tonight, gerard butler. leading man, action hero, and hollywood heartthrob. if you could choose one partner, who would it be? >> i'm looking over, i see people going don't do it, don't do it. >> do it, there's nothing to lose here. she'll be flattered. the answer tonight, and deepak chopra, michael jackson's long-time friend, what he thinks killed michael. >> he said, deepak, are you familiar with this thing that takes you to the valley of death and then brings you back from it? he was talking about propofol, the anesthetic that finally killed him. it took him to the valley of death and did not bring him

back. >> this is "piers morgan tonight." gerard butler's career took off in his role in "300." his latest is a searing performance in "machine gun preacher." gerard butler joins me now. jerry, i think you're preferred to be known. americans call you gerard. which we can't have that. you're irish decent, but you're scottish, aren't you? >> that's right. >> scotland they never say gerard. >> they say jerad. >> i think we should insist on this pronunciation. >> yeah, yeah, yeah. >> let's start with your physique, because you look, unfortunately -- you're looking great, but i want to show you, luckily, a picture from last year where you weren't in such a great shape. all of the women have been going crazy. i prefer the gerard on the left, you know why, it's more like me,

so that men like me look to you in the shot on the left and thought fantastic, then to our utter horror you emerged from a soccer match in britain on the right looking like that. >> kind of crazy. >> sort of a demented he-man. how did you go from me to the one on the right? >> well, that was actually two years ago, by the way, that one. that came as a bit of a shock. what i do when i trained for "300," i'm very obsessive about how i train. i was doing six hours a day. i trained with two different trainers. a body building trainer. >> six hours a day? >> yeah. then i trained with the stunt guys for two hours at a time. when i was filming, i literally had somebody come down with the weights and i would pump before each shot. i got extremely big. in the same way when i'm not

working i found myself at times getting forcibly into coca-cola, dessert. i think that was at a time when i -- actually, that was me -- i saw those photos and that changed my life, actually. >> really? tell me about that. >> i was on holiday with a buddy down in barbados. and i just finished -- i forget what movie it was, but i trained pretty heavily for the movie and was taking some time off, and i noticed i was eating more and more and kept thinking i should be careful. and then i was actually getting in the water, and i looked over and i saw this boat in the distance. and i saw the -- >> you thought no! >> even i didn't realize how awful it was going to look or how big of a -- >> can i remind you, your idea of awful is my idea of reasonably good. so you've got to be careful with your language here. >> for me. awful for me.

considering where i'd been, you know. >> so you were properly upset by it. >> in truth, it didn't look great, didn't kill me, but it did lead me to be a little more cognizant of what i was eating. >> when that second picture came out, which is an extraordinary image, what did you feel then, a kind of sense of absolute euphoria? >> no because i look ridiculous. look at my hair. look at the tongue. i look like a mad man. >> no one is looking at your hair, it's the six-pack. extraordinary. i want to take you back to scotland, because you grew up in scotland. you were supposed to be a lawyer. this was the plan. you were going to be a good, conscientious scottish lawyer. you became a trainee lawyer. incredibly you became probably one of the only people in history to get fired as a trainee lawyer. that's pretty difficult. >> i don't think it's ever happened before, actually. >> you went to the edenburg festival. the famous arts festival in

scotland and got wrecked, right? >> this is a great start to an interview, here you are fat, now let's talk about the time you were fired. >> is it any consolation, we'll come to the bit you get jailed in the l.a. county jail. this is the good stuff. this will start descending, trust me. >> taxi. taxi. >> so here you are, fired as a trainee lawyer. what does your mom say to you in that moment? the game plan has just dramatically changed. >> she wasn't there in that moment, thank god. there was a room full of lawyers. if i could have had her there, have a word with them. even then it would have been too late for her to have gotten me out of that. in truth it was actually a very sad moment for me at that moment. i don't come from a family of lawyers. it was a big deal that i was going to law school. my mom, you know, talking about irish mothers, very proud, my boy's going to be a lawyer, then one week before qualifying i had to call her and say i've just been fired, and it was a -- it

was a tough moment in my life, it was tough for her to hear that it just happened to her son. then in the next breath she said what are you going to do, i said well, i'm going to move cowan down to london. i know i have no money. i'm going to become an actor. i'm going to get my [ bleep ] together. >> was the problem, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise, but was the problem before you got fired, you'd been to america for a year, i think, with some irish mates and were living in venice beach, right? >> yeah. whole gang of you. and you basically drank yourselves into oblivion for a year. is it true? >> this is funny, who have you been talking to? >> it's sort of been researched. >> i was 21. i had taken a summer in america when i was younger, but this was the end of my honors law degree. i came over just for the summer. then i decided i was going to take a year out. i knew when i got back things were going to get a lot more serious. in truth, it was covering up something a little darker, i knew i was headed totally down the wrong track. i wasn't doing what i wanted to do.

>> you had this thing inside you burning away, the crater spot. before we get to the crater spot, i do want to know about the night in the l.a. county jail. >> okay. well, what happened -- [ laughter ] >> is the memory flooding back? you were actually shackled, right? >> i was shackled, yeah. what was it, i think it was -- i think it was drunk driving or something silly. i was kind of out of control in those days. >> was that a wake-up moment? >> that was a wake-up moment, yeah. but then in truth i had a few of them. i could write a book about moments like that. >> we've had had moments like this. don't worry about it. i don't think you're alone. you're not the first guy with irish blood with a few drinks in his life. what i like about it is it leads up to you have this wake-up moment then. you go back. you have another one when you don't get through the law thing. the whole sort of plan for you, which was going to be, i think, pretty dull, you were going to lead possibly -- i think you've said this. you were going to lead this life

as a smalltown lawyer in scotland. it's not that exciting. >> what i realized was up until that point, i had that energy in me, but i didn't know what to do with it. the one thing it was not made for was a career as a lawyer. can you imagine sitting in that office and feeling that pulse? >> do you ever wonder what may have happened if you'd passed your law degree, if you'd passed exams, if you'd become a lawyer? >> yeah, i don't think i would have -- i don't think i'd be alive today to be honest, and i don't say that lightly. i was living my life in a very unhealthy way, and i needed to be told that it wasn't happening. i needed to be stopped, because otherwise i'd just have kept going thinking i could get away with it. so, no, i don't -- one, i would not have been fulfilling my purpose. i wouldn't have -- god knows where i would have ended up. >> what was your mother's honest opinion when you fled to london away from this career that she

had mapped out, as you say, tough catholic mom. suddenly her boy is supposed to be this well-groomed lawyer is racing off to be an actor in london. what does she think? >> i think she just was -- threw up her hands and thought, god, i created a monster in you. >> when the monster thrived and succeeded and ever more succeeded, did her view change quite quickly? did she realize it was what you were supposed to be doing? >> yeah, she did. by the way, i'm not giving her fair credit. she wrote me the most beautiful letter actually when i went to london. and i didn't expect it, because my mother and i, we're very, very close, very intense relationship, and she wouldn't let me go on anything, so i expected her to be -- to be way more heavy handed with what had happened. but she wrote me this letter that said, you know what, i just want you to know i support you in whatever you do as long as it makes you happy. i'll be there for you. >> what does she make of what's happened to you? >> she loves it, she loves it.

it gives her a chance to do her little performing thing. oh, my boy. she claims she doesn't, but wherever she goes, it's like, do you know gerard butler? well, that's my son. she'll find a way. she'll find a way to get that into any conversation. >> let's take a short break. when we come back, i want to get into the movie of yours. which is an absolute tour deforce. i saw whoopi goldberg describe it. she said to her audience on "the view," go see it. we'll discuss that after the break.

hey, get up, let's go. let's get a move on, get up. hey, come on, get up. >> what are you doing? >> let's go, get up. they ain't sleeping out here. tell them, they're coming inside. come on, get up. let's go. >> sam. sam. there are too many. we can't help them all. >> well, i can take these ones here. >> gerard butler's latest movie, "machine gun preacher." this is serious, intense. it's visceral.

it's everything you would want in a powerful movie. you're all over this, you're a star in it, you produced it. this is a labor of love for you. why this? >> it's the way you introduced the movie is the very same reason i wanted to do it. i read the script and thought this is such a remarkable story of one man's journey just into the unknown where he really took on the world. i loved all the themes in it, religion, you know, just had a powerful belief in god, fighting one's own demons, and this situation in africa. which so few people know really, really what's going on and what continues to go on. >> very quickly sum up what the film is about. >> so, i play a man called sam childers who was a drug addict, you know, violent man who lived in pennsylvania who finally got his life together, found god, went down to do some missionary work in africa where he witnessed atrocities in sudan, and it changed his life, and he

ended up, one, becoming a preacher, but two, fighting to build an orphanage to take in this orphan kids. also he started fighting the rebel forces who were kidnapping these children to bring them back into the orphanage. he's kind of got a bible in one hand and a machine gun in the other while still trying to have a family back in pennsylvania and run a church that he built there and still dealing with his own demons. because he's a dark soul. >> god-fearing bad boy sees the light. parallels as you were filming? are you thinking -- i mean, very different story line. >> sometimes you read a script and you don't know why, you just think i connect with this, then it's almost embarrassing to say it out loud that i would feel parallels with that. because, of course, what he's achieved is so much more than me. i didn't go in and start fighting in a war. but at the same time, i felt a lot of parallels. then the parallels, you try and

force those on to that character as well. a bad boy who then found his purpose in life. >> it's a cliche question, but did it make you reassess yourself, your sense of what's important in life? >> absolutely. when you see these kids, and they have nothing and they abide by a very simple way of living, and yet -- and they truly have nothing. yet they look at you and it's just about you. it's only you and what and who you are. there's nothing gets in between that, and you think what do i really need, what do i really need except some simple beliefs and some friendships? without a doubt. and it also reaffirming your faith in humanity as to where we could be even with nothing. >> did it reaffirm your faith in god? you were raised a catholic. are you a strong catholic? are you very religious? >> i was brought up a catholic. i'm not a practicing catholic. i'd say i'm more spiritual. i do believe in god. i kind of believe we all apply it to ourselves on an individual

basis. we try our best. but this movie without a doubt, i mean, one thing that i've experienced in my life with the changes that i've had and changes that i've witnessed in other people is where when you are backed and have this belief in a god, what you can manifest with that. where you can go with that. this is a perfect example. i've had it in my life as well where i've seen just -- whether it was myself, the joy that i've had and happiness in my life when i'm in a moment where i'm truly connected with something higher. this is a perfect example here of a man who -- just the power and intensity of his belief in a god. >> watch another clip from the movie here. >> they burnt it down. nothing left. >> where are you? it's a test, sam. >> i can't do it no more, lynn. it's over.

>> sam? >> yeah. >> can you hear me? >> yeah, i can hear you. >> them kids have had their whole lives burnt to the ground and worse, how many of them do you see giving up? >> when you finish scenes like that, how do you unwind after? can you or does it hang with you for a long time? >> it hangs with you for awhile, and with this movie there was very much a cumulative affect, because from day one you find yourself playing more and more of these scenes where you're either having some kind of a breakdown via your drugs or family pressures. then, of course, in africa where it just -- it went to such -- such huge proportions of depression and despair that after a while it became -- this movie was definitely a journey into darkness for me. >> do you feel slightly mentally scarred by what you had to see? >> yeah, i do. yeah, i was amazed that i

struggled with it like i did. i mean, i definitely had an emotional reaction to it. and i would during the movie. sometimes i'd just sit down and i would just start -- i would just start crying. or just find myself in a really -- it reminded me of places that i'd been in my darker days when i was younger when i thought -- when i thought life couldn't get much worse, really. >> there's a remarkably powerful kind of moral divide issue that's raised by sam and real-life sam asking an audience one question. i'll read it to you. i want to ask everyone if your child or family member was abducted today, if a madman came in, terrorist came in and abducted your family or child and if i said to you i can bring your child home, does it matter how i bring him home? fascinating question. have you asked yourself that question? >> yeah. >> what would be the answer? >> i mean, i would give anybody

free power to do whatever they wanted to if it was somebody -- if it was a family member of mine. and i myself would do it. i think with -- if somebody were to take a family member of mine, there's nothing that i wouldn't do to get them back. and there have been all these debates, and i love that. i love that this movie, it brings that up. this controversy. can you put wrong against wrong, violence against violence, and who does he think he is to go in there and decide he's the arbiter of all this. as you say, this is an insane situation. really anybody -- there isn't anybody who could say anything good about them and what they do. they have no political agenda. they go into villages -- >> they have no morality. >> no morality, they kill everybody, ritualize killing, they rape, sexually enslave the

women, they turn all the children into child soldiers. >> it's a remarkably powerful you can make it in just 14 minutes. mmmh, orange chicken. great. i didn't feel like going out anyway. [ male announcer ] wanchai ferry. restaurant quality chinese in your grocer's freezer.

if ever again i meet him, he's mine or i am his.

>> another one of the four films you have coming up, directed by ray fines, a fellow britt. i suppose that kind of brooding magnificent look, the bearded, brooding beast, is what drives women mad about you. which is, of course, what sickens the rest of us in the male race who don't have that kind of effect on women. when did you first realize that this kind of look you have was going to turn women wild? >> i don't know if i ever worked that out. i always thought bearded guys were less attractive to the female population, you know, i just liked it. i've always loved having a beard. it gives you a very kind of strong look, and it's worked for a lot of my characters, but i always imagined that women kind of go eww, you've got a stragly little beard and it feels weird

when you kiss me or try to kiss me. >> you've been linked with just about every sexy woman in hollywood, jennifer aniston, jessica biel, reese witherspoon. >> that's a new one. >> that was in the frame at one stage. you said it's a brilliant cover-up for what you're really up to. you've managed to have two quite long relationships in the last five years when they're all chasing jennifer aniston when i don't think you've ever been near jennifer aniston, not in that sense. >> no, exactly. every day i read something about somebody different, and even reese witherspoon, i actually don't think i've ever met reese witherspoon, okay, there's a new one. so i think i can say that maybe 4% of those reports i read are anywhere close to correct. >> do you care that much? you're a single guy, you're not married, you play heartthrobs in quite a few of these roles.

it's all just a brand extension, isn't it? all this kind of stuff? >> i don't know. for instance, i go on -- i sometimes think people start to judge you and form an opinion of you when this -- and often these rumors come out. i think even to people who promulgate those rumors think they're a joke. they start to do it tongue in cheek. look at the work i did in "machine gun preacher." i also work really hard as an actor. as long as that doesn't get in the way of people's judgment of you as in you don't take your craft seriously, because i do take my craft very seriously. if it's a brand extension, that's great. some people say, hey, it's no big deal. it does get to me at times, at times it feels it gets ridiculous, but there will be a day when that stops when i'm saying let me on the show again. >> it's taken you long enough to get you on to start with. you're turning 42 soon.

i hate to remind you of this. for a long time i guess you probably reveled in the single playboy kind of reputation. is there a turning point for that when people start to say what's up with you, then? >> yes. it happened a couple of years ago. it is so interesting you say that. because i did -- i used to answer a lot of questions which was, look, you're a hollywood leading man. you're single. you have your whole life ahead of you. one day it was like, you're a hollywood single man. you're getting on a bit. have you ever thought of settling down? very recently it's been like, your almost 42, what are you playing now? >> what are you going to do about it? does your mother want to see her little boy settle down, get married, have little gerards running around? >> the name alone. not another one! >> i think you should have a lot of gerards. >> actually more gerards might be a good thing.

>> have you worked out what your dream woman would be? from all the experience you've had playing the field, have you actually worked out in your head what kind of characteristics and looks the one needs to have? >> i could give you something, and then walk out of here and see a woman that's absolute opposite and go oh, wow, because i don't think there's a definite type. my type would most likely be taller with dark skin and darker hair. hey. >> we're getting there. yeah. what kind of a personality? >> i love vivacious but i love a good heart. i love somebody who's really sweet. and fun. i say vivacious and fun. then there's just a -- you know, a woman has to be sexy. >> what do you mean, sexy, it's not necessarily looking beautiful. >> it's something you can't define. i think it's just a feeling that they give. maybe one woman is sexy to me that's not sexy to somebody else. there's just some woman that you're with and they make you

feel excited, you know, and frisky and you just -- and sensual. i love sensuality in a woman. >> if you could be trapped with one famous woman on a desert island, hypothetically, not for real. if you could choose one partner on a desert island if i was going to send you there for a year, who would it be? >> god. i'm looking over. i see people going, don't do it! don't do it! >> do it. there's nothing to lose here. she'll be flattered. >> maybe monica bellucci. >> good call. that's a good call. that's not going to be a long year. that's going to fly by. might have to make it two years. gerard, it's been a pleasure, seriously, and it's a fantastic movie. it's out this weekend, "machine gun preacher," all the very best with it. thank you very much. >> thank you.

deepak chopra, doctor, spiritual teacher, best-selling author, also long-time close friend of michael jackson's. deepak joining me now. deepak, i want to read you back what you said the day after michael jackson died. you wrote, i hope the word "joyous" is the one that will rise from the ashes and shine as we once did. michael jackson will be remembered most likely as a shattered icon, pop genius. for 20 years i've observed every aspect, and as easy as it was to

love michael and want to protect him, his sudden death yesterday seemed almost fated. what did you mean by that? >> you know, once i talked to michael, we used to discuss big issues, including life and death. and he said to me once, i'd rather die like elvis presley than marlon brando. what do you mean by that? he said i'm not going to go out with a whimper, but with a bang, and in many ways, he had a death instinct, just as he had a life instinct. he was -- piers, he was in this world but he was not of this world. >> you described him in that quote after he died as a mutant of fame. you've met lots of famous people over the years, do you think this is a common thing he went throw on a bigger scale than most people? is fame itself an addictive drug? >> fame in itself is an addictive drug, and fame creates

an image which you cannot live up to. then at some pointthe image is defiled and everybody gets enraged when, in fact, they created the image that was not conforming to reality. no image ever conforms to reality. >> the key thing from michael jackson as we're seeing from the trial and circumstances around his death and everything else was his dependence toward the end of his life on various drugs. what did you know about his drug consumption? >> well, michael only called me when he was totally sober and was off drugs. he did mention almost eight years ago to me, he said deepak, are you familiar with this thing that takes you to the valley of death and then brings you back from it? and at that time i had no idea what he was talking about. but obviously he was talking about propofol, the anesthetic that finally killed him. it took him to the valley of death and did not bring him back.

michael was a controlled substance addict. he could stay off, and then he could be on again, and i think during the period that he was rehearsing, there were periods when he was totally fine. he was practicing, he had a lot of strength, he had a lot of vigor, a lot of freshness, he left a message on my phone two days before he passed on, and he was very excited, both about the tour, about a new song that he was writing about the environment called "breathe," and he said call me back, and i'm really excited, so he didn't expect to die. i can tell you that must have been what it ultimately was, an accident. dr. conrad didn't intend to kill him. he used a drug that should not have been used outside an operating room. he miscalculated the dose, there were probably other things in

michael's system, it was a tragedy. >> i'm going to come to propofol and dr. murray after the break. first of all, i want to take you back to 1984 and the pepsi commercial accident michael endured, when he suffered some pretty horrendous burning in this. many people close to michael jackson have said since that the damage that was done to him then led to a lot of his dependency on painkillers, on sleeping tablets and so on. that it really did in many ways ruin his life. what's your understanding about the repercussions of what we're watching here on screen? >> it's a common story, piers, one has a very severe injury, a traumatic injury that leads to a lot of pain. and then one gets narcotics. and if one has an addictive personality which may be partly genetic, then one gets dependent.

the key here is for a doctor to be aware of this and to be very careful in prescribing drugs. i think michael's addiction was initiated by, and then perpetuated by, careless doctors. >> did he ever talk to you about the pepsi accident? because it was much worse than people realized. he was severely burned. >> yes, he did talk to me about that many times. he talked to me about the excruciating pain, and when i mentioned to him the potential problems with drug addiction, he would say, you don't understand. you don't understand how -- how deeply i feel this pain. but i used to question him, perhaps not correctly, i used to say a lot of your pain is emotional. because he was a tortured soul right from his childhood. there were emotional components to his pain. but i did not question the physical aspect of his pain either. >> was he a very innocent man, michael jackson? towards tend, even as he approached 50, he seem to have had a very childlike side to him himself. is that realistic? can somebody who's such a successful businessman and

entertainer really be childlike or was that a bit of an act? >> well, in a sense, we're all multiple personalities, he was child-like, and he was innocent, and when he was innocent and childlike, he was a genius. genius performer, genius musician, genius song writer, genius composer. he was also, on the other hand, very versatile in his knowledge of classical musicians like beethoven and mozart, and he was very familiar with the history of musical thought and even intellectual thought and even scientific thought, so there was a lot of facets to michael. he was a very sharp businessman. i saw him mostly when we were in a playful mood, and i never discussed business with him. once in a while he would bring up something about how everybody was trying to take advantage of him.

but other than that, i never got into that aspect of his life. >> i want to take a short break. when we come back, i want to get down to what happened on the night michael jackson died, what your view is of the medical behavior that night of dr. conrad murray, from your expert opinion. it doesn't cover everything.

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break the grip of pain with aspercreme. ♪ ♪ >> hold for applause, hold for applause. "this is it," michael jackson's last rehearsal filmed just before his death. with us now is deepak chopra. deepak, when you see michael there, there are conflicting reports, if you watch the documentary, he looks pretty healthy, he looks fit, looks like he's ready to go. talk to jermaine jackson and members of his family, they say there's lots of outtakes where he looks completely different, where he looks exhausted, he

looks frail, he looks fragile. what was your understanding of his physical condition through this period? >> well, piers, i wasn't there at those rehearsals. i talked to some of the people later, the producers, they said he was pretty strong, he was pretty vigorous. those periods of rehearsal are quite long and exhausting to anyone, but a person who's about 50 years of age, that's pretty good. i also talked, at some point, to the nanny who took care of his children, and she said he was a really strong person. now, i can't comment on what the family's saying, but in my interactions with him on the phone, he was very enthusiastic, his voice sounded good. i didn't think he thought he was in a state where he was going to die at all. >> i mean, it seemed to me, i saw him perform in concert in the '90s, he looked a hell of a lot skinnier and thinner just before the "this is it" tour.

i had tickets to his first night. i was going to go and see him in london. but he looked a lot, lot smaller physically than he had been the previous time i'd seen him. did you notice that with him? jermaine says he'd never been that thin. >> yeah, well first of all, he was getting older, so that comes with age, and to some extent, secondly, i think it must have had something to do with the drugs and water retention and the drugs as well. so he had gained weight. and he was obviously not in the same shape when you saw him many years before. >> tell me, deepak, i want to get to the nitty gritty of this trial, really, which is propofol and the right of a doctor to administer propofol, where you're allowed to do it, where you're not. you are an endocrinologist. conrad murray is a cardiologist. are either of you legally allowed to administer propofol in a private house?

>> i don't think so, and neither a cardiologist or an endocrinologist should administer. i don't know what the legalities are. only an anesthesiologist should administer that drug. it should be done in a hospital, preferably in an operating room, and you should have a ventilator and a tube to intubate the patient just in case they stop breathing. because that's what the drug does. ultimately it involves the centers in the brain responsible for breathing, and if you overshoot your dose, there's no coming back. and it should not, therefore, have been used. you know, several vials were bought. enormous amount of supply was there. and it was all being administered at home. so that is for certain, it should not have been administered outside of a hospital.

>> you believe, i think, that michael could have been saved. what's always struck me is that a lot of people around him that cared about him clearly knew about his terrible dependence on these drugs. why did no one perform a kind of intervention and just try and get him off this stuff? >> there were a couple of interventions to no avail, and the people who called the interventions were then never in his life after that. so, you know, michael made those choices, too. but, you know, it's a complex thing. addiction is a very complex thing. there's no one person you can point the finger at. if anything, you can say the pepsi accident was the tipping -- you know, was the initiating point. and right then people had to be careful. after that, history took its course. >> i want to come back after the break, deepak, and change the subject, if i may. i want to bring in your

co-author. you've written this fascinating book in which the pair of you go toe to toe. war of the world views, vins v. spirituality. i want to come back and talk god, the big bang, the meaning of life, the whole shebang.

deepak chopra's latest book is a collaboration with leonard mlodinov who joins us now. talk me through the concept of this book. the idea seems to me that you and deepak go toe-to-toe, head-to-head and fight fire with fire over spirituality v. science. is that the tenet of this book? >> yeah, that's the basic idea. for me, the book was really two things. one was a chance to explain to people really how science works and what's the scientific method and the other one was a natural outgrowth of my book "the grand design" that i wrote with steven hawking where we talked about the universe and where it came from. we talk about it in this book. both sides. my point of view and deepak. then life and where life came from and what it means to be alive and then what it means to be human and the human brain.

and then deepak insistence we treated the issue of god and what is the meaning of god, and is god -- is there a god? that's a little bit of a stretch for a scientist because science doesn't really deal with god, but i managed to say a few things. >> that's my obvious question. do any scientists believe in god? any of the top ones? >> oh, yeah, many scientists believe in god. one of my teachers when i was a graduate student was one of the discoverers of the laser. got a nobel prize and a devout christian. >> my main question for you before i go to deepak is, if scientists believe in god, where does that leave you when you don't think there is a god but you believe in all this science for having got us here in the first place? isn't there a contradiction there? >> first of all, i don't say that i don't believe in god. and -- >> do you? >> i don't think people are that interested -- >> i don't think people are really interested in my personal views. >> i am fascinated. you've written a book about it. do you believe in god or not?

>> okay. well, first of all, let me say, the book i wrote about is what science has to say on the issue. it wasn't a -- >> never mind all that. this is not the spanish inquisition. do you believe in god? >> i believe in a kind of god. i think all scientists in a way believe in a certain god, in a certain order of nature. look. in physics, all you can do is predict the consequences of physical laws. and then people made a big deal because in the grand design we saw that the universe could come from nothing. but people, what they forget is that physics is always based on laws. there's always laws of physics. if you want to go in that direction you should ask, where do those laws come from? and science never has answered that question. >> my sense from all of this, you are more of the believer. you are more into the god is this superbeing and, therefore, has powers beyond our comprehension, which, my view as a believer, makes it a lot

easier. my problem with all the scientific experts if it's all very well until you get to the point of nothingness. what is nothing? where did nothing come from and what was there before nothing? so they can never answer me. i prefer to have the power if you like, of a superpower who knows all the answers who just has a better comprehension than i do. what do you think? >> well, it's an eternal mystery, but i'll just quote leonard in the book. in the book, leonard specifically says that science cannot and will not say that god is an illusion, which is a total contradiction to what richard dawkins says. richard dawkin explicitly says that god is a delusion. leonard also says in the book, science cannot answer why there are physical laws or why the universe obeys physical laws. you know, while leonard asserts randomness to the universe, he cannot explain how randomness

gives rise to precise physical laws. where do these laws come from? leonard also says in the book very clearly that science does not address the meaning of life. now i say to you that's what being human is all about. you know, i want to know who am i? where did i come from? do i have a soul? does god exist? what happens to me after i die. >> we could be here all day with this. i love this stuff. it's a great book. >> next time let's be here longer. >> i want a very quick simple answer here. easily defined. where do you think you go when you die? >> ashes to ashes, dust to dust. >> that's it. that's the end of leonard? >> you know, i would love to think that it's not. trust me, i really would, just as you would. i just somehow don't let that desire, though, doesn't sway me. my belief is there is nothing more than -- i mean, it's beautiful that my atoms can

bring this consciousness in this person i am and all these feelings i have. it's wonderful they form that but i don't think there's anything beyond that that will -- >> so a grim end for you, leonard. deepak? >> i think we go back to the infinite consciousness where we emerged from. i think an individual person is a pattern of behavior of a universal consciousness. and that is constantly transforming and changing. you are not the same person that you were when you were a baby. that baby is dead. you are not the same person that you were a teenager. that's gone, too. so you keep on your eternal journey of transformation and you have to shift your identity from that of a person to a more cosmic perspective. and i do think we have a cosmic identity. we are a drop in the ocean of divine consciousness, and we recycle fromre