105. Diana Pasulka — American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology

The Michael Shermer Show

Michael Shermer

Dialogue, Science, Reason, Michaelshermer, Natural Sciences, Skeptic

4.4 • 921 Ratings

🗓️ 25 February 2020

⏱️ 102 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

More than half of American adults and more than 75 percent of young Americans believe in intelligent extraterrestrial life. This level of belief rivals that of belief in God. American Cosmicexamines the mechanisms at work behind the thriving belief system in extraterrestrial life, a system that is changing and even supplanting traditional religions. Over the course of a six-year ethnographic study, Dr. Pasulka interviewed successful and influential scientists, professionals, and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs who believe in extraterrestrial intelligence, thereby disproving the common misconception that only fringe members of society believe in UFOs. She argues that widespread belief in aliens is due to a number of factors including their ubiquity in modern media like The X-Files, which can influence memory, and the believability lent to that media by the search for planets that might support life. American Cosmic explores the intriguing question of how people interpret unexplainable experiences, and argues that the media is replacing religion as a cultural authority that offers believers answers about non-human intelligent life. Pasulka and Shermer also discuss:

the definition of religion
fictional religions and historical religions
Jediism as a religion
new religious movements and cults
Mormonism and Christianity
Scientology as a UFO religion
how to be spiritual without religion
Nietzsche, Jung, and archetypes
scientific truths and mythical truths
astronomical observatories and medieval cathedrals
UFOs as Sky Gods for Skeptics; aliens as deities for atheists, and
the rise of the Nones and the future of growth of new religions.

Diana Pasulka is a professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, and chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religion. Her current research focuses on religious and supernatural belief and practice and its connections to digital technologies and environments. She is the author and co-editor of numerous books and essays, the most recent of which are Believing in Bits: Digital Media and the Supernatural, co-edited with Simone Natalie and forthcoming from Oxford University Press, and Posthumanism: the Future of Homo Sapiens, co-edited with Michael Bess (2018). She is also a history and religion consultant for movies and television, including The Conjuring (2013) and The Conjuring II (2016).

Listen to Science Salon via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play Music, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Before I introduce today's guest, I want to tell you about the offer from our sponsor,
0:04.0	The Great Courses, this month, is a free month of access to the Great Courses Plus
0:09.6	app. So it looks like this, you have your phone or whatever device you're using you touch on the app like that boom and the courses pop up
0:17.5	There's a whole variety of them really hundreds that you can access so let's say you're interested in taking this one the
0:23.5	black death which is what I'm currently listening to and the 24 different
0:28.7	lectures pop up now if you're already in the course the lecture will just pick up wherever it is you last left off which is a nice feature or if you just want to skip around like say you want to skip from lecture 2 to lecture 13 medieval theories about the black death you just touch on that
0:44.0	boom and a little summary of the lecture pops up yeah so you can read about whether you
0:48.6	want to listen to it or not and then when you're ready listen to it you just hit
0:52.1	play and you're off and running.
0:54.0	Now if you don't want to do that and you decide you want to change courses in the middle, you can just do that.
0:58.0	Here's a course I already took, understanding the dark side of human nature.
1:02.0	This is 24 lectures by Daniel. understanding the dark side of human nature.
1:02.8	This is 24 lectures by Daniel Breyer.
1:05.8	Anyway, you get the idea.
1:07.2	So the offer this month is a free month
1:09.7	of access to the Great Courses Plus and to do that go to the Great
1:15.5	courses Plus.com slash salon. That's the Great Courses Plus
1:20.9	dot com slash salon. Thanks for listening. My guest this week is
1:27.1	Diana Pasilka. Her new book is American Cosmic UFO's Religion Technology.
1:35.0	Diana is a professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina
1:39.2	Wilmington and chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religion.
1:43.0	Her current research focuses on religious and supernatural belief and practice
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Michael Shermer, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Michael Shermer and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.