Ezra Klein

I'm not saying that I know what does.

I'm not saying that I know what does.

I'm not saying that I know what does. What I'm saying is that I'm very sympathetic to how it can kind of spin you into a profound openness. I know many people who have gone there where what it seems to me now is having come to believe that In these kinds of things, it's very hard for them to say where to stop believing.

I'm not saying that I know what does. What I'm saying is that I'm very sympathetic to how it can kind of spin you into a profound openness. I know many people who have gone there where what it seems to me now is having come to believe that In these kinds of things, it's very hard for them to say where to stop believing.

And they now believe a lot of things that are maybe contradictory or their gurus are all saying different things. But once you open yourself, it's hard. It can become hard to close back down. But for them, you know, some of them grew up in a faith tradition. For them, the faith tradition didn't explain too much of what they then began to see or experience or come to believe in.

And they now believe a lot of things that are maybe contradictory or their gurus are all saying different things. But once you open yourself, it's hard. It can become hard to close back down. But for them, you know, some of them grew up in a faith tradition. For them, the faith tradition didn't explain too much of what they then began to see or experience or come to believe in.

I don't think any of the traditions have a really good explanation for why we have sort of weirdly consistent alien abduction experiences, which I don't believe to be alien abductions, but I'm not sure what to make of them. What is your response to someone like that?

I don't think any of the traditions have a really good explanation for why we have sort of weirdly consistent alien abduction experiences, which I don't believe to be alien abductions, but I'm not sure what to make of them. What is your response to someone like that?

In the Vatican, there is quite a bit.

In the Vatican, there is quite a bit.

I really, really enjoyed it. And this was my, the point where it helped me clarify where my intuitions maybe go very differently, which is, I think at a fundamental level, I expect that

I really, really enjoyed it. And this was my, the point where it helped me clarify where my intuitions maybe go very differently, which is, I think at a fundamental level, I expect that

anything that has worked at mass scale across many different institutional regimes and organized religion is likely to have conformed so much to politics and institutions as to have strayed from how profoundly radical whatever kind of spiritual truth might exist is.

anything that has worked at mass scale across many different institutional regimes and organized religion is likely to have conformed so much to politics and institutions as to have strayed from how profoundly radical whatever kind of spiritual truth might exist is.

This is a way in which the sort of gambit I had at the beginning about Trump was connected to the meat of this conversation, where I found the argument that you should assume that a religion's success over time is going to correlate to some kind of fundamental truth value. I felt you could take that both ways.

This is a way in which the sort of gambit I had at the beginning about Trump was connected to the meat of this conversation, where I found the argument that you should assume that a religion's success over time is going to correlate to some kind of fundamental truth value. I felt you could take that both ways.

I felt you could also take it the other way, which is to say that the religions that survive are going to be the ones that are institutionally compatible with many different regimes and often contort themselves into those regimes. And we talked about the Spanish conquest and the Inquisition. I've been reading about the Renaissance recently, Ada Palmer's great book on inventing the Renaissance.

I felt you could also take it the other way, which is to say that the religions that survive are going to be the ones that are institutionally compatible with many different regimes and often contort themselves into those regimes. And we talked about the Spanish conquest and the Inquisition. I've been reading about the Renaissance recently, Ada Palmer's great book on inventing the Renaissance.

And I wouldn't say the popes of that era cover themselves in glory. I think you could say it's about forms of Judaism, about forms of Buddhism, which Buddhism is a much more complicated institutional story than people who have been raised in America on like West Coast spirit rock Buddhism, I think, tend to believe. There are all these questions where I think that I believe Buddhism.

And I wouldn't say the popes of that era cover themselves in glory. I think you could say it's about forms of Judaism, about forms of Buddhism, which Buddhism is a much more complicated institutional story than people who have been raised in America on like West Coast spirit rock Buddhism, I think, tend to believe. There are all these questions where I think that I believe Buddhism.