And I just I oftentimes don't find the question is or isn't there a God to be that intriguing, to be honest.

I actually agree with you.

What I try and do in those two chapters is just clarify how people use the term for one thing.

So we can use the term God to offer an account of history.

This is the God that is either a force or some kind of entity or even a being that perhaps created the universe, perhaps directs the universe.

That's a very supernatural notion of God.

God is something beyond what we can understand about the natural world.

How did your views on ecology develop into how you think of ecology now?

Yeah.

And, and I think that's sometimes w- uh, you know, the best ministers are those people who do that.

And as you said, I, I joined a progressive church in Austin for a while.

It turned out not to be a good fit, and I left.

But, um, uh, I, I'm not allergic to- To trying to work through those kinds of questions.

But they never resonated with me, including anything vaguely spiritual.

From the time I'm- I can remember, I never understood what people were talking about when they talked about God or they talked about spirituality.

Like, I'd rather have your record than mine, but I just think it's interesting, it's interesting, and particularly, you know, when it comes to your story as somebody who has been critical of a lot of norms and narratives of kind of normie culture, if you will, how to, how to think about that.

... who helped you, helped you understand.

Yeah.

So I met Jim Coplin when I went back to graduate school.

I was 30 years old, uh, at the University of Minnesota, and Jim had already retired from a career as a psychology professor by that time.

He was 25 years older than me, a lot smarter than me, and as I mentioned earlier, really a distinctive person.

Now, lots of famous people have had an influence on my thinking, you know, people who write big books and, you know, make a big impact on the world.

Uh, Jim Coplin was one of those people who quietly makes an impact on the world through, as I said, a kind of deep decency in how he dealt with other people.

Right.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, I want to make it clear, you know, the subtitle of the book, Fulfilling Life Without Meaning.

What I mean by meaning and why I reject meaning is a sense of meaning that's anchored out there.

You know, meaning in the existence of God or some spiritual plane or, you know, the wisdom of nature or any of that.

I understand why people are drawn to those systems of thought and practice.

And I'm not arguing that somebody who is.

I'm not arguing that religious people or spiritual people are somehow deficient.

difficulties and that comes with its own minefield of potential manipulation and exploitation and pitfalls of all nefarious types of people trying to do what con artists have always done but just online have you given any thoughts like how do we how can we safely have communities online like how can we take this brilliant and beautiful experience you're talking about being with your neighbors how can we mimic that safely online is it happening maybe it is maybe i'm too cynical because i do this work all the time it has to be possible yeah