Making Sense - Sam Harris - #139 — Sacred & Profane

00:00:00.000 Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast.

00:00:08.820 This is Sam Harris.

00:00:10.880 Just a note to say that if you're hearing this, you are not currently on our subscriber

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00:00:46.860 Today I am speaking with Bill Maher and Larry Charles.

00:00:51.380 Bill, you all know, I trust.

00:00:53.180 You know him principally from his HBO show, Real Time, which I've been on a few times

00:00:58.900 over the years.

00:01:00.200 Bill is certainly one of our most politically engaged comics.

00:01:04.240 He still does a ton of stand-up, and he's also an executive producer on Vice Media on

00:01:11.000 HBO, and just a super productive guy.

00:01:14.760 Anyway, the occasion of this podcast was the 10th anniversary of his documentary, Relidialist,

00:01:20.880 which was directed by my other guest, Larry Charles.

00:01:26.020 Now, Larry has been hugely influential in comedy.

00:01:29.500 He wrote for the Seinfeld show for the first five seasons.

00:01:34.020 He also directed Sacha Baron Cohen's films, Borat and Bruno.

00:01:37.980 He's also worked on Curb Your Enthusiasm and Entourage.

00:01:42.060 He's just one of the 800-pound gorillas of comedy, and also a very nice guy.

00:01:47.420 I'd never met him before, but it was a real pleasure to sit down with him.

00:01:51.360 And because we were celebrating the 10th anniversary of Relidialist, the first half of our conversation

00:01:57.400 or so is focused on the film.

00:02:00.660 So I think you'll enjoy that part more if you've actually seen the film.

00:02:04.460 So it's not that you'll have no idea what's going on if you haven't, but I recommend that

00:02:09.180 you watch it.

00:02:10.860 It's very funny.

00:02:12.180 And again, even if you've seen it before, you just can't believe where people are at on

00:02:18.120 the topic of religion.

00:02:19.180 It's really, it's quite a view of the human mind.

00:02:22.500 But otherwise, we touch several other topics.

00:02:24.860 We're mostly focused on the state of comedy and public conversation in general and politics.

00:02:30.960 It was fun to have an excuse to get these guys on the podcast.

00:02:35.660 And now I bring you Bill Maher and Larry Charles.

00:02:44.560 So I'm here with Bill Maher and Larry Charles, which is quite an honor.

00:02:48.840 We've never met, Larry.

00:02:49.720 So I'm going to start with you.

00:02:51.340 Bill, you actually need no introduction on my show.

00:02:55.000 I will introduce you, but it will be superfluous.

00:02:57.320 Yeah, there's a few people out there going, oh!

00:02:58.660 So, Larry, I've been, I think, a bigger fan of yours than I realized because I read your

00:03:06.400 bio in preparation for this conversation and realized that you've touched half of comedy.

00:03:12.860 That's in a very inappropriate way.

00:03:14.800 Yeah, yeah.

00:03:16.600 So give us your potted bio, maybe from Seinfeld on, because it's amazing.

00:03:21.800 I think from Seinfeld, I thought that I was going to be a showrunner and make a lot of money

00:03:26.220 and do that, and I did that for a few years, and it was a lot of fun, but I wasn't feeling any

00:03:29.800 fulfillment at a certain point.

00:03:31.880 And Larry David, at one point, came to me.

00:03:35.340 I kind of had thought about directing for a long time.

00:03:37.600 I was giving up on that dream as I sort of reached about 40.

00:03:41.220 And Larry David literally came to me as he was doing Curb Your Enthusiasm.

00:03:44.720 He was starting that show and said, hey, why don't you direct one of these?

00:03:47.400 And I became a director.

00:03:49.000 So I'm a very lucky person.

00:03:50.800 And from there, I met Bob Dylan, which is a long story, but we wound up collaborating

00:03:56.840 on a script that we made a movie of.

00:03:58.300 But while we were writing the script, I was thinking I'd go home every day and go, you

00:04:01.240 know, I should be directing this movie.

00:04:03.340 How am I going to ask Bob Dylan to direct this movie, you know?

00:04:06.540 And one day, I just kind of blurted it out, and he went, okay.

00:04:09.520 And then I directed that movie, and then I moved in that direction.

00:04:12.100 I never made as much money again, but I wound up doing a lot of cool things like

00:04:17.240 Religious as a result. 1.00

00:04:18.740 Yeah, yeah.

00:04:19.000 Wait, you didn't make money on Borat?

00:04:21.620 No, nobody made money on Borat, believe it or not.

00:04:23.640 I mean, I made some money on Borat eventually, but I was paid pretty much the minimum to

00:04:28.160 do that movie.

00:04:28.740 That movie wasn't even going to get made.

00:04:30.760 I mean, they didn't know what they had.

00:04:31.820 Somebody made a lot of money.

00:04:32.120 It was done on a very low budget.

00:04:33.540 We need to fire your attorney.

00:04:35.020 We don't name him.

00:04:35.960 Somebody made a lot of money.

00:04:36.540 They're a long gone.

00:04:37.360 Yeah.

00:04:37.860 So Curb Your Enthusiasm as well.

00:04:39.980 Yes, yes.

00:04:40.820 If you've also dealt with a lot of great religious themes on Curb Your Enthusiasm as well.

00:04:44.540 So we're here.

00:04:46.680 The happy occasion is it's the 10th anniversary of Religious.

00:04:50.300 Was it 9-11 that put religion as a problem on your radar in a way that it hadn't been,

00:04:56.220 or had you been vocally worried about it prior to then?

00:05:01.120 Well, I think that's somewhat covered.

00:05:03.580 I watched Religious.

00:05:05.280 I hadn't seen it really since we made it.

00:05:07.020 So I tend not to look back at my work because all you could do is obsess on,

00:05:14.860 I should have said this, I shouldn't have done that, I shouldn't have said this.

00:05:18.120 But I think we did cover it in there that I was raised Catholic and never liked that very much.

00:05:27.820 My father stopped going to Mass when I was a teenager, which was a hallelujah moment for me. 0.98

00:05:33.740 And then for just the longest time, I didn't have Catholicism for sure.

00:05:39.120 And I wasn't religious.

00:05:41.020 But I didn't really think about it that much.

00:05:44.800 And I just had God in my life as like when I got in trouble.

00:05:48.160 Oh, please, God, get me out of this one.

00:05:50.800 I was one of those guys.

00:05:52.220 But into your 40s, I think you say.

00:05:53.720 Yeah. 0.97

00:05:53.940 And then at some point that became ridiculous and I realized I was making a fool of myself 0.84

00:06:00.300 and just said, no, full on. 0.73

00:06:03.300 And I don't know if 9-11, I don't remember that having a giant impact on me religious-wise.

00:06:11.820 But in terms of your perception of it being a social problem that you had to comment on,

00:06:16.400 now you had to be a vocal atheist talking about Islam.

00:06:20.300 Right.

00:06:21.740 That certainly did move that to the forefront.

00:06:24.440 Of course, it also caused me to lose the show as a forum.

00:06:29.180 But we weren't off the air right away.

00:06:32.140 We were on for another nine months.

00:06:33.520 And those are my favorite nine months of Politically Incorrect because we were able to do a more

00:06:38.140 serious kind of show.

00:06:39.600 And we did talk.

00:06:40.480 The country was in a more serious mood.

00:06:42.500 And we were able to not do the show with Carrot Top and Pauly Shore and do one with State

00:06:50.240 Department officials and people like yourself.

00:06:53.820 I didn't realize that.

00:06:54.920 It took nine months to do for that.

00:06:56.720 Yes.

00:06:57.120 The tragic events of 9-17, as we called it when I said the things that got me fired,

00:07:05.680 that we didn't go off the air until June, end of June 2002.

00:07:09.860 Well, how did it gain traction after nine months?

00:07:13.260 Was there a continuous drumbeat to cancel you or just?

00:07:16.820 I was never mad at ABC for canning us because it's a broadcast network and the advertisers

00:07:21.800 didn't pull out.

00:07:22.780 I was just mad at them because they lied and said we lost our viewership and our ratings

00:07:26.940 and our ratings never went down.

00:07:28.500 The audience was not mad at me.

00:07:30.240 We should remind people of what happened here. 0.66

00:07:31.580 So you said the most frequent slur was that they were cowards, the 9-11 hijackers.

00:07:37.020 Well, Dinesh D'Souza was the one who said it.

00:07:40.720 And then I concurred.

00:07:42.320 Of course, he was at a cab when the controversy came.

00:07:44.680 He did not want to be involved.

00:07:46.100 But he was the one who said these are, he went on a whole rant about it.

00:07:49.300 And I said, yeah, you're right.

00:07:50.680 You know, strictly speaking, there is not a moral dimension to this.

00:07:54.920 They stayed with the suicide mission.

00:07:57.020 That's not cowardly.

00:07:58.300 Uh, and then, you know, we were more cowardly.

00:08:01.480 We meaning the society, not the military.

00:08:03.820 That's what my enemies chose to interpret it as.

00:08:06.380 But everyone knew I didn't mean that.

00:08:08.300 We were cowardly lobbing cruise missiles from thousands of miles away.

00:08:13.020 And, uh, that was the end of that.

00:08:15.540 But yeah, we were on for another nine months and those were good months.

00:08:19.640 Those were good times.

00:08:21.660 Did they hassle you during that time?

00:08:23.540 ABC?

00:08:24.000 I mean, did you know that eventually it was going to come to an end?

00:08:26.240 I mean, I'm surprised also to hear that it went on nine months.

00:08:29.600 I don't think that's people's perception.

00:08:31.120 No, I thought it just the guillotine came down.

00:08:33.300 Um, no, uh, we had a contract and it was really to the end of the year, but then we

00:08:38.640 all agreed I will.

00:08:40.020 I wanted to get onto the next show.

00:08:41.740 I knew there was no future there.

00:08:43.660 And, uh, I think one, uh, newspaper column referred to it as dead show walking, which is

00:08:50.140 what it was, but it was a good dead show walking.

00:08:53.720 So liberated you in a way.

00:08:55.420 In a way, yes, it did.

00:08:57.400 Yeah.

00:08:58.000 So now had you guys been professionally connected before Religious or how did you guys?

00:09:02.240 No, we did not know each other personally.

00:09:04.000 We had a lot of overlap in terms of friends and colleagues, but we had never hung out or

00:09:08.580 met.

00:09:09.240 And the great thing was once we did, it was like, it was very natural.

00:09:13.300 Yeah.

00:09:13.680 You know, as if we had known each other all those years.

00:09:15.760 And I interviewed a number of directors, but I wanted to make a comedy.

00:09:19.200 And, you know, what, as I watched this movie last night, I realized, boy, this could have

00:09:25.940 gone terrible with a director who didn't fit it.

00:09:28.480 But I mean, this is, it was the movie I wanted to make, but it really is like any movie.

00:09:33.620 It's a director's movie.

00:09:34.780 It's, I mean, Larry made this movie with the cuts and the pacing and there's a lot, we

00:09:40.020 worked on it together, but I give him so much credit because there's so much funny stuff

00:09:45.060 that is the result of these quick intercuts and juxtapositions and just the structure.

00:09:51.940 And, uh, it's not a job, most jobs in showbizers, I think, yeah, I could do that.

00:09:57.220 I couldn't do that.

00:09:58.200 I can't be a director.

00:09:58.880 Well, thank you.

00:09:59.420 But I think again, uh, not to throw it back at you, but that it was an amazing collaboration

00:10:04.020 and a great synthesis of our sensibilities and one of the greatest, uh, uh, projects

00:10:09.280 I ever worked on also.

00:10:10.500 So yeah, it was a, it was a joy from beginning to end.

00:10:13.400 We did it with a band and we had so much fun doing it.

00:10:15.720 Yeah.

00:10:16.320 You look like you're having fun.

00:10:17.960 Counting that I'm a terrible traveler.

00:10:19.560 I don't like traveling, especially overseas, but having said all that, I'm so glad we did

00:10:26.360 it and, uh, thanks for, uh, celebrating it with us.

00:10:29.900 Yeah.

00:10:30.440 So I just watched it again as well.

00:10:32.080 And I hadn't seen it since, I mean, it's been close to 10 years since I'd seen it.

00:10:35.820 And we were talking about this just before the, we turned the mics on that the comedy

00:10:40.980 holds up and that isn't often true.

00:10:43.240 I mean, I, I would say probably half the time I go back to some cherished comedy.

00:10:48.320 I'm just, you know, like to, to watch with, you know, with, with my wife who may not have

00:10:52.880 seen it or with my, one of my daughters. 1.00

00:10:54.920 It's just, I mean, it's just this stark encounter with the idiot you used to be or, or, you know, 1.00

00:11:00.680 some time that some age of the earth that has elapsed. 1.00

00:11:04.740 Everything just moves faster.

00:11:06.420 Yeah.

00:11:07.000 Try to watch a Hitchcock movie.

00:11:08.440 Uh, we just did last night and we, we, we, we walked out of North by Northwest.

00:11:12.720 Right.

00:11:13.080 Right.

00:11:13.300 Yeah.

00:11:13.480 And that's the best one.

00:11:14.360 You only got to North.

00:11:15.620 Right.

00:11:16.860 You couldn't get through North.

00:11:18.000 I mean, we, you know, it wasn't terrible, but it was not, it was just, I mean, I mean,

00:11:22.540 we, we've learned a lot about making movies in the intervening.

00:11:25.540 And also people just had a, their brains, this is your field.

00:11:29.660 You're a neuroscientist.

00:11:31.140 People's brains must've just been different because they were perfectly okay with things

00:11:37.340 moving so much glacial, slow glacial.

00:11:41.700 Yeah.

00:11:41.960 I watched the man who, what's the Hitchcock movie he made?

00:11:45.200 Like the man who knew too much.

00:11:46.480 The man who knew too much.

00:11:47.380 Yeah.

00:11:47.840 Yes.

00:11:48.680 And it is glacial.

00:11:50.640 That is the word for it.

00:11:51.660 It's like, really?

00:11:53.660 Nothing goes on.

00:11:54.900 Yeah.

00:11:55.100 I thought it's so subtle.

00:11:57.860 I was like, wow, people, all I kept thinking as I'm watching is people were, yes, people

00:12:04.360 were different.

00:12:05.180 Very different.

00:12:06.180 Also there was fake kissing that I never noticed before.

00:12:09.220 The fake kissing isn't even an attempt to simulate real kissing.

00:12:13.020 They just touch their faces together.

00:12:14.820 Neither is violence.

00:12:16.040 Right. 0.89

00:12:16.520 We have too much violence now and it's too graphic, but then it was ridiculous. 0.99

00:12:20.140 Ridiculous. 0.98

00:12:20.760 Yeah. 0.99

00:12:20.880 People were being killed without any struggle.

00:12:23.520 And no blood almost.

00:12:26.280 Especially Indians, of course, in the Westerns. 0.99

00:12:28.260 But that's another subject.

00:12:29.380 Yeah.

00:12:29.620 I think if I may, I think the reason that Religious is still fresh, there's a number of really good

00:12:35.480 reasons for that.

00:12:36.080 First of all, we're drawing on a thousands of year old tradition with religion.

00:12:40.120 So, in a way, it's kind of classic, classic subject that had never been touched humorously,

00:12:47.700 satirically in a nonfiction setting.

00:12:50.380 I mean, Life of Brian is a brilliant movie also, but it's a fictional movie.

00:12:54.460 And there have been other fictional comedies about religion.

00:12:56.900 There had never been a nonfiction comedy, never been a documentary that tried to even be funny.

00:13:02.160 How many documentaries are funny?

00:13:03.660 So, we had a very ambitious agenda, as it turned out, to tackle religion, be funny about

00:13:09.100 it, and make a funny documentary.

00:13:11.220 And so, the subject matter was always ripe and never tapped into.

00:13:15.520 And as we know, not enough has changed since the movie's been made so that those jokes still

00:13:20.860 resonate today to a large degree.

00:13:22.720 And also, the subject matter, we were ahead of the subject matter.

00:13:27.160 I cited the stat on my show last Friday that when we made the movie, 16% of people said

00:13:33.620 in the Pew poll that they were of no religion.

00:13:37.300 And now that is, in some polls, as high as 26%.

00:13:40.360 Yeah.

00:13:40.900 So, in a way, the movie's 10 years old and the public is still catching up to it.

00:13:46.520 Right, that's true.

00:13:47.040 To the subject.

00:13:48.020 Right.

00:13:48.240 So, Bill referenced the technique you use of intercutting archival images, and it's

00:13:54.760 pretty interesting because some of the shots that are landed against the interview subject

00:13:59.740 are landed off camera, right?

00:14:02.000 So, it's like, you're amplifying the fun that's being had at the person's expense.

00:14:06.880 I mean, some of the blows land on camera because you and your interviews are pretty...

00:14:11.400 Yes, for the most part, I would say that's true.

00:14:12.860 Yeah, yeah.

00:14:13.940 But, like, sometimes the person will be lying and you'll be subtitling their lies with,

00:14:18.620 like, he didn't, you know, he's not a doctor.

00:14:20.920 Oh, and there's lots of cutaways for one second to an old movie that's just completely forgotten

00:14:26.240 and I was laughing out loud.

00:14:27.800 And in the case of people that are getting abused after the fact, we were very careful

00:14:32.960 with our targets, you know? 0.99

00:14:34.460 And the targets are hypocrites and liars. 0.99

00:14:37.320 Yeah. 0.95

00:14:37.700 And wouldn't you love to do that in all of life to be able to subtitle when people are

00:14:41.160 bullshitting you?

00:14:41.740 So, I felt like that was all justified. 0.96

00:14:44.460 It was funny and it was pointing out our basic itinerary on this journey, which was 0.95

00:14:50.040 religion is really built on a lot of hypocrisy and lies. 0.95

00:14:53.420 And we were able to illuminate that constantly through the movie.

00:14:56.540 Yeah.

00:14:56.760 So, I don't think the viewer ever feels like you, unless they happen to be religious, 1.00

00:15:01.260 I would imagine.

00:15:02.100 But I don't think the viewer ever feels that you take an unfair shot at the targets.

00:15:06.760 But I can imagine the targets did.

00:15:09.100 Now, how are you just not trailing a thousand lawsuits with shooting a film like this?

00:15:14.260 Or, I mean, probably even worse, the Sacha Baron Cohen stuff, right?

00:15:17.280 Well, in both cases, we had people, you have people sign releases beforehand.

00:15:22.280 And so they, and they don't, people don't read the fine print, frankly.

00:15:26.200 And it says we could do anything we want with what we're about to shoot.

00:15:29.860 And that's what we do.

00:15:31.000 We do anything we want with it.

00:15:32.240 So, we try to stay ethical.

00:15:33.880 We try to stay above board.

00:15:35.300 And, but the fact is that usually it's, it's the purpose of the interview, both with Bill

00:15:43.240 and even with Sacha, was to illuminate some sort of underlying truth that's being concealed.

00:15:49.580 And it takes sometimes interrogation techniques, comic interrogation techniques, as Bill uses

00:15:55.960 so expertly, like with the senator, you know, you see people who are saying things they know

00:16:01.240 are not true, but they're stuck because they're going to get voted out of office.

00:16:05.300 And he doesn't let them off the hook.

00:16:07.220 And that's one of the great things about him as a, as a questioner, as an interviewer.

00:16:11.340 So, I felt like, yeah, this has to be hard hitting, but it'll pay off because it'll be

00:16:15.640 really super funny also.

00:16:17.240 I also was struck as I watched it, that it is so not mean spirited.

00:16:21.620 Right.

00:16:22.200 Because we're having a good time and we're laughing.

00:16:24.400 And even when I'm, there's a number of times when I'm basically saying to somebody, in 1.00

00:16:28.800 a way, you're a fool or an idiot. 1.00

00:16:30.580 I say to that, hey, Zeus guy, I think he's dead now. 1.00

00:16:33.900 Really?

00:16:34.180 Yes.

00:16:34.580 And we looked it up.

00:16:35.480 He wasn't resurrected.

00:16:36.600 He was not.

00:16:37.280 He was the second coming of Christ and yet he died again.

00:16:40.040 Okay.

00:16:41.500 This time of like liver failure or something.

00:16:43.600 Yeah, right.

00:16:44.060 But, you know, he's, he's Zeus Miranda.

00:16:46.420 And I say, maybe you're the second coming of Carmen Miranda.

00:16:48.980 Right.

00:16:49.360 Right.

00:16:49.780 And you should be, you should have fruit on your head.

00:16:52.660 Yeah.

00:16:52.960 Instead of fruit in your head.

00:16:54.200 Right.

00:16:54.420 Which is a terrible insult.

00:16:55.900 But he's laughing.

00:16:57.240 He was a good sport.

00:16:57.980 I'm laughing.

00:16:58.400 He was.

00:16:58.760 Um, the guy who sued us, the member, if you don't know me by now, singer.

00:17:03.440 Right.

00:17:03.880 Yes.

00:17:04.120 Right.

00:17:04.760 Uh, right.

00:17:05.300 The, uh, the preacher.

00:17:06.560 Yeah.

00:17:06.820 Who was in Howl, Melbourne and the blue.

00:17:08.260 With the finery.

00:17:09.660 You know, he's, I'm insulting him, but it's with a laugh and he's laughing and that, you

00:17:14.940 know, it just makes you think they all know it's a crock.

00:17:18.060 I mean, it's, it's, they're, they're selling the invisible product.

00:17:21.500 I often, you know, I often tell people cause people, I often say that I thought the people,

00:17:26.520 I believe that the Vatican needs to be dissolved.

00:17:28.980 You need to sell off the assets.

00:17:30.240 I mean, there's no way back from what's going on in the Catholic church right now, but the

00:17:34.200 most intelligent people we've might've talked to in the entire journey with the, with the

00:17:38.880 priests at the Vatican, the Vatican priests were all PhDs, all know what's going on.

00:17:43.940 Really smart guys.

00:17:44.860 The guys who define for us where religion begins and where science begins and why they

00:17:50.180 can overlap.

00:17:50.860 They were very, very rational men who have to sell this, uh,

00:17:56.520 this thing to the masses.

00:17:58.100 And the one guy who we see outside the Vatican, but he's the one who took us in for that amazing

00:18:03.760 tour.

00:18:05.140 You get, you had kicked out of the Vatican.

00:18:06.600 There were, there was a, we weren't supposed to be in there in the first place.

00:18:08.900 That guy who we see who's saying to me that when I say, doesn't this make you think, oh,

00:18:14.940 of course, everything makes me think this is a crock.

00:18:17.060 I mean, he was so upfront about it.

00:18:18.620 He, like, he should have been hosting this movie.

00:18:20.580 Um, but he was great.

00:18:22.300 He was the Vatican Latinist Latinist.

00:18:25.440 Yeah.

00:18:25.600 He, he, he translated the, uh, the letters, uh, either from Latin to English or English

00:18:31.380 to Latin, maybe both, but that was his job.

00:18:33.340 He lived down the hall from the Pope and we were on that hall.

00:18:36.520 We were in that hallway.

00:18:37.360 No, I, I don't, I remember him telling us that he met the Pope the first week.

00:18:43.700 He was Pope in 1979 and hadn't seen him or talked to him since.

00:18:49.740 Right.

00:18:50.160 That was, that was how much the Pope cared about Latin.

00:18:51.980 We also drank with him up there.

00:18:54.140 Yes, we did.

00:18:55.000 We all took a couple of shots from his bottle.

00:18:56.820 Yeah.

00:18:56.960 He looked, he looked like he was practiced in the art.

00:18:59.380 Yes. 0.97

00:18:59.560 But he was quick to say Christmas is ridiculous. 0.93

00:19:01.840 Right. 0.95

00:19:02.080 And if Jesus was here, he wouldn't live at the Vatican.

00:19:04.620 He'd live out in the hills with the poor people. 0.99

00:19:06.720 He was like, he was an iconoclast standing right there in front of the Vatican.

00:19:09.880 And even said people need their stories.

00:19:12.280 Yeah.

00:19:12.640 I mean, that's the ultimate mask drop to say people need their stories.

00:19:17.760 That's not supposed, that's the magician going, see, the dove is right here.

00:19:21.940 He was like the Penn and Teller of, of the Vatican priests.

00:19:25.660 Well, there was one guy you legitimately hated though.

00:19:28.640 The, the rabbi who, uh, at one point you, you, you make the Holocaust joke.

00:19:32.660 You say, rabbi never again. 0.99

00:19:35.780 And then I don't know if it was you off camera, Larry off camera says something like, well,

00:19:39.980 let's just get, and you said, no, I'm out.

00:19:42.140 I can't stand another second.

00:19:44.760 Not let him get a word in edge wise.

00:19:46.880 Also, he had just met with Ahmadinejad.

00:19:49.480 He did not think the state of Israel should exist and that the Holocaust was justified 0.96

00:19:54.720 because the Jews had not been holy enough. 0.94

00:19:57.200 So there was a lot to not like about him.

00:19:59.140 Yeah.

00:19:59.280 And he was unpleasant.

00:20:00.820 He didn't present it in a charming way.

00:20:02.920 No.

00:20:04.440 His point of view.

00:20:05.640 He had this insane verbal tick where he would say, don't interrupt me.

00:20:10.180 Yeah.

00:20:10.480 Even in those moments where you had interjected your question in an appropriate silence where

00:20:15.880 you had not interrupted him.

00:20:16.980 No.

00:20:17.180 He just like, whenever you started, he would say, don't interrupt me.

00:20:19.380 Yeah.

00:20:19.600 You interrupted his thoughts.

00:20:20.920 Yeah.

00:20:21.240 Bill, you cover your background a little bit.

00:20:23.900 I mean, you actually have the surprising, the same surprising fact in your bio that Hitch

00:20:28.780 did, that you discovered your mother was Jewish late in life.

00:20:32.540 Well, how old were you?

00:20:33.620 Thirteen.

00:20:34.560 I was like, Hitch was older than that.

00:20:35.960 He was like, he was an adult when he learned this.

00:20:37.760 I mean, so you're technically Jewish, according to the Jews.

00:20:41.620 Did they ever try to co-op you?

00:20:42.880 Yeah.

00:20:42.900 Well, of course, many times.

00:20:45.320 And that always bothered me that other people are going to tell me what my religion is.

00:20:51.080 And my mother was not a practicing Jew either.

00:20:53.640 So it was culturally Jewish, and that's fine.

00:20:56.860 And I'm a big supporter of the state of Israel, blah, blah, blah.

00:21:00.340 But I never set foot in a temple to this day.

00:21:03.400 All my memories of religion are from Catholicism.

00:21:07.400 And as my mother states in the beginning of the movie, and that is always the highlight

00:21:10.800 of the movie, my mother, for me, because she's just so funny.

00:21:15.000 And when I asked her, first of all, big shock for me and my sister, and we found out why.

00:21:21.300 This is the first time we ever asked her, why did dad quit going to church because of

00:21:25.300 birth control?

00:21:26.060 We thought, geez, they weren't doing it anyway.

00:21:28.780 We didn't think that was an issue.

00:21:30.020 But when she basically said, yeah, we didn't think we needed to tell you, and we thought

00:21:36.740 some structure was better than none.

00:21:39.120 I thought that was very telling of the thought process of that era, that no structure was

00:21:46.640 just not to be considered.

00:21:48.540 She was certainly not a Catholic, although she pretended to take Catholic lessons.

00:21:53.260 This was 1951, so she could marry my father.

00:21:55.820 But, yeah, just you needed some religion in your life.

00:22:03.780 That was what I took away from that.

00:22:05.780 Even though one I don't believe in, and that's not good, but it's better than nothing.

00:22:10.560 And that's so different than what we were saying, which is certainly not better than nothing.

00:22:14.640 Nothing better.

00:22:15.300 That's still a very common notion, but it was funny just to realize that you hadn't figured

00:22:22.860 out that she wasn't going to church with you for a reason.

00:22:26.180 It was like a kind of family secret that wasn't, it was in the open, but you hadn't even noticed

00:22:29.780 that it was a phenomenon.

00:22:30.800 So telling of why kids put up with anything in childhood, because whatever, you're so young,

00:22:36.900 you have nothing to compare it to.

00:22:38.340 So whatever is the norm, you just think, for you, that's normal.

00:22:44.440 And that's why kids don't report abuse and a thousand other things, because it's just

00:22:48.100 always gone on.

00:22:49.120 I just never thought about it.

00:22:50.680 Mom never went to church.

00:22:52.020 She stayed home.

00:22:53.060 My sister and my father and I went, and that was it.

00:22:55.900 And then it just came up in conversation one Christmas when I was 13, and because I'm Jewish.

00:23:02.420 Oh, well, that does explain a lot.

00:23:05.320 So, Larry, what about your background?

00:23:08.380 Do you have a religious indoctrination you're rebelling against?

00:23:11.460 I do, and I think what Bill said, first of all, is really important, because I think

00:23:14.560 you see a lot of adults today who are very bright, very intelligent, very rational people,

00:23:19.100 but they cling to this crazy idea because they have been indoctrinated as children.

00:23:23.740 And even though it doesn't make sense to their adult self, that childhood part of their brain

00:23:28.160 clings to this idea of God, and somehow there being some order, and it's very, very hard

00:23:33.020 to let go of.

00:23:33.700 My parents were secular Jews.

00:23:35.980 I grew up in Brighton Beach and was sent to the local Hebrew school, which happened to

00:23:40.440 be a very orthodox Hebrew school.

00:23:42.320 So I was immersed with these very orthodox rabbis who were like mean, like nuns, you know, 1.00

00:23:47.940 hitting you and shutting down any discussions and punishing you and sending you into the big

00:23:53.580 dark temple to sit by yourself and think about what you had done.

00:23:56.260 And so I kind of was really into the ritual and the darkness and the weirdness of it.

00:24:03.000 But I also knew right off the bat, very early on during the bar mitzvah lessons, that it 0.96

00:24:09.700 was kind of nonsense and it was kind of ridiculous. 0.89

00:24:12.280 And, you know, I was into it on one level and I was also kind of stepping out of it. 0.86

00:24:17.520 And by the time the bar mitzvah comes along, and my father would constantly remind me,

00:24:21.340 my father had a lot of very reductionist philosophies of life, like do unto others and

00:24:26.240 then split.

00:24:27.040 That was one of his favorites.

00:24:28.320 And he said, you know, do the bar mitzvah and get the checks.

00:24:32.220 Like that was his thing about the bar mitzvah.

00:24:34.040 Not any, there was no spiritual dimension to it.

00:24:36.140 Right.

00:24:36.420 So like a lot of kids, you know, we did the bar mitzvah, we got the checks and I never

00:24:41.380 went back into the temple after that.

00:24:42.940 And most of my friends never went back either.

00:24:45.460 Now I notice in adulthood that a lot of people are sort of starting to drift back because

00:24:50.860 I think we were talking about a little bit about getting older and the fear starts to

00:24:55.180 set in and I see people starting to drift back in, in a kind of way that they feel comfortable

00:25:00.760 with, but still drifting back to the things that they rejected in religion.

00:25:04.660 Sometimes these are the same people who start watching Fox news when they get into their

00:25:10.020 sixties.

00:25:10.620 Yeah.

00:25:11.120 I haven't noticed that phenomenon really.

00:25:13.580 Oh, I have.

00:25:14.320 Yeah.

00:25:14.500 Well, I could name names.

00:25:15.860 Some you would recognize because they're famous people who I knew 15, 20 years ago as Hollywood

00:25:21.960 liberals.

00:25:22.480 I hadn't seen them in a long time, talk to them.

00:25:26.260 I remember one person, actor, you'd know who it was and was telling me a couple of years

00:25:32.280 ago, not only did Obama ruin America, he did it on purpose.

00:25:37.100 I'm like, what?

00:25:38.660 I thought you were blank, blank.

00:25:41.380 And now you're, and I, all I could think is, yeah, he started watching Fox news.

00:25:45.220 That happens.

00:25:46.200 That's a thing for people of a certain age.

00:25:49.680 Yeah.

00:25:50.120 People looking for comfort in some way.

00:25:52.120 And those are the things that give people comfort because they give you answers, even

00:25:55.600 though you may know on some level the false answers, it's still answers and it helps you

00:25:59.640 sort of move on, I guess.

00:26:01.160 It's interesting to think about how the landscape has changed in the intervening years.

00:26:06.640 I mean, I think it was changing incrementally, as you point out in that poll result, that it

00:26:12.200 seemed like secularism was winning some steady gains and that, you know, atheism was far more

00:26:18.100 public.

00:26:18.960 And I was getting the sense that people were more visibly embarrassed by, I mean, just that

00:26:24.500 you weren't meeting the same kind of Bible thumper. 0.72

00:26:28.140 And then we were making clear gains politically on things like gay marriage.

00:26:32.020 It was unthinkable.

00:26:33.660 We had a brief moment of it in California, then it got rolled back.

00:26:38.140 And then all of a sudden it was the law of the land in like 15 minutes.

00:26:41.300 And you got the sense that even fundamentalist Christians weren't poised to fight that particular

00:26:46.980 culture war issue again.

00:26:49.260 And then Trump happened.

00:26:51.880 And it's like religion is just kind of a variable we don't even have to talk about.

00:26:56.260 And yet quietly behind the scenes, religious fundamentalists are getting a lot of what they 0.91

00:27:01.220 want out of Trump.

00:27:02.720 And it's, it's like, it's like, it's off, it's like, you know, it's off my radar.

00:27:05.840 I'm not spending time talking about Christian theocracy.

00:27:08.820 I mean, occasionally I'll hit the topic of Islam when, you know, something blows up, but

00:27:13.400 it's kind of all Trump all the time.

00:27:15.640 And yet out of the corner of my eye, I'm seeing the stealth theocrats in the U.S.

00:27:22.580 just quietly kind of build their kingdom.

00:27:25.460 In a larger sense, we are becoming, my analogy would be Saddam under Iraq. 0.55

00:27:31.220 Where a minority was ruling over a majority.

00:27:35.120 The majority of this country is liberal, but because it's rigged, it actually is on their

00:27:41.660 part with the electoral college, with gerrymandering, with voter suppression.

00:27:46.880 I mean, look at the Supreme court, as we see this play out in these weeks, the Supreme court

00:27:52.380 should be seven liberals because two people were appointed under George Bush who did not

00:27:59.280 win the popular vote.

00:28:00.900 Exactly.

00:28:01.240 People forget that.

00:28:02.200 And now Trump has gotten to.

00:28:03.580 So if the right person, if we had direct election, which we should, and the will of the people

00:28:10.140 had put Al Gore and Hillary Clinton into office, the Supreme court wouldn't even be in question. 0.98

00:28:15.900 So in that sense, yes, you're right.

00:28:20.840 The right wing and the evangelicals have enormous power, but they are a minority who are now,

00:28:29.360 this is very dangerous for America as it was a seething pot under Saddam in Iraq.

00:28:35.400 You had two thirds of the country who were Shiites ruled over by a third Sunnis. 1.00

00:28:39.820 And we're like a two thirds liberal country that's now going to be ruled what we are.

00:28:44.880 We own nothing power wise by this minority right wing base. 0.69

00:28:50.040 And they are, you're right, getting everything they want.

00:28:53.280 I think if I may, I think there's like two forces at work also.

00:28:56.540 To me, it seemed like from the day that Obama was inaugurated, the hate began to build.

00:29:02.240 And the backlash was just, it was going to erupt in some way.

00:29:06.340 And I think Trump is that eruption to some degree.

00:29:09.000 I think also the evangelicals and the Christian right made a conscious decision somewhere along

00:29:14.460 the line that they're tired of losing and they want to win and they will win at any cost.

00:29:18.760 And they're willing to abandon all of their morality, their false morality to win.

00:29:24.460 And that's what they've done.

00:29:25.300 And they've won.

00:29:26.360 So I agree with Bill.

00:29:28.020 I think this minority has kind of amassed itself and organized itself in such a way 0.95

00:29:33.040 to really, as you, as you called it before, a kind of a slow coup.

00:29:37.440 Yeah.

00:29:38.120 They keep their eye on the ball.

00:29:40.320 They know how to organize on the local level, which they have done.

00:29:43.980 They had a plan from 30 years ago to put this guy in the Supreme Court, the Heritage Foundation.

00:29:50.000 You know, they groom these people.

00:29:52.340 They put them up through the system.

00:29:53.980 They clerk for other judges.

00:29:55.360 They know exactly what they're doing from the beginning.

00:29:58.120 Well, what are the liberals doing?

00:30:00.320 You know, we're having a big gathering.

00:30:02.160 Okay. 0.99

00:30:02.500 We gathered, you know, we got our pussy hats on. 1.00

00:30:05.680 We, we don't do that, that nuts and bolts stuff.

00:30:09.720 We got to learn how to do that better if there's time, because it may be over now.

00:30:13.940 I mean, we may never get it back.

00:30:15.540 Power begets power.

00:30:17.060 Yes.

00:30:17.600 As we see with Kavanaugh probably going on the court, you know, that'll, how long is that

00:30:22.760 going to last for a long time?

00:30:24.640 Yeah.

00:30:26.020 Yeah.

00:30:26.620 I, it's a real concern that the left has pendulum swung into identity politics and a,

00:30:35.400 its own kind of almost theocratic censoriousness around speech and white privilege and male

00:30:42.160 privilege.

00:30:42.740 And it's not to say those things don't exist and they're, they're obviously appropriate

00:30:46.160 targets of outrage with respect to every one of those variables.

00:30:50.000 But it is liberal outrage now or leftist outrage now is such a blunt tool is hitting everything

00:30:57.720 with the same force.

00:30:58.980 You can see how that it's just, if you call enough non-racists racist enough, at a certain 1.00

00:31:06.200 point, they're going to say, well, fuck you. 1.00

00:31:07.900 I'm going to vote for Trump too. 1.00

00:31:08.860 It's like, you're not my party anymore.

00:31:10.280 And also, if I may, as Bill pointed out, I mean, we don't need to worry about Russian

00:31:14.140 meddling.

00:31:14.760 They have meddled with the elections all these years using the Supreme court, the gerrymandering,

00:31:19.520 all these different things were used, the electoral college to guarantee the Republicans

00:31:24.640 would have a larger percentage of the voters than they really are.

00:31:28.000 They really earned.

00:31:28.880 So I think there's, the system is so broken.

00:31:31.820 It seems like who's going to fix that.

00:31:33.660 Just if ex-felons could have voted in Florida, many states. 0.70

00:31:38.760 It would be a blue state.

00:31:39.680 Yeah.

00:31:39.920 I mean, the one thing Republicans are creative about is cheating.

00:31:46.520 Their genius is at cheating.

00:31:48.480 If they channeled any of that creative energy into anything else, they could fix all the problems

00:31:52.920 in the world.

00:31:53.620 But they're brilliant at it.

00:31:54.920 Like the way they chipped away at abortion rights. 0.74

00:31:57.440 Who would have thought some of these things?

00:32:00.220 You know, you can't have abortion here unless the hallways are eight feet wide.

00:32:04.880 And, you know, those kind of laws that they're always thinking up.

00:32:08.600 All the environmental regulations are getting pulled back.

00:32:10.800 Pruitt's gone.

00:32:11.380 You see, the thing is, Pruitt's gone, but the environmental regulations keep on getting

00:32:14.720 pulled back.

00:32:15.580 We had this big moment of we were upset about the children being put in the detention centers.

00:32:21.380 It's going on every single day since then, you know what I mean?

00:32:24.080 In large numbers.

00:32:24.920 So it's overwhelming.

00:32:27.220 And again, I think this is why people are looking for some kind of a simple, comfortable

00:32:31.920 answer.

00:32:32.620 And why some people retreat into simpler solutions to the problems instead of facing the

00:32:37.620 fact that it's kind of out of control.

00:32:39.500 Before I feel the tractor beam of current events pulling us off the topic of religious

00:32:43.240 as I want to go there.

00:32:44.640 I wanted to say one thing to your last question about, you said, you know, in the last 10 years,

00:32:50.600 things have changed a lot.

00:32:52.020 And, you know, I always make the joke when people say religious and I take all the credit, 1.00

00:32:57.020 but I know it's really not because of religious.

00:32:59.920 It may have had a nice little moment.

00:33:02.020 And I think the big thing that made the difference in the last 10 years is Google.

00:33:09.020 You know, Mitt Romney used to come to your house with a pamphlet.

00:33:13.720 That's as much as you could find out about Mormonism.

00:33:16.700 And it sounded pretty good in the pamphlet.

00:33:19.780 Scientology is a perfect example.

00:33:21.820 You'd, you'd be in the religion 10 years before you found out about the nutty creation.

00:33:29.200 Xenu.

00:33:29.740 Right.

00:33:30.240 Right.

00:33:30.500 Right.

00:33:30.920 You didn't have to get to like level six or something.

00:33:34.020 Well, that's the amazing Paul Haggis story.

00:33:36.040 Not to derail you, but do you know the Paul Haggis story?

00:33:38.720 I think it was, it was in Lawrence Wright's book.

00:33:40.920 Going clear.

00:33:41.620 Yeah.

00:33:42.360 I mean, he was in like whatever, 20 years.

00:33:44.440 Right.

00:33:44.480 And they finally give him the secret teachings in a, you know, he has to take a briefcase to

00:33:48.820 essentially like a bank vault and, and, and contemplate them in solitude.

00:33:52.620 And he came and it's all the, just, you know, 70 trillion years ago.

00:33:56.920 Right.

00:33:57.140 They're brought here on something that resembled a DC eight and thrown into volcanoes and blown

00:34:01.360 up with, with hydrogen bombs.

00:34:03.100 And, you know, his summary of it was that he thought he was given, he was being given

00:34:07.520 an insanity test.

00:34:08.760 Right.

00:34:09.100 Like, like he didn't know whether or not he should just laugh and then pass the test or

00:34:12.880 accept this.

00:34:14.100 But that was what I'm saying is that you can look that up now.

00:34:17.040 It's all over the internet.

00:34:18.400 Yeah.

00:34:18.820 It's true.

00:34:19.100 And at a certain point it wasn't, you know, and Mormonism is just as wacky. 1.00

00:34:23.860 But they'll still deny it.

00:34:24.780 I mean, the Mormons will still deny that there's secret handshakes to get into heaven. 0.95

00:34:28.760 The Scientologists will definitely deny, you know, what was great in religious lists is

00:34:32.560 we were able to find clips, uh, like promotional footage that they shot, animated pieces that

00:34:38.920 sort of tell the origin myths of Mormonism and Scientology.

00:34:42.760 And those were, they were like Saturday morning cartoons, but they were real.

00:34:46.940 And those were very, very, uh, telling.

00:34:49.920 I thought they were great and they were hilarious because it's just, here they are as it is.

00:34:54.220 You know, it's like, we don't have to, we don't have to play with that at all.

00:34:56.780 How do you actually accomplish that as a director?

00:34:58.660 Do you just, you have some researcher who is just scouring the world?

00:35:02.600 I tend to myself, uh, uh, generate a lot of the, the clip thoughts because I'm thinking

00:35:07.940 all throughout what movies might be funny to draw on, what stuff we might need.

00:35:12.580 And then, yeah, I have great researchers who go out and find those clips, get permission

00:35:16.900 to use them, which is very tricky.

00:35:18.580 We had all these Middle Eastern, uh, clips from, from various, uh, terrorist organizations.

00:35:24.060 It's very hard to get permission to use those things, you know?

00:35:26.620 So, uh, it's tricky, but that's how you do it.

00:35:29.380 Yeah.

00:35:29.560 It's a very, uh, that's a laborious process.

00:35:32.200 And that's one of the things that makes the film so much different than just the normal

00:35:37.920 uncomfortable interview.

00:35:39.340 You can just sprinkle it with hilarity, you know, more or less on demand.

00:35:44.160 Is there anything you would, either of you would do differently or that you regret?

00:35:49.820 Or is there any place where you felt like you don't, because one thing, one thing I don't

00:35:54.680 go there.

00:35:55.120 I, I always regret.

00:35:57.420 I mean, just, you just can't.

00:35:59.560 I don't know.

00:36:01.000 We could do the whole movie over.

00:36:02.540 Exactly.

00:36:02.700 Both of us, both of us could watch that movie and imagine doing the entire movie over from

00:36:06.740 beginning to end.

00:36:07.840 We could do another version of it today.

00:36:09.540 Right.

00:36:10.000 It's the kind of thing where it's, that's the, that's what happened then.

00:36:14.540 Right.

00:36:14.880 You know.

00:36:15.380 It's the old thing.

00:36:16.140 Art is never finished, just abandoned.

00:36:18.320 Yeah.

00:36:18.580 Yeah.

00:36:18.800 Right.

00:36:19.000 And we abandoned it at some point.

00:36:21.420 And, you know, I'm so glad people still like it.

00:36:24.900 Yeah.

00:36:25.400 And I still like it, but I can't, I can't watch it without thinking.

00:36:30.720 Yeah.

00:36:31.260 I could have been more eloquent there, or I could have thought of three other better examples,

00:36:35.980 or I don't know.

00:36:37.620 Right.

00:36:38.060 I was getting up in the morning, Sam.

00:36:39.460 It was not.

00:36:40.820 There had to be some jet lag.

00:36:42.340 I had to get up in the morning.

00:36:43.700 That was a challenge.

00:36:44.260 Mornings are not my time.

00:36:45.720 There I am in Megiddo at 8 a.m.

00:36:49.360 Talking about the apocalypse.

00:36:51.960 Right.

00:36:52.720 Well, the Jesus Land, I forget what it's called.

00:36:56.160 Holy Land. 0.86

00:36:56.560 Holy Land Amusement Park, you know, Disneyland for religious sadists. 0.98

00:37:00.880 I mean, the crucifixion scene there was insane.

00:37:04.820 I still can't believe that.

00:37:06.160 Does it still exist?

00:37:07.200 Do you think this thing is sure?

00:37:08.520 Holy Land definitely exists.

00:37:09.660 Yeah, yeah.

00:37:10.220 And not only is it crazy, but it's like three times a day crazy.

00:37:13.560 Yeah.

00:37:13.720 I mean, they do the show, like, you know, the Disneyland shows.

00:37:16.240 Right.

00:37:16.360 They do them over and over and over all day long.

00:37:18.160 I love that Jesus.

00:37:19.300 I hope he's getting paid well, because he's earning his money.

00:37:22.080 Lebowski Jesus. 0.85

00:37:23.140 Yeah.

00:37:23.320 Right.

00:37:23.500 He's like the Lebowski. 0.97

00:37:25.540 Yes.

00:37:27.040 He was the dude as Jesus.

00:37:28.420 Yeah, he was just perfect.

00:37:30.640 But he was also a legit believer who wanted to argue with you.

00:37:35.740 I mean, he came up with the best analogy of the, you know.

00:37:39.440 The Holy Trinity, right.

00:37:41.000 He was the best theologian you went up against.

00:37:42.300 Yeah, it's true.

00:37:43.420 But you know something?

00:37:44.020 That's one of the great things about Bill also, if I may tip my hat further.

00:37:47.620 He's a great listener.

00:37:48.880 And he is not, as much as it might seem like he's got an agenda, he's very open-minded.

00:37:53.600 And when people make good points all along the way in religious, when people make good points,

00:37:57.900 he acknowledged that.

00:37:58.800 He's not trying to trip them up.

00:38:02.120 He's letting them speak.

00:38:03.260 And when they speak intelligently, he acknowledges that.

00:38:06.580 And I think that's a very great quality.

00:38:07.420 Yeah, most of the people.

00:38:08.160 I mean, the trucker scene.

00:38:10.240 You know, that one trucker walks out in the beginning.

00:38:13.100 Yeah.

00:38:13.260 We thought he might be.

00:38:14.520 He was a big guy. 1.00

00:38:15.300 About to kill me. 0.96

00:38:16.220 But luckily, he went the other way out the door.

00:38:18.360 But the other guys and I wound up being very friendly.

00:38:21.280 And, you know, they prayed for me at the end.

00:38:23.380 And, I mean, it was actually kind of sweet.

00:38:25.300 Yes, exactly.

00:38:26.040 Well, do you find yourself on camera going further in an adversarial direction than you

00:38:35.640 would if the camera wasn't rolling?

00:38:38.080 Like, if you were just in a social situation with these people and the topic of religion

00:38:42.200 came up, do you think that you would agree to disagree much earlier?

00:38:49.180 Because, I mean, I find myself at dinner parties, you know, rarely, but now.

00:38:54.660 But, you know, it was more true 10 years ago.

00:38:56.620 But, I mean, I've had some, you know, I've gone to the mat with some people in just purely 0.94

00:39:00.840 social situations just because what they're saying is dumb enough and strident enough 0.71

00:39:05.240 that it just seems like, all right, this is a good time to dig in on this topic. 0.87

00:39:08.760 But I could imagine if this was being captured for a documentary, I might want to go further

00:39:16.020 because, listen, this, you know, this is the war of ideas that's going to go public.

00:39:21.060 Like, I'm just wondering if that, if you notice a difference between your on-camera self and

00:39:25.000 your off-camera self in these kinds of conversations.

00:39:27.620 Well, the good thing about me is really the same thing as the bad thing about me.

00:39:31.780 I'm not really any different.

00:39:33.400 Yeah.

00:39:34.280 I would agree with that.

00:39:35.320 I would agree with that.

00:39:36.400 I don't think you feel pressure to perform once the camera's rolling.

00:39:39.440 You are you.

00:39:40.320 Yeah, especially in that kind of movie, in that kind of setting.

00:39:44.740 And I'd rather let the comedy speak for itself.

00:39:48.900 I was doing a bit at the end of my show Friday night to really, at the end, I plugged this

00:39:56.460 because it was my tribute on real time for the 10th anniversary.

00:40:00.880 And April Ryan was on the panel and it came up before we even got to the end of the show,

00:40:09.580 something about religion.

00:40:11.040 And I said to her, you know, you are not going to like this end of the show.

00:40:14.980 And I could tell, you know, she's probably someone who goes to church every Sunday and

00:40:19.360 she does not want to hear Jesus insulted.

00:40:21.600 And I was afraid she was going to like really not have a good time or say something even during

00:40:26.840 the editorial.

00:40:27.500 And she wound up laughing so hard.

00:40:30.400 We have cutaways of her, you know, and to me, that is the greatest thing about humor

00:40:35.880 is that laughter is involuntary.

00:40:39.720 You cannot help it.

00:40:41.480 And when it comes out that way, it must in some way say to your brain, ah, there's some

00:40:47.660 truth there because I laughed at that.

00:40:50.360 Yeah. 0.96

00:40:50.680 It must be a little ridiculous. 0.95

00:40:52.600 Yes. 0.94

00:40:52.920 Because me, this religious person on the panel who doesn't really think that way,

00:40:57.500 still laughed.

00:40:59.000 So that's how I hope our message somehow got through to people who otherwise would

00:41:03.700 not have appreciated it.

00:41:04.740 And I have found out to be, by the way, I just don't go to dinner parties anymore.

00:41:07.660 That would be my advice.

00:41:08.880 But I have found also in my travels that people, religious, even people who are religious

00:41:14.220 people, as long as they have a sense of humor, they love the movie.

00:41:18.440 Yes.

00:41:18.640 Um, I have never met anybody who had a sense of humor who didn't like that movie.

00:41:23.480 I mean, it's a very pleasing movie in that respect.

00:41:26.500 And it's about the subject that they are interested in.

00:41:29.300 That's right.

00:41:29.940 That helps.

00:41:30.580 Yeah.

00:41:30.700 Was there any situation that you got into that, beyond the, the one trucker who exited

00:41:36.380 in something that looked like it was approaching real anger, was there anything that seemed

00:41:41.420 dangerous or sketchy that you, because you were, you were in the Middle East and, I mean, 1.00

00:41:46.500 when you went to the Al-Aqsa Mosque and all that seemed, as far as it was on camera, that

00:41:50.780 all seemed totally fine.

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Making Sense - Sam Harris - October 03, 2018

#139 — Sacred & Profane

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