Big Gods & the Fabric of Society | Dr Ara Norenzayan | Spring 2018

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Transliminal Interviews - Episode 03
Here I interview renowned social psychologist Dr Ara Norenzayan, Co-Director of UBC's Centre for Human Evolution, Cognition and Culture (www.hecc.ubc.ca) and a pioneer in the psychological study of religion.
Norenzayan's also the author of the highly acclaimed "Big Gods: How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict," available here: goo.gl/KyyC4T
Norenzayan's prolific work features prominently in our online MOOC, "The Science of Religion," which is available totally for free via EdX: www.edx.org/course/the-scienc...
Check it out!
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If you wish to re-post any of this video content on your own channel, please simply contact me first to discuss terms. I'm quite reasonable.
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[@sunnyinvladivostok]

Dr. Norenzayan is so well articulated & knowledgable.

[@ashumanchauhan1410]

I've been reading Big Gods. Thought I'd watch for a few minutes and ended up watching the whole interview. Good back-and-forth, and the questions you asked were perspicacious. Thanks for this.

[@aleph2d]

The interviewer should let him finish his thoughts.

[@MrAljab]

You are a tremendous interviewer with such great guests. Please more

[@jtan8130]

Another great interview!

[@traviswaderebello8847]

I thoroughly enjoyed Ara Norenzayan's book, and much of this interview, but I really wish the interviewer would stop interrupting. Ask your question, hear the response, THEN give your reply, please.

[@vincents.6639]

The interviewer seems too eager to explain his opinions rather than doing interview.

[@West3720]

Yes. That is annoying.

[@quigonjim8364]

Just ... wow. Thank you

[@jimmylemessurier332]

Another excellent interview. I'm glad to be supporting the channel. Keep up the good work!

[@Transliminal]

Thank you so much! Plenty more engaging content to come. Please share and stay tuned : )

[@progressholistic7126]

This episode starts off as an epistemological heavy-hitter!

[@crisisactor420]

Great interview as always man! Seriously mind-bending stuff, absolutely fascinating. Can't wait to listen to in again when I'm not as tired :) p.s. Psychedelic Punishment would be a hilarious name for a band

[@Transliminal]

(re: psychedelic punishment) right? ;p

[@SladeOb]

Fantastic as usual. Thank you for taking the time to do this! I just had a conversation with a friend about many of these themes yesterday and then a notification popped up for this video as soon as I left his house! Helped clarify some of my own thinking for sure! Random question, who is the artist behind the picture of the tree in the background? Such a cool piece.

[@Transliminal]

Thanks for the kind words! Stay tuned--more to come.. please share and check out my Patreon in the meantime, if you haven't already (www.patreon.com/transliminal) ... As for the artist, it's apparently Bowen Boshier, of South Africa: www.bowenboshier.com/

[@michaels4255]

I was surprised that the interviewer thought that the more "accommodating" sects would be growing fastest, and that this was an obvious "no brainer!" I thought that since the late Dean Kelley (an ecumenically minded liberal of the United Methodist Church) published the first edition of his groundbreaking and highly publicized classic "Why Conservative Churches Are Growing" way back in 1972 that it had become common knowledge that the strict, "high demand" versions of each denomination were the ones that were growing, while the most accommodative and "relevant" were the least relevant. Yet here we are, 46 years later at the time of this interview, and it seems there are still people who are oblivious to what is both obvious and well-documented. Why does knowledge spread so slowly, and perhaps especially slowly in the social sciences?

[@citizenschallengeYT]

24:00 - interesting talk. As to the question, 'how did they start the transition towards rules and authorities' - I don't think that can be divined without extensive efforts into understanding the ecological pressures of the moment. Such as first, efforts into nurturing some specific wild plants, or communicating and cooperating with K9s, would have triggered important compounding consequences. {Also don't humans learn the basics of rules and disciplining and authority through their parents, and later again when becoming parents? Why wouldn't that have been much the same for hundreds of thousands of years before the agricultural and civilization revolution?} There's a truism in paleobiology that "We can not understand an organism without also understanding its environment", which I believe also applies to these questions.

[@michaelnahan6107]

What is the mythology book on the table?

[@Transliminal]

Just an old encyclopedia of mythology i inherited from my grandmother :) .. it's cool, but dated.

[@VladyslavKL]

🕊

[@progressholistic7126]

My belief is that I would have to be coerced into believing what is believed by those which believe my beliefs are misconceived & incomprehensible while theirs are incontrovertible & uncontested.

[@thenowchurch6419]

There should be no coercion in religion or spirituality.

[@progressholistic7126]

thenowchurch Hume would say 'You cannot derive an ought from an is' He was such a skeptic.

[@progressholistic7126]

warp & woof

[@hannabakhash806]

Note to the interviewer: PLEASE LET THE GUY SPEAK - too many interrupting questions 😭

[@UrbanKizBeast]

Nice Christian Armenian. Not sure he's given a lot of chunky material in the first 20 minutes. Superfluous.

[@Transliminal]

I agree this edit is a bit lengthy. I'll try to upload a condensed audio-only podcast version in the near future. You should be able to find my RSS stream on iTunes under "Transliminal Media" .. cheers

[@MsHburnett]

Thx for doing these interviews Freud and key Psychiatrists were Jewish Not likely to explore Christianity

[@nickshelbourne4426]

Incorrect, Jung and Frankyl were Christian