we jumped from hinduism to buddhism, and now we're going to jump back to hinduism. in the first beliefs and believers teleclass, we had a professor here at governor state, dr. dave- i believe he teaches in psychology; maybe some of you know him - and he came down to our class, and we asked him - he's a great intellect, he's a teacher here, a writer; but he had learned the myths of his culture exactly where you should learn them, on the knee of his parents - and we asked him, "could you tell us some myths?" and what he did he came into class and told us what we will come to term a "creation myth" - he told us about, from the hindu perspective - how the mother of all rivers, the great, glorious ganges, the ganga river was created, and how, to him, it's the most meaningful thing in the world. now, a key in here, if you'll listen for it, is i want to talk about in this relationship between experience, myth, and ritual, that experience starts the need - the boundary questions start the need for the great stories. the great stories, in turn, answer those questions about m

ourselves up to the fact that baseball is a road to god just as our religion is a road to god just as buddhisme more important thing is that we all get used to finding god in this world. >> stephen: how is baseball anything like -- god does not take nine innings. >> but god, like baseball, is timeless. >> stephen: baseball feels timeless. [laughter] >> see now, the key that i'm trying to get at in this book is the fact that -- what we as human beings should be doing is searching for meaning. frequently meaning is that which we can learn and put in a mind, especially a wonderful mind like yours. [laughter] but frequently the real meaning of life can't be put in cognitive terms. there's a word i use in my course and in the book it can't be reduced to words. we experience it. the way we know we're in love, for example. the way we know life as meaning. >> stephen: i like that inhe havable thing because i can say something is true and go, i can't schain it, i'm right though -- i can't explain it. i'm right though. [cheers and applause] and many -- [cheers and applause] >> stephen: i'm ineff able ab

it spread along with buddhism. in thai land, myanmar and other places water is believed to ward off misfortune. as quickly as people can flil water containers, they splash it away. they scramble to get more from home, hydrants, anywhere they can. in this day the city consumes 35,000 tons of water. the three day festival concludes with an ethnic dance performance that continues the prayer for good

from earlier with to some extent persecution stories in judaism and in islam they exist in buddhism and hinduism there have been both british and hindu martyrs. and there have been acts of violence by both those groups against others who have you know actually said to commit a great violence in the names of the sacred traditions and this is something we have to face up to we're not always the innocent party and sometimes when we think that we're persecuted we're actually the prosecutor. that's right canada moss the book is the myth of persecution really christians invented the story of martyrdom thanks so much for being with us thank you so much pleasure to have you with us to see this or other conversations with great minds go to our website had conversations with great minds. and that's the way it is tonight. friday march twenty second two thousand and thirteen don't forget democracy begins with a new target active tag your. we are facing a lot of problems in the. because no one thought to drink no good schools. no permits when you feel part. of the local what's not enough wealth is a

didn't just leave the christian faith i walked into a black hole i walked into nothing i didn't go to buddhism or hinduism or shintoism or some other faith system i just walked into nothing and i didn't know where to go and for a while i completely lost my identity because my entire identity was built in christ i mean in the new testament we talk about being a slave to christ and it is not christ who lives in me with these concepts you don't have an identity you are the you know a small version of the hand of god extended everything that you do is is supposed to be christ unfortunately that also means all of the all of the other darker stuff that isn't touched on quite as much when i came through it as far as politics were concerned i realized. how backwards i had become and how i had been alienating other people from myself how i wasn't acting with real compassion because despite what was being said there was two things being said there was still the those guys are unbelievers or in other faiths those guys are the infidels or other faiths those are the gentiles. in the way that we were separa

helenes over to me and he says, jody, scientists believe that buddhism is really atheism. so i said, oh, my god, i must be a buddhist. and he said the reason is because buddhists don't believe in god. they believe that, you know, every human being has the possibility of, you know, being great. being energy. all the good things that christians or muslims or hindus are supposed to be. because of their religion. >> 1998, here you are with the dalai lama. >> yeah. >> one of my closest friends had an extremely unpleasant encounter with two men who i wish i could call gentlemen who left her beaten and naked in the street. for many years i had the greatest hope that i would run into them sometime and do the same to them or worse. then i got involved in trying to stop the violence in central america and watched what's happened to people over time who only sought violent revenge against people who have done things to them or people they love. you become them. >> where are you there? >> i think it was university of virginia. i think there were 11 of us peace laureates invited to a c

. >> what is the catholic church, episcopal, or whatever, the hindu, buddhism, synagogue, mosque, templeith. these institutions are often polarizing. they're not life affirming. it is very difficult to sit in a church and be preached a lecture that somehow or another something is wrong with you because you're gay or something is wrong with you because you're using birth control. i have to tell you i walked out when they talked about birth control. i said, well i'm at the age now where i really don't need this lecture right now. the truth of the matter is we do have faith but maybe not in the churches or the temples or the synagogues but we have faith perhaps in each other, we trust someone else. we still get our spiritual nutrition from other sources. >> i remember i just moved to new york from louisiana, going to church all my life, and i took my first boyfriend to church. he was like i don't want to go to church. we got into church and the first thing the guy talked about was gay people are sinners and going to hell. >> you know what the worst part of it is, if a priest were here right

a priest decides he is going to show the powers of mystic buddhism and he appears and on the alter with different sorts ofornmen of owns and then progresses through profound things and all of these are tongue twisters but it's the first round of tongue twisters nothing happens and the priest is very upset and blushes extraordinary red and he tries again. the second time the chants are much shorter and he begins to lose his patience and again nothing happens. third time nothing happens and he basically says how much time to turn to the wonderrous powers of the lotus set raand he does chanting and the parody is something like if anyone is old enough to remember and the mouse before vatican two and you don't understand anything and it's mumbo jump bow and this is a parody of that. the second and third pieces before the intermission i will not introduce. i think the program notes are sufficient and rather than lecture i would much rather you enjoy the performance. the one thing i would like to emphasize about the first piece this is indeed a comic piece and in most instances westerners have