WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.820 I want you to try a thought experiment with me. 00:00:01.940 --> 00:00:05.059 Just for a second. Close your eyes. Imagine you're 00:00:05.059 --> 00:00:08.919 not. Well, you. You don't have a name. You don't 00:00:08.919 --> 00:00:11.599 have a job to get to. You're an animal. Okay, 00:00:11.720 --> 00:00:13.820 I'm with you. Where are we going with this? Let's 00:00:13.820 --> 00:00:17.699 say a hawk riding a thermal current over a huge 00:00:17.699 --> 00:00:21.670 canyon. Or maybe a wolf. moving through a snow 00:00:21.670 --> 00:00:23.929 -covered forest. The classic way to start thinking 00:00:23.929 --> 00:00:26.269 about phenomenology, right? Trying to imagine 00:00:26.269 --> 00:00:29.730 the welt, the self -world of another creature. 00:00:29.829 --> 00:00:32.429 Exactly. Now, how do you see the world? The poet 00:00:32.429 --> 00:00:35.270 Rainer Maria Rilke had this... really specific, 00:00:35.429 --> 00:00:38.310 beautiful answer. He said that animals see the 00:00:38.310 --> 00:00:40.329 world with whole eyes. He called it the open. 00:00:40.409 --> 00:00:42.990 The open. Yeah. So when that hawk looks down, 00:00:43.130 --> 00:00:45.789 it doesn't see landscape or property lines or, 00:00:45.829 --> 00:00:47.909 you know, potential prey resources. It just sees 00:00:47.909 --> 00:00:50.509 what is. There's no separation, no filter between 00:00:50.509 --> 00:00:52.329 the observer and the observed. A hawk and the 00:00:52.329 --> 00:00:54.549 wind are like part of the same single event. 00:00:54.850 --> 00:00:56.890 Precisely. It sounds peaceful, doesn't it? But 00:00:56.890 --> 00:00:58.770 then Rilke just pivots. He turns the camera on 00:00:58.770 --> 00:01:01.659 us. Humans. And he says our situation is actually 00:01:01.659 --> 00:01:05.700 tragic by comparison. Oh, so he says our eyes 00:01:05.700 --> 00:01:09.000 are turned back upon themselves. We don't just 00:01:09.000 --> 00:01:11.719 see the world. We analyze it. We categorize it. 00:01:11.739 --> 00:01:14.299 We encircle it with concepts. And here's the 00:01:14.299 --> 00:01:17.879 line that just floored me. Rilke says we seek 00:01:17.879 --> 00:01:20.900 to snare the world, setting traps for freedom, 00:01:20.959 --> 00:01:25.700 setting traps for freedom. Wow. That is a. Devastating 00:01:25.700 --> 00:01:28.120 line. It really is. And it stuck with me reading 00:01:28.120 --> 00:01:30.040 the material for today's deep dive because it 00:01:30.040 --> 00:01:32.439 feels like that's exactly what we do, especially 00:01:32.439 --> 00:01:34.959 when we try to understand other people. We build 00:01:34.959 --> 00:01:38.060 these these intellectual cages. Right. We trap 00:01:38.060 --> 00:01:40.120 them. We trap them in our categories, secular, 00:01:40.299 --> 00:01:43.180 religious, modern, traditional. And we pat ourselves 00:01:43.180 --> 00:01:45.359 on the back thinking we understand them. But 00:01:45.359 --> 00:01:47.120 we just caught a shadow. We aren't seeing them 00:01:47.120 --> 00:01:49.799 with whole eyes. And that sets the stage perfectly 00:01:49.799 --> 00:01:51.859 for what we're getting into today, because we 00:01:51.859 --> 00:01:54.739 are in a way. questioning the very tools we use 00:01:54.739 --> 00:01:57.400 to understand the other. I mean, we live in this 00:01:57.400 --> 00:01:59.920 information age. We have more data about other 00:01:59.920 --> 00:02:02.000 cultures, other religions, other belief systems 00:02:02.000 --> 00:02:04.700 than any generation in human history. You can 00:02:04.700 --> 00:02:06.819 pull up Wikipedia right now and get a five -minute 00:02:06.819 --> 00:02:11.219 summary of Shinto rituals or Sufi poetry. Instantly. 00:02:11.319 --> 00:02:14.099 But the question is, are we actually understanding 00:02:14.099 --> 00:02:18.009 the people behind that data? Or are we just trapping 00:02:18.009 --> 00:02:20.389 them in our own neat little framework of reason? 00:02:20.550 --> 00:02:23.370 Are we building a secular cage? That is the big 00:02:23.370 --> 00:02:26.569 question. We are diving into a really fascinating, 00:02:27.030 --> 00:02:29.389 definitely controversial, and I'll say it, a 00:02:29.389 --> 00:02:31.889 pretty difficult paper. It's titled, What If 00:02:31.889 --> 00:02:34.930 Anthropology Were a Spiritual Exercise? by the 00:02:34.930 --> 00:02:37.270 anthropologist Khaled Farhani. It was published 00:02:37.270 --> 00:02:39.610 in Current Anthropology in 2026. And we should 00:02:39.610 --> 00:02:41.870 say, we're not just looking at the paper itself, 00:02:41.969 --> 00:02:44.949 but at the explosion of debate it caused. I mean, 00:02:44.969 --> 00:02:47.840 scholars from... Tel Aviv to Columbia to Cambridge 00:02:47.840 --> 00:02:50.360 all jumped in on this. And just to clarify for 00:02:50.360 --> 00:02:52.500 everyone listening, while this paper is technically 00:02:52.500 --> 00:02:54.979 about anthropology, the academic study of humans, 00:02:55.159 --> 00:02:57.240 it's really about something much, much broader. 00:02:57.439 --> 00:03:00.280 Oh, absolutely. It's about how any of us encounter 00:03:00.280 --> 00:03:02.659 people of faith in what we call a secular world. 00:03:02.879 --> 00:03:05.560 It's about that huge divide between the religious 00:03:05.560 --> 00:03:08.060 and the secular and asking if we can ever really 00:03:08.060 --> 00:03:10.500 cross it. Specifically, we're going to dig into 00:03:10.500 --> 00:03:13.599 a new framework Ferrani proposes called the Antheistic. 00:03:13.939 --> 00:03:15.620 Don't worry, we will definitely explain what 00:03:15.620 --> 00:03:17.819 that means. But the mission here is to see how 00:03:17.819 --> 00:03:20.340 this changes the game for interfaith understanding. 00:03:20.780 --> 00:03:22.900 Because, let's be honest, a lot of what passes 00:03:22.900 --> 00:03:27.259 for interfaith dialogue can feel a bit, well, 00:03:27.479 --> 00:03:31.620 superficial. Superficial is a good word. Or... 00:03:32.300 --> 00:03:34.699 Cosmetic. Cosmetic is a polite way to put it. 00:03:34.740 --> 00:03:36.800 Yeah. It often stays right there on the surface 00:03:36.800 --> 00:03:39.419 of information exchange. I believe X, you believe 00:03:39.419 --> 00:03:41.340 Y. Isn't that nice? Let's agree to be civil. 00:03:41.539 --> 00:03:44.520 Have some coffee and cookies. Exactly. Farhani 00:03:44.520 --> 00:03:46.860 is pushing for something far more radical. He's 00:03:46.860 --> 00:03:50.000 asking, how do we move from just swapping facts 00:03:50.000 --> 00:03:53.659 to genuine spiritual formation? How do we stop 00:03:53.659 --> 00:03:55.740 analyzing people and actually start letting them 00:03:55.740 --> 00:03:58.240 change who we are? So to get there, we first 00:03:58.240 --> 00:04:00.300 have to understand the trap, the cage Rilke was 00:04:00.300 --> 00:04:02.639 talking about. Ferroni starts his argument by 00:04:02.639 --> 00:04:05.060 diagnosing what he sees as a deep sickness in 00:04:05.060 --> 00:04:06.939 modern thinking, especially in the university. 00:04:07.479 --> 00:04:10.439 He says we are trapped in sovereign secular reason. 00:04:10.699 --> 00:04:12.699 Okay, that's a mouthful. Let's break that down. 00:04:12.800 --> 00:04:14.800 Yeah, let's unpack that because it sounds like 00:04:14.800 --> 00:04:17.980 a heavy philosophy lecture. What is sovereign 00:04:17.980 --> 00:04:21.600 secular reason? The key word is sovereign. Think 00:04:21.600 --> 00:04:24.220 of a king. A sovereign is supreme, absolute, 00:04:24.540 --> 00:04:27.149 answering to no one. Okay, got it. Sovereign 00:04:27.149 --> 00:04:30.310 secular reason is the belief that the human intellect 00:04:30.310 --> 00:04:32.930 is the king. It's completely self -sufficient. 00:04:33.370 --> 00:04:36.029 It operates, as the philosopher Immanuel Kant 00:04:36.029 --> 00:04:39.290 might say, without the guidance of another. Meaning 00:04:39.290 --> 00:04:42.360 it only relies on itself. On logic, observation, 00:04:42.720 --> 00:04:44.500 that kind of thing. Exactly. It doesn't need 00:04:44.500 --> 00:04:47.220 a God. It doesn't need a spirit, a muse, or a 00:04:47.220 --> 00:04:49.620 revelation to help it understand the world. It 00:04:49.620 --> 00:04:52.120 believes it has all the tools it needs right 00:04:52.120 --> 00:04:55.459 inside its own toolbox. So it's the idea that 00:04:55.459 --> 00:04:57.540 I can figure everything out just using my brain. 00:04:57.639 --> 00:05:00.139 I don't need any outside, you know, divine help. 00:05:00.300 --> 00:05:02.689 Specifically, you don't need revelation. You 00:05:02.689 --> 00:05:05.009 don't need divine speech. In this framework, 00:05:05.230 --> 00:05:07.990 when reason looks at religion like, when a sociologist 00:05:07.990 --> 00:05:10.709 studies a church service reason, treats God or 00:05:10.709 --> 00:05:13.649 prophecy as objects to be studied. Like a rock 00:05:13.649 --> 00:05:16.649 or an insect. Precisely. They're cultural artifacts. 00:05:17.050 --> 00:05:19.870 We can analyze why you believe in God. We can 00:05:19.870 --> 00:05:21.889 analyze the social function of prayer in your 00:05:21.889 --> 00:05:24.350 community. But we never for a moment entertain 00:05:24.350 --> 00:05:27.149 the possibility that God might actually be real. 00:05:27.370 --> 00:05:29.879 Or that the prayer is actually... You know, talking 00:05:29.879 --> 00:05:32.100 to someone. Right. It's like studying a group 00:05:32.100 --> 00:05:34.879 of people who believe in Santa Claus. You could 00:05:34.879 --> 00:05:37.139 write a very serious academic paper about the 00:05:37.139 --> 00:05:40.019 economic impact of Santa Claus rituals, but you 00:05:40.019 --> 00:05:41.939 never for a second think Santa's actually going 00:05:41.939 --> 00:05:44.279 to come down your chimney. Exactly. You maintain 00:05:44.279 --> 00:05:47.759 what's called methodological atheism. And Ferrani's 00:05:47.759 --> 00:05:50.319 whole point is that this creates a secular cage. 00:05:50.800 --> 00:05:54.000 It's a form of myopia, a blindness. We can analyze 00:05:54.000 --> 00:05:56.639 people. We can write these brilliant ethnographies 00:05:56.639 --> 00:05:59.579 about them, but we cannot truly meet them. Because 00:05:59.579 --> 00:06:01.800 we've already ruled out the most important part 00:06:01.800 --> 00:06:03.699 of their reality. We're cut off from the divine 00:06:03.699 --> 00:06:06.600 possibilities that their lives represent. We're 00:06:06.600 --> 00:06:09.100 setting Rilke's traps for the world, but we aren't 00:06:09.100 --> 00:06:12.000 experiencing it. We are safe, but we are blind. 00:06:12.259 --> 00:06:14.920 But hold on. Isn't that just science? I mean, 00:06:14.939 --> 00:06:17.199 for science to work, doesn't it have to be objective? 00:06:17.699 --> 00:06:19.800 If I'm studying a chemical reaction, I'm not 00:06:19.800 --> 00:06:21.779 going to ask if the chemicals are having a spiritual 00:06:21.779 --> 00:06:24.420 experience. Why is it a cage instead of just 00:06:24.420 --> 00:06:27.879 a good, solid method? And that is the billion 00:06:27.879 --> 00:06:30.860 -dollar question. For chemicals, sure, no one's 00:06:30.860 --> 00:06:34.040 arguing that. But Furani, and a whole line of 00:06:34.040 --> 00:06:37.199 thinkers he draws upon, would say that when you 00:06:37.199 --> 00:06:40.800 apply that exact same method to people, Especially 00:06:40.800 --> 00:06:43.980 people for whom God is the primary organizing 00:06:43.980 --> 00:06:46.300 reality of their lives. You are fundamentally 00:06:46.300 --> 00:06:48.579 missing the point. You're describing the container 00:06:48.579 --> 00:06:51.300 but ignoring the contents. You're describing 00:06:51.300 --> 00:06:53.319 the shell and ignoring the ghost in the machine. 00:06:53.920 --> 00:06:56.259 By ruling out the divine from the get -go, you're 00:06:56.259 --> 00:06:58.519 ruling out the very thing that makes their world 00:06:58.519 --> 00:07:01.639 make sense. So you aren't being objective. You're 00:07:01.639 --> 00:07:04.480 actually being deaf to a specific and crucial 00:07:04.480 --> 00:07:07.180 frequency. Okay, so if the problem is this secular 00:07:07.180 --> 00:07:08.959 cage where everything gets interpreted through 00:07:08.959 --> 00:07:12.060 this one godless lens, what's the solution? Ferani 00:07:12.060 --> 00:07:14.399 proposes something he calls a spiritual exercise. 00:07:14.879 --> 00:07:17.680 Now, when I hear that phrase, I immediately think 00:07:17.680 --> 00:07:21.560 of yoga or maybe a silent Jesuit retreat. What 00:07:21.560 --> 00:07:24.470 does he mean in this academic context? He's borrowing 00:07:24.470 --> 00:07:27.069 this term from a French philosopher named Pierre 00:07:27.069 --> 00:07:30.009 Hadot. Hadot was a giant in the study of ancient 00:07:30.009 --> 00:07:32.670 philosophy. He looked back at the Greeks, the 00:07:32.670 --> 00:07:35.589 Stoics, the Epicureans, the Platonists, and he 00:07:35.589 --> 00:07:38.629 had this huge realization. Which was? That for 00:07:38.629 --> 00:07:40.750 them, philosophy wasn't just sitting in a classroom 00:07:40.750 --> 00:07:43.269 debating logic puzzles. It wasn't about getting 00:07:43.269 --> 00:07:45.810 tenure or publishing papers. It was a way of 00:07:45.810 --> 00:07:47.889 life. It was practical. It was something you 00:07:47.889 --> 00:07:51.670 did. It was transformative. A spiritual exercise 00:07:51.670 --> 00:07:54.589 in this sense means a metamorphosis of the self. 00:07:55.089 --> 00:07:57.370 It's not just thinking hard about a topic from 00:07:57.370 --> 00:07:59.769 a distance. It's about training yourself to, 00:07:59.829 --> 00:08:02.870 and this is a direct quote, die to your individuality 00:08:02.870 --> 00:08:05.490 and plunge into the totality of life. Plunging 00:08:05.490 --> 00:08:07.490 into the totality of life. That sounds a lot 00:08:07.490 --> 00:08:09.290 more exciting than writing a dissertation. It 00:08:09.290 --> 00:08:11.689 is. The goal isn't to accumulate knowledge like 00:08:11.689 --> 00:08:14.250 you're collecting trophies for a shelf. The goal 00:08:14.250 --> 00:08:16.490 is to liberate yourself from your own small ego 00:08:16.490 --> 00:08:19.290 and access what he calls the mystery of the presence 00:08:19.290 --> 00:08:21.370 of the universe. So it's a fundamental shift. 00:08:21.569 --> 00:08:24.209 It's a huge shift from an intellect that tries 00:08:24.209 --> 00:08:27.329 to conquer knowledge, to grab it, own it, cite 00:08:27.329 --> 00:08:30.629 it, to an intellect that prepares itself to receive 00:08:30.629 --> 00:08:33.990 knowledge. That is such a crucial distinction. 00:08:34.750 --> 00:08:37.009 Conquering versus receiving. It feels like the 00:08:37.009 --> 00:08:39.509 difference between being a hunter and, I don't 00:08:39.509 --> 00:08:43.230 know, maybe a satellite dish or a gardener. That's 00:08:43.230 --> 00:08:45.830 a great analogy. One is aggressive, right, going 00:08:45.830 --> 00:08:48.210 out to kill and capture. The other is attentive, 00:08:48.490 --> 00:08:50.750 patient, waiting for something to arrive or to 00:08:50.750 --> 00:08:54.389 grow. The hunter sets the trap. The receiver 00:08:54.389 --> 00:08:58.269 opens the door. And Farani is asking, what if 00:08:58.269 --> 00:09:01.450 anthropology, the study of humans, wasn't just 00:09:01.450 --> 00:09:04.480 a job you do from 9 to 5? What if it was a spiritual 00:09:04.480 --> 00:09:07.000 exercise where you risk fundamentally changing 00:09:07.000 --> 00:09:09.879 who you are by truly immersing yourself in the 00:09:09.879 --> 00:09:11.879 reality of the other? What if the anthropologist 00:09:11.879 --> 00:09:14.100 has to undergo their own metamorphosis just to 00:09:14.100 --> 00:09:15.840 be able to see what's really there? That's the 00:09:15.840 --> 00:09:17.799 question. And that leads us to the core concept 00:09:17.799 --> 00:09:20.399 of this entire deep dive. It's the jargon word 00:09:20.399 --> 00:09:23.000 of the day, folks. The atheistic. The atheistic. 00:09:23.440 --> 00:09:26.340 Furani coined this term. And you have to listen 00:09:26.340 --> 00:09:29.240 carefully because it sounds like atheistic, but 00:09:29.240 --> 00:09:31.820 it is definitely not that. It also sounds a bit 00:09:31.820 --> 00:09:34.519 like pantheistic, but it's not that either. No, 00:09:34.600 --> 00:09:36.440 it's something unique. It's a linguistic bridge 00:09:36.440 --> 00:09:38.080 he's trying to build. It comes from two Greek 00:09:38.080 --> 00:09:41.620 roots. Yeah. Anthropos. Meaning human. And theos. 00:09:41.700 --> 00:09:44.779 Meaning God. So human God. Ferani defines the 00:09:44.779 --> 00:09:48.620 atheistic as an intermediate, atopic space. A 00:09:48.620 --> 00:09:51.240 topic, meaning no place. Right. It's not a physical 00:09:51.240 --> 00:09:53.279 location you can put on a map. It's not a church. 00:09:53.279 --> 00:09:55.940 It's not a lab. It's a perceptual space, a state 00:09:55.940 --> 00:09:58.759 of mind where human reason and divine intelligence 00:09:58.759 --> 00:10:01.039 get actually meet. Okay, hold on. This sounds 00:10:01.039 --> 00:10:03.740 very theological. Do I have to believe in a specific 00:10:03.740 --> 00:10:06.279 God to enter this atheistic space? Do I have 00:10:06.279 --> 00:10:08.860 to be religious? If I'm a hardcore secular humanist 00:10:08.860 --> 00:10:10.820 listening to this, am I just... disqualified? 00:10:11.059 --> 00:10:13.320 It's a great question. And Ferroni is very careful 00:10:13.320 --> 00:10:15.419 here. He says, no, you don't have to be a monotheist. 00:10:15.500 --> 00:10:17.500 You don't have to sign up for a specific creed 00:10:17.500 --> 00:10:20.340 or go to a specific building on Sundays. But, 00:10:20.419 --> 00:10:22.379 and this is the big but, he says it requires 00:10:22.379 --> 00:10:25.740 an agnostic assent to the existence of a divine 00:10:25.740 --> 00:10:29.039 order. Agnostic assent. That's a fascinating 00:10:29.039 --> 00:10:31.539 phrase. It feels like a contradiction. Usually 00:10:31.539 --> 00:10:34.240 agnosticism is about not assenting. It's about 00:10:34.240 --> 00:10:36.620 saying, I don't know. Right. But here it's like 00:10:36.620 --> 00:10:38.620 saying, I don't know for sure, but I'm going 00:10:38.620 --> 00:10:41.860 to say yes. to the possibility. It's an act of 00:10:41.860 --> 00:10:44.379 intellectual hospitality. It's a space where 00:10:44.379 --> 00:10:47.120 reason stops being indifferent to revelation. 00:10:47.519 --> 00:10:50.899 So it admits that maybe just maybe human reason 00:10:50.899 --> 00:10:53.000 isn't the only intelligence in the universe. 00:10:53.220 --> 00:10:55.440 It admits that revelation isn't just a cultural 00:10:55.440 --> 00:10:57.919 myth to be analyzed, but a potential source of 00:10:57.919 --> 00:11:01.299 real truth. Ferani also calls this the daemonic 00:11:01.299 --> 00:11:04.679 space. Daemonic? Like demons? That sounds a little 00:11:04.679 --> 00:11:06.960 terrifying. Guggles, in the ancient Greek sense, 00:11:07.139 --> 00:11:09.960 not the Hollywood horror movie sense, the daemon 00:11:09.960 --> 00:11:12.580 was a spirit, an intermediary between gods and 00:11:12.580 --> 00:11:15.799 humans. Socrates talked about his daemon as a 00:11:15.799 --> 00:11:18.720 divine voice that guided him. Oh, okay. So think 00:11:18.720 --> 00:11:20.980 of this space as a laboratory where reason admits 00:11:20.980 --> 00:11:23.919 it's fragile. He calls it an aporia generator. 00:11:24.360 --> 00:11:26.860 Aporia, meaning a puzzle you can't solve. Yeah. 00:11:26.919 --> 00:11:30.360 A logical dead end. Exactly. A logical impasse. 00:11:30.460 --> 00:11:34.419 A roadblock for pure logic. The atheistic space 00:11:34.419 --> 00:11:38.299 deliberately leads to puzzles that reason alone 00:11:38.299 --> 00:11:41.879 cannot solve. And that's the whole point. Why? 00:11:41.980 --> 00:11:44.000 What's the goal of that? Because it forces the 00:11:44.000 --> 00:11:46.360 human intellect to pursue what Ferrani calls 00:11:46.360 --> 00:11:49.889 its homecoming. It's about realizing it has a 00:11:49.889 --> 00:11:52.450 home in the divine and trying to listen for that 00:11:52.450 --> 00:11:54.450 signal, even if it can't fully decode it yet. 00:11:54.549 --> 00:11:57.090 So instead of shutting out the spooky stuff or 00:11:57.090 --> 00:11:59.070 the divine stuff because it doesn't fit our neat 00:11:59.070 --> 00:12:02.090 scientific model, we deliberately open a door. 00:12:02.190 --> 00:12:04.750 We create this meeting place, the atheistic, 00:12:04.990 --> 00:12:07.909 where we can listen to what he calls voices that 00:12:07.909 --> 00:12:10.529 are near yet emanate from a place beyond. It's 00:12:10.529 --> 00:12:12.899 like tuning an old radio. You're trying to find 00:12:12.899 --> 00:12:14.480 a frequency you didn't even believe existed. 00:12:14.659 --> 00:12:16.779 And you have to be very quiet and very patient 00:12:16.779 --> 00:12:18.580 to even hear the static. And this is where it 00:12:18.580 --> 00:12:20.659 gets really practical for our listeners who care 00:12:20.659 --> 00:12:22.960 about interfaith dialogue. Because usually when 00:12:22.960 --> 00:12:25.220 we enter a dialogue, we keep our secular shields 00:12:25.220 --> 00:12:28.460 up. We say, that is your truth, this is my truth, 00:12:28.559 --> 00:12:30.259 and we're just comparing cultural notes from 00:12:30.259 --> 00:12:32.620 a safe distance. But in the atheistic space, 00:12:32.899 --> 00:12:35.879 you drop the shield. You enter a common ground 00:12:35.879 --> 00:12:38.779 where no one owns the territory. We are both 00:12:38.779 --> 00:12:41.279 standing in the mystery together, looking up. 00:12:41.470 --> 00:12:43.629 It sounds risky. It sounds like you have to be 00:12:43.629 --> 00:12:45.450 willing to be fundamentally wrong about your 00:12:45.450 --> 00:12:48.610 own worldview. It is. It's perilous. But Ferani's 00:12:48.610 --> 00:12:51.529 argument is that it's the only way to truly understand. 00:12:52.370 --> 00:12:54.710 If you stay safe in your fortress of reason, 00:12:54.870 --> 00:12:57.230 you never really meet the person who lives outside 00:12:57.230 --> 00:12:59.700 the walls. To help us visualize this, to make 00:12:59.700 --> 00:13:02.519 it less abstract, Ferrani doesn't give us a textbook 00:13:02.519 --> 00:13:05.740 definition. He gives us biographies. He introduces 00:13:05.740 --> 00:13:08.740 three guides. And none of these people were traditional 00:13:08.740 --> 00:13:11.179 anthropologists. They didn't have PhDs in the 00:13:11.179 --> 00:13:13.980 field or write for academic journals. But Ferrani 00:13:13.980 --> 00:13:15.919 says they did the work of this deep immersion 00:13:15.919 --> 00:13:18.929 better than most academics ever could. They're 00:13:18.929 --> 00:13:21.309 such fascinating figures, three lives, three 00:13:21.309 --> 00:13:23.830 totally different paths, but they all converge 00:13:23.830 --> 00:13:26.429 on this idea of an atheistic encounter. They 00:13:26.429 --> 00:13:28.730 show us what this spiritual exercise actually 00:13:28.730 --> 00:13:31.090 looks like in practice. They really do. Okay, 00:13:31.149 --> 00:13:33.549 let's meet guide number one, Simone Weil. The 00:13:33.549 --> 00:13:35.529 threshold dweller. That's a great name for her. 00:13:36.509 --> 00:13:39.990 Simone Weil was a French philosopher, a mystic. 00:13:40.200 --> 00:13:43.179 an activist in the early 20th century, a giant 00:13:43.179 --> 00:13:45.759 of 20th century thought, but a very, very strange 00:13:45.759 --> 00:13:48.779 one. She was Jewish by birth, but was intensely 00:13:48.779 --> 00:13:50.860 drawn to Christianity, right? She wrote these 00:13:50.860 --> 00:13:53.559 beautiful, profound essays about the Christian 00:13:53.559 --> 00:13:56.200 mystics. She did. She even had mystical experiences 00:13:56.200 --> 00:13:59.039 of Christ. But, and this is the absolute key 00:13:59.039 --> 00:14:01.940 to understanding her, she famously refused baptism. 00:14:02.809 --> 00:14:05.370 She refused to officially join the Catholic Church. 00:14:05.549 --> 00:14:07.710 Which seems so contradictory on the surface. 00:14:07.750 --> 00:14:09.970 If she loved Christianity so much, why not go 00:14:09.970 --> 00:14:12.129 all the way? Because she wanted to stay at the 00:14:12.129 --> 00:14:14.649 intersection. That was her word. She said her 00:14:14.649 --> 00:14:17.350 vocation was to belong at the intersection of 00:14:17.350 --> 00:14:19.990 Christianity and everything that is not Christianity. 00:14:20.230 --> 00:14:22.429 Wow. She felt she had to remain on the threshold 00:14:22.429 --> 00:14:24.750 of the church so she could be in solidarity with 00:14:24.750 --> 00:14:27.350 the outsider, with the heretic, with the unbeliever, 00:14:27.389 --> 00:14:29.769 with the vast majority of humanity that wasn't 00:14:29.769 --> 00:14:32.350 Christian. She felt that by joining the club, 00:14:32.549 --> 00:14:34.669 she would be separating herself from the rest 00:14:34.669 --> 00:14:37.409 of the world she loved. That is a profound act 00:14:37.409 --> 00:14:40.149 of solidarity. It's almost like she didn't want 00:14:40.149 --> 00:14:43.409 the comfort of being in siege. She chose to stay 00:14:43.409 --> 00:14:46.190 out in the cold with everyone else. It went further 00:14:46.190 --> 00:14:49.409 than just labels. It was physical. During World 00:14:49.409 --> 00:14:51.529 War II, when she was living in safety in England, 00:14:51.710 --> 00:14:54.649 she refused to eat more than the meager rations 00:14:54.649 --> 00:14:56.830 that were being given to people in Nazi -occupied 00:14:56.830 --> 00:14:59.710 France. She literally starved herself to death. 00:15:00.159 --> 00:15:02.320 Out of solidarity. She did. And that's what makes 00:15:02.320 --> 00:15:05.159 her such a powerful guide. This is not just participant 00:15:05.159 --> 00:15:08.059 observation. This is dying with your subjects. 00:15:08.399 --> 00:15:12.580 And her key concept for us is attention. Attention. 00:15:12.580 --> 00:15:14.600 And sounds so simple. Pay attention. We tell 00:15:14.600 --> 00:15:16.240 our kids that all the time. Pay attention in 00:15:16.240 --> 00:15:18.899 class. But for a while, attention was a spiritual 00:15:18.899 --> 00:15:21.379 discipline of the highest order. It wasn't just 00:15:21.379 --> 00:15:23.639 focus. It wasn't just concentrating on a math 00:15:23.639 --> 00:15:26.120 problem. She wrote, and this is an amazing line, 00:15:26.379 --> 00:15:29.000 studies are nearer to God because the attention, 00:15:29.139 --> 00:15:31.899 which is their soul. The soul of studies is attention. 00:15:32.159 --> 00:15:34.600 For her, true attention meant suspending your 00:15:34.600 --> 00:15:38.100 own thought, actively emptying your mind, leaving 00:15:38.100 --> 00:15:40.600 the soul, as she put it, empty and ready to be 00:15:40.600 --> 00:15:43.580 penetrated by the object. Ready to be penetrated 00:15:43.580 --> 00:15:45.980 by the object. That is the exact opposite of 00:15:45.980 --> 00:15:48.320 the trap Rilkes was talking about. It's not about 00:15:48.320 --> 00:15:49.960 grabbing the world. It's about letting the world 00:15:49.960 --> 00:15:52.460 grab you. It's making yourself a blank slate. 00:15:52.700 --> 00:15:55.240 Exactly. It's a radical, vulnerable openness. 00:15:55.840 --> 00:15:58.779 And think about what that means in an interfaith 00:15:58.779 --> 00:16:01.700 context. When you listen to someone of another 00:16:01.700 --> 00:16:05.419 faith, are you analyzing them? Are you mentally 00:16:05.419 --> 00:16:08.860 forming your counter -argument? Are you categorizing 00:16:08.860 --> 00:16:11.720 them? Or are you just quiet? Or are you emptying 00:16:11.720 --> 00:16:14.279 yourself so completely that their reality can 00:16:14.279 --> 00:16:17.019 actually enter you? That's Weil's lesson. True 00:16:17.019 --> 00:16:20.080 understanding requires an empty soul. You have 00:16:20.080 --> 00:16:22.440 to shut up, not just with your mouth, but with 00:16:22.440 --> 00:16:24.799 your mind. Okay, that's a high bar. Let's move 00:16:24.799 --> 00:16:27.639 to guide number two, Martin Buber. The Bridge 00:16:27.639 --> 00:16:30.129 Builder. Buber was a Jewish philosopher born 00:16:30.129 --> 00:16:31.950 in Vienna who eventually moved to Jerusalem. 00:16:32.409 --> 00:16:34.610 And likewise, he was a fascinating outsider. 00:16:34.909 --> 00:16:36.889 He wasn't quite a political Zionist. He wasn't 00:16:36.889 --> 00:16:39.350 orthodox in his religious practice. He always 00:16:39.350 --> 00:16:41.250 stood in between different worlds. And his big 00:16:41.250 --> 00:16:44.429 famous concept is I -thou. Even people who haven't 00:16:44.429 --> 00:16:46.190 read philosophy have probably heard of I and 00:16:46.190 --> 00:16:50.009 thou. Yes. Buber's whole philosophy is that all 00:16:50.009 --> 00:16:52.860 life is meeting. He makes this crucial distinction 00:16:52.860 --> 00:16:56.039 between I -it relationships and I -thou relationships. 00:16:56.360 --> 00:16:58.539 Okay, what's the difference? In an I -it relationship, 00:16:58.860 --> 00:17:02.320 I treat you as an object, a thing. You are a 00:17:02.320 --> 00:17:04.559 means to an end. You're a waiter who brings me 00:17:04.559 --> 00:17:07.299 coffee, a voter who gives me power, a research 00:17:07.299 --> 00:17:10.519 subject who gives me data for my book. I experience 00:17:10.519 --> 00:17:12.960 you, but I don't truly meet you. But I -thou 00:17:12.960 --> 00:17:15.180 is different. I -thou is a genuine encounter. 00:17:15.710 --> 00:17:17.970 I meet you not as a collection of traits, but 00:17:17.970 --> 00:17:20.789 as a whole unique universe. And Buber believed 00:17:20.789 --> 00:17:23.349 that in every true I -thou encounter between 00:17:23.349 --> 00:17:26.250 two people, there is a glimpse of the eternal 00:17:26.250 --> 00:17:29.400 thou. which is his word for God. And this wasn't 00:17:29.400 --> 00:17:31.720 just abstract armchair philosophy for him. He 00:17:31.720 --> 00:17:33.759 was living this in Jerusalem during incredibly 00:17:33.759 --> 00:17:36.059 turbulent times, the lead up to 1948 and beyond. 00:17:36.279 --> 00:17:38.400 He was actively trying to build bridges between 00:17:38.400 --> 00:17:40.460 Jews and Arabs, between Israelis and Palestinians, 00:17:40.700 --> 00:17:43.160 when everything was actively falling apart. He 00:17:43.160 --> 00:17:46.240 was. He saw the sociologist or the anthropologist 00:17:46.240 --> 00:17:49.259 not as a spokesperson for a group, but as a partner 00:17:49.259 --> 00:17:52.059 with God and the world. He believed Revelation 00:17:52.059 --> 00:17:54.380 wasn't just something that happened once on Mount 00:17:54.380 --> 00:17:57.269 Sinai thousands of years ago. He said revelation 00:17:57.269 --> 00:18:00.289 whispers to us in the course of every ordinary 00:18:00.289 --> 00:18:04.630 day. The divine presence is here now in our meetings 00:18:04.630 --> 00:18:07.289 with each other. Exactly. The divine presence 00:18:07.289 --> 00:18:10.329 dwells among us. So for Buber, dialogue is an 00:18:10.329 --> 00:18:12.650 existential demand. It's not just a nice thing 00:18:12.650 --> 00:18:14.349 to do. It's a fundamental way of being alive. 00:18:14.769 --> 00:18:16.730 If you aren't doing it, you aren't fully human. 00:18:16.869 --> 00:18:18.569 If you aren't truly meeting the other, you're 00:18:18.569 --> 00:18:21.250 just bumping into objects in the dark. Well said. 00:18:21.680 --> 00:18:24.180 Which brings us to guide number three, and he's 00:18:24.180 --> 00:18:26.920 arguably the most adventurous of the bunch, Muhammad 00:18:26.920 --> 00:18:30.140 Assad. The desert wanderer. Assad's life story 00:18:30.140 --> 00:18:32.599 is just incredible. He was born Leopold Weiss 00:18:32.599 --> 00:18:35.740 into a Jewish family in what is now Lviv, Ukraine. 00:18:36.319 --> 00:18:38.819 Grew up in Vienna. He was a journalist, a traveler. 00:18:38.920 --> 00:18:41.039 He goes to the Middle East in the 1920s and just 00:18:41.039 --> 00:18:44.480 feels this irresistible pull, this urge to wander. 00:18:44.960 --> 00:18:48.240 And he ends up converting to Islam and writing 00:18:48.240 --> 00:18:50.220 one of the most famous and respected English 00:18:50.220 --> 00:18:52.700 commentaries on the Quran. He goes from Leopold 00:18:52.700 --> 00:18:56.980 Weiss to Muhammad Assad. A massive, total transformation. 00:18:57.680 --> 00:19:00.920 And his key concept for us is surrender. Islam, 00:19:01.000 --> 00:19:03.599 of course, means surrender. It does. And his 00:19:03.599 --> 00:19:06.480 own story of conversion is so telling. He didn't 00:19:06.480 --> 00:19:09.220 sit down with a spreadsheet and logically deduce 00:19:09.220 --> 00:19:11.579 that Islam was the most correct religion. He 00:19:11.579 --> 00:19:14.400 describes faith coming to him like a robber who 00:19:14.400 --> 00:19:17.500 enters a house by night. That is a wild image 00:19:17.500 --> 00:19:20.240 for finding religion, a robber. It implies a 00:19:20.240 --> 00:19:22.279 kind of violence or at least a complete lack 00:19:22.279 --> 00:19:25.119 of control, an intrusion. It implies he was overtaken. 00:19:25.140 --> 00:19:27.559 He was defenseless. He didn't find faith. Faith 00:19:27.559 --> 00:19:30.559 found him. It broke in. And this connects directly 00:19:30.559 --> 00:19:33.500 to his view of knowledge. He spent years living 00:19:33.500 --> 00:19:35.900 with Bedouins in the Arabian Desert. And he deeply 00:19:35.900 --> 00:19:37.880 critiqued the Western way of trying to conquer 00:19:37.880 --> 00:19:40.220 knowledge. He called it intellectual rape. Yikes. 00:19:40.339 --> 00:19:42.779 Those are very strong words. But he meant that 00:19:42.779 --> 00:19:45.099 we try to force the world to give up its secrets, 00:19:45.240 --> 00:19:47.440 to grab what we want from it. Incredibly strong. 00:19:47.720 --> 00:19:49.779 He argued that to bridge a cultural distance, 00:19:49.900 --> 00:19:51.640 you shouldn't try to conquer the culture. You 00:19:51.640 --> 00:19:54.140 have to surrender our senses to it. You have 00:19:54.140 --> 00:19:56.079 to let the desert strip away your Western defenses. 00:19:56.160 --> 00:19:58.059 You have to let the cultural distance overwhelm 00:19:58.059 --> 00:20:00.829 you, not the other way around. So we have Vile 00:20:00.829 --> 00:20:03.450 emptying her soul, Buber meeting the Thao, and 00:20:03.450 --> 00:20:06.630 Asad surrendering his senses. All three of them 00:20:06.630 --> 00:20:08.849 are talking about lowering the defenses of that 00:20:08.849 --> 00:20:11.609 sovereign self. They're all talking about a kind 00:20:11.609 --> 00:20:15.089 of profound vulnerability. Precisely. They are 00:20:15.089 --> 00:20:17.650 the living models for what Firani wants anthropology, 00:20:18.109 --> 00:20:21.549 and by extension, all of us, to become. They 00:20:21.549 --> 00:20:23.650 show us that to really know the other, you have 00:20:23.650 --> 00:20:25.990 to risk the self. You can't stay safe on the 00:20:25.990 --> 00:20:28.230 shore and still understand the ocean. So Frani 00:20:28.230 --> 00:20:30.309 takes these lives, these models, and he tries 00:20:30.309 --> 00:20:32.990 to systematize them into a new way of doing things. 00:20:33.170 --> 00:20:35.710 He breaks this down into five facets of transforming 00:20:35.710 --> 00:20:38.230 the practice. If we really want to adopt this 00:20:38.230 --> 00:20:41.150 atheistic approach, what do we actually do differently? 00:20:41.490 --> 00:20:43.490 Right. It's one thing to have these inspiring 00:20:43.490 --> 00:20:45.650 biographies. It's another thing entirely to have 00:20:45.650 --> 00:20:48.289 a method. So let's walk through these five facets 00:20:48.289 --> 00:20:50.470 because they provide a kind of roadmap for this 00:20:50.470 --> 00:20:54.269 spiritual exercise. Okay. Facet number one, method. 00:20:54.880 --> 00:20:58.839 He talks about immersion as a way of life. Currently 00:20:58.839 --> 00:21:02.500 in anthropology, immersion is a tool. It's something 00:21:02.500 --> 00:21:05.299 you do for fieldwork. You get a grant. You go 00:21:05.299 --> 00:21:07.380 live in a village in the Amazon or a neighborhood 00:21:07.380 --> 00:21:10.039 in Cairo for a year. You take notes. You try 00:21:10.039 --> 00:21:12.140 to behave like a local. And then you pack your 00:21:12.140 --> 00:21:13.819 bags. You go home to your comfortable university 00:21:13.819 --> 00:21:16.339 office and you write your book. Exactly. It's 00:21:16.339 --> 00:21:18.900 a project. It has a start and an end date. It's 00:21:18.900 --> 00:21:21.380 a 9 -to -5 logic, essentially. You dip in and 00:21:21.380 --> 00:21:23.119 you dip out. It's professional. You don't bring 00:21:23.119 --> 00:21:25.619 the jungle home with you, usually. Verani argues 00:21:25.619 --> 00:21:28.339 that for the atheistic seeker, immersion has 00:21:28.339 --> 00:21:33.240 to be a logic for living. It's 224 -7. It's existential. 00:21:34.339 --> 00:21:36.700 Think of Weil again. She didn't just study the 00:21:36.700 --> 00:21:39.359 working class. She became a factory worker. She 00:21:39.359 --> 00:21:41.980 wanted to disappear into the crowd, to love them 00:21:41.980 --> 00:21:44.980 as they are. So the shift is that the researcher 00:21:44.980 --> 00:21:48.240 doesn't just produce a text and ethnography as 00:21:48.240 --> 00:21:51.640 the end product. They consciously reorient their 00:21:51.640 --> 00:21:54.279 entire life. The product is the life that they 00:21:54.279 --> 00:21:56.740 live. It's a total commitment. The research never 00:21:56.740 --> 00:21:59.039 really ends. It sounds exhausting, to be honest. 00:21:59.140 --> 00:22:01.900 It sounds like there's no off switch. But I get 00:22:01.900 --> 00:22:04.960 the point. OK, facet number two, form of knowledge. 00:22:05.119 --> 00:22:08.450 He calls this revelatory thinking. This goes 00:22:08.450 --> 00:22:10.910 right back to Assad's robber. In the secular 00:22:10.910 --> 00:22:13.769 academy, we believe we construct knowledge. We 00:22:13.769 --> 00:22:16.450 build theories like we build houses. We stack 00:22:16.450 --> 00:22:18.849 the bricks of data. We apply the mortar of analysis. 00:22:19.029 --> 00:22:21.470 And we have a structure. A nice solid theory. 00:22:21.809 --> 00:22:23.670 Farhani says we need to learn the art of letting 00:22:23.670 --> 00:22:27.089 go. We need what he calls docility. Docility. 00:22:27.170 --> 00:22:29.250 That word usually has a negative connotation 00:22:29.250 --> 00:22:32.369 like being a doormat or a passive sheep. But 00:22:32.369 --> 00:22:34.470 here it takes on a different meaning. It means 00:22:34.470 --> 00:22:37.369 being teachable. Being quiet enough to hear. 00:22:37.990 --> 00:22:40.309 It's about listening to the unsaid and unsayable. 00:22:40.609 --> 00:22:43.589 It requires silence and patience. We are waiting 00:22:43.589 --> 00:22:45.829 for the truth to speak to us rather than interrogating 00:22:45.829 --> 00:22:48.109 the truth until it confesses. It's a shift from 00:22:48.109 --> 00:22:51.690 active construction to active reception. It's 00:22:51.690 --> 00:22:54.009 admitting that maybe the truth is shy, and if 00:22:54.009 --> 00:22:56.230 you shout at it with your theories, it's not 00:22:56.230 --> 00:22:58.049 going to come out and talk to you. I love that. 00:22:58.150 --> 00:23:00.789 The truth is shy. That's perfect. Okay, facet 00:23:00.789 --> 00:23:03.630 number three, object of knowing. What are we 00:23:03.630 --> 00:23:05.940 actually studying with this new method? This 00:23:05.940 --> 00:23:08.779 is a direct critique of Emile Durkheim, one of 00:23:08.779 --> 00:23:11.900 the founding fathers of sociology. Durkheim famously 00:23:11.900 --> 00:23:15.880 and reductively equated God with society. Right. 00:23:15.940 --> 00:23:17.839 The idea that when people are worshiping God, 00:23:17.920 --> 00:23:19.359 they're really just worshiping the collective 00:23:19.359 --> 00:23:22.740 power of their own social group. God is just 00:23:22.740 --> 00:23:25.619 us, shouted really loudly. Exactly. So sociologists 00:23:25.619 --> 00:23:28.119 study the social and they think they've successfully 00:23:28.119 --> 00:23:31.859 explained away the divine. Ferani says no. Stop. 00:23:31.880 --> 00:23:34.200 Do not confuse the social with the divine. That 00:23:34.200 --> 00:23:36.400 is a massive category error. So what are the 00:23:36.400 --> 00:23:38.799 new objects of study? The new objects of study 00:23:38.799 --> 00:23:41.019 in this spiritual exercise are things that exceed 00:23:41.019 --> 00:23:45.880 our human categories. God. Evil. Death. Existence 00:23:45.880 --> 00:23:48.960 itself. The big stuff. The scary stuff. The stuff 00:23:48.960 --> 00:23:51.240 that sovereign reason tries to ignore or explain 00:23:51.240 --> 00:23:54.440 away as just cultural constructs or psychological 00:23:54.440 --> 00:23:57.240 phenomena. Frani calls it the quandary puzzle 00:23:57.240 --> 00:24:00.240 menace of the unreasonable. We have to be willing 00:24:00.240 --> 00:24:02.180 to face the fact that some things are beyond 00:24:02.180 --> 00:24:04.980 our tidy social explanations. We have to look 00:24:04.980 --> 00:24:07.960 at evil not just as a social dysfunction, but 00:24:07.960 --> 00:24:10.660 as a real menacing force. We have to look at 00:24:10.660 --> 00:24:13.279 existence as a miracle, not just a biological 00:24:13.279 --> 00:24:16.359 fact. Facet number four, location. Where does 00:24:16.359 --> 00:24:18.559 all this happen? And here, Ferrani gets a little, 00:24:18.680 --> 00:24:21.640 well, so spicy. He has some harsh words for the 00:24:21.640 --> 00:24:23.900 university. Devils. He does not pull any punches 00:24:23.900 --> 00:24:26.160 here. He, along with his guide Martin Buber, 00:24:26.220 --> 00:24:28.779 is deeply skeptical of the modern academy. Buber 00:24:28.779 --> 00:24:31.440 called academic scholarship drudgery. He was 00:24:31.440 --> 00:24:33.779 terrified of becoming a university lecturer and 00:24:33.779 --> 00:24:36.660 losing his spiritual vitality. Ferrani goes even 00:24:36.660 --> 00:24:38.460 further. He describes the university as a place 00:24:38.460 --> 00:24:41.579 of intellecticide. Intellecticide. The murder 00:24:41.579 --> 00:24:43.980 of the intellect. That is a pretty harsh accusation 00:24:43.980 --> 00:24:46.160 for a tenured professor to make about his own 00:24:46.160 --> 00:24:49.400 workplace. It is. He argues that the modern university 00:24:49.400 --> 00:24:52.170 is obsessed with security. It's modeled on the 00:24:52.170 --> 00:24:54.890 market. It's about production, grants, safety, 00:24:55.049 --> 00:24:58.470 rankings, avoiding lawsuits. And he asks this 00:24:58.470 --> 00:25:01.109 really provocative question. Can the university 00:25:01.109 --> 00:25:04.390 serve manna and manna, spiritual nourishment, 00:25:04.490 --> 00:25:08.130 or can it only serve? mammon money and markets. 00:25:08.390 --> 00:25:10.690 And he connects this directly to the current 00:25:10.690 --> 00:25:12.829 political moment, doesn't he? He mentions the 00:25:12.829 --> 00:25:15.769 inability of universities to protest genocides, 00:25:15.809 --> 00:25:18.410 and he's specifically referencing the war in 00:25:18.410 --> 00:25:21.170 Gaza. He does. He sees the market modeled university 00:25:21.170 --> 00:25:24.589 as fundamentally cowardly. It cannot speak truth 00:25:24.589 --> 00:25:26.750 to power because it's too beholden to that power 00:25:26.750 --> 00:25:29.210 for funding and prestige. It's staffed by what 00:25:29.210 --> 00:25:32.430 he calls security minded people. So the location 00:25:32.430 --> 00:25:35.049 of this spiritual exercise might have to be on 00:25:35.049 --> 00:25:36.930 the margins of the institution or at least in 00:25:36.930 --> 00:25:38.869 constant tension with it. You can't just be a 00:25:38.869 --> 00:25:40.890 comfortable academic. You have to be a bit of 00:25:40.890 --> 00:25:43.210 a rebel. Which brings us to the final one, facet 00:25:43.210 --> 00:25:45.710 number five, the knowing subject. That's us. 00:25:45.789 --> 00:25:48.069 That's the person doing the studying. How do 00:25:48.069 --> 00:25:51.029 we change? This is the culmination, the transformation. 00:25:51.710 --> 00:25:53.990 The seeker must acknowledge their own fragility. 00:25:54.150 --> 00:25:56.710 They have to admit they are dependent. The subject 00:25:56.710 --> 00:25:59.960 becomes a vessel. The outcome isn't just that 00:25:59.960 --> 00:26:01.599 you see the world differently or that you publish 00:26:01.599 --> 00:26:03.779 a new paper. The outcome is that you become somewhat 00:26:03.779 --> 00:26:06.430 different. You are the experiment. You are not 00:26:06.430 --> 00:26:09.190 just a brain in a jar analyzing the world. You 00:26:09.190 --> 00:26:11.950 are a soul in the world being changed by it. 00:26:11.970 --> 00:26:14.990 That's it. Exactly. So we have this really robust, 00:26:15.109 --> 00:26:17.930 really demanding framework, the atheistic. Now 00:26:17.930 --> 00:26:19.750 I want to pivot and apply it very specifically. 00:26:20.130 --> 00:26:22.309 What does this mean for our listeners who are 00:26:22.309 --> 00:26:24.529 trying to navigate a world full of different 00:26:24.529 --> 00:26:27.309 religions, different beliefs? We have a source 00:26:27.309 --> 00:26:30.170 here, a blog post summary titled, What if interfaith 00:26:30.170 --> 00:26:34.490 dialogue were a spiritual exercise? explicitly 00:26:34.490 --> 00:26:38.210 applies Verani's ideas to this field. And this 00:26:38.210 --> 00:26:40.390 is where the rubber really meets the road. If 00:26:40.390 --> 00:26:42.769 we apply this atheistic lens to the way we do 00:26:42.769 --> 00:26:45.690 interfaith dialogue, we see three huge challenging 00:26:45.690 --> 00:26:48.829 shifts. And these are shifts that really challenge 00:26:48.829 --> 00:26:50.569 the way most of us think about getting along 00:26:50.569 --> 00:26:52.990 with our neighbors of different faiths. Let's 00:26:52.990 --> 00:26:55.809 take them one by one. Shift number one, from 00:26:55.809 --> 00:26:58.809 information to formation. We touched on this, 00:26:58.890 --> 00:27:01.710 but let's go deeper. Most interfaith work, as 00:27:01.710 --> 00:27:04.380 we said, is informational. Here is my holy book. 00:27:04.539 --> 00:27:07.400 Here is yours. Here is my holiday. Here is yours. 00:27:08.019 --> 00:27:10.819 I don't eat pork. You don't eat beef. It's safe. 00:27:10.940 --> 00:27:13.079 It's polite. It's about correcting misconceptions 00:27:13.079 --> 00:27:15.539 and building tolerance. It's basically a show 00:27:15.539 --> 00:27:18.640 and tell or a Wikipedia exchange. Did you know 00:27:18.640 --> 00:27:21.180 that in my religion, we do this? And that has 00:27:21.180 --> 00:27:23.559 value. Let's be clear. We need to know those 00:27:23.559 --> 00:27:26.599 facts. But Farhani's framework implies it's not 00:27:26.599 --> 00:27:30.039 enough. The dialogue must be formational. It 00:27:30.039 --> 00:27:32.579 must be about changing who you are. The challenge 00:27:32.579 --> 00:27:35.019 becomes, are we willing to let the other's reality 00:27:35.019 --> 00:27:38.240 make a genuine claim on us? What does that look 00:27:38.240 --> 00:27:40.700 like in practice? It means when I sit down with 00:27:40.700 --> 00:27:42.720 a Buddhist, I'm not just listening to learn about 00:27:42.720 --> 00:27:45.160 the Four Noble Truths. I'm willing to let their 00:27:45.160 --> 00:27:47.259 understanding of suffering fundamentally challenge 00:27:47.259 --> 00:27:50.640 my own comfort and my own attachments. When I 00:27:50.640 --> 00:27:53.039 sit with a Muslim, I'm willing to let their discipline 00:27:53.039 --> 00:27:55.500 of daily prayer expose my own spiritual laziness. 00:27:55.720 --> 00:27:58.599 So it's moving from that's interesting to that 00:27:58.599 --> 00:28:01.000 convicts me. It's letting the other person be 00:28:01.000 --> 00:28:03.440 a mirror that shows you your own flaws, your 00:28:03.440 --> 00:28:06.319 own gaps, your own spiritual poverty. Correct. 00:28:06.400 --> 00:28:09.559 It transforms dialogue from a polite coffee chat 00:28:09.559 --> 00:28:12.279 into a spiritual workout. It's supposed to be 00:28:12.279 --> 00:28:15.039 hard. Okay, shift number two. This feels like 00:28:15.039 --> 00:28:17.880 the hardest one for... modern secular people 00:28:17.880 --> 00:28:20.759 taking revelation seriously it is absolutely 00:28:20.759 --> 00:28:24.339 the most dangerous one in normal secular dialogue 00:28:24.339 --> 00:28:27.819 we bracket truth we have this unspoken agreement 00:28:27.819 --> 00:28:30.140 we say that is your truth and this is my truth 00:28:30.140 --> 00:28:32.339 we act like we're in a museum looking at different 00:28:32.339 --> 00:28:35.240 paintings we can appreciate the art without believing 00:28:35.240 --> 00:28:37.839 it depicts reality we can say oh what a beautiful 00:28:37.839 --> 00:28:40.359 myth that is But the atheistic approach says 00:28:40.359 --> 00:28:42.640 you have to get out of the museum. You have to 00:28:42.640 --> 00:28:44.480 grapple with the possibility that the other is 00:28:44.480 --> 00:28:47.079 holding a piece of divine truth. Exactly. Remember 00:28:47.079 --> 00:28:49.380 Muhammad Assad? When he picked up the Quran, 00:28:49.559 --> 00:28:51.839 he wasn't appreciating it as great Arabian literature. 00:28:52.160 --> 00:28:54.700 He was facing the terrifying possibility that 00:28:54.700 --> 00:28:57.680 this was divine speech. The risk here is real 00:28:57.680 --> 00:29:00.400 and it is total. This framework implies that 00:29:00.400 --> 00:29:03.099 genuine dialogue might reconstitute your identity. 00:29:03.500 --> 00:29:05.819 What do you mean by that? I mean, you might convert. 00:29:06.480 --> 00:29:09.680 Or you might be so radically transformed in your 00:29:09.680 --> 00:29:13.359 own faith that you become unrecognizable to your 00:29:13.359 --> 00:29:16.180 old self. It takes all the safety rails off. 00:29:16.339 --> 00:29:19.420 If I really truly listen to you with that why 00:29:19.420 --> 00:29:21.859 -like attention, I might not come back as the 00:29:21.859 --> 00:29:24.339 same person. I might realize that you are right 00:29:24.339 --> 00:29:26.880 and I am wrong about the fundamental nature of 00:29:26.880 --> 00:29:29.220 the universe. That is the price of admission 00:29:29.220 --> 00:29:32.099 to the atheistic encounter. If you aren't willing 00:29:32.099 --> 00:29:34.140 to risk your own worldview, you aren't really 00:29:34.140 --> 00:29:36.579 engaging. You're just observing from a safe distance. 00:29:36.700 --> 00:29:38.980 You're still in the cage. Which brings us to 00:29:38.980 --> 00:29:42.579 shift number three, the atopic meeting place. 00:29:42.940 --> 00:29:46.019 This is the idea of the common ground. But it's 00:29:46.019 --> 00:29:47.680 not a common ground where we water everything 00:29:47.680 --> 00:29:50.039 down to the lowest common denominator, some kind 00:29:50.039 --> 00:29:52.420 of vague, we're all spiritual mush. Right, not 00:29:52.420 --> 00:29:55.099 that. It is a space of that agnostic ascent we 00:29:55.099 --> 00:29:57.700 talked about. We don't have to agree on doctrine. 00:29:57.799 --> 00:29:59.980 You can be a Christian. I can be a Jew. Someone 00:29:59.980 --> 00:30:03.240 else can be a Muslim. But we must agree that 00:30:03.240 --> 00:30:06.559 there is divine order worth listening to. We 00:30:06.559 --> 00:30:09.259 meet in that shared humility. We meet in the 00:30:09.259 --> 00:30:11.759 powerful agreement that we are not the center 00:30:11.759 --> 00:30:14.740 of the universe. It's like we both agree to look 00:30:14.740 --> 00:30:17.279 up at the sky, even if we see totally different 00:30:17.279 --> 00:30:19.980 constellations. We just agree that the sky is 00:30:19.980 --> 00:30:22.259 there and it's bigger and more mysterious than 00:30:22.259 --> 00:30:24.299 both of us. That is a beautiful way to put it. 00:30:24.359 --> 00:30:27.289 We share the awe. even if we describe the source 00:30:27.289 --> 00:30:29.930 of that awe differently. Now, this all sounds 00:30:29.930 --> 00:30:32.750 very noble, very poetic. I'm almost ready to 00:30:32.750 --> 00:30:35.309 sign up for the Antheistic Club, but this is 00:30:35.309 --> 00:30:37.069 a deep dive, and we don't just accept things 00:30:37.069 --> 00:30:39.450 at face value. Ferroni's paper received some 00:30:39.450 --> 00:30:42.369 very serious, very sharp pushback from other 00:30:42.369 --> 00:30:44.410 scholars in the field. Oh, absolutely. And these 00:30:44.410 --> 00:30:46.069 critiques are really important because they poke 00:30:46.069 --> 00:30:48.950 holes in this potentially romantic vision. They 00:30:48.950 --> 00:30:51.430 ask the tough, necessary questions. They do. 00:30:51.869 --> 00:30:54.329 The responses published in Current Anthropology 00:30:54.329 --> 00:30:57.269 were pointed. They raise critical questions about 00:30:57.269 --> 00:31:00.289 privilege, about violence, and about the very 00:31:00.289 --> 00:31:02.190 definition of what it means to be spiritual. 00:31:02.410 --> 00:31:04.710 Okay, let's get into it. Critique number one 00:31:04.710 --> 00:31:07.269 comes from Yasmin Moll, an anthropologist at 00:31:07.269 --> 00:31:09.809 the University of Michigan. She points out a 00:31:09.809 --> 00:31:12.029 divide between the religious and the spiritual. 00:31:12.329 --> 00:31:15.230 And Moll makes a very grounded, practical point. 00:31:15.390 --> 00:31:18.190 She essentially says, look Khalid, many of us 00:31:18.190 --> 00:31:20.130 anthropologists are already religious people. 00:31:20.490 --> 00:31:22.950 They pray. They go to mosque or church or synagogue. 00:31:23.369 --> 00:31:26.369 They do anthropology to pay the bills. They don't 00:31:26.369 --> 00:31:28.509 need their academic discipline to be their church. 00:31:28.730 --> 00:31:30.809 Right. She's basically saying, I have a rich 00:31:30.809 --> 00:31:33.049 spiritual life. Thank you very much. I don't 00:31:33.049 --> 00:31:35.309 need my fieldwork to provide my fullness of being. 00:31:35.430 --> 00:31:38.789 I have a prayer rug for that. Exactly. Why burden 00:31:38.789 --> 00:31:41.170 the job with the monumental task of saving your 00:31:41.170 --> 00:31:44.549 soul? But she goes deeper. She offers a correction 00:31:44.549 --> 00:31:47.640 on Farhani's reading of Muhammad Asad. She argues 00:31:47.640 --> 00:31:50.140 that Assad didn't seek agnostic assent or wonder. 00:31:50.319 --> 00:31:53.440 He sought certitude, he found Islam, and he was 00:31:53.440 --> 00:31:56.160 sure about it. He wasn't just hanging out in 00:31:56.160 --> 00:31:58.900 the atheistic space enjoying the mystery. He 00:31:58.900 --> 00:32:01.700 bought the house. He moved in. Right. She suggests 00:32:01.700 --> 00:32:04.740 Farhani might be romanticizing the seeking part, 00:32:04.940 --> 00:32:07.500 the wandering, the questioning over the finding 00:32:07.500 --> 00:32:10.480 part. For many, many religious people, the goal 00:32:10.480 --> 00:32:12.799 isn't to wander forever in a beautiful mystery. 00:32:13.160 --> 00:32:16.220 The goal is to arrive at the truth with a capital 00:32:16.220 --> 00:32:19.619 T. So Maul is asking if this atheistic space 00:32:19.619 --> 00:32:22.940 is just a projection of a liberal, academic kind 00:32:22.940 --> 00:32:25.940 of spirituality that values the question more 00:32:25.940 --> 00:32:28.480 than the answer. It's a great point. It's easy 00:32:28.480 --> 00:32:30.859 to love the question when you don't have to commit 00:32:30.859 --> 00:32:32.799 to an answer that might demand things of you. 00:32:32.940 --> 00:32:35.259 Okay, a very strong critique. Critique number 00:32:35.259 --> 00:32:37.920 two comes from Elaine Oliphant and Joel Robbins. 00:32:38.140 --> 00:32:41.039 They bring up the problem of the divine. This 00:32:41.039 --> 00:32:43.480 is the dark side argument. Ferrani talks about 00:32:43.480 --> 00:32:45.700 the divine, about revelation as this source of 00:32:45.700 --> 00:32:48.150 oneness. connection and transformation. It all 00:32:48.150 --> 00:32:50.309 sounds lovely. But Oliphant and Robbins remind 00:32:50.309 --> 00:32:53.150 us, revelation isn't always benign. Not at all. 00:32:53.250 --> 00:32:55.710 History is absolutely full of violent revelations. 00:32:55.809 --> 00:32:58.930 God told me to smite you. God told me this land 00:32:58.930 --> 00:33:00.589 is mine and you and your people have to leave. 00:33:00.869 --> 00:33:02.930 Yeah, hearing voices from beyond isn't always 00:33:02.930 --> 00:33:05.269 a recipe for world peace. Sometimes it's a recipe 00:33:05.269 --> 00:33:08.630 for a crusade or a genocide. Exactly. If we open 00:33:08.630 --> 00:33:12.069 the door of reason to revelation, how do we distinguish 00:33:12.069 --> 00:33:14.829 between the wister of the divine and a dangerous 00:33:14.829 --> 00:33:18.650 delusion or a malicious call to violence ferrani 00:33:18.650 --> 00:33:21.069 talks about the need for discernment but robbins 00:33:21.069 --> 00:33:23.670 points out he doesn't really explain how we discern 00:33:23.670 --> 00:33:26.789 what's the test and they also point out a glaring 00:33:26.789 --> 00:33:30.009 exclusion in his examples ferrani's models vile 00:33:30.009 --> 00:33:33.750 buber assad are all abrahamic they're all monotheistic 00:33:33.750 --> 00:33:37.230 they deal with a big god what about everything 00:33:37.230 --> 00:33:40.150 else right what about ancestors what about nature 00:33:40.150 --> 00:33:43.410 spirits what about polytheism oliphant asks does 00:33:43.500 --> 00:33:45.440 Does atheism exclude an indigenous worldview 00:33:45.440 --> 00:33:47.960 of the spirit world because it's too focused 00:33:47.960 --> 00:33:50.619 on a divine order or revelation in the Jewish, 00:33:50.660 --> 00:33:53.539 Christian, or Muslim sense? If my reality is 00:33:53.539 --> 00:33:56.579 populated by forest spirits, do I fit in Farani's 00:33:56.579 --> 00:33:58.940 club? That's a heavy critique. If we're trying 00:33:58.940 --> 00:34:01.200 to escape the secular cage, are we just jumping 00:34:01.200 --> 00:34:03.740 into a slightly larger monotheistic cage? Are 00:34:03.740 --> 00:34:05.900 we just trading one Western -centric bias for 00:34:05.900 --> 00:34:08.500 another? It's a real danger. They warn that we 00:34:08.500 --> 00:34:10.679 can't ignore the violent history of Christian 00:34:10.679 --> 00:34:13.699 and European concepts of religion and the divine 00:34:13.699 --> 00:34:16.480 being imposed on other cultures. We have to be 00:34:16.480 --> 00:34:19.380 incredibly careful not to universalize a specific 00:34:19.380 --> 00:34:22.269 kind of God talk. And then we have critique number 00:34:22.269 --> 00:34:25.550 three from Omer Ibrahim. This one hits on the 00:34:25.550 --> 00:34:28.570 very real issues of power and privilege. And 00:34:28.570 --> 00:34:31.230 Ibrahim asks the deeply uncomfortable question, 00:34:31.469 --> 00:34:34.369 who gets to surrender? who can actually afford 00:34:34.369 --> 00:34:37.130 to dissolve their ego right if you're a tenured 00:34:37.130 --> 00:34:39.250 professor at a prestigious western university 00:34:39.250 --> 00:34:42.630 maybe it feels romantic and liberating to surrender 00:34:42.630 --> 00:34:46.030 your ego but if you are marginalized if you're 00:34:46.030 --> 00:34:48.909 oppressed if your ego is attacked every day then 00:34:48.909 --> 00:34:51.130 effacing your ego might sound a lot like just 00:34:51.130 --> 00:34:53.679 giving up the little power you have Precisely. 00:34:53.699 --> 00:34:56.179 He warns that this call for ego effacement can 00:34:56.179 --> 00:34:58.619 be a colonial trick. It's easy for a privileged 00:34:58.619 --> 00:35:00.719 scholar to talk about surrendering to the other. 00:35:00.840 --> 00:35:03.679 But for a colonized subject, survival might require 00:35:03.679 --> 00:35:06.519 the exact opposite. Asserting the self, building 00:35:06.519 --> 00:35:09.280 up the ego, not dissolving it. He asks whose 00:35:09.280 --> 00:35:11.820 temporality we're operating on. Is the researcher's 00:35:11.820 --> 00:35:13.860 spiritual journey happening at the expense of 00:35:13.860 --> 00:35:16.119 the people being studied? It's the eat, pray, 00:35:16.179 --> 00:35:18.969 love problem, isn't it? Am I using your culture, 00:35:19.070 --> 00:35:22.110 your reality, as a kind of exotic backdrop for 00:35:22.110 --> 00:35:24.570 my own personal enlightenment project? It's a 00:35:24.570 --> 00:35:27.369 potent and necessary question. Ibrahim reminds 00:35:27.369 --> 00:35:30.010 us that spirituality doesn't happen in a political 00:35:30.010 --> 00:35:32.989 vacuum. It happens in a world of very real power 00:35:32.989 --> 00:35:35.809 dynamics. So Farhani gets hit with these critiques 00:35:35.809 --> 00:35:38.969 from all sides. Elitism, exclusion, romanticism, 00:35:39.050 --> 00:35:41.789 naivete about violence. Does he just roll over? 00:35:41.929 --> 00:35:44.769 No. He writes a defense, a rebuttal. And this 00:35:44.769 --> 00:35:46.909 is where the context gets incredibly... real 00:35:46.909 --> 00:35:49.710 and raw. He is writing from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem 00:35:49.710 --> 00:35:52.269 during what he calls the Al -Aqsa flood, the 00:35:52.269 --> 00:35:55.110 war in Gaza that started in October 2023. And 00:35:55.110 --> 00:35:57.630 this context is inescapable for him. He frames 00:35:57.630 --> 00:35:59.650 his entire response using the metaphor of the 00:35:59.650 --> 00:36:02.369 flood. The biblical flood, Noah's flood. Yes. 00:36:02.769 --> 00:36:05.449 He asks how that ancient story names our current 00:36:05.449 --> 00:36:07.969 time, a flood that is washing away truths and 00:36:07.969 --> 00:36:26.230 untruths alike. What does he say? He says we 00:36:26.230 --> 00:36:29.809 desperately need big universal stories. He argues 00:36:29.809 --> 00:36:31.909 that in the face of what he calls the disintegrating 00:36:31.909 --> 00:36:35.070 powers of capitalism and war, small local stories 00:36:35.070 --> 00:36:37.769 aren't enough. If we just retreat into our little 00:36:37.769 --> 00:36:40.590 tribes, our little identities, we will be crushed 00:36:40.590 --> 00:36:43.050 by the massive machinery of war and markets. 00:36:43.349 --> 00:36:46.010 So for him, universalism isn't the oppressor. 00:36:46.030 --> 00:36:49.190 It's the life raft. In his view, yes. He says 00:36:49.190 --> 00:36:52.130 we need big stories, a universal vision of humanity 00:36:52.130 --> 00:36:54.610 and the divine to counter the big destructive 00:36:54.610 --> 00:36:57.199 force. that are tearing the world apart. And 00:36:57.199 --> 00:36:59.260 then, addressing Ibrahim's powerful point about 00:36:59.260 --> 00:37:01.699 power, Farhani argues that the atheistic can 00:37:01.699 --> 00:37:04.280 be the lot of the defeated. It isn't just a luxury 00:37:04.280 --> 00:37:06.539 for the privileged. How so? How does that work? 00:37:06.800 --> 00:37:09.219 He suggests that the spirituality of the oppressed 00:37:09.219 --> 00:37:12.039 is a real and powerful thing. He says that this 00:37:12.039 --> 00:37:15.340 atheistic mode, this radical openness to the 00:37:15.340 --> 00:37:18.059 divine, might actually work better for those 00:37:18.059 --> 00:37:20.380 who are crushed, for those who are, in his words, 00:37:20.519 --> 00:37:23.460 working and thinking from lost, unpromising places. 00:37:24.199 --> 00:37:26.630 For them, it is a way to survive. the siege. 00:37:26.829 --> 00:37:30.369 The siege. That leads to his final powerful provocation. 00:37:30.510 --> 00:37:32.949 He says the university and sovereign secular 00:37:32.949 --> 00:37:35.650 reason itself are a siege on the human intellect. 00:37:35.889 --> 00:37:38.369 They're surrounding us, blockading us, starving 00:37:38.369 --> 00:37:40.809 us of meaning. And he closes by quoting the great 00:37:40.809 --> 00:37:43.550 Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish who wrote, by 00:37:43.550 --> 00:37:45.909 taking this journey you can besiege your siege. 00:37:46.170 --> 00:37:48.650 Besiege your siege. That is an incredible image. 00:37:48.789 --> 00:37:51.250 It means turning the tables on your captor. It 00:37:51.250 --> 00:37:54.050 means that by opening up to the divine, by refusing 00:37:54.050 --> 00:37:56.849 to be trapped in the pure material secular world, 00:37:56.989 --> 00:37:59.989 the intellect frees itself. It breaks the blockade. 00:38:00.090 --> 00:38:02.949 It pursues its divine possibilities even, and 00:38:02.949 --> 00:38:06.190 especially amidst dark times. It is an act of 00:38:06.190 --> 00:38:09.110 intellectual and spiritual resistance. So, we 00:38:09.110 --> 00:38:12.070 have traveled all the way from Rilke's secular 00:38:12.070 --> 00:38:16.409 cage through Furani's atheistic space, guided 00:38:16.409 --> 00:38:20.170 by Veal, Buber, and Assad. We've faced the tough 00:38:20.170 --> 00:38:22.369 critiques, and we've looked at the profound implications 00:38:22.369 --> 00:38:25.179 for how we talk to one another. We've seen how 00:38:25.179 --> 00:38:28.179 this one idea challenges the academy, challenges 00:38:28.179 --> 00:38:31.159 interfaith dialogue, and ultimately challenges 00:38:31.159 --> 00:38:34.239 us personally. It has been quite a journey. Yeah. 00:38:34.300 --> 00:38:36.260 And it really does leave us with a lot to chew 00:38:36.260 --> 00:38:38.800 on. I think the biggest takeaway for me and maybe 00:38:38.800 --> 00:38:41.719 for you listening is about this idea of the courage 00:38:41.719 --> 00:38:44.219 to be transformed. It's about realizing that 00:38:44.219 --> 00:38:46.880 knowing things isn't enough. You have to risk 00:38:46.880 --> 00:38:50.239 being someone new. Yes. And that true knowledge, 00:38:50.360 --> 00:38:52.519 this kind of knowledge comes with a real cost. 00:38:52.579 --> 00:38:54.440 It costs you your certainty. It costs you your 00:38:54.440 --> 00:38:56.900 defenses. It costs you the illusion of control. 00:38:57.139 --> 00:38:59.500 So here's my final question to you, the listener. 00:38:59.699 --> 00:39:01.900 The next time you find yourself in a conversation 00:39:01.900 --> 00:39:04.280 with someone who sees the universe in a fundamentally 00:39:04.280 --> 00:39:06.059 different way than you do, maybe they're from 00:39:06.059 --> 00:39:07.449 a different faith maybe they have no faith at 00:39:07.449 --> 00:39:10.429 all ask yourself this are you analyzing them 00:39:10.429 --> 00:39:12.769 are you just collecting data points for your 00:39:12.769 --> 00:39:15.530 mental map of the world or you being attentive 00:39:15.530 --> 00:39:18.190 or are you willing to let their reality truly 00:39:18.190 --> 00:39:21.949 enter you are you willing to be in a sense besieged 00:39:21.949 --> 00:39:24.949 by their truth because maybe true understanding 00:39:24.949 --> 00:39:27.929 isn't just about safety or tolerance maybe it's 00:39:27.929 --> 00:39:30.130 about the profound risk and the profound reward 00:39:30.130 --> 00:39:33.030 of being changed and on that note We'll leave 00:39:33.030 --> 00:39:35.110 you to your own spiritual exercises. Thanks for 00:39:35.110 --> 00:39:36.030 diving deep with us.