This is an I-Heart podcast, guaranteed human.

Why do things exist? We have swallowed wholesale this idea that everything can be reduced to scientific explanation. I just don't think that's true.

What is the most dangerous idea people believe without questioning? There are very few things that people can be certain of. Pay attention when you are convinced that you know why you're doing something. What is a good life? I would ask what they mean by good. What do you think people are most afraid to admit about life? That it comes to an end. Alex O'Connor, welcome to On Purpose. Jay, nice to meet you. It's nice to meet you, mate.

I've been looking forward to meeting you for a long, long time. I've been a consumer and fan of your content. Thoroughly enjoy watching you, whether it's debate, conversation, very, very intriguing stuff. I wanted to start by asking you, I hope you've never been asked before. I don't think I saw this.

But what's a childhood memory that you have

that you feel defines who you are today?

My, I hope you've never been asked before. I don't think I saw this, but what's a childhood memory that you have that you feel defines who you are today?

My childhood is a bit unusual given the line of work I found myself in. I grew up just sort of south of Oxford City Center, a place called Blackbird Lees.

When I think of my childhood, what I remember is like acting up at school, in secondary school kind of not showing up for class, I used to skateboard, and I used to sort of wear jeans and the wrong shoes and have arguments with the teachers, that kind of petty stuff. I used to like playing music, so I'd like skip class to be in the school recording studio, that kind of stuff. And, you know, somebody asked me recently, I was doing a talk with some school kids, and one of them asked, like, do you think your upbringing has affected your worldview? And that's a difficult question to answer, because we never know, for sure. There's someone asks, like, why are you an atheist? There's one sense in which you could say, because I don't believe that the contingency

argument is sound. And there's another in which you could say, because my parents got divorced when I

was eight, you know what I mean? And those can kind of be both true. And so it's difficult to

sort of psychologically. But I was thinking, like, yeah, maybe the fact that I had this

slightly sort of acting out rebellious attitude that meant that when I came across

the new atheist movement, something about the debate, something about the theatre attracted me to

it because I had that kind of attitude as a child. My memory would be kind of like walking into school

at like midday, wearing the wrong uniform and

having somebody kind of say, you know, you really should be wearing black shoes and me just saying,

oh, I'll sort it out tomorrow. And that kind of just being the kind of childhood I had, which is maybe

not what people would expect, given how much I care about being a bit more like studious

these days and how I'm kind of associated with like academics. I'm not an academic myself,

but I speak to them all the time and I've got a university degree and this kind of stuff.

I find that's also kind of like helpful for people to hear sometimes because a lot of people

...