#1068 - Michael Shermer

Joe Rogan (0:03)

Four, three, two, one. Ladies and gentlemen, Michael Shermer and Heavens on Earth.

Michael Shermer (0:10)

Yeah.

Joe Rogan (0:10)

The scientific search for the afterlife, immortality, and utopia. Did you find anything?

Michael Shermer (0:16)

No.

Sorry. Nothing? Well, I found interesting journeys that people use to try to get there from both the religious perspective and the scientific perspective.

So I do deal with the monotheism's versions of the afterlife in heaven, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. But the core of the book is the radical life extensionists, the cryonists, the transhumanists, the extropians, the mind uploaders, the people that take all the supplements and all the whole range there. I find that incredibly interesting. They call it afterlife for atheists.

Joe Rogan (0:49)

It is, right?

Michael Shermer (0:50)

Yeah.

Joe Rogan (0:50)

I mean, when you think about some of the people that are really like over the top, did you go to that 2045 thing in New York a few years back? There was a futurist convention with all these people that, for whatever reason, they have this arbitrary date of 2045

Michael Shermer (1:04)

Yes. It's beginning to push back. This is when the singularity is going to come. Was 2030, then 2040, now 2045

Joe Rogan (1:13)

Yeah, Kurzweil is a big... He's like the grand poobah.

Michael Shermer (1:18)

He is.

And when he gets on stage, now he's not preternaturally dynamic like a preacher, but he starts talking about, you know, we're going to live forever, you're going to have your mind uploaded. And people are just like, oh my God, we are the generation that's going to do it. This is the first time. In the moment, you know, I used to be religious in my youth, and I thought, man, this is like being back in church again.

Joe Rogan (1:40)

When did you stop being religious?

Michael Shermer (1:43)

I started in high school and stopped in graduate school. So it was about seven years.

Joe Rogan (1:46)

And you started being religious in high school. So it wasn't something your family introduced you to?

Michael Shermer (1:51)

My parents were pretty secular.

They weren't anti-religious. That wasn't a thing then.

But this is 1971 when I was in high school and the sort of nascent born-again movement was starting. And there was no religious affiliation. It was just like, it's me and Jesus. That's it. It's just you and the Lord.

Joe Rogan (2:09)

There's a lot of these very charismatic, hip, young preachers that are doing sort of a thing like that, where they don't even have their own church to rent time in the church. And they have these meetings where it's just non-denominational, they just talk about God and they get a lot of people fired up.

Michael Shermer (2:29)

Yep. And the place I went to, this place called The Barn in Lacrosse, where I grew up, and they played guitar and did all the same. Did it turn into a sex cult?

That is one of the problems with utopia, the 19th century utopian experiments, they always turned into this free sex for the leader.

Joe Rogan (2:53)

Well, it always seems like whenever there's a man that's in a position where people start worshipping him, and then they start hanging on his every word, he's like, I've got to start fucking some of these people.

Michael Shermer (3:05)

Well, I covered Jim Jones, and the way I phrase it is that no one joins a cult. They join a group that they think is going to do good, save the world, can help me improve my life, improve the lives of others.

And there's pictures online, you can see of Jim Jones with Jerry Brown, Governor Jerry Brown, in his first round. They were man in the soup kitchens, he was very liberal, open to African Americans being part of the church in San Francisco there, gays, women.

It was a really cutting edge, pioneering thing. And at the time, it seemed like, yeah, that's a cool thing. I'm going to join this group, not me, but the people that did this in the 50s and 60s when he was coming up and then into the 70s. And then, yeah, he started having sex and then drugs and then the feds started kind of poking around and taxes and that's when they went to South America.

Joe Rogan (3:51)

Speaking of which, I think this week is the Spike special, it's now the Paramount Network on Waco.

Michael Shermer (3:56)

Yeah, Waco, yes.

Joe Rogan (3:57)

Isn't that going on right now?

Michael Shermer (3:59)

I think it started Sunday, yeah.

Joe Rogan (4:02)

I think it's a six-part series or something along those lines.