 Anyone could see the game was over by that point. In fact, I was just about to issue an official surrender when they released those parachutes. You released those parachutes. You really think I gave the order? We both know I'm not above killing children, but I'm not wasteful. That's of course a clip from the movie Hunger Games, a film that's getting a lot of extra attention lately as the line between film, movies, entertainment and live action role playing and real life all seem to be getting more and more blurred. Now, this is a topic we don't talk directly about in my upcoming interview with the very excellent Kurt Jemungal, who has a terrific new movie out, better left unsaid about the impossibility of talking with woke people even for progressive left leaning men of color like Kurt. But I think a lot of the issues are the same. Take for example this clip. Well, even if they say they have no values, their body acts as if they have values because they move and they value something above not talking if they talk. So just by their actions, they convey their values. And again, I just think you go back and talk to Shermer and ask him and see what his answer is. But what I've done with Shermer is you can ask him, do you value science? Do you value truth? And he might say yes. He values it as a social construct. That's fine. That's fine. You can say he values it as social construct. He still values it. I don't think it's fine at all. I think it completely skates the issue. The issue is as you've put your finger on, I think, is there a moral imperative? The question is, who are we? Why are we here? Welcome to Skeptico where we explore controversial science and spirituality with leading researchers, thinkers, and their critics. I'm your host, Alex Akeris. And today we welcome Kurt Jemungal, the Skeptico. Kurt is a very accomplished filmmaker and actor based in Toronto. I initially contacted Kurt because I was super impressed with his YouTube channel, which I'm actually showing up on the screen here. And some of his just excellent interviews on consciousness, atheism, free will, and all the interesting stuff. We love to talk about on Skeptico, highlighting one that he did with Donald Hoffman with over 143,000 views. Fantastic. We all know Don Hoffman was one of my favorite guests to have on and is featured in the book that I have. So since my initial contact with Kurt, he has released this pretty amazing movie, just extremely well done movie called Better Left Unset. So I thought what we'd do is kind of shift the focus a little bit over to this movie. And I'm showing his IMDB page, which is quite impressive as well. But we'll just kind of talk about a bunch of different things. I'm going to, of course, give him the usual Skeptico inquiry to perpetuate doubt treatment. He won't escape that, but he's a really smart guy. So I know he can take it. Kurt, welcome to Skeptico and thanks so much for joining me. Thank you so much, man. I appreciate it. By the way, I read your book, read it last night. It was way, it was far better than I expected. Not to, not that I expected to be. Wait a minute. What kind of backhanded camp lemon is that? I was, I was impressed. And especially the, let's say the first 66, the first two thirds. It's almost exactly in line with what I'm interested in anyway. Yeah, I think there's a great intersection there. But I think we can help people maybe jump into this even better. If we share a trailer from the new film, this is better left unsaid and I'm going to play it and we'll just kind of listen and then we'll ask Kurt to comment on it and tell us in his own words what the movie is about. I four little children, love be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. You're a white male. You're still responsible. The world is upside down. I thought the whole idea was to not judge people by their skin color. That's what racism used to mean. I can no longer teach contemporary moral problem. Anything that involved issues of race and gender seems to me a mind field. Racism has been redefined. Sexism has been redefined. This is all through the culture. And if we can't talk, what's left? I'm not a Nazi. Why are we not taught the historical consequences of those who viewed the world through optics of groups that have power and groups that don't? Is this not the central problem of our time? Powerful stuff, great stuff. Tell us more about this Kickstarter. Super successful Kickstarter that you did. You obviously have resonated with a lot of people. Tell us about what the movie is all about and what the reaction has been so far. Sure. So the reaction hasn't. The reaction has been extremely positive from everyone who doesn't identify as being a leftist and people who identify as being not on the left, but a part of, let's say the extreme left or radical left. They tend to not like the film. People who are center left, center and center right seem to extremely enjoy the film. Okay. As for what it's about, my background is in math and physics. So I'm extremely analytical. And I hear it's insensate clamoring of people on the, let's say the radical end of the left. And I'm trying to make sense of it, especially in the university. That's where I was trained. So I'm like, okay, what's going on when people say that white people can't be racist and that. It's an inveterate part of their. Constitution races. It's almost like original sin in the Christian doctrine. Can't get rid of it. You're born with it. You get they don't like to be called essentialists. Essentialists means that there are. Substant qualities of you that you can't get rid of. It seems contradictory, but. Part of what I like part of one of the reasons I liked your book, by the way, Alex is that. Even though I'm, let's say a mathematician or a physicist by training, I'm not a mathematician like man. That's an honor that I can't claim I'm not a physicist either. I just have training in that. Now, even though I have. Even though I have training in that most physicists, as you know, most physicists and most people who call themselves scientists dislike ambiguity. They dislike what they can't define. They dislike what they can't prove or disprove and they dismiss almost they have a swift dismissal of what seems. Contradictory and meaningless. So. I share almost all the traits with scientists except that I find that part of. Maybe that's my artist side. Anyway, so I'm trying to analyze this and see why what sense is there in the senseless. That's what this movie is about. How did it get this way? What's right about what they're saying? What's wrong about what they're saying from my perspective with an analytical background. That's pretty much it. So you touched on a couple of interesting things there. I might just return us to. Donald Hoffman. Since we both have a lot of respect for the guy and. You did an outstanding interview with him and he was super impressed by your interview. Which is always a great measuring stick, I think. You know, because YouTuber comments to me. Aren't quite as significant as. When Don Hoffman says, wow, you really did a good interview. Take that as a, as a higher compliment, which he did for you. You know, when I talked to Hoffman. One of the really interesting exchanges we had. Was. I was talking to him about spirituality. And I was talking to him about Eckhart totally. And he paused for a minute and a smile came over his face. And he says, I have a lot of respect for Eckhart totally. And I meditate on a regular basis. And then he told me a story. That I think gets to the first part of what you're saying. He says, one day I was giving a presentation and somebody. Came up at the end and in a very kind of smirky way said. The language of God is silence. Everything else is meaningless. And Hoffman said, he stopped for a minute. He thought, and then he said, okay, I can live with that. If we're going to be silent, then I can be silent. But everyone who has a religious point of view about what God is about. What spirituality does. It ultimately follows that up with pages upon pages upon books upon volumes about. Not silence about what the rules are. And he said, so if we are going to speak. Let's try and be as precise as possible. And he said, as a mathematician, that's what I love about math. It keeps me in check in terms of being precise. And I wonder if there isn't a strange link to what you were saying about your analytical approach. And how much frustration you feel with academia, which has come has overtly just disassociated themselves with precision with reality. And we can argue that part of that is a reaction to what they see as an absurdity that was done in the past either from a social justice standpoint, or from a religious standpoint. But still we wind up in this place where they've kind of left the dock of reason and don't even pretend to have a need to go back to it. And that's what I think your movie does, just an incredibly direct and well argued way of just exposing that for what it is. So, do you have any thoughts on that. With regard to academia leaving precision, I think what you're referring to is the non stem fields stem fields are all about rigor and I like that but the non stem fields. Their job is to be not precise. So that's not my problem. My issue in the film is, you have to have a value. So you have to say, what is this for is this for the flourishing of society is this for the pursuit of knowledge wherever it takes me. So you have to have some value to have some aim. What seems to have happened in the non stem fields is there's something called modernism which is actually people misuse it's modernity. Modernism, even though I use the term modernism in the film, it's just because most people use it that way modernism is the art, the artistic movement, modernity is the philosophical framework comes along with that. So, what came from modernity was the enlightenment, or the enlightenment spread modernity one of those two. And you can think of that as skepticism. When I was talking to Michael Sturmer. I asked him what's wrong with postmodernism because to me, postmodernism is the same as skepticism just applied universally. He didn't give me an adequate answer, except to venerate science and just say well that's what we shouldn't be skeptical of. Anyway, going back to the non stem fields. They have a postmodern bend which means they dislike all values. Well where will that lead you, it seems like they don't dislike all values it also seems like they're influenced by what's called Marxism and Marxism in and of itself doesn't seem so bad on the face of it. It's all about sharing it seems egalitarian it seems even Christian, but yet it seems like there's something more darker and pestilential under the surface under the surface. So the non stem fields are influenced by postmodernism Marxism and a few others even some of what I like like existentialism they're influenced by but I don't bring that up in the film. It was just a moot point. So the non stem fields when you talk about lack of rigor I don't care about that that's fine because art is lack of rigor and also remember at part of my core it's like rigor and art because I'm a filmmaker. I like art. It's just the value. What are you critiquing underneath. Are you critiquing. And what are you aimed at it's basically what are you aimed at that I, I'm not quite sure of and I don't necessarily agree with in the non stem fields. I get it slightly differently. And my approach is that fundamentally there's only two questions that we're asking across the board, whether it's Don Hoffman at Caltech as a physicist, or whether it's one of the wacky, quote unquote philosophers that you're talking about postmodern academia. And the two questions are who are we why are we here. Essentially that's the question. It's also the question of religion. That's the question of religion. Who are we why are we here. My feeling about the soft sciences academia are the they've built their castle on sand on a foundation of sand, it doesn't hold, because they have a fundamental misunderstanding of consciousness. They've bought into this Michael Shermer supported idea that consciousness is an illusion consciousness is an epiphenomenon of the brain, and that therefore can never be a moral imperative. There can't be. If the universe is meaningless if for biological robots in a meaningless universe. There cannot be a moral good and bad. And so I think that the sleight of hand that's been done. And some of them are aware of it and some of them aren't is that if you don't understand consciousness. If you accept the radically absurd idea that consciousness is an illusion. Then you you can't go anywhere. What do you think about that. Okay, let's get to the fundamental nature of consciousness afterward. I'm going to comment on what you said directly with two religious references. There's someone named Hilda guard to Bingham, I believe she was a Christian monk and how I could be completely mangling this but in the Middle Ages, and she has a passage that resonates with me. You're a Christian, you're a Christian right Kurt. I don't know what I am. I'll say that. Okay, I'll say in many ways I hope I'm a Christian or in many ways I hope that I hope that I'm a Christian. We can talk about that after. Now, Hilda guard said, and pride germinated in the first angel, as he no longer could comprehend the source of his own light. And so he spoke to himself. I want to be master and want none above me. Now there's so much in that passage pride germinated in the first angel so talking about Satan. And he spoke to himself meaning extremely individualistic now that means, like, I'm, I'm a fan of individualism but I think individualism gets taken to an extreme on the extreme left which is about collectivism and I'll tell you how that plays later. So I can give you a sneak preview right now, because they say I assert what meaning is. So if I dress up like a girl, it doesn't mean I dress up like a girl because who cares about what society says I create my own meaning and if I dress up like a boy so and so on so I create my own meaning that's extremely individualistic. Okay, so that's cool that's what he'll do. No Hilda guard also said that again apologize for my lack of coherent thinking. I also said, I want none above me I want to be master. Now that seems to be what divides the religious or some of the religious from the atheistic, which is, I don't want an external imposer of values. I want to run it. Okay, Cubby said something interesting, I think it's from the 1800s he said that you have to excuse me because I'm trying to remember these quotes. He said that man chooses either God or nothingness. Okay, now either there's a God, or there's nothingness now let's say man chooses nothingness, then man turns himself into a God. Because it's impossible. If there is nothing that everything I see is merely an apparition. I mean it's impossible that that is not the case. In other words, it's all an illusion like you referenced with Michael Shermer. Therefore, I'm the only thing that's real therefore I'm God. So, Jacobi said, it's either God exists beyond me, or I am a God. There is no third option. And that's the point. Consciousness is an illusion is an assertion that there, there not is nothingness to be above, but that your existence doesn't exist the voice inside your head is not real. So, I kind of feel like, when you go around this, you kind of miss two things that I think are central. One is the absolute absurdity of that. And I think you as a spiritual person who obviously understands that you are more that you're not meaningless that you have free will these obvious things are taken off the equation. But the other thing that I think people who haven't processed the Christian thing completely, they kind of don't see how Christianity has been complicit in this whole thing, and how they've set it all up and that a lot of this stuff on the left is reactionary to the absurdity of a pedo pope, the absurdity of a cosmology within Christianity that is completely ridiculous. And yet we have to placate and be nice to Christians and quote unquote respect Christian beliefs about Adam and Eve or Noah's Ark or the special day or any of the rest of that stuff. So there's two parts of that one is Christians have to understand the absurdity of their proposition, and of their cosmology, and that the reactionary component of that. And then secondly, I think to misunderstand. Schermer, and to suggest that Schermer is an atheist in this kind of Gnostic create better than the creator gods. I don't think that's where he's coming from. He's asserting that there's that there's, he's okay as a biologic robot and meaningless universe who dies and then there's nothing he hasn't processed how absolutely ridiculous that is. Yeah, I would say that he. Well, first of all, I like Michael Schermer. Let's get that out of the way he's one of my favorite frenemies I always call him hey I've had him on a couple times and always have good times good natured guy. And he seems to love the film better left unsaid, and that you know that puts him in the in the ranks for me. Okay. With regard to what he says you have to also disentangle this is why part of the film is, firstly, an exposition as to what's happened in the past couple years, then a historical analysis, and then a psychological, and almost. Well, as you get deeply psychological, it's difficult to not sound religious so or let's say mythical. Then it gets psychological and mythical toward the end. Well, Schermer, as for people who say that it's meaningless. I'm also skeptical that they don't underneath, because there's a difference between professed beliefs and what they actually believe. I'm skeptical that they don't actually believe that, well they're humanists. So that means that they believe that they can try their own values. They believe values are a social construct, which doesn't require any of the. Again, I think you come at this from a Christian lens, where you don't really accept the extent to which these people have bullshitted themselves into taking this absolutely philosophically absurd position that any culture throughout time would roll on the ground laughing with the idea that consciousness is an illusion that you don't exist and that you're not in there. It's an absurdity that I think you're trying to kind of wrestle into something that makes sense, rather than just calling it for what it is. And then the real question that falls out for me for that is, how have they perpetuated such a silly, silly idea and that's where you have to ask the question is there a social engineering motivation behind it. When you say that I'm coming at it from a Christian lens, what are you referring to because I don't consider myself necessarily to be Christian, or because when you say whatever maybe when you say that you got to believe that whatever, can't really believe what he's saying. I get you. I'm saying that differently though. I'm saying no, what he has bullshitted himself as the other atheists have into really believing that life is meaningless that the world that the world is meaningless and that life is meaningless. And they are now in a state where they really believe that they're not going to going to bed and tossing on their pillow with the idea of wrestling with that. You and I can't can't quite get there because we can't even really wrap our heads around how someone could embrace such a silly idea, but I'm suggesting that they really have there's no, there's no fake to it. Even if they say they have no values, their body acts as if they have values because they move. So they value something above sitting still. And they value something above not talking if they talk. So just by their actions they convey their values. I just think you go back and talk to Sherwin ask him and see what his answer is, but what I've done with Sherwin, you can ask him you value science do you value truth and he might say yes. He, he values it as a social construct. That's fine. That's fine. You can say he values it as social construct. I don't think it's fine at all. I think it completely, it completely skates the issue. The issue is as you've put your finger on, I think, is there a moral imperative. The question is, who are we why are we here. And the question that falls out of that is, is there a moral imperative. Is there a good, is there an evil, what Shermer will say and what they all say is, well that's really a moral that's really a social construct there isn't any real objective, good or bad. And you would I say, would I say, well of course there is from the time that we're a little kid and we stole candy from the candy store, we knew it wasn't the right thing to do, and we knew it as more than a social cons contract. It was just something that wasn't right at a higher level that we didn't really understand, but we intuitively we got it. I don't see what you're saying is contradicting what I said. So there's two sources of values or at least in j cubby's formulation that is either objective or external which is God, or it is you it is man. Even if man says it's socially constructed that's still man creating it that's almost by definition man creating it. Well, that's in line with what I was saying. No, I don't think we're in disagreement. Again, I think I tell me that you disagree that I agree. Well the part that I disagree with is that man is the same man is you can what they've done here the sleight of hand is to suggest that that they can live with consciousness is an illusion. And then we can still talk about man and not being gender specific, but they are when they say man they are really alluding to consciousness to a self of a sense of who you are in yourself. The inherent contradiction that we have to get to the bottom of if we're going to make any sense of this is that they are self contradicting themselves when they say that it's a social construct created by man. There is no man if consciousness is an illusion. Well, about consciousness is an illusion, just so you know I've never understood exactly what that means. And then it I think is a proponent of the illusory nature of consciousness, and I read his book. I read at least one of his books maybe two or three. And I think Darwin's dangerous ideas another one. But I don't quite I don't understand what it means for consciousness to be an illusion. So I don't. I can't argue that that view is in contradiction or in coherence with something else, because I don't actually understand what it means. But hopefully when I talk to full stop, we have to be able to process that because that's what the whole thing is built on. The whole thing is built on consciousness is an epiphenomenon of the brain that there is no you in there. Now philosophically, that requires a miracle, because the only thing you can know philosophically is that you are in there. I don't know if you're in there. I don't know if you're AI. But I know I'm in here. So what the sleight of hand that they've done with Dan Dennett, and I always play Neil deGrasse Tyson because he's the kind of one of the modern mouthpiece or boys. And you can hear him directly say I'll play the quote but I've played it 500 times on this show. You know, I think when we get to the bottom but we'll find out that consciousness is nothing. We're all saying the same thing and sure we're saying the same thing I talked to sure about near death experience because the good thing about near death experience science. Is it puts to bed once and for all the question of consciousness, because consciousness has proven to survive bodily death. So now we can't really lean on the idea that's an epiphenomenon of the brain because the brain is gone. And this again, I mean I'm hammering on this but it is the fundamental issue that there's it's it's the fundamental messed up that the whole left has built its whole house on this foundation that is completely wrong. Okay, when it comes to near death experiences because I haven't studied it. What do they see what do they see do they see themselves after they die or do they see other people and do those other people retain their personality the same relationships and proclivities that they had when they were alive, or is it just you see them as an entity or you feel them you feel their conscious like what is it exactly. There are sorts of different experiences that people have, and a lot of folks have spent a great deal of time trying to understand them and categorize them in a scientific way which is useful, but is limited. Because we don't really have a way of understanding what consciousness would mean. If it extends beyond bodily death, because back to our scientific and philosophical implications let's stick to scientific. The fundamental question in science for as long as we've looked at the double slit experiment is, is consciousness somehow fundamental. So is matter not fundamental consciousness is fundamental, if everything is out of consciousness, then we have kind of a different thing where we can't really even talk about any of these things very clearly. But to answer your question, the most important thing that comes out of the near death experience science, in my opinion, is just this point that clearly the neurological model of consciousness has been falsified. Because for the last 60 years, we have good science, if you will, on what it takes for a brain to generate consciousness. We have EEGs, we have FMRIs on animals and in people, and under all different sorts of conditions. So we know that the condition that the brain is in, when someone has been pronounced clinically dead in a hospital for three or four minutes before they're resuscitated. We know that neurological state should not be able to generate consciousness. So when someone is resuscitated from that, and is able to recount in great detail, their resuscitation process. Yeah, the guy wheeled me in and they tried the paddles and that didn't work. So, you know, somebody else jumped on me and then a nurse came in again. When they're able to, again, in controlled peer reviewed studies, they're able to give that information and people who didn't have a near death experience, but also at cardiac arrest when they're not there's your control group. These kind of studies are highly suggestive of the idea that consciousness survives bodily death, and that consciousness is not an illusion. And it's really game over, not just for Shermer, but for Dawkins, for Dennett, for all the atheists in academia, they have to reboot everything, and there are no way prepared to do that. But the whole thing in better left unsaid and the extreme radical left. Hey man, we're with you 100% on the problem with microaggression and postmodernism, but I trace it all back to the consciousness is an illusion foundation that it's built on. That's an interesting way of tying it. I didn't. Well, when you think about this, if you were to randomly sample some people and they said consciousness is an illusion versus consciousness is not it's fundamental or that I have a spirit or a soul. There would be a moderate correlation between the right, which would say that I exist in some non corporeal form, and then the left that would say no that's it's identical to the physical matter, or in some way emergent from it. So that's an interesting angle. I need to explore that some more. It sounds like what you're saying is, given these near death experiences, and there are other experiences that I'm sure you can reference but let's just talk about near death. Given that, and the brain has zero neurological activity as far as we can measure but also keep in mind that the measurement of neurological activity isn't high, high enough resolution to ever determine that there's zero activity. For sure, just add a resolution there's no activity, just like with a camera you don't you don't have infinite resolution. Okay, despite that let's assume there's zero activity, then that implies that consciousness, while a soul see that's why I would make the distinction, I would say it's associated with the brain but not necessarily dependent on the brain. And the reason why I would make that distinction is because when someone says the consciousness is independent of the brain. Well, then why is it that a lesion would make you more impulsive or rash or emotional or, or artistic when you weren't. There seems to be an association that doesn't seem to be an equivalence, which is what Dennett would say. And by the way, here's something interesting and an equivalence in mathematics, it goes to that means you have an implication arrow in both directions which means if consciousness is the same the same as a brain state. Then that means you can replace brain states with the word consciousness. So when Dennett says that while your brain states are equivalent I don't I don't know enough men, then it like I guess, like I said when it comes to the looser nature of consciousness I don't have a handle on the theories enough to articulate them back to the people who are exponents of them in a manner that they would agree so I can't say that I understand their theories enough. I think there's something of Dennett's that I still need to read into called quining qualia, and it seems interesting because apparently it would explain why is it that we see red when we look. Why is it that red has the color red and blue the color blue and hunger, the feeling of hunger and so on. Okay, let's get back. I'm going to wrap up quick. So here's a question about them. Why do you think that someone who's extremely bright now Dennett is extremely bright. Dawkins is extremely bright. Sherman you know he's not some now I'm just kidding, but you get the idea. Why is it that they believe what they believe you mentioned conspiracy so I'm curious to know. Is it something that they are willfully going against like I referenced with hildegard to being in that I want to be master, or is it something else that much like if you're a Christian or a Muslim or or a Buddhist. You grew up that way you were just taught that way by society and so you believe it. Is there something else that they were taught that they believe or did they come to some conclusion are they evil in some way are they resistant in some way what is their motivation for believing what they believe I don't know and I'm curious to know what you think. It's a really, it's a really deep question. And I think it requires kind of a multifaceted answer. One part of it I think that I mentioned was the reactionary part. And that's the part where I think we really have to square up Christianity's being complicit in this. And now explain to me what you mean when you say that because it sounds like much of your view is already Christian, but then at the same time you say that you dislike Christianity now are you referring to institutionalized Christianity, because that's different. There's no, there's really no other kind. You know whenever I talk to Christians. Okay, let me let me let me interrupt right here, because that's a mistake. That's a huge mistake there's Chris Christian mystics. There's Christian anarchists like Tolstoy there's Kierkegaard individualistic in my favorites. Yeah. And Kierkegaard also said that, well we can talk about Kierkegaard after so that so it's not true that there's no Christianity outside what's institutionalized. So again, folks, this is classic skeptical inquiry to perpetuate doubt. If you're new to this. Let me tell you, Kurt is a next level thinker, super smart. Check out his website check out his his YouTube channel, his fantastic interviews, they're captivating spellbinding and and they're great and his movie, this one and the other ones are terrific. I want to pursue this dialogue that we're having, but I don't want people to get the wrong impression. I'm sitting here, learning from Kurt by pushing him, and hopefully he's pushing me so that's what this dialogue is about. But you know, returning to the question or the topic that we're talking about, in terms of Christianity. Before I talk to people who are Christians one thing I always start with is to say, I have come to accept that Christ consciousness is real. And a lot of times the reaction I get from Christians is a very negative one. They go what do you mean Christ consciousness. You know, that's some kind of Gnostic bullshit that you're trying to pass off. And what I say is, no, I'm talking about it quite literally, when I interview someone who has had like I have several people who are have had a near death experience, and have encountered Jesus, who they understand to be Jesus Christ. You have to pause and say, I accept that you entered an extended consciousness realm that we can't explain. Again, because the medical neurological data doesn't allow us to go there, and we can't introduce some promissory some way in the future though the know everything says that the neurological data isn't there to support that I'm now willing to support or be open to what you're saying about your experience, but you have to be open to the fact that you didn't experience Jesus per se not you experienced a consciousness connection with Jesus at that level neither one of us know what that is. I'm going to call that Christ consciousness for lack of a better term. I don't know why Christians sometimes have a hard time with that, but I'll accept that and I'll bracket that and say, I believe not just that I accept it. I believe that to be evidential, because it's come up too many times from too many different people across culture and across time, which are the usual ways we'd look at verifying that kind of data. But I suggest to you Kurt that we need a disintermediation process here. We need to access that Christ that Christ consciousness with throwing your Bible out the window, you don't need your frickin Bible, you don't need Kierkin guard, you don't need any of those people. You can directly access that consciousness. Again, that seems to be the data as it comes back and not just Christ consciousness, Buddha consciousness. I could list all the different ones, but you get the idea. So that's how I read the data is that we need a serious disintermediation that Christianity doesn't allow Christianity by design puts itself in the middle and says I will mediate your interaction with that hierarchy of consciousness that is God. Okay. So let me see if I understand what you're saying. You're saying that there are a variety of views that come up when one meditates or has near death experiences or altered state of states of consciousness. And those are of a multiplicity of religions. And therefore, if Christianity institution institutionalized Christianity would say that Vishnu doesn't exist. That mechanette of Egypt doesn't exist. Buddha doesn't exist or Buddha exists, but he's not a saint of any sort, or divine or divine in any way. Then Christianity can't be correct. Is that what you're saying is that it's close to what you're saying. This is kind of turned into you interviewing me, which. Well, like, here, I don't even know why I'm being interviewed by anyone because I feel like I know almost nothing. So I'm Well, I don't know. You've just produced a fantastic movie better left unsaid, which is in a way we are kind of in sync here. Like we said initially about so many things. I just end up interpreting it slightly differently. What better left unsaid. The way it speaks to me is again, I hate using this word absurdity because when you overuse a word, then people get all then. But there's you're just saying, isn't this ridiculous? Isn't this exactly how can we be trying to overcome racism by being racist? How does that make any sense? How did we get here? And then how do we get out of there? As for how we get out of here, that's that's a tricky one, man, because you have to want to get out of here. Okay, so maybe the answer of how to get out of here and how it started is tied. If you watch better left unsaid, now there are two versions. I sent you the public version. There's a director's version, which is about a half hour longer, and it is much more philosophically and psychologically oriented. So I'll send you that one because you can just watch the last part. It's not. Well, I'll send you that one as well. You might like it a bit more, especially given our conversation. It seems like there's a mistake that people make that people like Sam Harris and people like Cosmic Skeptic who's a YouTuber is extremely bright. He's young. So I, well, he's extremely bright, but I it's a utilitarian approach that they think that we're aimed ultimately at the good. And I don't think that everyone is aimed toward something good. Most people, including myself, are aimed at destruction. And if you were aimed at the good, it would be an earth shattering transfiguring event. And I don't think any single person on this planet is fully aimed at the good, except maybe Jesus, except maybe Buddha. What do you mean you are aimed at destruction? That really struck me. I don't sense that at all. I sense that you're on the same journey that I'm at of trying to find the truth, trying to be a better person, trying to be more aligned with the light. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I would say I'm a liar. I'm a selfish person. I'm, when I say I'm a liar, I mean, not right now, but I lied to myself. I'm a, I'm exceedingly selfish. I am not anywhere near as loving as it could be. I don't visit my parents as much as I should. I, I don't give homeless people. I dismissed. I don't give them enough credit for what they're going through. I dismiss their problems often. I don't give enough. I think that if I speed slightly, even if it's more than slightly, that it's okay because I know better. I know how to drive. How fast do you go? You look like somebody who likes to drive fast. No, absolutely not actually. Like my wife yells at me all the time because I drive slow. So that one is a bit of an exaggeration. But hold up, bro. Hold up. So you said you read my book. Yeah, I hope you got to the last chapter because to me, it's the most meaningful chapter for me that I got to know in my many year investigation of this. I came to two conclusions, Kurt. Number one is we are more. We are not the biological robots in a meaningless universe that science is telling us we are more. But the second part of that, that I would have to strongly disagree with you. We are good. We are fundamentally good. The evil thing, the dark thing gets way overplayed, bro. It's about the light and the light is always fucking shining. Alls we have to do is look up and whenever we look up, it's there. I make I am in a constant dialogue with myself about all the things that I fail on a regular basis on a minute by minute basis that you're talking about. I have four kids. Do you imagine how much I've messed up those four kids and I have a wife of 30 years. Oh, I've tormented her for 30 years. But it doesn't matter the light always shines always drawing me towards being better, making better choices and forgiving everything that I could have ever done. That's I don't. I don't. Did you say forgiving? Don't understand your, your, your sense. Did you say the word forgiving? Did you say that? Did you say the word forgiving? I did the light forgives you. Okay, okay. But, but I think let me go back and I know I kind of did a little sermon there, but let me tie it back so people understand where I'm coming from the most profound information we get from the near death experience science. And at this point there's over 200 peer reviewed papers on dear death experience science. There's thousands of accounts that have been reviewed by medical doctors and said yes this sounds like someone who would be a candidate for having the amazing transformative experience that they have. Here's the number one thing that comes out. You, Kurt will be judged. You will be judged for all the things that you just said that you do wrong. You will be judged, not by God, not by Jesus, not by Buddha, you'll be judged by you. Just like the way you are now. And in that extended realm, you will be loved and supported and told, it's okay, Kurt, you were just there to learn and experience and do the best you can. But you will still be in that state that you were in 10 minutes ago, as will I, when when I'm saying, how could I have been so cold, how could I have been so unloving to my daughter at that moment. How could I have missed making icon to attack with that person who just wanted me to smile at them as they cross the street. How could I have done it and I will feel that. I will be the one who will say, I'm human. I'll do better next time. Jesus won't judge me. God won't judge me. They're just trying to lift me up. I will judge my own soul. That's what comes through from the near death. I'm not making this up. That's what comes through from the near death experience science, like 90% of people, that's what they're saying. They're saying there is a God, it's all loving, all forgiving, and your judgment will be yours. There's a quote. I hope it's a quote. I mean, I think it's a quote that hell is a prison locked from the inside. I think that's true. I think that the sins we commit. If you hold your, if you have a conscience, which is difficult to have, but if you have a conscience, and you feel bad about it. You don't realize. It's almost, it almost brings you to tears. Now let me bring up Jesus just for the sake of this, even though you said that it's you that forgives yourself. But there's also some analogy between you and God in the Christian faith anyway, where it says you're made in the image of God. So it can go both ways depending on your interpretation, but let's just take Jesus as an entity. That you go to Jesus and almost angrily you said, you say, man, yeah, yeah, right. You forgive me for everything that I've done, even though I did it and I, and I liked it when I did it. And then Jesus just says, yes, I forgive you. And then you just sit with that and you realize I'm a whore. You just want to cry. You don't realize that despite all that you've done, despite all that you've done, that you are actually forgiven. It's you that has to accept that you're forgiven. And that's tricky, man. That's that's not easy at all. Well, this is what's so beautiful about some of the beliefs that are interwoven into the Christian tradition. I strongly believe that we have to disintermediate and that there there's a cultish aspect of bringing along these truths, having these truths bring along some untruths that can be really destructive in our life. And I think Christianity has to own that. But I fundamentally agree with you that is a wonderful, deep, deep truth that you can build your whole life on and right on. Many, many, many great in many traditions have have kind of expressed similar ideas. I wrote some notes on your book. Let's see. You surprised me with this book. It's interesting to me and that's not easy. Though the cover needs work because that's what I wrote. Okay, so there's one quote is near the beginning. I like this. He said mentioned evil and folks look for a Bible behind your back. I like that. That's true. I didn't understand what Psi Ops was and why you titled it the devil is a conspiracy. Yeah, I don't understand what Psi Ops is. Is this relevant to the conversation because if not, then we can talk about that another time. I think it is relevant. Because I think there's a, it's relevant on a bunch of different levels. One of the things that I came to understand in this journey that I've been on, I mean, I really started as a science guy. I was computer science in school. I went back to get a PhD in artificial intelligence. The precision, you know, of it's not a math precision, but it's like programming is a wonderful thing. If you get one little semi colon wrong. The whole thing doesn't work. You want to talk about precision. You got to be precise. It's great training, particularly for someone like me who's more of an abstract thinker. One of the, so when I started answering the big questions, who are we? Why are we here? I was drawn to science. I was drawn to Rupert Sheldrick. Dean Raiden, Don Hoffman, who I really interviewed 10 years ago, even though I just did a second interview with them now. When was the second interview? What's that? When did you do the second interview? Like about a year ago. Okay, okay. So, but those are the people I was drawn to. But the one thing that I came to realize in all that is one that science, as we know it, is best understood from a conspiratorial framework from a PSIA psychological operations. And it's not anyone who doesn't accept that that that is the role of government. You know, we look at North Korea and we go, Wow, I mean, they're running such a fucking PSIA of psychological operation on their population. How could they do that? We look at China and we say it the same. How could they live with social credits? We, we used to look at Russia in the same way we seem to not look at it that way. But we never look at Canada. We look at the United States. So as things gets revealed, you know, MK ultra that we were actively pursuing mind control and it's released into the public. We still deny that governments always felt that one of their jobs is to control the population through social engineering. Okay, how does that relate to Christianity? Well, I think what it relates to is when we're saying you were saying in my book that you didn't really understand the idea of a PSIA a psychological operation. So I think Gloria Steinem and her involvement in feminism under the control of the CIA under the direction of the CIA is the closest thing I can do to put them in a finger on a PSIA that is particularly relevant to better left unsaid and the left. Okay, here's, here's what's here's what I'm wondering. Let's imagine there's this let's imagine that's true, then does the government also play PSIA games, if you can call it that with the right. And then what is there. So, so what is there so they don't have a political orientation left to right doesn't matter to them they just want control. Is that correct. I don't know but that certainly rings true to me. I mean, you don't want the guys with the torches and pitchforks storming the castle. You know, going back to your, your book is called Why Evil Matters. The first spoke something I'm interested in is what I call the source question, which is an innocuous question is usually binary, maybe yes or no. That taken to its logical extreme leads you down to a route of evil versus good. I think I mentioned it to you, and I'll explain what I mean, but going back to the government's acquisition of power. Carl Jung said that love is the opposite of power and that's so interesting because that means when you're fully driven by love, you don't want power, you give it up. And when you are driven by power, it's the opposite of being loving. And there's in the Christian faith, as well as others there's an extreme association between love and the divine. I think that's incredibly meaningful to me personally. It's a great thought bomb to drop on somebody and you know I have young up here in the corner, but you just reminded me of one of his most profound quotes there I appreciate. I know this is not meant to be me interviewing you but I did have a question for you. Do you think that the world is meant to be now meant obviously there's a T lost there's a purpose there. Do you think the world is meant to be unintelligible. That is to say that we are not meant to know the answer. I think my answer would be your awesome young Ian truth bomb. It's like the difference between consciousness is fundamental and matter is fundamental. Consciousness is and it's unimaginable. It's incomprehensible. But if consciousness is fundamental, then love is all there is. And we're constantly in this shadow dancing game of our attachment to the material, our desire, our interest in dark, but really the game is about love. Unintelligible as you're saying to put a year to love is the ultimate unintelligible right. Okay, now why is it that if consciousness is as Deepak would say ontologically fundamental. That love comes in there because in Don Donald Hoffman's model. It's just experiences there's nothing that privileges one experience over the rest. There's no love in the sets that he generates they're just sets. Okay, let me say like this, people who say that consciousness is fundamental. Now I'm not saying that I disagree. I'm just saying people who say that generally also tend to believe that there is a God, and that love is also fundamental in some and love is somehow pervasive and overriding of all the rest of the experiences and quality. I don't see how those two go hand in hand I don't see how consciousness is fundamental implies God, nor do I see how it implies love. I'm not saying I disagree I just don't see how it implies so please help me out. I don't think the word that pops to mind for me Kurt and I want you to riff on this as much as I am is transcendence. That's what all the spiritual traditions point to transcendence transcending transformation being born again. It's that they are not the same. They are completely in a different state. They're not intelligible and another way to approach the intelligible thing that maybe you've run across, but people have extraordinary spiritually experiences, and they'll come back and say, I knew everything. I know sooner could even formulate a question in my mind that it was answered completely for me. And yet when I came back, I wasn't able to retain that I don't have that knowledge. There's there's no worse truism than the spiritually enlightened individual that comes back and doesn't manifest that into their life doesn't reintegrate it and they truly had the experience, but at this level they aren't able to reintegrate it. That's just, we all see it, you know, but. Okay, that's interesting. Let me riff on that. So Dostoevsky had some a particular kind of epilepsy, sorry, a particular kind of seizure that when he was, when it was occurring it would feel as if God was giving him all the answers, and right when he was about to reach that point of comprehension he would have a seizure, he would seize up. That's interesting because it sounds like perhaps this world, this material world, even though the material seems in some accounts to be engendered by the conscious world, this material world is the world that we for whatever reason cannot have all the answers. And as soon as we do have all the answers that's something like transcendence and then you no longer are in this world. Okay, that makes me wonder why at all was this world created seems like the other world is blissful. And it's where we're meant to be regardless. What's the point of this one. Well that gets down to the, it's back to the perspective question, you know, are you at the top of the mountain looking down or the bottom of the mountain looking up. So maybe from our vantage point back to your point is it's not that it's designed to be unintelligible. It's that, you know, the monkey brain that we have just doesn't have the processing power to not just the processing power because that always puts it in the kind of this computer model that I think fails, but it's just that. No, it's this we're doing. We're doing what we can with what we have. You see this is why I like your guard. Let's get back to that. He said that most Christians, he would call them religious fanatics and zealots and militant Christians, rather than true Christians, because if you say, I know God exists. If you say that, you're not a Christian. Why, because Christianity requires faith. If you say I know this table is here. There's no faith in that you know it. What faith is is having doubt and uncertainty and making the leap regardless. So perhaps one. I'm just spitballing and freestyling. In a sense, perhaps one of the reasons we are here is to have faith, because if we had all the answers there is no faith. I love where you're going with that and Kierkegaard fear and trembling unto death is is awesome. It is skeptic coast, you know, when, when I started the show and I named it skeptical because I have a Greek heritage half on half my side. And I just was looking up skeptic skeptic coast and I just didn't even know what it meant five years later. I went back and read about these philosophers and their ethos in query to perpetuate doubt. They were saying the exact same thing that Kierkegaard was saying that doubt is the most spiritual doubt is the most spiritual because you are in the state of openness. Once something is decided, and I would suggest that even faith, you know, Tich Nhat Hanh, the famous Buddhist teacher, Vietnamese Buddhist teacher nominated for the Nobel Prize and obviously super well known. I love his riff on faith. Because faith is an impediment. Faith is a barrier. Faith is a way of holding back from truly accepting your predicament from truly being open. I'm not saying I said that sounds like the opposite. That sounds like the opposite of what Kierkegaard is saying. Well, these things of faith. Well, I think all these things, it gets into a semantics kind of thing, because I love what you just said about about Kierkegaard in terms of, you know, if you believe in God, that you're a believer, and you're not leaving open. You're not open you're not open to the experience how can you be open to the experience if you've already decided. Maybe you're using faith in a different way than I would, but it was interesting for me to connect that with Tich Nhat Hanh who said, you know, people who have faith quote unquote, will not be able to see will not be able to accept the transcendence, because they're closed they're like no I just follow this. Mm hmm. I see what you're saying. Yeah. Well, that's interesting. Let me think about that. Hey, man, you have been want this one of the most amazingly interesting turn it on its head interviews I've ever done. Let's return to the to the movie, if we can. Yeah, tell folks. Sure. What the best way is for them to connect with better left unsaid who it's for maybe we can go back to the beginning. Yeah. What's the movie really for who's a targeted at who's going to get the most out of it. And then how do they get their hands on it. The people who will get likely to get the most out of it are people who are in the center center left center center right. If you're, it seems like if you're more than center left that you won't like it and same with if you're more than center right because I do have my critiques of the extreme right. The movie again is focused on the left. Now, people have said that's biased. It is. It actually is biased because I'm focusing on the left. But in a sense, it's also not. It's almost like they're saying, Well, you know, there are other problems in the world. Yes, there are other problems in the world. So when someone, let's say, designs a table cleaner, like an all purpose cleaner. They're probably doing the world a disservice because they're not working on the abolishment of nuclear holocaust or the abolishment of the potential of nuclear holocaust. Well, they're focusing on something else. So I'm focusing on the problem of the extreme left. And during that journey, it also takes me to the problem of the extreme right. And I see it in a similar manner of the horseshoe theory though. Well, you know, it's extremely close to the horseshoe theory. Touch on that a little bit more because I thought that was a great, great point. The horseshoe theory essentially says it's almost like non duality. It essentially says at the extremes, they become the same, which means the extreme left and the extreme right have more in common than they have dissimilar. And it seems like the only thing they have dissimilar is the extreme right has racial inferiority or some genetic inferiority of some other group. It pretty much just seems like racism. It pretty much just seems I couldn't figure out what else separates them because fascism as much as the left or the extreme left dislikes it. Sorry, let's say the communist dislike fascism. I would say fascism is closer to communism than fascism is close to capitalism. And one of the reasons is that well there's a term called I think it's like shaltung. It's a German term. And it means the political unification the unification of economic cultural and social institutions. The standardization sorry of that and that's a term that popular was popularized in 1930s, Nazi Germany. So the standardization is a form of is what fascists like and as well as like you said we get into semantics, what is communism what is Marxism what is socialism and so on. And I actually like semantics I dislike when people say you're just quibbling your hair splitting. No, I, yes, yes, you're right, because the term quibbling quid quiddity. Okay, what is quiddity means it means a hair splitting distinction, but it also means the peculiar the peculiar essence of something the odd centricity of it. And I'm interested in that. Either way, getting back to communism, Marxism, and association between that and fascism. Well, it seems like at the extremes, they have something in common What do they have in common. That is what I propose in the film I come up with some tenants I think four of them. And you'll have to watch the film to see which for I think now that I've had some distance I can distill that down to three I think three of them implies the fourth, or the fourth is not required. But either way, there's three or four tenants that unify both the extreme left and the extreme right and they're. I want to say equally, the pestilential because it's difficult to say, what was the cause of people dying. So was it communism that caused millions of deaths, or was it, you know, causation is an extremely extremely difficult thing to point out. So for example when people die from coven. What was the cause, by the way, I'm germaphobic extremely so I love the lockdown like I love when people wear masks. I'm like, I would want to wear masks my whole life I would want to disinfect my hands. I've been doing that I disinfect my phone every single time I come in and my wife, she gets mad at me because she's not allowed to take her phone out of the house and bring it in without it being disinfected. So I'm a fan of that. So what was the cause of COVID was it that there weren't more people like me that are germaphobic, or was it that there was a government that was fast and loose with some policies of, of travel and cross animal contamination and so on. So what is the cause, it's not clear what the cause is. So that's another reason in the documentary I steer clear of saying communism cause these deaths instead I. I look at some of the deaths that I think are extremely closely tied to the philosophical doctrine underlying communism, and those are much less deaths but they're still plenty and the same with fascism. At the extremes the philosophy that that foments both communism and the extreme right seem to be similar and I outline what that is in the film. Uniquely, even though it's been done before your spin on it really drove it home to me in a way that I hadn't had never really thought about so yeah. People find this really great documentary left better left on said better left on said film.com better left on said film.com is where you can find it. You can also just search better left on said on YouTube and the trailer is there you get you get links are in the description of the trailer as well as I think there's a Twitter account to. Yeah, that's that. It's been fucking great. So great having you on your such. You embody so many of the wonderful things that you talk about and the, the greater sense of light and goodness. The movie brings forth so. Thank you I appreciate that. You're glowing deserve glowing awesome. Okay, I want to say one other. I want to give a tweak about the film. Yes, an amendment. Okay, so there are two versions of the film like I mentioned there's a public version that's an hour and a half then there's the director's version that's my version, it's two hours long. The director's version is sesquipa daily and it's also tedious and abstract. So people, if you like this podcast you're more likely to like the two hour version, because it means you're someone who engages with ideas, and you like to think. But for the general public like let's say you're listening to this and you're thinking well my friend should watch this they should probably watch the public version it goes by much quicker. It's not slow. The director's version is more for academics, and it can be boring if you're not an academic. Even if you're an academic can be boring. You'll see. So when you go to better left on said film calm, I think in about one month so February 2021 or March 2021. You'll be able to choose between the public or the director's cut. If you buy it from itunes you won't be able to you have to do it on our website because itunes doesn't allow two versions of the film. So we're just going to release the public version on all the other streaming platforms, but the director's version is same price, you get access to both if you buy it directly from the website so I just recommend going to the website and then buying it. Fantastic. And we'll have this out. We'll try and sync it up with exactly the date that it comes out so people can listen to it and immediately pop on over so you and I offline will kind of figure out the best way to do that. And again, a man congratulations job well done, and thanks so much for joining me. Thank you man. I appreciate it. Thanks again to Kurt Jemungle for joining me today and skeptico. Be sure to check out his film better left on said, the one question I up from this interview is the same old skeptico question I've been harping on for the last few years is, Gee, do you think all that absurdity on the left on the wokeness stuff. Do you think that's just accidental, or could it possibly be socially engineered. You know my answer but I'd love to get your take especially since there's a slightly different twist here, given all that said in this interview. Let me know your thoughts of course skeptical form or anywhere else you can track down the skeptical folks have some good shows coming up. Lots of good interesting stuff coming around. Stay with me for all of that. Until next time. Take care and bye for now.