 Hello my friends, this is episode number 10 of Patterson in Pursuit. I want to start today's show by thanking a few new Patreon supporters who are helping to make this production possible. Sean Balada and Elizabeth Kaluga. I want to thank you both very much for supporting the creation of a rational worldview and speaking of rationality today is the first episode where I'm talking about Religion. This interview is specifically about Christianity, and I'm not talking with a pastor I'm not talking with a priest or a bishop I'm talking with an economist who I have a lot of respect for and I know is a Christian. My guest today is Mr. Robert Murphy, who is the author of several successful books, including the politically incorrect guide to Capitalism, the politically incorrect guide to the Great Depression and the New Deal, which I actually cited in my undergraduate thesis. He's written a couple of study guides for some important books in the world of Austrian economics. He's written a children's book and an introduction to Bitcoin. He's done a lot of interviews and I think he's generally a well-loved guy in the world of free market economics. But like I said today, we're not talking about economics. We are talking about Christianity and I'm so excited about this interview, not just because of the specifics of it, but because in my own research, I have discovered that religion gets a really bad rap. Now a lot of criticism of religion is very well justified. A lot of it comes from me as well. It's very tempting as an intellectual to dismiss all of the claims of every religion around the world. It's very tempting just to throw them all in the waste bin and say it's a bunch of crap that's believed by weak-minded fools who have a tendency for wishful thinking. However, if you have an open mind and you're willing to learn and study, it's possible to view religious claims in the exact same way that you would view philosophic claims or economic claims or any other claims, just a set of propositions that may or may not be true. And what I've found at least is that all of the major religions do seem to be pointing to some pretty deep truths that I'm just not willing to throw out. In the world of ideas, we have a lot of very advanced theories for explaining the world around us. However, there seems to be one consistent area of human experience that is not fully explained by our modern scientific worldview. In fact, not only is it not explained, it's dismissed, it's mocked. And that is what people have described as spiritual or religious experiences. And one of the allures of religion in general is to try to give an explanation for the existence of religious experience or spiritual experiences, try to provide some context and understanding of what is going on. Spiritual and religious experience are not something that is only isolated to one culture or one way of thinking. It seems to be fairly universal. And so you'd think we would need a rigorous explanation of what's going on. And as we talk about in this conversation, I have had my own what I would call spiritual experience. I give a little bit of details in this interview, and I'm sure I will talk a lot more about it in the future. And my guest, Bob Murphy, has also had what you could call a religious experience. And I can tell you, based on the many conversations that I've had with people, just personal conversations of well-respected intellectuals that I haven't recorded, a lot of people have shared similar stories, similar experiences, and they even have similar private beliefs. So that's the theme I want to be exploring and sorting out in this podcast series. I don't have all of these beliefs worked out. I have a general hunch, but I want an essential part of this pursuit of truth to incorporate religious discussion. If the most rational and reasonable conclusion is that there is no merit to religious discussion and it's a bunch of fluff, then fine. That's what we'll discover together. But if there is some truth that the different religions are pointing at, then I want to discover what that is and try to phrase it in as clear, concise, and non-mystical way as possible. All right, so that's enough for me. I hope you enjoyed this interview with Dr. Robert Murphy. I'll have a link to his website and some of his other work on the show notes page this week, which is steved-paderson.com slash 10. Enjoy. So Bob Murphy, thank you very much for taking the time to speak with me today. Glad to be here, Steve. I'm a big fan of your work in economics and in political theory, and you wrote a great introductory book about Bitcoin. And on your blog every Sunday, you write a piece about religion and you consider yourself a Christian. And this is something I'm very interested in. I sort of consider myself a Christian, though I'm not entirely sure what that even means. So that's why I wanted to talk to you today, to try to learn and pick your brain about Christianity, because whenever you talk about religion and a lot of intellectual circles, it's kind of taboo. People were very quick to dismiss you and think that you're just a crazy crank. And so to actually have intellectual discussion is a bit of a rarity, so thank you. Sure thing. From the start, I'm not here to debate you or anything like that. I really do want to try to keep it informal and conversational, and just that's the way that I learn. I think that's the way a lot of my listeners learn. So at the very beginning, a sensible question would be to ask, what is your version of Christianity? There's a lot of different interpretations of a Christianity means. There's different denominations. People have their beliefs based on a religious experience or they're focused on the words of Jesus Christ or they're really big on the Bible. What is your version of Christianity? Sure. So I was originally raised Catholic, and then I fell out of that just so people can know my personal story, just a tad. And I'm sure this will come out in our discussion. But it got to the point where in undergrad, I was an atheist and actually referred to myself as a devout atheist. I thought that was funny and clever. And I would go around trying to convince people who were called themselves Christians to abandon that. I wasn't doing it to be a jerk or something. I thought I was freeing them. I thought they had this crazy system that their parents had taught them and that was just crippling them and so forth. And I was freeing their minds. So just so for your listeners, they can understand where I'm coming from. I'm very sympathetic to the sort of rationalist, scientific empiricist critiques of Christianity, particularly coming from people in the libertarian community who look at the church and think, well, Jesus, isn't that just like the state? And so I get all those nowadays because I used to agree with them. So just had that as a backdrop. So partly though, why I brought up the fact that I was raised Catholic is I'm not great at knowing the specific differences between all the various Christian sects because as a Catholic, it's more like you're a Catholic and then there's some Jewish people and then there's these Protestants and we don't really know what they're all into. Something about Martin Luther, and he was really upset about indulgences. That was kind of what I was. So as far as I'm right now, I refer to myself as a born again Christian. I formally accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior, personal Lord and Savior. I had been baptized as an adult in a Christian church. I was bouncing around a little bit. I definitely like churches that where they preach from the Bible, like you'll read stuff from the Bible in the pastor, the preacher will go through and explain what that means, as opposed to people who are more just like, okay, everyone, let's go out there and just try to love people and do what Jesus would want. No, I want somebody who's actually noted the Bible way better than I do is teaching me. I guess the closest thing is I am, in terms of doctrines or whatever, I guess the Presbyterian, the Orthodox ones, they're the ones that I'm following and I need to study more, but I actually think I'm probably a Calvinist, as far as in terms of putting a label on some of which, again, if you want to talk about that, I'm happy to go into it. Stuff that when I was younger, I thought that is just absolutely nutty. Who could possibly believe in predestination? But it's like, well, you read the Bible. So now I was at the point where I'm wondering, how could anyone who believes in the Bible not endorse all that stuff so that I'm totally flipped in that regard? So I'll stop there since I think I've given you enough of an answer. Oh, yes, there's a lot to dive into there. So specifically, you say that you're really big on the Bible and like for me, in my own Christianity or whatever the heck it's called, that's a big sticking part for me is I'm not, I don't even have a good conception of the Bible. I was raised in a kind of a right-wing evangelical household and the whole, like my dad especially, my mom had a bit more of an open mind but my dad was kind of your traditional Bible thumping. If it's in there, it's true. There's no room for interpretation in the Bible and that never quite worked for me. There was some issues I had with that. For your respect that you have for the Bible, is it something that you believe is words written by men to best communicate their philosophy about God or do you think it's something that's divinely inspired or do you think it's literally the word of God written down verbatim and is literally true? Like what's your perspective on the Bible? Okay, sure. And again here, I would wanna study this a lot more before offering a definitive statement about my position. I think probably why I'm, so I definitely think it's the inspired word of God. I don't think it's just a bunch of metaphors or some people say, well, yeah, that stuff didn't literally happen. It's not like Jesus literally fed 5,000 people but it's just trying to show you the abundance of God's provision for. No, I really do think things that we would nowadays consider to be miracles occurred and that these things were recorded done and that's partly why I think Jesus was such a force that if he actually didn't do anything except go around and give really stirring speeches but then he didn't do any miracles, didn't actually heal people and then it was killed and never came back, I don't think we would know who he was. So that's part of it. Things like the Genesis account of creation there. I mean, and I believe me again like I told people I'm pretty well read in the scientific area so I understand all the disputes and so on. So there, to me, I think God certainly was inspiring the people who wrote that stuff down and then I'm thinking, you know, even according to the own Genesis account humans weren't there until several days into it, right? So no human directly witnessed those first things so that must have been a vision from God or God telling Adam, this is what just happened before I made you. So there, I mean it's, if someone had a vision and saw nothingness and then the creation of physical matter and that sort of thing, it's conceivable to me that the words he would use to write it down would be inadequate to capture what he just saw. You know what I mean? So stuff like that, you know, I'm a little bit more flexible than perhaps some other people. And again, remember, I'm coming, it's more like this, when I was younger I thought the Bible was nothing but a bunch of myths and on top of that in the Old Testament sadistic myths, like what the heck? He asked this guy to kill his own son. What kind of monster would do that? You know, and so now the more I study it, the more I see, oh, wait a minute, no, okay, I get what's going on there. And so that's why I think I probably treat it with more risk because I was never raised to believe it was, you know, an errant history book. And so I think that's why the more I study it, the more I realize the deeper it is, the more profound it is that I had originally thought. So that's partly explaining my attitude perhaps. So it sounds like you're kind of coming from in your, when you're in your college years, more of the Christopher Hitchens of a variety of atheism where it's like, not only is this a bunch of mythology, but it's evil and God, the character of Jesus Christ is like a zombie and it's all about death and violence and it's this evil story, not only just me. Well, hang on, let me clarify that though. I hope I was never as much of a jerk as Christopher Hitchens. But, and also when people, I was like very courteous in the stuff when I was trying to get people to abandon their view. So you're not like good to Christians. Yeah, I would say stuff to them like, now come on, the reason you believe this is because your parents taught you that if you had, you know, if you had had Muslim parents, would you believe in Allah and stuff like that? Right, okay. But as far as the, what I mean is, no, it was actually, I loved the character of Jesus and thought, oh wow, this is the greatest guy ever. I just didn't think, you know, it was a real guy. I just thought it was a story. But I thought the New Testament was great and beautiful. Whereas in contrast, I thought, whoa, the God of the Old Testament is completely different. And he's this jealous guy who just, you know, zaps people for doing some, you know, trivial thing. What the heck? Where Jesus loves everybody and is willing to die for you. So that's what I'm saying my sort of crude understanding is I thought the Old Testament was this qualitatively different thing from the New. Whereas now the more I study it, you can, to me, it's obvious that all the two are intimately related. You can't even make sense of the New Testament without the Old and vice versa. That's fascinating because that, because my current belief would have to be crude. Because that's kind of my, again, I have a superficial understanding of the Bible. And it does seem, at least from the outside, that the story of the morals of what's in the Bible or is this a category difference between Old and New Testament? But, yeah. I mean, can I just fit, like, explain a little, so that one that we talked about, you know, that God, you know, tells Abraham to sacrifice his son, you know, and that sounds crazy. But, you know, when you, but now the way I would explain it is to say, okay, he stopped him at the last second. So he actually didn't carry, you know, he didn't make him kill his son. He stopped him. The issue was put everything before, you know, put nothing before me, even your own, you know, your beloved son. Okay, so that was the issue, that even your own, so that the moral there, the lesson is God is first, even above your children. Yeah. I can accept that, but what about ones where that wasn't? They didn't spit on him. But it just, but then it also too, though, it was because in the, my understanding here, you know, someone could correct me, but my understanding is it was not uncommon among the pagan cultures of that time to have engaged in child sacrifice. So, so our ears, that's absolutely horrific, but there that wasn't complete. And so the point was to show, you know, actually, you know, the God of Abraham doesn't require you to kill your kid. It was just, you should be willing to do it, but you're actually, you know, and then finally, of course, the ultimate or the obvious parallel or foreshadowing is that, you know, when it comes to giving up your own, your son for somebody else, that's actually what God does for us. You know what I'm saying? So God was just asking Abraham to do something, didn't actually require it of him, but then God in turn would say, however, I will allow my own son to be killed for you people. Well, doesn't it say, though, in the Old Testament, I mean, it's not just the story of sparing the child because doesn't it, doesn't God kind of command and permit slaughtering of people by the Jews? Oh, yeah. And that was another thing where he's, I mean, literally ordering with genocide, depending on how big the, you know, how you want to use that term. So for there, I mean, since you brought it up, I'll go ahead and give it. And again, with this stuff, I recognize if you're coming to this discussion and you absolutely do not believe in this, that you think that, you know, Yahweh has just as much validity as Zeus, that what I'm gonna say is gonna bounce off you, when it's gonna say, oh my gosh, this, here's this intelligent guy bending over backwards to try to justify some, I can get that. And I would have said the same thing back when I didn't believe it either. So here it's more that for other reasons, I'm sure we'll get into like, I, you know, transformed and now I'm a believer. And then so when I'm presented with these awkward facts, so yeah, I actually got telling, you know, Joshua to lead his army in and slaughter babies, that is like, what the heck is going on there? So let me just say this, if you think that the God of the Bible exists, it's not as if those, you know, pagan babies growing up and then dying of old age from a heart attack when they're 87, God still killed them. You see, you know, I mean, he's the absolute sovereign in command of everything that happens, every moment of existence is exactly what he wills it to be. It's not that, oh yeah, there's nature running its track over here, then once in a while God comes in and intervenes and does something, I mean, no, everything is just a complete manifestation of his imagination or whatever you wanna call it. And so it's some level, anytime a human dies, it's cause God killed him. And so to me, you know, it's a kind of silly human convention to say, oh no, he's a murderer if he tells somebody to stick a sword in somebody or if he just kills them because the kid has a rock fall on him or because there's a tornado that goes through or he dies of a heart attack when he's 87, ultimately God is in charge of all that. And so, you know, again, so it's not what the issue of in terms of morality or whatever, it's odd that he would order people to go kill others and there I don't claim to fully understand that but I would just say in terms of everything else, I recognize that Jesus clearly in my mind is the most moral character in literature and has the best value system and he said no one is good except God and there he's referring to the God of the Old Testament, God of Abraham. So it's like if the best physicist I ever knew comes along and says the best physicist in the history is so and so I'm gonna trust that guy's judgment. And so if the most moral person in terms of my limited ability to discern that stuff is this guy Jesus and he's telling me, no, the only moral being is God, then I'm certainly not gonna, you know, it would take a lot of presumption for me to just very to, you know, automatically say, oh my gosh, I read the story of the Old Testament and this guy's a monster. I'm going to say, yes, I don't understand that it would be a lot easier for me to tell people that I think the Bible has a lot of truth to it and it's, you know, a moral beacon if there weren't those stories in the Old Testament. So that's that. I have two that brings up two questions that I have here. One is if what you say is true that in your conception of God it's kind of the orchestrator of every death and therefore when somebody dies is sort of ultimately irrelevant. It was gonna happen anyway and it's all part of this grand plan. Would that, I think that necessarily would mean that there's no such thing as an inherent or intrinsic morality that dying by itself is nothing that's bad or that torture or slaughter is not something that is inherently a bad thing. Is that correct? I don't know that I would say that. I'm just saying that it's, I don't think it's correct to say if God had told someone to go put a sword in that person that that makes God a murderer as opposed to if he kills somebody with a tornado. I see. Okay, because it's- So I mean, listen, if a human, you know, again, we get these issues of free will and that kind of stuff too. So this is all really, it's really complicated, really fast. I don't claim to be able to solve something that the best thinkers in humanity haven't been able to totally understand. But I mean, yeah, if I certainly makes a difference from a human, you know, if I think I'm just following my own desires and I go and kill somebody, then I'm a murderer. Okay, but that's because I'm not in control of everything and that every moment of- I see, I see, okay. So let me ameliorate my question then. Would it be true to say then that there is no inherent inherent action that is good or bad when applied to God, but when you're talking about human beings, then you do have a kind of inherently good or bad action. Do you think that's more accurate? Well, it's more accurate, but I don't know if it actually is accurate. It's more defensible, because what I'm more saying is when you ponder the nature of God. So let me put it this way. I am saying everything God does is good. He does not commit evil acts. Now, is it, and I'm saying partly to understand that, where because if God does something that at first blush looks like, well, geez, if a human king did that, we would have no hesitation and it's clarinet to be evil. I'm saying part of what's going on there is because when you ponder the nature of who God is and his relationship to the universe and the creation, he's in a different position. Right. Yeah, well, I mean, that would make sense if we're giving a kind of categorical distinction to God, then perhaps there is this separation between a kind of objective morality for us and an objective morality if that term even applies to God. But this is a great segue. Yeah, and we just don't finish that. I mean, because we have this phrase, right? You say, oh, you can't play God, right? And what does that usually mean? It usually means when humans are dabbling in areas where they have no authority to. And so what that means is, of course, God is allowed to play God. God's allowed to do things that would be monsters of humans try to do it. And I don't think it's merely saying, oh yeah, by definition, whatever God does is good. I think that if you wanna have an absolute standard, so I do think believers when they die are with the Lord in heaven that they, things will be a clear to them and they will say stuff like, oh, that's why you let the Holocaust happen. Okay, oh my good, you know what I mean? It's not just gonna be some kind of tautology where, yeah, that still strikes me as awful, it makes my stomach turn, but I guess you're God, so I guess you can get away with it. I don't think it's gonna be like that. I think it's, we just, we had the tiny little pinprick of understanding and experience of everything going on and knowing the timeline of the universe. And I think once you saw more behind the scenes of what was going on, your jaw would drop and you would say, oh, now I see why you, things played out that way and you let that happen or you designed things to happen that way. Yes, that is beautiful. I see. So this perspective is very, very different and I'm sure very unpalatable for a lot of atheists out there like you would have, I'm sure if you're a 20 year old self, heard yourself speaking now, you'd think this guy's a nut job, this is crazy. So I'd like, and of course, I'm not saying I think that, I just, what I'd like is if you could explain how you got from there to here, did you have, did you undergo a, you said use the term transformed before, what does that mean? Was there a conversion experience for you? Because before you answered just to break the ice on this topic, the reason that I am, I have some kind of Christian belief is because I had a profound moment, an actual point in time at which I had a reason to believe that God exists. It was the first time that I experienced love with my now wife, I felt I had this realization of true love in which I would say I had enough reason to believe was categorically something divine and it totally turned my entire life on its head instantly, is this, do you have a similar story or was it kind of a gradual progression into this? How did that work for you? Sure, so it happened in grad school and at some point, and I wish I had written it down closer to what had happened when I had all the details fresh and I just kept saying, I'll write it down and then now it's a bit hazy but yeah, I was in grad school and I was very depressed. I mean, it's not like I went and talked to anybody about it but I mean, I would have been diagnosed as suffering from extreme depression if I had gone and talked to somebody about it. And it was kind of just like, I felt, what's the point of this? This is ridiculous, you know what I mean? I'd be arguing with people on stuff and they were all idiots and I was just going through it and it was just like, I'd be making these great points and nobody would get it and I was just like, what am I, what am I, this is all just a waste of time. These people aren't worth me trying to help them. I mean, that was kind of the feeling sorry for myself and just that was the where I was. And my material standard of living was higher than 99.999% of any human who'd ever lived in the history of that point and here I am just not even wanting to continue life because oh my gosh, these people on the internet aren't responding to the appreciation of my brilliant insights. So that's how messed up and narcissistic I was but that's where I was. And so what happened, and I had had things like, like the skin on my nose, like where your nose connects to your cheek, like that was like kept flaking off or whatever. You know what I mean, it wasn't like that I looked like I had leprosy or something but I mean, it was just, you know, it was kind of gross and it was just, you know, you'd look at it and it was like, huh, that's it. And so I mean, it was just stuff like that where, you know, so I seen dermatologists and they were giving me stuff that wasn't working and so I just finally had this, this insight that just, you know, cause I had reached this crisis point like what's going on here? Like just personal relationships, things that weren't working out. And I just like had this realization and just a bunch of encounters going back for years, just like flooded my mind in rapid succession. And I realized how all these people had been like, I don't know tiptoeing around me or something or I just realized that I had totally misunderstood like 15 different interactions with people like significant things in my life up to that point and how I had walked away thinking like, oh yeah, that person didn't like me and rejected me and whatever when really I realized, no, the purpose was like really like intimidated and nervous around me. Like I realized when I was around somebody that I really wanted to like me or that, you know, I respect how you kind of act like an idiot. Like if you're a pretty girl or you're around, you know, some guy that's, you know, two years ahead of you in school as a good athlete, whatever you want to impress him and you end up acting like a jackass. So I realized a bunch of these interactions that the person was acting real stupid and nervous around me as they wanted to impress me. Whereas I was like, what the heck? This person must not like me. And I, you know, so that totally, and I physically just felt relief just wash over me. And I instantly knew that like the flaking of the skin was going to just go away the next day. I had this tremendous urge to go buy orange juice and I just chugged it. I think it's because I needed the lighted and sear. So, you know what I mean? It was like all of a sudden just when this clarity hit me like physically I felt much better and I knew these little elements and stuff were just going to be gone. Like my back had been sore or whatever. I just knew I'll just, that's going to be fine. And so then because of that, now this was all, this was not a religious expiry. I was still an atheist. But when that happened, when I just instantly knew, oh yeah, my face is going to be good. Go back to being fine and, you know, 24 hours here. This is not that I don't need to go see the idiot dermatologists who are hawking stuff. And then that happened. Then I realized, whoa, these people who are talking about the power of suggestion and how the mind-body connection, they're not a bunch of charlatans. That is real because it was, you know, my mind imposing, you know, I had this idea and I just kept swelling and that's why I was so depressed. The people don't like me and I said, and so I was just completely misinterpreting the sensory observations all along. And I just kept painting myself into a deeper and deeper corner and the stuff I was trying. And so I realized, no, once I just changed my attitude and realized what was going on, all of a sudden physically, all these ailments disappeared instantly. And so that's when I said, you know what? These faith healers are actually, you know, not complete snake oil salesmen. You know what I mean? That I realized, and then of course, the most obvious example is I realized, whoa, I bet you there really was a guy named Jesus who was a carpenter walking around who was nuts. You know, he thought he was the Messiah. He obviously wasn't because there is no such thing as God and that's all myth. But if he honestly believed he was and was walking around healing people of leprosy and stuff, it would work, you know, or some guy who just thinks he can't walk. And then this guy coming along who's got a reputation in the community now that, oh my God, he just healed 900 people the other day. He comes up and says, by the power of God, you're healed and you really believed it. I was thinking, maybe they would actually fix your legs and you'd stand up. You know, cause it wasn't like it was a guy, you know, a guy who had been over to Vietnam and his legs were blown off. It was some guy who just from birth, he had legs and whatever and they didn't work. And so I thought, well, maybe it was just some kind of, you know, neurological thing that if he just, somehow then something changed in his mind that might alter the physiology and fix it. So anyway, so then I went from thinking it was total myth to, oh, wait a minute. I bet you there really was this guy walking around healing people. And I bet you these Christian, you know, these revival meetings and stuff, I bet you some of these people really do get healed because of the power of the mind. So that was my, and I thought that actually fit the data better, you know what I mean? Cause it was kind of weird how could so many people throughout history have been converted in the face of persecution if it was all just a big myth. Like that didn't seem to make sense. So this made more sense to me that, okay, yeah, it's not supernatural of me, but I just observed firsthand how much if your belief system changes instantly that can, you know, have physiological ramifications immediately. Because I just, I didn't believe that beforehand. I thought, you know, I knew that I had read studies about how if you're gonna go get major surgery to see whether it's gonna work or like it's experimental, somebody did this thing where to predict who's gonna be successful and who's gonna be out, you know, in full recovery versus who it's not gonna work on. It wasn't like their family history and that and their weight and so that didn't matter as much. What really mattered is when they interviewed them and said, why are you getting this surgery? The people who said stuff like, well, because I really wanna get back out in the golf course, those people would do it. Whereas the people who said, well, my doctor said I should try, I might as well. Those people it wouldn't work out. I mean, so it was an attitude in terms of who's gonna recover. So, you know, I had read that stuff and I was like, okay, fair enough. But so, but until I experienced it firsthand, I didn't realize just how true that was, that your mind can affect whether you feel sick or not, whether you are sick or not. So that's where I was at that point. But again, still in eight and then just, you know, I'll just spell out, they'll wrap the story up here. But it was just a series of things that just kept pushing me more and more where I went from thinking, okay. And so I finally got to the point that said, wait a minute. So yes, I think I could come up with a rational scientific explanation for how there was this guy who thought he was the Messiah going around healing people. And I said, well, if it really did exist, wouldn't there be a scientific explanation? You know what I mean? So it wasn't, in other words, it wasn't an either or it was saying, if there was a God, if he did send him aside and do all this stuff and heal people, of course we could look at it empirically and scientifically and see the results and explain it that way through that mechanism. But that's kind of a big coincidence. Cause I was doing stuff too, like with the 10 plagues. And I was saying, well, if the river, if something did happen and turn the Nile into blood, like it wasn't really blood, it was just some red, like chemicals or whatever. And I was like, well, wouldn't that make, you know, think about it, wouldn't that make all the frogs jump out? And then if the frogs are all jumping around, like wouldn't that make there be fleas? And you know what I mean? I might be getting the order of the plagues mixed up, but in other words, it seemed to me like, if just something happened and he got the first one right, the other things might follow step by step, like naturally. And so then I was thinking, okay, so I've explained it, but yet, isn't that kind of a huge coincidence that there was this guy who had these crazy visions telling him to go to the pharaoh and announce these things before they happen? So that's kind of where I was coming to realize that yeah, I could start to understand how these things could have happened mechanically or physically in terms of the laws of physics that are not violating anything that way, but yet there were these people who were predicting it beforehand. And that's, so anyway, it was that guy, but I did the last thing I'll say is, yeah, I did have a personal experience and when I realized that God really did exist and I just said, oh, I'm so sorry because I had spent so much time trying to convince people that it was all a myth and I heard a voice in my head say, I forgive you. So. Really? Yeah, so I mean, again, I can explain it. You know, people could say, yeah, you had all this guilt you were carrying around and you needed to hear that voice, otherwise you wouldn't be able to forgive you. So I get that, I'm not, I can explain that away. And I understand how an atheist, this would just, story would just bounce off him and he was like, yeah, whatever. But in terms of me saying, you know, geez, why do you believe this? Like, well, I, because he's communicated with me on a few occasions, so. So I do not think that you're crazy. You're under no obligation at all if this is something that's too personal, but I am extremely interested. I'm sure a lot of people are extremely interested in that experience that you had. What was that like? What caused it? It must have been enough, that must have been powerfully, I guess, transforming on the spot. Can you talk a bit about that moment? Yeah, I can talk a little bit. It's not that I'm squeamish or something. It's more that I would want to give more of the story. I don't want to take up too much time. So I'll just give some of the elements of it. It was all in the same, you know, it was on the heels of the earlier thing I talked about. And so it was just things like I had gone to Blockbuster and I had rented some movies and they were just really religious. You know, like I wasn't even trying to. It was like Christopher Walken movie or something where he's like a fallen angel or something. But I mean, it was like, there was something in there and I was like, whoa. And then I rented something else. I can't remember. I mean, I could probably go Google it and figure it out, but it was like the movies I was just randomly in quotation marks had gotten from Blockbuster. Like they really were what I needed to see to keep pushing me. So it was like everything kept just kept pushing me. Like on trains of thought. And I was like, oh yeah, actually, that's how it worked. And it was just, I had gotten to the point where I was like, okay, you know what? Like it was pushing me. And I was like, you know what? If I see one more thing, then I will believe. And then I did see it. And I say, I'd want to write this up more to explain the context better. But, and I did see, you know what I mean? So it was kind of like I made this deal out loud. You know, one more thing and then I'll believe. And then I did see one more thing. And that's when I was like, whoop. And then I felt like I said this something. And that's when I was like, oh. And I said, you know, oh, I'm so sorry. And like I said, I, you know, again, you can say that my subconscious are, you know, Freud talking, but I clearly heard a voice in my head saying, I forgive you. So there you go. Wow. So when you say you heard, it was auditory. You heard. Well, it was in my head. So I don't know whether you, I mean. So to make you feel a little more comfortable because I know this is awkward and uncomfortable to talk about. At least it is for me when I've spoken with people about this. In the experience that I had, I also, I wouldn't say I heard a voice that wasn't auditory, but in that moment, I, it was as if somebody was talking to me and what I heard or understood was even honestly thinking about it will make me well up because it's so, it was just so unbelievably profound. I heard as much as you love Julia, that's as much as I love you. And I was just like, it's just, you know, life changing on the spot. You know, there was obviously, there's a lot of build up to how do you, how do you, how does your mind get prepped for something like that? And I'm tearing up over here. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it was, it was, it was, yeah. It was as you would expect, right? As somebody who's a, who's rationalist pursuing truth, you know, not persuaded by religious ideas. It is as profound as you would expect for something like, you know, like some divine intervention actually happened. And that, at that moment too, it required an absolute certainty on my end that it's not something I was looking for. There was a series of articles I wrote years and years ago that I almost had to write. It was a, there was a piece called why reason comes first. And it was an argument against methodological faith. And I wrote another one called, it was like the methodological error of faith. And it was like, I had made maybe a few months prior this commitment, this, for reasons I understood that having positive belief in anything requires rational justification. And this is, I was liberated. It was, I had kind of finally fully thrown aside the indoctrination of my upbringing. And so I knew that that was my disposition. And so that moment had to happen exactly when it did. But yeah, we can, we can talk, I would actually love to at some point talk more about this and hear the backstory because I was talking to another gentleman on my podcast who also had a kind of communicatory experience where it was very profound for him, very life-changing. And it's so interesting because I think as, you know, people who, like you're a, you're a well-respected economist and a public intellectual, I am not there yet. But a lot's writing on the line for people to take us seriously and not dismiss what we're saying is cranky and that we're, you know, are we actually literally insane because we have these other beliefs? And so I think this is, it really is a taboo thing to talk about, like, yeah, by the way, you know, I can, I believe that logic and existence are inseparable and you know, we can fundamentally know all these truths and science is this amazing thing. And I think God talked to me. Right, yeah. I mean, somebody on my blog the other day said something funny, you know, wise guy remark, but I was like reflecting on the story of the Garden of Eden. And I was like, you know, like a lot of feminists get upset about that because they say how it, you know, shows. The woman was deceived first. So it seems like it blames, you know, the sin entered the world to the woman. And I, you know, Paul actually, you know, says that explicitly in one of his letters or something that I think didn't Timothy. But what I was saying, you know, you could flip it the other way. If you wanted to be pro-woman about it, you could say the devil knew if he hit Adam first, that he was gonna have to hit Eve also, whereas he knew if he just could take out Eve, the idiot husband would do whatever the place said, you know, and so that's the kind of thing I did. And so we're arguing about it. And then some guy comes in with a zinger and said, okay, but let's just all be clear, everybody. We're talking about, you know, a talking snake, right? We're just all, well, remember that, right? Meaning like, what are you idiots doing? This is, what are you talking about? This is so stupid. I can't believe, you know, our respected economists is having this discussion with his idiot, you know, father. So, so I can't get that. Well, how do you deal with that? Yeah, cause I mean, I'm sure, you know, you get that, I'm sure you get that all the time, that, oh, you're so good on these other issues, but how could you be such a blundering fool as to believe these mythological stories? Like, what are you smoking? Right. So it's, you're right, I do get that a lot. And so that's, for people who don't know, that's the compromise I've done. Cause it used to be, I would just throw stuff on my blog, a consulting by rpm.com, little plug. I would just randomly intersperse, you know, thoughts on religion and where, and you're right, I was getting that, people were hammering me. And so I said, okay, you know what guys, on six days a week, I will just talk about economic stuff or where secular matters. But on Sunday, I will just post on religious stuff. And that was kind of the, and so I said, if you can't stand it to see this guy who's so good when he's knocking crewmen, talking about the New Testament, well then just don't tune in on Sundays. You know, that's kind of the thing I did. And again, and it's, you know, I fully concede that if I was the one who believed this stuff or it was me and three other people, people would. They would, they would say, we can't hire this, this guy's an idiot. But it's so many people that's kind of like, well, you know, what are we gonna do? Not hire any Christians? Cause there's a lot of them around here. And we just see that probably wouldn't be a viable business model. But they're, yeah, they're all idiots on that one. And I think also people think, well, you know, they have this segregated thing. But you know, I'm sure when it comes to, you know, new stuff that really matters, Bob uses his mind and then just when he goes to church, he indulges in these things because it makes him feel good that there's this guy in the sky, gotta take care of him. You know, so. Yeah. So again, all I can do is explain to people, I get where you're coming from, you're not telling me something I didn't already know. I mean, just to show you how bad it was, I had planned on writing the definitive refutation of Christianity because I had read other ones. Like I've read, you know, HL Mankin's treatise on the gods. I had read, I think his name is George Smith, wrote something on atheism, maybe. And I just said, yeah, okay. Or Thomas Paine, you know, age reason. And I thought it was a good stuff, but I thought, no, someone really needs to sit down and do this thing correctly. And that's what I was gonna do. So I was, my plan at some point was to study the Bible and just document better that anyone had done all the inconsistencies and how crazy it was. Like, you know, I was thinking, it's kind of nutty. The God's mad at us, right? Cause the garden of Eden, we disobey him. And then he says, you know, you're all going to hell unless I send you my son and you torture and murder him. Then you can come and hang out with me. And that's a weird story. You know what I mean? And if you look at it like that, it is weird. But of course now I can see the other way I'm looking at it. It's not weird because it's actually, it's gorgeous. And I do specifically, is it the last, I don't wanna take up all of your day, but this is a last question specifically about what you just said. In your understanding of the character or the person of Jesus, I wanna know, I kinda wanna know if you felt the metaphysics of Jesus, what is Jesus? Is it that he was 100% like you and me a human and then through, for whatever reason, he was able to reach this high level of communication with something, you know, with God or he became enlightened. Or is it that he was intrinsically like this being God, this was like a literal son that he sent and from the beginning he was perfect and all these things like who is Jesus Christ? Okay, so here again I would, if anything I say contradicts the Westminster confessional then I'm going to retract it. But I mean, I'm being kind of cheeky but it's again with this stuff, I'm a novice in this but I think it's, again, think about so God is not part of the physical universe. He created the physical universe, right? So we have, so you know, there's a spirit or a soul. It's possible for there to be an intelligent being with desires and the mind who doesn't have a physical body. So I think among other ways of describing what happened is to say God was like, okay, I've taught you guys with my prophets, I've inspired them, I've taught you from the beginning, told you what the moral code is, I've taught you how to live, you cannot learn on your own, you're incorrigible. Now let me show you, I am going to take my spirit and go into the physical universe and be a man. So you can say like, what if I were going to be a man? This is how you guys should copy me. Let me show you, I've taught you up till now, you can't do it, I've given you rules, you keep violating them, you're a bunch of savages. Here, let me show you by my example. And so Jesus was God incarnate. And so you could say, you know, a sense God, the God that, you know, the spirit thing, you know, was in a sense the father and he was the son, you know, in terms of the way it would look in terms of unfolding of time, it would look like, well, if God of the heavens created the earth before, and then there were a bunch of humans being born and then all of a sudden this girl Mary gives birth, clearly the God that created the heavens is in some sense the thing that caused that. So that's where the father, son comes in. But at the same time, that really is the same God. It's like he went into, you know, a mortal body or assumed a mortal body. And so that's the sense of which I think Jesus really is the same thing as God. And that's why, you know, he says at one point, you know, I am like, he's right there. He's heartening the way God spoke in the Old Testament. What do you think of then? Cause the next step is a lot of Christians. And this is where I think I am very sympathetic. And I just don't know how to articulate and I don't know the answer to these questions. What do you think the connection is between Jesus and the rest of us, between God and Jesus and the rest of us? Because if I'm not mistaken, somewhere he says, you know, don't you know that ye are gods and I am in you and you are on me and that kind of idea. Now this is something that growing up in like a Baptist church, nobody really talked about that much about this stated connection between the person of Jesus, his connection with God and in that connection with human beings, that would be kind of heresy, but like, oh yeah, I have, you know, I have God. Like I've got God inside of me. Like that's a radical proposition if that's true. What do you think about that? Yeah, so I definitely think it's correct and biblically sound to say, if you're a believer that Jesus dwells or the spirit dwells in you, you invited Jesus in your heart and we are to act as the hands and feet of Jesus and that we're, you know, if you can get it to the point where you don't think that you're going out doing what you feel like doing, but you're like, what does God want to do through me? I mean, that's a very healthy way to live. I think that's what you're supposed to do. And so what's that? Is it the spirit of Jesus or is it the spirit of God? Or is that the same thing? Well, Jesus is God. I think it's easier for us to identify with Jesus. So I think that's partly the function of, you know, why did he do things that way? It's just, there's some being to create. I mean, he's just so incomprehensibly above us. We can't even identify him with the where is, you know, Jesus, you know, saying, okay, I am fully man and lovely. I'm gonna lead a perfect life and you can follow me. So I think it's easier for us to identify with him. Do you think then that implies there is a, the possibility for the connection that God, that Jesus had with God, and if Jesus is in us, that we have the same capacity to be like Jesus, or is there this divide between the person of Jesus, what he accomplished, how he lived his life and human beings? Does that make sense? Are we destined to be terrible creatures, or do we have the potential for living like Jesus inside of us? Okay, I guess I would say that, yeah, Jesus showed you what it would look like if you perfectly followed God's will. That's what you would do. And that's, you know, and you had perfect faith and obedience. So, but we are all fallen. And so I would say, no, it is impossible. You're not going to ever live up to that standard, but that's certainly the goal. And you can look forward to in the afterlife, being united with God at that point. But yeah, I think there is humans after the fall are incapable of certainly on their own doing that. And it gets dicey. And so I'm gonna stop short because I'm not, I would need to think through and the total theological implications of, well, gee, if you've accepted it, you've been born again, you've been washed with the blood of Jesus and something. So aren't you in perfect union with God? Well, but you keep sinning. So that stuff gets really complicated. So I'm not sure, but I hope I've answered enough at least of your question. Yes, I mean, I'm not expecting that anybody has a full answer to all these things. But I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me about it on that very, very exciting conversation. And I hope I'm sure other people will as well. So thanks very much, Bob. Sure thing. All right, so that was my interview with Dr. Bob Murphy. Make of it what you will. I humbly suggest that I don't think Bob Murphy is irrational. I don't think I am irrational. And I think a lot of the people that you're gonna hear on this podcast series, if you're coming from the traditional, rationalist scientific worldview, I think you might find a bit of discomfort at hearing so many people that you might even respect, that you might hear make clear and concise arguments in their respective fields, whether it's in economics or philosophy or biology or physics. When you hear those clearly articulated beliefs coupled with religious belief, I know for me that was very startling, but as I grow older and as I have more experiences, I think I'm starting to understand why. Thanks for listening, everybody. I'll talk to you next week.