In The Beginning

Is there a better place to start than the beginning? Where did religion come from? Is it inherent in us to be religious? Why does religion endure, isn't it outdated? There's lots of speculation about why and how religion started and why humans continue to be religious. 

In this first episode of the Holy Watermelon podcast, we discuss the different theories of how modern religion came about. Karen Armstrong’s book A History of God suggests that everyone worshipped a sky god until they needed more deities to explain how the world worked

Another theory, described in The Golden Bough by James George Frazer, talks about how we moved from magic to religion and then science. However, we’re in limbo between religion and science.

Magic, religion, and science are all ways to organize the world around us. As we’ve found more reasonable ways to organize the world, we move away more from magic and religion. We discuss how there is a pushback on science by some evangelical groups and the resurgence of magic in the last sixty years.

Is religion evolutionary? Are humans meant to be religious? 

Let’s explore. 

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[00:00:10] Katie Dooley: Hello everyone and welcome to the first episode of the Holy Watermelon Podcast. My name is Katie.

[00:00:16] Preston Meyer: And I'm Preston.

[00:00:17] Katie Dooley: And today we are going to be talking about the beginning of modern religion.

[00:00:23] Preston Meyer: Well, do we want to talk about the beginning of modern religion?

[00:00:28] Katie Dooley: See, now it's weird. I'm like, "Sure do, Preston." Um, yeah, I guess let's talk about how modern religion started. You got to take the lead on this. Our resident scholar.

[00:00:41] Preston Meyer: So I read a book, well, actually, I pretended to read a book for one of my classes. I read the introduction, which was the book for one of my theology courses called "Thinking About God". It was written by Karen Armstrong. I'm pretty sure.

[00:01:01] Katie Dooley: Oh, she's written a few good books.

[00:01:02] Preston Meyer: She's written a lot. 

[00:01:03] Katie Dooley: Her Islam book is very good.

[00:01:04] Preston Meyer: A lot of people really like her, including the professor for that class and the intro for this book that I can't remember the name of off the top of my head right now talked about the idea that before we had all of these various religions that focused on multiple gods before there was this idea of magic, there was this sky God that everybody recognized as being the ultimate God. But nobody worshiped him. They just recognized that he is a creator. He's the sky God. And that's the deal. And they kind of, you know, would occasionally mention him when it was important. Like if something was happening in the skies, it'd be like, yep, that's the dude.

[00:01:49] Katie Dooley: Is it a History of God by Karen Armstrong?

[00:01:52] Preston Meyer: I bet you it is.

[00:01:53] Katie Dooley: Perfect. She writes a lot of great books on religion, so yeah, you'll hear her mentioned multiple times. There's also one called In the Beginning.

[00:02:01] Preston Meyer: That sounds cool. That's like the name of our episode maybe.

[00:02:06] Katie Dooley: Oh no, that's a Christian one. So it's definitely a history of God.

[00:02:11] Preston Meyer: I think it was a history of God. That does sound right. So in A History of God, she talks about this idea of and it's just a theory because there's no historical, concrete evidence that it's true that all people everywhere, or at least an awful lot of them, believed in this sky God without actually worshiping him, which is kind of interesting. Nothing ceremonial at all, but just knew he was there. Definitely recognized that he was a part of their lives. And then later, as the need came up to explain the universe around them, they came up with other gods, which is, I don't know. A familiar cop-out like the tooth fairy.

[00:02:54] Katie Dooley: Yeah, it's much like Santa Claus. How do I get my kids to behave?

[00:03:00] Preston Meyer: Right? Which works for December.

[00:03:02] Katie Dooley: And for, like, I don't know, from the ages of 3 to 10, like seven years.

[00:03:08] Preston Meyer: Yeah. And then people eventually figure out that Santa is not real. But Santa is real. He just died 2000 years ago. Well, almost 2000 years ago.

[00:03:20] Katie Dooley: That's a different episode.

[00:03:23] Preston Meyer: We can focus on Christmas later.

[00:03:25] Katie Dooley: Um, now, another cop-out from school is the book The Golden Bough, which I haven't read.

[00:03:33] Preston Meyer: I've heard of it. I've never read it.

[00:03:35] Katie Dooley: Maybe we should have read it for this podcast. But it talks about and I remember. Oh, I packed it. We're moving, but I packed it. Um, I remember when I took my introductory religious course, it talks about how civilization has moved from magic to religion, and it was supposed to move from religion to science, and maybe it still will. But we're in this sort of limbo where people still believe in both. But nobody, air quotes, believes in magic anymore. We don't use it to explain the universe.

[00:04:07] Preston Meyer: Which is a thing that I find really interesting, that, you know, if we look at primitive cultures, primitive, air quotes, that like, you know, an underexplored Africa or underexplored South America, you have people who are still very much into witchcraft and anthropologists have assumed for centuries that, well, obviously, because they're not as developed as we are, they represent our history. So we were all like that, which makes some sense. But it's also really hard to prove but it does make for very helpful examination of potential human development and helps us look at where we probably came from and where we ought to be going relative to that. But it's super weird that mostly 60s, 70s, that big hippie countercultural movement, saw a huge resurgence in magic. Wiccans, as we know them today were almost completely nonexistent in the 50s and yet magic is coming back too, for some reason, it may be because religion refuses to die. That's really hard to say. It could just be because people like pissing off their religious parents. And then that tradition continues on. There's a lot of guesses, and the people who really started the movement aren't really open to telling us why and how.

[00:05:36] Katie Dooley: I mean, some of the more modern examples of religion might be a good analysis of how religions come about, but I also find some of them odd in that... I mean, we were talking about Scientology before we pressed record, but, um, L. Ron Hubbard was a science fiction author, so I can't extrapolate how someone believes what a 1950s science fiction author that this is some religion or explanation of the universe. And I even struggle with, you know, Mormonism and that we had record keeping in the 1800s. It's something that could potentially be provable but there is no proof. Yeah. Yeah. I don't really know where I'm going with that point. Right. But it, you know things that have stuck in recent centuries, um, maybe a good place to look at how we as a civilization have become religious over time.

[00:06:36] Preston Meyer: Yeah. I think as it relates to, um, the whole magic religion science thing, one of the biggest things, and this might also explain the resurgence of Wicca and other witchcraft forms, is the idea of authority in science. You have authorities, people who have done lots of testing, who can prove to you this is my claim and this is why you should believe it because water does boil at 100°C.

[00:07:01] Katie Dooley: And it's peer-reviewed!

[00:07:02] Preston Meyer: Yeah. And so when you've proven yourself to a bunch of people who are also knowledgeable and understanding, that gives you a sense of authority, a very real authority as far as epistemological authority is the word which is just I have authority because I know a thing rather than I have authority because I stab your friends several times with a sword.

[00:07:28] Katie Dooley: As in previous um, centuries.

[00:07:34] Preston Meyer: And so that same sort of epistemological authority is claimed by religious leaders. And historically, let's look at Muhammad, for example. He killed an awful lot of people to show his authority over them and then taught them, having established his authority and then establishing his doctrine after. And there's there's loads more examples than just Muhammad, but he's a really.

[00:08:04] Katie Dooley: I think immediately of the Crusades. Right? Killed a bunch of people and then converted them.

[00:08:08] Preston Meyer: Right. Actually, that's even more recent. So I like it a little bit better. So you've got that sort of religious authority that often came at the point of a sword, but also occasionally in the example of Jesus did not come by the point of a sword, but he just let people know, hey, this is a thing. And the stories are that he healed people and established his authority that way. People were super interested in him because of the cool things he did, instead of the deadly things he did. And then he established his doctrine, which is a little closer to the preferable science that we like. And then magic the authority isn't the same sort of thing that we have with religion and science. You've got people who can accomplish things, and then as they continually accomplish things, they get revered as sages or as shamans or priests or whatever, or often long-lasting just elders and people go to them because they can accomplish things and because they know things, which is usually a lot more respected than authority won by the sword.

[00:09:22] Katie Dooley: I mean, it's probably more long-lasting. It's, you know, keeping your staff happy.

[00:09:28] Preston Meyer: Right? Good management. Right.

[00:09:31] Katie Dooley: It's just good. If you're a boss, keep your staff happy. Don't bully them. So it's a system of organization.

[00:09:42] Preston Meyer: Absolutely. Whatever your religion is. And like we say, magic's not religion. And science isn't religion. They are, uh, religion...

[00:09:52] Katie Dooley: That's our next episode.

[00:09:54] Preston Meyer: ...Is nearly impossible to define in a way that scholars can all universally agree.

[00:09:59] Katie Dooley: But we're going to try.

[00:10:00] Preston Meyer: We're gonna try, and hopefully that'll work out. Um, but religion in its most base etymological meaning is a way of organizing things and binding people together. And whether.

[00:10:15] Katie Dooley: That's, I mean.

[00:10:16] Preston Meyer: And it could be a good thing, it can be a bad thing.

[00:10:18] Katie Dooley: But also like, and we'll get into this next episode. But science is a way to organize the world, and I'm sure I'm not magical. We'll find a Wiccan one day. Magic is the way to organize the world, and probably even more on a personal level. But like your thoughts and how your life is supposed to go, and I'm sure we'll get into topics on things like marriage and children and sex. But even, you know, it sort of dictates that this is the way that makes sense to live your life and then the community and then the world.

[00:10:52] Preston Meyer: Exactly. So the way that that progression model works is that we're finding better, more reasonable ways to organize the world, because it turns out, as far as we can observe now, magic isn't reliable. Um, the old explanation for that is that there's so many intricate details to performing a spell, for example, that you just can't do it reliably when the other half of the argument is magic is nonsense because it straight up doesn't work. Um, and then religion, I mean, for example, the idea that God lives in the skies, we have concretely proven that's not the case. Otherwise we'd have God all over the front of our windscreens on our airplanes. That would be a huge problem. There's there's loads of.

[00:11:44] Katie Dooley: There's no one in the clouds. Right?

[00:11:46] Preston Meyer: There's loads of specific details that are super easy to disprove when you look at a religion, depending on what religion it is, some of them make no specific claims at all, which makes you wonder why they're making any sort of claims at all. And then others make loads of very specific claims that just don't hold up, even internally. When you look at the rest of the religion they've built. For example, um, I can't remember the name of the lady. She was Jesus of the Shakers.

[00:12:18] Katie Dooley: I know who you're talking about!

[00:12:20] Preston Meyer: She said that she was Jesus reborn, and she taught from the Bible at least a little bit. But the Bible does explicitly say that Jesus will come back in the exact same way that he left.

[00:12:34] Katie Dooley: Anne Lee

[00:12:35] Preston Meyer: Said that she was Jesus, even though she denied that she came into the world the same way Jesus left, which was up into the clouds. Mary Dyer was born of a woman. In the typical expected fashion. Head first probably. And so there's already at the very outset of all of her claims, a serious internal consistency issue.

[00:13:06] Katie Dooley: I feel like there's going to have to be an episode on people claiming to be Jesus.

[00:13:10] Oh, there are so many.

[00:13:11] Katie Dooley: I watched a wild documentary last. It was wild, I it was wild. Well, we'll do an episode on it, but that's all I can say. I couldn't... Mind blown.

[00:13:24] Preston Meyer: Back onto our main track. Right. Magic. Science. Religion, religion. Science. Magic. Religion, science. There's this ridiculous norm in the United States, and it's nowhere else in the world, just in the United States, and those cultures heavily influenced by them. So Alberta, for example, a lot of Canada, but not all of Canada start getting. There's a religious objection to all science. Um, most flat earthers are Christians. I don't know why, but most flat earthers are Christians, and most American Christians, especially the evangelicals, will deny almost anything that is published in a medical journal, even if it's peer-reviewed and proven. I think this mostly starts from the idea of evolution has to disprove theology. Um, which I mean, even the Vatican, the Pope has said that. Yeah, evolution could totally be the reality. The Bible doesn't say how God created what lives on the earth. He just says that he did. And to be real, that part of the Bible is meant explicitly for a temple. Short history of the world. Understand where your place is in the world. God is your creator and everything else. So it's all poetical, ritualistic narrative, anyway..

[00:14:58] Katie Dooley: Well, and to jump in the super old movie on the Scopes Monkey trial.

[00:15:02] Preston Meyer: No idea.

[00:15:03] Katie Dooley: I don't remember what's called Inherit the Wind? 

[00:15:07] Preston Meyer: I'm gonna Google that real quick.

[00:15:08] Katie Dooley: Google that real quick, Inherit the Wind, but.

[00:15:13] Preston Meyer: Just rely on our trusty editor.

[00:15:16] Katie Dooley: It's, uh. Yes, it's on the Scopes Monkey trial. I don't know if this was actually said in the Scopes Monkey trial. Um, or if it was just dramatic for Inherit the Wind. But the lawyer debating in favor of teaching evolution in schools says the Bible doesn't say how long the first day was. It could have been 10 million years.

[00:15:34] Preston Meyer: Well, especially since in the narrative in Genesis, the sun isn't created yet. To say that a day has to be 24 hours when there is no visible sun to rule. The night and the day is super weird.

[00:15:49] Katie Dooley: So absolutely. It's it's poetic. It's again, it's a way to organize and answer questions people have without having the tools we have now to explain it. Yeah, but back to your point on evangelicals believing.

[00:16:05] Preston Meyer: They will deny science at just like if you use the word science, it gets a whole bunch of people all worked up and their amygdala fires off, that they're being threatened because they perceive a war between science and religion. And an awful lot of scientists believe that that war is absolutely validated because most of their experience with religious people is crazy Christians who deny science, which is a problem.

[00:16:35] Katie Dooley: Well, I mean, we're definitely seeing that now. Absolutely. We're recording this on in 2020 because I don't actually know when it's gonna come out. So what I want to date ourselves. But recording 2020 in the middle of the, uh, coronavirus pandemic and the US has hundreds of thousands of cases. Uh, there's.

[00:16:56] Preston Meyer: More than 100,000 deaths.

[00:16:58] Katie Dooley: Yes, they have over 100,000.

[00:17:00] Preston Meyer: In just the United States.

[00:17:01] Katie Dooley: Um, and I mean, obviously, some of this is political and political policies. They don't have universal health care. But, you know, when you're being told to drink bleach, um, that is definitely a or not wear a mask or not social distance. That's definitely a science problem where people are listening to the experts.

[00:17:18] Preston Meyer: Yeah. And it's more Christians. And I'm going to pick on Christians here.

[00:17:24] Katie Dooley: He's allowed to. He is.

[00:17:24] Katie Dooley: I am a Christian, but I am not one of those Christians who is anti-science. And I feel no guilt picking on the anti-science Christians. They need to realize that science is a body of knowledge, as well as a method of proving that knowledge, which means there's loads of things that science will never prove. And there's lots of things that science will prove.

[00:17:52] Katie Dooley: I guess it's the problem comes from taking and and correct me as a religious person. Um, but taking everything as literal truth that when it gets contradicted now you can't pivot or else your entire world crumbles apart.

[00:18:10] Preston Meyer: There's there's loads of Christians. Um, so in from 2009 to 2011, I was a missionary actively teaching full-time every day of the week and no day job to support me. It was actually kind of nice to not have to worry about a job apart from teaching. I dealt with an awful lot of people who genuinely believed the Bible was written by God. Which I mean, if you've opened the book, that becomes very obvious that that's not the case, um, which actually is a segue into a cool topic for another day hoodoo, which is like voodoo, but not actually.

[00:18:47] Katie Dooley: I just heard this term recently. Yeah, I've never heard it before. And so it was on the internet. So I was being mocked for getting calling it, um, like a geographical formation. And then she shared the Wikipedia link to Hoodoo, and I was like interesting!

[00:19:02] Preston Meyer: So, um, to me, the most interesting, magical, um, groups are Voodoo and Hoodoo. And do you know the difference?

[00:19:11] Katie Dooley: Who don't because I didn't read that Wikipedia article.

[00:19:13] Preston Meyer: So Wikipedia article is quite lengthy and goes into loads of detail. Cliffs notes Hoodoo is Protestant to Voodoo's Catholic.

[00:19:24] Katie Dooley: Okay, yeah, okay.

[00:19:26] Preston Meyer: But not exactly like that one didn't break off from the other. Voodoo is... Voodoo is Catholic. Oh, Voodoo comes primarily from Haiti, which comes from Africa and exists because of Catholicism. In fact, it's the best example of what Catholicism is, because it takes an existing system and melds it into a new theology. So the voodoo had all these gods that could do all these crazy things and help people out a lot, and then when they said, okay, now you're Catholic, they're like, okay, so we have all these saints who have an awful lot of similarities with these gods, which is exactly the way they did it in Rome, not even the tiniest bit different. The Saints have just been amalgamated into these gods. And so sometimes I'll keep an old name like Baron Samedi. And sometimes, actually, that's not even a terribly ancient name. That's a French name. They'll and sometimes they'll have a new name like Saint Brigid, who is definitely an amalgamation with a previous Brigid. Kind of convenient that way. Names are the easiest way to amalgamate people, but sometimes you'll take aspects instead. And so you've got this multi-god saint Voodoo and they're really into dealing with the gods just like Christians, just like Catholics are way into dealing with saints. And we'll talk about what worship is a little bit later, because there's no valid claim that the praying and dealing with saints is not worship. Um, Hoodoo is directly derived from the same sort of magic people dealing with Protestants. They don't have saints. Protestantism is very anti-saint and or at least anti the model of Catholic saints. Yes, that's not good grammar. But I said what I said and so they, these magical people who are Hoodoo, they see the Bible that these Protestants wield and they declare great authority by having the book because you know, they never read it, just like the Hoodoo, almost never read it,

[00:21:55] Katie Dooley: Just like any religious person. Oh, there, there, I said it.

[00:21:58] Preston Meyer: There are way too many Christians who have no idea what's in the Bible. I actually had a conversation two days ago with a lovely fella. I never actually met him, but he's a relative of a friend of mine and we had a chat over Facebook, which is by its very nature very prone to explosion. Uh, he and I both did a great job of remaining civil. And then I ended the conversation when he said, there's nothing you can say that can change my mind. And I said, thanks for the conversation and goodbye. Essentially. Uh, but he was 100% convinced that the early Christian church had no interest in communism. And then I pointed to him the exact spots in the Book of Acts, the Acts of the Apostles where God or the church killed a family for not voluntarily being part of this communist system. They were told to sell their property. They did sell their property, but they kept a bunch of the money to themselves and only gave a little bit to the church. They were killed for it. That is forced communism. And when I explain that to him, uh, he didn't like that at all, and I couldn't change his mind. It was very frustrating. But there's loads and loads of Christians who have no idea what's in the Bible.

[00:23:20] Katie Dooley: Well, and I mean, this is going to be probably a multi-part episode when we do tackle the Bible, but I, I mean, even if you have read the Bible, there's, I mean, dozens if not hundreds of versions of the Bible, plus your own personal interpretation. Well, we'll get there.

[00:23:39] Preston Meyer: There are hundreds of textual variants in Greek that we have more than 100 translations in English of the Bible.

[00:23:45] Katie Dooley: Somebody I was somebody had it in their Instagram bio. They had I don't remember what it was, but they had cited a Bible quote and I was just curious what it was. So I just put it in and googled it. And the website I found had every different version.

[00:24:02] Preston Meyer: Bible Gateway is a great tool.

[00:24:05] Katie Dooley: That's probably exactly what it was, and I just couldn't believe the variations from passage to passage, like totally different meanings. So yeah.

[00:24:14] Preston Meyer: So um, the Hoodoo, like many Christians, use the Bible just as a totem or a talisman. It's a beating stick as much as it's a thing to be read. Um, you can go into coastal United States along, along the east, and you'll find houses where there's Bible pages pasted behind the wallpaper for its protective powers.

[00:24:42] Katie Dooley: I'm remembering that comedian we saw that was beating the globe with a Bible to flatten it.

[00:24:52] Preston Meyer: For some reason, just the use of talismans and totems is incredibly ancient, that, um, that we've found loads of passages of scripture written on a piece of paper nail stuck through it and worn around the neck or in a pocket or thrown into a well as curses or protections to help people. And so Hoodoo and Voodoo are, for that reason, my favourite kind of magic community type thing, because they illustrate that really well, but also illustrate in a slightly alien way, the very natures of Catholicism and Protestantism. Yeah, that's more or less what I remember from there, The Faith Instinct. Do you want to talk about that?

[00:25:38] Katie Dooley: I do want to talk about The Faith Instinct, because I still don't know if I agree with you. 

[00:25:43] Preston Meyer: Sure. That's fine.

[00:25:44] Katie Dooley: So I read a book called the Faith Instinct: How Religion Evolved and Why It Endures. So it was basically in the book saying that we are religious because of evolution. So just like we have two eyes and two hands and people average between 5 and 6ft tall, it's all evolutionary. And some of it was very interesting and some of it I disagreed with. Let's maybe start on the parts that I, I could wrap my head around, and then we'll get into our fight. We won't fight. Um, it talked about how it was used as a system of organization, especially for nomadic [00:26:34] peoples like this is tens of thousands of years ago. Like [00:26:37] this is pre-Christian, pre-Roman. Um, this sky daddy, you were talking about, um. And how do you organize a society to behave a certain way for, for the betterment and survival of all? The book compared religion to language, which I disagreed with, and feel free to jump in at any time, but it's that he sort of said in the book that, uh, even if no one taught you how to speak, if your mom didn't sit down and go, mama, you would learn how to speak eventually. And that religion was the same, that if no one sat down and taught you religion, you'd be religious anyway. Which I disagree with because I wasn't sat down and taught religion and I'm not religious.

[00:27:22] Preston Meyer: I disagree with both of those two points.

[00:27:24] Katie Dooley: Well, we'll get there  and I am reminded, um, Ricky Gervais, the actor who's I relate to him because he's, he's like me and that he is an atheist, but he will protect you. He's happy to protect your right to be religious. Um, but he has said that, like, if kids weren't taught anything until 18, we'd have a way fewer religious people running around. But I see you're wanting to say something. So let's jump in.

[00:27:53] Preston Meyer: What was, where was...

[00:27:54] Katie Dooley: I was talking about speech and how that is evolutionary. But if someone doesn't sit down and teach a religion, you probably obviously there are exceptions to the rule. I'm sitting with one, but you probably won't be religious.

[00:28:07] Preston Meyer: See my definition of religion that I mentioned earlier.

[00:28:10] Katie Dooley: Okay, let's let's. Keep it in terms of organized mainstream religion,

[00:28:16] Preston Meyer: If nobody teaches you to worship a specific god, you're not going to start doing it out of nowhere. That doesn't that doesn't make sense. It doesn't logically follow that you have to have somebody tell you that this individual is worth worshiping. It's a lot harder when that being doesn't exist. So somebody's going to have to tell you. Now, if you know, Odin all of a sudden is real and isn't just a mortal man, but a god, and he comes to you and displays his power, you're probably going to start worshiping him. So there is that. Absolutely. You do need to be taught religion to be part of that religion. But as far as the whole authoritative leadership of an organized group, I mean, we straight up can't survive without it. Evolutionarily speaking, we absolutely do need to be religious in that aspect.

[00:29:10] Katie Dooley: Yes and but that can come as simple as your mom or dad's the boss, right?

[00:29:13] Preston Meyer: Yeah in fact, that's usually the deal.

[00:29:16] Katie Dooley: Yeah. It's usually how we learn it. And if your mom and dad's boss happens to be God, then yeah, cool. But if you're not, then I think it's a lot harder to fall into organized religion, and I guess, I mean, I'm, I, I know there's plenty of exceptions to that rule. I'm sure there'll be an episode on cults where perfectly normal people get pulled into something. But yeah, I think, you know, if you're not taught that, you know, there's someone watching your every move and things that I personally roll my eyes at. But you know, this person, this sky daddy cares that you're having sex before you sign a piece of paper. Um, then you probably won't care, right? And then it's on our outline, and I know we disagree on this. The book also said that our set of morals come from religion, and I can see this in a very, like, long term scope. You know, the ten, you know, prehistoric that, you know, you steal my corn from me and then I die. And now I don't like you because my kids are dead because they didn't have enough to eat. Like, I can get that from a moral standpoint, but I don't necessarily see how, uh, more modern religions in the last 2000 years affect our morals, because there's some really terrible stuff in all of the books, like don't I'm not picking favorites here. Yeah, but that, that teaches morals. Like, yeah, there's a lot of good stuff, but there's a lot of bad stuff. And I just don't see how, like, I don't see how that is something that we've been able to muddle through without. Like I said, long term. Oh, you killed my husband. I'm sad like, now like that's where your morals come from. But, you know, it's in the early books of the Bible. You can throw in your citation because I don't know about where the girls get their dad drunk and rape him. Like I almost threw up reading that one. I was like, well, this is so gross. So how do you separate that from, you know, don't covet and don't?

[00:31:27] Preston Meyer: Why should we separate it from that? Story is not told as a good example of what people can and should be. It's it's meant to be a horror story.

[00:31:35] Katie Dooley: Okay, good. Because there's really not a lot of context around it.

[00:31:39] Preston Meyer: No, it's it's really weak in the context area. There's a Lot and his wife and his daughters leave a town while it's being rained on by hellfire. And they happen to survive, except for the wife who turns into a pillar of salt, which obviously chemically makes no sense at all. And so the wife dies. It could be some narrative tool to describe something else. Who knows? The wife dies. Lot and his two daughters whose names I can't remember off the top of my head. Go hide in a cave and think they're the last people on Earth and there is no part of the Torah that says it's okay for a man to sleep with his daughters. It is specifically and explicitly forbidden. The girls do it anyway because they're dumb, and think that they need to repopulate the Earth with their very limited gene pool, because apparently it worked twice before.

[00:32:35] Katie Dooley: Now we're all mouth breathers.

[00:32:36] Preston Meyer: So it's a horror story that happens to be scripture. But yeah, no, I've heard a lot of people think that that's actually meant to be a good role model story, which.

[00:32:52] Katie Dooley: I mean, I definitely don't think it's that, but but I guess my is, you know, there's not a lot of context, right? They don't say this is bad. You shouldn't do it. They just say these girls get their dad drunk and rape him.

[00:33:05] Preston Meyer: But, um later on in the story, lot does wake up and say, what the hell are you doing? This is a terribly sinful thing. Why have you done this to me? So there's that little bit of helpful context that is not strong enough.

[00:33:22] Katie Dooley: Well, yeah and then, I mean, if you think thou shalt not kill, there's a ton of killing in the Bible, right? So, like I said, I can see long term prehistoric for the survival of people, you know. Yeah. Don't kill people, don't rape people. It fucks them up and makes them...

[00:33:40] Preston Meyer: Basket cases in almost every case.

[00:33:43] Katie Dooley: Right. Um, you know which which I mean, this is terrible. This is really just boiling it down to its roots, but makes a less productive, less healthy society. Um, yeah. So again, over a course of time, I can see how it shapes our morals. But I don't think because I am not a Christian, I am immoral. And I also didn't have my Christian friends tell me, like, Katie, you shouldn't steal. You shouldn't lie. Like that was fucking Sesame Street.

[00:34:13] Preston Meyer: Right, but if you compare the Christian Standard to, say, the Viking standard, it's okay. Even encouraged to go out and rape and plunder and take what you want from other people because they're other.

[00:34:26] Katie Dooley: Well, and they're religious people. So, you know, do we do we get our morals from religion.

[00:34:32] Preston Meyer: Your morality is informed by your worship. Entirely. And now worship used in the broad sense of things that you deem of worth, things that you deem of value. You've got people who worship themselves. So literally it doesn't matter what it is, if it's not me, it doesn't matter. I'll take what I want. That's my morality. Then you've got people who are very community focused. If it doesn't help my community, it is evil and that's a lot more palatable. But you swing that just a tiny little bit over towards Nazism. If it doesn't help my Aryan community.

[00:35:15] Katie Dooley: My people.

[00:35:16] Preston Meyer: Yeah, then it's evil. And that's how you get very dangerous concentration camps and.

[00:35:22] Katie Dooley: But but again, back to religion. And in the modern context. Yeah, you have Christians that are very moral.

[00:35:33] Preston Meyer: And Christians that aren't,

[00:35:35] Katie Dooley: And Christians that... You get Westboro Baptist Church and 1 in 7 Catholic priests. Yeah. So what you worship, they're all worshiping the same thing. 

[00:35:45] Preston Meyer: Or at least say they are.

[00:35:47] Katie Dooley: Um, and they all have vastly different ideas of what their morals are. And again, as someone who's an atheist who didn't go through church, I know it's not okay to pick at soldiers funerals. I know it's not okay to touch altar boys inappropriately. I would never be in a situation near an altar boy as an atheist. But, um, like, I know these things are wrong, and these are people who are leaders in their community and they're doing it so... 

[00:36:14] Preston Meyer: Most of our Western standard morality, which is very different from the Greek morality that we like to pretend we model ourselves after, like Socrates defended the preservation of slaves, not the not preserving them, like keeping them alive, but just keeping them as slaves. Yeah, the secular morality that we're very familiar with is absolutely the born from Protestant morality. Our public schools come from Protestant schools and they just stop talking about God, but still kept teaching all of the same things. And then we started adding science and things started getting even better.

[00:36:55] Katie Dooley: Or worse, depending on your perspective

[00:36:57] Preston Meyer: Yeah, I mean, as science develops, there seems to be a greater and greater divide between American Christians and people who actually pay attention and understand science and are smart.

[00:37:11] Katie Dooley: Ooh! Shots fired. We're gonna get some hate mail.

[00:37:15] Preston Meyer: There are loads of American Christians who aren't stupid, but I feel like they're outnumbered by the ones who are. But everything that we call secular life is very tightly connected to what used to be the Protestant norm. Even the idea of keeping your religion private and not display it out publicly was a Protestant practice that is dying a little bit among evangelical communities, for example. But there's also political morality, things that have a motivation of ruling people rather than of binding people together that's not terribly different, but I guess not quite the focus of this discussion.

[00:37:59] Katie Dooley: Another episode.

[00:38:00] Preston Meyer: But is also incredibly complicated. So it's it's definitely not fair to say, oh, you're an atheist. There's no way you could possibly be moral. That's nonsense. The Christian majority on this planet has done an excellent job of imposing good morals on people, while also doing a terrible job of illustrating them on a regular basis. 

[00:38:19] Katie Dooley: Or enforcing themselves.

[00:38:21] Preston Meyer: Absolutely. People have frequently proven that they are terrible at self-government.

[00:38:30] Katie Dooley: Shopping carts,

[00:38:31] Preston Meyer: Right? Shopping carts are probably my favorite example. If you can't be trusted to put a shopping cart where it's supposed to be parked when you're done with it, where where do you think you belong in society?

[00:38:44] Katie Dooley: Put your shopping carts back, people, if you're listening to this,

[00:38:47] Preston Meyer: Right. That's why. That's why they implemented the stupid token. Throwing a quarter, throwing a dollar thing into the little push thing to unlock it so that you have to put it back to get your dollar back. And people still don't do it.

[00:39:00] Katie Dooley: That's also a conversation in economics, which is not this podcast, but...

[00:39:04] Preston Meyer: But yeah, there's there's loads of atheists who absolutely are good people. 

[00:39:08] Katie Dooley: Keep talkin'. 

[00:39:10] Preston Meyer: There's actually a great story. Um, it's attributed to an old rabbi almost a couple of thousand years ago who was approached by a student and he said, God created everything, right. And the rabbi is like, yeah, God created everything. He created the plants, the animals, the air that you breathe, everything that you need to live and the kids like and and everything is good, right? So the rabbi is like, well, yeah, it's all good. It's meant to be a blessing to everybody in the world. And the kid's like, well, what about atheists? Which I mean, sounds... If you stop the story here, it's like, well, obviously there must be an exception to the rule. Atheists are terrible, right? And I mean, their experience in first century, second century Mediterranean atheists were almost always terrible to anybody who believed in God called barbarians, even though actually a lot of barbarians were just enjoying a different theology. Atheists were considered dangerous. They didn't answer to anybody. And so it's a very real concern for this little Jewish kid. And the rabbi has the best explanation ever. He says that atheists exists to make the faithful better.

[00:40:24] Katie Dooley: Oh, I like that. I like warms my little heart.

[00:40:26] Preston Meyer: Right? But but it's it's even more complicated and deeper and more positive than that, that when something terrible happens, you have so many faithful, faithful air quotes who will happily say, I will pray for you and hopefully God will help you. An atheist isn't going to say that one because it's a stupid thing to say. Even a properly faithful person should realize that that's a stupid thing to say. And so the rabbi explains to the kid that an atheist isn't going to say, I'll pray for you and send you on your way. He's going to do what he can to help you because he knows no one else will. And so in a time of hardship, you should think to yourself, what would an atheist do? An atheist is going to help. And so as a faithful person, the rabbi says to the child, you should pray that God will help, but then get off your ass and do something about it.

[00:41:25] Katie Dooley: They said ass in the first century?

[00:41:26] Preston Meyer: I'm paraphrasing a whole lot. I don't have this text in front of me. It's cool to read the story the way it's written, but I am paraphrasing a lot. But you've got I haven't found any biblical translation that meets my criteria, but Paul absolutely said shit in the New Testament we just translate it into a softer language because we don't like to have people swearing in church all the time. But so that that idea that the rabbi teaches the kid about atheists, I think is really helpful, that there are loads of atheists with good morality. And sometimes you have to pretend just for a moment that God isn't going to help.

[00:42:09] Katie Dooley: We'll do a full episode on atheism at some point, just like everything else.

[00:42:14] Preston Meyer: Yeah we can't leave that out.

[00:42:16] Katie Dooley: No. Well, we might lump it in. We're gonna break down all all the religions, the big ones in the coming weeks so that we have a foundation to do the rest of our episodes off of. Um, maybe we'll throw it in there.

[00:42:30] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So back to that, the morality thing, and I think I had mentioned it a little earlier, there's this idea that might is right, it's still popular today. You still see all over the place somebody who wants to argue with you and they're willing to fight you physically to show that they're right, which makes no sense at all. If somebody wants to beat me up because I think the world is a globe instead of a disk, there's no correlation between the two. I might lose that fight. That doesn't mean I'm wrong about the world being a globe but that is a method of establishing authority, which again, religion is in a position where that's a lot of their history and magic, only a tiny little bit. And science, not at all. That's not the basis of their authority at all.

[00:43:25] Katie Dooley: It would be hilarious to have scientists punching people and I'm sure some scientists want to punch people.

[00:43:32] Preston Meyer: Oh, absolutely. If you watch enough Bill Nye, you know that he is fighting the urge to be violent. Not all the time, obviously, but definitely sometime.

[00:43:42] Katie Dooley: Definitely sometimes.

[00:43:45] Preston Meyer: I watched part of a really intense debate between Bill Nye and some theologian down the street.

[00:43:53] Katie Dooley: I pulled that up because I wanted to. We were sort of talking near it, and I, uh, yeah, didn't get to bring it up, but it was Bill Nye and Ken Ham back in 2014, and...

[00:44:04] Preston Meyer: And neither of them got anywhere with the other guy.

[00:44:06] Katie Dooley: No, but I remember Bill Nye saying that I think it was one of the last questions. I don't know, but I really stood out to me. And the moderator asked, what would change your mind? And Bill Nye said, proof and Ken Ham said, nothing. Uh, which I think when we're talking about, you know, evangelicals and, and objecting to science like that, like that blows my mind, right? If Bill Nye had proof that creationism was real, he'd be like, yeah, creationism is real and to not budge like that, like that keeps us in the dark ages.  And I think long term that will hurt religion, whatever religion it is. You know there are other religions that take firm stances like that. Um, but I think in the long term that will hurt religion as we learn more and as we I just as we become more aware of others.

[00:45:08] Preston Meyer: The religions that are going to find the least conflict in the development of science are going to be the ones who make no specific claims at all which they exist. The idea of them growing while making no specific claims is bewildering.

[00:45:30] Katie Dooley: But I guess in some ways that's like, let's just sweep it under the rug and then every person can decide for themselves what they believe. But yeah, once I take a firm stance on like, science isn't real, that sounds so wrong to say will will shrink because.

[00:45:46] Preston Meyer: Science is getting pretty strong.

[00:45:48] Katie Dooley: Well, it's getting strong. And we're, you know, having some real world examples of, you know, coronavirus on scientists are saying one thing. We're ignoring them and people are getting sick and dying.

[00:46:00] Preston Meyer: Well, you've got all these faith healers, especially the big televangelists who make a show of these fancy healing miracles they're happy to do on their stage with actors. They're not going to hospitals and healing people who are dying of coronavirus. You've got some people who say, well, it's just God punishing people. So of course I'm not going to go in there and help them which is nonsense. Like that's I don't know if you could come up with a more self-destructive evil position to hold than coronavirus is meant to be a punishment from God. Perfectly reasonable people who I don't think it's safe to say are the worst of sinners are dying. While very terrible people are not.

[00:46:45] Katie Dooley: I don't know where my brain's going with this, but did we explain the beginning of Modern Religion? We talked around it a lot.

[00:46:53] Preston Meyer: We did talk around it a little bit, didn't we?

[00:46:55] Katie Dooley: But basically it was used to organize society. It developed into more magical things. Then it got more organized and developed a set of morals that we sort of still live by. But I'm a good person, even though I've never been to church. Yeah, is my thesis statement.

[00:47:16] Preston Meyer: Yes. Your position of you can be moral without being religious is 100% correct, but I am disinclined to believe that morality is going to pop up in a vacuum. Okay, I use that that sentence wrong. Morality is a nonsense word in itself without a qualifier.

[00:47:37] Katie Dooley: That's true and it's something we'll never know because there's always been some sort of religion guiding people.

[00:47:45] Preston Meyer: Absolutely and so it's almost like it's just a mental exercise.

[00:47:49] Katie Dooley: Yeah. I, I'm thinking far too hard for a Sunday afternoon at this point, but any last thoughts on...

[00:47:56] Preston Meyer: The Golden Rule is a wonderful thing. It's taught by almost every major religion. Well, it's taught by every major religion and most minor religions. The idea that if you don't want somebody to be a dick bag to you, maybe you shouldn't be a dick bag to them.

[00:48:14] Katie Dooley: Well, and that's that's where I think morality could have developed if we and again, it's sort of a ridiculous idea because there's always been some sort of deity. I think morality could have developed without religion because stuff sucks, right? Like I said, if you killed my husband, I would be very upset and I would know how much it would hurt someone if I killed their husband or loved one or, you know, same with theft or.

[00:48:45] Preston Meyer: But revenge and demands for justice are also pretty great with strong arguments to support them even.

[00:48:56] Katie Dooley: Give me one.

[00:48:58] Preston Meyer: Well, say you kill my wife. Would it not be just for me to exact the same sort of suffering upon you? The Golden Rule says don't do that even though justice says no, you totally deserve it.

[00:49:12] Katie Dooley: Fair and this then turns into an interesting offshoot of capital punishment and religion, because often people in favor of capital punishment are religious.

[00:49:23] Preston Meyer: Usually. Usually. I mean the Bible. The Torah specifically says that capital punishment is appropriate. The interesting thing about an eye for an eye is that it's really easy to look at it from our perspective, where that's worse than what we have now. But when that was given as a law, it was actually far more generous than what was normal. Like, if you stab me in the eye in Egyptian era Israel, it was totally acceptable for me to kill you, which is extreme, extreme escalation. And then it got moderated in the days of Moses, and it got moderated even further in the Christian era by this idea that you need to be more merciful, you need to be better than your enemy.

[00:50:19] Katie Dooley: But I...

[00:50:20] Preston Meyer: Morally better rather than...

[00:50:22] Katie Dooley: Can't go back 2000 plus years. But I imagine keeping society in line when you don't have modern day police forces and lawyers and judges. 

[00:50:32] Preston Meyer: Put the fear of God in them.

[00:50:33] Katie Dooley: Well, the fear of God in it. Yeah, fear of God. And the fact that my eye is gonna get stabbed out probably keeps people in line. And, I mean, there's examples of countries like Singapore that have really high penalties. Um, and you can go to a mall in Singapore and have money pouring out your purse will still be there. 

[00:50:33] Preston Meyer: Because you're worried about your hand getting cut off.

[00:50:51] Katie Dooley: Because you're worried about your hand getting cut off. Yeah. So it's probably yeah, I mean, these are all just ways to moderate people's behaviors in society. And I mean, the golden rule is probably the most humane.

[00:51:04] Preston Meyer: It's the one that's the easiest to understand. The reciprocal imperative is very straightforward. If I don't want to get hurt, don't hurt somebody else. It's the economics of self-preservation. But also it's a really good way to deal with the world around you.

[00:51:26] Katie Dooley: I mean, I guess an eye for an eye is the golden rule, just a little more gory.

[00:51:31] Preston Meyer: It's slightly more enforced.

[00:51:33] Katie Dooley: Yeah, right but, yeah, do unto others, as you had done to you. I guess it would be the.

[00:51:40] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:51:41] Katie Dooley: This is a little more proactive.

[00:51:43] Preston Meyer: It is. And that is ultimately the intent of our new understanding of the golden rule versus the eye for an eye. It's yeah meant to reduce that violence rather than aggravate.

[00:51:56] Katie Dooley: That's all for our first episode of the Holy Watermelon Podcast. If you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave us a five-star review.

[00:52:04] Preston Meyer: Peace be with you.