I Don't Know About That - Religion

Episode Date: June 15, 2021

In this episode, the team discusses religion with renowned writer, commentator, professor, Emmy-nominated producer, and scholar of religions, Reza Aslan. Follow Reza on Instagram and Twitter @RezaAslan. The Metaphysical Milkshake Podcast is out NOW with Reza and Rainn Wilson. Be sure to check them out on Youtube and wherever you listen to podcasts and follow them on Instagram @MetaphysicalMilkshake. Go to JimJefferies.com to buy tickets to Jim's upcoming tour, The Moist Tour.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Mices if there's several of them? The English language is ridiculous I don't know about that With me I don't know, that was short notice That one, Jack just pressed play And I had to fucking say something But wait, you think meese is the plural?

I hate those meeses to pieces. Meece and mice. What's the plural? Mouse, mice. No, I would say meese like an English person would say meese. Well, you'd be wrong. They don't say meese. Yeah, they don't.

I hate these meeses to pieces. I think you're thinking of Reese's Pieces. I think you're thinking of candy, yeah. Meeces Pieces. It's different pieces of mice Reese's Mises Yeah, yeah Yeah, no, I think you're wrong

What's the plural of niece? Nieces No, it's nice Oh Niece No, it'd be nows Nows? That'd be the singular

So what's the plural of nephew? Nephews. New. New. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A new. A nephew. You learned something on the show.

Not much. We're about to go up to San Diego, aren't we? We've already done the gigs. This is a pre-recorded thing. We just got back from San Diego. Yeah, how did it go? Pretty good. How did it go?

We did good. I've got a lot of jokes to remember. I've got to get ready for this Australian tour. I think this Australian tour has the potential of being my best ever show, but the jokes aren't fucking road tested yet. So it's all in the air. Who knows? Who knows?

But people are coming. I'm ready to go. I'm ready to go. Well, this is also the precursor to your American tour. The American tour? We've been toying. By now, we've already named the tour. but let's go through some of the tour names. Because I wanted to call the tour Son of a Carpenter, but my agents and management said

no, and I am the Son of a Carpenter. It's a Jesus reference, of course. And I thought that was a nice name. They go, it doesn't excite. Now, I don't believe in naming tours. I think it's silly because my fastest selling tour is the one that we're about to do in Australia and the name of that tour is Australian Tour 2021.

Clever. Exciting. It didn't turn off a single person because when they wanted me to name the tour, I had my phone. About once a week, I'd turn my phone off for 24 hours just for fun, just to connect with my family and whatnot. And that day, they needed a name for the tour and I had my phone off. So Australian Tour 2021.

Tells people what they're getting. Says what it does on the tin. Yeah. And so that sold really well. And now I've got my new tour coming out in America. We had the Oblivious Tour, which never really happened. It was four gigs in the Oblivious Tour. Oblivious, forgot about that. Oblivious is a good name really happened. It was four gigs in the Oblivious Tour. Oblivious is

a good name for a tour or a rollercoaster. What were the other tour names? Night Talker? Night Talker, Day Streaming, we had Cruel and Unusual Punishment, we had I don't know, I just, I literally come up with these names very, very quickly. Oh, the Funny Gun Tour.

Yeah, the Funny Gun Fun Tour., the Funny Gun. Gunny Gun Fun Tour. Yeah, Gun Gun. That was a good one. Anyway, so the problem is naming tours, often you name the tours before you've written the show. So you don't want it to have anything. I always like my special. So Intolerant was basically the Night Talker tour,

but then that joke evolved with Intolerance, and then for the special, you call it intolerant. You know, it's just how you do it. I like the names of my specials, but my tour names have always been a bit weak, right? Because you have to, it's always somewhat, this is everything in Hollywood. We have months and months to prepare. We need something now! Yeah, they do always say that.

This is how movies are developed in Hollywood. The scripts in development for two years, it goes over different, it has a hundred different rewrites. And then the auditions are, are you free for Sunday? But it's Monday. I meant yesterday. Are you free for yesterday? Right?

So I woke up to a text message from my manager that just went like this. We need to name the tour today. Poster's going up. Four hours. So I gave them some option. Now, I wanted to call it Son of a Carpenter. I guess it isn't catchy. I can't remember.

And then I had a few other, and then they were like, why don't you call it 418, like the April 18th joke? Then they said, how about Son of Gunter? I'm like, I'm not fat shaming my mum after she's dead. That was something I did when she was alive. And then, yeah, I'm respectful of the dead. And so I thought to myself, well, so these are the names that we came up with.

Now, this is the one it's probably called by now. I don't know. Moist. I've just decided to call the tour Moist. It's the least popular word in the English language There's another word in Chinese Which is even worse But I can't pronounce it

But moist It sends chills down people's spines for some reason And there's been a bit of debate Because you can't call the tour cunt Which is what we want to call it And also I think the merchandise Just having t-shirts that say moist On them is going to

upset a lot of folks. You buy yourself a moist T-shirt all day. Sounds comfortable. Yeah, yeah. You just wear it moist, work out in it. Work out in it. When you're dripping in sweat, just go moist. Because it'll be Jim Jefferies' moist tour.

I'm just going to keep smoking weed until you guys stop. I don't believe it. I'm not going to gussy up your shirt with a picture of me. Just have the word moist in the front, and then Jim Jefferies written on the back, and maybe the tour date. So when you wear a leather jacket, it just says moist. Why do people hate the word, though?

It's like a positive word. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Kelly hates it. Explain. Yeah. It's just gross sounding. Do you like your food dry? I don't talk about food in those terms,

but it's just like moisture is gross. Moisture reminds me of sweat and humidity. Moist cake, yeah. What about moist cake? I don't call it moist cake. What do you call it? I don't even really eat cake. Oh, shit.

That's a good way to avoid it. How do you like your vaginas? Not yours, just regular ones. Gushing. Gushing's a good name for a tour. Yeah, there you go. I ran off forest and one of the options was Squirt. Yeah.

No, we're the other option. Wait, wait, wait. Okay, no, but the three we got down to that we gave. So one option was called Godfrey Nugent, which my real name is Geoffrey Nugent, and I changed my name to Jim Jefferies because the first time I went on stage, the MC went, please, welcome to the stage, Godfrey Nugent. And I thought, I've got to fix this.

This is not going to fucking work. So Godfrey Nugent was the name of, I've got to fix this. This is not going to fucking work. So Godfrey Nugget was the name of the tour, but I think it's a bit too cryptic or whatever. So we're not going with Godfrey Nugget. And then this is the one that I like, poo on a stick. Yeah, I mean. The poo on a stick tour. Everybody has a bit in their life where someone's fucking got a bit of poo

on a stick and shaked it at them. What? No. You've never been to a school yard. Universal experience. life where someone's fucking got a bit of poo on a stick and shaked it at him what uh no get a bit of dog shit on a stick and go you like that no i didn't know that's why you wanted that name no but it's also funny to say poo on a stick tour if you just call it the poos uh tour that's not fun that's childish speaking of merchandising to, two poo on a stick. You can sell poo on actual sticks? Yeah. At the concession stand? It's got to be signed.

I have a Coke, a beer, and two poos on a stick. Poos on a stick sounds like a good cocktail. I meant like it's like a kebab. It's like a chocolate-covered pretzel or something. There you go. When we were talking about jarring our own farts, we could also sell our own poo on a stick.

Poo on a stick. Well, it wouldn't be my poo. It's everybody's poo. It's obviously Jack's poo. We could go dog poo on a stick. Make it more specific. We need some merchandise for the show, remember? Poo on a stick.

If we're not going to do the tour, we get poo on a stick for the show. Poo on a stick. I don't know about that. I don't know. So one of those names did become the front runner and has won, or we've named it something else. But it's funny when you're talking to suits

you know and I like these people very much they've managed me for years you talk to them and then you're like hey I've got an idea

moist and then you say it down the phone and you just wait and you hear the silence and they do this one yeah yeah

yeah yeah yeah writing it down and it's like it's like you feel like going I'm the talent here

I'm the do you know who I am feel like going, I'm the talent here. Do you know who I am? I'm the creative one. Listen to me being creative. Poo on a stick. Trust me, it'll land. Is that funny? It's not meant to be funny.

It's meant to make people think. Poo on a stick. I actually kind of like it. It's grilling on me. Poo on a stick will. But is moist the front runner grilling on me poo on a stick will but is Moist the front runner right now I think Moist is one I think Moist is one

I got a text message from my manager I got two managers and the other one Tim and I got a tour manager called Nick and they went he sent me back

a text message and I was like so how did it go because I told Alex and he goes I got messages back from Tim I got Tim and Nick.

They don't like any of the names, but Moist is their favorite of the lot. Oh, you know, by the way, I just realized when this podcast

is coming out, your tour has long been named since this podcast. We've been back from San Diego for weeks. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, no, no, it's not going to be called that in San Diego. San Diego is just some warm-up games. I know what you said. This is like, I think you're in Australia right now. Yeah, poo on a stick. I think you're on your Australia tour right now.

To people, if you're a real fan, even if it's called something else, you call it the poo on a stick tour. Yes, absolutely. Bring your own shirts. Bring your own sticks. We'll have the poo. Then I can let sticks through security.

That's true. That's a good point. We'll have the poo. Then I can let sticks through security. That's true. That's a good point. You can't get a poo through security. All right, we'll have the sticks and you bring the poo. All right, Jack, what do you got first? All right, this game of the day is called I Don't Know. I don't know what the title is. I Still Don't Know About This?

I Still Don't Know About That. I've never gotten this question right. It's one question you haven't gotten right any time I've asked you about it. So I Still Don't Know About That. All right, question one. I Still Don't Know About That. I Still Don So I still don't know about that. Alright, question one. I still don't know about that. I still don't know about that and never will. And I never will. Question one.

What is the name of the oldest known bird? Oh, um... It was Joan Rivers. Yeah, she died. Council! Council! Yeah, I want to say Kathy Gripton. No, that's mean.

I was just thinking about the female comics. I don't know, Jack, and I'm never going to recall this. I'm never going to know. It's an atrium. Atrium. The Archaeopteryx. Archaeopteryx. Very good.

Which I just said it like 15 minutes ago and Jack scolded me I know what the fuck what the fuck you ruined it I've been saying

two weeks on this and I was like he's still not going to remember it I don't yeah I've forgotten it now you said it I can't remember it

question two what is the fossil that's the link between birds and dinosaurs Joan Rivers couldn't be the answer for both questions What is the fossil that's the link between birds and dinosaurs? Joan Rivers couldn't be the answer for both questions. I'm going to go Joan Rivers for $100.

It's the Archaeopteryx. Oh, wow. Where have we heard that before? Now, question three. What was the answer to the last question? Archaeopteryx. Close. Archaeopteryx. Archaeopteryx. Archaeopteryx. Close. Archaeopteryx.

Archaeopteryx. Archaeopteryx. I can't say that word. Okay, here's one. I got one. Yeah. This is unplanned, but there's another question that we've asked several different times, different ways.

Which president started the war on drugs? I got this one right. It was Nixon. No, you got it wrong several times. No, I got it wrong the last time we did it. The third time. All right. Is it Nixon?

Yeah, it's Nixon. All right. That ends. I still know that and never will. One year in and he learned one thing. One thing. All right. Let's start this show, you people. I'll do some ads.

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pre-made sauces, sauces that are already made, dressings, and spices. The spices probably just come as they are. Or they could be pre-made and mixed together into a spice mix. Oh, my God. They are sometimes, yeah. Okay, so pre-made spices. Go into a spice mix. Oh, my God. They are sometimes, yeah. Okay, so pre-made spices. Go to greenchef.com slash 90, I don't know, and use the code 90,

I don't know, to get, I don't know, probably to get $90 off, including free shipping. Oh, wait a minute. My reading's not great, but I have to check this again. It says it. It says it. It says it. Must be a typo. I'd snap this up, people.

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Hi. All right. Now it's time to play. Yes, no. Yes, no. Yes, no. Yes, no. Judging a book by its cover.

All right. Okay. So I got to guess what your specialty is. You have a thing in the back that says zealot. Oh, shit. That's okay. That's okay. That's okay.

A few books on mythology. I'm going to say that I think that maybe your specialty is atheism. Close. It's in the realm. Okay, so you deal in religion, correct? That's it. That's it. Religion.

Yeah. All right, there we go. Figured that one out. Well, I mean, you had some hints. It's okay, Reza. That's how you do it, though. Reza Aslan is a renowned writer, commentator, professor, Emmy-nominated producer, and scholar of religions. A recipient of the prestigious James Joyce Award, Aslan is the author of three internationally best-selling books, including the number one New York Times bestseller.

The Bible. No. Sell it. You haven't seen it yet. I wish. The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth. His producing credits include the acclaimed HBO drama, The Leftovers. Love that show.

And the CBS sitcom, United States of Al. He is the host and executive producer of two documentary series, Rough Draft with Reza Aslan and Believer. And Aslan is a professor of creative writing at the University of California, Riverside. And he has a new podcast that will be out now called Metaphysical Milkshake. And your co-host is Rainn Wilson. Is that correct?

Rainn Wilson. We love The Office. Who doesn't love Rainn Wilson? He was in one of the classic sitcoms of our day and age, Friends. I liked it. What was that show that you just did on, uh, on, uh, Amazon prime about the cult and all that type of stuff. Utopia. I liked Utopia.

He was, he was great. And he was great. And you told me that was one of my, uh, that was one of my COVID watches. Can you tell us a little bit more about metaphysical milkshake, the podcast? Uh, rain and I have always we've been friends for a long time and we always used to you know get together and have lunch and uh you know talk about like existential issues religion philosophy the meaning of life is there free will we'd had these like you know fascinating conversations and then one day we just realized we should get paid for this and so um yeah we we decided to do this podcast where it's the same thing.

Every episode is sort of a big, you know, life's question. You know, what happens after we die? And, you know, what is race? And, you know, do we have a soul? And, you know, and then we kind of talk about it ourselves and then we bring on an expert to kind of help us. When you're talking to Rain about these things, does he start it like this?

Question. Question. What happens when we die? It's all in confessional. Okay. Well, great. So subscribe to that podcast everywhere that you can subscribe to podcasts. I also have a YouTube channel, Metaphysical Milkshake is the name of it.

So I'm going to ask Jim everything he thinks he knows about religion. Right. And I've got some questions here, too, to help him along. And then at the end of it, Reza, you're going to grade him on accuracy, zero through 10, 10 being the most accurate. Kelly's going to grade him on confidence. I'm ready. Zero through 10, I'm going to grade him on et cetera.

We'll add all those scores together. 21 through 30, Jesus of Nazareth. That's a good big. 11 through 20, Jesus of Can those scores together. 21 through 30, Jesus of Nazareth. That's a good big. 11 through 20, Jesus of Cancun. And 0 through 10, Jesus of Boise. That's not a good one. You don't want to be that one. How about Kraft Jesus?

Okay. Kraft Jesus. What's religion? Religion is organized beliefs normally to do in a mythical character that looks over you, a god, a belief in a god that looks over you that somehow controls your life or whatever. But not all religions have that. Most religions have a heaven and a hell because they need to work

on a reward system where they need to go, oh, you get to go to heaven if you're good and you don't if you're bad and all that type of stuff. But mostly it's philosophies, short stories, and it's rules to live your life by in an organized sense. Okay, how many religions are there? Oh, God, it's got to be more than two. Great start. Yeah, so more than two is a correct answer.

It is. But I would say in the world, okay, so major religions, major like the major religions is probably like about ten, like the top ten ones, you know what I mean, the big ones. Oh, yeah, sure. And then minor religion, but then there's like Christianity has so many branches coming off it of different religions.

You know, you've got your Catholics, you've got the other ones that aren't. Protestants. The Protestants, you've got your Church of England. That's the one that I'm in. Baptist. I'm a Baptist. The ones who hold the snakes. Yeah, the snake ones.

They're all there. And then like, you know, you've got different sort of fractions off from the Indian religions and stuff like that. So I'd say there's 10 main ones and then they have a lot of fractions off from the Indian religions and stuff like that. So I'd say there's 10 main ones, and then they have a lot of branches off. And then you have your Scientologies of the world that just sort of swoop in and go, oh, we've started one up as well. So you haven't answered it. No, no.

So I'm going to say in the world that have more than 300 people practicing it, I'm going to say there's 80 religions in the world. It might be fucking thousands but maybe now you keep saying 10 major ones but what are the big five world religions

there's five but consider probably the top five alright they all involve hats first of all your big five you got your Christians

yep you got your Muslims you got your Jews Hindu yeah Christian Hindu Muslims. Uh-huh. You got your Jews. Uh-huh. Hindu. Yeah. Christian, Muslim, Hindu. And then.

Doing good. You're almost there. Yeah. Sikhs. Sikhs is a four. Okay. Pretty big one. Yeah, I know.

It's on the tip of my tongue. So Christians, Jews, Muslims. Yeah. Hindu. Hindus. It's a big one, is it? Yeah, this is the five big ones. I know, I'm trying to think of it.

There's a lot of people that practice. Oh, Buddhism. There you go. Okay, yeah. And just quick, like one sentence, basic beliefs. Basic Christianity. Christianity. They believe in the Ten Commandments. They believe that Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior.

They believe in the Old and the New Testament. That was three sentences. Okay. Muslims. Muslims, they believe in the Prophet Muhammad and they have a book called the Quran, not the Bible, and they mostly practice throughout the Middle East. Jim's done a lot of comedy

on religion, so I feel like you would know a lot about religion just based on yes uh jews jewish people jewish people they only believe in the old testament uh they uh don't believe in jesus christ where i will say the muslims do believe in jesus christ they believe he's a prophet but they don't believe that he is the he is the be all and end all okay um but the the jews they believe in the old testament um and there's different branches acidic jews and all jews but they they believe in the Old Testament, and there's different branches, Ascetic Jews and normal Jews, but they're basically just the Old Testament. What about Hindus?

Hindus, they – I think I'm going to fuck this up. The big ones for them is they're mostly from India. They believe in – they don't cut their hair. I'm a Sikh, so I don't cut my hair. What God? They don't. That's their belief system is no offense. If I fuck that, I think there's a blue elephant with a few arms

rocking out with that one. What's his name or her name? I don't know his name or her name. Bob. Yeah, yeah. But anyway, so they also don't eat cows. Buddhism? What's going on there? They believe in Buddha. Yeah, that. But anyway, so they also don't eat cows. Buddhism? What's going on there?

They believe in Buddha. Yeah, that's easy. Yeah, Buddha's just a fat prick who fucking sits around all day. You should see him on Venice Beach with a fucking bongo, old Buddha. But Buddha's, I believe they believe in reincarnation where everything else that I've mentioned has a heaven and a hell, except for Judaism, which does not have hell. They don't acknowledge hell.

They just have heaven. Okay. I was going to ask you what religions believe in reincarnation. Yeah. So the Buddhists believe in reincarnation. And that's for the most part. Well, I think for the whole part, they're all vegetarian. They won't eat anyone else because it might be their grandmother or something.

This is such a broad subject. We're going to do a few more questions, but I feel like the conversation we'll talk about a lot. What is the most followed religion today worldwide? How many believers? What is the number one? I'd have to, I would, I'm going to take a pun on Christianity. Christianity? Yeah.

But there's a few, I know it's not Judaism because there's not enough of them to actually qualify. I think there's only about 20 million Jews or thereabouts on earth. So that can't be that one. But it's still not the rest of the population. And I know that, I don't believe it's, it might be Hindu and it might be Muslim.

Those three are the thing. I don't know the answer. My guess might be Hindu and it might be Muslim. Those three are the thing. I don't know the answer. My guess would be Muslim. Yeah, maybe Muslim. I have a friend of a friend who's super Christian. They've got loads of kids and like eight kids in the family. And he says, we got to keep producing kids because the Muslims are producing people faster than we are. Oh, my God.

And we need to be able to compete. And I'm like, you environmental fucking disaster. You're doing it to build an army. And oh my God. Uh, what is the oldest religion? Uh,

the oldest religion. Um, I'm going to say Buddhism out of the top five is the oldest. Okay. And then what does monotheistic mean? Mono meaning one. Yes. Theology meaning religion.

That is, say the word again. Monotheistic. I think that's how you pronounce it. That's right. Monotheistic. I believe that's a person who believes in one God. And what main religions are those person who believes in one God. And what main religions are those? Christianity believes in one God.

Yeah. What about the big five? How many of the big five? I think the Hindus don't believe in one God. I think they've got a few different gods rocking out there. What about Muslims? If you've watched that alien show where they build things. What was you saying?

Muslims. Muslims. Muslims. Well, they believe in Muhammad and Allah as their big thing, but I think they have several different prophets and stuff like that. Okay. So I want to say Christians and not Hindus, Christians and Jews, mono, believe in one God. Okay. Here's one.

Name the places of worship for the five big religions. Okay, so in Christianity, you have churches, but in that you also have mega churches, the Crystal Cathedral from the Hour of Power, which is a big one. That's not fun. I used to watch that coming down from drugs like at 6 in the morning when I couldn't sleep.

And then that fucking cunt on the hour of power used to come on and tell me I was going to burn in hell and the sun was coming up. That was some tough mornings. All right, what about it? Okay, so the Muslims have fucking what? We all know this one. Everyone hates them. Like racists go, oh, they can't build that in my town.

Yeah, I know. I know what it is. What's it called? Yeah. Mosque. Yeah, there you go. Mosque. The Jews have temple, synagogue.

Yeah. I don't know what the Hindus have. The Buddhists have temples. Okay. Temples, temples, mosque, church. Don't know. Okay. All right. And then you know what an atheism is? You know what an hindus have the buddha the buddhists have temples okay temples temples mosque church don't know okay yeah all right and then you know what an atheism is you know what i know what an atheist is there shouldn't be a word versus agnostic there shouldn't be a word for atheism oh wait what about agnostic versus okay atheists are people who do not believe in god agnostic

people who um don't know what to believe they believe their mate might be a God, there might not be a God. They believe in the option that there may be a God, but they are undecided because most of the time they haven't seen proof. All right, and what is the difference between a cult and a religion? About fucking 200 years. Rasa, Rasa, give me your thumbs up. That was a great answer. Did you already have that in your head?

That's pretty good. I think he does know about this, guys. One last question. What percentage of people have no religious affiliation? According to, you know, I'm sure there's plenty of polls. I think worldwide, but maybe 20%. 20%. Okay.

All right, Reza, thanks for waiting there. On a scale of zero to 10, 10 being the best, how did Jim do on his... Dude, Jim did really, really well. Yeah. Honestly. It's between... Okay, if we're talking 0 to 10, I'm going to give him a 7.5. All right.

That's pretty good. But partly that has to do with the fact that, you know, a lot of these questions, like religion itself, the answer is, it depends. Honestly, if you just started every answer with, it depends. It would have been much higher, like a nine and a half. Oh, I answered too confidently. Don't worry, I'll make it up for you on your confidence score. You got an 11 That's 18.5

I really want you to be Jesus Cancun So I'm going to give you a 0.5 Alright That's a fun place to be I was very impressed by that though I know you know a lot about religion It was impressive So yeah I know Jim did well

But we still want to talk about it. So religion, Jim said organized beliefs normally do with a mythical character, God that looks over your philosophy, short stories. I mean, is that the basic gist of it or how would you define it, religion, just as a whole? This is the God honest truth. No one knows. I mean, I know it sounds like like but i'm being absolutely serious there is literally like i i am a scholar in a field that has no definition there is literally no universally recognized

definition for religion i mean you can't say that it's belief in gods or the supernatural because lots of religions don't believe. Jainism doesn't have a god. Some forms of Buddhism don't have a god of any kind. So you can't say it's about belief in God. You can say, okay, well, what if it's like, you know, striving towards some kind of transcendent experience? Okay, yeah, but you can get that climbing a mountain, you know? Is mountain climbing a religion?

Kind of, yeah, for some people. Then you're like, okay, well, oh, maybe if it's organized. What if it's like an organized group of people who take part in a common ritual, like a football game? Because that can be a fucking religion.

Here is the truth. Religion can literally be anything. Literally can be anything. And so we don't know. Every scholar has their own kind of understanding of what religion is. is that a language made up of symbols and metaphors that allow a community to communicate with each other the sort of ineffable experience of life, of existence, right? That it's just a language like any other language. I believe that the biggest get-out-of-jail-free card for religion is the word faith. Yeah. You go, but why? Faith, just have faith. Yeah. You go, but why faith? Just have faith.

I can't even do that with my son, but why dad? Ah, just believe me. Not a lot of quarters. That's a really good point. Cause like faith is, faith is mysterious. It's individualistic, you know, uh, it it's it's experiential and religion is the language that we use to express faith right but that's all it is just a language right yeah there was a hot girl my school called faith oh yeah yeah faith is good name yeah yeah And you believed it when you saw it. How many religions are there in the world? Jim said more than two. And he said 300 people or more, 80 religions?

I gave him full points for more than two. The answer is infinite. The answer is infinite. Because even if what you're saying is that religion is organized belief in the supernatural, which it isn't, even with that definition, there's too many to count. But of course, if you recognize that religion can really be almost anything, then you just throw your hands up. You're like, all right like alright well I guess the number is infinite yeah because I've met people too where it's like I found God and I'm like so what does that mean they're like God is everywhere God is me and I'm like wait what

what's going on so I guess that counts as religion too or religious experience the bloody born agains and all that type of stuff it's like I don't even know what that means I'm a born again Christian just be one of them I don't know what that means either. What does that mean? You're born again and now you're found.

So do you want to know? Yeah, sure. All right. Well, so the concept of born again is an evangelical concept. Evangelicals is a form of Protestant Christianity that arose about 150 years ago. At the core of evangelical belief is twofold. One, that scripture, the Bible, is literal and inerrant. That means that you have to read it literally, like there's no figurative aspect to it. Like if the Bible says that, you know, so-and-so lassoed the sun, he literally lassoed the fucking sun.

Right. the son. He literally lassoed the fucking son. And it's inerrant, which means that if it's God breathed, that there can be no mistakes in the scripture, despite the fact that it's full of errors and contradictions. The second aspect of evangelical belief is that all that is needed for salvation isn't good works or, you know, belonging to a particular church or like baptism or all of that stuff. The only thing that you need to be saved is to believe in Jesus as your Savior. And the act of believing in Jesus as your Savior allows you to die to your old self and to be reborn again into eternal life. And so they refer to themselves as born again. Is there a ceremony when you're born again?

Or do you just do it at home one day while you're watching fucking the television? You can really, you can do whatever. Yeah, you can kind of do it anywhere. Halfway through a week. It happens in church. Why are you so sweaty? I was born again. Yeah.

It usually involves tears. Your wife comes in, why are you covered in bodily fluids? Why are you so moist? Ah, born again. Yeah, it's interesting you say that because we, Jim, I went with Jim to Indonesia. We did shows there. We did a show in Jakarta and that's like it's all Muslim

I think that's the largest city of I think it's like 60 million largest Muslim country in the world in Asia no no no

Indonesia but that's just one island though because then we went to a show in Bali which is the same country and that's all Hindu and then when I was in Bali I'm like oh

they were speaking a different language and I go oh how many languages are Indonesia and then this guy told me there's like 260 I was in Bali, I'm like, oh, they were speaking a different language. And I go, oh, how many languages are Indonesia? And then this guy told me, there's like 260. I was like, what? And so I imagine on each individual island,

then there could be these variants of religion. And that's like the fourth or fifth most populous country in the world. So there's just millions of people. Oh, I remember my first, because I grew up Christian, not heavily Christian. You know, my parents, my mother believed in God. I just never bothered asking my father until about 10 years ago. I parents, my mother believed in God. I just never bothered asking my father until about 10 years ago. I said, dad, do you believe in God? And he just sort of went, nah, don't worry about that rubbish. And my mom said she believed in it,

but I think she was just hedging her bets for when she died. But we didn't grow up super religious, but we grew up Church of England Christian. you know, and the first step I had towards atheism was when you get that first realisation that you're like, oh, so I'm Christian, I'm Church of England because I was born in Sydney, Australia, and that's the predominant, you know what I mean? Like, so if I was born in Iraq, I'd probably be Muslim. It's like there's really luck of the draw whether you get to heaven or hell.

You've got to be born in the right place at the right time to the right parents. Otherwise, sucker dick, you're going to hell. You know what I mean? So it's like for me, when you start to realize that, you're like, oh, it's all just little tribes. It's wherever you are. And then you can start to critically think these things.

They have to send out, what do they call these things where they send people to Africa and all that type of stuff? Mission. Missionaries. They've got to send them out to different countries to teach them about Christianity. It's like, well, that doesn't seem fair that they're both poor and living in poverty and they don't know about the right God.

So I asked Jim what the five major ones said, Christianity, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhism. I think that's right. And then maybe we can talk a little about each of those. Christianity, you said Ten Commandments, Jesus Christ. Ten Commandments, Jesus Christ, Bible, Old and New Testament. And a lot of damnation and

all that type of stuff. Anything we're missing in Christianity? Again, it depends. So yeah, okay, Jim's absolutely right. When you refer to sort of the big five, and this isn't necessarily based on sort of numbers of believers, it's just kind of like the five major religions in the world. Yes, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism.

But the problem is that we pretend that those five religions are somehow singular or unified. There are thousands of different kinds of Christianity. Obviously, there are the two major branches, Catholicism and Protestantism. But even within Catholics and Protestants, there are half a dozen Catholic churches, Catholic religions. They all hate each other. And there's probably a thousand Protestant sects and they all hate each other. And they share wildly different beliefs.

Same with Islam. Yeah, there's two major branches, the Shia and the Sunni. But again, within the Shia, there's like four different kinds of Shia that you could be, and they all hate each other. Within the Sunni, there are like another half a dozen different kinds of Sunni that you can be, and they all think the other one is wrong. Hinduism, Hinduism is not actually a religion. There is literally no such thing as Hinduism. Hinduism is a word that a bunch of British colonialists gave to the almost infinite variety of religions in India. You know, all these white people showed up in India and they saw people worshipping different gods and doing different things. And I don't know, it all kind of looked the same and they're all the same color. So they just called it Hinduism. Hind is just the Persian word for India so Hinduism just means Indianism. Well I'm gonna stop saying that at party. But I mean that's that's the funny thing

about it so then you know they said well this guy worships Ganesha this guy worships Vishnu that guy over there worships Shiva yeah Ganeshaanesha. And so, it all kind of looks the same. So, we're just going to all call it the same thing. And then the same thing with Buddhism, you know, there are many, many different kinds of Buddhism. It also comes in two major strands, the Mahayana and the Theravada. Theravada doesn't believe in any kind of divinity or any divine God whatsoever or any kind of real supernatural element whatsoever. And Mahayana tends to think of the Buddha almost as a person of worship.

So yeah, those are the big five, but we pretend that all Buddhists believe the same thing or all Hindus believe the same or all Christians or all Muslims believe the same thing. They don't. It's nonsense. When I was in India, I was doing some shows out there, and I went out there, and I was trying to be super respectful. You know, you're in someone else's country and all that sort of stuff.

And we were in a restaurant, and I was like, well, you know, I'd really like some beef, but I know you guys don't eat cows. And the guy's like, no, we eat cows. Few people don't eat them, you know what I mean? And he's like, get this man some beef. And over he came and I was like, ah, that stereotype of, oh, no, they don't eat cows. A portion of them don't.

In LA, you probably have more people who don't eat cows, fucking eating vegan shit. When I went to India, I was there for like 17 days and there was one restaurant at our hotel that served beef and so i would get steak every night and then like the third to last night we were there they're like we were out i'm like did i eat an entire cow you're like was there one cow for this whole place and i had all of it and it was delicious well they took good care of it. Yeah, exactly. So just to be clear, though, so the religion is Islam and then Muslims practice. Oh, yeah. Islam.

Because I would have gotten that wrong, too. Judaism is, yeah. Yeah. And you know, because I know it is interesting that you say depends, and there's all these different answers. When I went to Jerusalem, and I know I didn't go there with you, but I went on the tour. I'm like, this is where Jesus came out of the cave,

and this is where they put him. And there's this whole area. I walk out of that tour, and then I walk into the old city, and they're like, and this is where Jesus did the same stuff. And I'm like, wait a second. They just told me over there it happened like a half a mile away. When you're in Israel, they show you that's the cave where Jesus was and then like literally 50 meters they go, that's where the cross was.

Yep. And also I did the walk that Jesus meant to do with the cross on his back and up the hill. I've seen it depicted in so many films. I did that walk. Eh, not that hard. Not that hard of a walk. Now, I didn't have a cross on my back, but I had a backpack,

and it had a laptop in it. Like, it wasn't nothing. And you have emotional baggage. And I had shoes on, of course. And you're not the son of God. But the way they depict it. He is the son of a carpenter, though. The way they depict it with this whole, like, oh, Jesus.

This is what I never understood about Jesus. I think he was being whipped. Yeah, he was whipped. I love that. I love that they always go, oh, Jesus. This is what I never understood about Jesus. I think he was being whipped. Yeah, he was whipped. I love that. I love that they always go, oh, he was whipped. And then they put nails through his hands. They've proven that it should be the wrist because the hands would break or whatever.

They put nails through his feet, nails through his hands. And then they always go, and then they put a crown of thorns on his head. Ooh, you've already got nails in your fucking hands, mate. Oh, Jesus, hat's a bit prickly. No problem. You can thorn me up all day. I've got bigger problems.

Well, when he's on the cross, he complains about being thirsty. Yeah, yeah. I was like, yeah, there's a lot more wrong. Jesus could be a whinging bitch. He's always like, oh, father, I'm a bit parched. They know not what they've done. Hey, I'll ask you a question first. Let's see if you know something here, right?

So I'm Church of England. So the Pope is the head of the Catholicism. Who's the head of the Church of England? Oh, I don't know. Who's our religious leader? Benny Hill. Ah, you got anyone? It's the oh okay that's right i like that's why the church of england is is the most laxed fucking religion you can be in the heads of our church like so catholicism

they're all bloody pedophiles and that type of stuff you heard me yeah i said it anyway but then like church of england we've got a family that's in charge of it like having adultery and bumping off women in paris well and and no matter what religion you are if you're a citizen of the uk you have to pay money to the church of england yeah that's why that's why america exists because we were like fuck that we're not paying we're not we're not going to pay money to a church that we don't belong to so that's why in the united states we don't we have the anti establishment clause we're not allowed to have an established church that we pay taxes to but they don't pay taxes they don't pay that pisses me off every day yeah every day it pisses

me off and like i watched that scientology documentary and I saw how they go after people. So I'd like to say, you're all right by me. Reza, yeah. So I'm going back to the Jerusalem thing. I'm assuming you've been there as a religious scholar. But so what is that? How do they have two different? So they're just guessing where all that stuff happened? And it's a Taurus kind of thing or?

So, okay. Well, here's the the two-minute version of it which is that uh it used to be very illegal to be a christian um you know under the roman empire and then uh this dude named constantine uh in order to win a civil war to become the new emperor of rome uh decided that he was going to become a Christian so that he could get all this kind of Christian support, though he had no idea what Christianity was. He thought Christians worship the sun and he was like, that's cool, I'm Christian. And then he won, he became the emperor. And the first thing that he did is he made Christianity

no longer illegal. And they were like, well, we should go to Jerusalem because that's where Jesus is from. And so he sent his mom, literally, his mom to Jerusalem. His mom showed up and Jerusalem is like just like shitty backwater. And she was like, well, this won't do. So the Roman Empire essentially paid to kind of fix up Jerusalem. And then it was very important for them to say, okay, so if we're all going to believe in this, you know, Jewish carpenter who's now God, let's get our story straight, right? So, this is where he was crucified. Let's build a church there.

And now this is where pilgrims will go. And they'll obviously pay a little bit of money, you know, in order to get in. Well, if he was crucified, this is his tomb over here. And so, they just built these things. They basically Disney-fied it. You know, they were like, that's where he said this thing. And that's where this thing happened and it was all designed to be able to say, if this religion is going to now become the official religion of the largest, most powerful

empire on the planet, we should have a very clear understanding about who this guy was, where he was born, where he died. So it was all basically for propaganda reasons. Yeah. The story is very unbelievable. One of the for propaganda reasons yeah the story is very unbelievable one of the most unbelievable things about the story is a jewish carpenter never met one of them in construction i'm like you're trying to make me believe that bullshit so interesting factoid all right i know we're not at the interesting factoid. All right. I know we're not at the interesting factoid. Sure, sure.

We're here to learn. We call Jesus a carpenter, but that's not exactly right. So the Bible calls him a tecton. And tecton can mean woodworker. It can mean that. But what it really means is artisan or day laborer. So, what a tecton was, first of all, a tecton was like the poorest of the poor, like the absolute indigent poor. Jesus was illiterate, uneducated. He probably had like one pair of sandals and one cloak for his entire life.

He lived with his entire family in a tiny one room house with the animals, you know, with him. I mean, a tecton, a tecton is so poor that the Romans use the word tecton as a curse word. Like they would be like, don't be such a fucking tecton. You know, like that's, that's how poor he was. These fucking tectons that come over here, they don't work. how poor he was. Oh, these fucking tectons that come over here, they don't work. Exactly. So a tecton basically went from village to village looking for things to build.

Like, do you need, anybody need a new roof? I can build a new roof. So the way that I always describe it is that if you truly want to know what Jesus did, go to Home Depot. See those Mexicans standing outside asking for work? That was Jesus. Carpenter makes him sound like he's some kind of middle-class businessman. I thought he was making French cabinets. Like at his own shop.

Here's an island with a countertop, if you like that. So this thing you were talking about, like they said, this is Jerusalem, this is where Jesus is from. Now tell me if I get the timeline wrong on Jesus's life, because I believe he was only in Jerusalem for like a couple of weeks before he died. Cause he went over there just to give a few chats and sort of wanted to know what was going on. And then they found out. Yeah.

So before that he was, he was from Nazareth. He had to go to Bethlehem because of the census. Then he was born in Bethlehem. He moved back to Nazareth. I'm wrong already. Where did he live in between? I mean, that's what the Bible says, but it's absolute bullshit. Right. Oh, I'm only going to tell the bullshit version. I'm not going to... Okay, so he goes to Bethlehem. Then he's out. Now, he lived to be 33, I believe, right?

He didn't do any God activity until he was 30, right? He did that one thing where he walked into the church and told some people off when he was like a teenager, right? And so up until then, he was working as a tecton. He was at the front of Home Depot going, I can build you anything you want. You need crosses? I'll go make crosses.

So he did all that. Why did he do nothing? He must have known that his mother was artificially inseminated by an angel. His father must have gone. His father must have in a drunken fucking chat to him sort of going, Jesus, come over here. And then his son would be like, get off your fucking switch.

I want to talk to you. You're playing. And then that's the first bit of blasphemy. He went, Jesus Christ. And the kid came over. And then he goes, he must have gone, I'll tell you something about your mother. She didn't put out until after you were born.

Right? So are you asking if he has the story right? No, no, no. But why did he not do it? He must have known he was God. Why didn't he do any God-like thing until he was 30? Why wasn't he healing lepers and whatnot? Sorry, I talked over there.

So the problem is that everything, basically everything that we know about Jesus was written after he was killed, after he rose from the dead, and after the destruction of Jerusalem. So, let me put it this way. He died around, you're right, around 30, 33, 34, right around then. The first gospel was written in 70. So, it's a 40-year time period. And basically, you know, Jesus enters history when he starts preaching, when he starts creating this movement around him, this movement that is in direct defiance of the Roman occupation

of the Holy Land and whose entire purpose is to remove that occupation and to rebuild the kingdom of God. But you have to understand that Jesus was one of dozens, like literally dozens of Messiahs around that time. There were dozens of people walking around, healing people, doing miracles, talking about the end times, talking about the coming of the kingdom of God. And the vast majority of them were far more successful than Jesus was. He was an open mic, was, you know, in his lifetime. He was an open Micah. He wasn't doing the A-clubs.

Kind of. Yeah. But then, you know, after he dies and after this kind of resurrection experience and these sort of his followers say that he was the Messiah and that he rose from the dead and that he's coming back, they had to basically backfill his story, kind of like what you said now. Like the only thing we know about this guy is when he just suddenly showed up a few years ago and he started saying these amazing things. Well, there must've been stuff that happened before then.

So then they started backfilling all of this. Well, then he had this miraculous birth and this incredible thing that happened to him when he was 12. And he, you know, went from Nazareth to Bethlehem to be born because of a census, which doesn't exist, so that he could be born in the same town as King David, because that's sort of important. And then another version in another gospel, he suddenly travels to Egypt for a while and hides out in Egypt. When did he visit Utah? Because he did, right?

The people, the Mormons would be in the top 10 religions, right? So Mormons, they believe that Jesus visited for a bit. Yeah. During the three days between his death and his resurrection, during those three days, he showed up in America. Yeah, of course he did. And back then, there would have only been American Indians

living there, Native Americans. He preached to the Native Americans. That's exactly what Mormons believe. And then those preachings were preserved in stone tablets. Those tablets were hidden. And then many,s were preserved in stone tablets. Those tablets were hidden.

And then many, many years later, Joseph Smith found those. So really, it just comes down to the other messiahs didn't have as good of a publicist, essentially. Jesus just had some people that came up with a really good story for him, but there were other people that were far more successful. And he had 12 homies with him. You are not that far off, to be honest with you. So here's the problem. I'm sorry. Here's the problem. If you're walking around in the first century, if you're a Jew walking around in the first century and you call yourself the Messiah, that only means one thing. It literally doesn't, it means one thing and one thing only. It means that you are the descendant of King David.

You are here to reestablish David's kingdom and to remove Rome from the Holy land. That's all it means. And so literally everyone who raised their hand and said, I'm a Messiah was killed for saying so, because it's an act of treason against Rome, including Jesus. But by definition,

a dead Messiah is not the Messiah anymore. By definition. He's just a very naughty boy. Yeah. If you say you're a Messiah and you die without doing literally the one thing the Messiah is supposed to do, you're not the Messiah. And so every one of those Messiahs, when they were dead, their followers said, well, all right, well, I guess that's that. I guess he's not the Messiah. Except for Jesus' followers. When Jesus died, not doing what the Messiah was supposed to do, his followers redefined the word Messiah.

Instead of saying that that was wrong, they said, no, no, no. We've all been wrong about what Messiah means. The kingdom of God isn't an earthly kingdom like everyone thinks it is. It's actually a heavenly kingdom. It'll come at the end of time, not right now. They just redefined the term Messiah so that it fit Jesus's life. Here's a question for you. Do you believe that Jesus even existed in any form? Because there's a lot of people that think it's completely made up. There's some people who think he existed, but he's not the son of Christ. I think he was just made up from scratch.

He's not really in history books before the Bible or anything like that. No one talked about him going around. There's no cave paintings. I know they weren't doing cave paintings. But do you think he ever existed or he's completely made up? Yeah, this is a big conversation that's had. It's good we have about three more minutes. But for sure, a man by the name of jesus of nazareth existed we know this because um a a historian by the name of josephus uh who's a jew who has no like christian proclivities and who

thought jesus was a total you know fraud and not and certainly not the Messiah, writes about his brother. So this is, I know this is kind of mind blowing. I wonder if Jesus had a brother? He had four brothers. Gavin, Phil, and Ted. Like the Wahlbergs or the Baldwins, there's only one success. The thing that's hard to understand is that Jesus was the eldest, but the second eldest of Jesus's brother,

his name was James, was actually a very prominent, very famous man in the first century. Like, Romans wrote about James. James was a big, big deal because he was essentially the head of the church after Jesus's death. And he lived for, he was in that position for 30 years. He was a very prominent figure. And like I said, Roman historians wrote about James. But James, or Yakov, as his name was, James is a very common name. And there are no last names at this time. And so the way that you usually differentiate between that James and this James is by either saying this James, the son of so-and-so or this James who's from so-and-so. This James was known as James, the brother of Jesus, the one they call the Lord. Oh, you're catchy. He had personalized number plates. Exactly. So, the fact that people

who were not Christians, who did not take Jesus seriously at all, and who couldn't care less about Jesus, but cared about James, referred to James by his brother as like, you know, the brother of that guy, Jesus, that everyone talks about, makes it very clear that whatever Jesus was, whoever he was, he most definitely existed. He most definitely put a movement together and he most definitely was executed for that movement. Everything else about him, the things that he said, the things that he did, what it meant, him, the things that he said, the things that he did, what it meant, all of that is up for grabs, but that a guy existed and that he had a movement and that he was killed for that movement is pretty much historical fact. And that's what your book is about. Zealot, right? Isn't it? Correct. Yeah.

Cause I, this video that I mentioned, it was on Fox news. I don't know if you want, it's 2013 and he's on there. I get you're on there to promote your book, right? Right. Yeah. And, and then the woman's It's 2013 and he's on there. You're on there to promote your book, right? Right, yeah. And then the woman's like, I think it's interesting that a Muslim would write a book about Jesus. Well, you can say what you're saying, but he just keeps saying, yeah, but I'm a scholar of religion and I just... What I do for

a living, actually. And then she wasn't getting it to you, but you even explained it. You're like, yeah, it's about Jesus the person. And she was just like, yeah, but people have said some things let me read some quotes here and it was like so in it but i remember that video going viral just kind of like and you were like so common it to you were like i was just like i was like you want to be like screw you i've worked my whole life for this right i think you have to separate j the Christ from Jesus the man. Jesus the Christ is a sort of creation of the early church, right? They had this incredible experience, this real person who did some

very amazing things, said some really powerful stuff, and then died, and then in their experience rose again, and so they turned him into this figure called the Christ. But there was an actual person named Jesus, and he really did do some incredible things. And you can use historical tools to kind of find out who he was and what he did and what he said. And that's what Zealot is about. It's about the historical Jesus, the man who lived during these times, who, by the way, was kind of a pretty fucking amazing person. I mean, again, you're talking about

a poor, barefoot, illiterate, uneducated, you know, tecton. You can do your tecton joke again if you want. Yeah, he does tech talks. Oh, yeah. All right, yeah. Nailed it. All right. Glad you set me up for that, he does tech talks. Oh, yeah. Good one. All right, yeah. Nailed it. All right.

Glad you set me up for that, Reza. Word that out. Yeah. Worth the wait. My career's over. And what does this guy do? What does this like absolute nobody, this absolute nobody do? He starts a movement on behalf of the poor, the weak, the marginalized.

A movement whose entire purpose is to flip the social order, right? Jesus says, the first shall be last, the last shall be first, the rich will become poor, the poor will become rich. I mean, this guy was a fucking radical, just an absolute radical. And he starts a movement that becomes such a threat to the largest, most powerful empire the world had ever known that they hunt him down as a criminal, torture him, and execute him for the crime of treason. If you know absolutely nothing else about Jesus, that seems like a pretty extraordinary person. Forget about like, did he walk on water? Did he heal the blind? Didn't they crucify tons and tons of people for doing similar things?

Absolutely. But that's the same shit that's still happening throughout history. It's like you look at all these major civil rights activists and stuff like that who get killed for their ideals. Like it's still not okay for people to be speaking out against the system. Jesus was a civil rights activist. They believe in like the second coming That Jesus is going to come back And it's going to be We're all going to have to repent

And all that type of bullshit Whatever There's different theories on this right But Jesus is going to come back My argument here is If he does come back There is not a chance in hell That we're not just going to kill him

Straight away again Because every time Someone says they're Jesus Like David Koresh Right We just fucking kill him Right We're not just going to kill him straight away again. Because every time someone says they're Jesus, like David Koresh, right? We just fucking kill him. Right. We're not going to believe it. And you know who's going to kill him?

The religious people. The Christians. Yeah, the Christians. The Christians are going to go, you can't say you're Jesus, you dickhead. All the atheists would be like, let's go to the bar. No, no. If I met a guy who said, I'm Jesus and I'm back, good to have you, mate. We've missed you.

Listen, listen, listen. If a brown Middle Easterner shows up and says, people should have free healthcare and the rich should be made poor and the poor should be made rich, yeah, the Christians will crucify him instantly. Well, I've said some of those things. I'm with the healthcare bit. What is the most, where is it?

The most popular religion? Popular or most believers? Most followed religion worldwide? Jim said Christianity. I want to change to Muslim. Christianity, Christianity. It's Christianity. Yeah, Christianity is still the world's largest religion

if you include Catholics and Protestants and all the different Christians there's about 2 billion Christians in the world Islam comes in second Islam there's about I'd say at this point about 1.5 more than 1.5 billion Muslims and then there's Hindus

and there's about a little bit more than one and a half billion Muslims. And then there's Hindus. And there's about a little bit more than about a billion Hindus. And then kind of everyone else, really. You said there were something like 20 million Jews. There's about 13 million Jews in the world. That is a lot less. It's a lot less. There's more Australians.

Just to put it in context yeah that's that's shocking to me I always thought there were way more and then Buddhists I guess Buddhism that would be

the next biggest one and then there's yeah and then there's what was that you pronounce I would always say Jainism

but you said Jain or Jain either one's fine and the people who put there are called Janga they invented Janga

they invented Janga don't they believe in I don't remember I know that they don't want to even And the people who were put there are called Jenga. They invented Jenga? They invented Jenga. Don't they believe in... I don't remember. I know that they don't want to even kill insects, or I don't know anything about it. You tell me. That's right. It's a radically anti-violence religion, like Sikhism, which you mentioned. And you're right, Sikhs do not cut their hair. In the old days, Sikhs wouldn't even clip their fingernails or if they did clip their fingernails, they would save them. There was a story in the UK and it broke my heart for many different reasons.

When I say broke my heart, I felt sorry for everyone involved. Sorry for everyone involved. There was a kid. He was a teenager. He was a Sikh. He had the long hair, the turban, the whole fucking shebang. Obviously, he wanted to fit in with all of his mates at school or what have you. So he cut off his hair, right? And he went back

to his parents. This was on the news. He went back to his, it was a big thing in Britain at the time. He went back to his parents and his parents were like, oh my God, what's happened? And he went, a couple of racists came up to me in the street and they cut me hair off because I was different. You know what I mean? And then his parents were like, fuck, that's terrible. And he was hoping his parents would just rage for a bit. He'd have the time off with the hair. And his parents went, we're going to the news.

And then it became a big story. And you know when you've lied as a kid and you're just like, oh, I hope I get away with this. I felt sorry for the lad. He was just trying to fit in. Jesse Smollett. Yeah. Jesse Smollett. Yeah, Jesse Smollett. But he didn't think it was going to become a news story

and then he had to be like, yeah, I was just crossing the road and fuck. He was just trying to get out of trouble with his parents. Oh, God, the poor lad. Because everyone was like, we have to catch these racists. This isn't the Britain we know. And it's like, oh, God. And then when it was found out that he was lying,

that gave the racist fuel for going, you see, this is how these people act, right? Oh, fuck, it was a fucking disaster, it was. I just brought that up for a bit of fun. Bit of fun. Bit of fun. Bit of fun. So.

What was the next question I got right, Forrest? That's what you're doing. The next one that you got right. All wrong. All wrong. Which is the oldest religion? You said Buddhism first. That's what you're doing. The next one that you got right. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Which is the oldest religion. You said Buddhism. Yeah. I don't know that answer. No, it's definitely not Buddhism. Remember the Buddha was a Hindu.

The Buddha was a Hindu who was trying to reform Hinduism. And so came up after his death, they called it Buddhism. Jesus wasn't a Christian. Jesus was a Jew preaching Judaism to other Jews. He was trying to reform Judaism. Then he died and they made a new religion out of him. Muhammad was not a Muslim. In fact, the word Islam or the idea of referring to this faith as Islam didn't really happen until after his death. He was trying to reform the Abrahamic religions that existed in the Arabian Peninsula. Then he died and then they turned his thoughts and views into a religion. Prophets don't invent religions. Prophets are reformers. They just are reforming the religions out of which they arise. And then usually what happens is that they die.

And then his followers are like, it's a new religion now. This is all brand new. It's not like, it's not the older thing. Do we have new religions sprouting off the old religions that are maybe take over in a thousand years or anything? Can you give me the inside scoop? What's the next big one coming up? Like I hear that Scientology is the fastest growing religion in the world.

Is that bullshit? Do you consider that a religion? I don't think it's the fastest growing religion in the world but it is a growing religion and it is a it is a religion i mean i know people have uh people have a lot of different views on this they're like well how could it be a religion it's it's corrupt and abusive and i'm like have you never heard of religion before that ticks a few of the boxes. Yeah. So then therefore religion. Yeah. There's some books. There's a guy who's going to come back. You know,

like Scientology office, they have like, they keep an office free for L. Ron Hubbard just when he wants to come back and work or play. If he comes back, he's going to come to the office. He's going to come to the office and him and Tom Cruise are going to play chess or some shit.

Yeah. That's why it's like, what is the benefit of religion? Like religion is the cause of so much violence and abuse. I'll tell you what, you know what I reckon religion works well? To reform people who are like, you know, the AA and fucking people who have gone to prison. I believe it's all bullshit, but I do believe in certain cases

in this world, it helps people find a warmth or whatever or a community or love that they haven't had in their life that they need. What I really dislike about what people say about atheists, I've had people say, well, if you don't believe in God, why don't you just murder and rape people? Because I'm not a heinous piece of shit. Yeah, I have morals. You can still have a moral compass without having in God, why don't you just murder and rape people? Because I'm not a heinous piece of shit. You can still have a moral compass without having a God. But I think for some people, it does give them a moral compass. You may not agree with that.

No, no, no. Here's the easiest way to put it is that religions aren't good or bad, violent or peaceful. People are good or bad, violent and peaceful. Every religion in the world can elicit enormous acts of beauty and compassion and love and mercy and also hatred and violence and terror. It all depends on the person, right? The religion doesn't tell you to be good or bad. The same Jesus who said, love your neighbor as yourself also said, I have come to bring the sword, not peace. The same Hebrew scriptures that said, you know, love the Lord your God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself also said, you know, if you find someone who doesn't believe in this particular God, Yahweh, you should slaughter them and their children, right? The same Quran that says that if you killed one human, it's as though you have killed

all of humanity. Also says slay the idolater wherever you find them. It's all about the individual and how they approach the religion. We are the lens, right? And so, with your point about atheism, there have been numerous studies done in the United States on religious affiliation and religious beliefs. Without exception, in every single one of those studies, the most moral community is the atheist community. Without exception. Without exception. Almost at every level. Do you believe of violence against non-combatants atheists are the

lowest percentage who believe in that do you believe that you know you should be able to steal if you need to atheists are the lowest i mean at every single level the atheist community in america is the most moral community in America. And we're terrible people. I can't imagine how bad the rest of them are. How about you're not atheist, right? I am not an atheist because I believe in a God, but I think that anyone who says, do you believe in God? The answer has to be, well, what the fuck do you mean by God?

Right. So would you consider yourself an agnostic or what do you consider yourself? Well, see, this is the thing is I kind of, an atheist is someone who says, I do not believe there is a God. An agnostic is someone who says, I don't give a fuck. Yeah.

Not, I don't know, because nobody knows. Oh, some people say they know though. Some people say they know blue in the face. They do. That's what I can't understand. It's like when there's this many religions out there, how could any one religion be confident

that theirs is the right? Like that's what gets me because I'm like. Well, look, if you go back to my original definition, which is religion is a language to express faith. It doesn't matter what language you speak. What matters is the sentiment that express faith. It doesn't matter what language you speak. What matters is the sentiment that you're expressing. And indeed, atheism, although is, you know, atheism says, I don't believe in God. Atheism is unquestionably a belief system. Atheism,

like any other ism, is predicated on a series of unprovable postulates about the nature of the universe. Right. So it's as much a belief system as any other belief system. For a little while there, when I was doing a lot, I was a very, like, um, I was a very ardent, like a very adamant, uh, atheist in my twenties my 20s. It was a religion for me. You're wrong and I'm right. And then I got softer and softer on my atheism and now I'm really close to it. I just don't care, whatever. But during that period, I was doing a lot of atheist material

and I started getting invited to do atheist conventions. I was performing in front of rooms full of atheists. And I'll tell you this about the atheist community. Fuck me if they don't all like to look like Jesus. Oh my God. If you go on an atheist convention, there's blokes with beards and long hair fucking sprouting off about how wonderful we are and how dumb the rest of the world is. They're fucking more religious than anyone else. But I was earning so much money. I kept on doing these conventions.

You are so right. I mean, anyone who goes to any convention is more of the extremist anyway. You know, as you can imagine, writing about religion for a living, I get a lot of shit from everyone, from everyone, every religion, every believer. The biggest like shit that I get is from that, the atheist community. They are the most fundamentalists, you know,

of any fundamentalists that I know, like the absolute certainty that they are right. And everyone else is not just wrong, but stupid. Well, they are stupid. That's what a fundamentalist says. I know, I know. I'm one of those. I do think religious people are stupid.

But are you saying then you're agnostic? Because you didn't even finish answering that. Maybe you don't have to, but I was kind of like... No, no, I'm not agnostic. I believe in God, but my conception of God comes from my particular religious tradition, which is Sufi Islam. Sufism is the mystical movement within Islam. which is Sufi Islam. Sufism is the mystical movement within Islam. We believe that in what's called pantheism, that God is all things, that there can't be any differentiation between God

and not God. And so what is God? I am God. You are God. This is God. Existence is God. And so, my faith practice is to just simply, you know, acknowledge that reality, right? That all things are God. And that's a tradition that you find in mystical forms of Judaism and mystical forms of Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam. In fact, one of the questions was, what's the oldest religion? It depends. If you mean, what's the oldest continuously practiced religious tradition? I guess you would have to say Hinduism while acknowledging that there's actually no such thing as Hinduism. have to say hinduism while acknowledging that there's actually no such thing as hinduism right but what is the oldest form of religious expression um we know that it's called animism

it's what we find in our like ancient paleolithic ancestors the people who like drew in the caves and stuff and animism as the first religious belief is the belief that all things, all things that exist share in a single animating spirit, meaning the rock, the tree, the sun, the mountain, and me share an animating spirit that is identical. And, you know, that was 200,000 years ago. That's what I believe. Is there any big gods that have fallen by the wayside? So you watch the Ten Commandments with Charlton Heston and all that type of stuff, and there's that thing,

you won't have any false idols, I think is in the Bible or something like that, right? And I think there's like a fucking golden bull or something they make, and that's when Charlton's like, I told you not to practice other gods, like that. Is there some religions that have just died out that were the fucking shit 2,000 years ago? And can you tell us anything about those?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, look, nobody worships Thor anymore. Wow. I'm waiting for the next movie. Nobody worships Mithra. Nobody worships Zeus. But understand that that doesn't mean that those gods don't exist anymore. Those were just different avatars for the very idea of God.

for the very idea of God, right? So, you know, the word God, it's hard because we're speaking in the English language, right? So, you say, oh, well, Christians believe in God. Well, no, Christians believe in this divine figure that they refer to as the Father. And the Father is, sometimes, you know, Jesus is God, the son and the father are the same. Sometimes the idea is that the father is, you know, begat the son, uh, Jesus. Uh, what is the connection between the father God and the God of the Hebrew Bible? Well, it depends because there are actually two gods in the Hebrew Bible. There's Yahweh and then there's El. Or the highway. Yeah, nice. So these are just different names, right? These are names that we give to an idea. God is an idea, not a personality. Yeah, that was

monotheistic, by the way. It was one of the questions. One God, Jim said, he said Christianity and Judaism. So Judaism is not. You just said that's two gods well now it is now judaism is monotheistic uh but it wasn't before and again you know christians christians call themselves monotheistic but is the trinity monotheistic yeah when you just said that you may i've always been confused by that because people are like jesus christ and God. And people say it like it's two different things. And then sometimes you're like, you know, God, Jesus. And you're like, wait, because I'm not religious at all. The Father, Son, who the fuck's the Holy Ghost?

The Holy Spirit? It's a vibe. The Father, Son, the Holy Ghost, right? These are three divine beings that are mentioned in the New Testament. So Christians have to figure out a way to make them into one. And so the answer is that there are three expressions of one divine being. So the big metaphor is it's the difference between water as a liquid, water as ice, and water as steam.

It's all water. But that's a metaphor. Yeah, know it's a good one I like that you forgot Islam Islam is a radically monotheistic uh religion um and Allah again Allah is just an Arabic word for God Allah is not the name of God right God doesn't have right? God doesn't have a name. God doesn't have a face. God doesn't have a personality. God is just an idea. So you have religions that don't particularly get along. So like Judaism and Islam don't particularly get along,

but then you have Halal and Kosher, and they're basically doing the same thing. It's like stay away from pork and, you know, that type of stuff, right? They're close. I know it's not the same thing like that. No, it's very good. I mean, Judaism and Islam is essentially the same thing. It's like stay away from pork and, you know, that type of stuff, right? They're close. I know it's not the same thing like that. No, it's very good. I mean, Judaism and Islam is essentially the same religion.

Yeah. When you're in Jerusalem, by the way, and this is not a – you got the – what is it, the Wailing Wall there? And then when I was there with Amos, you walk up this walkway thing, and then you come up on the top of where the Wailing Wall is, and then that's where the Muslim – The door to Iraq. Yeah. I'm like, it's right there. They're right. The things are right there. How did they fit? So it's when you say it's very close, I'm like,

it's even close physically in Jerusalem. Like how close it is to each other. I had to wear a yarmulke. What is it called? The yarmulke. I'd wear a yarmulke and to, so I could put something into the wailing wall. So I had to walk up there and I put, I wrote, I try not to be a cunt could put something into the wailing wall. So I had to walk up there and I wrote, try not to be a cunt and it's in the wailing wall. So that's in there, people. I hope that message got out to the world. Try not to be a cunt, everyone.

Doesn't seem like it ever seemed like it did. Now back to the thing where I was saying things, can you name me just a few, just a handful of things that all religions always have in common? And it can be something like they all just a few, just a handful of things that all religions always have in common? And it can be something like they all have a God, they all have a thing. But like, I'm not trying to start troubling. Do they all disagree with homosexuality? Or, you know, these are things that people, yeah.

No, no, not at all. It's very difficult to say, you know, is there one thing that all religions have in common with each other? Because not all religions believe in God, not all religions believe in heaven and hell. And you were half right about Judaism. Judaism doesn't believe in heaven or hell. Everyone goes to Sheol, the place of darkness, regardless of whether you're an asshole or, you know, a rabbi, you're still going to go to the same exact place. However, if you look at sort of the history of the great religions in the world, the ones who have come and gone and the ones that still remain,

at the core of all of them is one teaching that they all seem to have in common that shows up in one form or another. And it's the teaching that we now refer to as the golden rule. So something to the effect of do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Some version of that belief can be found almost in every religion. Almost in every religion,

you can find that sort of concept of the golden rule. That is the golden rule to life though. That is, that's's the rule of life treat people as you'd like to be treated there's another one i think that hard there's there's another common thread i feel like a lot of religions at their court they don't like to see people's legs like like when i yeah when i when i went when i was in jerusalem i had to keep covering my legs everywhere i went like that they give you another. It's got nothing to do with religion. Oh, my God. Were you a listener walking around in shorts and a tank top in Jerusalem?

I didn't have a tank top on, but we had shorts on. And then we went. And I'm sorry, I can't remember the name of it. But when you go up to, it's where, is that where the Islam religion, the whole area. The Dome of the Rock. Yeah, Dome of the Rock. They gave us these, I mean, mean skirts for lack of a better word yeah that

we have a picture I have a picture of it and they were like you gotta cover up your knees your legs that's how it was at like the Vatican

I had a tank top on but I also did wear a sweatshirt that said y'all need Jesus and I got some looks you had one tit hanging out there was a lot of problems

there Kel Jesus loves tits what can I say? What percentage of people have no religious affiliation? Jim said 20%. You think that's... So it's kind of impossible to say that in a global sense. Like in the globe, it's impossible to come up with any kind of number.

But we know actually in America, because we keep very, very good track, the religion, the Pew religion, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life has been keeping track of American religiosity for decades. So we know the percentage of Americans who are Christians, the percentage of Americans who are atheists, and we know the percentage of Americans who don't affiliate with a religion is now 24%. It's the highest it has ever been. It is the fastest growing label in America. It's referred to nowadays as the non-affiliated

or just simply the nons. It's how we refer to them. But here's the thing. It's different. I want to make sure that you understand that that's not saying 24% of Americans don't believe in God. Only about 2.5% of Americans

refer to themselves as atheists. I don't believe in God. Only 2.5%. What that means is these are people who just refuse to identify with any one religion. But they do identify as quote unquote spiritual. Oh God, those people are the most irritating people in the world. I'm not religious, I'm spiritual.

I'd rather be a religious person than, I just consider myself to be spiritual. Like I believe that the world and the universe and I got to- Why is it always a girl? There's gotta be guys. No, no, no. That was just a guy. That was my Tommy Caprio. Among millennials, that number is 66%.

Wow. Two-thirds of millennials say that they're spiritual but not religious. A quarter of all Americans say that they're spiritual but not religious. And that's bizarre because this is a very, very religious country. Seven out of ten Americans call themselves Christian. Seven out of ten.

Now, do you foresee or how long will it take before we have an atheist or agnostic president? Because it happens in other countries. In Australia, we had an atheist. Innostic president? Because it happens in other countries. In Australia, we had an atheist. In New Zealand, we had them. And all of a sudden, we can't even get a fucking female voted in. So, you know, it's going to take a long time. But, like, when will there be a day when a president doesn't have to say

the bullshit words, God bless America? Seven out of ten Americans are Christian. Okay. So 500 years? I mean, look, the whole point of democracy is that you vote for someone who shares your worldview and your values and religion is the easiest shorthand.

Yeah. For value. Look at Donald Trump. Donald Trump doesn't believe in God. Yeah. I mean, this guy is like the, he's like all the seven deadly sins in human form.

You know what I mean? And yet 81%, 81% of white evangelicals voted for this asshole. That's more white evangelicals than voted for George Bush, who was a white evangelical. Yeah. Yeah. That's crazy. And so it's this shorthand that we use, but it's obviously it hides, you know, all manner of disagreements. So unfortunately, for a very, very long time, if you want, you know, the majority of Americans to vote for you for president,

you got to at the very least be able to talk the talk. Yeah, look, I've lived in Australia and I've lived in Britain and religion, I won't say not at all, but very, very minutely comes into your politics. People running for campaigns, they don't talk about their religion. Even Trump, remember when Trump had to give that talk where he's like, I've read the Bible, it's a good book.

It's not quite as good as the Art of the Deal. I think he had to say it was the best and then he still threw in Art of the Deal. Art of the Deal. I think he had to say it was the best, and then he still threw in art of the deal. Art of the deal is number two. Here's a question with the Bible. How do they get that paper so thin? Every time I get a fucking Bible, I'm like, oh, this stuff's fucking way for thin.

We're going to discuss that on our paper episode. You don't know? He said God. Oh, God does it. God grows the trees uh and then i and this is like the last thing the things where what's the difference between a cult and religion he said about 200 years and you give him a thumbs up so i guess the oldest joke in religious studies is that cult plus time equals religion yeah yeah it is like because the thing is i always look at cults like that.

I'm like, they're no different. No. Yeah. When you see someone, they all live on some commune and all that type of stuff. They just think that they're the first disciples, like anything. They're like, oh, well, I'm ready to go.

Yep. Christianity was considered a cult by the Roman Empire until it became the religion of the Roman Empire. You know, you mentioned Mormonism. You know, people america still think of mormonism as a cult despite the fact that there are tens of millions of muslim mormons all around the world like this is a thriving beautiful religion basically cult is just a value judgment it's just a way of saying my religion's a religion and your religion's a cult

yeah yeah yeah no because mormons that's a batch of crazy with yeah. Yeah, no, because Mormons, that's batshit crazy. They don't drink. They're all bad. Caffeine, no stimulants. There's no stimulants. I'll tell you what's another nut job one is that Jehovah's Witness. Oh, fuck me. They reckon they're going to be living with elephants and shit and they're going to be walking around and you have to tell on each other

and all that type of stuff. That one's real. Look into that one. That one's batshit crazy. You're not allowed to have Christmas. Now, before we leave, there's something. I think I did this on our Christmas podcast. Can you please rank for me?

You've got to give it up for the Christians, eh, when it comes to holidays. We know how to fucking party. The rest of the religions are dog shit. I come from a Christian family. Christmas and Easter, the eggs and the presents, they shit on your fucking Ramadan and that one with the Jews and the palm fronds.

No good. No good. The Christians, when it comes to celebrating, number one. I'll tell you what, what's genius about Christianity is that instead of just inventing new things, they just stole other people's celebrations. Genius. They were like, wait, Rome has this like drunken, debaucherous winter solstice party that it called Saturnalia. Let's make that Christmas. That's when Jesus was born now, from now on.

um, let's make that Christmas. That's when Jesus was born now from now on, uh, wait, you, you pagans celebrate this spring equinox, you know, where you all like get together and, and, and party and, and, you know, have this like drunken revelry. Um, we're going to call that Easter now. They just took the, the holidays that already existed and they were like yeah that's now a jesus holiday oh so was jesus how close to being born uh 2021 years ago was he and what may have been his actual birthday so jesus was born sometime between the years 4 BC and 6 AD. Right. Very likely closer to 4 BC. So he was born four years before Christ.

Right. Okay. And what month do you think? Do we have any record of this? No clue. No clue. April, I take. No idea.

There you go. And then this is a part of the show, dinner party facts. Oh shit. That's right. Yeah. One of these, yeah.

One of these are, yeah. By the way, this is on the subject that we're talking about religion. We've had a few mix ups with that. Yeah. We have one guy who did the history of standup comedy and then he, he told us about slavery.

Every time. Yeah. I'm sure he's happy that we rehashed this. It was very enjoyable for us. So anything obscure interesting about any religion yep okay so this is actually this will be interesting because we kind of mentioned this already um there are two gods in the old testament two completely different gods with two different names different backgrounds backgrounds, two totally different gods.

One is named El, the god of Abraham. He's a Canaanite deity, which makes sense because Abraham was born in the land of Canaan. The other is Yahweh, which is the god of Moses, which also makes sense because Moses saw him in Egypt and Yahweh is an Egyptian deity. It's more like a Medianite deity, but you know, in Egypt. So, these are not the same God. They are two completely different gods. The problem is that when the Bible was translated into English, El was translated as God and Yahweh was translated as God. And so, we read the Bible and we see, oh, Abraham talked to God, but that's not what the Bible says. The Bible says Abraham talked to El. The Bible says, you know, Moses talked to God. No, no, Moses talked to Yahweh. If you get a really good English translation of the Bible, the way you'll the very least acknowledging that these are two different divine beings, two totally different gods. They're not the same God.

Now, much, much, much later on, the two sort of merge together and they become Yahweh El. They become basically one god but this is hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years uh later so yes now you could say judaism is a monotheistic religion because they worship yahweh l but the ancient israelites worshipped two completely different gods one was called l one was called Yahweh. Here's a great story. This will make sense because it'll go back to what we had said before with Charlton Heston and the Ten Commandments. So, Charlton Heston is Moses, right?

And so, Moses sees Yahweh, a god named Yahweh who's an Egyptian deity, technically Medianite, but let's just say an Egyptian deity because Moses is Egyptian. So, he meets an Egyptian deity, obviously. The Egyptian deity says, take your people and go back to the Holy Land. And then on the way, they get to Mount Sinai and Moses climbs Mount Sinai and he gets the Ten Commandments. And Yahweh constantly tells Moses, Uh, and Yahweh constantly tells Moses, tell my people that, that the God of Abraham has called them forth. The problem is, is that Yahweh isn't the God of Abraham. Abraham had no idea who Abraham had never heard of Yahweh. The God of Abraham is L.

So Moses goes up to Sinai and he comes down and what happens, Jim? When it, what's, what are the, what are the Israelites doing? Oh, they, they, they're, uh, they're worshiping other gods. He comes down and what happens, Jim? What are the Israelites doing? They're worshipping other gods. They made a golden calf, right? A golden calf, yeah. The calf is the symbol of El. Israel means essentially the worshippers of El.

El. That's why it ends with El. So Moses goes up to the mountain and the Israelites are like, well, let's worship God because the only God we know is L. So when Moses comes down, he's not pissed that they made an idol. He's pissed that they went back to worshiping L. And he's like, no, no, no, no, no. Not L. That's not it.

Yahweh is it. Yeah. Yahweh the highway. Everybody at a dinner party, there'sweh is it. Yeah. Yahweh the highway. Everybody at a dinner party, there's actually two gods. Yeah. And then El, they got rid of him

with the Christmas carol. Noel. Noel. And that's the last we ever heard of El. I was waiting to do that joke for about 10 minutes there. So that's the end of the podcast.

I'm obviously such a broad topic and we could even have you back on that. We, cause we just brushed over some of the other religions, maybe come back on, talk about Islam or, or, or Hinduism,

which doesn't exist, Judaism or whatever. But, but the name of the podcast is metaphysical milkshake. It is out today. It is Reza Aslan and Rainn Wilson. Please subscribe to that. Check that out on YouTube or any of the other places.

Rate it five stars. Give it a review. And the book is Zealot, The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth. You've written other stuff, but it's behind you, so I figured I'd say it again. All right, ladies and gentlemen, thanks for being on the podcast, mate. Really appreciate it. I'm going to listen to your podcast.

It seems right up my alley. If you're at a party and someone says to you, you know there's only one God, go, I don't know about that, and then walk away.