Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day.

As I was saying, you're one of the last, the Mohicans, rocking that flip phone.

Yeah, that's right. I'm proud of it.

Do you text people? Yeah, text. Do you do the... Or it takes a bunch of times.

Well, it's something called T9. It's predictive texting. So it gives you a bunch of alternatives. You You just have to do it all on a keypad with your thumb rather than with an iPhone, you have the full alphabet.

But I bet that battery lasts a week.

I don't even travel with a charger, man. Really? Yeah, unless I'm gone for a week. But if I'm just gone for a couple of days and I don't have any long conversations planned, I don't even bother.

Wow.

Yeah.

All email, everything's handled at home, all on the laptop, right?

Yeah, plus, Chicks dig it, man. They do? No.

What kinds of Chicks are you hanging around with? Savages.

No, at one point I was at CNN waiting to go on, and these two young women kept looking at me. This is like 10 years ago, so I plausibly could say to myself, Well, maybe I still got it, right? Who knew? Then one of them noticed that I had noticed them looking at me, and she goes, Oh, excuse me, sir. We can't believe that you have a flip phone. I was like, Well, that's the end of an era.

Ten years ago? Yeah. Wow. Ten years ago, there was a few people out there that were hanging. My friend I'm sorry, still had a flip phone 10 years ago. The only people I know now are you and David Tell. So you're in good company.

Yeah, that's right. It's cool. I'm telling you, it's cool. It's coming back. It's the next big thing.

I know a lot of people, they switch to what's called, I think it's called a simple phone. Is that what it's called, Jamie? What is that thing called? What's that? No, the little tight, the one that's... It just gives you nothing but text messages. I think you can get music on it, too. I think it's called a simple phone. Do you read on a tablet, one of those Kindles?

I don't.

Well, the great thing about those is they have this white paper-looking interface, so superior to you, and It's an unbelievable poem, Ted Hughes, Wolfwatching. You got it. I mean, seriously, look it up.Yeah, we're bizarre. We're bizarre with this whole fucking zoo thing. The zoo thing is very weird. On one hand, it helps preserve diminishing populations of some animals. But on the other hand, why do you have a polar bear in a fucking swimming swimming pool in the middle of night. What are you doing? They go crazy. They just go in circles. You ever see bears in an enclosure where they just walk around in circles?People go crazy, too. A solitary confinement. People can't take it more. It drives, it breaks their brain.You keep saying the word, I'm an atheist. Do I believe in Why even have a belief?I mean, I don't. I don't have any belief.You don't have anything anymore. But you still consider yourself an atheist? An atheist is someone who doesn't believe in a God. Right.I don't have that belief.So you don't believe or not believe?I mean, not believing isn't an active... Right. I mean...Well, you don't know, right? This is why the atheism thing usually drives me nuts with people. When people say, There is no God.Well, that's not atheism, right? Atheism is that I don't believe in God.It's not claiming to be able to prove there is a God. There's a little more arrogance to, There is no God, rather than, I don't believe in a God.And you can't make yourself believe in something. Right. So if you want to tell me that gravity doesn't exist, I can't make myself believe that. And I can't make myself believe God exists, contrary Despite the complete lack of evidence that he does or she does, whatever, I can't force that belief in myself, even if I wanted to. But I would never, ever say, Oh, there way he runs things, I don't want anything to do with him because that's cruel. So that's my quibble with the word God. But universal unity, I'm good, right? Shreuning her is good for Shreuninger, it's good for me, whatever. I don't The violence of the emotions around all this is puzzling to me. I don't understand why people get so heated about what someone else believes.Well, people get heated about everything. I've had conversations with people that are just Democrats to the end. That's my team. I'm with the Raiders. And that's just how it is with everything. And people are that way with religion. They're that way with the state they live in, the football team they support. They're that way with everything.That's just humans. It's just some primate shit. Yeah.And I think the real discussion is in how do you feel, why do you feel the way you feel, and what do you think, and what do you know that has educated these thoughts.If you believe that human beings are inherently bad, and then only a fear of hell, and frankly, not a love of God, a fear of God will make you act well. If you really think that's what humans are, then religion makes It makes sense. But so for me, for example, and I'm assuming for you and most people that I think we probably know, I don't murder people and rob banks and things like that because I'm afraid to go into jail. I refrain from doing those things because I don't want to be someone who does those things. I have my own inner morality about what it means to be a good person, to not be a freaking psychopath. I don't want to go to jail either. But you don't need the laws. You don't need the courts to make me act well in that sense. So if you need God in order to not rob banks and kill people and rape people, bro, you got a freaking problem. You're still a problem Even if you don't do those things because you're scared of God, you're still not a person that I trust.Yeah. No, I share that perspective. I think what this whole thing is for a lot of people, and one of the problems with religion and true believers is, boy, folks, there's a lot of different versions of that story. And you got to make sure you're betting on the right one because there's a billion people that don't think you are. And you think you're smarter than them? I think it's people trying to get a map of what this is all about. And I think it's been that way forever. I think people have always tried to figure it out, and they have little bits and pieces, and we're putting it together. And unfortunately, Unfortunately, we also like to look at these things as if this doctrine is 100 % factual. I've seen Muslims do it. I've seen Christians do it. I've seen Jews do it. People have this belief that their way is the way. It's the only way. Everyone else is the other, which seems contrary to the word of God, the real thought, the concept of this interconnected thing that we're I'm not saying. I think it's all way weirder. I think everyone's scared to die, but no one's scared to sleep because you know you're going to come back.But you do it every night. Every night you go to some crazy place. You shut off and you return and you assume because you have memory and because you have an understanding of the environment and you have a task that you have to do, oh, got to be at work by 9:00. You have all this stuff in your head. You're assuming, just assuming that as you woke up today, that this is your life at 56 years old, continuing along the same path. But it might not be. It's just guessing. We have our eyes closed and we're feeling through the darkness, and we don't know. We give ourselves these rules, and we give ourselves these rules, and we give ourselves these stories. We give ourselves these religious practices to put structure into this thing and to put certainty into this thing that is absolutely uncertain. We get angry if someone questions our certainty Our certainty. Because our certainty defines our ability to exist in this experience in a way that keeps us sane. God has a will, God has a plan. This is all. I think it's way weirder. I think it's way weirder. And I think that's what you experience when your dad came to you.And that's what you experience when you look down at the pit. I think the whole thing is way weirder. I don't think it's as simple as why would God take a child and give it I mean, I think the whole thing is an uber complex interaction of emotions and experiences that we're all going through simultaneously. And I have a feeling that part of the thing that moves us forward, unfortunately, is negativity and the the positivity battling against that negativity, which strengthens the positivity because of the resistance. I think the evil of the world is almost like an important factor in the whole equation of our existence.Yeah, and I think humans have always struggled with it, and they've come up with theories that help them get by. And some of them even support human dignity. Some don't. And And here we are with the great, still surrounded by the great mystery.The great mystery.And you know what? Let's hear it for the great mystery. If you think about it, this thought came to me the other day. We're in a sweet spot. So If you knew for sure, if the scientists could prove, if the nerds could prove that there was an afterlife, and what you got to do was just more of the same, except it's a lot more pleasant for eternity. If we could prove that, it would strip the value out of these precious decades that we are allotted. One of the reasons that life is so precious is because it's so finite. So if you could prove there was an afterlife, don't worry about it. Listen, okay, your wife dumped you and blah, blah, blah. Don't worry about it because soon the afterlife is going to start and then you're good forever. So just don't sweat it. Why don't you just kill yourself right now and just get onto it? Because that's when the good part starts. It would ruin what life is. It would strip it of value. On the other hand, like the two other guys in Dostoevsky's group of friends, if we could prove, literally prove, scientifically, that there is no afterlife, and you can't prove a negative, but somehow if we could prove there was no afterlife whatsoever, we're biological beings.When we die, that's it. We rot, we return to the soil, that's it, done. If we could prove that, that might be so psychologically devastating that it would be actually quite hard to lead a meaningful life because in your mind, you're thinking, well, what's the frigging point? So where we're at right now, there's the perfect level of ambiguity. Community, that there's not such a proof of afterlife that why bother leading our lives, but there's also not such a doubt about it that it's psychologically devastating. We're in this sweet spot, which allows us to invest maximum meaning in the least amount of psychological distress in these decades that we're allotted. So in a weird way, where we're at right now is to tune perfectly to the human brain for giving the maximum amount of meaning to this time that we have here on Earth. If you go in the extreme of either direction, of absolute certainty that there is an afterlife or is no afterlife, if you go to that extreme, it actually just robs us of what we do know for sure that we have, which is this life right now. Right.And that's part of the magic of it, right? The magic of it is the uncertainty, the temporary nature of it, the finite nature of existence, all of it.Yeah. And the reason Karl Marx hated religion is because basically the peasant class had been told, Listen, don't worry about it. Your lot sucks, right? The surf. Like, your lot sucks. You're oppressed, you're poor, blah, blah, blah. But don't worry about it because there's them to death. And when they're shrieking in terror, their buddies in the rival troupe don't rush to their aid like humans would. They run away. That's the difference between chimpanzees and humans is the male, what's called the male coalition exists in chimpanzee society, but they don't run to the aid of their brothers when the chips are down. They save themselves individually. Humans don't do that. We will rush We will rush to help a brother who's in danger, as it were. Even at risk to our own lives, it's one of the few unique traits that humans have that other mammals don't.Which is probably how we made it.Yeah, Exactly. No, because we're better off in a group, even a group in a desperate situation. But chimpanzees, the rival troupe that's getting beaten to death one by one, eventually they're wiped out because they don't form a coalition to defend, only to attack. They'll form a coalition to attack, but not to defend. So what happens is the more aggressive troupe of chimpanzees wipes out the males of the rival troupe one by one because the rivals won't form a coalition to defend. And then they take over the territory, all the food resources of that territory, and the females. And now the aggressive troupe of chimpanzees is now bigger and stronger, and those genes will be passed on at a higher rate than the genes of the poor bastard who got beaten to death one by one. That's how Darwinism works, and that's why aggression exists in the world. There's a genetic reward for it.That's why we're here.And that's why we're here.And this is all God's plan.And then human culture. That's right. It's all God's plan. And human culture came up with this extraordinary thing. It's like, You know what, guys? We're all one thing. We're this tribe, we're that tribe. We have to fight to the last man to defend each other and defend our families, blah, blah, blah, because otherwise we're not going to make it because the fucking Vikings are coming over the ridge. So who's with me? Graveheart, whatever. There's endless stories about that heroism. We're all together. We'll die together if we have to, but we are all together. And that's a uniquely human trait.Yeah, it certainly is. And the problem is when you have a utopian perspective and you want everyone like, I'm not dangerous. I want the world to not be dangerous. The problem is the world is dangerous, and it's genetically dangerous. It's like it's always been dangerous. It's just this is what it is. And I think we're in this enormous process It's certainly much better to live today, at least it is here, than it would be during the time of Delsievsky. If you lived back then, you have less information. It's more dangerous. People have more control of people. They're crueler. It's more common. Things get better over time, but it's a slow, slow process.Yeah, that's right.And we're in the middle of it.That's right.And we look back and we say, Oh, those fools. But in the future, they're going to look back at us and say the same goddamn thing. The same way we look at Genghis Khan, they're going to look at us. Like, what the fuck did they do in Ukraine? What the fuck did Israel do in Gaza? What the fuck is going on in Sudan? What the fuck is going on in wherever? Fill in the blank. Anywhere in the world.Yeah, that's right. And there is some hope, like global alliances blunt some of this stuff. So there is a cultural evolution from the the ancestral origins of the species. Alliances do often stabilize things, which is great. That's a good thing. But again, Alliances can also precipitate conflict. So whatever.Yeah. It's a complex mixture of things happening. And I think, again, not to get too like, woo-woo spiritual, but I think that's a part of our journey. A part of our journey is navigating the good and evil. Right.These are real forces. That's right.Yeah.I will be killed publicly, executed like Dostoevsky almost was by my publisher if I don't say the name of my book. I know you don't want that to happen.Say it now. I definitely don't want you to get killed, especially after what you've been through. In my time of Dying: How I came face to Face with the idea of an Afterlife. All right, man. Well, listen, brother, it's always great to see you. I'm glad you're alive. Thank you. I really enjoy these conversations we've had.Me too, man. Me too. They're really wonderful. Thanks for having me on and having such a great long talk about all this stuff.My pleasure. Did you read the audiobook?I did. Yes.Good. Beautiful.So you got to listen to it on the treadmill.Yes, I will do that. Thank you very much, man. Thanks for being here. I appreciate you.My pleasure.All right. Bye, everybody.

superior to you, and It's an unbelievable poem, Ted Hughes, Wolfwatching. You got it. I mean, seriously, look it up.

Yeah, we're bizarre. We're bizarre with this whole fucking zoo thing. The zoo thing is very weird. On one hand, it helps preserve diminishing populations of some animals. But on the other hand, why do you have a polar bear in a fucking swimming swimming pool in the middle of night. What are you doing? They go crazy. They just go in circles. You ever see bears in an enclosure where they just walk around in circles?

People go crazy, too. A solitary confinement. People can't take it more. It drives, it breaks their brain.

You keep saying the word, I'm an atheist. Do I believe in Why even have a belief?

I mean, I don't. I don't have any belief.

You don't have anything anymore. But you still consider yourself an atheist? An atheist is someone who doesn't believe in a God. Right.

I don't have that belief.

So you don't believe or not believe?

I mean, not believing isn't an active... Right. I mean...

Well, you don't know, right? This is why the atheism thing usually drives me nuts with people. When people say, There is no God.

Well, that's not atheism, right? Atheism is that I don't believe in God.

It's not claiming to be able to prove there is a God. There's a little more arrogance to, There is no God, rather than, I don't believe in a God.

And you can't make yourself believe in something. Right. So if you want to tell me that gravity doesn't exist, I can't make myself believe that. And I can't make myself believe God exists, contrary Despite the complete lack of evidence that he does or she does, whatever, I can't force that belief in myself, even if I wanted to. But I would never, ever say, Oh, there way he runs things, I don't want anything to do with him because that's cruel. So that's my quibble with the word God. But universal unity, I'm good, right? Shreuning her is good for Shreuninger, it's good for me, whatever. I don't The violence of the emotions around all this is puzzling to me. I don't understand why people get so heated about what someone else believes.Well, people get heated about everything. I've had conversations with people that are just Democrats to the end. That's my team. I'm with the Raiders. And that's just how it is with everything. And people are that way with religion. They're that way with the state they live in, the football team they support. They're that way with everything.That's just humans. It's just some primate shit. Yeah.And I think the real discussion is in how do you feel, why do you feel the way you feel, and what do you think, and what do you know that has educated these thoughts.If you believe that human beings are inherently bad, and then only a fear of hell, and frankly, not a love of God, a fear of God will make you act well. If you really think that's what humans are, then religion makes It makes sense. But so for me, for example, and I'm assuming for you and most people that I think we probably know, I don't murder people and rob banks and things like that because I'm afraid to go into jail. I refrain from doing those things because I don't want to be someone who does those things. I have my own inner morality about what it means to be a good person, to not be a freaking psychopath. I don't want to go to jail either. But you don't need the laws. You don't need the courts to make me act well in that sense. So if you need God in order to not rob banks and kill people and rape people, bro, you got a freaking problem. You're still a problem Even if you don't do those things because you're scared of God, you're still not a person that I trust.Yeah. No, I share that perspective. I think what this whole thing is for a lot of people, and one of the problems with religion and true believers is, boy, folks, there's a lot of different versions of that story. And you got to make sure you're betting on the right one because there's a billion people that don't think you are. And you think you're smarter than them? I think it's people trying to get a map of what this is all about. And I think it's been that way forever. I think people have always tried to figure it out, and they have little bits and pieces, and we're putting it together. And unfortunately, Unfortunately, we also like to look at these things as if this doctrine is 100 % factual. I've seen Muslims do it. I've seen Christians do it. I've seen Jews do it. People have this belief that their way is the way. It's the only way. Everyone else is the other, which seems contrary to the word of God, the real thought, the concept of this interconnected thing that we're I'm not saying. I think it's all way weirder. I think everyone's scared to die, but no one's scared to sleep because you know you're going to come back.But you do it every night. Every night you go to some crazy place. You shut off and you return and you assume because you have memory and because you have an understanding of the environment and you have a task that you have to do, oh, got to be at work by 9:00. You have all this stuff in your head. You're assuming, just assuming that as you woke up today, that this is your life at 56 years old, continuing along the same path. But it might not be. It's just guessing. We have our eyes closed and we're feeling through the darkness, and we don't know. We give ourselves these rules, and we give ourselves these rules, and we give ourselves these stories. We give ourselves these religious practices to put structure into this thing and to put certainty into this thing that is absolutely uncertain. We get angry if someone questions our certainty Our certainty. Because our certainty defines our ability to exist in this experience in a way that keeps us sane. God has a will, God has a plan. This is all. I think it's way weirder. I think it's way weirder. And I think that's what you experience when your dad came to you.And that's what you experience when you look down at the pit. I think the whole thing is way weirder. I don't think it's as simple as why would God take a child and give it I mean, I think the whole thing is an uber complex interaction of emotions and experiences that we're all going through simultaneously. And I have a feeling that part of the thing that moves us forward, unfortunately, is negativity and the the positivity battling against that negativity, which strengthens the positivity because of the resistance. I think the evil of the world is almost like an important factor in the whole equation of our existence.Yeah, and I think humans have always struggled with it, and they've come up with theories that help them get by. And some of them even support human dignity. Some don't. And And here we are with the great, still surrounded by the great mystery.The great mystery.And you know what? Let's hear it for the great mystery. If you think about it, this thought came to me the other day. We're in a sweet spot. So If you knew for sure, if the scientists could prove, if the nerds could prove that there was an afterlife, and what you got to do was just more of the same, except it's a lot more pleasant for eternity. If we could prove that, it would strip the value out of these precious decades that we are allotted. One of the reasons that life is so precious is because it's so finite. So if you could prove there was an afterlife, don't worry about it. Listen, okay, your wife dumped you and blah, blah, blah. Don't worry about it because soon the afterlife is going to start and then you're good forever. So just don't sweat it. Why don't you just kill yourself right now and just get onto it? Because that's when the good part starts. It would ruin what life is. It would strip it of value. On the other hand, like the two other guys in Dostoevsky's group of friends, if we could prove, literally prove, scientifically, that there is no afterlife, and you can't prove a negative, but somehow if we could prove there was no afterlife whatsoever, we're biological beings.When we die, that's it. We rot, we return to the soil, that's it, done. If we could prove that, that might be so psychologically devastating that it would be actually quite hard to lead a meaningful life because in your mind, you're thinking, well, what's the frigging point? So where we're at right now, there's the perfect level of ambiguity. Community, that there's not such a proof of afterlife that why bother leading our lives, but there's also not such a doubt about it that it's psychologically devastating. We're in this sweet spot, which allows us to invest maximum meaning in the least amount of psychological distress in these decades that we're allotted. So in a weird way, where we're at right now is to tune perfectly to the human brain for giving the maximum amount of meaning to this time that we have here on Earth. If you go in the extreme of either direction, of absolute certainty that there is an afterlife or is no afterlife, if you go to that extreme, it actually just robs us of what we do know for sure that we have, which is this life right now. Right.And that's part of the magic of it, right? The magic of it is the uncertainty, the temporary nature of it, the finite nature of existence, all of it.Yeah. And the reason Karl Marx hated religion is because basically the peasant class had been told, Listen, don't worry about it. Your lot sucks, right? The surf. Like, your lot sucks. You're oppressed, you're poor, blah, blah, blah. But don't worry about it because there's them to death. And when they're shrieking in terror, their buddies in the rival troupe don't rush to their aid like humans would. They run away. That's the difference between chimpanzees and humans is the male, what's called the male coalition exists in chimpanzee society, but they don't run to the aid of their brothers when the chips are down. They save themselves individually. Humans don't do that. We will rush We will rush to help a brother who's in danger, as it were. Even at risk to our own lives, it's one of the few unique traits that humans have that other mammals don't.Which is probably how we made it.Yeah, Exactly. No, because we're better off in a group, even a group in a desperate situation. But chimpanzees, the rival troupe that's getting beaten to death one by one, eventually they're wiped out because they don't form a coalition to defend, only to attack. They'll form a coalition to attack, but not to defend. So what happens is the more aggressive troupe of chimpanzees wipes out the males of the rival troupe one by one because the rivals won't form a coalition to defend. And then they take over the territory, all the food resources of that territory, and the females. And now the aggressive troupe of chimpanzees is now bigger and stronger, and those genes will be passed on at a higher rate than the genes of the poor bastard who got beaten to death one by one. That's how Darwinism works, and that's why aggression exists in the world. There's a genetic reward for it.That's why we're here.And that's why we're here.And this is all God's plan.And then human culture. That's right. It's all God's plan. And human culture came up with this extraordinary thing. It's like, You know what, guys? We're all one thing. We're this tribe, we're that tribe. We have to fight to the last man to defend each other and defend our families, blah, blah, blah, because otherwise we're not going to make it because the fucking Vikings are coming over the ridge. So who's with me? Graveheart, whatever. There's endless stories about that heroism. We're all together. We'll die together if we have to, but we are all together. And that's a uniquely human trait.Yeah, it certainly is. And the problem is when you have a utopian perspective and you want everyone like, I'm not dangerous. I want the world to not be dangerous. The problem is the world is dangerous, and it's genetically dangerous. It's like it's always been dangerous. It's just this is what it is. And I think we're in this enormous process It's certainly much better to live today, at least it is here, than it would be during the time of Delsievsky. If you lived back then, you have less information. It's more dangerous. People have more control of people. They're crueler. It's more common. Things get better over time, but it's a slow, slow process.Yeah, that's right.And we're in the middle of it.That's right.And we look back and we say, Oh, those fools. But in the future, they're going to look back at us and say the same goddamn thing. The same way we look at Genghis Khan, they're going to look at us. Like, what the fuck did they do in Ukraine? What the fuck did Israel do in Gaza? What the fuck is going on in Sudan? What the fuck is going on in wherever? Fill in the blank. Anywhere in the world.Yeah, that's right. And there is some hope, like global alliances blunt some of this stuff. So there is a cultural evolution from the the ancestral origins of the species. Alliances do often stabilize things, which is great. That's a good thing. But again, Alliances can also precipitate conflict. So whatever.Yeah. It's a complex mixture of things happening. And I think, again, not to get too like, woo-woo spiritual, but I think that's a part of our journey. A part of our journey is navigating the good and evil. Right.These are real forces. That's right.Yeah.I will be killed publicly, executed like Dostoevsky almost was by my publisher if I don't say the name of my book. I know you don't want that to happen.Say it now. I definitely don't want you to get killed, especially after what you've been through. In my time of Dying: How I came face to Face with the idea of an Afterlife. All right, man. Well, listen, brother, it's always great to see you. I'm glad you're alive. Thank you. I really enjoy these conversations we've had.Me too, man. Me too. They're really wonderful. Thanks for having me on and having such a great long talk about all this stuff.My pleasure. Did you read the audiobook?I did. Yes.Good. Beautiful.So you got to listen to it on the treadmill.Yes, I will do that. Thank you very much, man. Thanks for being here. I appreciate you.My pleasure.All right. Bye, everybody.

way he runs things, I don't want anything to do with him because that's cruel. So that's my quibble with the word God. But universal unity, I'm good, right? Shreuning her is good for Shreuninger, it's good for me, whatever. I don't The violence of the emotions around all this is puzzling to me. I don't understand why people get so heated about what someone else believes.

Well, people get heated about everything. I've had conversations with people that are just Democrats to the end. That's my team. I'm with the Raiders. And that's just how it is with everything. And people are that way with religion. They're that way with the state they live in, the football team they support. They're that way with everything.

That's just humans. It's just some primate shit. Yeah.

And I think the real discussion is in how do you feel, why do you feel the way you feel, and what do you think, and what do you know that has educated these thoughts.

If you believe that human beings are inherently bad, and then only a fear of hell, and frankly, not a love of God, a fear of God will make you act well. If you really think that's what humans are, then religion makes It makes sense. But so for me, for example, and I'm assuming for you and most people that I think we probably know, I don't murder people and rob banks and things like that because I'm afraid to go into jail. I refrain from doing those things because I don't want to be someone who does those things. I have my own inner morality about what it means to be a good person, to not be a freaking psychopath. I don't want to go to jail either. But you don't need the laws. You don't need the courts to make me act well in that sense. So if you need God in order to not rob banks and kill people and rape people, bro, you got a freaking problem. You're still a problem Even if you don't do those things because you're scared of God, you're still not a person that I trust.

Yeah. No, I share that perspective. I think what this whole thing is for a lot of people, and one of the problems with religion and true believers is, boy, folks, there's a lot of different versions of that story. And you got to make sure you're betting on the right one because there's a billion people that don't think you are. And you think you're smarter than them? I think it's people trying to get a map of what this is all about. And I think it's been that way forever. I think people have always tried to figure it out, and they have little bits and pieces, and we're putting it together. And unfortunately, Unfortunately, we also like to look at these things as if this doctrine is 100 % factual. I've seen Muslims do it. I've seen Christians do it. I've seen Jews do it. People have this belief that their way is the way. It's the only way. Everyone else is the other, which seems contrary to the word of God, the real thought, the concept of this interconnected thing that we're I'm not saying. I think it's all way weirder. I think everyone's scared to die, but no one's scared to sleep because you know you're going to come back.

But you do it every night. Every night you go to some crazy place. You shut off and you return and you assume because you have memory and because you have an understanding of the environment and you have a task that you have to do, oh, got to be at work by 9:00. You have all this stuff in your head. You're assuming, just assuming that as you woke up today, that this is your life at 56 years old, continuing along the same path. But it might not be. It's just guessing. We have our eyes closed and we're feeling through the darkness, and we don't know. We give ourselves these rules, and we give ourselves these rules, and we give ourselves these stories. We give ourselves these religious practices to put structure into this thing and to put certainty into this thing that is absolutely uncertain. We get angry if someone questions our certainty Our certainty. Because our certainty defines our ability to exist in this experience in a way that keeps us sane. God has a will, God has a plan. This is all. I think it's way weirder. I think it's way weirder. And I think that's what you experience when your dad came to you.

And that's what you experience when you look down at the pit. I think the whole thing is way weirder. I don't think it's as simple as why would God take a child and give it I mean, I think the whole thing is an uber complex interaction of emotions and experiences that we're all going through simultaneously. And I have a feeling that part of the thing that moves us forward, unfortunately, is negativity and the the positivity battling against that negativity, which strengthens the positivity because of the resistance. I think the evil of the world is almost like an important factor in the whole equation of our existence.

Yeah, and I think humans have always struggled with it, and they've come up with theories that help them get by. And some of them even support human dignity. Some don't. And And here we are with the great, still surrounded by the great mystery.

The great mystery.

And you know what? Let's hear it for the great mystery. If you think about it, this thought came to me the other day. We're in a sweet spot. So If you knew for sure, if the scientists could prove, if the nerds could prove that there was an afterlife, and what you got to do was just more of the same, except it's a lot more pleasant for eternity. If we could prove that, it would strip the value out of these precious decades that we are allotted. One of the reasons that life is so precious is because it's so finite. So if you could prove there was an afterlife, don't worry about it. Listen, okay, your wife dumped you and blah, blah, blah. Don't worry about it because soon the afterlife is going to start and then you're good forever. So just don't sweat it. Why don't you just kill yourself right now and just get onto it? Because that's when the good part starts. It would ruin what life is. It would strip it of value. On the other hand, like the two other guys in Dostoevsky's group of friends, if we could prove, literally prove, scientifically, that there is no afterlife, and you can't prove a negative, but somehow if we could prove there was no afterlife whatsoever, we're biological beings.

When we die, that's it. We rot, we return to the soil, that's it, done. If we could prove that, that might be so psychologically devastating that it would be actually quite hard to lead a meaningful life because in your mind, you're thinking, well, what's the frigging point? So where we're at right now, there's the perfect level of ambiguity. Community, that there's not such a proof of afterlife that why bother leading our lives, but there's also not such a doubt about it that it's psychologically devastating. We're in this sweet spot, which allows us to invest maximum meaning in the least amount of psychological distress in these decades that we're allotted. So in a weird way, where we're at right now is to tune perfectly to the human brain for giving the maximum amount of meaning to this time that we have here on Earth. If you go in the extreme of either direction, of absolute certainty that there is an afterlife or is no afterlife, if you go to that extreme, it actually just robs us of what we do know for sure that we have, which is this life right now. Right.

And that's part of the magic of it, right? The magic of it is the uncertainty, the temporary nature of it, the finite nature of existence, all of it.

Yeah. And the reason Karl Marx hated religion is because basically the peasant class had been told, Listen, don't worry about it. Your lot sucks, right? The surf. Like, your lot sucks. You're oppressed, you're poor, blah, blah, blah. But don't worry about it because there's them to death. And when they're shrieking in terror, their buddies in the rival troupe don't rush to their aid like humans would. They run away. That's the difference between chimpanzees and humans is the male, what's called the male coalition exists in chimpanzee society, but they don't run to the aid of their brothers when the chips are down. They save themselves individually. Humans don't do that. We will rush We will rush to help a brother who's in danger, as it were. Even at risk to our own lives, it's one of the few unique traits that humans have that other mammals don't.Which is probably how we made it.Yeah, Exactly. No, because we're better off in a group, even a group in a desperate situation. But chimpanzees, the rival troupe that's getting beaten to death one by one, eventually they're wiped out because they don't form a coalition to defend, only to attack. They'll form a coalition to attack, but not to defend. So what happens is the more aggressive troupe of chimpanzees wipes out the males of the rival troupe one by one because the rivals won't form a coalition to defend. And then they take over the territory, all the food resources of that territory, and the females. And now the aggressive troupe of chimpanzees is now bigger and stronger, and those genes will be passed on at a higher rate than the genes of the poor bastard who got beaten to death one by one. That's how Darwinism works, and that's why aggression exists in the world. There's a genetic reward for it.That's why we're here.And that's why we're here.And this is all God's plan.And then human culture. That's right. It's all God's plan. And human culture came up with this extraordinary thing. It's like, You know what, guys? We're all one thing. We're this tribe, we're that tribe. We have to fight to the last man to defend each other and defend our families, blah, blah, blah, because otherwise we're not going to make it because the fucking Vikings are coming over the ridge. So who's with me? Graveheart, whatever. There's endless stories about that heroism. We're all together. We'll die together if we have to, but we are all together. And that's a uniquely human trait.Yeah, it certainly is. And the problem is when you have a utopian perspective and you want everyone like, I'm not dangerous. I want the world to not be dangerous. The problem is the world is dangerous, and it's genetically dangerous. It's like it's always been dangerous. It's just this is what it is. And I think we're in this enormous process It's certainly much better to live today, at least it is here, than it would be during the time of Delsievsky. If you lived back then, you have less information. It's more dangerous. People have more control of people. They're crueler. It's more common. Things get better over time, but it's a slow, slow process.Yeah, that's right.And we're in the middle of it.That's right.And we look back and we say, Oh, those fools. But in the future, they're going to look back at us and say the same goddamn thing. The same way we look at Genghis Khan, they're going to look at us. Like, what the fuck did they do in Ukraine? What the fuck did Israel do in Gaza? What the fuck is going on in Sudan? What the fuck is going on in wherever? Fill in the blank. Anywhere in the world.Yeah, that's right. And there is some hope, like global alliances blunt some of this stuff. So there is a cultural evolution from the the ancestral origins of the species. Alliances do often stabilize things, which is great. That's a good thing. But again, Alliances can also precipitate conflict. So whatever.Yeah. It's a complex mixture of things happening. And I think, again, not to get too like, woo-woo spiritual, but I think that's a part of our journey. A part of our journey is navigating the good and evil. Right.These are real forces. That's right.Yeah.I will be killed publicly, executed like Dostoevsky almost was by my publisher if I don't say the name of my book. I know you don't want that to happen.Say it now. I definitely don't want you to get killed, especially after what you've been through. In my time of Dying: How I came face to Face with the idea of an Afterlife. All right, man. Well, listen, brother, it's always great to see you. I'm glad you're alive. Thank you. I really enjoy these conversations we've had.Me too, man. Me too. They're really wonderful. Thanks for having me on and having such a great long talk about all this stuff.My pleasure. Did you read the audiobook?I did. Yes.Good. Beautiful.So you got to listen to it on the treadmill.Yes, I will do that. Thank you very much, man. Thanks for being here. I appreciate you.My pleasure.All right. Bye, everybody.

them to death. And when they're shrieking in terror, their buddies in the rival troupe don't rush to their aid like humans would. They run away. That's the difference between chimpanzees and humans is the male, what's called the male coalition exists in chimpanzee society, but they don't run to the aid of their brothers when the chips are down. They save themselves individually. Humans don't do that. We will rush We will rush to help a brother who's in danger, as it were. Even at risk to our own lives, it's one of the few unique traits that humans have that other mammals don't.

Which is probably how we made it.

Yeah, Exactly. No, because we're better off in a group, even a group in a desperate situation. But chimpanzees, the rival troupe that's getting beaten to death one by one, eventually they're wiped out because they don't form a coalition to defend, only to attack. They'll form a coalition to attack, but not to defend. So what happens is the more aggressive troupe of chimpanzees wipes out the males of the rival troupe one by one because the rivals won't form a coalition to defend. And then they take over the territory, all the food resources of that territory, and the females. And now the aggressive troupe of chimpanzees is now bigger and stronger, and those genes will be passed on at a higher rate than the genes of the poor bastard who got beaten to death one by one. That's how Darwinism works, and that's why aggression exists in the world. There's a genetic reward for it.

That's why we're here.

And that's why we're here.

And this is all God's plan.

And then human culture. That's right. It's all God's plan. And human culture came up with this extraordinary thing. It's like, You know what, guys? We're all one thing. We're this tribe, we're that tribe. We have to fight to the last man to defend each other and defend our families, blah, blah, blah, because otherwise we're not going to make it because the fucking Vikings are coming over the ridge. So who's with me? Graveheart, whatever. There's endless stories about that heroism. We're all together. We'll die together if we have to, but we are all together. And that's a uniquely human trait.

Yeah, it certainly is. And the problem is when you have a utopian perspective and you want everyone like, I'm not dangerous. I want the world to not be dangerous. The problem is the world is dangerous, and it's genetically dangerous. It's like it's always been dangerous. It's just this is what it is. And I think we're in this enormous process It's certainly much better to live today, at least it is here, than it would be during the time of Delsievsky. If you lived back then, you have less information. It's more dangerous. People have more control of people. They're crueler. It's more common. Things get better over time, but it's a slow, slow process.

Yeah, that's right.

And we're in the middle of it.

That's right.

And we look back and we say, Oh, those fools. But in the future, they're going to look back at us and say the same goddamn thing. The same way we look at Genghis Khan, they're going to look at us. Like, what the fuck did they do in Ukraine? What the fuck did Israel do in Gaza? What the fuck is going on in Sudan? What the fuck is going on in wherever? Fill in the blank. Anywhere in the world.

Yeah, that's right. And there is some hope, like global alliances blunt some of this stuff. So there is a cultural evolution from the the ancestral origins of the species. Alliances do often stabilize things, which is great. That's a good thing. But again, Alliances can also precipitate conflict. So whatever.

Yeah. It's a complex mixture of things happening. And I think, again, not to get too like, woo-woo spiritual, but I think that's a part of our journey. A part of our journey is navigating the good and evil. Right.

These are real forces. That's right.

Yeah.

I will be killed publicly, executed like Dostoevsky almost was by my publisher if I don't say the name of my book. I know you don't want that to happen.

Say it now. I definitely don't want you to get killed, especially after what you've been through. In my time of Dying: How I came face to Face with the idea of an Afterlife. All right, man. Well, listen, brother, it's always great to see you. I'm glad you're alive. Thank you. I really enjoy these conversations we've had.

Me too, man. Me too. They're really wonderful. Thanks for having me on and having such a great long talk about all this stuff.

My pleasure. Did you read the audiobook?

I did. Yes.

Good. Beautiful.

So you got to listen to it on the treadmill.

Yes, I will do that. Thank you very much, man. Thanks for being here. I appreciate you.

My pleasure.

All right. Bye, everybody.