Dr. Brian Keating
speaker
1,291 appearances
4 recordings
4 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard Sep 2025
Dr. Brian Keating’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
He wasn't nursing. He's going to die. Right? You remember that feeling? He's going to die. Like, he's not going to die. He's going to be fine. He's six pounds.
This thing might die. It's sheer terror. And it's the most responsible. And they send you home and there's no instruction manual. And I actually said, let's look at the manual to my wife. And she's, what the hell are you talking about? There's no manual. But humans need instruction. some instruction. And it doesn't have to come from somewhere, but it can't come from yourself.
When I talked to Stephen Bartlett, he said, I'm a good person. I don't kill anybody. I say, Stephen, how many people that committed great sin and great evil thought they were doing evil? None of them, not a single bloody one of them thought they were doing evil. They justified it as great good, whether it was eliminating Jews or whatever. I don't even have to take it that far of
So he's trying to justify, I think, his behavior. Because what happens, Jordan, when you believe in God or you have some notion of a moon or faith or just want to approach a creator or something bigger than you? Well, then you have obligations. And people hate that. I don't think Richard—I mentioned Richard Feynman.
If I told you 20 years ago, Jordan, you eat meat only and salt. You know, I have prepared meat. I think it was pretty darn good, kosher ribeye when you came to my house a couple of years ago. But if I told you 30, 20 years ago, Jordan, you're just going to eat ribeyes and salt. You would say, that's horrible. Like, I don't want to do that. That's going to be, you know, take away my freedom.
You're telling me it's composed. But now you took it upon yourself. I see it in you, the health, the vitality, the just, you know, incredible transformation that you've undergone. Who is happier? Jordan 20 years ago could eat all the Doritos, or I don't know what you ate back then, or has this prescribed thing to do in the prime of his life.
And I feel that way about, so I said that to, you know, Stephen and also to Sam, and When you're given, you know, look, as a Jew, I don't eat pork, right? I love to eat pork, you know. And why did we not get—who knows? There's no real reason why we think—it's not because they're dirty. But when you have an instruction manual, you—
The assumption is the writer, the author of the instruction manual knew something that you don't. And maybe there's some benefit from following their instructions. The question is, you know, if you do believe in God and if you do practice some faith tradition or whatever, will you be happier or not?
These people that came up to Richard Dawkins with tears in their eyes at the book signing after our event—
I don't want to say, you know, okay, so now I don't have to listen to him because he was abused. You know, it's like if you meet somebody who was physically abused as a child and then they turn out to—you don't want to make that an excuse because look at the other people that were. Yes, of course, of course. So I don't want to let him off the hook so easily in that sense.
But I guess the challenge that I have is when I deal with somebody like that, because I can talk science with either one of them, Lawrence Krauss, again. Yeah, yeah. These people I can talk to, and they're so self-confident. But— They would never, and I told this to Lawrence Cross, because I had him on my podcast, and he's had me on his podcast.
We've talked about this, and we kind of joke I'm the religious Jew, he's the atheist. But he knows nothing about the faith. Why does he know nothing? Because most Jews, boys, have a bar mitzvah at age 13, which is a rite of passage, which sucks. I mean, I've got one of my kids going through it right now.
And your voice is cracking, and you're in front of everybody, and you're embarrassed, you have pimples, and your girlfriend, you know, and it's horrible, right? But you go through, it's a rite of passage, right? And then what does it mark for most Jews, men? Carl Sagan, Stephen Jay Gould, Lawrence Krauss, Sam Harris, if he had one. It marks sort of a graduation, right? from religion.
It marks the parole from prison of this obnoxious, not really satisfying or meaningful tradition that was forced upon you by the circumstances of your birth. I agree with Richard. No one can be a Christian, you know, like you're a Christian because you were born to a Christian family. That doesn't mean that you're actively doing anything in Christianity. And that's different.
So Judaism is more of a behavioral or religion where you have to do these mitzvahs and do certain things. It's behavior, it's practicing religion. But, you know, at the same token, if you deny somebody that, like, there's almost no chance. I'm sort of miraculously – because both my parents were kind of atheists. They didn't take Judaism very seriously. My dad was an active militant atheist.
He used to say to me, I don't believe in God. I believe in Satan because he made you believe in God. But the point being, you know, if you deny something that could be beneficial – Even if you don't believe it yourself, I think it's—I don't want to say child abuse, but you're denying your children something.
And I said, you know, the avatar for me— Well, what do they have if they don't have a tradition? They have nothing. They have themselves. They have the medium.
And it's going to be a bitter, unhappy hungry person.
And to me, that's why, look, I struggle with God. That's the name of your book, right? Israel. Israel means wrestle with God. It's not Islam. Islam means submit to God. When you submit to God— That's a different vision, man. It's a very different vision, and we can debate about it. But the fact is, when you submit, it's like I've often noted with my children, the first word they said was no.
Because if you say yes, you're just agreeing with somebody else's, whatever. Whatever they propose to you, you want to eat this? Yes, I want to eat this. You have no self-identification. I mean, you know, this is a trivial one-on-one for you. But that is true. So you express your individuality.
Showing 1221–1240 of 1,291 · page 62 of 65
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