WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.000 I thought I'd tell you a little about what I like to write. 00:00:04.000 --> 00:00:08.000 And I like to immerse myself in my topics. 00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:13.000 I just like to dive right in and become sort of a human guinea pig. 00:00:13.000 --> 00:00:18.000 And I see my life as a series of experiments. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:22.000 So, I work for Esquire magazine, and a couple of years ago, 00:00:22.000 --> 00:00:25.000 I wrote an article called "My Outsourced Life," 00:00:25.000 --> 00:00:29.000 where I hired a team of people in Bangalore, India, 00:00:29.000 --> 00:00:31.000 to live my life for me. 00:00:31.000 --> 00:00:33.000 So, they answered my emails. 00:00:33.000 --> 00:00:35.000 They answered my phone. 00:00:35.000 --> 00:00:42.000 They argued with my wife for me, and they read my son bedtime stories. 00:00:42.000 --> 00:00:44.000 It was the best month of my life, 00:00:44.000 --> 00:00:49.000 because I just sat back and I read books and watched movies. 00:00:49.000 --> 00:00:51.000 It was a wonderful experience. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:51.000 --> 00:00:54.000 More recently, I wrote an article for Esquire called -- 00:00:54.000 --> 00:00:57.000 about radical honesty. 00:00:57.000 --> 00:00:59.000 And this is a movement where -- 00:00:59.000 --> 00:01:03.000 this is started by a psychologist in Virginia, 00:01:03.000 --> 00:01:06.000 who says that you should never, ever lie, 00:01:06.000 --> 00:01:11.000 except maybe during poker and golf, his only exceptions. 00:01:11.000 --> 00:01:13.000 And, more than that, whatever is on your brain 00:01:13.000 --> 00:01:15.000 should come out of your mouth. 00:01:15.000 --> 00:01:18.000 So, I decided I would try this for a month. 00:01:18.000 --> 00:01:21.000 This was the worst month of my life. 00:01:21.000 --> 00:01:22.000 (Laughter) 00:01:22.000 --> 00:01:24.000 I do not recommend this at all. 00:01:24.000 --> 00:01:26.000 To give you a sense of the experience, 00:01:26.000 --> 00:01:30.000 the article was called, "I Think You're Fat." 00:01:30.000 --> 00:01:32.000 (Laughter) 00:01:32.000 --> 00:01:33.000 So, that was hard. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:34.000 --> 00:01:38.000 My most recent book -- my previous book was called "The Know-It-All," 00:01:39.000 --> 00:01:43.000 and it was about the year I spent reading the Encyclopedia Britannica 00:01:43.000 --> 00:01:46.000 from A to Z in my quest to learn everything in the world, 00:01:47.000 --> 00:01:52.000 or more precisely from Aak, which is a type of East Asian music, 00:01:52.000 --> 00:01:56.000 all the way to Zwyiec, which is -- well, I don't want to ruin the ending. 00:01:56.000 --> 00:01:57.000 (Laughter) 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. 00:02:01.000 --> 00:02:03.000 But I love that one, 00:02:03.000 --> 00:02:07.000 because that was an experiment about how much information 00:02:07.000 --> 00:02:09.000 one human brain could absorb. 00:02:09.000 --> 00:02:13.000 Although, listening to Kevin Kelly, you don't have to remember anything. 00:02:13.000 --> 00:02:15.000 You can just Google it. 00:02:15.000 --> 00:02:17.000 So, I wasted some time there. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:17.000 --> 00:02:20.000 I love those experiments, 00:02:20.000 --> 00:02:22.000 but I think that the most profound 00:02:22.000 --> 00:02:26.000 and life-changing experiment that I've done 00:02:26.000 --> 00:02:30.000 is my most recent experiment, where I spent a year 00:02:30.000 --> 00:02:33.000 trying to follow all of the rules of the Bible, 00:02:33.000 --> 00:02:35.000 "The Year of Living Biblically." 00:02:36.000 --> 00:02:39.000 And I undertook this for two reasons. 00:02:39.000 --> 00:02:43.000 The first was that I grew up with no religion at all. 00:02:43.000 --> 00:02:47.000 As I say in my book, I'm Jewish in the same way 00:02:47.000 --> 00:02:49.000 the Olive Garden is Italian. 00:02:49.000 --> 00:02:51.000 (Laughter) 00:02:51.000 --> 00:02:53.000 So, not very. 00:02:53.000 --> 00:02:56.000 But I've become increasingly interested in religion. 00:02:56.000 --> 00:02:58.000 I do think it's the defining issue of our time, 00:02:58.000 --> 00:03:00.000 or one of the main ones. 00:03:00.000 --> 00:03:03.000 And I have a son. I want to know what to teach him. 00:03:03.000 --> 00:03:07.000 So, I decided to dive in head first, and try to live the Bible. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:08.000 --> 00:03:11.000 The second reason I undertook this is because 00:03:11.000 --> 00:03:14.000 I'm concerned about the rise of fundamentalism, 00:03:14.000 --> 00:03:17.000 religious fundamentalism, and people who say 00:03:17.000 --> 00:03:20.000 they take the Bible literally, which is, according to some polls, 00:03:20.000 --> 00:03:23.000 as high as 45 or 50 percent of America. 00:03:24.000 --> 00:03:28.000 So I decided, what if you really did take the Bible literally? 00:03:28.000 --> 00:03:32.000 I decided to take it to its logical conclusion 00:03:32.000 --> 00:03:34.000 and take everything in the Bible literally, 00:03:34.000 --> 00:03:37.000 without picking and choosing. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:37.000 --> 00:03:40.000 The first thing I did was I got a stack of bibles. 00:03:40.000 --> 00:03:42.000 I had Christian bibles. 00:03:42.000 --> 00:03:44.000 I had Jewish bibles. 00:03:44.000 --> 00:03:47.000 A friend of mine sent me something called a hip-hop bible, 00:03:47.000 --> 00:03:51.000 where the twenty-third Psalm is rendered as, "The Lord is all that," 00:03:51.000 --> 00:03:55.000 as opposed to what I knew it as, "The Lord is my shepherd." NOTE Paragraph 00:03:55.000 --> 00:03:59.000 Then I went down and I read several versions, 00:03:59.000 --> 00:04:02.000 and I wrote down every single law that I could find. 00:04:02.000 --> 00:04:06.000 And this was a very long list -- over 700 rules. 00:04:07.000 --> 00:04:10.000 And they range from the famous ones that I had heard of -- 00:04:10.000 --> 00:04:13.000 The Ten Commandments, love your neighbor, be fruitful and multiply. 00:04:13.000 --> 00:04:15.000 So I wanted to follow those. 00:04:15.000 --> 00:04:18.000 And actually, I take my projects very seriously, 00:04:18.000 --> 00:04:20.000 because I had twins during my year, 00:04:20.000 --> 00:04:23.000 so I definitely take my projects seriously. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:23.000 --> 00:04:26.000 But I also wanted to follow the hundreds 00:04:26.000 --> 00:04:29.000 of arcane and obscure laws that are in the Bible. 00:04:29.000 --> 00:04:31.000 There is the law in Leviticus, 00:04:31.000 --> 00:04:33.000 "You cannot shave the corners of your beard." 00:04:33.000 --> 00:04:35.000 I didn't know where my corners were, 00:04:35.000 --> 00:04:38.000 so I decided to let the whole thing grow, 00:04:38.000 --> 00:04:40.000 and this is what I looked like by the end. 00:04:41.000 --> 00:04:45.000 As you can imagine, I spent a lot of time at airport security. 00:04:45.000 --> 00:04:47.000 (Laughter) 00:04:47.000 --> 00:04:50.000 My wife wouldn't kiss me for the last two months. 00:04:50.000 --> 00:04:52.000 So, certainly the challenge was there. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:52.000 --> 00:04:57.000 The Bible says you cannot wear clothes made of mixed fibers, 00:04:57.000 --> 00:04:59.000 so I thought, "Sounds strange, but I'll try it." 00:04:59.000 --> 00:05:01.000 You only know if you try it. 00:05:01.000 --> 00:05:04.000 I got rid of all my poly-cotton T-shirts. 00:05:04.000 --> 00:05:08.000 The Bible says that if two men are in a fight, 00:05:08.000 --> 00:05:14.000 and the wife of one of those men grabs the testicles of the other man, 00:05:14.000 --> 00:05:16.000 then her hand shall be cut off. 00:05:16.000 --> 00:05:18.000 So, I wanted to follow that rule. 00:05:18.000 --> 00:05:19.000 (Laughter) 00:05:19.000 --> 00:05:22.000 That one I followed by default, 00:05:22.000 --> 00:05:26.000 by not getting in a fight with a man whose wife was standing nearby, 00:05:26.000 --> 00:05:28.000 looking like she had a strong grip. 00:05:29.000 --> 00:05:31.000 (Laughter) 00:05:32.000 --> 00:05:35.000 So -- oh, there's another shot of my beard. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:36.000 --> 00:05:38.000 I will say it was an amazing year 00:05:38.000 --> 00:05:41.000 because it really was life changing, and incredibly challenging. 00:05:41.000 --> 00:05:44.000 And there were two types of laws that were particularly challenging. 00:05:44.000 --> 00:05:48.000 The first was avoiding the little sins that we all commit every day. 00:05:48.000 --> 00:05:50.000 You know, I could spend a year not killing, 00:05:50.000 --> 00:05:55.000 but spending a year not gossiping, not coveting, not lying -- 00:05:55.000 --> 00:05:58.000 you know, I live in New York, and I work as a journalist, 00:05:58.000 --> 00:06:03.000 so this was 75, 80 percent of my day I had to do it. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:03.000 --> 00:06:08.000 But it was really interesting, because I was able to make some progress, 00:06:08.000 --> 00:06:10.000 because I couldn't believe how much 00:06:10.000 --> 00:06:13.000 my behavior changed my thoughts. 00:06:13.000 --> 00:06:15.000 This was one of the huge lessons of the year, 00:06:15.000 --> 00:06:18.000 is that I almost pretended to be a better person, 00:06:18.000 --> 00:06:21.000 and I became a little bit of a better person. 00:06:21.000 --> 00:06:26.000 So I had always thought, you know, "You change your mind, 00:06:26.000 --> 00:06:29.000 and you change your behavior," but it's often the other way around. 00:06:29.000 --> 00:06:34.000 You change your behavior, and you change your mind. 00:06:34.000 --> 00:06:37.000 So, you know, if you want to become more compassionate, 00:06:37.000 --> 00:06:39.000 you visit sick people in the hospital, 00:06:39.000 --> 00:06:41.000 and you will become more compassionate. 00:06:41.000 --> 00:06:43.000 You donate money to a cause, 00:06:43.000 --> 00:06:46.000 and you become emotionally involved in that cause. 00:06:46.000 --> 00:06:48.000 So, it really was cognitive psychology -- 00:06:49.000 --> 00:06:52.000 you know, cognitive dissonance -- that I was experiencing. 00:06:52.000 --> 00:06:55.000 The Bible actually talks about cognitive psychology, 00:06:55.000 --> 00:06:57.000 very primitive cognitive psychology. 00:06:57.000 --> 00:07:01.000 In the Proverbs, it says that if you smile, you will become happier, 00:07:01.000 --> 00:07:04.000 which, as we know, is actually true. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:04.000 --> 00:07:08.000 The second type of rule that was difficult to obey 00:07:08.000 --> 00:07:11.000 was the rules that will get you into a little trouble 00:07:11.000 --> 00:07:13.000 in twenty-first-century America. 00:07:14.000 --> 00:07:19.000 And perhaps the clearest example of this is stoning adulterers. 00:07:19.000 --> 00:07:20.000 (Laughter) 00:07:20.000 --> 00:07:24.000 But it's a big part of the Bible, 00:07:24.000 --> 00:07:26.000 so I figured I had to address it. 00:07:27.000 --> 00:07:29.000 So, I was able to stone one adulterer. 00:07:29.000 --> 00:07:34.000 It happened -- I was in the park, and I was dressed in my biblical clothing, 00:07:34.000 --> 00:07:37.000 so sandals and sort of a white robe, 00:07:37.000 --> 00:07:39.000 you know, because again, the outer affects the inner. 00:07:39.000 --> 00:07:42.000 I wanted to see how dressing biblically affected my mind. 00:07:43.000 --> 00:07:45.000 And this man came up to me and he said, 00:07:45.000 --> 00:07:47.000 "Why are you dressed like that?" 00:07:47.000 --> 00:07:49.000 And I explained my project, 00:07:49.000 --> 00:07:52.000 and he said, "Well, I am an adulterer, are you going to stone me?" 00:07:52.000 --> 00:07:55.000 And I said, "Well, that would be great!" 00:07:55.000 --> 00:07:59.000 (Laughter) 00:08:00.000 --> 00:08:05.000 And I actually took out a handful of stones from my pocket 00:08:05.000 --> 00:08:07.000 that I had been carrying around for weeks, 00:08:07.000 --> 00:08:11.000 hoping for just this interaction -- and, you know, they were pebbles -- 00:08:11.000 --> 00:08:14.000 but he grabbed them out of my hand. 00:08:14.000 --> 00:08:17.000 He was actually an elderly man, mid-70s, just so you know. 00:08:17.000 --> 00:08:19.000 But he's still an adulterer, and still quite angry. 00:08:19.000 --> 00:08:21.000 He grabbed them out of my hand 00:08:21.000 --> 00:08:24.000 and threw them at my face, and I felt that I could -- 00:08:24.000 --> 00:08:28.000 eye for an eye -- I could retaliate, and throw one back at him. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:28.000 --> 00:08:31.000 So that was my experience stoning, and it did allow me 00:08:31.000 --> 00:08:36.000 to talk about, in a more serious way, these big issues. 00:08:36.000 --> 00:08:40.000 How can the Bible be so barbaric in some places, 00:08:40.000 --> 00:08:42.000 and yet so incredibly wise in others? 00:08:43.000 --> 00:08:45.000 How should we view the Bible? 00:08:45.000 --> 00:08:47.000 Should we view it, you know, as original intent, 00:08:47.000 --> 00:08:51.000 like a sort of a Scalia version of the Bible? 00:08:52.000 --> 00:08:54.000 How was the Bible written? 00:08:54.000 --> 00:08:56.000 And actually, since this is a tech crowd, 00:08:56.000 --> 00:09:00.000 I talk in the book about how the Bible actually reminds me 00:09:00.000 --> 00:09:03.000 of the Wikipedia, because it has all of these authors and editors 00:09:03.000 --> 00:09:05.000 over hundreds of years. 00:09:05.000 --> 00:09:07.000 And it's sort of evolved. 00:09:07.000 --> 00:09:10.000 It's not a book that was written and came down from on high. NOTE Paragraph 00:09:12.000 --> 00:09:16.000 So I thought I would end by telling you 00:09:16.000 --> 00:09:19.000 just a couple of the take-aways, the bigger lessons 00:09:19.000 --> 00:09:21.000 that I learned from my year. 00:09:22.000 --> 00:09:26.000 The first is, thou shalt not take the Bible literally. 00:09:26.000 --> 00:09:29.000 This became very, very clear, early on. 00:09:29.000 --> 00:09:32.000 Because if you do, then you end up acting like a crazy person, 00:09:32.000 --> 00:09:35.000 and stoning adulterers, or -- here's another example. 00:09:35.000 --> 00:09:40.000 Well, that's another. I did spend some time shepherding. 00:09:40.000 --> 00:09:41.000 (Laughter) 00:09:41.000 --> 00:09:44.000 It's a very relaxing vocation. I recommend it. NOTE Paragraph 00:09:45.000 --> 00:09:49.000 But this one is -- the Bible says that you cannot touch women 00:09:49.000 --> 00:09:52.000 during certain times of the month, and more than that, 00:09:52.000 --> 00:09:55.000 you cannot sit on a seat where a menstruating woman has sat. 00:09:56.000 --> 00:09:58.000 And my wife thought this was very offensive, 00:09:58.000 --> 00:10:00.000 so she sat in every seat in our apartment, 00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:03.000 and I had to spend much of the year standing 00:10:03.000 --> 00:10:09.000 until I bought my own seat and carried it around. NOTE Paragraph 00:10:09.000 --> 00:10:13.000 So, you know, I met with creationists. 00:10:13.000 --> 00:10:15.000 I went to the creationists' museum. 00:10:15.000 --> 00:10:17.000 And these are the ultimate literalists. 00:10:17.000 --> 00:10:20.000 And it was fascinating, because they were not stupid people at all. 00:10:20.000 --> 00:10:23.000 I would wager that their IQ is exactly the same as the average evolutionist. 00:10:23.000 --> 00:10:26.000 It's just that their faith is so strong 00:10:26.000 --> 00:10:28.000 in this literal interpretation of the Bible 00:10:28.000 --> 00:10:32.000 that they distort all the data to fit their model. 00:10:33.000 --> 00:10:37.000 And they go through these amazing mental gymnastics to accomplish this. NOTE Paragraph 00:10:37.000 --> 00:10:42.000 And I will say, though, the museum is gorgeous. 00:10:42.000 --> 00:10:44.000 They really did a fantastic job. 00:10:44.000 --> 00:10:45.000 If you're ever in Kentucky, 00:10:45.000 --> 00:10:48.000 there's, you can see a movie of the flood, 00:10:48.000 --> 00:10:50.000 and they have sprinklers in the ceiling 00:10:50.000 --> 00:10:54.000 that will sprinkle on you during the flood scenes. 00:10:54.000 --> 00:10:57.000 So, whatever you think of creationism -- and I think it's crazy -- 00:10:57.000 --> 00:10:59.000 they did a great job. 00:11:00.000 --> 00:11:02.000 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:11:02.000 --> 00:11:06.000 Another lesson is that thou shalt give thanks. 00:11:06.000 --> 00:11:10.000 And this one was a big lesson because I was praying, 00:11:10.000 --> 00:11:14.000 giving these prayers of thanksgiving, which was odd for an agnostic. 00:11:14.000 --> 00:11:18.000 But I was saying thanks all the time, every day, 00:11:18.000 --> 00:11:21.000 and I started to change my perspective. 00:11:21.000 --> 00:11:24.000 And I started to realize the hundreds of little things 00:11:24.000 --> 00:11:28.000 that go right every day, that I didn't even notice, 00:11:28.000 --> 00:11:30.000 that I took for granted, as opposed to focusing 00:11:30.000 --> 00:11:33.000 on the three or four that went wrong. 00:11:34.000 --> 00:11:36.000 So, this is actually a key to happiness for me, 00:11:37.000 --> 00:11:39.000 is to just remember when I came over here, 00:11:39.000 --> 00:11:43.000 the car didn't flip over, and I didn't trip coming up the stairs. 00:11:43.000 --> 00:11:45.000 It's a remarkable thing. NOTE Paragraph 00:11:47.000 --> 00:11:49.000 Third, that thou shall have reverence. 00:11:49.000 --> 00:11:52.000 This one was unexpected because I started the year 00:11:52.000 --> 00:11:54.000 as an agnostic, and by the end of the year, 00:11:54.000 --> 00:11:59.000 I became what a friend of mine calls a reverent agnostic, which I love. 00:11:59.000 --> 00:12:01.000 And I'm trying to start it as a movement. 00:12:01.000 --> 00:12:03.000 So, if anyone wants to join, 00:12:03.000 --> 00:12:06.000 the basic idea is, whether or not there is a God, 00:12:06.000 --> 00:12:10.000 there's something important and beautiful about the idea of sacredness, 00:12:10.000 --> 00:12:12.000 and that our rituals can be sacred. 00:12:12.000 --> 00:12:15.000 The Sabbath can be sacred. 00:12:15.000 --> 00:12:18.000 This was one of the great things about my year, doing the Sabbath, 00:12:18.000 --> 00:12:22.000 because I am a workaholic, so having this one day 00:12:22.000 --> 00:12:25.000 where you cannot work, it really, that changed my life. 00:12:26.000 --> 00:12:30.000 So, this idea of sacredness, whether or not there is a God. NOTE Paragraph 00:12:31.000 --> 00:12:33.000 Thou shall not stereotype. 00:12:33.000 --> 00:12:35.000 This one happened because 00:12:35.000 --> 00:12:38.000 I spent a lot of time with various religious communities 00:12:38.000 --> 00:12:40.000 throughout America because I wanted it to be more 00:12:40.000 --> 00:12:42.000 than about my journey. 00:12:42.000 --> 00:12:45.000 I wanted it to be about religion in America. 00:12:45.000 --> 00:12:49.000 So, I spent time with evangelical Christians, and Hasidic Jews, and the Amish. 00:12:49.000 --> 00:12:51.000 I'm very proud because 00:12:51.000 --> 00:12:53.000 I think I'm the only person in America 00:12:53.000 --> 00:12:56.000 to out Bible-talk a Jehovah's Witness. 00:12:56.000 --> 00:12:57.000 (Laughter) 00:12:57.000 --> 00:13:00.000 After three and a half hours, he looked at his watch, 00:13:00.000 --> 00:13:02.000 he's like, "I gotta go." 00:13:02.000 --> 00:13:04.000 (Laughter) 00:13:04.000 --> 00:13:05.000 Oh, thank you very much. 00:13:09.000 --> 00:13:10.000 Thank you. Bless you, bless you. NOTE Paragraph 00:13:11.000 --> 00:13:13.000 But it was interesting 00:13:13.000 --> 00:13:16.000 because I had some very preconceived notions about, for instance, 00:13:16.000 --> 00:13:20.000 evangelical Christianity, and I found that 00:13:20.000 --> 00:13:22.000 it's such a wide and varied movement 00:13:22.000 --> 00:13:27.000 that it is difficult to make generalizations about it. 00:13:28.000 --> 00:13:31.000 There's a group I met with called the Red Letter Christians, 00:13:31.000 --> 00:13:34.000 and they focus on the red words in the Bible, 00:13:34.000 --> 00:13:36.000 which are the ones that Jesus spoke. 00:13:36.000 --> 00:13:38.000 That's how they printed them in the old Bibles. 00:13:38.000 --> 00:13:43.000 And their argument is that Jesus never talked about homosexuality. 00:13:43.000 --> 00:13:45.000 They have a pamphlet that says, 00:13:45.000 --> 00:13:47.000 "Here's what Jesus said about homosexuality," 00:13:47.000 --> 00:13:49.000 and you open it up, and there's nothing in it. 00:13:50.000 --> 00:13:56.000 So, they say Jesus did talk a lot about helping the outcasts, 00:13:56.000 --> 00:13:59.000 helping poor people. 00:13:59.000 --> 00:14:02.000 So, this was very inspiring to me. 00:14:03.000 --> 00:14:07.000 I recommend Jim Wallis and Tony Campolo. 00:14:08.000 --> 00:14:12.000 They're very inspiring leaders, even though I disagree 00:14:12.000 --> 00:14:14.000 with much of what they say. NOTE Paragraph 00:14:14.000 --> 00:14:17.000 Also, thou shalt not disregard the irrational. 00:14:17.000 --> 00:14:21.000 This one was very unexpected because, you know, 00:14:21.000 --> 00:14:24.000 I grew up with the scientific worldview, 00:14:24.000 --> 00:14:31.000 and I was shocked learning how much of my life 00:14:31.000 --> 00:14:34.000 is governed by irrational forces. 00:14:34.000 --> 00:14:37.000 And the thing is, if they're not harmful, 00:14:38.000 --> 00:14:40.000 they're not to be completely dismissed. 00:14:40.000 --> 00:14:44.000 Because I learned that -- I was thinking, I was 00:14:44.000 --> 00:14:47.000 doing all these rituals, these biblical rituals, 00:14:47.000 --> 00:14:50.000 separating my wool and linen, and I would ask these religious people 00:14:51.000 --> 00:14:55.000 "Why would the Bible possibly tell us to do this? Why would God care?" 00:14:55.000 --> 00:14:57.000 And they said, "We don't know, 00:14:57.000 --> 00:15:01.000 but it's just rituals that give us meaning." 00:15:01.000 --> 00:15:03.000 And I would say, "But that's crazy." 00:15:03.000 --> 00:15:05.000 And they would say, "Well, what about you? 00:15:05.000 --> 00:15:09.000 You blow out candles on top of a birthday cake. 00:15:10.000 --> 00:15:14.000 If a guy from Mars came down and saw, here's one guy 00:15:14.000 --> 00:15:18.000 blowing out the fire on top of a cake 00:15:18.000 --> 00:15:22.000 versus another guy not wearing clothes of mixed fabrics, 00:15:22.000 --> 00:15:26.000 would the Martians say, 'Well, that guy, he makes sense, 00:15:26.000 --> 00:15:28.000 but that guy's crazy?'" 00:15:28.000 --> 00:15:33.000 So no, I think that rituals are, by nature, irrational. 00:15:33.000 --> 00:15:36.000 So the key is to choose the right rituals, 00:15:36.000 --> 00:15:42.000 the ones that are not harmful -- but rituals by themselves 00:15:42.000 --> 00:15:44.000 are not to be dismissed. NOTE Paragraph 00:15:45.000 --> 00:15:49.000 And finally I learned that thou shall pick and choose. 00:15:49.000 --> 00:15:51.000 And this one I learned because 00:15:51.000 --> 00:15:53.000 I tried to follow everything in the Bible. 00:15:53.000 --> 00:15:55.000 And I failed miserably. 00:15:55.000 --> 00:15:57.000 Because you can't. 00:15:57.000 --> 00:16:00.000 You have to pick and choose. And anyone who follows the Bible 00:16:00.000 --> 00:16:02.000 is going to be picking and choosing. 00:16:02.000 --> 00:16:07.000 The key is to pick and choose the right parts. 00:16:07.000 --> 00:16:11.000 There's the phrase called cafeteria religion, 00:16:11.000 --> 00:16:15.000 and the fundamentalists will use it in a denigrating way, 00:16:15.000 --> 00:16:17.000 and they'll say, "Oh, it's just cafeteria religion. 00:16:17.000 --> 00:16:18.000 You're just picking and choosing." 00:16:18.000 --> 00:16:22.000 But my argument is, "What's wrong with cafeterias?" 00:16:22.000 --> 00:16:24.000 I've had some great meals at cafeterias. 00:16:24.000 --> 00:16:28.000 I've also had some meals that make me want to dry heave. 00:16:28.000 --> 00:16:31.000 So, it's about choosing the parts of the Bible about compassion, 00:16:32.000 --> 00:16:34.000 about tolerance, about loving your neighbor, 00:16:35.000 --> 00:16:40.000 as opposed to the parts about homosexuality is a sin, 00:16:40.000 --> 00:16:42.000 or intolerance, or violence, 00:16:42.000 --> 00:16:44.000 which are very much in the Bible as well. 00:16:44.000 --> 00:16:48.000 So if we are to find any meaning in this book, 00:16:48.000 --> 00:16:52.000 then we have to really engage it, and wrestle with it. NOTE Paragraph 00:16:52.000 --> 00:16:55.000 And I thought I'd end with just a couple more. 00:16:55.000 --> 00:16:57.000 There's me reading the Bible. 00:16:57.000 --> 00:16:59.000 That's how I hailed taxicabs. 00:16:59.000 --> 00:17:02.000 (Laughter) 00:17:02.000 --> 00:17:04.000 Seriously, and it worked. And yes, 00:17:04.000 --> 00:17:07.000 that was actually a rented sheep, 00:17:07.000 --> 00:17:11.000 so I had to return that in the morning, but it served well for a day. 00:17:12.000 --> 00:17:15.000 So, anyway, thank you so much for letting me speak.