I'm John Cipher and I'm Jerry O'Shea. I was a CIA officer stationed around the world in high threat posts in Europe, Russia, and in Asia.

I'm John Cipher and I'm Jerry O'Shea. I was a CIA officer stationed around the world in high threat posts in Europe, Russia, and in Asia.

And I served in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and in war zones. We sometimes created conspiracies to deceive our adversaries.

And I served in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and in war zones. We sometimes created conspiracies to deceive our adversaries.

Now we're going to use our expertise to deconstruct conspiracy theories large and small.

Now we're going to use our expertise to deconstruct conspiracy theories large and small.

Could they be true or are we being manipulated?

Could they be true or are we being manipulated?

This is mission implausible.

This is mission implausible.

So John and Jerry, I'm excited to introduce you to my friend Drew McCoy.

So John and Jerry, I'm excited to introduce you to my friend Drew McCoy.

Hey, Drew, Hey, thanks for having me guys.

Hey, Drew, Hey, thanks for having me guys.

So, Drew has a phenomenal YouTube channel, Genetically Modified Skeptic where I think, Drew, it's fair to say you're one of the most public voices of what's now known as the ex evangelical movement, the movement of people who grew up evangelical Christian no longer are evangelical Christians. None of the three of us are particularly religious, and we're having a chat about sure. See like there's a huge overlap between conspiracy theories from QAnon to whatever the latest Trump thing is and evangelical Christians. And we were like, why is that.

So, Drew has a phenomenal YouTube channel, Genetically Modified Skeptic where I think, Drew, it's fair to say you're one of the most public voices of what's now known as the ex evangelical movement, the movement of people who grew up evangelical Christian no longer are evangelical Christians. None of the three of us are particularly religious, and we're having a chat about sure. See like there's a huge overlap between conspiracy theories from QAnon to whatever the latest Trump thing is and evangelical Christians. And we were like, why is that.

Well, hopefully my pain can help elucidate some of the factors here, My childhood trauma might be able to help you guys understand a little bit of this.

Well, hopefully my pain can help elucidate some of the factors here, My childhood trauma might be able to help you guys understand a little bit of this.

I hope.

I hope.

Oh great, Yes, we love childhood trauma. John Cipher, Well, were you religious at all as a kid? Were your parents? Did you go to church?

Oh great, Yes, we love childhood trauma. John Cipher, Well, were you religious at all as a kid? Were your parents? Did you go to church?

So?

So?

My parents, my dad was a professor and mom was a teacher. No, we didn't go to church. We weren't really religious. They weren't trying to promote atheism or anything like that. And it wasn't until I was out of college. Once we were some function and somebody asked my father what he was and he said, I don't. My friend told me that they don't think I'm a Christian. Then they explained what a Christian is. I guess that's right. I just never grew up with much religion, and so I'm intimidated about you guys.

My parents, my dad was a professor and mom was a teacher. No, we didn't go to church. We weren't really religious. They weren't trying to promote atheism or anything like that. And it wasn't until I was out of college. Once we were some function and somebody asked my father what he was and he said, I don't. My friend told me that they don't think I'm a Christian. Then they explained what a Christian is. I guess that's right. I just never grew up with much religion, and so I'm intimidated about you guys.

And Jerry, you grew up well, okay, last Dave's o'sha one of ten kids? What do you think all Altra boy? Drew, you had the Baptists, we had the Jesuits. They're just as mind bending for me. And to bring Cia into it, and conspiracy theories. When I was younger, I fifth sixth grade, I started to question just logically, like this doesn't make any sense to me, and I was basically told lovingly shut up and accept it. And it's about faith. And in Cia we dealt with faith a lot, surprisingly so people had faith in communism, feefle had faith and jihadism, people had faith in their own ethnic superiority like in South Africa, and people did terrible atrocities based on faith their faith. And with Drew, I was if I could kick it off, I'd like to know what you think faith is, because in Cia we've seen faith Shia and Sunnis in Iraq where they slaughtered each other, and John was in the killing fields of the former ex Yugoslavia where people were murdering under each other for things we couldn't understand, and it was all based on faith, not just religious face, but also faith in a great leader or an ideology so true. I was wondering if you could tell us what you think faith is and how we define it, because it's generally a positive word, but I think in Ceeia we don't often tend not to see it that way.

And Jerry, you grew up well, okay, last Dave's o'sha one of ten kids? What do you think all Altra boy? Drew, you had the Baptists, we had the Jesuits. They're just as mind bending for me. And to bring Cia into it, and conspiracy theories. When I was younger, I fifth sixth grade, I started to question just logically, like this doesn't make any sense to me, and I was basically told lovingly shut up and accept it. And it's about faith. And in Cia we dealt with faith a lot, surprisingly so people had faith in communism, feefle had faith and jihadism, people had faith in their own ethnic superiority like in South Africa, and people did terrible atrocities based on faith their faith. And with Drew, I was if I could kick it off, I'd like to know what you think faith is, because in Cia we've seen faith Shia and Sunnis in Iraq where they slaughtered each other, and John was in the killing fields of the former ex Yugoslavia where people were murdering under each other for things we couldn't understand, and it was all based on faith, not just religious face, but also faith in a great leader or an ideology so true. I was wondering if you could tell us what you think faith is and how we define it, because it's generally a positive word, but I think in Ceeia we don't often tend not to see it that way.

It's a good question, and I think that the answer that's existed in the atheist sphere for quite a while now, originating with people like Christopher Higgins and Sam Harris, is fundamentally flawed. The atheist fear likes to say faith is just bad epistemology. It's just believing in things for which there is no evidence. And that's not completely incorrect in certain instances, it's just that's not the entirety of the picture. So I see faith as strong affiliation and identity with something. That can be a belief, but just as much it can be a group, it can be an identity. It can be like you said, affiliation with or love of some kind of totalitarian leader. I don't think that faith needs to be looked at just through a philosophical context, thinking oh, it's just bad epistemology. It also needs to be seen sociologically. What does faith do? Faith motivates people to affiliate with certain groups, to do certain actions, And that's how I prefer to think about faith.

It's a good question, and I think that the answer that's existed in the atheist sphere for quite a while now, originating with people like Christopher Higgins and Sam Harris, is fundamentally flawed. The atheist fear likes to say faith is just bad epistemology. It's just believing in things for which there is no evidence. And that's not completely incorrect in certain instances, it's just that's not the entirety of the picture. So I see faith as strong affiliation and identity with something. That can be a belief, but just as much it can be a group, it can be an identity. It can be like you said, affiliation with or love of some kind of totalitarian leader. I don't think that faith needs to be looked at just through a philosophical context, thinking oh, it's just bad epistemology. It also needs to be seen sociologically. What does faith do? Faith motivates people to affiliate with certain groups, to do certain actions, And that's how I prefer to think about faith.

That lines up with my I didn't grow up particularly religious, although Jewish, but I did major in history of religion in college because I was always fascinated, like, how do people have faith? And a Christian apologist or any kind of religious apologists would say, oh, you have faith in Darwinism and the Big Bang and stuff. So putting that whole argument to one side, the kind of functional use of faith the way you defined it makes a lot of sense to me and also helps see like, oh, that is a frame to look at conspiracy theories. We've talked about on this show. How you know, if you suddenly believe in whatever, QAnon, whatever it is, you have a community, you have a shared frame of reference. One way I think about it is like you know what to think and feel in the more when you wake up, like you have a purpose, you have a goal, you have an enemy, you have good guys and bad guys, and so in that sense, it almost makes me wonder like, where is the line between you know, sort of traditional religious faith and believing in conspiracy theories?

That lines up with my I didn't grow up particularly religious, although Jewish, but I did major in history of religion in college because I was always fascinated, like, how do people have faith? And a Christian apologist or any kind of religious apologists would say, oh, you have faith in Darwinism and the Big Bang and stuff. So putting that whole argument to one side, the kind of functional use of faith the way you defined it makes a lot of sense to me and also helps see like, oh, that is a frame to look at conspiracy theories. We've talked about on this show. How you know, if you suddenly believe in whatever, QAnon, whatever it is, you have a community, you have a shared frame of reference. One way I think about it is like you know what to think and feel in the more when you wake up, like you have a purpose, you have a goal, you have an enemy, you have good guys and bad guys, and so in that sense, it almost makes me wonder like, where is the line between you know, sort of traditional religious faith and believing in conspiracy theories?

Yeah?

Yeah?

Absolutely, And I actually have a little factoid here that I wanted to make sure and bring up at the beginning of this just so that hopefully we can all be on the same page about what an evangelical is. Per Ryan Burge, who is a political scientist at Eastern Illinois University, I've had him on my channel. The identity of evangelical is not something that is informed solely theologically, and I think I would actually argue that it's informed more by a certain kind of political action and identity. So the evidence of this is that when surveyed in twenty twenty two, twenty three percent of people who are Orthodox Christians identified as evangelical. Orthodox Christians come from places like Russia and Georgia. They're very much not in line theologically with evangelical Christians in the US. Now, to go in a more extreme direction, thirty nine percent of Republican voting Muslims in the United States identify as evangelicals. Traditionally the enemy of the religious right in the US right, but now they are identifying with the religious rights so long as they vote Republican. Now, among Buddhists, twenty five percent of Republican Buddhists in the United States identify as born again or evangelical. For Hindus it's thirty seven percent. We're most definitely not seeing evangelicalism act as a solely religious category. It's a political category and identity maybe more than anything else.

Absolutely, And I actually have a little factoid here that I wanted to make sure and bring up at the beginning of this just so that hopefully we can all be on the same page about what an evangelical is. Per Ryan Burge, who is a political scientist at Eastern Illinois University, I've had him on my channel. The identity of evangelical is not something that is informed solely theologically, and I think I would actually argue that it's informed more by a certain kind of political action and identity. So the evidence of this is that when surveyed in twenty twenty two, twenty three percent of people who are Orthodox Christians identified as evangelical. Orthodox Christians come from places like Russia and Georgia. They're very much not in line theologically with evangelical Christians in the US. Now, to go in a more extreme direction, thirty nine percent of Republican voting Muslims in the United States identify as evangelicals. Traditionally the enemy of the religious right in the US right, but now they are identifying with the religious rights so long as they vote Republican. Now, among Buddhists, twenty five percent of Republican Buddhists in the United States identify as born again or evangelical. For Hindus it's thirty seven percent. We're most definitely not seeing evangelicalism act as a solely religious category. It's a political category and identity maybe more than anything else.

Can I ask you why is that?

Can I ask you why is that?

Now?

Now?

I know when I look back at my history, there is a tie between what became evangelical religion and anti intellectualism in this country. Right, the early Puritans are rigorous scholars and revered learning, and they built Harvard University all those kind of things, and then the Awakening the mid eighteenth century, true was intellectually be subordinate to the soul. More about spontaneity, a focus on the spirit, personal Bible, people can find their own relationship with God and those type of things, and it was often tied with moving away from that focus on For the Puritans, it was a scholarly clergy. But why did it become political? Whim evangelicals now tied to politics in our minds.

I know when I look back at my history, there is a tie between what became evangelical religion and anti intellectualism in this country. Right, the early Puritans are rigorous scholars and revered learning, and they built Harvard University all those kind of things, and then the Awakening the mid eighteenth century, true was intellectually be subordinate to the soul. More about spontaneity, a focus on the spirit, personal Bible, people can find their own relationship with God and those type of things, and it was often tied with moving away from that focus on For the Puritans, it was a scholarly clergy. But why did it become political? Whim evangelicals now tied to politics in our minds.

I'm glad that you brought up the Puritans and how much they valued education within theology and authority as well. The Puritans, the Congregational Church was one of the established churches in the colonies before independence. And the thing that kind of drove the advent of evangelicalism in the United States we might recognize it today was the abolishment or the abolition of state churches and the adoption of a free market economy within the realm of religion. So I think that points to a pretty clear overlap between just an idea that free market values, free market approaches to culture, to economics need to be valued, and this form of Protestantism that we see today, evangelicalism is basically extreme libertarian, free market Christianity, where the most inflammatory positions, where the most eye catching rhetoric is going to be prized and made into doctrine that gets repeated and spread.

I'm glad that you brought up the Puritans and how much they valued education within theology and authority as well. The Puritans, the Congregational Church was one of the established churches in the colonies before independence. And the thing that kind of drove the advent of evangelicalism in the United States we might recognize it today was the abolishment or the abolition of state churches and the adoption of a free market economy within the realm of religion. So I think that points to a pretty clear overlap between just an idea that free market values, free market approaches to culture, to economics need to be valued, and this form of Protestantism that we see today, evangelicalism is basically extreme libertarian, free market Christianity, where the most inflammatory positions, where the most eye catching rhetoric is going to be prized and made into doctrine that gets repeated and spread.

I enjoy disagreeing with John, so let me just take my pet pee for a walk. So I think it's within the Pilgrim ideology that the first religious forces that came to the US from Europe. I think conspiracy theories are embedded in that. Within two generations, there's the sale in witchcraft trials, right, and in the sixteen nineties and at one point ten percent of the entire population was being accused of witchcraft. From a very small population, thirty five people were brutally murdered, and scholars look back now and say, well, actually, yeah, it was religious hysteria arc but it was also politics, it was also class and it was also arguably a conspiracy theory that got out of hand. And I think there's a straight line between the Salem witchcraft trials which were biblically based. There's the thing in the Bible about suffer not which is to live right, so that riches must be alive and you must execute them to QAnon today and I'm throwing open to the groups, what's the sense of politics, conspiracy theories religion and what we have in the US.

I enjoy disagreeing with John, so let me just take my pet pee for a walk. So I think it's within the Pilgrim ideology that the first religious forces that came to the US from Europe. I think conspiracy theories are embedded in that. Within two generations, there's the sale in witchcraft trials, right, and in the sixteen nineties and at one point ten percent of the entire population was being accused of witchcraft. From a very small population, thirty five people were brutally murdered, and scholars look back now and say, well, actually, yeah, it was religious hysteria arc but it was also politics, it was also class and it was also arguably a conspiracy theory that got out of hand. And I think there's a straight line between the Salem witchcraft trials which were biblically based. There's the thing in the Bible about suffer not which is to live right, so that riches must be alive and you must execute them to QAnon today and I'm throwing open to the groups, what's the sense of politics, conspiracy theories religion and what we have in the US.

The peak of witch trials in all of religious history, as far as I can tell, or at least in Christian history as far as I can tell, is actually happening in early modern Europe as a result of Protestants and Catholics fighting for the first time, because Protestants actually came onto the scene printing press and Protestantism had really a hand in hand relationship. And what I see Protestantism as is a move toward a free market approach to create Ristianity rather than this kind of high church liturgical approach to Christianity with everything is just based in authority, and for better or worse, it seems like free market approaches to religion breed ideas that can be very much steeped in fear, in moral panic, and inflammatory rhetoric, simply because this is the type of human communication that cashes human attention. The most Martin Luther really stoked moral panic in accusing the Catholic Church of a bunch of things which were of course maybe necessary to call out, but and effective. This is that people get really scared, really riled up. They start looking for enemies everywhere, and they eventually start accusing what today we would just consider to be maybe more masculine women, religious minorities, gay people of witchcraft, and then unlike with the Salem witch trials, killing a lot of them, not just accusing a few hundred and killing something like night eineteen, but killing hundreds of them.

The peak of witch trials in all of religious history, as far as I can tell, or at least in Christian history as far as I can tell, is actually happening in early modern Europe as a result of Protestants and Catholics fighting for the first time, because Protestants actually came onto the scene printing press and Protestantism had really a hand in hand relationship. And what I see Protestantism as is a move toward a free market approach to create Ristianity rather than this kind of high church liturgical approach to Christianity with everything is just based in authority, and for better or worse, it seems like free market approaches to religion breed ideas that can be very much steeped in fear, in moral panic, and inflammatory rhetoric, simply because this is the type of human communication that cashes human attention. The most Martin Luther really stoked moral panic in accusing the Catholic Church of a bunch of things which were of course maybe necessary to call out, but and effective. This is that people get really scared, really riled up. They start looking for enemies everywhere, and they eventually start accusing what today we would just consider to be maybe more masculine women, religious minorities, gay people of witchcraft, and then unlike with the Salem witch trials, killing a lot of them, not just accusing a few hundred and killing something like night eineteen, but killing hundreds of them.

While I do.

While I do.

With my Protestant roots, tend to think that a free market approach to things is good, I think when it comes to religion, I can't deny that there's a serious connection between a free market religious economy and moral panic. And that means conspiracy theories.

With my Protestant roots, tend to think that a free market approach to things is good, I think when it comes to religion, I can't deny that there's a serious connection between a free market religious economy and moral panic. And that means conspiracy theories.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean we see in countries today that have established religions parts of Europe, the United Kingdom, Christian religious practice is much less right and self identified. I mean, we are now catching up with Europe in our the percentage of Americans who don't have a religious belief, but we're still as I understand it, way higher than a lot of European countries where they have. In fact, I believe there's strong evidence that separation of church and state was as much for the church as it was for the state, that there was an understanding that having one state religion would actually hurt religious practice.

I mean we see in countries today that have established religions parts of Europe, the United Kingdom, Christian religious practice is much less right and self identified. I mean, we are now catching up with Europe in our the percentage of Americans who don't have a religious belief, but we're still as I understand it, way higher than a lot of European countries where they have. In fact, I believe there's strong evidence that separation of church and state was as much for the church as it was for the state, that there was an understanding that having one state religion would actually hurt religious practice.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

All right, we're going to get right back into that, but first let's hear this.

All right, we're going to get right back into that, but first let's hear this.

Evangelicals. Now, I tend to think about them in the political sphere, and they tend to be very focused on right wing politics, and as such, oftentimes I think that they look down on people like me who aren't believers. And maybe that's wrong, but it seems that they think that non believers sort of pretentious, are pompous intellectuals and what have you. But is there an arrogance to being a believer? It seems to me that it's the height of arrogance to claim that you know there is one truth and you have a relationship with God and someone else doesn't.

Evangelicals. Now, I tend to think about them in the political sphere, and they tend to be very focused on right wing politics, and as such, oftentimes I think that they look down on people like me who aren't believers. And maybe that's wrong, but it seems that they think that non believers sort of pretentious, are pompous intellectuals and what have you. But is there an arrogance to being a believer? It seems to me that it's the height of arrogance to claim that you know there is one truth and you have a relationship with God and someone else doesn't.

Now, there are a lot of religious traditions that do stress kind of the death of the ego, thinking about something like Sufi mysticism, even mysticism within the Orthodox Church. To a certain degree, things like this things in New Age, they very much lessen the esteem of the individual or sense of identity of the individual and try to integrate this self into a larger whole. But speaking specifically about Evangelic Christianity, there absolutely is a strong identitarian attitude. The way that I mean identitarian attitudes are strong ideas that you and your group or a specific identity group culture should control everything, should have at least far more power than anyone else. Within the Evangelical Christian Church, within Protestant churches generally, but especially when you start going very conservative, there is a strong identitarian idea. When Jesus said to go to the highways in the hedges, he was not saying go to the highways and the hedges to make sure that everybody goes to heaven. He was saying that, but he was also saying, go to the highways and the hedges and tell them that they need to basically bow down before you and your control over politics, over culture, over arguably economics, and so yes, I definitely think that there is a form of arrogance and even narcissism within a specific the type of Christian theology that is encapsulated in evangelicalism right now.

Now, there are a lot of religious traditions that do stress kind of the death of the ego, thinking about something like Sufi mysticism, even mysticism within the Orthodox Church. To a certain degree, things like this things in New Age, they very much lessen the esteem of the individual or sense of identity of the individual and try to integrate this self into a larger whole. But speaking specifically about Evangelic Christianity, there absolutely is a strong identitarian attitude. The way that I mean identitarian attitudes are strong ideas that you and your group or a specific identity group culture should control everything, should have at least far more power than anyone else. Within the Evangelical Christian Church, within Protestant churches generally, but especially when you start going very conservative, there is a strong identitarian idea. When Jesus said to go to the highways in the hedges, he was not saying go to the highways and the hedges to make sure that everybody goes to heaven. He was saying that, but he was also saying, go to the highways and the hedges and tell them that they need to basically bow down before you and your control over politics, over culture, over arguably economics, and so yes, I definitely think that there is a form of arrogance and even narcissism within a specific the type of Christian theology that is encapsulated in evangelicalism right now.

And I'd expand that beyond just Christianity. So I spent a lot of time as his Adam in the Middle East, and John has spent time in South Asia and dealing with Muslims, right And it's not anti William, but this is they have the same sort of thing. When I've talked to al Qaeda people, we've captured al Qaeda fighters, they have this religious not only just faith, but fervor that they are not terrorists. We're the terrorists, but they are actually the warriors of God. They are divinely ordained to kill us. And as a CIAF are trying to explain this to the US political establishment. It's not you're not going to defeat them in Afghanistan. You're not going to defeat them with bombs and bullets. What you're struggling with here is faith and however you want to define it. And I recall one particular instance when I was in a rock just after Moses had fallen, and if you remember, it was like three thousand Isis guys defeated fifty thousand Iraqi troops and Washington is like, how could this possibly be? It's because one side believes they actually believe they're from God, and Washington just couldn't get it, like, no, no, they can't be true. It's got to be they got more money, They've got this. It's like, you can't pay these guys like an extra three hundred dollars to blow themselves up. And that's again, that's something we struggle within the national security space is understanding the fervency of this outside of the.

And I'd expand that beyond just Christianity. So I spent a lot of time as his Adam in the Middle East, and John has spent time in South Asia and dealing with Muslims, right And it's not anti William, but this is they have the same sort of thing. When I've talked to al Qaeda people, we've captured al Qaeda fighters, they have this religious not only just faith, but fervor that they are not terrorists. We're the terrorists, but they are actually the warriors of God. They are divinely ordained to kill us. And as a CIAF are trying to explain this to the US political establishment. It's not you're not going to defeat them in Afghanistan. You're not going to defeat them with bombs and bullets. What you're struggling with here is faith and however you want to define it. And I recall one particular instance when I was in a rock just after Moses had fallen, and if you remember, it was like three thousand Isis guys defeated fifty thousand Iraqi troops and Washington is like, how could this possibly be? It's because one side believes they actually believe they're from God, and Washington just couldn't get it, like, no, no, they can't be true. It's got to be they got more money, They've got this. It's like, you can't pay these guys like an extra three hundred dollars to blow themselves up. And that's again, that's something we struggle within the national security space is understanding the fervency of this outside of the.

Beltleigh, Yeah, I think that I've witnessed this idea within the atheist community, especially which very strongly exists with an evangelical community of basically religious essentialism. There is some kind of discernible fundamental essence of true religion that must exist in order for something to be true religion. Religion in its true form and its pure form, cannot be influenced by outside factors. It just is as it is. And so that means that people like Sam Harris have been driven to say that what's fundamentally wrong with Islam is the fundamentals of Islam. He does not factor in any kind of outside influence into what he believes is true Islam or true Christianity. These things are defined entirely through a theological Lens.

Beltleigh, Yeah, I think that I've witnessed this idea within the atheist community, especially which very strongly exists with an evangelical community of basically religious essentialism. There is some kind of discernible fundamental essence of true religion that must exist in order for something to be true religion. Religion in its true form and its pure form, cannot be influenced by outside factors. It just is as it is. And so that means that people like Sam Harris have been driven to say that what's fundamentally wrong with Islam is the fundamentals of Islam. He does not factor in any kind of outside influence into what he believes is true Islam or true Christianity. These things are defined entirely through a theological Lens.

I want to just jump in to say, the people we were using to fight isis were other Muslims, right, So it's not like in Islam thing, it's what version thereof or how you define faith and how it's exploited.

I want to just jump in to say, the people we were using to fight isis were other Muslims, right, So it's not like in Islam thing, it's what version thereof or how you define faith and how it's exploited.

Perhaps, Yeah, definitely. Now, religious scholars and sociologists in general over the last ten years I think have been really they've always stressed this, but strongly stressing as a response to public ideas about religion, that religion is fundamentally malleable, and these ideas of fundamentalism that are really popular in atheist and Christian circles alike today are a reductionist. They're essentialist the kind of Islam that you are describing here. While maybe they can make theologically salient arguments for why these things are linked to the Qoran, we like to reduce the development of ideas like this to being oh, they read the Koran and then they acted on it. Whereas when we look in different contexts we see Islam in somewhere like Indonesia, in places where people are a bit wealthier, where it's very multicultural, where it's multi lingual, we just don't see the same kind of radicalism and fundamentalism popping up. To me, this means that there's got to be some kind of other factor. There's got to be economic factors, there's got to be social and cultural factors going on. Maybe it's a bad idea for me to pick a fight about foreign policy here with you guys at all. That's not my expertise. You're a popular American project has been to say that American foreign policy does not have anything to do with the rise of Wahabism, this kind of ultra fundamentalist and violent form of Islam. While I wouldn't defend the idea that America created fundamentalist is Lam, I think that's reductive too. I think that we do need to look at social, economic, cultural political factors when we're explaining why basically these fifteen year old boys would go out and start murdering their fellow citizens in the name of the same religion. Essentially.

Perhaps, Yeah, definitely. Now, religious scholars and sociologists in general over the last ten years I think have been really they've always stressed this, but strongly stressing as a response to public ideas about religion, that religion is fundamentally malleable, and these ideas of fundamentalism that are really popular in atheist and Christian circles alike today are a reductionist. They're essentialist the kind of Islam that you are describing here. While maybe they can make theologically salient arguments for why these things are linked to the Qoran, we like to reduce the development of ideas like this to being oh, they read the Koran and then they acted on it. Whereas when we look in different contexts we see Islam in somewhere like Indonesia, in places where people are a bit wealthier, where it's very multicultural, where it's multi lingual, we just don't see the same kind of radicalism and fundamentalism popping up. To me, this means that there's got to be some kind of other factor. There's got to be economic factors, there's got to be social and cultural factors going on. Maybe it's a bad idea for me to pick a fight about foreign policy here with you guys at all. That's not my expertise. You're a popular American project has been to say that American foreign policy does not have anything to do with the rise of Wahabism, this kind of ultra fundamentalist and violent form of Islam. While I wouldn't defend the idea that America created fundamentalist is Lam, I think that's reductive too. I think that we do need to look at social, economic, cultural political factors when we're explaining why basically these fifteen year old boys would go out and start murdering their fellow citizens in the name of the same religion. Essentially.

I did a story in two thousand and two for The New York Times. I interviewed a group of guys who wanted to be suicide bombers, and I interviewed three, and two of them disappeared. I don't know what happened, yes, but we can guess. And this was in Jordan in two thousand and two. It was clear there was probably going to be a war with Iraq. So there was a handful of options and they were very aware of them. There was Israel, which was their first choice, but the hardest to access. There was Iraq coming up. They were excited about that. The easiest, they said, was Chechhnia, which at the time you just raised your hand and they were in. At least that's what these kids told me. You could be in Chech fairly quickly. They knew how to get you in there. Kashmir, I was surprised to hear was also a favorite spot they actually I witnessed an interesting argument between them where two of them said they might just stay in Jordan and kill Americans in Jordan, and the other one saying, no, you can't in Jordan because the Quran says, and I don't know the Korah, I don't know if this is true, but says something like you can kill an invading army, but not an invited army. And since the King of Jordan had invited the Americans, you couldn't kill them in Jordan. But the second they cross into Iraq, it was fair game, and that by this logic also anyone in Israel, it's fair game because they see that the entire Israel as an invasion. But one of these guys, who was by far the smartest, and I will let you know, I'm still friends with him, he actually gave up that way, and he lives in Texas. Now he's a lovely guy, honestly, no joke, Drew, I should introduce you sometime. But he's still a devout Muslim, but not he rejects violence. Now that's good, Yes, that's good. But he was explicit. He just walked me through. He's like, I am a poor Palestinian kid from a bad family in Jordan. Like not a bad family, just a poor, unconnected family. I'm a really good computer programmer, but I can't get ahead because everywhere I go to get a job, like the nephew of the owner who's an idiot, gets promoted above me. And I want to be proud, and if I could get a job at Microsoft, I'd much prefer that to being a suicide bomber. But I don't know any other way to be proud. And he was explicit. He said, if I get a good programming job. I'm not going to do it. If I don't, I will. He did, by the way, get a good programming job, and that's what he does in Texas. I spent time in Haiti where I mean, obviously, Haiti's a religious country, but it's not a religious lent. The violence isn't religiously tinged. And John and Jerry, you both have spent time in countries where there is no gredible promise of an improved life over time, and when you feel a fairly high likelihood that the existing system, the existing real world, the existing economic order, political order, is just going to continue to suck. You start to understand how the vast majority of people in those conditions don't become suicie pommers or terrorists and don't turn to violence. But you can understand how religious faith that it transports you out of those conditions, that allows you to imagine other planes or other worlds where there's an alternate, happier life, either happening now or could happen in the future. It just feels obvious.

I did a story in two thousand and two for The New York Times. I interviewed a group of guys who wanted to be suicide bombers, and I interviewed three, and two of them disappeared. I don't know what happened, yes, but we can guess. And this was in Jordan in two thousand and two. It was clear there was probably going to be a war with Iraq. So there was a handful of options and they were very aware of them. There was Israel, which was their first choice, but the hardest to access. There was Iraq coming up. They were excited about that. The easiest, they said, was Chechhnia, which at the time you just raised your hand and they were in. At least that's what these kids told me. You could be in Chech fairly quickly. They knew how to get you in there. Kashmir, I was surprised to hear was also a favorite spot they actually I witnessed an interesting argument between them where two of them said they might just stay in Jordan and kill Americans in Jordan, and the other one saying, no, you can't in Jordan because the Quran says, and I don't know the Korah, I don't know if this is true, but says something like you can kill an invading army, but not an invited army. And since the King of Jordan had invited the Americans, you couldn't kill them in Jordan. But the second they cross into Iraq, it was fair game, and that by this logic also anyone in Israel, it's fair game because they see that the entire Israel as an invasion. But one of these guys, who was by far the smartest, and I will let you know, I'm still friends with him, he actually gave up that way, and he lives in Texas. Now he's a lovely guy, honestly, no joke, Drew, I should introduce you sometime. But he's still a devout Muslim, but not he rejects violence. Now that's good, Yes, that's good. But he was explicit. He just walked me through. He's like, I am a poor Palestinian kid from a bad family in Jordan. Like not a bad family, just a poor, unconnected family. I'm a really good computer programmer, but I can't get ahead because everywhere I go to get a job, like the nephew of the owner who's an idiot, gets promoted above me. And I want to be proud, and if I could get a job at Microsoft, I'd much prefer that to being a suicide bomber. But I don't know any other way to be proud. And he was explicit. He said, if I get a good programming job. I'm not going to do it. If I don't, I will. He did, by the way, get a good programming job, and that's what he does in Texas. I spent time in Haiti where I mean, obviously, Haiti's a religious country, but it's not a religious lent. The violence isn't religiously tinged. And John and Jerry, you both have spent time in countries where there is no gredible promise of an improved life over time, and when you feel a fairly high likelihood that the existing system, the existing real world, the existing economic order, political order, is just going to continue to suck. You start to understand how the vast majority of people in those conditions don't become suicie pommers or terrorists and don't turn to violence. But you can understand how religious faith that it transports you out of those conditions, that allows you to imagine other planes or other worlds where there's an alternate, happier life, either happening now or could happen in the future. It just feels obvious.

Let's take a break, we'll be right back.

Let's take a break, we'll be right back.

All right, back to mission implausible.

All right, back to mission implausible.

I really want to jump in and say that, So there's the doc Trinle, Right, so there's everybody's got everybody. All cultures have a religion, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Sikhism. What happens, though, is there's a narrative that goes with it can be interpreted, and I'd call it a conspiracy theory. Right. So within Islam there are people who are interpreting certain ways for their own political power achieve a sense of aggrievement. John's an expert on Yugoslavia, but they all got along fairly well during the Yugoslav days. And yet when these conspiracy theories, these narratives of Serb supremacy or of proat supremacy or whatever it is, they get involved and it becomes violent, and there's there's radical polarization. And I'm concerned because I'm starting to see that we're beginning to see that in the US much more than we've ever had the sort of the politics of agreement, the narratives of a larger conspiratorial view of life. How you look at things.

I really want to jump in and say that, So there's the doc Trinle, Right, so there's everybody's got everybody. All cultures have a religion, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Sikhism. What happens, though, is there's a narrative that goes with it can be interpreted, and I'd call it a conspiracy theory. Right. So within Islam there are people who are interpreting certain ways for their own political power achieve a sense of aggrievement. John's an expert on Yugoslavia, but they all got along fairly well during the Yugoslav days. And yet when these conspiracy theories, these narratives of Serb supremacy or of proat supremacy or whatever it is, they get involved and it becomes violent, and there's there's radical polarization. And I'm concerned because I'm starting to see that we're beginning to see that in the US much more than we've ever had the sort of the politics of agreement, the narratives of a larger conspiratorial view of life. How you look at things.

Du how would a real believer answer a question that I often wonder, like why aren't Christian values enough? Why isn't it okay just to lead a good, clean Christian life, love, they neighbor, etc. Without having to believe in personal God or God at all.

Du how would a real believer answer a question that I often wonder, like why aren't Christian values enough? Why isn't it okay just to lead a good, clean Christian life, love, they neighbor, etc. Without having to believe in personal God or God at all.

First of all, the idea within evangelical Christianity is that the ultimate basis for morality, the reason why human beings have any sort of sense of morality whatsoever, is because it was programmed into the human mind by God or the human heart, actually, I should say by God. So the only reason John, you are able to live a good, clean life, as you say, is because you are borrowing from God's plan, from God's design. If we want to achieve a simulacra of or closeness to moral perfection, we can't just trust our own moral nature. That is necessary. We need to use our moral nature that God gave us. But we also need to inform that moral nature every day constantly by communing with God himself, and that can be achieved through both prayer and specifically for evangelical Christians, reading God's perfect, divinely inspired word in the Bible as it is canonized for Protestants. At least, sure, most Evangelicals actually wouldn't dispute that it's hypothetically possible to be a quote good person in life as a non evangelical or non Christian, but you're not going to be approximating moral perfection. And maybe most importantly here, you're absolutely not going to go to heaven. It doesn't matter if you are essentially sinless. If you send one time, you're going to go to Hell forever and burn for all of eternity. There's reasons to want to get close to God, both in life and for the sake of your afterlife.

First of all, the idea within evangelical Christianity is that the ultimate basis for morality, the reason why human beings have any sort of sense of morality whatsoever, is because it was programmed into the human mind by God or the human heart, actually, I should say by God. So the only reason John, you are able to live a good, clean life, as you say, is because you are borrowing from God's plan, from God's design. If we want to achieve a simulacra of or closeness to moral perfection, we can't just trust our own moral nature. That is necessary. We need to use our moral nature that God gave us. But we also need to inform that moral nature every day constantly by communing with God himself, and that can be achieved through both prayer and specifically for evangelical Christians, reading God's perfect, divinely inspired word in the Bible as it is canonized for Protestants. At least, sure, most Evangelicals actually wouldn't dispute that it's hypothetically possible to be a quote good person in life as a non evangelical or non Christian, but you're not going to be approximating moral perfection. And maybe most importantly here, you're absolutely not going to go to heaven. It doesn't matter if you are essentially sinless. If you send one time, you're going to go to Hell forever and burn for all of eternity. There's reasons to want to get close to God, both in life and for the sake of your afterlife.

It seems you're screwed, John.

It seems you're screwed, John.

I have a video.

I have a video.

About how to go to Hell in every religion where I get scholars to explain to me how you can go to hell in the world's five major religions as well as five life larger but minority religions. So if you guys are interested in fleeing from moral perfection and securing an afterlife of torment and terror, then you can definitely like and subscribe.

About how to go to Hell in every religion where I get scholars to explain to me how you can go to hell in the world's five major religions as well as five life larger but minority religions. So if you guys are interested in fleeing from moral perfection and securing an afterlife of torment and terror, then you can definitely like and subscribe.

Don't go to Shintoism. That's a tough one for hell is one thing I learned from your video. So, Drew, I want to just switch to your Like, you grew up in a would you say fundamentalists Christian home?

Don't go to Shintoism. That's a tough one for hell is one thing I learned from your video. So, Drew, I want to just switch to your Like, you grew up in a would you say fundamentalists Christian home?

Yes?

Yes?

Yeah. Talk a bit about the world you grew up in and how conspiracy theories, like were they around, how they played a role in your childhood.

Yeah. Talk a bit about the world you grew up in and how conspiracy theories, like were they around, how they played a role in your childhood.

So I grew up in the independent Fundamental Baptist Church. So you guys heard of the Scopes monkey trial. We were rooting for the prosecution. We believed that God created the world in six literal days, and on the seventh day he rested. That's why we have the Sabbath. We believed that the Grand Canyon and all other giant geological features that obviously took a lot of time to make, we're all created by the world wide flood that happened about four thousand years ago or so. When we read about the Tower of Babel and about how God confused people to slow their efforts to approximate His godhood, that's actually a story about where languages came from. The reason why Sanskrit came into existence, the reason why Indo European languages came into existence, the reason why Chinese eventually came into existence, was all because God essentially created these languages when he scattered people at the Tower of Babel. We explained everything through a very hyper literalist Christian framework, where every story in the Bible, even if it's a parable, actually literally happened, it's actual history. And when you grow up in that way, your community develops ways to basically circle the wagons. It develops infrastructure to reinforce the idea that all of this stuff is real science, real history, in order to defend its ideology, and it's very identity. So I grew up in private Christian schools and homeschool co ops where we essentially consumed religious propaganda as if it was scientific content. And this was driven not by just an idea that creation science is real science, but also by the fact that if we are not teaching creation as science to children, then our entire identitarian project of dominating the world will never reach fruition. So the pseudoscience is really driven by identitarian ideas within these communities. And what is that other than a conspiracy theory. We essentially thrived on an infrastructure that was meant to protect identity through the propagation of conspiracy theories. So it's really no wonder that someone who was raised as I would would go on to believe in anti vax ideas and planandemic ideas and all sorts of things into having conspiratorial notions about the deep state, believing in cabals of Satanic pedophiles, draining children of a drenochrone. And when you're primed psychologically to accept conspiracy theories in order to defend your identity, then it's pretty easy to hear something on four Chan from q and adopt that and not really think that you're doing anything out of the ordinary.

So I grew up in the independent Fundamental Baptist Church. So you guys heard of the Scopes monkey trial. We were rooting for the prosecution. We believed that God created the world in six literal days, and on the seventh day he rested. That's why we have the Sabbath. We believed that the Grand Canyon and all other giant geological features that obviously took a lot of time to make, we're all created by the world wide flood that happened about four thousand years ago or so. When we read about the Tower of Babel and about how God confused people to slow their efforts to approximate His godhood, that's actually a story about where languages came from. The reason why Sanskrit came into existence, the reason why Indo European languages came into existence, the reason why Chinese eventually came into existence, was all because God essentially created these languages when he scattered people at the Tower of Babel. We explained everything through a very hyper literalist Christian framework, where every story in the Bible, even if it's a parable, actually literally happened, it's actual history. And when you grow up in that way, your community develops ways to basically circle the wagons. It develops infrastructure to reinforce the idea that all of this stuff is real science, real history, in order to defend its ideology, and it's very identity. So I grew up in private Christian schools and homeschool co ops where we essentially consumed religious propaganda as if it was scientific content. And this was driven not by just an idea that creation science is real science, but also by the fact that if we are not teaching creation as science to children, then our entire identitarian project of dominating the world will never reach fruition. So the pseudoscience is really driven by identitarian ideas within these communities. And what is that other than a conspiracy theory. We essentially thrived on an infrastructure that was meant to protect identity through the propagation of conspiracy theories. So it's really no wonder that someone who was raised as I would would go on to believe in anti vax ideas and planandemic ideas and all sorts of things into having conspiratorial notions about the deep state, believing in cabals of Satanic pedophiles, draining children of a drenochrone. And when you're primed psychologically to accept conspiracy theories in order to defend your identity, then it's pretty easy to hear something on four Chan from q and adopt that and not really think that you're doing anything out of the ordinary.

You're already like best case scenario if you see the world that way. I mean, belief in creationism, rejection of evolution. It's a hard thing to poll, and the surveys are all over the place, but it's forty percent. I mean, it's a lot of Americans we believe in some version of creationism. Some of them are have some kind of hybrid synthesis. God started the process, but Darwinism took over. But if you believe that the government, all teachers, all universities, all science, all textbooks, all TV shows, all documenties are lying already just as a base, like how much harder is it to then believe? And they're also lying about chemtruch. But then on top of it, and I've spent some time with devout fundamentalists, at least for some the presence of demons, of forces of Satan is a sounds like a very active, real part of their day to day experience. If they slip on the ice and break their ankle, that's Satan's work. If their cousin dies from a drug overdose, that's because there was a demon. If Joe Biden wins the President c in twenty twenty, that satanic. The very narrative of the universe is a very clean, simple story of entirely good fighting entirely evil, and for various complex reasons, much of day to day life is dominated by entirely evil, right am, I over.

You're already like best case scenario if you see the world that way. I mean, belief in creationism, rejection of evolution. It's a hard thing to poll, and the surveys are all over the place, but it's forty percent. I mean, it's a lot of Americans we believe in some version of creationism. Some of them are have some kind of hybrid synthesis. God started the process, but Darwinism took over. But if you believe that the government, all teachers, all universities, all science, all textbooks, all TV shows, all documenties are lying already just as a base, like how much harder is it to then believe? And they're also lying about chemtruch. But then on top of it, and I've spent some time with devout fundamentalists, at least for some the presence of demons, of forces of Satan is a sounds like a very active, real part of their day to day experience. If they slip on the ice and break their ankle, that's Satan's work. If their cousin dies from a drug overdose, that's because there was a demon. If Joe Biden wins the President c in twenty twenty, that satanic. The very narrative of the universe is a very clean, simple story of entirely good fighting entirely evil, and for various complex reasons, much of day to day life is dominated by entirely evil, right am, I over.

Oh, absolutely absolutely. The community that I grew up in was very strongly dualistic. I was in a form of Christianity that was against alcohol, and the roots of our denomination is actually found in the movement of pro prohibition teetotalers.

Oh, absolutely absolutely. The community that I grew up in was very strongly dualistic. I was in a form of Christianity that was against alcohol, and the roots of our denomination is actually found in the movement of pro prohibition teetotalers.

I'm sorry to interrupt. That always struck me as weird, because Jesus did turn water into wine, which seems like something of an endorsement.

I'm sorry to interrupt. That always struck me as weird, because Jesus did turn water into wine, which seems like something of an endorsement.

Well, Adam, you know what, does it say that he got drunk? No, it does not, And do we know that he wasn't drinking something that was a non alcoholic grape beverage like Welsh's grape juice. This is a real argument. By the way, we don't know that he actually had alcohol within that and if he did, it was only to basically cleanse the juice that he was drinking to hydrate himself of harmful microbes. It had nothing to do with getting drunk. Christians don't get drunk, and they never have.

Well, Adam, you know what, does it say that he got drunk? No, it does not, And do we know that he wasn't drinking something that was a non alcoholic grape beverage like Welsh's grape juice. This is a real argument. By the way, we don't know that he actually had alcohol within that and if he did, it was only to basically cleanse the juice that he was drinking to hydrate himself of harmful microbes. It had nothing to do with getting drunk. Christians don't get drunk, and they never have.

I've seen a few is they're not true Christians. John, Yeah, but I cut you off. You were saying you grew up in this world and was Satan and demons part of the world you grew up in.

I've seen a few is they're not true Christians. John, Yeah, but I cut you off. You were saying you grew up in this world and was Satan and demons part of the world you grew up in.

Yeah, The reason why we were so against alcohol was not because it was unhealthy or increased vices through some psychological process. It was actually because it's a tool of Satan to destroy God's kingdom. So I remember the first time as an atheist going into a bar, being confronted by the fact that I had been primed to be afraid of this kind of place, and I found myself almost you know the feeling when you watch a really scary horror movie and then you walk around at night at your house and you look over your shoulder and look down the dark hallway and you're paranoid that the Baba Duke is going to come and get you, even though you know it's not going to. I would experience that in a bar, thinking when this bottle moves across the bar, there might be a spirit in the spirit right, there might be a demon in the bottle. Quite literally, it's a tool of the devil. And so there's demons just infused in the these cocktails. Really wow. And yes, you are looking over your shoulder constantly. You're looking for the veil to be lifted, as they would say, constantly they're trying to see behind the veil, the separation between the natural and the supernatural, the spiritual and the natural.

Yeah, The reason why we were so against alcohol was not because it was unhealthy or increased vices through some psychological process. It was actually because it's a tool of Satan to destroy God's kingdom. So I remember the first time as an atheist going into a bar, being confronted by the fact that I had been primed to be afraid of this kind of place, and I found myself almost you know the feeling when you watch a really scary horror movie and then you walk around at night at your house and you look over your shoulder and look down the dark hallway and you're paranoid that the Baba Duke is going to come and get you, even though you know it's not going to. I would experience that in a bar, thinking when this bottle moves across the bar, there might be a spirit in the spirit right, there might be a demon in the bottle. Quite literally, it's a tool of the devil. And so there's demons just infused in the these cocktails. Really wow. And yes, you are looking over your shoulder constantly. You're looking for the veil to be lifted, as they would say, constantly they're trying to see behind the veil, the separation between the natural and the supernatural, the spiritual and the natural.

There's a demon in everclear. I'll tell you that from Kylege.

There's a demon in everclear. I'll tell you that from Kylege.

We're gonna stop here for now and come back next week with part two of our conversation with Drew McCoy. Mission Implausible is produced by Adam Davidson, Jerry O'shay, John Cipher, and Jonathan Stern. The associate producer is Rachel Harner. Mission Implausible It's a production of honorable mention and abominable pictures for iHeart Podcasts.

We're gonna stop here for now and come back next week with part two of our conversation with Drew McCoy. Mission Implausible is produced by Adam Davidson, Jerry O'shay, John Cipher, and Jonathan Stern. The associate producer is Rachel Harner. Mission Implausible It's a production of honorable mention and abominable pictures for iHeart Podcasts.