Mayim Bialik: Is Religion Still Relevant?

Rainn and Reza sit down with actress and neuroscientist Mayim Bialik to ponder....Is Religion Still Relevant?
@rainnwilson
@rezaaslan
@missmayim
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[@gregbeach7740]

"Is religion still relevant?" is a yes/no question, unfortunately having three people of faith left the "no" side of the discussion virtually unexplored. I like Mayim Bialik and I did learn a bit about Judaism but a better title might be "How Judaism is relevant to Mayim Bialik".

[@dusanvuckovic17]

"I don't give a fuck who is your messenger. I just want to know, did you get the message?" - Eddie Griffin. Pretty much sums it up right.

[@sandracarrasco2016]

When I first heard Mayim talk about this, I thought: Dear woman, what the hell are you talking about? It took me a very long time to understand. This woman is millions of years old and brings her wisdom to us. Thank you, Mayim. You're amazing.

[@LITTLEMUSTANGFILLY]

I think this is a really Beautiful episode. When you guys were talking about the non affiliated spiritual people, Mayim said she thought that a lot of people don't want to do the work. Maybe there are people like that out there. As someone who identified as nonaffiliated for a long time I don't really think that's the case. A lot of us don't want the label of a specific religion because we've seen too many community members get so caught up in the label that they miss the point of all the teachings of their particular religion and we prefer to prioritize the values over the labels and which label is more correct than the next. That's certainly been my experience. Just wanted to throw that in there.

[@synthetik99]

I would love to hear you both explore OOBE/Soul Travel/Astral Projection and lucid dreaming. I've always been drawn to the works of Robert Monroe who was himself a scientist and spontaneously began having out-of-body experiences later in life. He approached exploring these states with the mind and methodology of a scientist. I had these experiences at a very young age and they have shaped my own view of the world and my personal exploration and validation of non-physical reality and the continuation of the soul or the self after physical death. I'm of the opinion that science and spirituality will merge in the not-to-distant future when we are finally able to validate and quantify non-physical reality. Love the show, Duncan Trussel brought me here, keep doing what you're doing!

[@susansnyder2420]

“My soul is the thing that makes me get up after I’ve fallen down nine.” Beautiful! Regions were created to teach us spiritual truths and answer unanswerable questions. As more people are having spiritual awakenings (yes, it’s happening), the need for religions is dwindling. As more people are learning how to connect within and find their own (spiritual) answers, the need for religions is dwindling. Do religions still serve a purpose today? Absolutely! But if they’re not willing or able to evolve, they will eventually fade away, as many have. But once you’ve had a personal experience of God, religion in general will pale horribly.

[@LonelyGorilla]

Honestly a great and entertaining vid

[@houseplantnerd2872]

Again, just another wonderful episode. Thank you for sharing your minds. Sincerely.

[@annemacleod1421]

I’ve watched a few of Mayim’s podcasts and they are educative, interesting and funny. Go to about 22 mins and you get her smarts! She, with her partner, are excellent value. She keeps it real. 🇳🇿🇳🇿🐑🐑

[@gertiestacygleiss4045]

Soul Pancake and this video are EXACTLY what I was looking for! I have a philosophy group in a remote national forest area and am about to take it "downtown" to the "large" city (3k people) near me. My target audience is younger and this stuff is perfect. It fits for any age really, but this is really appropriate for teens.

[@Bass.sick.b1tch]

I think there’s a distinction between religion; a shared narrative and spiritual practice common to a group of people and Religion; essentially a political/corporate group of elite leaders that manipulate their followers with self-serving agendas … the difficulty I see is there’s not separate terms… religious leaders that preach hate and discrimination are (imho) don’t believe in the spirituality, but are using their place of power to control their followers … I think the question of relevance comes down to “should the latter definition of Religion have access to the untouchable power they have: we should remove tax exemption for religions, religious text and philosophy should be prohibited from law making and religious leaders that prey on the vulnerable to swindle should face the same consequences as the secular confidence people … Religion as a power structure is what I feel is not only irrelevant but actually a liability to the human race and should be neutered

[@thegilmourfan]

This was an awesome conversation. Huge respect to Mayim. I discovered a whole new side to her.

[@donnadevens1897]

Love this so much guys. I’m more spiritual than religious and into rituals but not so much dogma. I’m pretty metaphysical. This chat from the three of you lit me up. Love hearing other points of view. I think it’s funny I never watched the office or Big Bang but I love you guys with your wisdom in this space. Thank you. And Reza, love your personality 🥰

[@michyla6889]

Follow what feeds you 🌞 love it!

[@mountaingoat79]

I love Mayim and just got all giddy how prepared and quick she was. I’ve been looking up the words dogma, spiritual, and religion all over again. I liked this older definition I found for religion: Middle English (originally in the sense ‘life under monastic vows’): from Old French, or from Latin religio(n- ) ‘obligation, bond, reverence’, perhaps based on Latin religare ‘to bind’. I don’t like to be bound by dogma, but think there are some set guidelines in different “religions” to help build a continuous growing relationship with a higher power or search for one using your spirituality. In a way that spirituality and growing relationship helps us sort through that dogma as we learn and develop ourselves…. If that makes sense… as you would with people.

[@cumboward]

You didn't really explore a question, more so affirm a statement. None the less, it was a conversation saturated with good intent and we can't hear too much of that.

[@deadpaulrandom6798]

The most amazing Religion Scholar & awesome actor the best combination.

[@rd264]

rec "The Cloud of Unknowing". And the Old Testament.

[@baytman183]

The better question is, is our perception to religion still relevant nowadays? Or should we change our perspective? IMHO religion isn't about rituals, like Mayim said it's not because you believe, but it's the thing that happened when you believe. If you think believe being religious is good for you, then do it. If you think religion is not relevant and wanna pick spirituality, so be it. Now's the era of internet, everyone can find enlightenment from it. There's no need to preach about the irrelevance of religion. Freedom of will..or something like that

[@peggybrendel9884]

Great show! I love Mayim! Religion may be less relevant lately in the personal lives of some people but geo-politically speaking, it's more relevant than ever. Rainn, I agree with your last comment: there's no way everything - from the tiniest quark to the complex biochemistry of living beings to the most distant galaxy - wasn't designed. This is not in defiance of science; I have the mind of a scientist but I understand that science and spirituality are often two different ways of explaining the same thing. I imagine any creator would work through science...through the natural laws that exist...those that may have been put in place by this same creator/universal consciousness! Science and spirituality (and sometimes religion) are not diametrically opposed. Regardless of the reason for the universe, it defies logic to think this is all random. It defies logic that information attained would be lost at death because the entire universe is based on information (like zeros and ones in programming) and quantum information cannot be lost. I'm not saying one single human-like being created everything. For all we know, there are "lesser gods" (way more ancient than we can imagine) who, literally, created the physical worlds of our universe. But for me, "God" is a Universal Energy that has always existed and is a living, aware, thinking, growing, consciousness, that is being continually expressed in infinitely and increasingly complex ways, including in ourselves. For an atheist to brush it all away by a simple counter-argument is intellectual laziness. I respect agnostics more than atheists. The ones I know are humble. They ask questions and genuinely want answers. The atheists I've known? They are often good people but they also have been arrogant, condescending, angry people who don't enjoy engaging in deep contemplation to gain insight into existence. Many are former religious people who have become bitter because they experienced trauma that was not healed by their childhood god. While that's sad, there are more productive ways of dealing with trauma, including, ironically, by joining a healthy religious community, where humans are the healers! Atheists seem to want simplistic, quasi-intellectual answers to all the deep questions and don't understand that there are different ways of knowing than just through the cerebrum. Thanks, guys, for this podcast and the others; I'm enjoying them immensely.

[@kh-fk3ko]

Out of this great religous podcast, the thing I learned is that I need to buy some bluechew.

[@Fernando-fr5cu]

What do you get when you have a Jewish, Muslim, and a Bahá'í on a podcast? A delicious metaphysical milkshake.

[@Jannett-vr8vp]

But, some do that stuff, without religion. Help.feed the homeless & so on. .

[@augusthavince8909]

I have used the goodness/badness of gravity as a metaphor for Universe. Universe just is. It is the Law of Everything. And somehow it evolved into beings that have relative free will and metathought. Fusiform gyrus. It would be interesting to temporarily affect this with powerful magnetic fields and experience the visage as some unidentifying thing. Weird.

[@Jeremy-th5pt]

Reza ate human brains on t.v.

[@rigomacias7311]

Unfortunately most religious people don’t rationalize the way Mayim does. It’s misleading to pretend that most do.

[@GollumSmeagol]

And unfortunately, most atheist don't rationalize the way Mayim does. It’s misleading to pretend that most do.

[@justanothernick3984]

@@GollumSmeagol Most people don't rationalize but atheists might be more prone not to be led into superstition. As an atheist myself, I get fooled a lot, all the time, but not by supernatural factors. But the older I get, I see the value in the spiritual and how it gives a new level of hope, even if I know it's just in my head. And I want it to guide me into being a better person. But what I don't see us ever doing is coming together in some form of unity like a Messianic Age. Even though we can pass on information from generation to generation, we don't seem to be able to overcome basic human traits or human nature. We will have to redo each cycle with every generation over and over again. The struggles of the past becomes the struggle of the now and will still be the struggles of tomorrow. We will never meet the horizon but we won't stop chasing it either. I love this podcast btw guys. It has a really soft airy touch on the interesting, profound dilemmas of being human.

[@jessegonzales1530]

My thoughts exactly! I was so frustrated I couldn't chime in myself on this. In my honest opinion it's more harmful to society in the long run considering how VERY dense the average person is. If everyone approached religion in such an open minded way as Mayim, I'd 100% have a positive view on the whole thing, especially considering I do believe it helps with general happiness and well being. But even then I consider myself a generally spiritual person and even if there WASN'T any negative association with organized religion, I'd think it a tad narcissistic to believe in specific stories and rituals that have no proof? I'd be content with believing in a higher power while acknowledging I'm only human and could never be certain about the specifics of it all.

[@Eccosee]

Stories just

[@aasthashrivastava4644]

Now I feel Judaism is kind of like hinduism(though hindu is a regional identintity not really a "religion", but in terms of culture) about seeking instead of believing part😅

[@TheDogMessiah]

Maybe religion is as relevant as breathing. Weather we are aware of it or not, it is in action even when we are not actively participating in it consciously. But just as breathing, we really don’t know how the first breath came to be. Bless you all especially the non believers

[@michaelchase5304]

"you have to take the sides you don't like with the sides you do like" So true, but yes, what a mystery. "It doesn't always mean finding the answer, it means finding more questions." Also, well said. Scientology has some good courses online, though. "no two people are both inwardly and outwardly united" -- fall asleep without an end.

[@michaelchase5304]

I dreamed this morning that I could ask Baha'u'llah a question, He said "be specific", so I asked how to both inwardly and outwardly unite sentient beings. A message came from my belly: "space". I won't interpret it, as that one word could have infinite meanings.

[@gertiestacygleiss4045]

"God is not my gumball machine."

[@williamdenner3942]

Then why are you sucking on his gumballs?

[@MrLaykp]

In the case of performing religious rituals 'the right way', what is the difference between superstition and religion. I don't see why one way is a correct way and one way isn't.

[@katherenewedic8076]

Thank you Mayim for articulating how i feel about being "religious" as a member of another faith group the F word seems gratuitous here

[@back2thenature2]

I wonder what the bible refers to when it says: "no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark" Rev 13:17 How can such an old book predict something like this?

[@MMShaggy]

There's mainly two reasons you are Religious, Your parents were, you were told this is what you believe and live your life by. It was chosen for you. Or the other reason seems to be you were in Prison for a long time and suddenly "found god", which I suspect is more as a means to cope with the moral struggle happening in your mind over your crimes you committed. Isn't it an amazing coincidence how everyone is born into the "true and only proper" Religion?

[@Me-on1tq]

Yes we need it! We are not to decide..God decides that! But in the bahai faith, we do believe religion gets renewed almost every 1000 years! Cause we are changing..and evolving..its called progressive revelations..that's why God talks about a return! I get it with what mayim is saying! It's called unity in diversity! I practice bahai faith the way mayim practices judaism..I try to put the word into action! But also science and religion go hand in hand in the bahai faith!

[@ivarb629]

Every example she gives of "even if you don't believe, all jews have this thing in common" are all things that can be explained without involving religion. It proves nothing lol

[@AgendaInMind]

LOL! Are you going to introduce guests as Meat Eaters too? I see no reason to identify what diet they choose.

[@bartsmouter5926]

I do see a reason. I think it’s really simple actually. Being vegan says something about someone’s personality

[@fredricclack7137]

NO- 😡☯️🇺🇸🐑👎🚫🆓

[@Jeremy-th5pt]

9:08 Another cult member.