Greg Lukianoff: belief

Transcript context

…Sorry, you’re so fascinating. Do you recommend doing that? I think you should just to know, because such a touchstone in the way people talk about things, it can get pretty tedious. I even made myself read through all of the very specific instructions on how tall the different parts of the temple need to be and how long the garbs need to be and what shape they need to be. Those go on a lot, surprisingly a big chunk of Exodus. I thought that was more like in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, but then you get to books like Job Wow, I mean Job is such a read and no way Job originally had that ending. Job is basically, it starts out as this perverse bet between God and Satan about whether or not they can actually make a good man renounce God. Initially, they can’t, it’s all going very predictably. Then, they finally really tortured job and he turns into the best, why is God cruel? How could God possibly exist? How could a kind God do these things? He turns into the best lawyer in the entire world and he defeats everyone, all the people who come to argue with him, he argues the pants off of them. Then, suddenly at the end, God shows up and He’s like, “Well, I am everywhere.” It’s a very confusing answer. He gives an answer like, “I am there when lionesses give birth and I am there. By the way, there’s this giant monster Leviathan that’s very big and it’s very scary and I have to manage the universe.” I’m like, “God, are you saying that you’re very busy? Is that essentially your argument to Job. You don’t mention the whole that I have a bet, that’s why I was torturing you, that doesn’t come up. Then at the end, he decide God’s decides Job’s like, “No, you’re totally right. I was totally wrong, sorry.” God says, “I’m going to punish those people who tried to argue with you and didn’t win.” He gets rid of the, I don’t know exactly what he does to them, I don’t remember. Then he gives Job all his money back and it makes him super prosperous. I’m like, “No way that was the original ending of that book because this was clearly a beloved novel that they were like, “But it can’t have that ending.” It’s a long way of saying, I actually think it’s worthwhile. Some of it was you’re always surprised when you end up in there are parts of it that will sneak up on you like Isaiah’s a trip. Ecclesiastes, Depeche Mode. You said you also the Quran.…

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