Transcription
My question is: given all these demotions, what is your personal religion, or do you—is there any type of God to you? Like, is there a purpose, given that we're just sitting on this speck in the middle of this sea of stars?
Now, I don't want to duck any questions, and I'm not going to duck this one, but let me ask you: what do you mean when you use the word "God"? It's—it seems that, through the ages, humans have created a mythological framework that has always involved some kind of higher spiritual powers. And as every human culture has—as that goes away as we know more and more, that—and it seems harder and harder to prove that anything might exist like that. Where does that leave us? On our own. [Applause] Which, to my mind, is much more responsible than hoping that someone will save us from ourselves so we don't have to make our best efforts to do it ourselves. And if we're wrong and there is someone who steps in and saves us, okay, that's all right. I'm for that, but we, you know, hedged our bets. It's Pascal's bargain run backward.
Um, I—I'll say another word: the word "God" covers an enormous range of different ideas, and you recognize that in the way you phrase the question. Running from an outsized, lightskinned male with a long white beard sitting in a throne in the sky and tallying the fall of every sparrow—for which there is no evidence, to my mind. If anybody has some, I sure would like to see it—um—to the kind of God that Einstein or Spinoza talked about, which is very close to the sum total of the laws of the universe. Now, it would be crazy to deny that there are laws in the universe, and if that's what you want to call God, then, of course, God exists. And there are all sorts of other nuances. There is, for example, the deist God that many of the founding fathers of this country believed in, although it is a—a secret whose name may not be spoken in some circles—a—a—a do-nothing King; the God who creates the universe and then retires, and to whom praying to is sort of pointless. He's not here; he went somewhere else; he had other things to do. Now, that's also a God. So when you say, "Do you believe in God?" If I say yes or if I say no, you have learned absolutely nothing.
I guess I'm asking you to define yours, if you have one. But why would we use a word so ambiguous, that means so many different things? It gives you freedom to define it, as it gives you freedom to seem to agree with someone else with whom you do not agree. It covers over differences; it makes for social lubrication, but it is not an aid to truth, in my view. And therefore, I think we need much sharper language when we ask these questions.
I lost both my parents about 12 or 15 years ago, and uh, I had a great relationship with them. I really miss them. I would love to believe that their spirits were around somewhere, and I'd give almost anything to uh, spend five minutes a year with them. We demand the most rigorous standards of evidence, especially on what's important to us. So if some guy comes up to me—a channeler or medium—and says, "I can put you in touch with your parents," well, because I want so terribly to—to believe that, yeah, I know I have to reach in for added reserves of skepticism because I'm likely to be fooled, and—and uh—much more minor—to have my money taken.