1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,000 I thought I'd tell you a little about what I like to write. 2 00:00:04,000 --> 00:00:08,000 And I like to immerse myself in my topics. 3 00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:13,000 I just like to dive right in and become sort of a human guinea pig. 4 00:00:13,000 --> 00:00:18,000 And I see my life as a series of experiments. 5 00:00:18,000 --> 00:00:22,000 So, I work for Esquire magazine, and a couple of years ago, 6 00:00:22,000 --> 00:00:25,000 I wrote an article called "My Outsourced Life," 7 00:00:25,000 --> 00:00:29,000 where I hired a team of people in Bangalore, India, 8 00:00:29,000 --> 00:00:31,000 to live my life for me. 9 00:00:31,000 --> 00:00:33,000 So, they answered my emails. 10 00:00:33,000 --> 00:00:35,000 They answered my phone. 11 00:00:35,000 --> 00:00:42,000 They argued with my wife for me, and they read my son bedtime stories. 12 00:00:42,000 --> 00:00:44,000 It was the best month of my life, 13 00:00:44,000 --> 00:00:49,000 because I just sat back and I read books and watched movies. 14 00:00:49,000 --> 00:00:51,000 It was a wonderful experience. 15 00:00:51,000 --> 00:00:54,000 More recently, I wrote an article for Esquire called -- 16 00:00:54,000 --> 00:00:57,000 about radical honesty. 17 00:00:57,000 --> 00:00:59,000 And this is a movement where -- 18 00:00:59,000 --> 00:01:03,000 this is started by a psychologist in Virginia, 19 00:01:03,000 --> 00:01:06,000 who says that you should never, ever lie, 20 00:01:06,000 --> 00:01:11,000 except maybe during poker and golf, his only exceptions. 21 00:01:11,000 --> 00:01:13,000 And, more than that, whatever is on your brain 22 00:01:13,000 --> 00:01:15,000 should come out of your mouth. 23 00:01:15,000 --> 00:01:18,000 So, I decided I would try this for a month. 24 00:01:18,000 --> 00:01:21,000 This was the worst month of my life. 25 00:01:21,000 --> 00:01:22,000 (Laughter) 26 00:01:22,000 --> 00:01:24,000 I do not recommend this at all. 27 00:01:24,000 --> 00:01:26,000 To give you a sense of the experience, 28 00:01:26,000 --> 00:01:30,000 the article was called, "I Think You're Fat." 29 00:01:30,000 --> 00:01:32,000 (Laughter) 30 00:01:32,000 --> 00:01:33,000 So, that was hard. 31 00:01:34,000 --> 00:01:38,000 My most recent book -- my previous book was called "The Know-It-All," 32 00:01:39,000 --> 00:01:43,000 and it was about the year I spent reading the Encyclopedia Britannica 33 00:01:43,000 --> 00:01:46,000 from A to Z in my quest to learn everything in the world, 34 00:01:47,000 --> 00:01:52,000 or more precisely from Aak, which is a type of East Asian music, 35 00:01:52,000 --> 00:01:56,000 all the way to Zwyiec, which is -- well, I don't want to ruin the ending. 36 00:01:56,000 --> 00:01:57,000 (Laughter) 37 00:01:57,000 --> 00:02:01,000 It's a very exciting twist ending, like an O. Henry novel, so I won't ruin it. 38 00:02:01,000 --> 00:02:03,000 But I love that one, 39 00:02:03,000 --> 00:02:07,000 because that was an experiment about how much information 40 00:02:07,000 --> 00:02:09,000 one human brain could absorb. 41 00:02:09,000 --> 00:02:13,000 Although, listening to Kevin Kelly, you don't have to remember anything. 42 00:02:13,000 --> 00:02:15,000 You can just Google it. 43 00:02:15,000 --> 00:02:17,000 So, I wasted some time there. 44 00:02:17,000 --> 00:02:20,000 I love those experiments, 45 00:02:20,000 --> 00:02:22,000 but I think that the most profound 46 00:02:22,000 --> 00:02:26,000 and life-changing experiment that I've done 47 00:02:26,000 --> 00:02:30,000 is my most recent experiment, where I spent a year 48 00:02:30,000 --> 00:02:33,000 trying to follow all of the rules of the Bible, 49 00:02:33,000 --> 00:02:35,000 "The Year of Living Biblically." 50 00:02:36,000 --> 00:02:39,000 And I undertook this for two reasons. 51 00:02:39,000 --> 00:02:43,000 The first was that I grew up with no religion at all. 52 00:02:43,000 --> 00:02:47,000 As I say in my book, I'm Jewish in the same way 53 00:02:47,000 --> 00:02:49,000 the Olive Garden is Italian. 54 00:02:49,000 --> 00:02:51,000 (Laughter) 55 00:02:51,000 --> 00:02:53,000 So, not very. 56 00:02:53,000 --> 00:02:56,000 But I've become increasingly interested in religion. 57 00:02:56,000 --> 00:02:58,000 I do think it's the defining issue of our time, 58 00:02:58,000 --> 00:03:00,000 or one of the main ones. 59 00:03:00,000 --> 00:03:03,000 And I have a son. I want to know what to teach him. 60 00:03:03,000 --> 00:03:07,000 So, I decided to dive in head first, and try to live the Bible. 61 00:03:08,000 --> 00:03:11,000 The second reason I undertook this is because 62 00:03:11,000 --> 00:03:14,000 I'm concerned about the rise of fundamentalism, 63 00:03:14,000 --> 00:03:17,000 religious fundamentalism, and people who say 64 00:03:17,000 --> 00:03:20,000 they take the Bible literally, which is, according to some polls, 65 00:03:20,000 --> 00:03:23,000 as high as 45 or 50 percent of America. 66 00:03:24,000 --> 00:03:28,000 So I decided, what if you really did take the Bible literally? 67 00:03:28,000 --> 00:03:32,000 I decided to take it to its logical conclusion 68 00:03:32,000 --> 00:03:34,000 and take everything in the Bible literally, 69 00:03:34,000 --> 00:03:37,000 without picking and choosing. 70 00:03:37,000 --> 00:03:40,000 The first thing I did was I got a stack of bibles. 71 00:03:40,000 --> 00:03:42,000 I had Christian bibles. 72 00:03:42,000 --> 00:03:44,000 I had Jewish bibles. 73 00:03:44,000 --> 00:03:47,000 A friend of mine sent me something called a hip-hop bible, 74 00:03:47,000 --> 00:03:51,000 where the twenty-third Psalm is rendered as, "The Lord is all that," 75 00:03:51,000 --> 00:03:55,000 as opposed to what I knew it as, "The Lord is my shepherd." 76 00:03:55,000 --> 00:03:59,000 Then I went down and I read several versions, 77 00:03:59,000 --> 00:04:02,000 and I wrote down every single law that I could find. 78 00:04:02,000 --> 00:04:06,000 And this was a very long list -- over 700 rules. 79 00:04:07,000 --> 00:04:10,000 And they range from the famous ones that I had heard of -- 80 00:04:10,000 --> 00:04:13,000 The Ten Commandments, love your neighbor, be fruitful and multiply. 81 00:04:13,000 --> 00:04:15,000 So I wanted to follow those. 82 00:04:15,000 --> 00:04:18,000 And actually, I take my projects very seriously, 83 00:04:18,000 --> 00:04:20,000 because I had twins during my year, 84 00:04:20,000 --> 00:04:23,000 so I definitely take my projects seriously. 85 00:04:23,000 --> 00:04:26,000 But I also wanted to follow the hundreds 86 00:04:26,000 --> 00:04:29,000 of arcane and obscure laws that are in the Bible. 87 00:04:29,000 --> 00:04:31,000 There is the law in Leviticus, 88 00:04:31,000 --> 00:04:33,000 "You cannot shave the corners of your beard." 89 00:04:33,000 --> 00:04:35,000 I didn't know where my corners were, 90 00:04:35,000 --> 00:04:38,000 so I decided to let the whole thing grow, 91 00:04:38,000 --> 00:04:40,000 and this is what I looked like by the end. 92 00:04:41,000 --> 00:04:45,000 As you can imagine, I spent a lot of time at airport security. 93 00:04:45,000 --> 00:04:47,000 (Laughter) 94 00:04:47,000 --> 00:04:50,000 My wife wouldn't kiss me for the last two months. 95 00:04:50,000 --> 00:04:52,000 So, certainly the challenge was there. 96 00:04:52,000 --> 00:04:57,000 The Bible says you cannot wear clothes made of mixed fibers, 97 00:04:57,000 --> 00:04:59,000 so I thought, "Sounds strange, but I'll try it." 98 00:04:59,000 --> 00:05:01,000 You only know if you try it. 99 00:05:01,000 --> 00:05:04,000 I got rid of all my poly-cotton T-shirts. 100 00:05:04,000 --> 00:05:08,000 The Bible says that if two men are in a fight, 101 00:05:08,000 --> 00:05:14,000 and the wife of one of those men grabs the testicles of the other man, 102 00:05:14,000 --> 00:05:16,000 then her hand shall be cut off. 103 00:05:16,000 --> 00:05:18,000 So, I wanted to follow that rule. 104 00:05:18,000 --> 00:05:19,000 (Laughter) 105 00:05:19,000 --> 00:05:22,000 That one I followed by default, 106 00:05:22,000 --> 00:05:26,000 by not getting in a fight with a man whose wife was standing nearby, 107 00:05:26,000 --> 00:05:28,000 looking like she had a strong grip. 108 00:05:29,000 --> 00:05:31,000 (Laughter) 109 00:05:32,000 --> 00:05:35,000 So -- oh, there's another shot of my beard. 110 00:05:36,000 --> 00:05:38,000 I will say it was an amazing year 111 00:05:38,000 --> 00:05:41,000 because it really was life changing, and incredibly challenging. 112 00:05:41,000 --> 00:05:44,000 And there were two types of laws that were particularly challenging. 113 00:05:44,000 --> 00:05:48,000 The first was avoiding the little sins that we all commit every day. 114 00:05:48,000 --> 00:05:50,000 You know, I could spend a year not killing, 115 00:05:50,000 --> 00:05:55,000 but spending a year not gossiping, not coveting, not lying -- 116 00:05:55,000 --> 00:05:58,000 you know, I live in New York, and I work as a journalist, 117 00:05:58,000 --> 00:06:03,000 so this was 75, 80 percent of my day I had to do it. 118 00:06:03,000 --> 00:06:08,000 But it was really interesting, because I was able to make some progress, 119 00:06:08,000 --> 00:06:10,000 because I couldn't believe how much 120 00:06:10,000 --> 00:06:13,000 my behavior changed my thoughts. 121 00:06:13,000 --> 00:06:15,000 This was one of the huge lessons of the year, 122 00:06:15,000 --> 00:06:18,000 is that I almost pretended to be a better person, 123 00:06:18,000 --> 00:06:21,000 and I became a little bit of a better person. 124 00:06:21,000 --> 00:06:26,000 So I had always thought, you know, "You change your mind, 125 00:06:26,000 --> 00:06:29,000 and you change your behavior," but it's often the other way around. 126 00:06:29,000 --> 00:06:34,000 You change your behavior, and you change your mind. 127 00:06:34,000 --> 00:06:37,000 So, you know, if you want to become more compassionate, 128 00:06:37,000 --> 00:06:39,000 you visit sick people in the hospital, 129 00:06:39,000 --> 00:06:41,000 and you will become more compassionate. 130 00:06:41,000 --> 00:06:43,000 You donate money to a cause, 131 00:06:43,000 --> 00:06:46,000 and you become emotionally involved in that cause. 132 00:06:46,000 --> 00:06:48,000 So, it really was cognitive psychology -- 133 00:06:49,000 --> 00:06:52,000 you know, cognitive dissonance -- that I was experiencing. 134 00:06:52,000 --> 00:06:55,000 The Bible actually talks about cognitive psychology, 135 00:06:55,000 --> 00:06:57,000 very primitive cognitive psychology. 136 00:06:57,000 --> 00:07:01,000 In the Proverbs, it says that if you smile, you will become happier, 137 00:07:01,000 --> 00:07:04,000 which, as we know, is actually true. 138 00:07:04,000 --> 00:07:08,000 The second type of rule that was difficult to obey 139 00:07:08,000 --> 00:07:11,000 was the rules that will get you into a little trouble 140 00:07:11,000 --> 00:07:13,000 in twenty-first-century America. 141 00:07:14,000 --> 00:07:19,000 And perhaps the clearest example of this is stoning adulterers. 142 00:07:19,000 --> 00:07:20,000 (Laughter) 143 00:07:20,000 --> 00:07:24,000 But it's a big part of the Bible, 144 00:07:24,000 --> 00:07:26,000 so I figured I had to address it. 145 00:07:27,000 --> 00:07:29,000 So, I was able to stone one adulterer. 146 00:07:29,000 --> 00:07:34,000 It happened -- I was in the park, and I was dressed in my biblical clothing, 147 00:07:34,000 --> 00:07:37,000 so sandals and sort of a white robe, 148 00:07:37,000 --> 00:07:39,000 you know, because again, the outer affects the inner. 149 00:07:39,000 --> 00:07:42,000 I wanted to see how dressing biblically affected my mind. 150 00:07:43,000 --> 00:07:45,000 And this man came up to me and he said, 151 00:07:45,000 --> 00:07:47,000 "Why are you dressed like that?" 152 00:07:47,000 --> 00:07:49,000 And I explained my project, 153 00:07:49,000 --> 00:07:52,000 and he said, "Well, I am an adulterer, are you going to stone me?" 154 00:07:52,000 --> 00:07:55,000 And I said, "Well, that would be great!" 155 00:07:55,000 --> 00:07:59,000 (Laughter) 156 00:08:00,000 --> 00:08:05,000 And I actually took out a handful of stones from my pocket 157 00:08:05,000 --> 00:08:07,000 that I had been carrying around for weeks, 158 00:08:07,000 --> 00:08:11,000 hoping for just this interaction -- and, you know, they were pebbles -- 159 00:08:11,000 --> 00:08:14,000 but he grabbed them out of my hand. 160 00:08:14,000 --> 00:08:17,000 He was actually an elderly man, mid-70s, just so you know. 161 00:08:17,000 --> 00:08:19,000 But he's still an adulterer, and still quite angry. 162 00:08:19,000 --> 00:08:21,000 He grabbed them out of my hand 163 00:08:21,000 --> 00:08:24,000 and threw them at my face, and I felt that I could -- 164 00:08:24,000 --> 00:08:28,000 eye for an eye -- I could retaliate, and throw one back at him. 165 00:08:28,000 --> 00:08:31,000 So that was my experience stoning, and it did allow me 166 00:08:31,000 --> 00:08:36,000 to talk about, in a more serious way, these big issues. 167 00:08:36,000 --> 00:08:40,000 How can the Bible be so barbaric in some places, 168 00:08:40,000 --> 00:08:42,000 and yet so incredibly wise in others? 169 00:08:43,000 --> 00:08:45,000 How should we view the Bible? 170 00:08:45,000 --> 00:08:47,000 Should we view it, you know, as original intent, 171 00:08:47,000 --> 00:08:51,000 like a sort of a Scalia version of the Bible? 172 00:08:52,000 --> 00:08:54,000 How was the Bible written? 173 00:08:54,000 --> 00:08:56,000 And actually, since this is a tech crowd, 174 00:08:56,000 --> 00:09:00,000 I talk in the book about how the Bible actually reminds me 175 00:09:00,000 --> 00:09:03,000 of the Wikipedia, because it has all of these authors and editors 176 00:09:03,000 --> 00:09:05,000 over hundreds of years. 177 00:09:05,000 --> 00:09:07,000 And it's sort of evolved. 178 00:09:07,000 --> 00:09:10,000 It's not a book that was written and came down from on high. 179 00:09:12,000 --> 00:09:16,000 So I thought I would end by telling you 180 00:09:16,000 --> 00:09:19,000 just a couple of the take-aways, the bigger lessons 181 00:09:19,000 --> 00:09:21,000 that I learned from my year. 182 00:09:22,000 --> 00:09:26,000 The first is, thou shalt not take the Bible literally. 183 00:09:26,000 --> 00:09:29,000 This became very, very clear, early on. 184 00:09:29,000 --> 00:09:32,000 Because if you do, then you end up acting like a crazy person, 185 00:09:32,000 --> 00:09:35,000 and stoning adulterers, or -- here's another example. 186 00:09:35,000 --> 00:09:40,000 Well, that's another. I did spend some time shepherding. 187 00:09:40,000 --> 00:09:41,000 (Laughter) 188 00:09:41,000 --> 00:09:44,000 It's a very relaxing vocation. I recommend it. 189 00:09:45,000 --> 00:09:49,000 But this one is -- the Bible says that you cannot touch women 190 00:09:49,000 --> 00:09:52,000 during certain times of the month, and more than that, 191 00:09:52,000 --> 00:09:55,000 you cannot sit on a seat where a menstruating woman has sat. 192 00:09:56,000 --> 00:09:58,000 And my wife thought this was very offensive, 193 00:09:58,000 --> 00:10:00,000 so she sat in every seat in our apartment, 194 00:10:00,000 --> 00:10:03,000 and I had to spend much of the year standing 195 00:10:03,000 --> 00:10:09,000 until I bought my own seat and carried it around. 196 00:10:09,000 --> 00:10:13,000 So, you know, I met with creationists. 197 00:10:13,000 --> 00:10:15,000 I went to the creationists' museum. 198 00:10:15,000 --> 00:10:17,000 And these are the ultimate literalists. 199 00:10:17,000 --> 00:10:20,000 And it was fascinating, because they were not stupid people at all. 200 00:10:20,000 --> 00:10:23,000 I would wager that their IQ is exactly the same as the average evolutionist. 201 00:10:23,000 --> 00:10:26,000 It's just that their faith is so strong 202 00:10:26,000 --> 00:10:28,000 in this literal interpretation of the Bible 203 00:10:28,000 --> 00:10:32,000 that they distort all the data to fit their model. 204 00:10:33,000 --> 00:10:37,000 And they go through these amazing mental gymnastics to accomplish this. 205 00:10:37,000 --> 00:10:42,000 And I will say, though, the museum is gorgeous. 206 00:10:42,000 --> 00:10:44,000 They really did a fantastic job. 207 00:10:44,000 --> 00:10:45,000 If you're ever in Kentucky, 208 00:10:45,000 --> 00:10:48,000 there's, you can see a movie of the flood, 209 00:10:48,000 --> 00:10:50,000 and they have sprinklers in the ceiling 210 00:10:50,000 --> 00:10:54,000 that will sprinkle on you during the flood scenes. 211 00:10:54,000 --> 00:10:57,000 So, whatever you think of creationism -- and I think it's crazy -- 212 00:10:57,000 --> 00:10:59,000 they did a great job. 213 00:11:00,000 --> 00:11:02,000 (Laughter) 214 00:11:02,000 --> 00:11:06,000 Another lesson is that thou shalt give thanks. 215 00:11:06,000 --> 00:11:10,000 And this one was a big lesson because I was praying, 216 00:11:10,000 --> 00:11:14,000 giving these prayers of thanksgiving, which was odd for an agnostic. 217 00:11:14,000 --> 00:11:18,000 But I was saying thanks all the time, every day, 218 00:11:18,000 --> 00:11:21,000 and I started to change my perspective. 219 00:11:21,000 --> 00:11:24,000 And I started to realize the hundreds of little things 220 00:11:24,000 --> 00:11:28,000 that go right every day, that I didn't even notice, 221 00:11:28,000 --> 00:11:30,000 that I took for granted, as opposed to focusing 222 00:11:30,000 --> 00:11:33,000 on the three or four that went wrong. 223 00:11:34,000 --> 00:11:36,000 So, this is actually a key to happiness for me, 224 00:11:37,000 --> 00:11:39,000 is to just remember when I came over here, 225 00:11:39,000 --> 00:11:43,000 the car didn't flip over, and I didn't trip coming up the stairs. 226 00:11:43,000 --> 00:11:45,000 It's a remarkable thing. 227 00:11:47,000 --> 00:11:49,000 Third, that thou shall have reverence. 228 00:11:49,000 --> 00:11:52,000 This one was unexpected because I started the year 229 00:11:52,000 --> 00:11:54,000 as an agnostic, and by the end of the year, 230 00:11:54,000 --> 00:11:59,000 I became what a friend of mine calls a reverent agnostic, which I love. 231 00:11:59,000 --> 00:12:01,000 And I'm trying to start it as a movement. 232 00:12:01,000 --> 00:12:03,000 So, if anyone wants to join, 233 00:12:03,000 --> 00:12:06,000 the basic idea is, whether or not there is a God, 234 00:12:06,000 --> 00:12:10,000 there's something important and beautiful about the idea of sacredness, 235 00:12:10,000 --> 00:12:12,000 and that our rituals can be sacred. 236 00:12:12,000 --> 00:12:15,000 The Sabbath can be sacred. 237 00:12:15,000 --> 00:12:18,000 This was one of the great things about my year, doing the Sabbath, 238 00:12:18,000 --> 00:12:22,000 because I am a workaholic, so having this one day 239 00:12:22,000 --> 00:12:25,000 where you cannot work, it really, that changed my life. 240 00:12:26,000 --> 00:12:30,000 So, this idea of sacredness, whether or not there is a God. 241 00:12:31,000 --> 00:12:33,000 Thou shall not stereotype. 242 00:12:33,000 --> 00:12:35,000 This one happened because 243 00:12:35,000 --> 00:12:38,000 I spent a lot of time with various religious communities 244 00:12:38,000 --> 00:12:40,000 throughout America because I wanted it to be more 245 00:12:40,000 --> 00:12:42,000 than about my journey. 246 00:12:42,000 --> 00:12:45,000 I wanted it to be about religion in America. 247 00:12:45,000 --> 00:12:49,000 So, I spent time with evangelical Christians, and Hasidic Jews, and the Amish. 248 00:12:49,000 --> 00:12:51,000 I'm very proud because 249 00:12:51,000 --> 00:12:53,000 I think I'm the only person in America 250 00:12:53,000 --> 00:12:56,000 to out Bible-talk a Jehovah's Witness. 251 00:12:56,000 --> 00:12:57,000 (Laughter) 252 00:12:57,000 --> 00:13:00,000 After three and a half hours, he looked at his watch, 253 00:13:00,000 --> 00:13:02,000 he's like, "I gotta go." 254 00:13:02,000 --> 00:13:04,000 (Laughter) 255 00:13:04,000 --> 00:13:05,000 Oh, thank you very much. 256 00:13:09,000 --> 00:13:10,000 Thank you. Bless you, bless you. 257 00:13:11,000 --> 00:13:13,000 But it was interesting 258 00:13:13,000 --> 00:13:16,000 because I had some very preconceived notions about, for instance, 259 00:13:16,000 --> 00:13:20,000 evangelical Christianity, and I found that 260 00:13:20,000 --> 00:13:22,000 it's such a wide and varied movement 261 00:13:22,000 --> 00:13:27,000 that it is difficult to make generalizations about it. 262 00:13:28,000 --> 00:13:31,000 There's a group I met with called the Red Letter Christians, 263 00:13:31,000 --> 00:13:34,000 and they focus on the red words in the Bible, 264 00:13:34,000 --> 00:13:36,000 which are the ones that Jesus spoke. 265 00:13:36,000 --> 00:13:38,000 That's how they printed them in the old Bibles. 266 00:13:38,000 --> 00:13:43,000 And their argument is that Jesus never talked about homosexuality. 267 00:13:43,000 --> 00:13:45,000 They have a pamphlet that says, 268 00:13:45,000 --> 00:13:47,000 "Here's what Jesus said about homosexuality," 269 00:13:47,000 --> 00:13:49,000 and you open it up, and there's nothing in it. 270 00:13:50,000 --> 00:13:56,000 So, they say Jesus did talk a lot about helping the outcasts, 271 00:13:56,000 --> 00:13:59,000 helping poor people. 272 00:13:59,000 --> 00:14:02,000 So, this was very inspiring to me. 273 00:14:03,000 --> 00:14:07,000 I recommend Jim Wallis and Tony Campolo. 274 00:14:08,000 --> 00:14:12,000 They're very inspiring leaders, even though I disagree 275 00:14:12,000 --> 00:14:14,000 with much of what they say. 276 00:14:14,000 --> 00:14:17,000 Also, thou shalt not disregard the irrational. 277 00:14:17,000 --> 00:14:21,000 This one was very unexpected because, you know, 278 00:14:21,000 --> 00:14:24,000 I grew up with the scientific worldview, 279 00:14:24,000 --> 00:14:31,000 and I was shocked learning how much of my life 280 00:14:31,000 --> 00:14:34,000 is governed by irrational forces. 281 00:14:34,000 --> 00:14:37,000 And the thing is, if they're not harmful, 282 00:14:38,000 --> 00:14:40,000 they're not to be completely dismissed. 283 00:14:40,000 --> 00:14:44,000 Because I learned that -- I was thinking, I was 284 00:14:44,000 --> 00:14:47,000 doing all these rituals, these biblical rituals, 285 00:14:47,000 --> 00:14:50,000 separating my wool and linen, and I would ask these religious people 286 00:14:51,000 --> 00:14:55,000 "Why would the Bible possibly tell us to do this? Why would God care?" 287 00:14:55,000 --> 00:14:57,000 And they said, "We don't know, 288 00:14:57,000 --> 00:15:01,000 but it's just rituals that give us meaning." 289 00:15:01,000 --> 00:15:03,000 And I would say, "But that's crazy." 290 00:15:03,000 --> 00:15:05,000 And they would say, "Well, what about you? 291 00:15:05,000 --> 00:15:09,000 You blow out candles on top of a birthday cake. 292 00:15:10,000 --> 00:15:14,000 If a guy from Mars came down and saw, here's one guy 293 00:15:14,000 --> 00:15:18,000 blowing out the fire on top of a cake 294 00:15:18,000 --> 00:15:22,000 versus another guy not wearing clothes of mixed fabrics, 295 00:15:22,000 --> 00:15:26,000 would the Martians say, 'Well, that guy, he makes sense, 296 00:15:26,000 --> 00:15:28,000 but that guy's crazy?'" 297 00:15:28,000 --> 00:15:33,000 So no, I think that rituals are, by nature, irrational. 298 00:15:33,000 --> 00:15:36,000 So the key is to choose the right rituals, 299 00:15:36,000 --> 00:15:42,000 the ones that are not harmful -- but rituals by themselves 300 00:15:42,000 --> 00:15:44,000 are not to be dismissed. 301 00:15:45,000 --> 00:15:49,000 And finally I learned that thou shall pick and choose. 302 00:15:49,000 --> 00:15:51,000 And this one I learned because 303 00:15:51,000 --> 00:15:53,000 I tried to follow everything in the Bible. 304 00:15:53,000 --> 00:15:55,000 And I failed miserably. 305 00:15:55,000 --> 00:15:57,000 Because you can't. 306 00:15:57,000 --> 00:16:00,000 You have to pick and choose. And anyone who follows the Bible 307 00:16:00,000 --> 00:16:02,000 is going to be picking and choosing. 308 00:16:02,000 --> 00:16:07,000 The key is to pick and choose the right parts. 309 00:16:07,000 --> 00:16:11,000 There's the phrase called cafeteria religion, 310 00:16:11,000 --> 00:16:15,000 and the fundamentalists will use it in a denigrating way, 311 00:16:15,000 --> 00:16:17,000 and they'll say, "Oh, it's just cafeteria religion. 312 00:16:17,000 --> 00:16:18,000 You're just picking and choosing." 313 00:16:18,000 --> 00:16:22,000 But my argument is, "What's wrong with cafeterias?" 314 00:16:22,000 --> 00:16:24,000 I've had some great meals at cafeterias. 315 00:16:24,000 --> 00:16:28,000 I've also had some meals that make me want to dry heave. 316 00:16:28,000 --> 00:16:31,000 So, it's about choosing the parts of the Bible about compassion, 317 00:16:32,000 --> 00:16:34,000 about tolerance, about loving your neighbor, 318 00:16:35,000 --> 00:16:40,000 as opposed to the parts about homosexuality is a sin, 319 00:16:40,000 --> 00:16:42,000 or intolerance, or violence, 320 00:16:42,000 --> 00:16:44,000 which are very much in the Bible as well. 321 00:16:44,000 --> 00:16:48,000 So if we are to find any meaning in this book, 322 00:16:48,000 --> 00:16:52,000 then we have to really engage it, and wrestle with it. 323 00:16:52,000 --> 00:16:55,000 And I thought I'd end with just a couple more. 324 00:16:55,000 --> 00:16:57,000 There's me reading the Bible. 325 00:16:57,000 --> 00:16:59,000 That's how I hailed taxicabs. 326 00:16:59,000 --> 00:17:02,000 (Laughter) 327 00:17:02,000 --> 00:17:04,000 Seriously, and it worked. And yes, 328 00:17:04,000 --> 00:17:07,000 that was actually a rented sheep, 329 00:17:07,000 --> 00:17:11,000 so I had to return that in the morning, but it served well for a day. 330 00:17:12,000 --> 00:17:15,000 So, anyway, thank you so much for letting me speak.