r sweet potatoes and merchants that sell our product. vo: get the card built for business spending. call 1-800-now-open to find out how the gold card can serve your business. good morning from new york, i'm chris hayes, a 32-year-old iraqi mother of five died yesterday after being found beaten in her home wednesday in el cajon, california. police say they are not ruling out any motive, but a note found next to her reportedly said, go back to your country, your terrorist. she wore a head scarf as part of her muslim faith. she had helped train u.s. soldiers for deployment to the middle east and lived in the u.s. since the mid 90s. we have steven pinker, a pea fesor of sipsychology at harvar

author of "the better angels of our nature." and camilla bay, host of "sparring with jamilla" and a contributor to the "washington post" blog, she, the people. susan jacobi, author of "free thinkers." now out in paper back "never say die." and jamie killstein, comedian and host of citizen radio. an estimated crowd of between 18,000 and 10,000 atheists gathered on the national mall yesterday for the reason raly. the point of the rally was to create connections among people who live a life by not believing in god. here's adam savage. co-host of the cable television show, mythbusters.

>> i have concluded that something is looking out for me, keeping track of what i think about things, forgiving me when i do less than i ought. giving me strength to shoot for more than i think i'm capable of. i believe they know everything i do and think and they still love me and i've concluded that this person keeping score is me. >> big applause line. it's also more than that. the rally was meant as a salvo, a coming out party trying to create an actual political coalition. on friday, nearly 300 atheists met with staffers in the house and senate to lobby and show their numbers. according to a survey in 2008 by the american religious identification survey, the country's athiest and agnostic population has trended up. jamie killstein you were there, you did a few sets at the rally. here's my question, for everyone on the panel, if someone said to me, are you an atheist, i would

say yeah, basically, more or less. but if someone said i want you to list all the ways you identify yourself. i would get through pages and pages wildfire i got to that as an identity. i think of so many other things, of so much more core to who i am. why is it important to you as a sort of identity badge and how plausible is it that that can be extended outwards? >> i think in a per convict world what you said is correct. because what is atheism? a nonbelief. you don't list all the things you don't believe in when you are identifying yourself. >> yeah, like whoa, here's what i'm not. the progressives go through this, too. you know a lot of times we aren't active. progressives or athiests do tend to be apathetic. because we tend to go, what, we're right, why do i have to go outside my "breaking bad zone."

if i have all the facts on my side wirks do i have to go out there. with the religious right especially, what they lack in empathy and facts they make up for in pamphlet-making skills and they do lobby very hard. they are lobbying for things that aren't just beliefs. they lobby to take away legitimate tangible beliefs from gay people from women. >> can opposition create an identity? >> well first of all, there's one problem in linking atheism and politics. which is i understand that people like rick santorum and a lot of people in america, have this idea that athiests are all political liberals, that's where the term secular socialism comes from. but in fact it's not true. there are really two strands of atheism or secular approach to public affairs, whichever you're talking about. one descends from thomas paine

and the other descends from the social darwinists from the 19th century. right through ayn rand, who was an extreme civil libertarian. the religious right which worships ayn rand's views on the free market, doesn't mention that she was an athiest. so athiest does not agree on everything politically. i'm sure you could find reg sta veg stairians who are worshippers of the free market. one of the problems with secular people with political influence, is they don't all have the same political values. >> it strikes me it's more than that, it's not just that they don't have the same political values, it's the primscy of where that falls. before you get to the problem of conflict, there's the problem of how you identify. >> it falls for athiests would be way down on your list if you were to take one of those tests in which you identify yourself.

that would have been true of me years ago. writer would be first, probably or woman. however, as i've focused more in my writing on these topics, i have come to realize how central my atheism is to the way i think about a lot of things. for example, health care and the right to die and whether we are all obligated to use all the resources of modern medicine to extend our lives. i know that the fact that i'm an athiest affects my views on these things, because i believe that my life is my own. and to a great extent, also, the people i love an who love me. but i don't believe that i owe it to god for example, if i have parkinson's disease, to live with it for four or five years as the pope did. >> jamilla, how much do you see the sort of plausibility of creating an actual political coalition around this identity? >> well the thing that i deeply

believe is simply admitting that you are athiest is a political act. the reason why is that when you look at the fact that religion and christianity is shorthand for trustworthiness and faithfulness, that is the language that our politicians have been using to get votes. so when you say, i'm an athiest, you've completely taken yourself out of the realm of ever seeking public office, with one exception that's out. >> congressman of the east bay, in california, we'll play later. but i think this captures what is broadly the sort of reality of this. this is asking would you vote for a qualified presidential candidate who was a blank. or would you refuse to vote.

what sort of percent of people would look at someone who was qualified blank. atheist edging out gay and muslim. if you were to think about a radical reconception of the presidency, an image of a gay president, for instance, seems like it would be such a more, a larger departure from the status quo than just someone who happened not to believe in god, right? >> people, gay, muslim, atheist. >> no gay muslim atheists will be elected president of the united states in the near future. but that statistic speaks to your point. there's a way in which faithfulness in a specific doctrinal tradition is understood in the political realm to mean faithfulness as the general moral faithfulness. >> indeed. that language is allowed to persi persist. nobody questions, well what exactly do you mean when you say that god told you to run for this office? what exactly do you feel your

obligation is when your doctrine says whatever you do unto the least of my people, that you do unto me and you are not acting that way? we allow this shorthand to happen that says, okay, you know, devout this, that, other. and we let these people just go ahead and dictate what should be in accordance with their personal beliefs. so when you come out and say, i have no belief in any of that. because you're skeptical and you say you have to make a case for everything you're alleging to me, people go oh, you think too much, you're scary and how dare you. >> i want to go back to this question about this has become part of the ritual almost of running for president. you talk about the moment that you're called. there's built into the narrative, particularly into the republican presidential primary, a kind of vocational moment where you say it in some way. i think when we think about how

to be critical of that. it gets into this question of how much do we really want to get into people's beliefs in general, to preserve the sort of nature of secular democracy? let's talk about that after we take this break. [ female announcer ] removing facial hair can be irritating. challenge that. new olay smooth finish facial hair removal duo. first a gentle balm. then the removal cream. effective together with less irritation and as gentle as a feather. new olay hair removal duo. my dad and grandfather spent their whole careers here.

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i want to talk about some pew polling that came out that i thought was interesting. obviously i think it's clear, we should manifest the subtext, to the degree there's some kind of political mobilization around the identity of atheism, it is largely i would say in response to the mobilization of the religious, religion in politics and the religious right. i think this polling from pew which sort of looks at attitudes on how people feel about how much religion there is in public speech, for the first time, there's now more people saying

there's too much religion in political speech than saying too little. which i thought was really interesting. we've seen a trend line where -- when you dug into the cross tabs of the polling, there's all these interesting partisan divides. there's also people who say they sort of, they think democrats are more hostile to religion. they think that republicans talk about religion too much. there's sort of alienation going on. when you look at the trend lines, it brings me to the question of degree to which there should be a proactive, evangelical thrust. >> you sometimes have to rise to the challenge that when politics reject religion where it doesn't belong in science education, in political legislation, then those arguments have to be counted. but the best arguments for

atheism, aren't going to mention airport ytheism per se. the fantastic scientific understanding we have of the universe, the the human rights doctrine. the reason that i don't trumpet atheism. it's a nuisance to have to deny a bunch of irrelevant considerations when there's so much positive we can point to. >> i completely agree with him. here's one of the things i always say -- is that freedom of religion, freedom of conscience is a secular idea. before with the enlightenment and america was the first national government in the world to separate church and state, freedom of conscience as a religious idea only means freedom of conscience for me. as of the case with the puritans who set up in massachusetts, set up a theocracy. the difference between the new world and the old was simply -- >> who was running the show. >> instead of killing roger

williams and an hutchinson, there was land. if you disagreed with the prevailing theocracy, there was a place to move, which there wasn't in europe. it amazes people, you don't need to say, you don't have to believe in god, you just talk about freedom of religion, the freedom of religion which all religions enjoy in this country. it's not a religious idea, it's a secular idea. >> what the poll says, is the especially the religious right in the country has overstepped their bounds. i was so proud yesterday to speak in front of 20,000 people about atheism. but if the religious right wasn't going after people's fundamental rights, if they were yeah, let's help the poor, down with bankers, i like christmas, we need to gather on the mall, shut this thing down. >> but that gets to my point. which is that fundamentally your first identity, i know you, your first identity is your politics as a progressive.

>> i don't go around talking about atheism. it's so frustrating. but i do try to argue on political issues, right. so if you're having a conversation with a religious person. i would start with something like gay rights or something with women's rights. that they could maybe relate to as opposed to being like everything you have been taught since a child is incorrect because i think you're dumb. >> look also, the whole debate about catholic hospitals, whether they're required to cover contraceptives or not. there's the mainstream media becoming accustomed to mainstream debates. even though it's a matter of religious liberty or contraception. it's not fundamentally a matter of either. it's a matter of religious institutions wanting to spend everybody's tax money according to their religious doctrines,

which is a whole different matter than either of them and the very first law separating church and state in this country, the virginia act for establishing religious freedom, served as the template for the constitution. came because madison, james madison convinced people to reject a proposal to have property taxes for the support of christian teaching in schools. it's the same issue as the hospital issue. >> i'm glad you brought that up, susan. you know, one of the things that i want to get back to in your original -- one of your questions is, you know, how much of a drumbeat should we be banging toward atheism and being evangelical. as an african-american and as a woman, just in case -- >> we have that in the kyron. >> it's not as good as a gay muslim president. >> i'm getting there. >> but when i am seen in this country, and my

african-american-ness is addressed, there is the understanding that well, i am a religious person. for someone looking at me. african-american women are the single-most religious demographic in this country. we also are the least likely to have any real property. the net worth of an average african-american woman as of 2010, was $5. $5. we outtithe every other group. what does that mean? when we make decisions about our health care as african-american women and i'm sure there are exceptions, please don't twitter bomb me about like i don't, i know you don't, i'm talking in general. but we are more likely to pray and trust god. rather than going and getting on our exercise plan, losing weight and not being diabetic any more. we are more likely to say, well, you know, contraception, i will fall in line with what my particular church says about

contraception. even though we know that african-american women are the demographic that are most likely to become newly infected with hiv and aids. if you go to a church where a pastor says condom use is what you should do, if you don't, you won't. there are very real consequences for people who look as i do, who allow religion to make the decisions for them. so when i say, you've got to think differently, i'm impugning their religious teachings. so i, i get called an evangelical athiest. i guess i am. but that's simply because the social issues and the factual issues -- >> you think the stakes at the heart of it are high. >> the stakes at heart of it are high. and people are ascribing their absolute decisions to what some man in a robe says. >> i've seen religion hurt people on a smaller scale. from as simple as you know, just kind of not doing as much maybe

for charity because they think god's going to take care of it. >> the data on this is very clear. religious people do give more money to charity. conservatives versus liberals give more money to charity. >> a lot of that is going to churches. >> i want to believe that but in fact religious people give more money than secular people do to secular charities. >> that's true. >> jamie with a conversion. >> one of the things that atheists are, and i believe truly is a value of atheism is honesty. i'm not going to sit here and pretend -- by the way, secular conservatives are much more stingy than secular libbers. the ayn rand people give the least to everybody. >> i do want to say this before i go. there is a part of me, especially with this panel that i want to spend the whole time being like, aren't athiests smart. >> that's whey want to avoid.

>> there's a part of me politically i do get upset with athiests, i'll use my atheism to convince athiests when it comes to politics. all of the athiests that advocated the iraq war. i would argue as much as good they may have done here turning agnostics into athiests, they've created more religious extremists -- >> aur talking about hitchens and sam harris. >> totally. the child who has, as much as you want to blame everything on islam. the child over in the gaza strip doesn't know what the word martyr means. he wants food and he wants someone to tell him it's okay because he's really scared. if we go over there. we're in so much trouble as a country and we're all being screwed over by the same person. and if a muslim person wants to too fight with me to end the wars, i'm going to fight with him. >> jamie kilstein, performed as

the reason rally yesterday. thank you so much. i want to bring"evolution of god" when we return. then there was a moment. when i decided to find a way to keep going. go for olympic gold and go to college too. [ male announcer ] every day we help students earn their bachelor's or master's degree for tomorrow's careers. this is your moment. let nothing stand in your way. devry university, proud to support the education of our u.s. olympic team. chocolate lemonade ? susie's lemonade... the movie. or... we make it pink ! with these 4g lte tablets, you can do business at lightning-fast speeds. we'll take all the strawberries, dave. you got it, kid. we have a winner. we're definitely gonna need another one. small businesses that want to grow use 4g lte technology from verizon. i wonder how she does it.

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smelling just the way you want it. purina tidy cats. keep your home smelling like home. congressman paul ryan cut his latest budget proposal. it would cut spending for medicaid, more than $5 trillion, would give the money to the rich in some $4 trillion in tax cuts. some religious leaders called it unconscionable and a moral disaster. ryan disagrees, a practicing catholic, he requires his staff to read ayn rand's novel, "atlas shrugged." she was famously a nonbeliever. some of the religious left have used rand to drive a wedge between economic conservatives and religious conservatives, such as when she was featured in an ad by the american values network. >> you scorn churches and the

concept of god. are these accurate criticisms? >> yes. i am the new code of morality and morality, not based on faith. >> rush limbaugh called her brilliant and fox and friends declared her movie, a victory for capitalism. as for the author of the republican budget? >> ayn rand did a fantastic job of explaining the morality of capitalism. the morality of individualism. this is what matters most. >> here's james salt of the group catholics united confronting ryan about his budget on the teachings of ayn rand. >> from a christian practicing catholic like you. i have a question. why did you choose to model your budget off the extreme ideology of ayn rand, rather than the economic lessons of the bible? [ indiscernible ] >> he's got to get back to a

vote. >> what it says about vulnerable -- >> so i, joining us is the author of a book, "evolution of god" the senior editor of "the atlantic." how did it take you to write that book? >> seven minutes, i guess. >> you heard this guy say -- >> and yet, it's longer and more profound -- >> they're both very long and very profound, i will say. we were all sort of chuckling a little bit at that ad, the values network ad. and i think the reason we were chuckling is because it seems a huge task to try to drive the wedge that that ad is trying to drive, right? it's trying to say to you religious folks who are religious conservatives, actually paul ryan and rush limbaugh, all these figures are secretly align with this godless athiest and you should listen to us. i think we all get the sense that that is not the way the

political coalition works right now. it doesn't matter how many of those ads you run, right. i'm curious to see what your thoughts are as someone whose politics lean libertarian, who is an athiest, how you see the modern conservative coalition and where your place in it might be or if there is a place in it for you. >> there's no place in it whatsoever. political psychologists usually say that political ideologies tend to be organized along two dimensions, a left-right dimension and authoritarian-lyre tearian dimension. in practice, political parties and political movements tend tobacco ligss of convenience. it used to be that the democratic party had southern segregation istds and northeast jewish liberals. now a days the american conservative party has the free market libertarians and the evangelical christians. it's not easy to find a common

denominator, that's the way the coalition has drifted. >> do you think it's drifted that way more? two questions, is that contingent, accidental? or is there something essential that unites those two groups. and do you think it's moved in that way -- has that could ligs gotten stronger or weaker as time has gone on? >> far stronger. even though the tea party identify it isself as libertarian. it's really just become the extreme right in the american political movement, including the -- >> including the religious right? >> that's right. >> robert putnam, who is a political scientist who studies this, had a roberto luongo tud nal study of the tea party found one of the ways, he had been interviewing these people, found that if you go back, how often they religiously identify, was one of the best predictors of whether they ended up in the tea party. the tea party ended up being a new name to a group of people

that had a set of beliefs already. >> there is a break-away movement among libertarians to try to divorce themselves from the right wing evangelical cystials who they found in the same bed. >> but they're not calling the shots in that coalition. we should be very clear. >> in terms of the weight of where the kind of numerical weight is in the voting bloc. the numbers and the votes are in as we saw in rick santorum's primary victory last night in louisiana, are among, are among the religious folks, right, bob? >> i think that's true. and i think there's now no inherent correlation between religious belief and really much of anything and that's the reason the coalitions are so fluid. >> but they're not fluid, they're not fluid. that's the point, right? the point is that are politics in terms of how often you can predict the lightlihood of someone voting republican by how often they go to church. that's particularly true for white people.

>> thank you. >> that's what i mean, there's no inherent cross-ethnic, cross-temporal, cross-time relation. religious people are in the forefront of freeing the slaves and so on. >> no, that's -- >> i understand that, that's my point. there is, you know, i think there's very little inherent logical correlation. >> between people's level of religious belief and their political affilation. and yet we have in problem the opposite of that. we have a strong degree of correlation between people's political behavior, their political self-identification and their practice. >> countries that have the highest degree of secularism are the ones that have the most elaborate social safety network. the countries of northern and western europe. over time as issues have become more liberal, it used to be that

segregation was a live political debate. now it's pretty much dead. it's shifted to should there be similar penalties for different kinds of cocaine. it shows how far the racial debate has changed. >> sure, at the same time it's the more secular countries that first of all, often have more extreme income inequality to deal with with the safety net. and secondly, it's naturally going to be the role of government in a more secular society. in other words, there are religious societies where those services tend to get taken care of within the relidgen. >> that's not true if you look at the most religious community in america, african-american, church does a lot. but they do not have in any way the resources to do what a public safety net does. and also you mentioned this at the top of the segment. that religious liberals are making religious arguments against the ryan budget. certainly if you read the story

of jesus, you can make one. but the problem with all religious, not moral, but religious arguments about public issues like this, like do we cut, does the bible say we cut taxes at the top or the bottom. is the bible is exactly like the writings of the founders. any religion can find anything -- can read anything into it. and to have a religious argument about for example do we raise taxes, and who do we raise them on, is utterly ridiculous. because you can find that anywhere. oh, christ drove the truck. money changers out of the temple. that must mean he wouldn't like wall street. >> that was one of the strangest things we found ourselves in with the debate over the birth control co-pay and the affordable care act. all of a sudden it seemed like we were in this strange theological dispute in which the bishops were saying if you put the money through this channel or that channel, that does or does not work. new legislation in tennessee

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this week in tennessee the state senate passed sb 893 requiring public schools to teach the quote controversy over evolution, global warming and human cloning. the bill is being referred to as the monkey bill, a call-back to tennessee's famous scopes monkey trial in 1925 when a teacher was convicted for teaching evolution in the classroom. the bill says teachers must find effective ways to present science curriculum as it addresses scientific controversies. the tennessee members of the national academy of sciences expressed their opposition of the bill and its companion bill in the house, hb 368 with a letter to the tennessee house committee on education. these bills encourage teachers to emphasize what are misdescribed as the scientific weaknesses of evolution.

as educators whose teaching involves and is based on evolution, we affirm that evolution is a central and crucial part of science education. neglecting evolution is pedagoguely irresponsible. right now i want to bring in a professor of biology at the university of oxford. he was one of the speakers at yesterday's reason rally in washington. mr. dawkins, welcome. >> thank you. >> this seems like you know, a kind of eternal recurrence problem. this battle, doesn't seem to really necessarily move in one direction. or am i wrong. when i see tennessee passing this law, i think there's an instinct to say, we're just still refighting this. and actually if you go back and look at darwin, he was fighting it when darwin first published and we've been fighting it ever since. has there been progress in the social acceptance. >> i don't know about social acceptance. the fact is that there's no

controversy about evolution, it's a fact. and all reputable scientists in the world accept that. there is of course, the interesting controversy in science and it's important that children should be exposed to the fact that scientists don't always agree, sometimes the evidence isn't all in, that's fair enough. but as for teaching the controversy over evolution. what controversy? you might as well teach in addition to the sex theory of where babies come from, the stork theory of where babies come from. if you like, you could teach the creationists or so-called intelligent design theory. it would take all about five minutes to give the evidence for it. there isn't any. and then you could get down to the true science. >> my question has to do with the fact that these bills are, these bills keep surfacing, right? that we go through these kind of bouts in which there's obviously the scopes trial in 1925. i remember about five or six years ago there was a big pennsylvania trial that was more or less along these lines. so i guess my question is, is

there some percentage of the population that simply because of their faith tradition or the figures in authority that they trust as opposed to the figures in authority that you or i or some of the viewers may trust, are just not going to accept this. is this sort of the a battle that will never be won in your mind? >> ever since the 1980s, a gallup polls have shown that more than 40% of the american people believe that the world is less than 10,000 years old. that's an astonishing error. these people have the vote. these people are ignorant of science. and they are voting in politicians who are also ignorant of science. to yield power. >> lots of people who are ignorant about a lot of things have the vote. >> that's why we have representative democracy, rather than having plebiscites like they do in some areas of switzerland. but when you you have politicians who are apparently swaying to the wind of public opinion and who are legislating for truly ludicrous

anti-scientific laws like this, then i think democracy is in trouble. and we need to look at how to remedy this problem. i was very interested in hearing the earlier discussion on the suggestion that there might be too much religion in politics. in a funny kind of way, i wonder whether there's too little and wonder there's a sort of taboo against challenging politicians with their religious beliefs. so for example, if you have a presidential candidate say, who says he's a roman catholic, challenge him publicly, do you seriously believe that the wafer turns into the body of christ. do you believe that the wine turns into the blood. don't let him get away with truly redickous beliefs without challenging them. >> there's a lot of feelings about that approach. i think that way lies ruin in civil war basically. but, bob -- i want you to respond to that right after we take this break.

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if your beliefs are as strong scientifically as you seem to believe they are, what's the problem with them being tested? you're going to decide on the mindset, the training, the intelligence and the future of this nation from your classroom. from what you and your colleagues deem necessary and i find that totally anti-american. >> that's the state rep, john duebarry defending the tennessee law, the teaching the controversy law. >> we just had richard dawkins making the point that in the public realm, if religion is invoked in the public realm, we should subject public figures who invoke it to skepticism and debate on the articles of doctrinal faith, for instance, the miracle of

transsubstantiation, the principle of turning wat ining blood. >> what you end up with is a whole variety of cross-channel antagonism, bob, you seem like you want to respond as well. >> on the one hand, it's fine. when people invoke religious belief to defend their views on public policy. to point out they can't expect that argument to have traction with a larger world beyond their faith, that's fine. if you mean confronting them in that sense -- fine. but when you go around challenging their theological beliefs and richard goes further, "u.s.a. today" goes further, quoting him as saying maybe people should show contempt for religion. that undermines the goals that rixd and i share. we both would like for fundamentalists in tennessee not to inflict religion on the

science curriculum. the question is how to keep them from doing it. there's a lot of evidence that what makes fundamentalists more fundamentalists and more incl e inclined to do that is a sense of threat. a sense of siege. and when you have arguably the world's leading darwinian, richard dawkins, associating darwinism with the idea that we should show contempt for religion, i think that's counterproductive. >> richard, would you like to respond, as the world's leading darwinian? >> i'm not the world's leading darwinian. i think we're making too much of a deal of private beliefs versus public beliefs. you challenge a candidate about his beliefs on taxation and military policy and so on, why don't you challenge about his beliefs about what he thinks about the universe and the world? if i'm a voting -- >> you don't think there's a distinction between private beliefs and public beliefs in exactly that sense? >> i know that's the conventional view and i fight

this battle lot. but i do think that as a voter, if i know that the person i'm contemplating voting for, however good his beliefs on taxation and so on may be, if i know that he privately believes that a 19th century man called yoe self smith dug up some golden tablets, read them with the aid of a stone in a top hat and translated them into not 19th century english, but 16th century english. that man was a fraud and a chalten. that is a man that i'm suspicious of voting for. i know those beliefs are private, but they are crazy beliefs. why should i vote for a man, however sensible his public beliefs may be, if his private beliefs are ridiculous and mad? >>. >> i think there's enough to question people about in terms of the relationship between their religious beliefs and

public policy, rather than getting into transsubstantiation. but i do want to make the point i mentioned earlier. which is people who are, i would say below the age of 40, don't understand that the kind of religion talk we're having in presidential campaigns is really quite new. nobody -- dwight eisenhower, i don't know what his private religious belief were. dwight eisenhower and abraham lincoln did not go around talking about how their private religious beliefs or nonbeliefs applied to the issues of the day. and one of the, it's very important for people to realize that this constant bringing of religion into political campaigns is really a product of the last 30 years. the first time it was ever raised and properly so, was when kennedy ran in 1960. all he said then was church and stayed, separate. rick santorum -- >> rick santorum throw up.

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how we talk about people's beliefs, i think is sort of where we are. how we talk about people's religious beliefs in the public sphere and the degree of scrutiny we should subject them to. and specifically whether we should respect a distinction between beliefs on public policy and private beliefs. i'm strongly in the camp of just not talking about people's private beliefs, no matter how preposterous they seem to us. richard dawkins is arguing the opposite. and jamilla you seem like you're on dr. dawkins' side. >> thank you, dr. dawkins. if a candidate for president believes that i am cursed with blackness because i was on the wrong side of a war with his god. if a candidate believes women should be subject to their husband's will or father's will

and women should be submissive. i need to know that before i go to cast my ballot. >> those lie in the public side of the public/private divide. >> no, no. they do, bus they are just as, this he are just as strong to be deeply held private beliefs. i need to know what my candidates think and to give them a pass because you go, oh, that's a private thing, whether you believe you're actually eating the literal body and drinking the literal blood of your christ -- well here's the problem with giving them a pass. they legislate that way. there's no inclination to fix problems, if you believe that your god is going to come back in your lifetime and rapture all you good people up and leave us sinners behind to deal with the fallout from whatever issue. >> okay, they are legislating --

they're turning my heath into an issue. turning my health into an issue of you know, life begins at conception because the pope says it does. and that if i, if i present myself to, right today in a hospital in arizona and i am pregnant and the pregnancy will kill me if it continues and i go to a a catholic hospital, they have legislated that it's fine to let me die. that's a problem. and that's a privately-held belief that legislators publicly address. >> and it's valid to point out that people who favor that policy, they can't expect the rest of us to buy into that because we don't share that religion. that degree of argument is fine. >> we need to know about it. >> i think we are. i don't think there's been a pass granted to anyone particularly around the birth control debate. that's the area in which clearly we're having a public debate about precisely this, the question is the degree of you know, how much validity we want

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well from new york, i'm chris hayes, and with me harvard university provide fesor, steven pinker, who wrote "the better angels of our nature" "washington post" belonger, jamilla bay, robin wright, and the author of "the god dilution" richard dawkins. we were engaged in an interesting debate about where we draw the line between public and private belief. what we subject to scrutiny. how we go after other people's whether they be publicly or privately beliefs, specifically in the case of people's religious beliefs and whether the privately-held doctrinal beliefs that people have should be subject to scrutiny or

ridicule. and steven, i was telling you during the break you're very polite and you're canadian, that explains it. i didn't give you a chance to weigh in. >> it's interesting how the debate has changed. it used to be people debated whether evolution should be allowed to be taught. now it's whether the case for so-called scientific creationist should be added to the mix. even there, what's supposed to be taught is not bulb lickal doctrine, but the ginned-up so-called scientific evidence for creation. likewise the debate used to be on whether homosexuality should be criminalized. that debate isn't held any more, now it's gay marriage. now it's just on whether catholic organizations have to include birth control in their health insurance. >> for no co-pay. >> for issue after issue the entire debate has shifted to a more progressive, humanistic direction. we tend to lose sight of that,

because at any given moment we're talking about the issue of the day, minute, moment. but over terms of stretches of history, one can see the progress that we've made, in an era in which you've showed at the top of the show, secularism has been increasing, religious fundamental beliefs have been decreasing. >> one of the things that's interesting about this debate is the ways in which the global warming, the single-most important issue we face and the stakes for all of us are the highest. the very slippery way in which the liberal spirit of tall rans and open-mindedness to defend skepticism on the scientific consensusen global warming, right. when you listen to people talk about, people attacking the very robust scientific consensus on the warming planet. they will, they will say basically, well, we're just asking questions, right. we're engaging in the good skepticism that you say that you

hold to. and then of course there's a religious component to a lot of the disbelief as well. rick santorum is talking about climate scientists in the philadelph "philadelphia inquirer" op-ed. said that reassures us that global warming warming science is still settled. there's nothing to see here, move along. >> bob, how do you deal with the argument about skepticism that uses the open-mindedness in a liberal tradition, in a sort of jiu-jitsu move against itself. >> it's a challenge because skepticism is a good thing. and you should always up to a point question even what seems to be scientific consensus. in the case of evolution, i think we've gone well past the point where you can reebly question the fundamental premise. climate science is tricky. because the truth is most of us haven't had the time to delve into the details. i don't think, i don't think those issues are comparable in

the sense of being fundamentally religious, i mean first of all, i know a number of athiests who are climate science skeptics and b, there's no inherent contradiction between scripture and global warming the way there is between a literal reading of genesis and evolution. >> as it is unfolding in america, though, and i think here is where i'm, i'm shape-shifting to jamilla's etch-a-sketching and richard -- and richard dawkins -- >> shook up during the break. >> there is, climate change is being used as a religious issue. because the paragraph they're all using is the verse from genesis that gives man dominion over the birds of the air and the beasts of the field. liberal religious people use that to say yes, we have to do it wisely. conservative religious people say we can do whatever we want with the earth. as santorum has said, not for the sake of earth, but for the sake of us.

so if what we think is good for us, is to strip the earth of all of its natural resources, well that's our right. because we're such big, good, smart human beings. >> steven, i think we always face the agonizing dilemma of what range of opinion -- >> exactly, yes, thank you. >> on the show, one side denying the holocaust, so and on -- on the other hand, you do want to be able to marshal quickly and clearly what the evidence is. if there is a holocaust denier. you should be able to come up with six indisputable facts that show the holocaust really did take place. and likewise, climate scientists do have the onus of having comprehensible set of arguments why they believe that climate is changing, likewise for evolution. a defender of of luevolution at or her fingertips. >> when we put together the

show, what is the range of opinion, where do you put the stake in the spectrum? and where you put the stake in the middle or where you put it determines a lot of what kind of conversation you have and how the conversation moves forward. >> ultimately you don't want it to just boil down to trust. that there are the priests on one side there are the scientific priests on the other site. the difference is, the reason that i do trust in scientists even when i don't know every detail is that every time i've had to check, they have had facts and arguments, they've earned that trust. they have to keep reearning it by being able to put the arguments on the table. >> i'm a little bit of a defeatist about this. because i do think in the day-to-day world of lived experience of people as citizens, as voters, so much does come down to trust. it is about whose sources. when you say i haven't dug into the climate science. when you say i can defend evolution. it's like, i can defend evolution in the way that someone who has read the richard dawkins book -- but how can i defend evolution? i paraphrase from "the selfish

gene" which mr. dawkins wrote. and he has all of these credentials. >> did has to go beyond that. if you were to challenge richard on any of the facts, if you were to follow up on the footnotes of the "the selfish gene" you would find there are peer-reviewed papers with science that you can't deny. >> richard you face these arguments about skepticism and the way that attempts to undermine evolution as sort of a bedrock foundational fact about the way the world developed, are often couched in this kind of liberal language of tolerance. what's your sort of response to that? >> i agree with what all the panel have said about that. for me, there is a distinction between climate change, which i don't really feel qualified to speak about. and evolution, where i, where i really do. and i agree with robin wright about that, and what steven said. but i, i also strongly glee with what steven said, that even

those bits of "science" that we haven't read up ourselves, we trust. because science has earned the trust. we know about peer review. we know that if a position has been argued in the scientific literature, it will be challenged, it will be tested. so there is a sort of robustness about scientific conclusion which science has earned. and theology, which is a total nonsubject, hasn't. in the case of climate change, it's not just genesis, it's revolution. we don't need to bother to have a good stewardship of the world, because jesus is coming back. and soon. i mean that's one of the dominant arguments that you'll hear from these nutcases. >> just to underscore the challenge. i think steven and i both remember a time, we've written about evolutionary psychology, when this was what seemed to be a consensus, at least within psychology, that bringing in considerations of natural selection into the study of human nature was almost illegitimate.

there was something like a consensus that we agree was basically wrong. so you do have to be skeptical, even if coffin census. and climate science, the reason i feel confident is because of opportunities i've had to interrogate people in the field, not always even scientists. but people who just know this stuff. and the public at large -- >> doesn't have that opportunity. >> they don't know -- >> but you can always trot out one scientist from some college -- >> but this is the problem, this is the bedrom problem of not just this issue, i mean et cetera the bedroom problem we face in sort of the project of self-governance and keeping the civilizational problem going. someone works 12 hours a day, they to get home, deal with child care. they don't -- i have this life. i go to talk to a climate scientist. it cascades down through these trust relationship, right? so those trust relationships are forged, they're not forged on the basis of going back and

forth to someone. they're forged on the basis of affilation, of identity, the kinship, the cons nans of world view so someone who fits all of those things says do not listen to the climate scientists, they're trying to pull the wool over our eyes. the question of how you attack that expert -- after this break. there's another way to help eliminate litter box dust: purina tidy cats. tidy cats premium line of litters now works harder on dust. and our improved formulas neutralize odors better than ever in multiple-cat homes. so it's easier to keep your house smelling just the way you want it. purina tidy cats. keep your home smelling like home.

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we have spiralled upwards as we always do on the show into abstraction, but i want to to ground it. this is something i have a chapter in my book about and think about a lot. the process of public belief formation. that's how we get our policies, right? that process is a complicated

one. how we move public opinion in a certain direction, social consensus. when it's not even just moral recepts. it's just actually empirical questions which describe what's happening to the world? is it getting warmer? i want to show this graph, it shows correlation between religious affilation and the percentage of people believing in man-made global warming. i should say human-made global warming. so total u.s. population, about 45% believe that trust the scientific consensus, believe in the scientific consensus about global warming. people politically unaffiliated. and i think we've seen the way in which the issue has been sort of trance muted into a culture war issue. we're now in the place of trust and authority and tribal signaling as opposed it to a discussion of evidence, right? >> let's say also this is an educational issue. and nobody wants to say this,

because you get accused of saying that religious fundamentalists are stupid. i want to point out that not all evangelicalles are fundamentalists there are educated liberal evangelicals as well. there is a direct correlation between the prevalence of religious fundamentalists and lack of education. this is probably what santorum was talking about, too. you go to college, you get to be liberal, no. but you go to college, you presumably learn something about real science. real history and -- there is the -- >> to people of eighth grade and partial college education, about 80% of them describe themselves as conservative religious. >> i bet the graph we saw is not entirely a product on education gap per se. the question is that evangelicals because of social issues and so on came to trust certain validators, the

conservative validators and now this issue arises and those validators are saying global warming isn't happening. i've got to think that's a big part of it. >> but the validators, you trust the question of education, too. >> i think there's a perfect marriage between what the two of you are saying. it is absolutely an issue of educati education. mirrens at large don't understand how to question appropriate. they hear something and they go, i trust the source that i'm listening to. they don't know how to say, who funded that study? where did the money come from? were there any universities? what exactly does it mean to have a study that's peer-reviewed. and this is something i heard on a show. the fact that john huntsman who was in the race said, call me crazy. but i believe in evolution, i believe the scientists on global warming -- >> we feature that tweet a lot. i want to push back on this just for one second, i disagree with what you're saying there. i don't think, i consider myself

a pretty educated person. this is my professional full-time job i'm doing this this is all i do, i'm lucky, i read peer-reviewed studies and if i'm honest with myself i'm still at a fundamental level relying on trust to a certain degree. there's no way of getting around that. to pretend that what we the enlightened do, is so different from what they do, who just trust authority is so different. >> but you are skeptical about your trust. in that you ask yourself, who do i trust some people and why. you know that every time they are challenged they can come up with the evidence and the arguments. i think the politization of these issues works both ways. i know a number of climate scientists who say the worst thing that happened so far was al gore's movie, because he political sized it. >> because he's a political

figure. it's a reverse effect. it's instead of saying who you trust, who you don't trust. i remember seeing allen greenspan testify in front of a senate committee, testify on behalf of immigration reform and being oh maybe i'm wrong. >> so al gore can rev up the base, but at the same time he's probably alienating the skeptics. >> richard dawkins, how do you sort of cross the gulf of trust gap. that's the fundamental question. that's something that you're engaged in trying to do, how do you do it? >> it's a very difficult problem. because nobody can read up all the scientific literature. nobody in the best scientists in the world can't keep up with science outside his or her own field. so there is a matter of trust. i keep agreeing with steve when he says that science has earned the right to trust. because you know that when people are challenged, in science, they can produce the

evidence, they can say here's brown and mcallister, 2008, showing so-and-so. you can cite chapter and verse. that's what i worry about in the earlier question of teach the controversy. if you say teach the controversy in science classes, it implies there is a controversy, that there's a kind of balance of scientific weight on both sides. and there aren't too sides in that particular case of evolution. maybe in climate change there are. and i don't feel knowledgeable enough to be sure about that. but in evolution -- >> well i do, and i don't think there are. but again, like i think that because of all the times that i've spent talking about climate scientists who -- bob? >> well that sounds good to me. you know, i get that. >> just do get back to an earlier hobby horse of mine and whether atheists should be confrontational. i think if you want to inspire trust, i would avoid making fun

of their religion. >> that seems like a strong piece of advice. >> i think it translates into the field i was talking about earlier, which is education policy. >> or anything, really. >> richard dawkins is the executive director of the richard dawkins foundation for reason and science and the author of the book "the good dilution." thank you so much. from the ethereal to the human, a pastor's confession about his own religious beliefs. [ male announcer ] this is lawn ranger -- eden prairie, minnesota. in here, the landscaping business grows with snow. to keep big winter jobs on track, at&t provided a mobile solution that lets everyone from field workers to accounting, initiate, bill, and track work in real time. you can't live under a dome in minnesota, that's why there's guys like me. [ male announcer ] it's a network of possibilities -- helping you do what you do... even better. ♪

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members, we contacted the spite's administrators about our interest in speaking to one of those members. one pastor said he no longer wanted to be secret about his skepticism. he's a working pastor at a naup denominational church in houston and he joins us from washington where yesterday he attended the reason rally. thank you so much for joining us. >> good to be here. >> tell me about your personal journey. how and why you entered the clergy, what was your religious faith upbringing. >> i grew up as a lutheran, main-line protestant, had gone to church my entire life. was a person of faith. when i went to seminary, i got into it with best of intentions, believing pretty much at the time i felt, the whole doctrinal you know, all the doctrines and teachings of the church. and i just wanted to help people and enjoyed church life and that's how i got into it.

>> when did you start to question that faith? what sort of precipitated the beginning of that journey? >> well for me, it's been kind of a slowly-jettisonning some of the doctrines i found difficult to believe and i would tell myself, maybe you don't have to believe in the virgin birth, but you could still be a christian. maybe you don't have to believe that jesus fed the 5,000, but you can still be a christian. as i started to jettison the beliefs, i came to realize there wasn't a whole lot left. >> what do you mean by that? what was that realization like? >> it was brought on by reading some books by some of your other guests today, like steven pinker and richard dawkins, they're part of the reason that i'm here. and it's been difficult to say you know, farewell to parts of

my life that meant something to me but it's thilg to see the world in in a way. through the lens of behavioral genetics and cognitive science that are explaining so much about human nature. things that religion could never explain. >> at what point was there a gap, was there a gap between you were doing, i think we have some sound of you preaching here. and maybe we can play this and you can comment on it. of having you go to work every day and preach and talk about god and faith when you internally were having some serious and severe doubts. here's a little bit of your preaching. >> for some reason, god just time and time again, apparently does not seem to step in and magically fix the adversity, does he, in our life. he doesn't wave his magic wand and fix everything in our life. because i think he's allowing us to grow through adversity. it sounds like tough love, but i

think that's true. >> did you think that was true when you were saying that? >> i don't recall exactly when i gave that message. i've tried always to preach with as much integrity as possible. never to be disingenuous from the pulpit. but tried to insert, i think i was wrestling with the ultimate theological question, the question of theodocy, of the question of if he's good why does he permit so much suffering in the world. >> that's been the big unresolvable question. we as christians tend to proclaim a god of love and grace. and who cares about every human being deeply. but then, he has a hard time getting around defeating hundreds of millions of people in the brink of starvation every day. that's the issue of theodocy is still a big one for me. >> can i ask mike a question. i'm curious if he feels any urgency about persuading

believers, including maybe ones in his congregation, of the truth of atheism or whether he feels that look, perfectly good work can get done in a church. was getting done in a church and you know, lead people to their own devices. >> yeah. i guess i'm still thinking about that. there's part of me that does want to share what i have been learning and thinking about, i believe in church there are many people both lay people and clergy, who are on a spectrum. i think all of us in church at some extent struggle in our faith, throughout a continuum. i don't think the line is that sharp between believer, nonbeliever, agnostic, athiests. i think we're on a continuum. if you have the pope on one end of the spectrum and richard dawkins on the other end, once upon a time i was closer to the pope, now i'm closer to richard

dawkins. i would like to talk about that. yes, churches do some great work. but i'm not sure that church life functions all that well. church life functioned very well, then one would expect that the metrics of social well-being in this country would be much better. and religious areas of this country very sus less religious areas. and that's not the case. >> are you currently still at your church? or -- are you going to go preach next sunday? >> i am going to go back next week and meet with my leadership and talk about where we're going to go from here. and we'll see. >> i think i have a sense of what they're going to say. i mean -- and i guess this brings the question that i think is a really important one i think for people that are not believers and are not embedded in the social fabric that goes along with religious faith and religious practices. the degree to which the social life of that is as important

perhaps as the internal spiritual life of that. >> absolutely. >> i know in just my own life and in the catholic world in which i grew up, that was as much i think of what being catholic was, was the parish and parish life and the community of fellowship that entailed, as whatever i thought about transsubstantiation, which i frankly didn't think a whole lot about. >> you're absolutely right. that's been my experience in nearly 20 years of ministry. is that people gravitate to the community life. the warmth they can experience. homo sapiens is a tribal creature, we need a tribe and people do experience emotional support and community and caring for each other within churches very often. and the doctrinal issues are often not primary. one of the dirty little secrets of christianity is hardly anyone ever reads the bible. i think if they did, the whole thing would be in big trouble. >> the catholic church thought that, too, once upon a time.

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narratives from the trey ridgeous tradition, that much less compelling we do have an answer of where we came from. why we think, why we can make moral choices, you don't need jesus, psychiatrist tur, you don't need doctrine to understand our place in the world. i'm guessing that's why the writings of a psychologist should be seen as having anything to do with the validity of religious belief. go is that more or less right, mike? >> that's a great summary, it was reading especially in steven pinker's book, "the blank slate" where he just as he said, the power of scientific thought to explain you know, answers that we used to look to religion for.

i came to understand that for example, altruism has its roots in our ancestral past. and religion isn't the source of our altruistic impulses. but rather it became the repository. the place where we expressed these impulses towards goodness and love that developed thousands of years before. >> can i ask mike another question, i'm sure he's familiar with the ways in which you can invoke religion and religious impulses to encourage altruism. i'm wondering if he's thought a little about if he wants to keep inspiring people to do things like that how he might do that on a naturalistic basis? >> yeah. >> have you given that some thought? >> you're asking me? >> yes. would you invoke -- >> pardon? >> is this something you think about how you could sort of convert the sort of work that you've been doing, in sort of

moving people to a sort of elevated moral plane in a secular context? >> yes, absolutely. i would like to pursue my readings and you know, help people learn more about what i've learned through these, you know, evolutionary psychology behavioral genetics, cognitive science. and even finding ways that i think there are probably ways you can make connections with parts of scripture. it's scripture is not, i'm not saying scripture is devoid of wisdom. you have to hunt pretty hard to find it sometimes. but i think there are connections. >> pastor mike, let me ask you one more question, we have richard dawkins on before. i want to address this, because he's got a hard-edged approach to speaking about religious people and their pleefs and says words like nuts and crazy. those are words that i dislike generally because i think they kind of tend to stand in the way of empathy needed to have

constructive conversation and dialogue. i wonder what your sense is of how someone like richard dawkins, how that language resonates among the people, the flock of faithful that you've been stewarding and being among for the last 20 years. >> well, i think very, very highly of richard dawkins. his books have been significant in my journey as well. so i don't want to address necessarily his choice of rhetoric. he can choose to do that. and i think maybe different people, different rhetorical styles for different people, perhaps, that's the language i would choose to use. i would like to try to build bridges and look for more understanding between the nonbelieving and the believing communities. >> i think if there is one thing the secular community is missing right now it's what a great man who is one of the many things lost from our history, robert green ingersoll, known as the greating ing ing ing ing ing aa.

one of his favorite lectures, poor naked wretches, whereversoever you are. give the super flux to them and show the heavens more just. this is a kind of secular rhetoric which was common then, which isn't common now. it is sorely looking. just as darwin put it on the page, there is a grandeur in this view of life. it is not true that you can make secular speeches like this. but nobody today is doing that. we lack that person. >> we lack a sort of vocabulary of secular inspiration. >> exactly. >> pastor mike, thank you so much for coming on the show today. really appreciate you being here and being so open and honest and good luck with that meeting next week. >> thanks for having me, chris. good to be here. what you should know for the news ahead. susie's lemonade... the movie.

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>> your segment yesterday where you had several young black men, teenaged boys, sitting at the table was just riveting, fantastic television and i just can't thank thank you enough for putting that on the air. so should you know for the week coming up? this week marked the second

anniversary of the patient protection affordable care act. the senate will hear a six-hour oral argument about the constitutionality of the law. much of it will center on the scope of the constitution's commerce clause and you should know that conservatives have been waging a decade-long battle to gut and whittle it away. you should know the single biggest expansion of social insurance in almost 50 years hangs in the balancing. next weekend we'll be devoting a whole show to the affordable health care act. by a bipartisan vote of 73-26, the jump start our business start-ups bill passed the senate. and is set to return to the house where it's also expected to pass. placing it on the president's desk soon. you should know proponents of the bill kplclaim that the jobst will make it easier for small businesses to raise capital without having to file with the fcc. but alexis goldstein, formerly with deutsche bank now with

occupy the s.e.c. had to say. >> this is a bad bill couched in the language of jobs, it's going to repeal a huge amount of consumer protections this is something that people should be paying attention to and talking to their senators about. >> you should know that gaffes have consequences and for certain parties, benefits, ohio art, the manufacturer of the sturdy old etch-a-sketch, saw its stock jump over 200%, the day after a romney adviser compared the romney campaign's ability to reinvent itself in the general election, to the famously easy-to-erase toy. this was the single biggest i tra day move for a stock in 30 years. it was once manufactured in the u.s., but in the year 2000 it outsourced to factories in china. with the news that army staff sergeant robert bales has been indicted for 17 counts of murder

in afghanistan. you should know the names of those who died. the names of the dead that we know according to al jazeera are as follows. [ on screen ] on the topic of what war does to us and what it does to the people who wage it and who we wage it against, you should know that my friend, rachel maddow has written an incredible book "drift" the unmooring of american military power. it aaccomplishes a greatest feat american writing can.

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you should really check out their album. our guests are back to tell us what you should know as the news unfolds this week. steven pinker, what should people know? > despite all of the bloodshed they will see this week, the rate of death and war has been going down since 1946. hasn't been a smooth decline, hasn't been bumpy, hasn't gone down to zero, but it is going

down. >> this correlate to a 600-page book you wrote on this topic. it's a remarkable book in that respect. because i think we tend to get very focused as you said on the news of the moment. particularly the sort of 140-character bite sized of twitter and there is a feeling sometimes of, oh, we're moving backward, feeling of despair, feeling of hopelessness, and the book is very persuasive, very persuasive. things are getting better. humans are getting less violent. called out of better angels of our nature," how did you come to write that book? >> human nature. are we doomed by our evolved brain to constant warfare and strife? the answer is. no the sense of moral capacity and reason can dame our demons, the kind that abraham lincolns called the better angels.

>> certainly social institutions and institutal structures and practices -- social practices that cultivate the better angels and diminish the parts of our nature that are most violent. >> absolutely. institutions that deserve the credit for the progress we have enjoyed. >> a really fantastic book, and you should know it's getting better, even in bad weeks, getting better. >> what should folks know? >> this is a big week for atheists. the american atheists convention goes on today and tomorrow in washington, d.c. the what do we do now? we have come out, now what? is the topic. at the end of this week, at ft. br bragg, north carolina, the military atheists and secular humanists which are banned from meeting on ft. bragg proper will have a big old festival and they are going to have a lot of music and family activities, whatnot at the end of the week on the 31st. so it's -- >> i did not know that.

>> pushed back from the billy graham jr. crusade -- forgive me. they were proselytized too, and they said we would like to have a secular meeting. they were banned, stonewalled, not allowed to. it's been a year and then some in the making to let the secular families who are fighting for all of our rights and defending all of our rights, be protected themselves. >> susan jacobi, what should folks know? >> that was one of my things, and i'll just second that. the use of military bases for evangelical proselytizing and the discrimination against secular soldiers a real scandal it is completely unconstitutional this is something people should look out for. number two, big story last year. even as we speak, a committee in egypt to select the members of the constitute went assembly who will be writing the new constitution for egypt, supposed to be selecting those people. there is every indication that

they are going to be very few women on those committees. it's very important, everybody who was bushling over with joy about the arab spring should think about what this meant. i am saying the religious parties occupied, when 70% of seats won in parliament will have serious consequences for women. i'll leave with you this significant thought. they have proposed that the national consul for women, a 30-year-old organization for women, be named the national consul for the family, to better represent the complimentary role of men and women. what that means, women in their place. bad things going on for women in egypt as a result of the growth of muslim religious parties there. it's a very bad thing. >> bob wright, what should folks know? >> this week, peter breinart's

book will be published. it's an attempt to salvage the two-state, and he will be called anti semitic, although he attends ironically an orthodox synagogue. it's a very important book, a courageous won and very much in israel's and american's interests that people read it and debate it vigorously. >> two weeks ago, on sunday, we did two full hours on israel and palestine in the middle east. in preparation, i read the book. it's a phenomenal book. incredibly well argued, full, honest, bracing, and i really do think folks should read "the crisis of zionism" don't worry if you haven't heard about it yet. you are going to. there will be a lot of controversy over it. and are you starting to see the beginnings of it begin to bubble

up. i want to thank my guests. steven pinker, jamilah bey. susan jacobi and robert wright. thank you, all. thank you for joining us. back next weekend, saturday and sunday at 8:00 eastern time. we'll have sheldon white house d supreme court argument argument. follow us on twitte twitter @upwithchris. up next, melissa harris-perry. we'll see you next on here on up. "up." [ artis brown ] america is facing some tough challenges right now. two of the most important are energy security and economic growth. north america actually has one of the largest oil reserves in the world. a large part of that is oil sands. this resource has the ability to create

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