A Rational Approach to the Torah's Divine Origin - Rabbi Lawrence Kelemen

here's the map of the way i'm going to do it i'm first going to address the credibility of religions generally how do you evaluate whether any religion is making a credible claim the second thing i'm going to do and during that part of the presentation part one of that presentation i'm going to give you an algorithm which i believe destroys the credibility of religion in about three minutes once you know how to use it okay that was my direct thesis then the second stage is i'm going to apply that algorithm to judaism and you will watch jewish credibility go up in flames gone the third step is i'm going to try to rebuild jewish credibility and i'm going to do that in three stages so there'll be a 3a a 3b and a 3c and then i don't think there's going to be time but if i could get to stage in stage four i'm going to drop a bomb which in one shot will establish jewish credibility i think beyond a shadow of a doubt if i can't do it with you orally today i'll at least give you some written materials because i had a feeling we weren't going to make it so i'll give you some written materials so you can follow up yeah i can't do all the work here for you i can just give you a head start and no one did this work for me yeah when i was on my way in there was nobody assisting me the way i'm about to assist you so given the head start i'm about to give you you should be very satisfied and go to work on your own okay fine okay keep your eye on the bouncing ball stage one we're going to try to evaluate credibility of religions generally when you approach any religion on the planet you ask them what have you got that religion will describe to you all sorts of benefits you'll get if you join their religion so for example if you become a christian you'll be saved if you become a buddhist you'll get an unparalleled sense of oneness with the universe and achieve a state close to divinity if you become a hindu you'll get control over nature if you uh if you become a muslim you'll get 70 friends in a water bed right each each religion has some benefit that you're promised if you if you submit to the rules of that religion okay now what happens if i go to a religious leader and i say you know let's say a christian i say i decided i'm not going to accept jesus instead i decided i'm going to become a buddhist i wanted to know will i be saved in the next world what will christian tell you under no circumstance you accept jesus you're saved you don't accept jesus you burn okay fine and let's say i go to the muslim and i say the muslim i decided not to become a muslim instead i'm going to become a hindu right what's going to what am i going to get my 70 friends in a water bed under no circumstances yeah it turns out if i would say to a buddhist i'm not going to become a buddhist instead i'm going to become a jew right will i get to the a stage of transit insight will i end up a bu ddha he'll say no of course not every religion presents its benefits exclusively that is you only get those benefits if you submit to the rules of that religion clear okay now watch once a religion has made the claim of exclusivity that the only way to get those benefits is by submitting to their rules they have stepped on to what i would call a credibility trap door and if you want to destroy their credibility all you have to do is ask these questions and you'll see their credibility go up in flames you say that's fascinating the only way for me to get these benefits let's say christian the only way for me to be saved is to accept jesus it must be that that technology that you must accept jesus that system is a secret because if it was patently obvious if it was written in the sky except jesus and be saved then every religion would accept that so the fact that you're the only ones who are proposing this means that you got access somehow to secret knowledge you must accept jesus in order to be saved where did you get this knowledge okay when you ask that question to any religion on the planet where did you get this system for achieving these benefits every religion on the planet will confess to you something which i dubbed the revelation narrative the revelation narrative is the story of how the founders of that religion came to possess the system now my undergraduate thesis was was focused on revelation narratives and here's what i discovered 165 major religious families on planet earth thousands of different sects and cults every single one of them has a revelation narrative which follows the exact same pattern coincidentally okay what is that pattern the pattern is it's always one or two people who have this transcendental experience and then they persuade everybody else that it was true so for example uh christianity begins when i'm only focusing on christianity because you're english speakers which means probably you're coming from a christian country but but uh how does christianity begin not with jesus any catholic will tell you the original jesus cult rose and with jesus death fell and within 35 years after jesus died it was gone there were a handful of the original jesus followers that were left that were bouncing around but the religion was destroyed within 35 years after jesus died the christianity exists today was not created by jesus by the way this is according to the protestants and the catholics if you would ask them they'll tell you this who was it created by there was an orthodox jew by the name of shaul who was walking alone alone on the road to damascus and this is 35 years after jesus died suddenly he sees in front of him an apparition of jesus himself right jesus comes down hi nice to meet you right on the spot shall is so blown away by this vision he drops to his knees converts changes his name from shaol to paul paul downloads from jesus all the miracle stories of jesus life paul then goes into the city and starts telling people that he met jesus on the road and he starts spreading this idea that jesus was not only the messiah which is what the original jesus cult believed but jesus was also god by the way that was heresy to the original jesus cult which is why some of the members of the original jesus call tried to kill paul and paul to run for his life while paul is on the road running he writes more than half the books of the new testament including every miracle story in jesus's life okay the pauline documents are passed from 65 ce when paul wrote them down through his three until 325 ce in 325 c the pauline documents arrive in nicaea along with dozens of other fragments which were written based on the pauline documents all of the council of nicaea all of these documents are gathered together at the council of nicea the pope has to decide which one is the true new testament right the decision he makes because there were poisonings and stabbings everyone wanted their book to be the new testament right because of this he decides to put all the books together and the new testament and christianity is formed in 325 ce at the council of nicea okay it turns out if paul told the truth the whole thing is true if paul lied or hallucinated or had an interesting dream whatever the case is right the whole thing is a lie so the credibility of christianity rides on the credibility of one man paul okay watch this siddhartha gautama settles beneath the bodhi tree intent of knowing all there is to be known he goes into this trance he ascends up out of his body his body drops dead on the ground right he comes to know all there is to be known achieve the state of bu ddha which is a divine state at that point he was like a god he never had to come back down again but he loved mankind and therefore he descended back into his body his body was revivified he got up off the ground and he began a 45-year career as a leader and teacher okay now all this happened with buddhist sitting completely alone there was nobody else there it turns out that by the way in buddhist tradition there are 44 other people who actually did this as well 44 other people which is actually that's very significant that's a lot of people that means them plus at harthugama that's 45 people achieve this that would actually lend a fair amount of credibility to the story we're not for one small detail which is those 44 people never descended again how do we know there were 44 others take a wild guess he told us when he came back down again so it turns out you haven't got a report about a mass event here but the report is all coming through one guy so if siddhartha guatemala told the truth the whole thing is true it's totally which is not true the whole thing is a lie islam you have muhammad who drops to the ground he convulses everyone agrees this he convulses he gets back up off the ground and he says he heard voices and he the voices were the voices of god by the way it says he only came to realize later the voices were the voices of god that's what it says in the quran right he then dictates these poems that he heard during these events and those poem by the way he couldn't write the muslims will tell you that part of the miracle here is muhammad was illiterate and so there was a scribe who wrote all this stuff down by the way the muslims do not know who the scribe was but secular scholars observe that the only people who were in that region of the world who were literate at that time were the jews so the odds are that a jew wrote the quran yeah in case you wonder if the jews are responsible for all the world's troubles yes so uh the the the book is formed the quran is formed by gathering these surahs these poems together that were written by the scribe it turns out if muhammad told the truth the whole thing is true if muhammad lied the whole thing is a lie you named the mormons we almost had a u.s president who was a mormon right how does the mormon religion begin you have joe smith jr is hiking alone where he discovers golden tablets which were written in reformed egyptian which by the way is a language not known to modern man now buried next to those golden tablets was a dictionary which translated from reformed egyptian to modern english thank god and that enabled him to translate the tablets when he was done with the translation he then destroyed the tablets of course because who needs golden tablets anyways right and then he took the translation brought it back to mankind presented it to people that was the book of mormon later he and his best friend oliver cowdery had more revelations that they recorded the doctrines and covenants those are two holy books of the mormon religion and the religion is up and running if oliver carter and joseph machine are told the truth the whole thing is true if they lie the whole thing is a lie every religion on the planet starts when one or two people have revelation persuade everyone else to follow now i'm that is the end of section one what i just gave you scientology another example elrond hubbard does astral travel loses power crashes into a desert and breaks his back but happens to have a tape recorder right there to record everything he learned which you can buy for a fortune in scientology yeah right there all these religions are the same they all have the same revelation narrative happening and i concluded one of two things if you're calm and rational and keep your feet on the ground you either have to conclude that these religions are all true and why is it that it's always revealed to one or two people god is shy or the other possibility is that the ability to maintain a conspiracy is inversely proportional to the number of people involved so even though there might have been religions that started when five people or ten people lied and launched a cult but you've never heard of those religions because they last from noon to one they disappear anything that's actually recorded in history has got to be only one or two people because one or two people could actually keep a secret you know it's possible to keep a secret even though most cults that are started crash but those that survive tend to be the ones that are launched by only one or two people okay now just to summarize section one you want to destroy the credibility of religion say to them tell me something how did the religion start they'll tell you a story about one or two people and finished no credibility left okay by the way just to understand how we how we understand credibility if i told you i was going to be late for this lecture i live all the way in the other side of harnoff and so i had no choice i went up to my roof and i i don't like to do this but i i popped a wing out from behind each shoulder blade and i flew here and i landed on the nave roof so that's not a highly credible claim if i say no but she was there and she saw it yeah so that's also not a highly credible claim but if i tell you all of the people on this side of the room they all witnessed right my landing i'm approaching credibility because what are the chances that every single one of them would conspire with me and no one would spill the beans therefore when i see a religion that always starts with one or two people it raises a question in my mind okay now end of part one moving to part two jewish credibility you open up the torah and you start to read and it says god spoke to abraham sure do you see what's going on here one person a generation later god speaks to one person jacob i mean isaac isaac yeah a generation later to isaac's son jacob family business it looks very bad so if you point this out to an orthodox jew they'll say no no no you're reading the wrong part of the book yeah right if you feel you flip forward they say look here and you get up to the exodus the exodus you have three million jews who walk out of egypt they arrive at the base of mount sinai right there god speaks and every single man woman and child three million people hear god say i'm the lord your god you should have another guys before me motion motion come up the top of the mountain i'm gonna give you the rest of torah and the orthodox jew says see that's impressive three million people all heard this what are the chances that three million people would conspire one over two to the three million it's a very very small number yeah therefore the odds are this religion is really true now if you try that in a in a university classroom they will laugh you out of the of the room because the professor is going to say to you really three men people heard god speak tell me something how do you know that and you'll say what says so in the torah i wish my professor's gonna say yeah and who wrote the torah at which point you'll say moses which already sounds bad but the professor's gonna say it wasn't moses it was j e p and d jay is the jawist that was a writer who was associated with a religion that worshipped a god called jahweh that's actually the wrong pronunciation of it that's not how you pronounce it at all right but they were members of this jahweh cult yeah and he wrote about his religion there was another writer e the locust the locust was in a different religion where they worshipped elohim there was another guy from a different religion where they were very involved in priestly things that was the p writer and then there was a fourth writer d the deuteronomist who wrote a book which is not the same style at all as the first three so you see you have four completely separate religions here with four separate documents all four of these documents fell into the hands of r the redactor the redactor took these documents wove them all together in such a way that we can't tease them apart anymore so we don't know who what wrote what and produced a book called the five books of moses yeah this book the redactor then sold to a group of people they bought the lie and the religion is up and running so it turns out your professor is going to tell you that you don't have a report of three million people witnessing something you have the buddhist model one guy are the redactor who tells you the three million people will experience something but there were no three million people it was a story it was a mythology that was put together okay now at this point no counter again only technical questions yeah what if they felt threatened to happen well like you would have told that half of the room that you grew wings and jumped off your room and you said i mean like to pass to pass on the supposedly true statement what if you promised them i know a million dollars or like you said i'll kill you if you don't say it if you don't so you're asking like this maybe you could get large groups of people to cooperate in in the formation of mythologies if you provided proper incentive it's a very interesting theory but you always have to check theories against the data and the data here is we don't have religions to start with more than one or two people so therefore you have to ask why in other words what you're doing is you're taking a theory and running with it without data i'm starting from the other side i'm starting with the data all religions start with one or two people now you go and explain that why is that so what you're saying doesn't help explain that the opposite what you're saying actually contradicts the data so therefore you say okay i guess that wouldn't work because the data indicates how do i know that a person jumps out the 30th store of a building that he probably won't fly because every time someone tries it they fall so too here it's unlikely that you'll actually be able to persuade 30 people to maintain a conspiracy forever and never spill the beans how do i know i derive this aspect of human psychology from the empirical data over thousands of years we don't have religions like that means you can't start such a lie good okay now hold off on counter argument for the moment because i probably will cover everything right now only ask if something is very unclear right or even slightly unclear okay part one is done you know how to establish credible religion go for the revelation narrative part two you see the judaism has no credibility either because the whole thing was written probably by one person okay part three let's try to rebuild jewish credibility okay now for the next 20 minutes or so let's run with the assumption that the whole report about people hearing god speak at sinai is a lie let's assume it's a lie it's a mythology assuming it's mythology what i know for sure is at some point somebody made up a story about three men people hearing god speak now whether they made it up it was passed orally for period and then eventually written down or whether they made it up and wrote it down right away and then that book was passed either way it works fine for me but somebody made up a lie about mass revelation because how do i know because in every copy of the torah found in every reformed temple and every conservative synagogue in every orthodox shul and every museum on the planet there are dozens of places in the book where it says three million people heard god speak that means somebody made that up say see no yeah so the same story came from people who were all in different parts of the world okay so that means at some point this mythology experienced a geographical fracture meaning that's right the the population must have split and gone to different places but at somebody somebody somebody must have made up this story how did it get into the text in other words either god spoke or if god didn't speak the only other option is someone made up a lie about god speaking what i'm saying is not high tech it's like very obvious that's why you're confused i'm saying something that's very simple and very obvious someone made if god didn't speak someone made up a story okay now watch here tighten your seatbelt make sure that you're clear on this the original lie i would like to propose had to take one of three forms and and it could have only taken three forms the original lie about mass revelation either had to take the form of a past lie a present lie or a future lie and i'll explain that each of those three words past present and future refer to which generation did the charismatic cult leader claim heard god speak now i'll make that very very clear like this let's go back to the moment when the original lie is being started i'm going to be the charismatic co-leader could have been one person could be a group people doesn't make a difference right you guys are going to play the role of the wild eyed cult followers who are going to go for this i come to you and i say to you one of three things start with the simplest model sim smile is present i say you the present generation in front of me all heard god speak you heard him say these words i'm lord your god you have no other gods before me motion motion come up to the mountain i went up on the mountain i got the tour i brought it down and i gave it to the jews right and you are so persuaded by my charisma that you all cried in unity right amen and the religion's up and running okay now this is called present lie because in this lie the charismatic leader says which generation heard god speak the present generation those people who were standing in front of him at the time the religion was founded right obviously we're not we're not talking about the year 2014 or 1984. we're talking about a thousand years ago or 2000 or 5 thousand years ago or 50 000 or 50 million years whenever you want to say judaism started we're talking about an event that took place then the charismatic leader says you all heard god speak that's very simple present model okay now step over here for a minute slightly more complex past model in the past model the charismatic leader comes to group people and he says to them you heard nothing for god never spoke to you it was long ago with the foot of great mountain sinai all the jews were in camp there moses was there god came down on the mountain god said i'm the lord your god you should know where the gods before me moshe moshe come up to the top of the mountain moses went up on the mountain got the torah brought down and he gave it to all of your ancestors they all became orthodox jews they all kept jewish law they knew that it was all true and they were orthodox jews for generation after generation for three or four generations but then there was a terrible answer whatever you want flood assimilation war disease the entire tradition was lost and no one in your family has known about it until i fred came back to give you the tradition i actually have a copy of the original toy that was given to your ancestors right here i pull it out i give it to you and you are so blown away by my charisma that you all cry out in unison amen and the religion's up and running okay now just for clarity sake i want to make sure you're all with me here why when i described to you the past lie why did i insert a gap why did i say there was a disease or war assimilation why didn't i just say long ago god gave the torah to your ancestors and everyone your family has been orthodox jew right down to your parents spell it out more who are you gonna ask if you're if your ancestors are documents ah so there was nobody there exactly you're all saying the same thing which is this if i say that it was passed straight down to your parents and all of your parents orthodox jews and i just made that lie up you all know in a split second that i'm lying to you because you know funny i don't remember my mother being an orthodox shoe yeah right therefore in order to protect my credibility i must tell a story a three-part story i must tell a story about moses at mount sinai a gap the disease the war the simulation whatever it is and then later on fred comes much later in history so far later in history that you can't check it right you can't check when the last orthodox junior family is you never heard of this worthless but i tell you it was a thousand years ago was the last orthodoxy in your family so you can't check that then you'll buy the story therefore past lie could also be called moses gap fred it's the mgf theory yeah because you have to right you have to propose the the original lie was there was a moses there was a gap and now i fret i'm coming to start restart the religion right that's really the past lie the past lies which generation heard god speak it wasn't it was a past generation so far back that you can't trace it okay so i have the past lie i've got the present lie okay now just for completeness sake let's throw in the future light the future lie is charismatic leader comes to group people and he says to them you heard nothing and your ancestors heard nothing four and then he says five words god has not yet spoken and he persuades all of you that god has not yet spoken but someday all the jews will be gathered at the foot of a great mountain called sinai there'll be a leader there moses god will come down that mountain god is going to give the torah to the jews on that mountain the jews will accept it they're all going to become orthodox jews and i happen to have an advanced copy right here yeah i hand you the book and you all cry out in unison is your last chance okay that's getting there you guys will be a cult sunday uh right and that's it the religion is up and running okay now this is called the future lie because here the claim is which generation heard god speak not the present not the past it will be a future generation okay now look at the power of the model that just put on the table i'm claiming and you have to evaluate the the reasonableness of this claim i'm claiming that if judaism is a lie i'm assuming it's not true let's put true that god spoke to jews put that off in the corner we're not going to deal with that if judaism is a lie the original lie had to take either the past the present or the future form he had to say either a past generation her god speak a president general the presidential god speaker or a future generation will hear god speak the reason i'm saying that is there is no other time when you can place this event that's clear okay now watch the power what happens if i show you that for technical reasons the future lie would never produce judaism then you would know the judaism must have started with the past lie or the present lie clear what happens if i show you that the past lie in the present lie could never produce judaism in the future then you know it would have to be the future what happens with if i would show you that the past the present future lies could never produce judaism oh so let's not go there that's exactly what i'm trying to avoid yeah okay watch what happens and now we're in three i'm gonna do a b and c with you three a i'm going to show you a small problem with future 3b i'm going to show you a small problem with present 3c i'm going to show you a small problem with past okay if we have time i'm going to get to 4 drop the bomb okay 3a let's start by attacking future it's the easiest one to take out here's how i'm going to take it out i'm going to tell you exactly what i'm doing so you will not get lost i'm going to show you a weakness in future by showing you a relative strength in the present and the past theories when i show you the strength of president passed that will sensitize you it'll help you see things in a certain way and right away you'll notice what the weakness and future is okay so here we go my rule is you are not allowed to draw conclusions without evidence everything has to bubble up from data that's the rule okay there is a piece of data which everybody involved in this discussion agrees to and that is there is a a group of people on planet earth today who believe with all their heart and soul that they are descendants of prophets who stood at mount sinai these people are called orthodox jews they're out there i know it i've met them okay now we also know for as a matter of fact this is not the first generation of orthodox jews if you'll come with me down to the israel museum right 10 minutes from here so i can show you behind glass documents which testified in existence of orthodox jews 100 years ago and 500 years ago and a thousand years ago and 2 000 years ago right these people been around for at least two thousand years okay now here's what you're looking at you've got a sociological phenomenon you've got generation after generation after generation in a complete chain going down for 2 000 years that is a fact all these people believe in this mythology about mass revelation the only matter of debate is at the top of this chain is their god or charismatic cult leader that's the whole discussion but the fact that these people believe this with all their heart and so for the last two thousand years that's a fact okay now watch try to put together these three theories of past present future with that fact watch what happens take present present theory charismatic leader comes through people and says to them you all heard god speak if i'm incredibly charismatic and you are really wild-eyed gullible slaves who buy this whole thing and i persuade you that you heard god speak what do you tell your kids exactly i heard god speak what do your kids tell their kids my my mother heard god speak right right or my grandmother god speak and what do the kids tell their kids my great grandmother heard god speak and you'll end up with generation after generation saying my ancestors heard god speak does that match the sociological phenomenon i'm looking at think for a minute think again what do i have i have the sociological is i've got 2 000 years of people saying generation affirmation my ancestors heard god speak if i put the present lie at the top of that chain would i produce that chain yeah sure if i persuade you you heard god speak you'll tell your kids my mother heard god speaking also their kids my grandmother who got speaking of my great grandmother and you'll end up with generation after generation saying my ancestors heard god speak well this is present if i tell you the present lie let's say i lie to you and i say to you you heard god speak and you believe me you'll tell your kids i heard god speak they'll tell their kids my mother heard god speak they'll tell their kids my grandparents heard god speak and you'll end up with generation of hydration which is the sociological phenomenon i'm looking at in other words i could theorize at the top of that chain is the present lie did i lose you everyone's with me good okay watch no you're lost you're okay so let me say it again like this i've got a fact i've got 2000 years of orthodox jews i want to know what started that sociological phenomenon could it be that at the top of that phenomenon is a liar who says you all heard god speak so let's see if a liar persuade a group of people that they all heard god speak they would tell their kids we heard god speak and they would tell their kids our parents were god's speak and they would tell their kids our grandparents heard god speak and they would tell their kids our ancestors for god speak our ancestor god speak our ancestors heard god speak that is exactly what i'm looking at in history i've got a group of people saying our ancestors heard god speak what that means is if somebody told the past lie another past life the present lie if someone said you all heard god speak it could generate this sociological phenomenon that i've got in there the present lie could have produced what we're looking at you don't need god the present lie would have done it clear watch go here to the past lie in the past line charismatic leader comes a group of people and says your ancestors heard god speak if i persuade all of you that your ancestors heard god speak what do you tell your kids and they tell their kids oh no past is i speak to a group of people and i say to them not you your ancestors heard god speak remember past refers to which generation do i claim heard god speak and hear the charismatic culture they're saying your answer got speaking president is saying presidents when i say you all heard god speak past is when i say your ancestors are gut speak everyone's clear yeah now if i persuade you that your ancestors heard god speak will that produce the sociological phenomena i'm looking at yeah of course you'll get generation after generation saying my ancestors heard god speak is everyone with me clear fine watch come over here for a minute future lie charismatic cult leader really persuasive tells a very gullible group of people five words god has not yet spoken if i persuade all of you god's not spoken someday he'll speak but god has not yet spoken what do you tell your kids god is not spoken somebody will speak god is not spoken what do they tell their kids god is not spoken you'll end up with generation after generation saying god hasn't spoken is that the sociological phenomenon i'm looking at what do you see the future light did not produce this sociological phenomenon that's not at the top of the chain everyone's clear that's one down and two to go by the way it could be at some point in history somewhere someone may have said the future lie someday god will speak but that is not what produced this chain yeah at some point at the top of that chain you have to get either the past lie or the present lie to produce that chain the future lie will never do it everyone's clear no confusion a lot of confusion everyone's lost yes but didn't this actually happen when did judaism actually start no but when we were up some people say it was 3 300 years ago but the this is irrelevant in other words pick any date in history that you want and then you've got a charismatic cult leader who's telling lies he's telling like we get the past to get president like your ancestors or answers your global law now you're saying the future is different though why so like this in the present lie he says you heard god speak and after four or five generations that's become our ancestors heard god speak okay in the past lie he starts off with your ancestor god speak and after four or five generations that is our ancestor god speak and both of those are what we're actually looking at in history in history i've got a group of people saying our ancestors heard god speak so the past and present could produce that now i come over here to the future in the future life the charismatic cult leader says god hasn't spoken yet so no one's heard god speak and the next generation says yeah we were told by our our great prophet god hasn't spoken yet and then the next generation said god hasn't spoken yet god hasn't spoken yet and you'll end up with a generation after generation saying god hasn't spoken is that what i'm looking at in history is that orthodox judaism no the orthodox jew say he spoke a long time ago which means the future lie is not what is at the top of that sociological chain historically that's not how this whole religion got started with somebody saying god hasn't spoken yet clear everyone's with me yeah how could it even make sense if how can people believe that god has spoken to them if you say it to them hold on it's a good counter argument it's a good kind of i'm going to get to it right now in other words as long as you understand everything i've set up until now you're okay don't worry i've anticipated your question i'm going to deal with it but the most important thing is you all see future is gone present and past are still reasonable explanations for how judaism got started good yes okay watch let's do present okay the fastest way to do this is going to be by dealing with a real religion so let's actually throw this out um i want to show you a small problem with press and lie there was a charismatic cult leader by the name of marshall applewhite applewhite uh developed a cult in rancho santa fe california very wealthy community very successful people lived there he persuaded there 40 people that there's a better place that everyone can go to um a place called heaven and the only way to get to heaven is that to pass through heaven's gate if you want to pass through heaven's gate he explained to people you must be wearing black nike tennis shoes 40 people started wearing black nike tennis shoes 24 7. they bought this lie okay i'm editorializing i think it was a lie yeah it's a true story this is a true story applewhite milked these people for a tremendous amount of money bought a mansion in rancho santa fe invited the whole group to the mansion and at this mansion he explained that the men are going to have a much more difficult time passing through heaven's gate than the women because there's a particular piece of male anatomy you cannot possess when you pass through heaven's gate he then passed out bottles of chloroseptic spray which is a really neat green spray you use it on a sore throat it's a topical anaesthetic kills the pain instantly and he passed out to all the guys exacto blades and then on it's a very sharp knife and then on video the men in the heavens gate group proclaimed their faith in marshall applewhite and then performed what was called minor surgery yeah they sewed themselves up with tooth floss by the way marshall applewhite did not castrate himself because he said he had to wait till later which i completely understand yeah okay fine uh time went by he called another meeting of the group 38 out of the 40 members made it to that meeting two people were physically prevented from getting there but 38 members made it there at the meeting he explained tonight is the night we're going to ascend into the spaceship which is taking us to heaven and if you want to ascend ascend into the spaceship all you have to do is take this lethal dose of phenobarbital and after you pop the pills just tie a hefty plastic trash bag over your head around your neck and you will ascend then 38 members of the heavens gate cult uh proclaimed their faith in marsh operate pop the pills laid down and died okay now what you have here is a by the way everybody in the heavens gate cult had a bachelor's degree or higher you're talking about people who there was not a single member of the heavens gate cold who had been to therapy they'd never been a psychiatrist or psychologist you're talking about and the families of these people said that their relative was completely sane until they fell into this cult became a raving lunatic so you're talking about is a highly rational financially successful intelligent well-schooled group of individuals who fall into a cult and lose their marbles they go crazy which smashes the perception that most of us have that people join colts are sick or dumb yeah by the way if you just pay attention to the news you'll realize that the people that these cults are going after are not sick and dumb they're not trying to pick up sick and dumb people they want people who have resources yeah some of the most famous people on the planet today are members of these these crazy cults yeah whether you know from tom cruise madonna madonna's not normal but okay whatever you know like uh there's right uh i mean like you name it they're they they you're talking about people who are well put together i sat in on dozens of cult meetings people were sitting there are just like you and me there's no difference okay now you right now are vulnerable to falling into a cult and in order to be protected from falling into a cult you need to know one thing if i tell you this one thing you cannot fall into a cult and that is i call it white theorem it applied theorem has two clauses clause a people are gullible they'll believe anything even something to ask them to act self-destructively okay this is the psychological whole the weakness that enables people to be pulled into a cult people are gullible they'll believe anything even somebody asked them to act self-destructively cosby as long as the lie cannot be checked exactly people are stupid but they're not that stupid why didn't marshall apple white say spaceship that dropped your mother off here is coming to pick us up they would call their mothers why didn't he say the spaceship dropped your grandmother off here is coming to pick us up you could check that people don't believe checkable lies people are stupid but they're not that stupid if they can check it they'll check it every religion on the planet starts with a lie that conforms to applewhite theorem uh hi my name is paul and i just came back from the road to damascus where i met jesus alone can you check that hi my name is siddharth gautam and i just came down for the a stage of trans insight where i became a bu ddha can you check that hi uh my name is joseph junior and i found these golden tablets i destroyed you check that right you name the religion hi my name is muhammad i just had an epileptic under prophetic experience can you check that right all these religions start with claims that are uncheckable and therefore the charisma of the cult leader can draw somebody slowly into belief in the cult they never start off the claim which is checkable therefore if you are sitting in a room and someone starts making claims that you cannot check you get up and you walk out right or if you're doing research like i was you remain very skeptical that's you have to keep your eye on is the claim checkable that's the key okay so now like this the problem with present lie is in present lie the charismatic leader doesn't come to you and say all of your mother's heard god speak you could check that you'd never believe it he doesn't come and say all your grandmothers were a godspeed you could check that you would never believe it he says the worst possible thing to say to you he says you all heard god speak tell me something might you know if you heard godspeak watch watch you all just heard god speak oh that didn't work how about this i took yale students out a month ago to the desert and i yelled off a cliff right this is gone no one believed me maybe that's what's not from yale other people would yeah right you not only wouldn't believe me there's nothing i could do to persuade you that you were godspeed but more than that you don't know anybody who would believe that no in your life in order to believe that that's how this only started you have to propose that in the old days people were really dumb okay now i met one man in my life who believed in the present mind that that's how jesus got started he was the former head of the reconstructionist rabbinical uh movement in america and the the the man said from 80 students uh the college of college program summer program he said in front of them he believes in present theory and i said how do you believe the present theory what about this problem right there people are dumb they're not that no one's gonna believe that so he said i'll tell you how it happened i said pray you tell us he says here's what happened uh is it true that abraham went to sacrifice his favorite son isaac so he said okay that's what it says in the torah so what so he said he's psychologically not a person try to kill his favorite son keep going so he says is it true that isaac at the time the sacrifice was an adult catholic he was 37 years old isaac was 37 years old and he cooperated with his father he allowed himself to be bound he stuck his neck and his father's slice he said when any normal person stick out his neck for his father's slice obviously abraham's developmental disability was passed into isaac had genetic reporting yeah isaac passed this genetic disease into jacob jacob passed this developmental disability into all the tribes by the time we got to egypt's entire nation of people most said you were god speaking i said we were about to speak so i said you know doctor about you i believe this theory all right but how do you explain all the other descendants of the only known retardation in history with more noble prices for capital than anybody else on the planet you know like my joke but but the point is you have to propose nation-retarded people in order to believe present life the problem with future lie is the future light would never produce the sociological phenomena we're looking at the problem with present life is people are stupid but they're not that stupid no one is going to buy it you tell them you heard god speak that leaves past there okay now the problem with past theory is very simple proverbs pastor is as follows in a past theory a charismatic leader comes to boots they all became orthodox jews then there was a terrible disease flood or more assimilation the entire tradition was forgotten for hundred thousand two thousand years no one has known about mount sinai and i fred are coming to tell you about the tradition because god spoke to me last night and told me or god passed it down to my family whatever the case is past theory is moses god fred watch let's do a little experiment let's say i widened you and i tell you moses got fred and you believe me what do you tell the next generation the next generation here's most gap threat from their parents what do you tell the next generation what's good friend most guy friend most guest friend you'll end up threat history a story about it was moses there was a tremendous disaster for 500 000 2000 years no one knew about cyanide and then came the second most important person to ever use history fred who restarted religion by reminding people who have not signed giving them back their lost torah okay now here's the problem i ran an interesting experiment i went to one of the most influential rabbis here in jerusalem 25 years ago he's passed away now he was a very special person i said can you tell me something about life all this story you're teaching people where'd you get it he said i got my teacher really what's his name he said his name was rabbi and ruthless amir so i said fascinating uh just a minute i went and i checked and i found four independent jewish literary sources which testified to a relationship between the man i was speaking to his name was rabbi volvo and the man who he claimed was his teacher about this i found four independent jewish literary sources saying these two people actually knew each other i went back to him i said tell me something uh where did gravity group in the bottom and skip the story so he says he got it from his teacher who was his teacher it was simple as this was either keller i checked four sources i said and who before him he said your sin was a song he was a student of israel litkin of salon i said really check for four sources and review israelites where did he get it he got it from resemblance four sources where did he get it resembled got it from the final beloved where'd he get it from the elio of vilma and where did he get it right trace this thing back okay i was able to produce this neat little chart okay now this took two and a half years this starts with rubbish solomoba with the death rate right right and goes straight up you're so involved with teacher student teacher student teacher student teacher student until you get to moses okay now wait listen carefully because otherwise you're gonna misunderstand every name on this list from moses down to the end of the bible that's moses to ezra i took the bible's word for from ezra forward right i had to have four independent sources claiming a future student relationship and i produce this chain going straight down from there i am not telling you that anything on this sheet is factually accurate i'm not telling you that i'm telling you something which is far more powerful person i think is accurate but i don't care there's something that's far more powerful about this sheet i confirmed from the the the names from the bible and then all the names after that which you described in jewish literature i have all these people's books on my shelf i have confirmed that this is what orthodox jews believe okay you didn't fall off your chair which means you didn't make the connection watch this orthodox just believed that there was a continuous line without any break going from moses straight down if the original lie was moses gap fred then somewhere in jewish history i should find a story about a terrible gathering for 500 years no one knew anything about mount sinai and then frank came and restarted religion now what kind of what kind of event we talk about here not a small of it watch hillary did blood damage he killed six million jews but every single person who walked out of the camps had heard of mount sinai some believed it some didn't believe it but everybody had heard about mount sinai matt simon was not eliminated by the holocaust if you want to propose the past line moses got fred the liar would have to have told a lie about a disaster that would have been far bigger than the holocaust a giant destruction so no one would have known about mount sinai for 500 000 years and more than that moses is clearly the most important player in the bible however the second most important person ever in jewish history is going to be a friend because after the whole thing is destroyed he restarts it okay now here's what's odd is anyone here is getting a phd in jewish studies like this it looks much better we'll have people who are getting into producer studies but i'll try with you guys let's see how far we can go i'm gonna play game with you um could someone please tell me what's the name of the man who went up on mount sinai and supposedly chord mythology doctor brought down to the jews good you got one in your pocket that was a giveaway okay now next one moses dies according to mythology who's the person who takes the jews in the land of israel joshua yeah people are getting speeches your studies will be able to answer all these questions um the jews were exiled from israel they were living in babylonia right they lost their temple after period they're led back out of exile they come back and they refound the jewish state here in israel again right the man who heroically led them back and refounded your state was ezra that's correct okay well how do people know that he was a giant person he made a huge contribution theologically and historically it was tremendous and people know what he did he brought the jews back okay watch um what is the name of the person who redacted the mishna one of the greatest books ever in jewish literature julian the prince that's correct uh all right this is this is difficult this is an improved challenge for you what is the name of the person two people who redacted the talent very nice okay how does she know these names the answer is they created a tall one it's huge however none of these accomplishments that we just went through are as large as the accomplishment of fred who after a religion that was gone for five hundred thousand years reminding people about science okay but here's the problem when i stand up in front of people who gave their phds in jewish studies and i say to them okay could someone please tell me um where is the gap in jewish history and where is fred so this person will say fred is hear me off and this person said it's not your nail it's your testicles it's not your hezbollah it's ezra's it's not ezra's and you stand back and they kill each other i say ladies gentlemen why are you fighting don't you know this is the greatest person ever history why is there any confusion about this and where's the gap why is that ever white why watch it's not just the jews don't have a record of the gap the christians never heard of the gap or a disaster or a friend the sadducees never heard of a gap and a friend the care heights never heard of a gap and a friend no one has ever heard of a gap in a friend there's no evidence of this therefore watch the power if you play by my rules and my rules are there's evidence you draw conclusion in the absence of evidence you cannot say anything it's a weak faith if you buy that rule and you want to believe the present thirty i'm gonna present the past theory you can say past there you can say i believe past there you have to say that you have to say i believe in pastor because the total crazy leap of faith what would make someone believe that anyone ever said moses kept praying there's no evidence that anyone ever said was get a friend in fact we found the opposite everywhere we did jewish history we find jews saying there's a continuous line so why do i say that there's no scaffold that that lies a small problem with the future lie is the future life will never produce the sociological phenomena looking at the small problem with present lie is in present life you're asking people believe that they just heard god speak no one is that stupid in the in in the past line a small problem is the originalized moses got fred but no one ever heard of a gap or a fred why would i think that why was ever told but the only way the choosing to be alive is either through the past the president of the future that only leads one alternative which is it's true that the thing started when god spoke to the jews in mount sinai okay now i'm five minutes over so i have to stop however i will tell you that when this first occurred to me i was shaken but not willing at one point to actually start taking on what i should do i thought this is serious i've got to think about it however when i hit the bottom it's about three years later when i hit the ball i realize okay it's true and that was the fun right she started moving so i can't do the volunteer day because i have time but another one looked upset what i did do was i brought you the bomb in print it is so simple and so straightforward it will take you 10 minutes to read and you'll see right away what will put you over the edge yeah you