Eric Weinstein - Why The Modern World Is Wrong About Religion

the world is confusing it's hard to make sense we don't know what's real we don't know what isn't we don't know if we can trust the information that we're getting that's in front of our eyes we don't know if we can trust the people that are around us do they have our best interests at heart how do we make sense of the world religion provided a pretty good tool for that and I I I I'm not sure whether it's possible to be a cultural Christian or a cultural Muslim or a cultural Jew I I wonder

how important the belief bit is to the religion bit do you do you pray and meditate which is as close as you're going to get what do you mean you want to try prayer sure well I mean what what prayers move you I don't know enough I mean I took my mom to riing Cathedral on Christmas Eve and we went through a full service of 90 minutes with 13 14 15 hymns and a bunch of prayers in between lot of Christmas trees and decoration and stuff but I think that would have been the first time

that I would have heard something like that since Primary School since I was 11 or 10 yeah is there religious music that moves you see you have the major scale as the centerpiece of western music do you need a guitar we're okay um wait do you have a guitar we have a guitar can we get the guitar come on we need a need to be able to hear this principal reason for bringing out a guitar would be to stop me from singing which I think is an excellent idea okay well hey no but look I

can't sing and I can't play the guitar I enjoy doing it so the the internet can there you go well look this is a full-size one last time we gave you one that made you look like you were a giant okay so if you just take the the the major scale right that's not really music but try just the descending major scale [Music] what is that to you it sounds like Mary had a little lamb or something similar now what is it where do I know that tune from what is that Joy to the World

the Lord has come right now if you take a different scale right um and you go uh the blues [Music] scale right it's a little bit meanor so you can ask the same question if I do the descending scale you know what is that it's like the intro from messing with the [Music] kid or it's close to Sunshine of Your Love right so is a descending scale music not much but when it's made music by pausing or by emphasis one of the great tunes of uh Western Civilization has created Joy to the World you know

my my feeling about it is that song should move you and all of these religious songs [Music] um they mean something you know I I I was in a a car train going from Bulgaria to Kiev and there were all of these Siberian miners I brought my harmonica and they were they had a transistor radio and at some point the radio gives out and they want to drink and dance because this is their holiday and they started getting really Rowdy and I realized I had the ability to make music so I pulled a harmonica out

I started playing some blues and everybody's dancing and having a great time and they're like morea whatever and I'm paralyzed I don't have that much of a repertoire on the harmonica and the one thing I could do was I start um playing Jewish songs and this woman comes up to me and grabs me by my lapel and says you know in Russia where do you know this from where do you like I'm realizing that I'm in an anti-semitic environment I think and I've got a Siberian minor who recognizes that I'm playing Jewish music and I'm

terrified I'm paralyzed I don't say anything I pretend that I can't understand her in Russian and she reaches into her bosom and she pulls out a giant Star of David right and like she's just looking me in the eyes like I know you you know me there's a way in which religious music is incredibly powerful and prayer is incredibly powerful and I think we're afraid to pray you know you say this in terms of meditation we're afraid to submit to something bigger than ourselves to use the the programming that we have that um that makes

us feel there's something that feels disingenuous about praying if you don't believe there's a line from Dan Brown's Angels and Demons the movie Tom Hanks is speaking to the calango and he's trying to get access to the Vatican archives he wants to get down there to work out some secret that was left that he needs to find out who who's killing who's killing everybody ningo asks him played by Y and McGregor he says do you believe professor and he starts giving some politicians answer where he skirts around the question he says I didn't ask that

I asked if you believed he looks him straight in the eyes and he says faith is a gift that I am yet to be given I don't believe it we all have the gift of faith what we don't have is the ability to sustain it we don't have the ability to import it into all qu quadrants of our minds look I'm saying that I'm an atheist I don't I don't believe in the stories about the deity but that's not constant you you flit in and out you know Mike do you believe in Ray Charles I

do do you no no I'm sort of joking but if I think about what did I say by Ray Charles why was that song so powerful he's basically bringing Saturday night and Sunday morning together right there's a there's a religious sort of gospel Coral aspect to it and he's got the rett's in the background echoing him he goes uh and they go uh he goes oh oh uh uh oh oh that's that's pretty that's satanic grunting going on on Saturday night right and then you're going to show up in church and you're going to turn

it into uh something else Ray Charles was scandalous because he fused the secular and the sacred the profane in the sacred do you believe in the devil one of the you know you know the song Crossroads by Robert Johnson nope well I I can't let's see if you do right I don't know that I could do a Robert Johnson for It Be Country blue but like if this were an electric guitar you probably know [Music] um [Music] went down to the crossroads tried to flag myself around went down the crossroads tried to flag myself [Music]

around and all good people they just passed me by he's talking about going to the crossroads to bargain for his soul he wants to learn how to play the guitar and that's powerful because you have this myth you know the devil Goes Down to Georgia or you go to the crossroads to gain something in a FY and bargain um how are you going to believe that with no Lord you're going to screw yourself out of the ability to listen to Folklore to mythology to Great literature and that that that makes me sad you know it's

it's like are you making a point of saying that you can't understand the religious person we need churches and and and and uh Manders and and mids and synagogues and we need them to behave non- psychopathically and you can't hate on the psychopathy um and divorce yourself from the power you know the power of the word and of song and of communal prayer and Harmony it's something it's something I'm wistful for wistful for a belief that I never had in a way yeah uh yeah there's uh I think there's a particular Latin church Chase can

you grab this uh big gele for me please um one of the quickest growing denominations I think of church attendance in America is this thing that's all in Latin mhm have you heard about this no I can't remember what it is and it's growing massively in the in a young age demographic under 30 or something the whole thing's in Latin and which can be awesome right well I think I'm wondering Vatican 2 may have been a kind of a big mistake how so because when you're forced to actually contend with what the words are in

a modern context they don't have the power that they sometimes have as a spell well it's difficult to switch off a very particular type of critical Vigilant analytical mind when what you're looking to try and do is allow the experience to wash over you so perhaps uh yeah not being unless you're a fluent in Latin being able to just enjoy the experience and just be maybe that is most of what you're trying to maybe that's most of what religious service was doing maybe it wasn't really anything to do with the words very often it isn't

I mean it depends you know so we're actually meeting on Shabbat this is the I shouldn't have traveled here we shouldn't be using electronic devices but I'm not a practicing Jew at that level but I think about what we say over the wine when we pray you know we have this thing where we begin um like this is the sound of of Jewish prayer right and then you're thinking about what it says and it's very moving to me because what it is is it's a it's it's taken directly out of Genesis and it was uh

evening and it was morning the sixth day right and Yom is day and shishi is six and arav is evening and wer is morning so you know what the words mean and you're actually recapitulating God's shifting from work to rest so as you come to understand what the words mean um it it's not destroyed by knowledge uh you know you know that old song by The Rivers of Babylon that's related to the grace that we say after meals um these are references that matter uh and I think people are are shocked um they don't know

how much of their life comes from scripture you know you have a round of firings that accompany somebody says I can read the writing on the wall well do you know that that's Daniel 5:25 do you know what the wall says I think many many take you know you've been measured and found wanting your lands will be distributed to the Persians or something like that you know these These are incredibly powerful references that we live with you know you think about the birds to everything turn turn turn pet Seer sound there is a season and

a time and a purpose under Heaven it's Ecclesiastes you think about Jimmy Hendrick going off about two riters were approaching and the wind began to howl that's Isaiah where are you where are you with the power of the word are you afraid to welcome in are you worried that you'll lose your [Music] atheism what what are those two writers approaching they come with news that's the fall of Babylon who are The Joker and the thief in that song I believe they're on either side of Christ being crucified religion is interested in you whether or not

you give a it knows about you and it finds its way into every aspect of your life and if you're going to be an honest atheist you have to admit that in other news this episode is brought to you by element stop having coffee first thing in the morning your a Denine system that caffeine acts on isn't even active for the first 90 minutes of the day but your adrenal system is and salt acts on your adrenal system this is the best way to start the day and I've done it for over 3 years now

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