Hello everyone. I'd like to welcome you to episode 11 of the Symbolic World podcast.

On this episode, I'm going to play for you a video that I made in response to a comment on YouTube about science and religion.

And in this video, I try to show the inevitability of hierarchy and how a lot of the imagery

we use in religions such as heaven, such as the mountain, is really a language of hierarchy.

And so when we see it that way way we can understand what exactly we are

referring to when we talk about let's say a God in heaven and it's all yeah hope

you enjoy it this is Jonathan Peugeot. Welcome to the symbolic world. Okay, so I should definitely be doing all the other things I need to do, but this is way too much fun.

On the video that I did recently on the symbolic versus literal interpretation of the Bible,

I got a very good and concise comment about atheism and why many people have abandoned religion.

I have some sympathy for atheism in many ways,

mostly because many religious people have done a dreadful

job at explaining things and have alienated generations of smart people. And also because atheists often

become that way through curiosity and a desire to have an integrated worldview. I mean, when you face literalist religious types,

there's a kind of blind unconsciousness that is truly nauseating.

I once confronted a literalist type.

And when I asked him,

when it says in the Bible that Christ was taken up into heaven,

where exactly did he go?

Into the atmosphere, to the moon?

And that person had actually never thought about that,

had never asked themselves that question.

So yeah, sympathy for atheists.

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