 00:54:34,640
Speaker 1: religions meet in any of these desires such as uh, Well,

966
00:54:34,760 --> 00:54:37,800
Speaker 1: I mean stuff like curiosity. I can definitely see the

967
00:54:37,840 --> 00:54:40,200
Speaker 1: appeal of that, because one of the things that always

968
00:54:40,280 --> 00:54:42,920
Speaker 1: drew me into actual religions and continues to draw me

969
00:54:42,920 --> 00:54:46,520
Speaker 1: into actual religions is the mystery and the creativity, the

970
00:54:46,520 --> 00:54:49,600
Speaker 1: the interplay and narratives of these gods and heroes. Right,

971
00:54:50,000 --> 00:54:53,080
Speaker 1: It's what brings me into uh to you know, reading

972
00:54:53,120 --> 00:54:55,799
Speaker 1: a Hinduism, and brings me into reading a uh, you

973
00:54:55,800 --> 00:54:59,319
Speaker 1: know about ancient Egypt. It brings me into reading you know,

974
00:54:59,760 --> 00:55:02,560
Speaker 1: they his fantasy novels as well. Well, I mean in

975
00:55:02,600 --> 00:55:06,040
Speaker 1: some cases, I think this might grow out of a

976
00:55:06,080 --> 00:55:09,759
Speaker 1: slight disconnect between the things we need, you know, these

977
00:55:09,760 --> 00:55:13,000
Speaker 1: things we strive for and desire, versus what we really

978
00:55:13,040 --> 00:55:16,840
Speaker 1: know is appropriate in modern society, given that we've started

979
00:55:16,880 --> 00:55:19,920
Speaker 1: to think out ethical issues in a secular way. I

980
00:55:19,920 --> 00:55:22,400
Speaker 1: don't know if you can say that there's really a good,

981
00:55:22,920 --> 00:55:27,160
Speaker 1: widely agreed upon, secular justification for things like a desire

982
00:55:27,280 --> 00:55:31,480
Speaker 1: for honor. And yet the ancient structures of fantasy, or

983
00:55:31,520 --> 00:55:34,600
Speaker 1: of traditional religions or something like that might all include

984
00:55:34,640 --> 00:55:37,760
Speaker 1: concepts of honor that can sort of legitimate this desire

985
00:55:37,840 --> 00:55:40,880
Speaker 1: that we have biologically, even if we can't think of

986
00:55:40,880 --> 00:55:44,120
Speaker 1: a good reason to seek honor. Yeah, it makes more

987
00:55:44,480 --> 00:55:47,600
Speaker 1: something like honor often makes more sense in a simplified

988
00:55:47,760 --> 00:55:51,320
Speaker 1: and highly symbolic world than it does and you know

989
00:55:51,360 --> 00:55:54,640
Speaker 1: the minutia of real life. Yeah, um, you know. Likewise,

990
00:55:54,680 --> 00:55:57,880
Speaker 1: something like vengeance, which made the list, Like vengeance is

991
00:55:57,920 --> 00:56:00,719
Speaker 1: something that in your own life, like vengeance is kind

992
00:56:00,719 --> 00:56:04,000
Speaker 1: of ikey um, Well, yeah, it's the thing we all desire,

993
00:56:04,080 --> 00:56:06,600
Speaker 1: but most of us would probably agree we sort of

994
00:56:06,640 --> 00:56:09,080
Speaker 1: know better than to try to get it right. But

995
00:56:09,280 --> 00:56:11,520
Speaker 1: like a religious faith, you know, you have some sort

996
00:56:11,520 --> 00:56:16,319
Speaker 1: of hell doctrine. There an outsource of engeance. I'd say,

997
00:56:16,360 --> 00:56:19,600
Speaker 1: I don't have to get revenge something bad might happen

998
00:56:19,640 --> 00:56:24,080
Speaker 1: to you outside of my control. Yeah, and and and likewise,

999
00:56:24,400 --> 00:56:28,920
Speaker 1: we continually turn to fictional models of what vengeance might

1000
00:56:28,960 --> 00:56:32,080
Speaker 1: consist of. I mean, revenge tails have always been popular

1001
00:56:32,080 --> 00:56:35,000
Speaker 1: and will continue to be popular. And again, they often

1002
00:56:35,280 --> 00:56:40,799
Speaker 1: fall back on a simplified and highly symbolic world. You know,

1003
00:56:40,920 --> 00:56:46,120
Speaker 1: I wonder if studies on religious experience would indicate that

1004
00:56:46,120 --> 00:56:49,919
Speaker 1: that hyper reality could become or is becoming, the new

1005
00:56:50,000 --> 00:56:53,799
Speaker 1: norm for religious experiences. Yeah. It often reminds me of

1006
00:56:53,840 --> 00:56:56,880
Speaker 1: the line in Big Trouble, Little China from the Sorcerer

1007
00:56:56,960 --> 00:57:01,320
Speaker 1: egg Shin, who talks about Chinese UH modes of belief

1008
00:57:01,320 --> 00:57:03,680
Speaker 1: in saying that it's like a salad bar that you choose, uh,

1009
00:57:04,400 --> 00:57:06,560
Speaker 1: you take what you like and you leave the rest uh.

1010
00:57:07,000 --> 00:57:10,319
Speaker 1: In this case, the character was referring to Confusism and

1011
00:57:10,400 --> 00:57:14,160
Speaker 1: Daoism and and uh and and uh and and also

1012
00:57:14,200 --> 00:57:17,720
Speaker 1: Buddhism as well. But the I find that increasingly in

1013
00:57:17,760 --> 00:57:19,960
Speaker 1: my own life that I do that that I kind

1014
00:57:19,960 --> 00:57:22,600
Speaker 1: of take what I want from these various models, including

1015
00:57:22,640 --> 00:57:28,120
Speaker 1: some fictional models. And and incorporated into my sort of religious,

1016
00:57:28,120 --> 00:57:33,080
Speaker 1: spiritual worldview. There's actually a two thousand fifteen study from

1017
00:57:33,120 --> 00:57:37,440
Speaker 1: the University of Evansville published in American Sociological Review, and

1018
00:57:37,480 --> 00:57:40,160
Speaker 1: it took a pretty thorough look at the way Americans

1019
00:57:40,200 --> 00:57:44,960
Speaker 1: process religion and science. So the authors crunched data from

1020
00:57:45,040 --> 00:57:48,400
Speaker 1: three waves of the General Social Survey and found that

1021
00:57:48,600 --> 00:57:52,040
Speaker 1: US adults hold one of three perspectives based on their

1022
00:57:52,040 --> 00:57:54,640
Speaker 1: knowledge and attitudes about science and religion. Now, the first

1023
00:57:54,680 --> 00:57:57,480
Speaker 1: two are long established, but the third isn't. Is, according

1024
00:57:57,480 --> 00:58:01,360
Speaker 1: to the author's entirely new. So there's modern perspective, a

1025
00:58:01,400 --> 00:58:05,640
Speaker 1: worldview that favors science over religion, and that scot okay

1026
00:58:05,760 --> 00:58:09,000
Speaker 1: science trump's religion. That's that's that version. Then there's a

1027
00:58:09,040 --> 00:58:14,560
Speaker 1: traditional perspective, a worldview that favors religion over science, which

1028
00:58:15,320 --> 00:58:18,840
Speaker 1: you know to interpret that that that score as you will.

1029
00:58:19,320 --> 00:58:21,840
Speaker 1: But then the third one is the post secular perspective,

1030
00:58:21,880 --> 00:58:25,200
Speaker 1: a worldview that values both science and religion, but quote

1031
00:58:25,400 --> 00:58:28,439
Speaker 1: rejects science in favor of religion when it comes to

1032
00:58:28,440 --> 00:58:33,800
Speaker 1: topics such as creation and evolution, and that scored. So

1033
00:58:34,760 --> 00:58:38,320
Speaker 1: that is kind of the salad bar situation in action

1034
00:58:38,360 --> 00:58:44,200
Speaker 1: there right where the individual is willing to favor science

1035
00:58:44,320 --> 00:58:47,040
Speaker 1: and religion, in fact, favor science over religion, except for

1036
00:58:47,040 --> 00:58:53,200
Speaker 1: those places where it becomes um teleologically difficult, where if

1037
00:58:53,200 --> 00:58:57,960
Speaker 1: not overt issues of meaning come into play, then at

1038
00:58:58,040 --> 00:59:02,160
Speaker 1: least implied um meaning, you know, implied issues of meaning.

1039
00:59:02,240 --> 00:59:04,760
Speaker 1: So you know, it's like like, ultimately, I think there

1040
00:59:04,760 --> 00:59:06,840
Speaker 1: can be a strong case to be made that what

1041
00:59:06,920 --> 00:59:10,840
Speaker 1: does it matter if if life evolved or of the

1042
00:59:11,120 --> 00:59:15,800
Speaker 1: hand of God shaped it. But if your interpretation sees

1043
00:59:16,080 --> 00:59:20,680
Speaker 1: one vision version as problematic or threatening to the overall

1044
00:59:21,280 --> 00:59:24,160
Speaker 1: religious structure in your head, then you then in this

1045
00:59:24,200 --> 00:59:27,600
Speaker 1: case you're gonna favor that religious construct over the science.

1046
00:59:29,080 --> 00:59:32,120
Speaker 1: And a separate question I think would be just what

1047
00:59:32,200 --> 00:59:34,919
Speaker 1: are the triggers that cause people to view these things

1048
00:59:34,960 --> 00:59:38,000
Speaker 1: as in conflict anyway? Like, some people obviously hold both

1049
00:59:38,080 --> 00:59:41,280
Speaker 1: views in their heads without trouble, and some people perceive

1050
00:59:41,360 --> 00:59:44,760
Speaker 1: a conflict. Um I'm not sure what makes the difference,

1051
00:59:44,760 --> 00:59:48,440
Speaker 1: but it seems significant. Yeah, so yeah, So what we're

1052
00:59:48,480 --> 00:59:51,080
Speaker 1: talking about here that the post secular perspective. It's not

1053
00:59:51,120 --> 00:59:53,840
Speaker 1: a mere midpoint between the traditional and the modern, but

1054
00:59:53,920 --> 00:59:56,080
Speaker 1: rather a unique way of looking at reality through the

1055
00:59:56,080 --> 00:59:59,480
Speaker 1: combined lenses of science, and religion, So you can think

1056
00:59:59,520 --> 01:00:01,479
Speaker 1: of it as a it's kind of a hybrid view.

1057
01:00:01,920 --> 01:00:04,720
Speaker 1: And I think that the hyper real religions that we're

1058
01:00:04,760 --> 01:00:06,720
Speaker 1: looking at our kind of represent a high red view

1059
01:00:06,760 --> 01:00:11,640
Speaker 1: of a different, slightly different form where instead of rejecting

1060
01:00:12,440 --> 01:00:17,520
Speaker 1: the science that that that threatens, meaning, we're going to

1061
01:00:17,640 --> 01:00:20,720
Speaker 1: just we're going to outsource the religion into a sort

1062
01:00:20,760 --> 01:00:23,240
Speaker 1: of a safe bucket, into the bucket of fiction, and

1063
01:00:23,240 --> 01:00:25,840
Speaker 1: then build from there. I think that's an interesting way

1064
01:00:25,880 --> 01:00:27,440
Speaker 1: of looking at it. Like we said, I mean a

1065
01:00:27,480 --> 01:00:30,640
Speaker 1: lot of these people who have these beliefs, I get

1066
01:00:30,680 --> 01:00:39,000
Speaker 1: the sense are basically uh non basically materialist humanists, Like

1067
01:00:39,040 --> 01:00:42,360
Speaker 1: they typically have humanist values. They could just subscribe to

1068
01:00:42,400 --> 01:00:47,640
Speaker 1: the humanist manifesto, and they typically don't believe in uh

1069
01:00:47,800 --> 01:00:51,440
Speaker 1: spirits or something anything other than the natural world. That

1070
01:00:51,720 --> 01:00:53,440
Speaker 1: certainly isn't the case for all of them, but that

1071
01:00:53,480 --> 01:00:56,720
Speaker 1: seems to be a dominant way of thinking. But like,

1072
01:00:56,720 --> 01:00:58,880
Speaker 1: like as we know from Buddhism and stuff like that,

1073
01:00:58,920 --> 01:01:01,320
Speaker 1: you need not be a supernaturalist in order to be

1074
01:01:01,360 --> 01:01:03,960
Speaker 1: a religious person, right, yeah, And there are ways of

1075
01:01:04,040 --> 01:01:08,000
Speaker 1: engaging I mean, just for Buddhism on its on its own,

1076
01:01:08,040 --> 01:01:11,360
Speaker 1: you can take a very sort of abstract philosophical approach

1077
01:01:11,400 --> 01:01:15,960
Speaker 1: to Buddhism where you don't literally believe in life to

1078
01:01:16,040 --> 01:01:19,400
Speaker 1: life reincarnation, or you can take what you can take

1079
01:01:19,440 --> 01:01:22,280
Speaker 1: one that is very traditional and ultimately you know it's

1080
01:01:22,280 --> 01:01:26,080
Speaker 1: it's all about being fearful and responding from a place

1081
01:01:26,080 --> 01:01:29,120
Speaker 1: of fear in terms of what your your next incarnation

1082
01:01:29,120 --> 01:01:32,240
Speaker 1: will consist of. I had another idea based in psychology,

1083
01:01:32,280 --> 01:01:34,360
Speaker 1: about what might explain some of this. I mean, I

1084
01:01:34,400 --> 01:01:36,439
Speaker 1: certainly wouldn't want to say that all of it could

1085
01:01:37,280 --> 01:01:39,720
Speaker 1: is explained by this, but it could explain some of

1086
01:01:39,760 --> 01:01:43,520
Speaker 1: the transition from joke religions into real religions. And it

1087
01:01:43,560 --> 01:01:46,960
Speaker 1: would be based in the idea of sunk costs, choice

1088
01:01:46,960 --> 01:01:52,000
Speaker 1: supportive bias, and post purchase rationalization. So let's say you

1089
01:01:52,040 --> 01:01:54,920
Speaker 1: spend a lot of money on a new lawnmower. Okay,

1090
01:01:55,040 --> 01:01:58,080
Speaker 1: I can't imagine it happening in my case, but yeah,

1091
01:01:58,120 --> 01:02:00,800
Speaker 1: you've mowed the lawn a few times, and you start

1092
01:02:00,800 --> 01:02:03,120
Speaker 1: to worry that maybe you didn't spend your money all

1093
01:02:03,160 --> 01:02:07,400
Speaker 1: that well, So you start to engage in an internal conversation,

1094
01:02:07,520 --> 01:02:10,520
Speaker 1: which is a form of choice supportive bias, a bias

1095
01:02:10,600 --> 01:02:15,480
Speaker 1: towards validating the choice you already made. That's called post

1096
01:02:15,600 --> 01:02:18,919
Speaker 1: purchase rationalization. You start coming up with the reasons why

1097
01:02:19,000 --> 01:02:21,040
Speaker 1: you know this really was a good way to spend

1098
01:02:21,040 --> 01:02:23,640
Speaker 1: my money. I think I did the right thing by

1099
01:02:23,640 --> 01:02:26,720
Speaker 1: spending the money on this lawnmower, because it could sort

1100
01:02:26,760 --> 01:02:29,880
Speaker 1: of lead to some unpleasant cognitive dissonance. If you don't

1101
01:02:30,000 --> 01:02:32,320
Speaker 1: come to that conclusion, you can think, man, I really

1102
01:02:32,320 --> 01:02:35,400
Speaker 1: screwed up. I shouldn't have gone down this road. So

1103
01:02:35,400 --> 01:02:37,280
Speaker 1: it's kind of kind of gets into the area if

1104
01:02:37,320 --> 01:02:41,120
Speaker 1: I read Done three times or more times than that,

1105
01:02:41,200 --> 01:02:43,680
Speaker 1: even maybe it wasn't just a good book. Maybe it

1106
01:02:43,720 --> 01:02:45,440
Speaker 1: wasn't just a great book, but maybe it was a

1107
01:02:45,480 --> 01:02:48,520
Speaker 1: book that was so meaningful that it is that it

1108
01:02:48,560 --> 01:02:52,439
Speaker 1: achieves kind of a spiritual level exactly, or in another way,

1109
01:02:52,760 --> 01:02:55,520
Speaker 1: it could be true that Let's say if you spent

1110
01:02:55,640 --> 01:02:58,439
Speaker 1: a lot of time and effort just carrying out a joke,

1111
01:02:58,720 --> 01:03:01,680
Speaker 1: just on a prank religion. Let's say you start spending

1112
01:03:01,680 --> 01:03:05,000
Speaker 1: time on Judaism because you love the Big Lebowski and

1113
01:03:05,040 --> 01:03:07,240
Speaker 1: because it's funny. It's funny to pretend that there's a

1114
01:03:07,320 --> 01:03:11,280
Speaker 1: dude religion. But after realizing how much sunk costs you've

1115
01:03:11,320 --> 01:03:13,600
Speaker 1: incurred in your own time and energy over a long

1116
01:03:13,640 --> 01:03:17,720
Speaker 1: period of time. You start seeking ways to rationalize the

1117
01:03:17,800 --> 01:03:22,040
Speaker 1: purchase of of these beliefs by saying, huh, you know,

1118
01:03:22,200 --> 01:03:27,080
Speaker 1: maybe if I've spent three hundred hours on Dudaism, was

1119
01:03:27,120 --> 01:03:29,320
Speaker 1: it really just a joke. Maybe it wasn't just a

1120
01:03:29,960 --> 01:03:33,320
Speaker 1: Maybe there's really some meaning in this. And and that's

1121
01:03:33,320 --> 01:03:35,560
Speaker 1: not even to say that the meaning you find is

1122
01:03:35,600 --> 01:03:38,200
Speaker 1: invalid if that's your method of coming to that meaning,

1123
01:03:38,680 --> 01:03:44,000
Speaker 1: I would say that that conclusions reached through choice supportive

1124
01:03:44,000 --> 01:03:48,320
Speaker 1: bias aren't necessarily untrue conclusions. I think in many cases,

1125
01:03:48,360 --> 01:03:51,080
Speaker 1: the time and financial investment involved here, it just forces

1126
01:03:51,080 --> 01:03:53,560
Speaker 1: you to double down on something that you were already

1127
01:03:53,640 --> 01:03:57,240
Speaker 1: inclined to support or inclined to buy into. You know,

1128
01:03:57,800 --> 01:03:59,880
Speaker 1: It's it's like I already thought this was a great idea,

1129
01:04:00,400 --> 01:04:04,160
Speaker 1: but now that I've I've potentially wasted this much time

1130
01:04:04,200 --> 01:04:07,160
Speaker 1: on it, it's definitely a great idea. One other thing

1131
01:04:07,200 --> 01:04:09,280
Speaker 1: I wanted to note, I was interested to see what

1132
01:04:09,360 --> 01:04:12,840
Speaker 1: you thought of this is that these religions, the hyper

1133
01:04:12,880 --> 01:04:17,120
Speaker 1: real religions, especially like Jedi is Um and Judaism, seem

1134
01:04:17,200 --> 01:04:22,960
Speaker 1: to be very much creatures of the Internet. In fact,

1135
01:04:23,080 --> 01:04:25,640
Speaker 1: even I mentioned that I listened to an interview with

1136
01:04:25,720 --> 01:04:28,600
Speaker 1: the spokesperson of the Jedi Temple. The guy who I

1137
01:04:28,640 --> 01:04:32,439
Speaker 1: listened to explicitly pointed to the introduction of Internet fan

1138
01:04:32,560 --> 01:04:35,960
Speaker 1: communities and forums in the nineteen nineties as the thing

1139
01:04:36,040 --> 01:04:39,320
Speaker 1: that made the Jedi religion possible. And so that makes

1140
01:04:39,320 --> 01:04:42,240
Speaker 1: me wonder how the Internet has changed what's possible in

1141
01:04:42,360 --> 01:04:46,040
Speaker 1: terms of social movements and the birth of religions. Well, yeah,

1142
01:04:46,120 --> 01:04:48,919
Speaker 1: I mean, the Internet has made it possible to to

1143
01:04:48,960 --> 01:04:52,560
Speaker 1: find those communities of people that share your belief. You

1144
01:04:52,640 --> 01:04:54,960
Speaker 1: might be the only person in your small town that

1145
01:04:55,080 --> 01:04:57,480
Speaker 1: loves Star Wars as much as you do, but the

1146
01:04:57,520 --> 01:05:00,240
Speaker 1: Internet allows you to find all those other individuals who

1147
01:05:00,240 --> 01:05:03,600
Speaker 1: are as invested, and you find the community in your

1148
01:05:03,640 --> 01:05:06,960
Speaker 1: fandom that that one could you know, that would pre

1149
01:05:07,160 --> 01:05:11,240
Speaker 1: one could previously find, perhaps only in something like a religion.

1150
01:05:11,280 --> 01:05:14,800
Speaker 1: You're finding that religious community in your fandom. But then again,

1151
01:05:14,840 --> 01:05:16,680
Speaker 1: I come back to the question. I mean, I have

1152
01:05:16,800 --> 01:05:19,760
Speaker 1: to wonder what the evolution of this looks like over

1153
01:05:19,840 --> 01:05:22,360
Speaker 1: a long time. Could you ever reach the point where

1154
01:05:22,840 --> 01:05:26,200
Speaker 1: there are jedi Ists who believe in the truth of

1155
01:05:26,280 --> 01:05:30,000
Speaker 1: Jedi is m so firmly that they would actually come

1156
01:05:30,040 --> 01:05:32,640
Speaker 1: to the position of the creationists we talked about at

1157
01:05:32,680 --> 01:05:35,160
Speaker 1: the beginning, where they would want their views taught as

1158
01:05:35,200 --> 01:05:39,000
Speaker 1: an alternative to modern science in schools, where they would say,

1159
01:05:39,080 --> 01:05:41,320
Speaker 1: you know, I I don't just say that this is

1160
01:05:41,360 --> 01:05:44,080
Speaker 1: a useful framework for my life. That kind of makes

1161
01:05:44,080 --> 01:05:47,160
Speaker 1: sense to me. I say this is how reality is,

1162
01:05:47,320 --> 01:05:52,000
Speaker 1: and I've got the exclusive truth. I mean, I it's

1163
01:05:52,040 --> 01:05:54,360
Speaker 1: hard to imagine with the jedi Ists of today, who,

1164
01:05:54,400 --> 01:05:56,080
Speaker 1: like we said, seemed to be just sort of like

1165
01:05:56,160 --> 01:06:00,520
Speaker 1: a taking from the salad bar of interesting ideas. But

1166
01:06:01,160 --> 01:06:03,480
Speaker 1: who knows what would be possible in the future. Yeah, well,

1167
01:06:03,520 --> 01:06:05,000
Speaker 1: it seems to me it would be less of a

1168
01:06:05,040 --> 01:06:10,720
Speaker 1: conflict between between science and this kind of story telling mythology,

1169
01:06:10,760 --> 01:06:13,600
Speaker 1: but it wouldld be more of a conflict between mythology,

1170
01:06:13,680 --> 01:06:17,040
Speaker 1: So would be more in line with the Jedi is saying, Hey,

1171
01:06:17,120 --> 01:06:21,000
Speaker 1: if you're going to teach the children about Greek mythology, uh,

1172
01:06:21,000 --> 01:06:23,760
Speaker 1: then and if you're going to teach them about you know,

1173
01:06:23,800 --> 01:06:26,480
Speaker 1: about Hinduism or some of these other um, you know,

1174
01:06:26,560 --> 01:06:28,480
Speaker 1: modes of sort of mythological belief, and you have to

1175
01:06:28,520 --> 01:06:31,640
Speaker 1: teach them about our mode as well. Because yeah, because

1176
01:06:31,640 --> 01:06:34,240
Speaker 1: our mode has all of those old ideas, but it's

1177
01:06:34,280 --> 01:06:39,000
Speaker 1: been kind of purified through the lens of modern culture. Well,

1178
01:06:39,080 --> 01:06:41,840
Speaker 1: I will say I do believe Obi wan Kenobi is

1179
01:06:41,960 --> 01:06:45,840
Speaker 1: much wiser than most of the Greek gods. He's he's

1180
01:06:45,840 --> 01:06:49,280
Speaker 1: a very wise individual. It's hard not to I don't

1181
01:06:49,280 --> 01:06:51,440
Speaker 1: know if some of his choices in the prequels may

1182
01:06:51,480 --> 01:06:57,600
Speaker 1: have been I'm not even talking about that. That's heretical. Yes, blasphemy. Robert,

1183
01:06:57,680 --> 01:07:01,560
Speaker 1: what's your own personal choice for hyper real religion? Well,

1184
01:07:01,600 --> 01:07:03,840
Speaker 1: you know, um, like if if you had to go

1185
01:07:03,960 --> 01:07:07,240
Speaker 1: with one, I could see myself as a follower of

1186
01:07:07,840 --> 01:07:11,040
Speaker 1: Anambor Kellis the aspect emperor of the three season our

1187
01:07:11,080 --> 01:07:14,680
Speaker 1: Scott Baker's Second Apocalypse saga. Um, okay, I don't know

1188
01:07:14,720 --> 01:07:17,280
Speaker 1: anything about that. It's pretty it's pretty rich and deep

1189
01:07:17,360 --> 01:07:20,200
Speaker 1: and uh, that is one where there are segments in

1190
01:07:20,240 --> 01:07:22,880
Speaker 1: those books where I've I can't they come back to me.

1191
01:07:22,920 --> 01:07:25,240
Speaker 1: I think about little motifs that he rolls out, and

1192
01:07:26,360 --> 01:07:28,880
Speaker 1: like some of it is as meaningful as any you know,

1193
01:07:28,960 --> 01:07:34,080
Speaker 1: actual religion, actual mythology in my life. Likewise the done universe. Hey,

1194
01:07:34,160 --> 01:07:36,439
Speaker 1: I am right with you there. In fact, I think

1195
01:07:36,560 --> 01:07:41,120
Speaker 1: some of the some of the liturgical formulas of the

1196
01:07:41,200 --> 01:07:44,480
Speaker 1: Done universe are absolutely useful in the real world, and

1197
01:07:44,560 --> 01:07:46,640
Speaker 1: you don't have to buy into the reality of Done

1198
01:07:46,640 --> 01:07:50,600
Speaker 1: at all. I'd say try the Litany against Fear sometime. Yeah,

1199
01:07:50,640 --> 01:07:53,880
Speaker 1: if you are feeling fear, say these words, I must

1200
01:07:53,920 --> 01:07:57,360
Speaker 1: not fear. Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the

1201
01:07:57,400 --> 01:08:01,480
Speaker 1: little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear.

1202
01:08:01,880 --> 01:08:04,160
Speaker 1: I will permit it to pass over me and through me.

1203
01:08:04,600 --> 01:08:06,640
Speaker 1: And when it has gone past, I will turn the

1204
01:08:06,640 --> 01:08:09,720
Speaker 1: inner eye to see the path. And where the fear

1205
01:08:09,760 --> 01:08:13,479
Speaker 1: has gone, there will be nothing. Only I will remain. Yeah,

1206
01:08:13,520 --> 01:08:15,920
Speaker 1: I mean I have. I have seriously taken some some

1207
01:08:16,040 --> 01:08:19,640
Speaker 1: strength and comfort from from from those words and in

1208
01:08:19,680 --> 01:08:21,360
Speaker 1: the past. Yeah, I mean, they sort of take on

1209
01:08:21,400 --> 01:08:24,519
Speaker 1: the nature of a proverb where it's not necessarily it's

1210
01:08:24,560 --> 01:08:28,200
Speaker 1: not the authority of the text that gives it its power.

1211
01:08:28,360 --> 01:08:31,800
Speaker 1: It's self evidently powerful. It's a it's a piece of

1212
01:08:31,920 --> 01:08:34,280
Speaker 1: literature that you you don't even need to know where

1213
01:08:34,320 --> 01:08:37,679
Speaker 1: it came from in order for it to be effective. Yeah, exactly.

1214
01:08:38,000 --> 01:08:40,719
Speaker 1: So how about you, what what hyper real religion would

1215
01:08:40,720 --> 01:08:42,960
Speaker 1: you turn to jail? Well, besides that, you know, I

1216
01:08:43,280 --> 01:08:46,240
Speaker 1: do love the Litany against Fear, but my own personal

1217
01:08:46,320 --> 01:08:49,280
Speaker 1: choice for years was, you know, Facebook used to ask

1218
01:08:49,320 --> 01:08:51,720
Speaker 1: you what your religion is, and I was like, well,

1219
01:08:51,760 --> 01:08:54,040
Speaker 1: that's none of your business, Facebook. So I'm gonna say

1220
01:08:54,080 --> 01:08:58,120
Speaker 1: Falsa Doom, right, the Temple of Set from the James

1221
01:08:58,160 --> 01:09:00,200
Speaker 1: from James Earl Jones and the Schwartz and I er

1222
01:09:00,320 --> 01:09:03,120
Speaker 1: Cone in the Barbarian movie. I'm to understand Fulsa Doom

1223
01:09:03,160 --> 01:09:05,920
Speaker 1: is kind of different in other media, right, Yeah, but

1224
01:09:06,439 --> 01:09:10,400
Speaker 1: my opinion is that he gained perfection in that film. Yeah,

1225
01:09:10,439 --> 01:09:13,840
Speaker 1: I James Earl Jones, He's the perfect Fulsa Doom. He's

1226
01:09:13,880 --> 01:09:16,880
Speaker 1: a great villain, but he's a very profound and literary

1227
01:09:16,960 --> 01:09:20,200
Speaker 1: villain and very charismatic. What is steel compared to the

1228
01:09:20,240 --> 01:09:23,160
Speaker 1: hand that wields it? He has the whole message that

1229
01:09:23,280 --> 01:09:26,759
Speaker 1: flesh is stronger than steel because steel is just a tool.

1230
01:09:26,920 --> 01:09:30,479
Speaker 1: The flesh is the will. And I can get behind that.

1231
01:09:30,560 --> 01:09:32,559
Speaker 1: I see what he's getting at. Yeah. And plus the

1232
01:09:32,560 --> 01:09:36,759
Speaker 1: parties looked pretty cool. Yeah yeah, cannibal stew, giant snakes

1233
01:09:36,800 --> 01:09:40,680
Speaker 1: and uh, lots of lounging around. Yeah. Well, one more thing,

1234
01:09:40,720 --> 01:09:43,320
Speaker 1: I mean, I have to admit that there's there's ever

1235
01:09:43,439 --> 01:09:46,400
Speaker 1: so slight a temptation to some jedi is m. I'm

1236
01:09:46,439 --> 01:09:48,519
Speaker 1: not saying I would ever be a jedi Ist, but

1237
01:09:49,000 --> 01:09:50,800
Speaker 1: I can get a little misty when I think about

1238
01:09:50,840 --> 01:09:53,920
Speaker 1: the fact that luminous beings are we not this crude matter?

1239
01:09:55,800 --> 01:09:58,720
Speaker 1: All right? Well, there you have it, hyper real religions

1240
01:09:58,800 --> 01:10:01,479
Speaker 1: kind of a you know, an exa emanation of of

1241
01:10:01,520 --> 01:10:05,559
Speaker 1: where we are in terms of modern religious faith and

1242
01:10:05,560 --> 01:10:08,280
Speaker 1: and fandom, where we've come from, and perhaps a new

1243
01:10:08,320 --> 01:10:10,599
Speaker 1: way to sort of look at these these old religions

1244
01:10:10,600 --> 01:10:12,559
Speaker 1: as well. Of course, we want to hear from everyone

1245
01:10:12,560 --> 01:10:15,679
Speaker 1: else out there. Do any of you guys and gals

1246
01:10:15,800 --> 01:10:19,280
Speaker 1: follow a hyper real religion? Do we have any uh

1247
01:10:19,880 --> 01:10:23,040
Speaker 1: Unutologists in the audience that want to speak up about

1248
01:10:23,520 --> 01:10:26,360
Speaker 1: about Altman, about Church of the SubGenius. Yeah, Church of

1249
01:10:26,439 --> 01:10:28,439
Speaker 1: the SubGenius. They're a number of big ones that we

1250
01:10:28,439 --> 01:10:29,920
Speaker 1: didn't We didn't even have time to get to in

1251
01:10:29,920 --> 01:10:32,679
Speaker 1: this podcast. So we would love to hear from any

1252
01:10:32,680 --> 01:10:35,840
Speaker 1: and all of you about that, And sincerely, if you

1253
01:10:35,880 --> 01:10:38,080
Speaker 1: want to let us know what you truly love about

1254
01:10:38,120 --> 01:10:40,840
Speaker 1: this religion and why you consider it a real faith,

1255
01:10:41,320 --> 01:10:43,559
Speaker 1: please share? Yeah, yeah, do so, we will. We will

1256
01:10:43,800 --> 01:10:45,680
Speaker 1: keep an open mind and encourage everyone else keep an

1257
01:10:45,720 --> 01:10:48,200
Speaker 1: open mind about it as well. Um In the meantime,

1258
01:10:48,360 --> 01:10:50,160
Speaker 1: check us out of Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

1259
01:10:50,240 --> 01:10:52,839
Speaker 1: That's where you will find all the podcasts, the videos,

1260
01:10:53,000 --> 01:10:55,200
Speaker 1: blog post links out to our social media accounts we

1261
01:10:55,280 --> 01:10:57,599
Speaker 1: are we are blow the Mind on Facebook and Twitter,

1262
01:10:57,720 --> 01:11:00,400
Speaker 1: we are stuff to Blow your Mind on tumble and

1263
01:11:00,439 --> 01:11:01,760
Speaker 1: if you want to get in touch with us with

1264
01:11:01,840 --> 01:11:04,360
Speaker 1: the feedback to this episode or any other recent episode,

1265
01:11:04,400 --> 01:11:06,280
Speaker 1: you can email us it blow the Mind at how

1266
01:11:06,320 --> 01:11:18,719
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. For more on this and thousands

1267
01:11:18,760 --> 01:11:43,920
Speaker 1: of other topics, is it how stuff works dot com