Do You Think God Is Real? | @RussellBrand

People ask me questions like, you know, "Do you think God is real?" A question like that always piques the question for me. It's like, "Well, what the hell do you mean real?" Like, what makes something real? You know, you could say tangibility, although that's only one dimension of what makes something real. It's like, I think what makes things real, in the final analysis, is probably death.

In the example you used of the silhouette, which is a very famous example with regard to birds, the silhouette traveling in one direction signifies death reliably, right? Over a very long span of evolutionary history, any creature that didn't respond to that silhouette was at a much higher probability of being picked off. So then, one of the things you might note—this is where the postmodernists got things like dreadfully wrong and where the large language models have drifted into insanity.

Imagine that there's a statistical relationship between concepts. That's okay. So then you might say, "Well, what gives that statistical relationship reality?" The postmodern types would say, "Well, it's just arbitrary cultural construction." But it's not, because there are patterns of relationships between events that are part and parcel of the world per se. Some of those need to be accurately mapped by the conceptual system, or you die.

I would say that the ideas that ring most true to us— that grip us in this sort of archetypal way—are ideas that bear directly on our survival, whether we recognize it or not. They strike a chord within us. Here's a good example: We'll shift sideways for a minute.

Started to understand whether you're feeling stressed or anxious or simply seeking a moment of peace and tranquility, the Hallow app has something for you. Hallow offers an incredible range of guided meditations and prayers that are designed to help you deepen your spirituality and strengthen your connection to God. With Hallow, you can embark on a journey of exploration, diving into different themes and types of prayer and meditation—from gratitude to forgiveness. Each session offers a unique experience, sparking your curiosity and deepening your spiritual understanding.

Choose different lengths of meditation to fit your schedule. Whether you have a few minutes or an hour, this flexibility puts you in control of your own spiritual journey. With its user-friendly interface and hundreds of guided meditations, the Hallow app has quickly become a go-to resource for people seeking spiritual growth and healing. You can download the app for free at Hallow.com/jordan. Set prayer reminders and track your progress along the way. Hallow is truly transformative and will help you connect with your faith on a deeper level.

So, what are you waiting for? Download the Hallow app today at Hallow.com/jordan. That's Hallow.com/jordan. Hallow.com/jordan for an exclusive 3-month free trial of all 10,000 plus prayers and meditations.

Started to understand why. So, I'm on a tour right now—"We Who Wrestle with God"—and it's focusing on biblical stories. I'm trying to explain; I'm trying to understand what they mean and then talk about that so other people can understand, insofar as I'm able to. One of the striking meta-themes of the biblical library is the necessity of sacrifice, right?

So, I've been trying to understand, first of all, what it means to sacrifice. It means to give up something that's desirable for something that’s more desirable. It's something like that. It's higher because it extends over a longer period of time, and it includes more people. Sacrifice is the basis of community.

Well, why? Well, it's obvious, as far as I can tell. If you're in a communal relationship—which is any relationship, obviously—then you're giving something up that's immediate to you to establish and maintain the relationship, right? So it's a sacrificial gesture. Once you understand that sacrifice is at the basis of community, the question immediately arises, which is, "Well, what's the most effective form of sacrifice?"

This biblical story, Old and New Testament together, is actually an examination of sacrifice per se. It's an attempt to spiral down to the core of what constitutes, well, you might say, the sacrifice that's maximally effective, maximally acceptable to God. It’s something like what sacrifices by necessity at the core of community.

I also don't think there's any difference between that and cortical maturation, by the way. I think they're identical concepts. Because as you mature from, you know, a power-mad two-year-old, what happens is that you integrate modes of attention and action that facilitate your longer-term survival but also your inclusion within more and more complex webs of social community.

That's all sacrificial. Good God! Now, there's a lot of Jordan Peterson 101. There are a lot of hits running simultaneously here, JP, because we’ve already touched on the idea of chaos and the necessary, inevitable emergence of patterns within chaos.

It seems that you are positing, to a degree, that this chaos is analogous to perhaps the collective unconscious. Some of the patterns that are emerging in AI models, even with the biases evident within them, are an indicator of how these patterns emerge within a container. I suppose to say a container is to indicate that we're acknowledging an absolute.

We've moved from the idea of a collective unconscious and patterns emerging within chaos into sacrifice, which is obviously another great Jordan Peterson theme and, as you say, perhaps the overarching theme of the Bible. My contribution to this incredible amount of information that you are relaying has to do with where might one's intention carry you.

In so much as it seems that in this process of maturation and a personal relationship with sacrifice, how that develops and evolves, it seems to me is when one starts to acknowledge that there is not—when you use the phrase "immediately beneficial."

When we're referring to immediacy, we are talking about both spatial and temporal immediacy, and we might have to consider that when dealing with the sublime, as surely the Bible is. Even these categories are called into question; the most basic and taken-for-granted categories of any temporal creature will have to be challenged.

This perhaps helps me to understand how the ultimate sacrifice, as rendered in the New Testament, and most, I suppose, would regard as the defining Christian image—the image of sacrifice—can tackle the complex idea of the pact that is made by the sacrifice of the man-God. As I explore and attempt to understand Christianity more deeply, the nature of the triumph of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and the nature of this pact, is something that I'm mulling over.

I feel that the reason I can't reach resolution is because it's irresoluble. I ask that when there is absolute dominion and omnipotence, with whom might a pact be made? I'm starting to conclude that it must be a kind of Cohen; that all is coming from the same source—yep, yep—because otherwise, how can it be packed?

Well, I can tell you a story about that, and you tell me what you think about it. That's a very good question because the other thing you're pointing to too, which is... [Music]