Are You There God? It's Me, Nomi.

We know you're not supposed to talk about Money, Politics, or Religion when you've got relatives over for dinner. So come sit by us and we'll chat through all the nitty-gritty about why religion can sometimes be frustrating, ridiculous, and even dangerous! Not all of them of course, and not all people, but you get what we're talking about.
This week we've got a frank discussion about what religions mean to us, why we struggle with the idea of organized religions, and what we think may be in store for us in the next life. Or is this all just a simulation? Will we ever know?

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Download this and future episodes of our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocketcasts, and anywhere else to find your favorite shows. You can search Why Are We Like This? and please be sure to subscribe, and/or write a review if possible to help build our show.  Have an idea for a future episode, or want to join us for a conversation? Send us a message with the link above!

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:15

Hello.

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Hi babe.

SPEAKER_01 0:18

Sorry. I haven't been talking this morning, so my voice is all cracky.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Well, you haven't been talking a lot for a while because you've been sick. Like post-COVID symptoms. I'm back now. But you're back now. You're feeling good. You're sounding good. Yes. I was back in it. Y'all. Y'all.

SPEAKER_01 0:40

Also, we took last week off because it was 4th of July. We just needed a little bit of a a little sleep in.

SPEAKER_00 0:47

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The networks. We gotta leave you wanting for something more every once in a while.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

Speaking of which, uh, what are we talking about today?

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Um what's the topic? Oh, you mean is this gonna be a surprise topic? Oh, let me let me go down my list. Okay, you know what? Why don't we talk religion and spirituality?

SPEAKER_01 1:18

Oh, what a nice spirituality.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Spirituality, David. I'm talking about my spirituality, David.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Well, I can I can say right off the bat that I don't have either of those. I don't have a religion or a spirituality.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

No, in fact, you weren't even baptized, so I'm gonna like if you wake up with wet hair one morning, don't be shocked. Just just in case you don't end up in limbo.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

I'm not worried about it.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

If I end up somewhere, I mean I'm not worried about it, but I'm glad that it was done for me. You know what I mean? It's like being circumcised. Like I'm glad I didn't have to make the choice, but I'm glad that it was done for me.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

Oh, I wasn't sure if that was like a uh like a signifier of going to hell that I wasn't aware of.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

Being circumcised?

SPEAKER_01 2:10

Yeah, I didn't like relating it to being baptized, which I also don't understand. I don't see how taking a bath with a priest allows go to heaven.

SPEAKER_00 2:21

No, no, it allows him to go to heaven, him to go to heaven. Well, in my case, yeah. It's so bizarre.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

I um I don't have anything against religion. I actually I can appreciate what it brings to the individual for um fellowship and for the opportunity to create relationships and a network of friendships and people that you can rely on. I think that that's a community.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

Yeah, community.

SPEAKER_01 2:53

I think that's a great way to develop those uh things that are missing in people's lives. However, as we all know, religion has uh some religions have a way of forcing themselves onto other people for the sake of the religion, whether they're actually following the teachings of that religion or not. Like they talk more than they actually listen when it comes to religion.

SPEAKER_00 3:21

And I mean it's well I think most people talk more than they listen in any arena.

SPEAKER_01 3:26

Oh, I'm sorry, no, sir. I I think I mean it's it's assumed that all wars are created with the base of religion. Uh with the exception of wars that are specifically um like territory-driven. But I mean it just seems like unnecessary when you're taking it to that extreme.

SPEAKER_00 3:48

I agree with you. This is my take on it. Um I think like there's a divide between spirituality and a divide between religion. And I think spirituality is the belief that there is something greater than ourselves out there that is responsible for our creation, that we either answer to or don't answer to, but that this journey isn't somehow linked to our creation by that being or entity or body or whatever. Religion is a group of people and the understanding of what spirituality is, and then organizing it in a way in which it's then weaponized to control man by other men.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

Or to justify their own actions.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

To justify their own actions, but in this scenario, they don't have to justify their own actions because they have set up this institution that in in my mind commits one of the greatest sins, which is you know not to worship false idolatry. And that's what the church is with all of their ceremony and their robes and these different tiers of men that they make other men worship. It's like, come on, hello.

SPEAKER_01 5:15

You know, you're you're generally speaking of the Christian religion, but a lot of this is it can be taken into other religions too.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

Yes, yes, but there's something about and it's funny that you say and pick up on the like the Christian aspect of what I'm saying, even though I wasn't really kind of picking up on any specific religion, but to your point, Christianity and Catholicism specifically have the most problems.

SPEAKER_01 5:52

Yeah, they're the most militant, without with lack of a better word. Like they have their armies, they have their cause, and they go on crusades that they've been doing for centuries now.

SPEAKER_00 6:03

Well, which seems all just to diddle little kids.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

I'm sure there's plenty of people.

SPEAKER_00 6:10

Like there's not a lot of rabbis going down for this in the Jewish community. No, right? There's not. Um so and then and then once you get into man-made, man-perceived, man-spoken religion, then you get the extreme radicals, like the Christian nationalists or ISIS, which to me are basically one and the same.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

Yeah. I and just for our listeners' sake too, clearly we're not talking about everyone in this religion, and we're not talking about all religions and our opinions.

SPEAKER_00 6:45

Oh, pretty much. Yeah, but No, I'm just kidding. But my point is. It's my perception.

SPEAKER_01 6:52

My point is, if you're hearing this and what we're saying, and your initial thought is, well, that's not me, or that's not everyone in the religion.

SPEAKER_00 7:00

You're right.

SPEAKER_01 7:02

You're absolutely right. But you know that it happens, and you know that it's there, and you know that there are issues within the religion, if you take offense to it, that maybe you should take a look at, and maybe you should talk to people about instead of what the church typically does is try to hide it, or try to avoid it, or try to ignore that anything is happening for the sake of God.

SPEAKER_00 7:24

Well, and a stereotype doesn't apply to everybody, but generally it's the loudest voices in a community that end up representing the image and perception and aesthetics of that community. And in the Christian religion, specifically, the loudest people are the ones who are being loud specifically to try to misdirect from their own crimes. But it does not mean that every person that is a Christian is out there diddling kids. It's the people that work within these institutions, deep within these institutions, at these high levels where all these cover-ups happen. Like, it's not the common man, no, and and honestly, if you live, I know plenty of wonderful Christians. I was baptized Episcopalian, my family, one side's Episcopalian, one side's Catholic. Like, I've seen both um sides of the pendulum when it comes to the Christian religion pendulum, and I've met great people on both sides, and I've met horrible people on both sides, because not one thing in this world is either one or the other.

SPEAKER_01 8:39

Uh I have a question for you.

SPEAKER_00 8:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:40

What do you get when you mix an evangelist with a paleontologist with a Christian nationalist? I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

No, I don't know. Sorry. Well, we'll work on that punchline for you, folks. We'll find it. If you have the answer, let us know.

SPEAKER_01 8:56

Um I I I also was aside from the uh sexual misconduct, misconduct that goes on. I'm really concerned with what's been happening lately with uh our country. And maybe that's why we are focusing a little bit more on the Christian religion because it tends to force itself in ways that affect everyone, whether you follow that religion or not.

SPEAKER_00 9:24

Well, it's definitely the most aggressive religion. Um I mean, it's it's those religions that are always showing up on my doorstep. Like Jewish people aren't knocking on my doorstep asking me to become Jewish, although I would. Yeah, you and I have talked about if we were converting, we need a religion, converting to Judaism.

SPEAKER_01 9:48

Oh gosh, I need a religion. Where do I get a religion?

SPEAKER_00 9:52

Or at least just a community. Yeah. A community of people that are like-minded, that don't believe, like with Christianity and hell and the devil, like that to me, that level of mysticism is something that is not inherently present in spirituality, but was created by man for the sake of religion, because now you've got this really scary thing that you can control people with. Do what I say, or you're gonna end up in this fiery pit for all eternity.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

Well, I don't know about you guys, but I don't need that fear in order to convince me.

SPEAKER_00 10:27

Be a good person. I mean, that's the thing. Like, if I don't need it, if those are the people that you're going after, maybe you're going after the wrong people, but then again, like attracts like. Yeah. And and the Catholic Church and sp uh specifically, not inspecifically, anyways. Uh what's the other one that you hate so much? Oh, irregardless. Moving on.

SPEAKER_01 10:56

Um, I I was leading into the recent um Supreme Court ruling um in favor of uh businesses being able to discriminate against people and not provide them services uh in the name of their religion, which I think is completely I think it's fine.

SPEAKER_00 11:17

It's well, I think that's if you don't want to make a cake for me because I'm gay, I don't want you to make a cake for me because you're a homophobe. Like it that why why do I, as a gay person, for example, think thank you, think that it is okay to walk into somebody else's blue-collar, self-established business, and and any business has the right to refuse service to any person. Like instead of victimizing myself over the situation, why don't I just look at that as like, okay, identity marker, homophobic this business? Well, why force them to take my money when they don't want to do something for me? That's just so petulant and immature.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

I completely agree with you. Um and I think most businesses for the longest time have had those signs up that say we reserve the right to refuse service. And that's totally fine. They can do that on whatever merit they want to. But what I don't like, what I find really inappropriate and damaging in this scenario, is using the queer community, the LGBTQ plus community, as a tool to further vilify the community. And in effect, they're they're putting a rule on the books that is already kind of there, right? Any business has the opportunity to serve whoever they want to serve or not.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

Or not.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

But they use this fake scenario with this woman who claims to be a website designer. By the way, her designs are trash. I put designer in quotes.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

Um yeah. I saw that. That's pretty yeah, it's pretty ridiculous.

SPEAKER_01 12:59

Yeah, but I they shouldn't be using communities as tools to politicize these efforts because they don't need the ruling. It's stupid. But also now it it further enrages people on either side. They're either, yeah, that's right, let's let's stop making cakes for the gays, let's stop making websites, or this is awful, you shouldn't be doing this to us.

SPEAKER_00 13:23

We're gay people just Well, I mean, honestly, if you looked at her portfolio, what gay person is gonna go to her for a website?

SPEAKER_01 13:32

Yeah. No.

SPEAKER_00 13:33

No, I don't know. Just go to Wix. I just don't like Oh, go to Wix.

SPEAKER_01 13:38

I just don't like that so much is driven um as far as law goes, um, for the sake of religion, when we all pretend that there is a separation of church and state.

SPEAKER_00 13:49

Because uh the more we act like children, the more we're treated by child like the children by the people who are in positions of power to make laws for us. So as long as we're acting like petulant, spoiled children having a temper tantrum, more and more laws are going to be put into place until we as a people can decide that we're ready to start self-regulating and to stop just thinking about ourselves.

SPEAKER_01 14:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:16

Which, you know, goes back to our social media episode. Yeah. You know, it's it's it's an up uphill battle. And um I think that if you look at religion and spirituality, if you look at conspiracy theories, if you look at sports, if you look at um I mean, just the state of California and people's perceptions of California who live outside of it, um like everybody's just on this rampage of hatred. And I think that social media is fueling it, and it puts these horrible ideas into our minds of what we think other people's lives are like, and wondering why how everyone is living these really great lives except for us, because we're not understanding that we're only getting this like tiny little keyhole perception of someone's life that's been very much airbrushed and tweaked.

SPEAKER_01 15:14

You're also wasting your time. You're wasting your time scrolling on Instagram and on TikTok and on Facebook and threads and everything. If you're so worried about other people having great lives and doing great things, just go out and do it.

SPEAKER_00 15:26

Well, you're right. But here's the thing a lot of people don't have the ability to decide for themselves, good or bad. And when you're talking about people who are heavily enmeshed in an organized religion, it's because they've chosen to let somebody else dictate what's right and wrong for them. Because the word of the preacher or the priest is very heavy-handed. And I think we all have a path to our creator, whoever or whatever you think that creator is. And the more we listen to other people dictate that and translate that message to us, the more we are operating in somebody else's best interest and not our own.

SPEAKER_01 16:07

You think there is a creator?

SPEAKER_00 16:09

I think there's something I think that there's something out there. Absolutely. I think that I don't believe in an old man with a long white beard and a cane standing on a cloud who knows everything and everyone and is all powerful and all-knowing and white, right? No, I don't believe in that. Um, because I believe that whatever world is on the other side may mimic ours, or it could be just completely and totally and radically different. And I have no idea. So for me, you know, covering all my bases, um, if I start creating an image in my mind of what I think God looks like without having any proof or knowledge of what this person's image is supposed to be like, then aren't I then creating a God in my own image? Because all the images of God and representations of God I've ever seen have been in a humanoid form with somebody saying God created us in his own image. But without us knowing what God looks like, we're just creating a God within our own image.

SPEAKER_01 17:18

So I um I don't disagree with you, but I don't share that feeling. I I don't think that there is anything higher, and I don't think that there's necessarily something pulling strings um or things are happening because uh it's been like destined or determined so. But I also don't think of that in a negative way. I just I don't think that there's anything after this, and so I'm just trying to spend my time as best I can enjoying this life as I have it, and then knowing that when it's done, it's done. And how cool that I have this biological experience that I'm able to live through and interact with people throughout. Um, but I haven't I haven't found any spirituality associated with it other than just what drives me as a person, trying to be a good person, trying to be an honest person, trying to treat others with respect. That is the level of spirituality that I have for myself that I don't I don't need to attach to any testament. I use testament just as a like a phrase for like a guide or an instruction manual or something. Well, John 3.16 does say yeah, it is interesting you you go into a southern accent because it uh I find that um these more aggressive religio uh religions are often found in um let's say less educated um situations.

SPEAKER_00 18:58

Ignorance and and hatred sort of beget themselves.

SPEAKER_01 19:02

Yeah, I mean they're not um they're not mutually exclusive by any means.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

The more ignorant you are, the more afraid you are. The more afraid you are, the more angry you're you are when you set out into the world.

SPEAKER_01 19:12

Yeah, and and we can make those connections because we see those connections taking place. We see them in in the in the news.

SPEAKER_00 19:20

Well, and I've I've made that journey myself from like 20 years old to 46 years old. Like my perception of the world around me is completely different now than it was back then, for better or for worse.

SPEAKER_01 19:30

And the people around you.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

The people around me, yeah, that's that's always been a disappointing situation. And I I don't think I really fully ever understood that you could be friends with people that hate you. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01 19:45

I think so.

SPEAKER_00 19:48

Like they don't hate you in the fact that they don't like you, but there's always going to be something about you that will keep you at arm's distance from these people, but they they're you're somebody that they want around because you just you have this sort of like pull about you.

SPEAKER_01 20:05

I think it more of uh on levels of respect. Maybe not necessarily hate, but like, like for instance, some members of my family, I feel pretty strongly that they don't respect me. And so I'm connected to them by family, but I also don't really feel a pull to be friends with them because I know that they don't respect me. So why would I continue to perpetuate that relationship with them knowing that it's not a mutually respectful relationship? It doesn't drive anything, there's no reason for it.

SPEAKER_00 20:37

And those relationships are very heavily based in religion because your family your family is is one of those very like American religion racism. Well, I don't want that's I don't think that that's fair. It's a different conversation, but it's also when just speaking of religion, it kind of breeds that whole family, family, family, family. And then they always say, Well, blood is thicker than water. But the saying actually is that the blood of the covenant, the family you choose, is thicker than the water of the womb where you came from. And that goes back into religion being a bastardized version of spirituality through somebody else's eyes as a means for control. And then I hear you say what you say, and I think, oh, my husband's throwing the baby out with the bathwater because these jerks have made it seem so far-fetched and so out of realm of reality and comprehension that people choose to believe that this is all just so random. And I think there's way too much going on for it to be random, if you will.

SPEAKER_01 21:44

Random meaning.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

Meaning, I do think that there's something out there. It's whether it's a God that I don't think is like the all-knowing, all seeing kind of God, because that's just impossible and a fantasy that humans have to know that they're taken care of no matter what they're doing to themselves, which we're not. Um, or this could either be uh like a simulation. So if this is like a religious experience, then this is probably like a school, right? And I I I'd like to think that I may be twelfth grade now. And getting ready to graduate high school, and I'm ready to move on and not have to come back and repeat another year of this. But I think it's to learn lessons and it's to grow our souls and evolve our souls. And if it's a simulation, it could be that same exact purpose. But for something that doesn't have anything to do with spirituality, maybe it just has to do with expanding the human mind through a myriad of futuristic experiences. Um or it could just simply be a fucking amusement park ride. It could be like the e-ticket ride of Disneyland in like 2280. And you could have a good ride, you could have a bad ride. You could take a ride and be Paris Hilton, you could take a bad ride and be a homeless person. Like you don't know. And then when you're done, you're like, oh my god, it felt like I just spent like 80 years in that fucking thing, but it was really just like five minutes.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

It's an interesting thought.

SPEAKER_00 23:12

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 23:16

Fringe conspiracy theory, but I also think just generally it's an interesting thought. It's a it's a unique way of thinking about things that um we will never have answers to.

SPEAKER_00 23:30

We don't know why we're here. And we don't know why we're doing what we're doing. The crazy part for most of it, like, is it a simulation or is it a god? Like you you you won't ever know because you could disprove each one as much as you can disprove the other. It's like you have 50-50% chance of either one being true. So we're not gonna know, and I think we're not supposed to know until the experience is up, and then once the experience is up, then we get all the information and we're able to apply it to the experience, which then helps us learn those lessons. That's just my thought about it. It's like a school, and um I do believe that if you end your own life that you have to come back and repeat, it's like failing a grade, you have to come back and repeat.

SPEAKER_01 24:25

So reincarnation is a punishment in that case?

SPEAKER_00 24:28

It's not a punishment, it's a do-over, it's an incomplete. Oh so you're not taking any lessons back with you.

SPEAKER_01 24:35

Yeah, because you're still using that metaphor.

SPEAKER_00 24:38

Exactly. Okay, um, and you have to learn your lessons and then you're you're able to then graduate and move on. So it's it's either a school or it's uh an amusement park ride.

SPEAKER_01 24:51

Um what are some of the other religions that you've looked at or thought about aside from Judaism?

SPEAKER_00 24:58

Judaism, uh-huh. When I was a kid, my dad had me study uh with the Jehovah's Witnesses. Oh, that's right. Didn't you get that?

SPEAKER_01 25:06

Did your like stepmom come home and he was like, guess what? We're Jehovah's Witness now.

SPEAKER_00 25:11

Pretty much. And my mom said that he did the same thing when he was married to her at one point in time, too. With with Jehovah's Witnesses, same same religion, yeah. Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 25:22

So I mean, this is nothing against your dad, but it's it it says uh to the power of suggestion when someone comes to your door and says, Hey, I have something to tell you about your life.

SPEAKER_00 25:34

That's how my mom said it first started, is uh they came to the door when they were still married in the valley and in LA. In LA, yeah. The valley's in LA. And um he invited them in and sat him down and had a conversation, and my mom came home. He's like, I want you to meet some two new friends that I know.

SPEAKER_01 26:00

He kept them there until she came home.

SPEAKER_00 26:02

Uh-huh. Oh yeah, and my mom's like, John, I'm not doing this. Oh my gosh. I'm Episcopalian, damn it. So he did it for a little bit. My mom didn't really have much to do with it. And then uh when I was junior high school age, they had long since been divorced, and I went to go live with my dad for a couple years during junior high. And uh, he had just just before I went to go live with him, so like the year before I had gotten into being a Jehovah's Witness and sent me home the last year to live with my mom before I went to go live with him, with like six different supplemental books to the Bible. And I mean, none of it was bad, it was all life lessons, but it was all very, it was all very so very like rudimentary in its in its thought process. You know, it's like if you were able to have a fifth grader read the Bible and then tell him to write a Bible that other fifth graders would understand, this is the Bible that you got.

SPEAKER_01 27:03

Interesting. I've never looked into it, I've always disregarded it because any any group or religion that doesn't allow you to celebrate moments in life, like birthdays and it's very restrictive.

SPEAKER_00 27:16

Christmas, birthdays.

SPEAKER_01 27:18

I'm not interested because I I want to celebrate moments, whether they're about a single person or if they're about a uh a mark in history or whatever it is. I want to have an opportunity to celebrate because I enjoy celebrating. I don't think there's any reason to not do that. So I I kind of pushed it aside. I had a couple friends who were Jehovah's Witnesses uh in school, and I at first felt bad for them because they were like 10.

SPEAKER_00 27:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:43

Didn't have birthdays, and like, what do you mean you don't have a birthday? I didn't understand it was just the celebrating of it.

SPEAKER_00 27:50

I don't talk about most of my clients' religion. I uh you know a big portion of them are Jewish, I know, which I love. I I mean it's just and you don't work on the West Side in Los Angeles without having a big Jewish clientele. Um and I so I don't really talk about, but I do know that one client is Jehovah's Witness, and she is just incredibly sweet, one of those people that you that no matter how good of a person you think you are, you have a conversation with this person and you walk away thinking, God, I'm a piece of shit. Like she's just such a good person, and not for any reason other than wanting to be a good person. That's all it should be. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 28:36

That's all it should be, regardless of the religion.

SPEAKER_00 28:38

Yeah. So I think that again, we say we're not talking about everybody, we're talking about the stereotype of a specific group or community of people. But even within those communities, you have people that are there simply because they can get what they need from it without having to participate in what everybody else is choosing to participate in. So the the the and I think a lot of that just comes from religion wanting to control other people rather than spreading the word of God and love through education and through transparency.

SPEAKER_01 29:18

And fellowship.

SPEAKER_00 29:19

And fellowship, but mostly transparency, being honest.

SPEAKER_01 29:23

I think that's really important, especially when you look at religions in the US or churches in the US that don't have to pay taxes and are able to create these giant like conglomerate church organizations.

SPEAKER_00 29:37

Yeah, well, see our small business uh podcast for that.

SPEAKER_01 29:40

Or watch the Royal Gemstones.

SPEAKER_00 29:42

There you go. All right. Well, thanks for listening and uh come back and listen to us again next week. Bye.