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Dec. 5, 2004 - Art Bell

02:53:52

Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell - Matthew Alper - The God Part of the Brain

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	So, let's get started.
	From the high desert in the great American Southwest, greetings, Earthlings!
	Bye.
	I bring you that program called Coast to Coast AM, spread across all of your time zones.
	It's great to be here.
	I'm Mark Bell, and we're going to have an awful lot of fun tonight.
	Rock and roll, indeed we shall, with Matthew Alper.
	Nobody I have, save perhaps Major Ed Daines, is capable of driving an audience totally insane the way Matthew Alper can.
	So that'll be coming up in the next hour, and there's... You know, whatever you think of Matthew and his, you know, God-part-of-the-brain theories, I'm afraid that there's been substantial evidence on his side.
	I mean, really substantial evidence.
	Lately, there have been a couple of media explosions about the God gene and stuff like that you're going to want to hear about, because it really does verify what he says.
	Whether you like it or not, and I know not is the case in many cases, but that doesn't mean it may not be true.
	Therefore, it bears examination, which is what we do on this program.
	Looking at the world, never a pleasant process.
	Baghdad usually leads the hit parade.
	Gunmen ambushed a bus carrying unarmed Iraqis to work at a U.S.
	ammo dump near Tikrit on Sunday, killing 17, raising the toll from three days of intensified and bloody insurgent attacks to 70 now Iraqi dead and dozens wounded.
	The attacks focused in Baghdad and several cities to the north, Appeared to be aimed at scaring off those who cooperate with us, the U.S.
	military, whether police, National Guard, Kurdish militias, or ordinary people out looking for a paycheck.
	So, you know, it looks like the number of attacks in Iraq is increasing, not decreasing.
	Not to say we can't eventually get it, but I'm wondering how we're ever going to get out of Iraq.
	How are we going to do it?
	Um, of course for me it was Vietnam and you saw, many of you, many of you didn't.
	Maybe that's a problem.
	You didn't see what happened in Vietnam.
	Maybe there's too many young people out there who don't remember Vietnam.
	But you know, there really are, at least to me, there are many, many, many parallels between the situation presently in Iraq and Vietnam.
	Many.
	You know, the Vietnamization, the Iraqization of the war, turning it over to the Iraqi police and the Iraqi military.
	You might recall how long the South Vietnamese force lasted after we left.
	It was, you know, almost as we were going.
	So how are we ever going to get out of there?
	If GOP leaders would allow a vote on post-September 11th legislation overhauling the nation's intelligence community, it would easily pass.
	Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle say it.
	In fact, a top Republican scolded opponents who worry the Pentagon might lose some of its authority, saying national security is far more important than turf battles.
	There was a global intelligence failure.
	We can't have a status quo.
	We've got to change that, according to Senator Pat Roberts, Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
	Well, I don't know what's more important than turf wars.
	I laughed when I first read this story.
	I knew it wasn't going to get passed.
	I knew the little fiefdoms and kingdoms ensconced in our lettered agencies are very powerful.
	And they all picked up the phone and said, you want to do what?
	In a series of dramatic steps, capped Sunday by a high-profile prisoner swap, Israel and Egypt are moving rapidly to improve relations, seizing the opportunity for a Middle East peace, presented by Yasser Arafat's demise.
	A year ago, just one year ago, Egypt's president dismissed Israel's prime minister as incapable of making peace.
	Today, on the other hand, he calls Ariel Sharon the region's best chance for an end to hostilities.
	The change in attitude is also apparent in Syria and across the Gulf as Arab nations signal well now they're ready to work with Sharon, a man they long have described as a butcher.
	So, attitudes are certainly changing from butcher to our best chance for peace.
	Woo!
	What did he do?
	Oh.
	This apparently has been decided to be not a good idea.
	The French police, on Sunday, ended their practice of hiding plastic explosives in air passenger luggage to train bomb-sniffing dogs.
	All this after one bag apparently got lost, and boy, it's really lost, too.
	They don't know where it went.
	Maybe ending up on a flight out of Paris to Gaul, Charles de Gaulle Airport.
	The luggage that police used Friday for the exercise hadn't turned up anywhere yet.
	Three flights that arrived in L.A.
	and New York were searched, but nada.
	So, in other words, they put plastic explosives in suitcases.
	The real plastic, I guess, huh?
	And then it ended up on some airplane going on an internet... And moreover, they lost the luggage!
	The price of crude oil edged upward, something you don't want to hear, right, in Asia on Monday, but stayed below the US $43 mark for the barrel threshold as concerns over petroleum supply continued to ease less than three weeks before the critical onset of the Northern Hemisphere winter.
	It's coming.
	Winter's coming, all right.
	In a moment, The rest of the news and the rest of the article I didn't get a chance to... I just couldn't help but dive into this article last night called Scientists Debating Blending Species.
	This is a real winner of an article in the Washington Post and something you definitely should hear.
	i subtitled it you saw a lot you know i wish there was a way that uh... everybody out
	there could vote pfft
	You know, that I could see, you know, as they do during NFL football, when they've got a decision to make, they let the audience vote.
	You know, they're wasting, what, 90 seconds or more?
	And so they let the audience vote, and it comes rolling in, thousands of them.
	That'd be a really cool thing.
	If I did have such thing, I'd have you vote right now on this.
	Is this a good idea or not?
	Maybe not.
	And I subtitled it.
	It's called Scientist Debate Blending Species.
	And I subtitled it.
	You saw what?
	You saw what?
	Now, I get calls here all the time, hey Art, I saw this little thing about four feet high and it looked like, you know, something between a dog and it had human features, Art!
	You know, things like that, right?
	Alright, the following article, this article is from the Washington Post.
	Listen carefully, please.
	In Minnesota, pigs are being born with human blood in their veins.
	In Nevada, my state, Sheep, there are sheep whose livers and hearts are largely human.
	In California, mice peer from their cages with human brain cells firing inside their little mousy skulls.
	These are not outcasts from the Island of Dr. Moreau, the 1896 novel by H. G. Wells, that'd be 1896, in which a rogue doctor develops creatures that are part animal and part human.
	These are real creations of real scientists today.
	Biologists call them chimeras, after the mythical Greek creature with a lion's head, goat's body, and serpent's tail.
	They're products of experiments in which human stem cells were added to developing animal fetuses.
	Chimeras are allowing scientists to watch for the first time how human cells and organs mature and interact Not in the cold isolation of laboratory dishes, but no, inside the bodies of living creatures.
	Some are already revealing deep secrets of human biology and pointing the way toward new medical treatments, but no federal guidelines in place.
	An awkward question seems to hover above all that work.
	How human must a chimera be before more stringent rules should kick in?
	The National Academy of Sciences, which advises the federal government, has been studying that issue, hopes to make recommendations perhaps by February.
	Quote, we need to establish some kind of guideline as to what the scientific community ought to do and ought not do.
	That's James Batty, Chairman of the National Institute of Health's Stem Cell Task Force.
	Meaning mixtures of two or more individuals in a single body are not inherently unnatural.
	Most twins, for example, carry at least a few cells from the sibling.
	With whom they shared a womb.
	Most mothers carry in their blood at least a few cells from each child they have born.
	Scientists for years have added human genes to bacteria and farm animals.
	Feats of genetic engineering that allow those critters to make human proteins like insulin for use as medicines.
	That's a good thing.
	Chimeras are not as strange and alien as they seem at first blush, said Henry Greeley, a law professor and ethicist at Stanford University.
	But chimerism becomes a more sensitive topic when it involves growing entire human organs inside of animals, and it becomes especially sensitive when it deals in brain cells The building blocks of the organ credited with making human beings.
	In those experiments, Greeley told the Academy, there is, quote, a non-trivial risk of conferring some significant aspects of humanity on the animal.
	Now, let's listen to that line again.
	I think that's a very important line.
	In those experiments, Greeley told the Academy, quote, There is a non-trivial risk of conferring some significant aspects of humanity on the animal."
	End quote.
	In one ongoing set of experiments, Jeffrey Platt at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota has created human pig chimeras by adding human blood forming stem cells to pig fetuses.
	The resulting pigs have both pig and human blood in their vessels and it's Not just pig blood cells being swept along with human blood cells.
	Some of the cells themselves have merged.
	Merged, creating hybrids.
	It is important to have learned that human and pig cells can fuse, said Platt, because he and others have been considering transplanting modified pig organs into people.
	And they've been wondering if it might pose a risk of pig viruses getting into patients' cells.
	Now scientists know the risk is real, he said, because the viruses may gain access when the two cells fuse.
	In other experiments led by Ismail Zajani at the University of Reno, Nevada, well, they've been adding human stem cells to sheep fetuses.
	The team now has sheep whose livers are up to 80% human and make all the compounds that human livers make.
	So where is this going to end?
	And if I were able to run an instant poll out there with thousands responding inside of 90 seconds, I wonder how it would turn out.
	Is this a good idea or a bad idea?
	And does it, could it possibly, I mean, this is, bear in mind, what I just read to you was from the Washington Post.
	This is not the behind-the-scenes stuff.
	This is not the, well, we're a lab somewhere, you know, way out of the way doing some interesting work kind of reporting.
	This is what they're admitting to.
	If you run into something out there on that cold, dark highway that doesn't look quite right, that doesn't look quite totally like any animal you've ever seen, or any human you've ever seen, then, well, you might not want to be surprised, and you might remember this story from the Washington Post.
	Let's see.
	Here's an interesting story.
	The threat from life on Mars.
	That's right.
	Earth must take precautions to avoid contamination from life forms that must now be presumed, must now be presumed to exist on Mars.
	This was a warning from scientists just a few days ago.
	Potentially, Deadly microorganisms could be returned to Earth on a probe which is being planned to collect samples from the Martian surface.
	That's right, we're going to bring it back.
	The warning comes after a detailed scientific analysis of data sent back by the roving vehicle Opportunity that landed on Mars January 25th.
	Jeffrey Cargill of the U.S.
	Geological Survey said that protection of our own planet From alien forms of life requires the assumption that Martian life exists.
	But before proceeding with sample returns or human missions to Mars, we must review measures for planetary biological protection.
	End quote.
	By the way, I keep track of these things.
	Kind of an interesting story.
	A company in Bermuda suddenly lost contact Sunday with a satellite orbiting Earth nearly 23,000 miles, actually a little more out in space.
	No, almost 23.
	And three dozen Humboldt County residents were suddenly without Internet service.
	Intel said America's seven The only satellite capable of reaching certain customers in remote areas of this region abruptly went dark at about 2.30 p.m.
	Pacific Standard Time, said the company.
	It just vanished!
	Said Dick Kidder, who owns Alpha Communications in McKinleyville.
	Alpha Communications installs equipment for Humboldt County customers of Starband, that satellite service.
	A McLean, Virginia company that provides high-speed internet service via satellite to areas where cable, DSL, and other forms of broadband just simply cannot be retrieved.
	Starband contracts with Intelsat for space on satellites to provide service, and nobody has any idea what's gone wrong with Intelsat America 7.
	In a press statement, Intelsat called the spacecraft a, quote, permanent loss, end quote.
	It was either Catastrophic power failure or it was hit by a meteor.
	Now you see this satellite was special because up in Humboldt County they got a lot of high trees and mountains and things like that and they can't point at 30 degrees which is kind of normal.
	This satellite being out what about 22,700 miles that's a little further out Gave a look angle of, I believe, about 45 degrees.
	Yeah, 45 degrees.
	So, in other words, they could point over the trees and see the satellite.
	Well, that special little satellite is history.
	A big rock may have gotten it.
	You're not going to like this story.
	I certainly didn't.
	The title is Fair Use in Peril.
	The far-reaching Intellectual Property Protection Act would deny customers many of the freedoms that all of you take for granted now.
	For example, do you like to fast-forward through commercials on TV?
	You know, a TV program you've recorded?
	How much do you like it?
	A lot, you say.
	Enough to go to jail if you're caught doing it?
	Well, if a new copyright and intellectual property omnibus bill sitting on Congress's desk should pass the way it is now, that may be the choice you will face.
	When you reach down to hit that fast forward, when you go to your DVR control and prepare to leap ahead 30 seconds at a time, jumping past those expensively produced commercials, you may be behind bars, ready to meet your new life, mate!
	In a statement last month, Senator McCain stated his opposition to Bill and specifically cited the anti-commercial skipping feature Saying, quote, Americans have been recording TV shows and fast-forwarding through the commercials for 30 years, he said.
	Do we really expect to throw people in jail in 2004 for behavior they've been engaging in for a quarter of a century?
	End quote.
	Huh.
	So, uh, there you have it.
	You could go to jail for doing that.
	You'd have to put, you'd have to put a very large portion of America in jail.
	Maybe the theory was that with the old VCRs, you know, you could go, you'd have to fast forward, and you would actually, you would see the commercial, and for all I know, maybe it registered on your subconscious.
	Even if you didn't get it consciously, maybe that commercial zipping by at seven times or ten times normal speed Registered on your subconscious, and you went out and bought.
	Ah, but the new DVRs have a feature where you just hit a button and it goes, 30 seconds at a time.
	You don't see anything.
	There is nothing that registers, you know, on your subconscious.
	So, could it be that the new omnibus bill recognizes that fact?
	And soon there will be people peeking in your living room window and just waiting for you to hit that button.
	And when you do, the sirens sound, the red lights begin flashing off the walls of your living room, and the TV SWAT guys break your door down, taking you and your remote control off to a new life.
	From the high desert in the middle of the night where we do our best business, this is Coast to Coast AF.
	oh yeah open lines coming up oh yeah open lines coming up
	see when you need a smile to fill those shadows there's no way you're gonna come to me
	baby you'll see but I'm too pretty baby
	to go on and on this cruise tonight but I'm too pretty mama
	there's no way back to me but I do
	who's gonna love you, love you who's gonna love you
	but I do who's gonna love you, love you
	who's gonna love you www.youtube.com or www.facebook.com or www.instagram.com
	ahhh we love you baby But please, when you dial, dial very carefully.
	And listen carefully, because the numbers are a little bit different on the weekend.
	Here they are.
	Numbers, please.
	727-1295.
	That's one of them.
	The first time caller line is area code 775-727-1222.
	The first time caller line is area code 775-727-1222.
	To talk with Art Bell from east of the Rockies, call toll free at 800-825-5033.
	From west of the Rockies, call 800-618-8255.
	International callers may reach Art by calling your in-country Sprint Access number, pressing Option 5, and dialing toll-free 800-893-0903.
	From coast to coast, and worldwide on the Internet, this is Coast to Coast AM, with Art Bell.
	It is, and again, there is some poor lady here in Burrump, Nevada, who keeps Getting your wrong number, so please dial very carefully.
	in a moment we'll dive straight into open lines and anything you want to do.
	And let's rock.
	First time caller line, you're on the air.
	Good morning.
	Good morning.
	Howdy.
	I'm calling about the fair use law that you discussed earlier.
	You mean the one where you could get tossed in jail?
	Well, the truth is, I believe that that aspect applies only to the manufacturers.
	Any consumer that has a TiVo or... That's not what it says here, though.
	Well, I can't imagine that any lawmaker would be stupid enough to Stop a consumer who already has a machine that can fast forward.
	Yes, but how long is your, how long is your TiVo going to last?
	It has a certain life to it, and eventually, eventually it will die.
	And when it does, you will need a new one.
	And when you get the new one, you won't be able to go through the commercials anymore, even if it only applies to the manufacturer.
	Well, the point is this.
	Why should someone create content if they can't make any money out of it?
	I mean, if we allow consumers to file share with Kazaa, whether it's music, software... What kind of content provider are you?
	I create subliminal audio.
	Oh my God, man!
	And you're worried about this?
	Well, it all affects...
	All of us who are content providers.
	And in what kind of media is your subliminal, sneaky audio placed?
	Well, first of all, I'm up front.
	I'm saying that I produce subliminal audio.
	No, you are.
	I give you that.
	I'm just asking, where is it placed?
	I could place it on CDs.
	I could place it on MP3s or anything that a consumer would want to download.
	All right.
	Without giving me a company name, because I don't want a company name, what kind of messages do you subliminally insert?
	Sleep messages.
	Really?
	Yeah.
	Sleep messages.
	You are sleepy.
	You want to go to sleep.
	Now, why?
	So many people are suffering from insomnia, restlessness, etc.
	So yours is a benign, if not even beneficial, subliminal message, whereas others may be, well, God knows what they're suggesting.
	That's precisely why I said I'm upfront about it.
	See, if I'm telling you I'm giving you something subliminal, then you have nothing to worry about.
	People could be producing subliminal messages on any broadcast, On any recording that you buy, on any TV show, on any movie, and they might not be up front about it.
	If I'm telling you up front there are subliminals, you could check if it's affecting you in a funny kind of way.
	On behalf of the whole audience, I would like to ask you, obviously in your business, You're going to know, or have some idea, how much real subliminal stuff, either on broadcast or CDs or all the media that we all consume, how much is there really in there, sir?
	The truth.
	In truth, first of all, just because I'm in the subliminal field, I don't know how many dishonest people there are out there.
	But just by hearsay, I would say perhaps Up to 1% of people are surreptitiously putting things on there that you're not aware of?
	It really does happen.
	Oh, I know!
	Surreptitiously, at least 1%, huh?
	I would say.
	I would say there's definitely content out there where people are putting messages And not telling you that there are messages there.
	There's just no doubt about it.
	That's freaky.
	No doubt about it.
	Freaky.
	Yeah.
	And so if you're watching something and you suddenly get an almost irrepressible urge to do something or consume something or something, then that's what it might be.
	To do something against what you ordinarily feel like doing, if you notice that, I would record that, or if you already have a recording that you feel might be inducing you to do things that you don't want to do, play the recording for a few minutes, then play it for a few minutes longer, and see if it's inducing you, anytime you play that recording, to have that kind of feeling that you don't want to have.
	If it does do that, you have someone who's trying to surreptitiously influence you.
	Ooh, how insidious is that?
	Anyway, um, so, but you're on the side, then, of the content providers, basically.
	You have to... Look, if someone's creating software, why should they spend years of their life, maybe working six, seven hours a day, twelve, eighteen hours a day, to create something?
	I know.
	All of a sudden... I know.
	As soon as their first copy is put out, the whole world has it for free.
	I'm totally on your side.
	Really, I am.
	Honestly, I am.
	I mean, you're talking about file sharing and that sort of thing.
	Here, though, that's not what we're... Go ahead and address what we're talking about in this story.
	The ability to skip ahead through commercials.
	Can you argue on the side of, well, the omnibus bill here and say we ought to be forced, damn well forced, to watch those commercials?
	Come on, let's talk about that.
	Well, as I said in the beginning, I am against forcing any consumer who already has a TiVo to stop them from using that he really spent money when it was legal
	however you know i want to see future t votes
	i want i want to see future met future manufacturing of people's yes we can
	have that he not ordinary straightforward and i could live with
	ordinary first born as we had with the c rd for many many many decades and my
	Yes, and my theory about why you'd be okay with that is because you figure, fast-forwarding, you're still going to see it, and the subliminal message is still going to get through.
	Am I right?
	No, not exactly.
	First of all, I'm not in that field, but I know why the broadcasters aren't concerned with that.
	Because many people, as they're skipping through the commercials, they see something that's interesting, and they'll stop and listen.
	They'll stop the commercial and listen to it.
	When you have these new features in TiVo where you could skip through three, four minutes of commercials, the broadcasters don't even have any chance to get their message across, and they can't make a penny from their product.
	That's right.
	You're right.
	You're right.
	So, you know, in the war between consumers and those who, you know, try to show us the commercials, you feel that a wall has come, and that wall is TiVo, and that wall must come down.
	Tear down that wall!
	And you want to know something?
	What?
	I have nothing against the consumers.
	The consumers are simply using products that are available.
	What I am against are the manufacturers.
	I got that.
	So you feel then that my image of a TiVo cop looking into your window watching for you to depress that 30-second skip several times so that he can throw you in a federal penitentiary for the rest of your life might be over the top a little?
	Right.
	It's not analogous to what's really applicable to what we are concerned about.
	We content providers are concerned about It's not the consumer aspect, it's the manufacturers who allow, it's the also kazahs that allow these kind of material to be file shared for free and we can't make
	Any money for all the effort that we put into making the content.
	Unless you put subliminal messages in stuff that ends up being file-shared, then you win.
	But again, I don't do anything surreptitious.
	I'm up front with what I put out.
	All right, sir.
	I very much appreciate the call.
	Thank you very much.
	And thank you.
	All right, take care.
	Actually, his job is subliminal messages, albeit benign, even beneficial ones, but subliminal messages.
	Fascinating.
	Wildcard Line, you're on the air.
	Hello.
	May that man have a lump of coal in his stocking.
	This is Stephen in Columbus, Georgia.
	How are you doing?
	I'm doing just fine.
	Look, could you possibly do me and possibly a lot of other folks a favor?
	You want me to kill Matthew Alpert?
	I can't do that.
	No.
	Oh, no.
	Nothing like that.
	Could you possibly find an authority on high-definition and get him on your show one evening?
	Well, I'm not bad.
	I've got... Well, I know.
	I know.
	But a lot of the stuff that you've got, we can't buy it.
	Well, what do you want to know about HD?
	Well, look here.
	I'm locked into two different manufacturers, which I'm not going to say who they are.
	Alright?
	Money is no object, of course.
	from our Christmas present yes I might not even buy one apparently
	are by the way a plasma TVs are going to be the number one wish list item this
	Christmas that said go ahead well I don't want a plasma TV because I've
	heard about the burn-in and all this other stuff
	well so just don't leave it on one thing well yeah I have a home office so I have
	to my my my set on pretty much all day long
	But still, they'll produce a picture that'll knock your socks off.
	Oh, there's no doubt about it.
	I'm going with LCD technology.
	All right.
	And so, your question?
	All right.
	Now, you was talking about blue laser.
	Yep.
	Is that called Blossom Blu-Ray?
	Probably, yes.
	As a matter of fact, I saw a cute little picture of a cute little Japanese girl holding a HD DVD in her hand.
	Exactly.
	Obviously came from Japan.
	So, they're everything but out on the streets, sir.
	We're about to be hit with blue laser and it's going to be full, you know, 1080i HD.
	Now, also I've heard that next year, I'm sure we're getting 1080 vertical, but we're not getting the other in horizontal.
	Is that correct?
	No, you'll get full 1080 is the HD's big standard, so.
	I mean, there's others, 720 and all the rest, but really 1080 is where you want to be.
	Okay, yeah, 1080, sure, but also that's horizontal, though, correct?
	Or is that vertical lines?
	I think that's, let's see, 1080 would be... 1080 by 720, right?
	No, it'd be, actually, 1025 by 1025 is what I've got, for example.
	Okay.
	Well, I was told next year they're going to have it in the horizontal also.
	Uh-huh.
	Doggone it!
	They look good and... No, they look better than good.
	They look like a window on the world.
	I mean, there is as big a difference between regular TV and, honest to God, HD TV as there was between black and white and color.
	And, you will note, the first time you walk into a circuit city or one of those places that specializes in HD, You know, your jaw will go down and hit your chest.
	I mean, it is that good.
	Really, it is.
	East of the Rockies, you're on the air.
	Hi.
	Hi, Art.
	It's Barry from Pennsylvania.
	Yo, Barry.
	Hey, I got a guest selection, uh, suggestion for you.
	Um, I'd really like to hear you interview, uh, Matt Drudge of the Drudge Report.
	Oh, you know, I really should interview Matt.
	Uh, he would be a lot of fun.
	I, of course, I use his page.
	Extensively.
	I've been on stage a couple of times with Matt and, you know, we have backstage talks and we had a lot of fun.
	We've got a lot in common.
	He's a cool guy.
	Yeah, I'd love to hear him.
	Merry Christmas, Art.
	Thank you.
	Oh, that's it, huh?
	That's it.
	All right.
	Yeah, Matt, you're officially invited if you want to come on.
	You know, I definitely have Matt Drudge on.
	His story is an unusual story.
	Certainly a big success story.
	Here's a man who began a webpage that has grown in, I don't know what the hell he gets now, a million hits, 20 million hits a month, whatever, but it's remarkable.
	He gets most stories first.
	So if you're a news junkie, I am and I know many of you are, you're going to be all over the Drudge page.
	It's almost always first.
	So, he'd be a blast to have on.
	Find out how he does it.
	West of the Rockies, you're on the air.
	Hi.
	Hey Art, how's it going?
	Very well, sir.
	Long time listener, infrequent caller.
	Well, glad to have you.
	This is Bennett from Pocatello.
	Just a couple of quick comments.
	Sure.
	I know you're up against the break here pretty soon.
	Eh, not that soon.
	Two things about me.
	First, the people who think that they're putting out the street lights with psychic powers or because maybe they've been abducted or something like that.
	Oh, yeah.
	When I was a kid and we used to go toilet papering in the neighborhood.
	Oh, no.
	The particular street that we used to go down, we used to run down the road in a car first with a big spotlight and spotlight all the street lights and it would put out all the lights on the street and make the whole street dark.
	Yeah, that's right.
	I mean, they have light sensors, you know, so that when the sun goes down, they come on.
	And so if something gets in the way of that light sensor, it goes off.
	Yep, so we just darken the whole street, jump out, do our business, and then leap.
	And then one more thing, George was kind of freaking out this last week about the birds flocking up.
	That's a pretty common occurrence in the wintertime.
	One time I had to listen to a big flock of starlings while I was out hunting.
	And when they flew in the air, it almost sounded like a jet airplane taking off.
	There were so many of them.
	I don't know about flocking, but there may be good reason to worry about the behavior of some animals, including whales, dolphins, birds.
	They're all behaving in a rather unsettling way, and when you put that together with what's going on, You know, North Pole, South Pole, ozone layers, various layers.
	There is a disturbance in the force, sir.
	There's no question about it.
	And one little bit of synchronicity, too.
	I took a trip, 1994, 95, 94 it had to have been, a trip over to the coast of California and up through Oregon, and we were traveling through the Redwoods, and it was rainy season at spring break time, and the rain was just hammering the coast, I was kind of falling asleep at the wheel and turned on the radio and about Coos Bay, Oregon, and about the time I turned on the radio, your voice comes on and says, New Discovery, 200 miles off the coast of Coos Bay, Oregon, an underwater volcano.
	I remember that, yes.
	The exact time I was going right through the town.
	And you probably thought, I'm doomed.
	Well, I thought you were nuts.
	Too much synchronicity.
	It's gonna blow and I'm gonna go with it!
	It was just kind of funny because then from that point on the rest of the night I listened to you and into the morning and I was hooked ever since.
	All right.
	Well, thank you for the call.
	Thank you.
	Very much appreciate it.
	Take care.
	First time caller on the air.
	Hello.
	Hello, this is Jeff.
	Jeff, where are you?
	I'm in Glendale, Arizona listening to you on 550KFYI.
	Yes, sir.
	Hey, I've got a very simple question concerning the TiVo and the... Okay, yes.
	Anyways, it's going to be wrong for us to go ahead and fast forward past the commercials?
	Yeah, that's what they're saying, yeah.
	You understand what I'm saying?
	Yes, yes.
	Okay, why is it that we're having this stuff jammed down our throat on network TV with the icons on the side that tells you what you're watching You're listening to or whatever.
	Well, they're worried about their product being pirated.
	And if they put their little symbol down there, then it's... Well, let's see, okay?
	I'm watching TV and now all of a sudden I've got this icon bar across the bottom there advertising while I'm watching my program.
	Yeah.
	And I'm missing half my program because I've got something on TNN or TNT or whatever.
	Yeah.
	Or NASCAR coming up this, you know, blah, blah, blah.
	Yes.
	You understand what I'm trying to say?
	Shouldn't that be illegal for them to do that also?
	also well i don't know about illegal uh... i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i
	i've got even a bigger complaint than are you a floppy watch football
	i like i was watching fox the other day and your your one watch a football game
	and they've got a bar going across the top with all kinds of running stats of
	other games and scores like that and now they've got a bar go across the bottom too
	And like, you gotta watch football games in between!
	Exactly, and I spend way too much time trying to get this off my computer, let alone get it off my TV.
	I hear you.
	Why can't we have a pop-up blocker for TV?
	That's a great idea, sir.
	And in this digital age, it might be entirely possible.
	So if you didn't want to see those damn bars, you could just press no.
	That'd be cool, huh?
	Exactly.
	Wouldn't that be neat?
	But like I said, if I'm going to rent a movie or buy a movie or whatnot, I don't want to watch all that garbage at the beginning of it.
	I want to watch the movie.
	Oh, you mean like the previews?
	Yeah, I don't want to watch it.
	I just want to watch the movie.
	You're talking about a DVD?
	Look for the next thing.
	There's a little next thing.
	I understand that, but some of those you can't get past.
	They just keep shooting and shooting and shooting.
	Well, imagine if they eliminate all the little next buttons and the 30 second buttons and the skip over this and that fast forward buttons and you have to watch.
	You have to watch the commercials.
	Then I guess the software engineers wouldn't have anything to do.
	That'd be so mean.
	But on the other hand, on the other hand, the man who called, who's a content provider, well you know, I mean, the other hand is, those commercials pay for those TV shows.
	You know, high production values and all the rest cost a lot of money.
	And a subscriber to any satellite network or cable network, don't we also pay for those?
	A very teeny-weeny percentage of what you pay to the cable company or the satellite company goes, believe me, back to the actors and actresses.
	Most of it comes from the commercials, and that's something you really ought to think about.
	I've got to go, sir.
	All right.
	Thank you very much, Art Bell.
	Have a good night.
	I really do see both sides of the argument.
	But they'll have to rip Martivo out of my cold, dead hand, I'll tell you that right now.
	from the high desert in the middle of the night this is close to close to you
	the the
	the I've got a lot from you girl, but I don't need no cure.
	I just stay a victim if I can't be sure.
	Do talk with Art Bell. Call the wildcard line at area code 7.
	The first time caller line is area code 775-727-1222.
	To talk with Art Bell from east of the Rockies, call toll free at 800-825-5033.
	line is area code 775-727-1222. To talk with Art Bell from east of the Rockies, call toll-free
	at 800-825-5033. From west of the Rockies, call Art at 800-618-8255.
	International callers may reach Art Bell by calling your in-country Sprint Access
	number, pressing option 5, and dialing toll-free 800-893-0903.
	From coast to coast, and worldwide on the Internet, this is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell.
	Hooked on a feeling.
	Nonsense.
	It's the love part of the brain.
	Coming up, ladies and gentlemen, Matthew Alper.
	Oh, one of my most hated guests ever.
	Matthew Alper was born and raised in New York City.
	That'll be readily apparent to you.
	He was educated, though, at Vassar and North London University, where he acquired degrees in philosophy of science.
	After finishing school, Matthew spent extensive time living abroad in Europe, Africa, and Asia, where he studied comparative world cultures, religion, and history.
	After teaching high school history, Matthew went on to become a screenwriter and then to write his seminal work, The God Part of the Brain.
	Since then, Matthew has lectured at various universities on the topic of cognitive science and philosophy.
	He's also been written up in the Washington Post and appeared on NBC.
	He is indeed One of the most hated guests I have, and if you listen for just a little while, and loved, I might add, by some, if you listen for just a little while, you will certainly see why.
	quite a few surprises coming tonight and i must say i'm sure to the dismay of many
	there is now work and and very solid scientific word coming out that matthew has been
	right all along and
	well right uh...
	Welcome to the program, Matthew Alper.
	Thank you, Art, for having me back.
	It's a pleasure to have you back.
	I happen to be one of your biggest fans, Matthew.
	I truly am.
	And I have been ever since I first had you on the radio.
	I've been a big fan of yours and what you believe.
	Now, that said, Matthew, we've got a lot of new territory to get into, but we've got to assume And ask the patients of those who have heard you before, and we have to assume that there's a lot of people who have no idea what the God part of the brain is all about, what you're all about.
	So, if you can do it in sort of the most instructive, simplest way that you can do it, what is the God part of the brain?
	Okay, well, the God part of the brain Basically, it's a theory suggesting that humans are hardwired to believe in some form of a spiritual reality.
	I started with the premise that the fact that every culture, no matter how isolated, has believed in some form of a spiritual reality would suggest that we're wired this way.
	Similar to the way all cats meow, or all dogs bark, or all human cultures speak a language, Usually it's indicative that there's a part of the brain that generates this type of behavior.
	That would extend even to the remote tribes, Matthew, that, I don't know, have rituals where they have to kill somebody and drink their blood or something like that.
	Not your average Christian.
	Right, well, I mean, there have been cannibalistic tribes, but really the The common thread is the fact that every culture, even those most isolated that they've, you know, even in the last century uncovered in the rainforests and parts of Asia that hadn't had exposure really for tens of thousands of years to other cultures, always believe in some type of spiritual reality, pray to supernatural deities, bury their dead or at least dispose of their deceased with some ritual that anticipates sending
	That person's spirit to some other realm, to a spiritual realm.
	Yes.
	All of them.
	I mean, without exception?
	Without exception.
	Well, almost without exception.
	Anyway, let's finish up with this.
	So what you're suggesting is there is something in our brains, perhaps genetically, do you think genetically Well, the argument then continues that if there are these regions in the brain, then there must be genes responsible for the emergence of these parts, just as with every physiological part we possess, whether it's the fact that we have two eyes in the front of our face, or two hands and two feet, it's part of our genetic blueprint.
	If there are these regions in the brain, then it must be part of our genetic blueprint as well, thus suggesting that These parts of the brain emerged, again, if we're going to go stick with evolutionary theory, that they emerged as with every other part of us through the process of natural selection.
	And I believe you've told me in the past that you think that the reason that this is now part of our genetic code is the primal, deep fear of death, of our own mortality.
	In other words, there's got to be Something, otherwise half of us would go mad, considering the end of our own consciousness.
	That's correct.
	As I came up, as I discovered this notion that it does exist cross-culturally, and that it's likely we're wired this way, and then as more evidence came out, different neurophysiological experiments, which we've discussed in the past, again, validating this notion I had to come up with an idea as to why we would have evolved this, why nature would have selected this adaptation in us.
	It must serve some purpose to help the preservation of the species.
	So I looked at our species and said, well, what makes us unique from all the other animals that we would have this?
	Besides the fact that we are the musical animal, the mathematical animal, the linguistic animal, we're also the only self-conscious animal, the only animal that possesses self-conscious awareness.
	So, you believe firmly that cats, dogs, other mammals do not understand that they will die.
	That's correct.
	In experiments done on different species to see to what extent they do possess self-conscious awareness, it was shown, for instance, just even self-recognition, like using a mirror, that the only animals that, and they didn't have it instinctually, but they could be trained in time, if left in a cage with a mirror in it, That chimpanzees, our closest descendants, would eventually figure out that their reflection, after first thinking it was an antagonist, another chimp, in time they came to realize that it was themselves and actually would use the mirror like as a tool.
	So they would open their mouths and pick things out of their teeth using their reflection.
	They're the only other animal besides humans who have this capacity for self-recognition, Incipient, you know, self-awareness.
	Matthew, on our website, www.coasttocoastam.com, I have this little corner up there where I can put a picture every week.
	I've got a picture of my cat, Yeti, up there this week, right now in fact.
	My cat, Yeti, practices looking cute in the mirror.
	Well, he might be dazzled by The image of movement in his reflection, but it's unlikely that, for instance, if you put something on the cat's head, that he'll look in the mirror and then use his or her paw to knock that thing off.
	Well, he hates things on his head, whether he's got a mirror or not.
	Absolutely.
	It gives the most irritated look on his face you ever saw.
	But I've seen him practicing looking cute in the mirror, and my wife has too, and I know damn well that's what he's doing.
	But okay, fine.
	I'm sure he's very cute.
	Yes, he's cute.
	Having said that humans are the first creature to really possess an advanced sense of self-conscious awareness, I believe that even though this made us the most powerful species on Earth, because it allowed us the power of self-modification, so for instance, if it gets cold out, let's say we get hit with another ice age, we don't have to wait millions of years to develop a thicker coat of fur, we can say, I am cold, and we can sew ourselves one.
	So we have this advanced capacity for self-modification, However, the drawback of that was, once we became aware of the fact that we exist, we became equally aware of the fact that one day we won't, and that empirically, we know that's true as a fact, that living things die, they decease.
	So, with that knowledge, the anxiety created by this awareness of death, of inevitable death, That not only is it inevitable, but that it can come at any given moment.
	We just know that it will come, we just, we don't know when.
	Right.
	The anxiety of living with that awareness, the perpetual mortal crisis that we suffered, forced the selection of a cognitive modification, a new region in the brain that compels us to believe that there's something else out there.
	And whether we call them gods, ghosts, This is a very good question, then, Matthew.
	I've been at terms a long time with my own mortality.
	I'm comfortable with it.
	You know, maybe I'd have a foxhole conversion.
	Who knows?
	But I mean, basically, I am really pretty comfortable with it, and there are many people like that around the world who are pretty comfortable with it, fully understand they're going to die, and they're not Particularly frightened or unnerved or stressed by that fact.
	Are these people less likely to be religious?
	Well, probably.
	The only thing is they have found in studies done on atheists that there is in fact a higher incidence of suicide, for instance, among atheists.
	So it seems that it is a fairly useful coping mechanism.
	Interesting.
	You're an atheist, aren't you?
	Yes.
	I used to consider myself an agnostic, but with all the evidence verifying my initial theories, I'm more and more convinced that what I'm suggesting is the case, therefore leaving me to believe that chances are there is no spiritual reality, there is no God, there are no spirits, there is no soul, there's no ghost in the machine, and that basically we are Material products, and that when the brain ceases to exist, so does consciousness, and that will be the end.
	All right.
	I have a lot of people who send me email, and here's one for you, okay?
	Dear Art, I spent so many years ironing all contradictions in my soon-to-be-released book out, The Truth About Love.
	Uh, that it is so annoying that I stay up all night trying to get through to Matthew Alpert to just ask one simple little question.
	Since you, sir, Matthew, are an exception to your own theory, that is to say you're an atheist, how do you explain that your theory can be valid and hold this glaring exception?
	Evolutionary adaptation is there to serve us, not fool us, Elizabeth.
	I'm glad you asked the question, and thank you Elizabeth for bringing it to the air here.
	It was a question that I was asked innumerable times as I was writing the book, which prompted me to add a chapter called, Why Are There Atheists?
	My explanation is that basically for every physiological trait we possess, we fall into a bell curve.
	So we can take something basic like height.
	If you take If you do a survey of the height of any population, you'll find that most, the bulge of the bell curve, the majority of that population will fall into what we could call average height.
	And on the tapering extremes of that bell curve, we'll have a few people who are excessively tall and others who are excessively short.
	We could apply that to a cognitive ability, such as musicality.
	Most of us possess, fall into the bulge of the bell curve and have average musical capability.
	But on the extreme, there are some people born with an overdeveloped musical ability, genetically so, like a Mozart or savant.
	People who, at five years old, you know, are playing Beethoven just by ear.
	People who are otherwise, you know, what were, you know, called idiot savants.
	People who otherwise can't tie their own shoelaces.
	But again, if you play them a piece of Mozart, they can sit by the instrument and play it in perfect time.
	Indeed.
	Whereas on the other extreme, you have people who are born tone-deaf, with an underdeveloped musical capacity.
	So, if indeed we are wired for spirituality, and it's generated from a region in the brain, it would then follow that, though the majority, the bulge of the human bell curve, has an average capacity to sense a spiritual reality, to pray to a god, to believe in an afterlife, on the extremes of the bell curve, um, given that, you know, given the nature of genetic variants that were all a little different from one another, on the tapering extremes, on one end, we'll have the zealots, those born with an overdeveloped religious preoccupation, and on the other extreme, those who, almost just as there are some people born musically tone-deaf, we could say there are those born
	Spiritually tone-deaf.
	They just do not think about these things.
	They don't even have the capacity, no more than my cat does.
	Some humans are really just, you know, again, spiritually tone-deaf, spiritually incapable or retarded, if you will.
	Well, you wouldn't want to use that word with reference to yourself now, would you?
	Sure, I'm spiritually retarded.
	Spiritually retarded?
	I'm religiously retarded.
	Maybe your God part of the brain is filled up with your Bronx accent.
	It's Brooklyn.
	I'm sorry, Brooklyn.
	I can't differentiate.
	You all sound the same to me.
	Alright, so anyway, your God part of the brain, do you think it's just not working or in use doing something else?
	No, generally It's like, take again, a musical ability.
	Let's say somebody never pursues a musical instrument.
	They don't really have much interest in music.
	It's not because that part of their brain is busy doing something else.
	That part of the brain can only deal with musical capabilities, just like the parts of the brain responsible for religiosity and spirituality.
	It's not like they're doing other things.
	And actually, in my case, I'm probably I don't believe that I was necessarily born with an underdeveloped spiritual function, like some people really are, because I think mine was intact enough so that it prompted me to pursue these questions.
	I was driven as a child to search for God, and when I was a child, I had... Driven by whom?
	Well, by my own, again, by my own genetic makeup, by my own internal predisposition.
	So you did have it.
	Oh yeah, as a child, again not knowing better, I had conversations with God, I was angry at God as a teenager when I saw evil around me, when I saw darkness.
	So what happened?
	Well, I began to pursue a variety of studies.
	I studied world religions, I studied meditation, I even experimented with various psychedelics, trying to see if maybe they would push me on through to the other side as many Cultures have used these substances as part of religious ritual to induce a spiritual experience, and after having explored all these different venues, I didn't come up with anything definitive.
	I couldn't say that, yes, I now know God.
	I know for a fact that there's one out there.
	So then I began studying the various sciences, saying, well, maybe science, which has uncovered so many truths and told us so much about the universe that we Didn't previously know, maybe somewhere there'd be an answer there.
	So I studied physics and biology and basically went through all the sciences, and it wasn't until I had studied world cultures and then came upon the science of what's called sociobiology, something created by a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner up in Harvard named Edward O. Wilson, a brilliant man who came up with a book, who wrote a book called Sociobiology, who was the first to really study different species and find that every behavior that was
	universal had a genetic component.
	And I just took that a step further and said, well, if that's the case, then how about the
	fact that every culture has religion, has gods? And it went from there. So I think it was my
	capacity for reason that eventually outweighed my perhaps initial spiritual inclinations.
	So you don't think you're Abbey normal?
	No.
	I think I fall probably somewhere in the middle of the bell curve.
	How would you handle it if... Well, most people don't dedicate such a chunk of their life to exploring a spiritual realm.
	That's true.
	But in terms of the firmness of your atheistic belief, you're, you know...
	Right, pretty hardcore.
	What would happen to you and how would you handle it if you suddenly met God?
	I mean you tried the psychedelics, everything else under the sun.
	If you suddenly had an undeniable I don't know.
	your couch began to glow and it talked to you and said it was God and you just
	knew it all to be true. You'd be wrong. Well, knowing it all to be true part, I'm a
	skeptic that I am. Yes. I'd probably check myself in and go on to Thorazine very
	quickly, an anti-psychotic, and if I still saw the couch talking to me and
	glowing... But that's a flippant answer.
	I mean, if you really had an experience, you wouldn't go check yourself in.
	Listen, hold on.
	We're at the bottom of the hour.
	We'll be right back.
	Matthew Alper is my guest.
	I'm Art Bell, and this, of course, is Coast to Coast AM.
	warren through the night time Love is good, love is good, love is good
	Love can be strong.
	We've got to get right back to where we started from.
	Do you remember that day?
	I sure do.
	When you first came my way.
	I said no one could take your place And if you get hurt
	Be it sight, sound, smell, touch There's something inside that we need so much
	The sight of a touch, or the scent of a sound, or the strength of an oak when it's deep in the ground.
	The wonder of flowers to be covered and then to burst up through tarmac to the sun again.
	Or to fly to the sun without burning a wing?
	To lie in a meadow and hear the grass sing?
	To have all these things in our memories whole?
	I'm the user to help us to find love Ride, ride like she's old
	Take this place, on this trip You just know me
	We can take a ride!
	Wanna take a ride?
	To talk with Art Bell, call the wildcard line at area code 775-727-1295.
	The first time caller line is area code 775-727-1222.
	To talk with Art Bell, call the wildcard line at area code 775-727-1295.
	The first time caller line is area code 775-727-1222.
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	800-825-5033. From west of the Rockies, call 800-618-8255.
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	pressing Option 5, and dialing toll-free 800-893-0903. From coast to coast, and worldwide on the
	Internet, this is Coast to Coast AM with ART Bell.
	You want to take a ride right out of contact, right?
	Remember the ride on contact and the preconditions for anyone who was going to take that ride.
	That would be a belief in God.
	And you recall the scientist sitting there said, after thinking really hard and being really honest, no.
	And that disqualified that scientist from taking the ride.
	Remember?
	Well, what do you think?
	Would Matthew be riding?
	Probably not.
	Is your name in the Bible code?
	Is the name Matthew Alper in the Bible code?
	Well, yes, but there's an asterisk there.
	Right.
	C. Lucifer.
	C. Lucifer.
	Well, look, sad as this is going to be for some of my listeners, there does appear to be a cooperation now.
	In the scientific community.
	In fact, published, I guess, where?
	There's a big publishing going on about your theory, only they're not giving you creditor.
	What's this all about?
	Well, I wouldn't go into it in detail, but... Well, I mean, look, to a certain detail... Sure, sure.
	I'll just tell you the basic storyline.
	I sent my book out four years ago to a bunch of well-known scientists for endorsement.
	Uh, most of which gave me endorsements.
	One of them was Edward O. Wilson, the Pulitzer Prize winner I told you about, who wrote me a wonderful letter and which now appears in the front of my book as one of the reviews.
	Alright, even your appearances on this program, Matthew, also stand irrefutably.
	You were on First With Me, how long ago?
	In 98.
	In 98, there you are.
	So, irrefutably.
	And I give you credit for being probably the first person out there to give me an audience to express these ideas, and your listeners in 98 who got to hear me speak, We're five years ahead of the curve of now Time Magazine's cover story, who are printing this as if it's new information.
	What's it say there on Time Magazine?
	Front cover, right?
	Huh?
	Yeah, well it deals with new genetic evidence, which is suggesting that indeed there are genes responsible for Religious and spiritual experience.
	They call it the God gene, huh?
	Mm-hmm.
	All right.
	And this is research claiming to be how new?
	Like this year.
	It just all just came out.
	This year.
	Uh-huh.
	So in the time, certainly, in the Time Magazine story, because of your exposure here and your book endorsed by many colleagues, scientific colleagues, Oh, they gave you lots of credit in there, I'm sure.
	They gave me no credit.
	What?
	As a matter of fact, there were phrases from my book used in that article, and just what we were discussing earlier about why are there atheists, one of the things they opened their story with, their article with, is that why is it that some of us believe and others are spiritually tone-deaf?
	I mean, they used my language.
	The whole article basically is a reiteration of my book.
	But now all of the PhDs and fancy academics are basically picking my bones and taking credit for all of my thoughts.
	All the stuff about like awareness of death, hardwired, they're using my language, they're using my phrases, they're using my explanations, everything.
	What happened was one of these well-known academics who I sent the book to, a day after he read it, this was four years ago, He wrote an article online about his groundbreaking new theory about humans being wired to believe in God.
	He just took my book and rewrote it into an article online, and called it his theory, because he's a big shot, and he's a PhD and an MD, and he very smugly claimed all of this stuff as his own, and now it took him four years to basically reprocess my book, Whereas I go into my book, I talk about the difference between spirituality and religiosity, he has a chapter, The Difference Between Spirituality and Religiousness.
	Wow.
	So he changed the prefix or a suffix here and there, and therefore blocking my capacity to sue for plagiarism.
	And that's what's going on right now, and because it was then published by Doubleday, his book, Time Magazine therefore assumed he must be the creator of these ideas, and if you read the article, you'd basically be re-reading what we've spoken about now for the last almost, you know, six years.
	Yeah.
	Going on seven.
	What can you do about it?
	You know what?
	I've been trying my hardest to see what I can do.
	I've been trying to make a story of it, see if I can get the attention of a writer at maybe the New York Times or one of the New York papers.
	And basically, nobody wants to hear.
	Nobody cares, you know?
	I mean, the world loves a winner, and they're just... you know, nobody really wants to... I even spoke to... Well, I know this won't make you feel any better at all, but people like yourself are very frequently realized as the true discoverers.
	Well, after they're dead, Matthew.
	Yeah, well, I kind of figured that it would be my luck that I'll be famous posthumously.
	Yeah.
	Which is unfortunate, but... Oh, really unfortunate for you.
	Yeah, mostly for me.
	Yeah.
	But, you know, such is life, and in time I think it'll eventually come out, what's happened, and I'm still pushing to see what avenues I can take to get it out there.
	And if any of you listeners out there have contacts with the media and would love a great story about idea theft, and I have all the emails to prove everything that I would say, Come and get me.
	I have a story to tell.
	Maybe some attorney will say, hey.
	Or maybe some attorney... Yeah, you know, this is a really good pro bono thing to jump into or to get a piece of or whatever, you know.
	Yeah, I see it.
	And I mean, you're right.
	You've been here.
	Right, wrong, indifferent.
	People agree with you or disagree with you.
	They certainly know when you began talking about this, when you wrote the book.
	And I mean, you're right.
	So look.
	What did they cite in additional material?
	I mean, they're talking about the God gene, right?
	So the implication of that is that they've discovered some part of our genetic code that sets us up for this.
	Have they, in fact, done that?
	Yeah, well, this is what they have found.
	They did studies, they did surveys, and they sort of basically separated those who were atheists to those who expressed being very spiritual.
	Right.
	Based on a questionnaire.
	Then what they did was they studied the balance of neurotransmitters in the brain that they're finding are related to spiritual experience.
	And then they went and they looked at the genetic makeup of these two different groups of people and found that in some people there are genes that are linked to Basically the secretion of these neurotransmitters that compel us to have these thoughts.
	So there's the genetic link to the neurophysiological, to the neurotransmitters.
	So in the very religious we could think of a little glowing spot in the brain that's there that isn't there in people like yourself.
	Correct.
	Just like, you know, I mean, to say glowing spot, just like we could say, you know, someone who is a musical savant, a brilliant musician, has a glowing spot in their musical part of the brain.
	In the spirit of the God part of the brain.
	I know, I know, but I don't want to mislead people thinking that, you know, I'm suggesting that there are these glowing regions, you know.
	I know, I know.
	Halos.
	Give me a little dramatic license here.
	Okay.
	You can have all you want.
	A difference, there's a difference, and it's now actually been proven.
	What do they do, PET scans, that kind of thing?
	And now they're also, yes, they've done MRIs, and what they've done is taken people in the midst of meditation and prayer, and just as they reach that peak experience where they feel in touch with God, a connection with a higher power, they turn on the MRI machine, and they found that no matter what culture you're from, no matter what God you pray to, when you do pray and you feel that contact, whether it's with Allah or Jesus, Or Buddha, or whatever your god of choice is, that the same regions in the brain become activated or deactivated.
	So, for instance, if we break down the symptoms of, let's say, a spiritual experience, one of them being a feeling of serenity, of tranquility, that's attributed now to, if we meditate or pray, the brain's amygdala, which is a part of what's called the limbic system, The limbic system is responsible for all emotions, including anxiety and fear.
	And that's what the amygdala is responsible for, anxiety and fear response.
	When we meditate or pray, the capillaries literally close up and it gets a decreased blood flow.
	So your normal sense of anxiety dissipates, leaving you feeling tranquil, euphoric.
	Often it's described as a loss of sense of time and space, this sort of almost ethereal sense.
	That's attributed to the fact that the brain's parietal lobe, which is where your temporal and biological clock is, that gives you a sense of time and space, basically also shuts down, leaving you feeling spaceless and timeless, sort of one with the universe, one with God.
	All right, Matthew, it's a good time for this one.
	Karen in Madison, Wisconsin says, I've heard Matthew several times, but I've never heard this asked.
	Why does he think he's having a part of the brain that, when stimulated, produces spiritual tendencies?
	Why couldn't it be Evidence, not that God does not exist, but that he does after all.
	There are other parts of the brain we can stimulate and they produce colors or sound, but it doesn't make us doubt that wavelengths of light or sound waves exist.
	It seems to me that if anything, having a God part of the brain is evidence for a God.
	Why have a receptor with no stimuli?
	Also, I give her credit, an excellent question.
	First of all, I address this in my book, and it does stand, to a certain degree, as an anomaly.
	There are other parts of the brain that actually compel us toward denial, toward blocking out certain realities.
	There are certain parts, for instance, that compel us to have phantom limbs, so we're actually perceiving things that are not real, but believing them to be real.
	It's not a total anomaly, but for us to have evolved with this particular sensibility does make it unique.
	I can't definitively, with all the research in the world, if they come out with all the genetic and neurophysiological evidence out there, and they pretty much already have, I'm not suggesting that any of this is Proof positive that there is no God.
	Well, why is it even slightly proof of that?
	I guess that's what she's asking.
	Why isn't it equal proof that there is a God?
	I mean, indeed, everybody's or she's accepting that the God part of the brain is real.
	It's absolutely genetically ordered.
	Fine.
	All of that.
	Fine.
	But her last line, why have a God part of the brain?
	Why have a receptor without stimuli, without a reason?
	Right, I understand, and I'm saying that the reason is as a coping mechanism, that it does have a reason, but to answer that also, and some people have Well, isn't the genetic code his master plan, or a master plan, whether you think it developed from millions of years of evolution, or from God's hand?
	which well i was in the genetic code is master plan or or a master plan uh...
	whether you think it developed from uh... you know millions of years of
	evolution or from god's hand it's it's definitely a plan uh... well
	i'd i don't support the notion that there's any master plan that there's
	some conscious entity and that the fact that humans would one day evolved to
	exist as part of her is planned
	unless part of his plan is also that one day humans are going to be extinct which
	whether we end up killing ourselves which is probably going to be the case
	or you know i mean ultimately we can't live forever i'm
	The sun's going to go out in a billion years.
	I mean, there'll be all types of natural catastrophes that ultimately will lead to not just the end of the solar system, but the galaxy, etc.
	We are actually getting to the point where life extension may soon, with genetic leaps and bounds, move into, well, you might not live forever, but you might live until you have an accident.
	True, but I'm saying ultimately the human species is doomed to extinction.
	Whether it's from, you know, at some point there will be a natural cause.
	Whether it's in 50 years, or a thousand years, or if we're as lucky to live, you know, for such a long period.
	Ultimately, like I said, the sun is going to burn out.
	Well, unless we're able to finally learn how to travel vast distances and infest other planets.
	Okay, and then again, if we go to Big Bang Theory, eventually the whole universe is going to collapse on itself.
	Well, that's one theory about it.
	That is, and that's one theory, and it's not definitive either.
	Another big problem for an atheist must be the Big Bang itself, since you bring it up.
	Everything came from something smaller than a quark, which is almost at the edge of our imagination anyway.
	All of this physical everything that we know came from that.
	That's impossible.
	It's just impossible.
	I mean, don't you struggle with that?
	And then aren't you led to thoughts of, there must have been a force so beyond our understanding that it was certainly God-like to have done that?
	I think it's human nature to, again, to anthropomorphize, to believe that what we might just, we could otherwise call the forces of nature, has a conscious experience and has motivations and incentives and, you know, and created us with a reason or a goal.
	I believe in nature.
	I believe there is no conscious entity that's moving and shaking the universe, that basically this is a phenomena of nature that's beyond our comprehension.
	And that ultimately there is no, again, conscious entity that's designed us in such a way.
	But to go back to the question that this woman asked, if indeed we do possess these parts of the brain and it's being validated through science, one could then ask, if there is a God and he has a master plan, perhaps God put this there almost as a trick.
	This is what some people are saying.
	And I've even heard priests talk about the subject and saying, well, sure, it makes perfect sense.
	God put a part of our brain so we would be able to envision him, so we would be aware of his presence and therefore be able to revere him as such.
	So why doesn't it make perfect sense?
	Well, one of the reasons is if you look at the history of the different religions, because this is not a, you know, every belief system we would then say has had these parts of the brain that compelled them to believe these things, and I would just have to question the nature of a God that would instill us with a part of the brain That would make us believe him to be a million different things and then compel us to go killing one another to prove that our version is right.
	Free will.
	Then we're going into a whole other realm of argumentation, the notion of free will.
	I don't believe in free will either.
	Certainly one notion of God includes free will.
	Yes, you can worship me, or perhaps the gold idol over there, though I strongly advise against the gold idol.
	Free will.
	That was part of what he bestowed.
	Well, let's say we presume the argument of free will.
	And we also presume that God has foresight, that he has ultimate knowledge of all things.
	I wouldn't understand why God would create a creature that he knows will... He's going to give him a capacity that he knows will lead to evil.
	So here we've got this all-benevolent being.
	Why would he allow for even the possibility of evil?
	It either suggests that God's all-powerful, but not very good, Or at least open to the possibility of creating evil, because if God created everything, and there's one evil act that takes place in the universe, whether it's by man or dog, God made that creature, if we're going to go with that argument, which would mean that God has the potential for creating evil.
	Or the other possibility is that God is all Benevolent and all good, but not very powerful, so his intention was to create an all-good creature, and things went off because he doesn't have that much control.
	He's a bad mechanic, a bad creator.
	But I can't imagine a god that has foresight to knowing what will come, what the consequences of his creation will be, even if he's going to instill what we could call free will, And then that knowing, okay, I know I'm going to give this creature free will, and that I then know what it's going to do with free will.
	That nine out of ten times it's going to use that free will to do evil things.
	That means God's evil.
	Well, yes, but then maybe it's God's way of just simply separating the wheat and the chaff, presenting a choice along the free will.
	But if we're God's creation, we are the wheat and the chaff.
	He is the wheat and the chaff, brother.
	Well, yes, but he only wants those who freely, freely choose him.
	Anyway, hold on, Matthew.
	Matthew Alper.
	The God part of the brain is his book.
	And now science is saying why, yes, Matthew Alper was right.
	But we won't mention his name.
	I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to get a hold of him.
	To the other side There's a bit of hope
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	with art bell it is and it's the matthew alper revival our everybody welcome
	actually it's pretty serious situation Matthew Alper, for years on this program, with the very first publishing, actually, of his book, as I recall, The God Part of the Brain, was just, literally just coming out, barely becoming available when I first had him on the show years ago now.
	And here A1 Dawn says, Art, you know I'm sick and tired of people plagiarizing
	people's work.
	of the world.
	They do it in archaeology all the time.
	I have a very good friend who is a department editor at the New York Times.
	Now, I can't promise anything, but, you know, I can drum up some interest in Alpert there, perhaps.
	And I hope you do.
	It's not fair.
	All of you have been listening since 98, or earlier, but certainly in 98 when Matthew came on the program.
	You know he's right.
	Agree or disagree with him, you know he's right.
	He's just plain right.
	and besides uh...
	proper credit is a christian thing to do matthew uh... this is a question i've asked many people
	appearing on my program and be fun to ask you to since you're an atheist.
	If you died, and you had a choice upon your death, and the mist clears a little bit, and in one direction there is light, and in the other direction, There's darkness beyond what could even ever be imagined.
	Dark.
	I mean, just so dark that it sucks any light away from it.
	Which direction would you go?
	I'm assuming I would go toward the light.
	Would you?
	Sounds like it'd be more fun.
	Or maybe you'd just stand there saying, It can't be!
	It just can't be!
	No, because I don't, I mean, it's not like I want there not to be a god.
	It's not like I want there not to be a soul or afterlife.
	You want there to be a god?
	Absolutely.
	If he's out there, he can come sit next to me right now, and I'll tell you all about it, and I'll have you there for my first book bonfire.
	You can help me toss the remaining, what's left of my books into it.
	If we were contacted, if SETI got a hit, And we were contacted by an alien race.
	Uh-huh.
	And we began to correspond with them over the light years or whatever, even if, maybe they landed.
	Uh-huh.
	Would you, would your expectation... So these aren't teenagers doing Morse code?
	No, no, no, no, no, no.
	Real alien contact.
	Right.
	Now, would your expectation be that these alien beings would be worshipers of something?
	Also, an excellent question.
	Very hard to say, because a lot of it would depend on their concepts of self, their concepts of death.
	We're assuming an intelligent alien.
	Well, I would have to assume that any intelligent alien, intelligence incorporating self-conscious awareness, would have to fear non-existence.
	That it would somehow have to, you know, addle a creature to know that one day it's not going to be.
	Unless for some reason they've decided to embrace it and look to it as, like, a positive thing.
	But I can't imagine, because that would be sort of contrary to self-preservation, and that species would end up dying out eventually.
	So I would guess that if there are other species or creatures or aliens that have self-conscious
	awareness, that they must reckon with death on some level.
	And therefore would have belief on some level.
	And would have very possibly a belief on some level.
	But perhaps if they, you know, that nature would have selected a similar notion, and
	they would have their gods, and who knows, maybe they'd end up going to war with us because
	we don't believe in their God.
	Oh, war.
	Just like we do with each other.
	Yeah, that's a big deal these days, war.
	Would you say most wars have been religiously well, or that religion and belief has been a strong part of the reason for a lot of wars?
	Not all of them.
	A lot of them are just strictly territorial.
	How about the one we're in now?
	The one we're in now is definitely religious in nature.
	The Crusades were all religiously motivated.
	The slaughter of up to hundreds of millions of Native Americans were religiously motivated.
	So, it has definitely led to the genocide of, you know, through the years, billions of our species, you know, of humans.
	It kind of makes you wonder how we're going to make out in the war.
	I mean, if the amount of religious feeling of the strength of the religious conviction is a measure of how you will do, then we could be in trouble.
	Because our opposition certainly believes very strongly.
	Yes, they do.
	Very strongly.
	And they believe we should be, if not converted, then killed.
	Exactly.
	It's a very dangerous paradigm.
	I look at it as an ideological virus.
	An ideological virus.
	What do you think the world would be like if it were made up of all Matthew Alpers?
	No belief in any gods anywhere.
	Now, don't just look at the upside of it, Matthew, which I know you'll be tempted to do, but look at the downside as well.
	I mean, if suddenly all religious conviction evaporated, Then, how many would it take to ruin the world?
	I mean, you know, in terms of those who said, well, then what the hell, man?
	I'm knocking over that bank.
	I'm killing those people that I've been angry at for a long time.
	I'm going to just let go.
	What's holding me back?
	Well, I believe, first of all, that there's a misnomer in that one needs to be religious to be moral.
	I believe that higher moral awareness comes from a different sensibility, a more humanitarian ethic than a
	religious one, because often it's religions that are telling you, go out and kill the
	infidel, or ostracize those who don't share your beliefs or your rituals. So in many ways,
	religion, you know, sort of fosters discrimination and acts of hostility and unfairness and
	cruelty.
	But it's also control.
	I mean going back to my question.
	And it's also control.
	So if we had a world full of people who suddenly lost their belief, which grounds them in many ways.
	I don't think that the human species could survive without any spiritual belief or sensibility.
	It's not in our nature to.
	Well then what gets you through the day?
	Well, sex, drugs, and rock and roll.
	That's an honest answer.
	There's that.
	There's that.
	You know, I mean, there are other comforts.
	There are intellectual comforts.
	There are sensual comforts.
	There are friends and loved ones.
	But I do believe that the mere fact that nature selected this adaptation It is a necessity for the majority of the species.
	Well, I wonder if your brain has left out any other function.
	In other words, you don't have the God part.
	What about the love part?
	We're going to talk about the love part of the brain, because that's part of what you want to talk about tonight.
	I know that this is sort of new research, right?
	Well, alright, so is there a part of the brain that requires, and it's a darn good question, that requires love?
	Well, there are parts of the brain there are now finding that are responsible for the experience of love.
	And I remember in one of the prior shows that we did together, you asked me just that.
	You said, well, you know, you can't reduce everything.
	What about love?
	Right.
	And I even said, I said, you'll see one day they will use an MRI and they will begin to measure the experience of love.
	Of love.
	Since that time, there's been a number of experiments that have come out that have done just that, reduced the experience of love to neurotransmitters.
	There's a woman, Helen Fisher at Rutgers, and she's one of the chief proponents of these theories, and she's done a lot of the research, and what she found are that there are neurotransmitters involved with the bonding experience, and that, as a matter of fact, there are some people Whose brains secrete an excess of these neurotransmitters and have a problem, like, with relationships.
	Like, they get overly attached.
	They become codependent.
	Right.
	You know, you could have one date with them and they're, you know, psychotically involved.
	Yeah.
	Because their brains are secreting too much of this bonding mechanism neurotransmitter.
	Is that what it is?
	Yeah, and she's even going as far as to suggest that one day we'll have drugs that will help balance those people.
	So those out there who are stalkers, who don't know how to conduct a stable relationship with another human, might need to be medicated.
	So the judge could make you take anti-love pills.
	That's right, or anti-bonding pills.
	Now these same It's interesting, these same neurotransmitters, they're called oxytocin and vasopressin, and they're the chemistry in the brain of love, of attachment.
	What's interesting is, for instance, if you stimulate a woman's nipples, it will create the release of oxytocin in her brain, and that will create a bond with whoever is touching her there.
	If she's making love with a man, she's becoming bonded to him, which serves an evolutionary purpose because now she's sort of securing herself a man who's going to help take care of her and her future child.
	As I was going to ask, and now you're just leading right to it, whether the sex part of the brain and the love part of the brain are connected, or whether they can idle along separately.
	Well, they're very connected, because it's often the act of sex that causes the secretion of these chemicals that's creating a bonding experience, which is why often when people have sexual encounters, they might not know each other's names, but they might wake up having a very strong feeling for that other person.
	That's true.
	Even when you turn over and you go, phew, I don't remember that face.
	But interestingly, because a woman's nipples are sensitive to the release of these chemicals, it also happens when a baby is breastfeeding.
	Oh, that's fascinating.
	So it creates a bonding mechanism.
	Mm-hmm.
	No, that makes absolute sense.
	Yeah, so it's like one of the first things when you deliver a baby, they hand it to the mother and it starts suckling.
	Absolutely.
	It secretes.
	Now, also, in giving birth, when a woman's vagina dilates like that, it creates enduring contraction.
	It also stimulates the release of these chemicals.
	She's flooded with oxytocin the moment of birth.
	The first thing, they put the baby in front of the mother, which is a very important moment.
	If you took the baby away for a few hours, she'd be missing, the mother would be missing an important part of her maternalizing experience.
	So when you put the baby in the woman's lap, she's flooded with oxytocin.
	She lays eyes on this child who's otherwise really a stranger to her.
	I mean, hypothetically, you could even switch babies and play a practical joke on the mother, and it could be not even her own child, She will be ultimately bonded.
	She will defend that child with her life because of the chemicals surging through her brain.
	And sometimes because the oxytocin causes contractions, sometimes midwives, for instance, if a woman is having a hard time during labor, she will stimulate the woman's nipples.
	To create the release of more oxytocin, which will induce labor.
	This oxytocin, uh, does it... Not to be confused with oxycontin.
	Yeah, I've gotcha.
	Does it produce a... a lasting, apparently a lasting effect?
	In other words, once this bonding has occurred...
	It's there always.
	A mother will protect a child to the death as sort of a normal thing.
	Always, right?
	So it's a release of something, but there's a more permanent thing that's occurring.
	Well, then you get into, like, visual imprinting.
	You know, so whatever image, you know, again, if you switched babies at birth, again, to do, let's say, a practical joke on that mother... You wouldn't do that, would you?
	Well, I wouldn't do it, but...
	Hypothetically, you take someone else's child, and then maybe a week later say, oh, we were just kidding with you.
	This is your real child.
	You know, it's actually happened.
	Only not a week later, like 20 years later, they find out and switch the birth.
	And nevertheless, the mother's not going to necessarily relinquish her feelings for a child that isn't even hers.
	She'll still have those strong That strong connection, because of the visual imprint.
	Matthew, this even works cross-species, because you will see kittens nursing on a dog, or the other way around, whatever.
	That kind of thing goes on all the time, right?
	That's right, because the neurotransmitters involved play on the brain's limbic system, which is called the, sort of, the lizard part of the brain, because that's when, during the evolution of reptiles, that was when the limbic system began to evolve.
	I mean, you look at, like, Creature like the fish, they don't bond with their children.
	They lay a gazillion eggs.
	The mother swims away.
	A male comes and fertilizes them.
	He swims away and the children are off on their own.
	There's no need for that part of the brain for those types of connections.
	But lizards were the first to lay eggs and to watch over the eggs.
	And watch over the young.
	These really are specific parts of the brain that we're beginning to identify by watching the brain in action, right?
	Yes.
	The love part, the God part, the sex part, and now even the guilt part.
	Is that right?
	That's correct.
	Even, well, guilt related to moral consciousness.
	They're finding that one's capacity to understand right from wrong Understand, like, the difference between doing something good for another person and doing something selfish or bad to another person is dependent, to a large extent, on the functioning of specific regions in the brain.
	Certain regions that, in individuals who there's damage to the brain, to that part of the brain, have a tendency to become sociopathic.
	It's true.
	I mean, there are criminals who have killed and killed and killed and killed, even serial killers, who, when they're caught, don't have one iota of remorse or guilt or anything else for what they've done, only feeling poorly that they can't go do more of it.
	And on the other extreme of that same curve, You have people walking around, you know, with what we could call like a Woody Allen complex, who are guilty all the time, even though they haven't done anything.
	Their brains are secreting too much guilt chemistry.
	And other people are immune to it, just like someone might be musically tone-deaf or spiritually tone-deaf.
	There are people who are guilt tone-deaf, who don't even have the capacity.
	You could sit there and say, don't you see that's wrong?
	And they'll be like, what do you mean?
	I just got a hundred dollars off that person.
	It's like, yeah, but you killed them.
	They'll be like, no, that's not my problem.
	They just don't get it.
	It'd be like trying to explain a symphony, a Mozart symphony, to the deaf.
	They just won't get it.
	One would assume that locating these various portions of the brain that we've been talking about so far, and there are more that we're going to get to, but even guilt, for example, The identification of these locations is eventually going to lead to the ability to manipulate these areas.
	That's correct.
	And I wonder how Matthew feels about that leap.
	I mean, if you could control... Well, that's going to be the future of science, basically, and that's going to be The moral dilemma is that, you know, the legislators or the scientists or whoever it is that's going to be making these decisions for us of what we're going to accept and what we're not.
	Well, how do you feel about it?
	I mean, if you could take a killer and induce guilt and remorse and caring, is that something you feel a judge ever should be able to order?
	Well, let's say we have a Encourageable murderer.
	Somebody that they're not going to respond to classic retraining, reconditioning.
	Right.
	Their brain doesn't have the capacity for them to understand, as you said, remorse or guilt.
	Right.
	Well, we have two options.
	We can either, and in a sense, you know, and we need to almost, if we're going to begin to look at sociopathy, you know, let's say acts of murder, In terms of rather than looking at it as acts of evil, we're actually going to have to start to look at this as just people who were born with genetic defects.
	We almost can't hold it against them.
	And in many cases, they start to show symptoms as children.
	That's why the FBI has profiles on these serial killers, and they tend to almost invariably follow a few certain symptoms, such as, as children, they are often cruel to animals, they will torture animals.
	They have a tendency toward pyromania.
	Yes.
	And so again, these traits are starting to emerge, you know, in them as children.
	All right.
	Hold tight, Matthew.
	We're at the bottom of the hour.
	Oh, that's all ever so true, isn't it?
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	Indeed so.
	Not all of the messages I get are hate-filled.
	Karen from Englewood, Colorado says, How can anyone not like this guest?
	His topics are filled with common sense and logic.
	I always enjoy listening to him.
	And you do a wonderful job of interviewing him, Art.
	Thanks for a great show.
	So, not all react sharply, but many do.
	Now, I suspect when we move into the love part of the brain, the guilt part of the brain, sex part of the brain even, And the yet-to-be-talked-about drug part of the brain, there will not be as many objections as there are to the God part of the brain.
	just to get some of my part but by that i'm right my favorite television show happens to be
	well you remember the practice and bobby
	Thank you.
	He was kind of wimpy.
	But the practice died, good as it was, and it was very good, and became morphed into something called Boston Legal.
	Boston Legal is now my favorite show.
	On it, one of the greatest characters ever portrayed in television, a man named Alan Shore.
	I wonder, Hey, I wonder if Matthew, have you ever seen that program, Matthew?
	No, I haven't.
	Oh, damn it.
	Alan Shore is a perfect example of a person born without the guilt part of the brain.
	Absolutely.
	So you're going to have to watch that show and see what I mean.
	Totally devoid of the guilt part of the brain.
	He's an incredible character.
	God, TV can really be good sometimes.
	What I want to do is watch the news of the last year and look at Scott Peterson to see an example of someone lacking the guilt part of their brain.
	Oh, you think so?
	I would say so.
	Well, I don't know.
	I guess the verdict is in, actually.
	The verdict is in.
	That's right.
	I'm buying into this.
	It's so easy to buy in.
	As I was saying, you know, the guilt part of the brain?
	Sure.
	The love part of the brain?
	Heck yeah.
	The sex part of the brain?
	Well, sure.
	And now, let's leap on to the drug part of the brain now.
	In the world, we have a deep and serious I don't know.
	Problem or need to escape reality with drugs.
	We could call it a world epidemic, and it has been since the dawn of man.
	We could.
	So there must be a drug part of the brain.
	It would make sense.
	I'm sure you're going to say there is, right?
	Well, first of all, we could take the mere fact that alcoholism, they're finding, has a genetic component.
	Oh, yes.
	The fact that it's in our genes, now, it's very interesting that we have this attachment to other substances, but if you look at the history of basically living things, we basically evolve in conjunction with the environment around us, in conjunction with the other animals, so animals, for instance, that evolve certain types of camouflage, often it's In conjunction with the types of trees in their environment, or the predators that they're trying to hide from.
	So, natural selection does not take place in a vacuum.
	All species evolve in conjunction with their environment.
	Part of our environment are the plants and the other animals that coexist with us.
	Some of those plants have chemistry that gives us, you know, altered states of awareness.
	So whether it's, you know, the tendency to produce, to use fermented products that we call alcohol, or different plants that trigger different releases of chemicals in the brain that give us a state of either euphoria or, you know, drugs that make us, you know, activate us, that make us hyper, whatever the case, we are born with receptors in our brain that are receptive to these chemicals.
	Some people, again, if we go back to that bell curve example, most of us are born with an average tendency toward a desire for those substances, but not in excess, which is why if we even look at, take America for instance, I mean, granted, the harder things like heroin and cocaine are illegal, but You know, other than that, we are a nation of junkies, whether it's cigarettes, or caffeine, or alcohol.
	You know, not half, but a good chunk of our economy is based on substances that are addictive.
	Well, and that basically we could call term as drugs that alter our experience.
	All right, to some degree.
	But let's look at environment here for a second, too.
	And, you know, you always take these things personally.
	I'm in radio.
	I've been in radio all of my adult life.
	And sitting here with a constant supply of coffee and cigarettes while I do something like a talk program like I'm doing right now, it's absolutely it's like they're tied together at the hip.
	Mm-hmm.
	So, not all of it is genetic. Some of it surely is environmental as well.
	Like with so many other things, I say it's both genetic and environmental.
	There's going to be genetic tendencies or predispositions and then environmental enforcement of all that, right?
	Exactly.
	Environmental reinforcement or enforcement.
	But, the fact that these substances do have a certain effect on the brain, and it has the same effect on, no matter what culture you're from, alcohol will make you drunk.
	Caffeine will make you, you know, wired, etc.
	So there are receptors.
	We're born with these receptors.
	So again, if we look at the, if we take this to The bell curve notion, it would make sense that, you know, the majority of our species can handle these substances.
	We use them In a moderate, to a moderate degree, to help us bear with reality.
	But my God, Matthew, the future that this portends, as I said earlier, we're now recognizing these areas of the brain.
	I think most people out there listening probably agree.
	Yeah, they probably exist, all right.
	The next step in that is manipulation of those areas.
	And boy, boy, Matthew, the future that that could be.
	Well, we'll be able, if we so choose, to reinvent our species.
	I mean, the next stage of evolution will not be forced through natural selection.
	It'll be a consequence of human manipulation, genetic manipulation.
	Just like we manipulate the fruits we eat.
	Or programmed from some new Microsoft product.
	Right.
	Or that.
	Or that.
	But as manipulation of these areas becomes possible, then, oh, for the benefit of all of society, oh God, it's going to be a strange future.
	Well, let's say, you know, you keep throwing the ball into my lap, I'll throw it in yours.
	Let's say, you know, you were in charge of these things, and someone said, you know, we've discovered the gene for sociopathy.
	90% of the criminals that flood our prisons, that cause the crime rates in America, can be cured by giving them a genetic therapy, we've now found, that will give balance to their, what we call the Broadminton area in the brain, which is a deficiency that leads towards sociopathic behaviors, inability to feel remorse.
	Let's say you were the person in charge, you were the legislator, and they said, All you've got to do is sign here, and this will allow scientists from now on, let's say they'll give an injection to pregnant women.
	And it will make sure, all it will do, it won't affect people who already don't have a problem, but those who would have had a problem with their Broadman 10 region in the brain that would have led to a high percentage of them being criminal in nature, This will solve that problem.
	Yeah, well, if you'd signed a little paper before you came on the program allowing you to ask that kind of a question to me, you could ask it.
	Otherwise, I'm sorry.
	Oh, really?
	Oh yeah.
	You're not allowed to answer a question like that?
	No, I'm kidding you.
	I mean, you make it like these are all scary things.
	It would turn the whole legal system, for example, on its ear, because all of a sudden nothing would be anybody's fault anymore.
	It would just be the little part of the brain that's screwed up.
	So there'd never be any punishment, in quotes, for any crime committed.
	There'd only be reprogramming.
	And I believe that should be the case, because to a large extent, most people who commit crimes Well, look, you start playing with the whole nature-nurture thing.
	Forget most, but there is a percentage of people out there who had no say.
	Just like there are some people born with a heart murmur, or diabetes.
	We wouldn't call them evil.
	We wouldn't hold it against them.
	But let's say, for instance, the person born with diabetes can't afford their medication, so they go out and they steal for it.
	And it's just a matter of self-preservation.
	They're going to die, and society isn't affording them assistance.
	So would we say they're evil because they're born with a disease?
	Well, what if the disease, instead of affecting their pancreas, like with diabetes, affects regions in the brain that we now know control moral behavior, moral decision-making?
	Should we call those people evil?
	Should we say, I mean, you know, they could have been you or me.
	So, really, bottom line, you're saying there is no such thing as good and evil.
	Correct.
	There's just bad... These are human projections based in ignorance.
	Just bad programming.
	Bad programming.
	Look, just like some people are born with great programming, they're the lucky ones.
	You know, the implication of that, though, is a little unsettling also, because it implies that we're all essentially marionettes, with every string being pulled by the area of our brain that's functioning perfectly normally, but we're all just going through life, doing what... Let's take someone like, you know, an extreme example of genetic talent.
	Let's take a Michael Jordan.
	How much say did he have in that he was going to be born to be seven feet tall and have the agility of an eagle?
	You know, these are things where we're born with gifts, and some of us are born with deficiencies, and we had no say in that matter.
	We had no say into what era we were going to be born, to what culture, whether we were going to be born short, tall, male, female.
	Talented or, you know, with Down Syndrome.
	You might as well hold the person with Down Syndrome responsible.
	You know, in olden days they did.
	They said, you know, that the reason they came out in some cultures to this day, the reason they are that way is because they were evil in a prior lifetime.
	So they're held accountable for what we now know, because of knowledge, is just a genetic deficiency.
	A genetic mutation.
	Should we call them evil?
	Because maybe they can't produce for society the way we would like them to?
	I think we need to use these new sciences, these new genetic and neurophysiological sciences, to actually advance a new paradigm.
	A healthier paradigm.
	One not based necessarily in punishment, which the legal system is based in, but in different forms of Reprogramming, as you said.
	Maybe after you're gone, there'll be a big, volumed book entitled, The Matthew Alper Retraining Manual.
	Well, you know what?
	It's already been written.
	It's called The God Part of the Brain, because everything we're discussing, even though I discuss, at greatest lengths, the God part of the brain and the religious implications and the philosophical implications of our religiosity, I go into all of this stuff.
	There's a chapter called The Guilt and Morality Function, and everything, everything from what we've discussed here about love, you know, the reducing of love to neurochemicals, to the same with guilt and morality, it's all in my book.
	So, that tome has already been written, and it's available on Amazon.com, as a matter of fact.
	You know, a lot of people are going to be challenged by this.
	Some will get angry, of course, as you well know, because I know you have Yeah, how do people reach you?
	Ha ha ha.
	We're going to give out Matthew Alper's email address now, folks.
	So get your pencil and paper.
	And his home phone.
	We've done that over the years.
	Home phone we could do without.
	We actually tried that.
	I got a few calls that I could have lived without.
	I'd rather read it in an email.
	I've been doing that, too, the last couple of days.
	The first time, folks on the show, Matthew was so naive, and it was so much fun, because I recall correctly, you actually offered up to give your home phone number, and I thought about it for a second, and I thought, you know, You know, yeah, let's give it out.
	Because I knew exactly what was going to happen, Matthew.
	I, to this day, feel guilty about that, but still.
	Actually, in the end, it was for the best.
	I mean, yes, of course, I got the usual hate calls, just like I still get hate emails, but in the end, I got calls from bookstores all across the country.
	And once again, I want to thank you, as I have many times.
	You are my patron saint, and the day that I do see God and I believe in angels, I'm going to know that you were sent as my guardian.
	Oh boy, I'm going to have a hard time sleeping with that one tonight.
	Alright, so your email address is?
	Well, if people go to www.godpart.com There's three W's in that.
	There are three W's.
	God part dot com.
	As in God part of the brain.
	Not only will they be able to read up on my book, will they be able to order the book, which I will send to them signed.
	But you will send out autographed copies still.
	Autographed copies of the God part of the brain.
	And as a matter of fact, there's only about a thousand copies left, and I don't even know if I'm going to reprint again.
	So this might be my last stand, and the last chance for those people out there to get a copy of this tome.
	No kidding?
	Yep.
	Alright, well that makes it rare on top of everything else.
	Plus, you'll be...
	Recognized, even if it's after you're, well, you know, gone.
	You will be recognized as the original person thinking of this and discovering this.
	I mean, you will be.
	That's all there is to it.
	It can't, you know, I've seen it happen again and again and again.
	I mean, after people pass on, even though all their life they've suffered without recognition or monetary reward, They do get it after they're gone.
	Now, I realize this has drawbacks as far as you're concerned, but there should be a certain sense of satisfaction in that notion.
	Well, there is.
	You know, when you see your ideas on the cover of Time magazine, you know, six years later, sure, it's satisfying.
	And then, you know, unfortunately, it's very disheartening when you read the article and you see all of your ideas, you see basically your life's work being restated by other people saying, And then I had this idea, this brilliant idea, that it evolved because of our awareness of death.
	And I spoke to the authors of that Time article and I said, listen, an injustice has been served here.
	And I informed them what happened and how I sent this person my book four years ago.
	Well, obviously you sent them your book to back up what you were saying, right?
	I did.
	I sent them a copy of my book.
	And then you talked to them again, right?
	And then I talked to them again.
	One of them just stopped returning my phone calls, didn't want to be bothered.
	The other one was very smug and just said, you know, you can't claim to have... These people have been talking about that death was, you know, It's fear of death that turns people to gods as far back as St.
	Augustine in the 3rd century.
	I see.
	So then it's their contention that only the hard evidence about the genetics that backs up what you're saying is important.
	Yeah, but then if that were the case, why do they write about our awareness of death in their article?
	See, the thing is, he was full of it, because St.
	Augustine didn't know about natural selection.
	Sure, people, from a sociological standpoint, people have been surmising that, you know, it's because of our fear that we turn to God.
	But that's not what I'm suggesting.
	I'm suggesting that it's because of our fear that natural selection forced the evolution of an adaptation in the brain And that's what's considered revolutionary, and that's what they wrote about in the Time Magazine article.
	He just didn't want to admit it.
	He just wanted a takeaway credit, because he, rather than admit that he was an incompetent journalist, and that he didn't get the true source.
	And even when I sent them the facts, and they're, like, what we discussed earlier, when I said, you know, that some of us are born spiritually tone-deaf.
	That's a term used in my book, That I've spoken on the air several times, even with you before.
	Sure.
	And it's in their Time Magazine article, and I said, take a phrase like that.
	Where did that come from?
	He goes, oh, that's just a string of words.
	Anyone could have come up with that.
	The very least that should have been in there is a reference to your work as a basis, you know, for what they were laying out.
	Absolutely.
	Hold on, top of the hour.
	We're going to go to the phones with Matthew Albert next.
	I've been drifting on the sea of heartbreak Trying to get myself ashore for so long
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	800-893-0903. From coast to coast and worldwide on the internet, this is Coast to Coast AM
	Hope we're not bringing you down, but I do hope we're making you think.
	Are you thinking out there?
	I'm not.
	This is a limited opportunity.
	Call 1-800-531-9797.
	That's 1-800-531-9797.
	Call anytime, 24 hours.
	1-800-531-9797.
	Call anytime, 24 hours.
	All those years ago, the guilt part of my brain remembers giving out Matthew Alper's home phone number.
	But, you know, I really went through the exercise.
	I said, listen, are you really sure you want to do this?
	Are you positive you really want to do this?
	Oh, yeah!
	And then I remember my entire body, including my brain, being filled with a brain-stimulating pleasure as we gave it out.
	Memories.
	Anyway, Matthew, what you've done is an amazing thing.
	The book you've written is an amazing thing.
	You do deserve the credit for it.
	Period.
	And I recommend to my audience and tell you that this man will be recognized for it.
	And so you should get an autographed copy of this book now because it'll be worth something someday.
	How about that?
	Matthew, how did they get your book?
	Well, they can go to Amazon.com, or they can go to www.godpart.com, which is the book's website.
	Do you get an autographed copy either way?
	I'm going to sign all of the... Well, Amazon sells used copies, so I can't promise that what they get from Amazon will be signed, but any subsequent orders that I'm going to be getting from them, hopefully from this show, i'm going to be fighting all the copies on the be sending
	the amazon so they can either order it that way
	or they can get it through god part dot com my books personal website
	or if they don't have access to a computer they can send a check
	for fourteen ninety five to matthew albert to
	wrote press i'll make this very quick at one twenty three seventh avenue
	sweet one sixty four brooklyn new york one one two one five
	See, that was fast.
	And that's not good.
	Nobody's ever going to be able to write that down that fast.
	Yeah, I know, I know.
	Well, it's also on the website, but again, people who have access to the computer might not need that address anyway.
	Burdensome as it is.
	Give the address out again.
	Okay.
	It's Rogue Press.
	Rogue Press.
	It figures.
	Rogue Press would publish that.
	That's me.
	Uh-huh.
	The Rogue.
	and uh... one twenty three seventh avenue
	sweet one six four brooklyn new york
	one one two one five or hopefully local bookstores carry it
	I know Barnes & Noble does.
	So all of those options stand, but to secure a signed copy, you have to order from my website, which those books I send out personally, and I will even personalize the signatures.
	Matthew, here's an interesting question.
	You're from Brooklyn, right?
	Yeah, I'm from Brooklyn.
	I was talking to a friend earlier who lives in Phoenix.
	He's from the Bronx.
	And he said that when he moved from the Bronx to Phoenix, Arizona, the difference was like going to another planet.
	And it took him years, literally years, Hmm.
	Brooklyn part of the brain.
	not fully adjusted he said one day i went out i saw somebody with a guns
	trapped their hip he said i was afraid to go out of my apartment for months
	who so i wonder if there's like a brooklyn part of the brain
	uh...
	for part of the brain i don't know about that one i've actually
	traveled pretty comfortably throughout the world at this point
	So it hasn't inhibited me in any way.
	I see.
	All right.
	Listen, I want to go to the phones.
	Lots of people are lined up to speak with you.
	Bring them on.
	Yeah.
	OK.
	Now, listen, I'm going to plead both to my audience to please be polite and to you, Matthew.
	I know that you perhaps have short patience with some people.
	First time caller on the line, you're on the air with Matthew Alper.
	Hello.
	Yeah, thank you Art.
	Matthew, I can't see any flaw in somebody being mad at you.
	You seem like a pretty nice guy to me, but my question is for you.
	You're stuck in, to me, a cerebral science world.
	I know you've talked about, I was writing some notes.
	Do you consider other dimensions that are available in theory?
	Do I believe that other dimensions exist?
	Do I believe we have access to entering other dimensions?
	Correct.
	Or that we may have access eventually.
	Do you believe basically, you know, theoretical physicists are all saying there are multiple dimensions, Matthew?
	Do you think that's a possibility?
	I think that's a possibility.
	Okay, one more question, Matthew.
	Albert Einstein, a lot of people don't know this, I work for the family, Albert Einstein, a lot of his theories were to prove the existence of God.
	Unfortunately, science, for some reason, left that part out.
	And I feel you're still seeking, in a way, and trying to find an explanation for everything.
	I just wish you a good journey.
	Thank you.
	Okay, take care.
	Right, that was carefully couched.
	And I'm sure you get many emails like that and communications, don't you, Matthew?
	You tend to represent the extremes.
	The people who take the time to send me emails either are very congratulatory, and thank you for writing this book, and it's helped change my life, etc., etc., to things that I can't repeat on the air without you bleeping me out.
	Yeah, oh, I know.
	I know.
	Some of them can get, uh, oh, very strident.
	Wildcard Line, you're on the air with Matthew Alper.
	Hello.
	Hello.
	Thanks, Art.
	Hello, Matthew.
	Hello.
	I wanted to just suggest something before my question, please.
	I think that we're addicted to the brain chemistry of thinking, and the brain chemistry doesn't care if an atheist or a Christian, as long as one has a story or a narrator internally dialoguing in their head.
	So, Matthew, please.
	The story of the boy that was raised in the wild, Do you think, without cultural input, a feral child slash young adult would start religious thinking or religious practices on his own?
	Great question.
	I think that, like with a lot of behavior, so for instance, let's use language as an analogy, a lot of the behaviors that we enact Our social behaviors in nature and only really emerge when we emerge in groups.
	So, for instance, no more than a feral child, I believe, would create his own language.
	He might have certain grunts that might represent things in his mind that he's hoping to communicate to the wolves, but let's say if he's raised by wolves in this example, but chances are he'll end up Utilizing, to the best of his ability, the language of those wolves he's raised by, as opposed to, like, one day you'll see him writing a book, or composing a language.
	Chances are he won't.
	But, if you took a group of individuals, let's say feral, let's say children out of, you know, of... What was that book?
	The Flies.
	Lord of the Flies.
	You know, children, let's say, stranded on an island, Eventually will create a group of them will tend to create a language just as they will eventually also probably tend to create a religion.
	So one individual isolated feral child probably will not because religiosity and spirituality to a large extent are social in nature.
	They seem to emerge as a group dynamic.
	Nevertheless, it's very possible that just like that feral child might, unlike the wolves who raise him, he might end up like banging on a piece of wood and coming up with a song.
	Or, you know, he might hum a melody.
	Something foreign to the wolves and something they're not capable of.
	In the same way, it's very possible that that feral child might look up at the sky and feel a sense of awe That his nurturing wolf parents won't be able to, and it might even somehow trigger a sensibility that there's, like, some higher power out there.
	But I can't say, and there's no definitive studies that have been done on that, because there's so few examples of feral children.
	Most of them that were done, and ones that were found, it was at the turn of the 20th century.
	They didn't really study religious behaviors.
	They studied language.
	They studied sort of, you know, their sense of etiquette.
	But it's an excellent question, and it's definitely something that should be looked into.
	But I believe that, yes, this is an inherent part.
	It's an inherited predisposition.
	It will emerge in a group dynamic, an isolated group of even children, per se.
	That's what I find the fascinating part is the group dynamic component.
	How heavily weighted is this group dynamic component?
	Very heavily, apparently.
	Pretty much.
	Well, I mean, look, every culture that's isolated at some point, we're like a feral group.
	Let's say, you know, Maybe two people, an Adam and Eve of a community, where whether they were ostracized or there was a food shortage, so maybe they marched a few hundred miles and they migrated.
	Maybe it was two people, maybe it was ten people, but eventually they started a whole new culture, one that never had exposure to other people for maybe another five, ten, twenty thousand years.
	Nevertheless, those people were religious, and those people had a language.
	So it seems that in isolated groups, these things do emerge.
	In an isolated individual, that's never been found.
	They never found, like, a child raised by wolves in the woods, who was praying, or had built certain shrines.
	Really a good question, Caller.
	Anything else?
	Very good question.
	Anything else?
	Yes.
	If we were to suggest that this God part of the brain, which I wish we could just call it the part of the brain, as a coping mechanism for dying, doesn't that suggest that
	you have had to recognize that you do die to then have to instigate that coping mechanism?
	There was a spiritual teacher named Barry Long.
	He has a tape, May I Speak to You of Death, in the early 90s, and he states that we created
	thinking as a way to escape into the past or future when we recognized that we do die.
	that need to get out of the moment was created upon the moment we realized that
	we die that's what he suggested
	well that kind of box up what matthews been saying right i'm not quite sure what the question
	Well, I don't know if it was exactly a question.
	He was just saying in parallel work, it's been suggested that, yes, thinking promulgates eventually understanding your own mortality, which then forces C. Right.
	East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Matthew Alper.
	Hello.
	Hi.
	My name is Dave.
	I like to consider myself a social religious theologian.
	Okay.
	And I like to take issue with God and the God portion of the brain.
	You take issue with it?
	Yes.
	On what basis?
	I want to put a different spin on it.
	There's mathematical order to the universe, creating natural law and supernatural law.
	Any violation will have consequences.
	Because we're created in the image of God with the most of all powers being free will.
	With the biggest of all powers being free will?
	Correct.
	Well, I kind of threw that at Matthew a little bit earlier, too.
	And so, what is your question?
	No, that's my statement.
	Your statement?
	Okay, well, so there you go, Matthew.
	Well aware that there are many people who endorse a spiritual explanation of the universe, and here's one of them, but again, I disagree.
	what is your explanation of the universe uh...
	it's a it's a phenomena of nature Sure.
	Probably beyond our comprehension, because again, our comprehension is based in, you know, the brain.
	The brain is our package of awareness.
	Yes.
	And it was the brain only evolved on Earth to help us cope with earthly situations and earthly survival.
	The universe, as we know, is bigger than Earth, but we weren't constructed as such to comprehend that bigger universe.
	So, you know, yes, it's very possible that there are other dimensions, and within these other dimensions that there are even gods, per se.
	However, in the third dimension, things that can be measured within the physical universe, my take is that it's simply, you know, forces of nature, non-conscious forces of nature.
	And if there are metaphysical things that are not Just hocus-pocus and myth, and if they're real, then they're a product of the physical operating human brain, not something beyond.
	That would be my take, if, but I'm also a skeptic about, you know, anything involving the paranormal or supernatural, so... Well, it's fine to be a skeptic, but if something were proven, Right.
	Like, let's say, for instance, somebody had clairvoyance, or somebody had telekinetic powers, then certainly those things would be possible without a god.
	It would just be some part of the human condition, some part of our circuitry that has allowed us to extend our powers beyond our physical reach.
	Paranormal part of the brain.
	West of the Rockies, you're on the air with Matthew Alper.
	Hi.
	Hi.
	My name's McKay.
	I'm calling from Clearfield, Utah, listening to 570 KNRS.
	Okay.
	I guess my question would be, how could he take issue with these plagiarists that are taking credit for his work if they simply have a chemical imbalance that's predisposed them to doing this?
	You know, shouldn't we just be treating them rather than trying to sue them?
	Fine.
	Treat them.
	And let's right or wrong only That exists when it applies.
	Treat them with a hot poker, if you will.
	You're hearing the very human part of Matthew come out now.
	I'm more than just an android.
	Is what they did right or wrong, or is it just bad wiring?
	Either way.
	You know what?
	Unfortunately, it's human wiring, because it seems like the majority of our species You know, has a propensity towards selfish behavior.
	And unfortunately, you know, we're not the most cooperative animal out there, which is why we seem to be tearing ourselves apart limb from limb.
	But yes, it's part of the human condition.
	And, you know, when I'm stuck here amongst it all, and yes, it's true, I'm not claiming that these men are possessed by the evil forces of Satan, but just that Whether they're nature or they're nurture, they're just not the nicest people.
	Whatever it is.
	Whatever it is.
	But he wants it treated with a hot poker nevertheless.
	Nevertheless.
	On the international line, you're on the air with Matthew Alper.
	Hi.
	Hi there.
	Howdy.
	Where are you?
	I don't know if we've got enough time here.
	I don't know if we do either.
	We can try.
	Well, where are you?
	Is this Arc?
	Yes, yes, yes.
	Where are you?
	I'm in Manitoba.
	Manitoba, okay.
	I just want to concur with Matthew's feelings on free will.
	I don't believe in free will as well.
	I believe we're all, everything we do, all the choices we make are a result of our biochemical makeup and the way we're brought up.
	And also I wanted to make a comment on labels.
	People call themselves atheists, people call themselves believers, but I believe the bottom line is that we can only label ourselves as being neutral because we really don't know one way or the other if there's a God or not.
	And then I just had a question about Albert Einstein.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	I mean, he's arguably the smartest man to have ever lived, and I'm just paraphrasing here.
	I believe he said something to the effect of pure energy can never die, and I'm just wondering You know, comment on all my three comments.
	Well, I agree that Albert Einstein probably was one of the smartest men to ever live, and it's also true that Albert Einstein was a theist, that he believed in God.
	I don't believe that being a mathematical genius precludes having a strong spiritual proclivity.
	There are just two regions in the brain, and he was gifted in both, I suppose.
	Um, which is why a lot of scientists are theists.
	Brilliant mathematicians, even evolutionists, still try and reconcile their belief systems.
	But scientific Americans found that, like, 85% of M.D.' 's and Ph.D.'
	's in the sciences are theists, believing some type of higher power.
	On that note, hold on.
	It's the bottom of the hour.
	from the high desert in the middle of the night with matthew albert
	and the one god god
	god god
	god Call the Wildcard line at area code 7.
	The first-time caller line is area code 775-727-1222.
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	pressing Option 5, and dialing toll-free 800-893-0903.
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	If only you believed as I believe.
	Huh.
	Do you believe in Mar- I wonder if Matthew Alper believes in miracles.
	How do you think he'd answer that?
	but maybe we'll find out in a moment alright once again matthew albert
	Matthew, do you believe in miracles?
	Well, I know that different people have a different definition of what a miracle would be.
	Some people look at the sunset and say, wow, that's miraculous.
	Maybe not necessarily meaning God waved his magic wand and out came the, you know, beautiful red sky.
	But as far as, obviously, if you're adding a supernatural slash spiritual component, like miracles out of the Bible, Or, you know, miracles, let's say, out of the Greek myths, if one were to believe in those, obviously, you know, I don't believe in those things.
	Okay.
	First time caller on the line, you're on the air with Matthew Albright.
	Hi, Art.
	Hello.
	I'm Jeremy from Washington State.
	Excellent.
	Hi, Matthew.
	Hello.
	Well, I heard you talk about studying world religion, and you mentioned Buddha.
	And I wondered if you'd ever heard of Mahayana Buddhism, which was founded by Nichiren Daishonin 700 years ago in Japan, and teaches that devoting oneself to the mystic law of the universe is the path to enlightenment.
	All right, does that sound like a logical or More logical thing to worship, Matthew?
	I think anything that promotes tolerance and compassion to all men, regardless of race and color and creed.
	This would include everybody at Time Magazine, right?
	Huh?
	I said that statement would include everybody at Time Magazine.
	Why not?
	Well, hopefully, the feeling is mutual.
	You know, in the end, I think, you know, we have to be compassionate toward all.
	Wild Card Line, you're on the air with Matthew Alper.
	Hi.
	Well, hello, hello.
	Good day, Art.
	Good day, Matthew.
	Good day.
	Hello.
	I'm kind of nervous.
	It's my first time, too.
	I wonder if there's a reason for that.
	I'm definitely interested in your research, fascinated too, but I'm kind of concerned about some of the implications.
	Okay. Um...
	Well, for instance, who would decide...
	And...
	If somebody had faulty or bad programming, so to speak.
	Yes, big problem.
	Matthew?
	I mean, it really is worth asking, isn't it?
	We sort of began to touch on, started to touch on that.
	I'm sorry, I actually got fuzzy for a second.
	Can you just quickly restate the question?
	Yes, who would decide how, who would be reprogrammed and to what?
	Uh-huh.
	You know, the norm.
	Well, we've got our list of laws and basically those who have a ongoing tendency to break those laws, who show sociopathic tendencies to disregard the rules by That the rest of us are expected to play by, have a problem understanding those rules and engaging by them, might need to be fixed, per se.
	Fixed?
	Well, you know, our idea of fixing now is sending them behind bars.
	It's true.
	Or even pushing the button and killing them.
	Or pushing a button and killing them.
	And by putting them in a cage with others like themselves so they can learn, you know, new tricks of the trade and feed off one another's Improper tendencies don't seem to be working.
	I wonder, Matthew, this is something to wonder about, too.
	If we had an anti-social person who, I don't know, killed somebody's family member, you know, now there is punishment.
	There is revenge.
	Would getting somebody reprogrammed, even if you were absolutely assured they would never do such thing again, satisfy the need for vengeance, the need for the satisfaction on the part of the victim's or the victim's family of some resolution, of some justice dealt?
	Would the reprogramming really serve that up?
	I mean, if we were truly understanding creatures, it should, because by the same logic, you know, we could pose the question, let's say a child is born, an infant, and we've done a brain scan, and we've done a genetic scan, and we know that that person has a 99.9% chance of growing to one day being a criminal.
	Would you suggest we execute the child?
	Well, Matthew, remember the hot poker statement.
	Yeah, well, that was just me being... Well, but see, nobody's all that different, Matthew.
	They really aren't.
	If they're wrong, severely wrong, by God, they want a moment with the hot poker, you know?
	Yeah, I mean, I might want the moment, but I understand that for the greater good, it's not in the best interest of all of us.
	Now, had I had the option, or should I have the option, where they said, okay, you know, you can either use the hot poker on this guy, or you can push this button and it will re-scramble their brain so that they'll never do this again.
	Right.
	By sticking a hot poker in the person and making them scream, You know, for 20 minutes.
	Probably won't accomplish anything, and they'll probably just go on to do the same types of deviant behaviors with even more of a vengeance.
	Except you'd feel better.
	I mean, there is that aspect to it.
	Particularly, it can get pretty doggone serious when you're talking about... Yeah, when someone hurts you, it does incite a certain amount of anger and rage, but... Look, somebody kills your life mate, and we're talking about Absolutely, absolutely, and I haven't for myself even resolved the problem of the death penalty.
	If it were up to me, I'm not sure whether I would, you know, encourage it or not, but I think ultimately it's probably something I wouldn't, just because we want to encourage a merciful society, and I don't believe that acts of vengeance really serve any purpose in the end.
	Other than a primitive whim, and it just fuels our own rage.
	I think that if we are more understanding... Look, this comes rolling off your lips easily at a moment when your mom or your dad or the closest loved one to you hasn't been murdered in cold blood.
	Then you'd be singing a different tune.
	Well, look, my life's work was just stolen out from under me.
	By a man who I sent my book to so he could help me endorse it, and instead he used his credentials to just stomp all over me.
	And we got the hot poker statement.
	Yeah, but if you left me in a room with him and there was a hot poker there, chances are I would not use it on him.
	I might threaten him with it just to scare him a little bit.
	He's such a weasel.
	He's used to the Rockies.
	You're on the air with Matthew Alpert.
	Hey Art, this is Ed in Madison, Wisconsin.
	We'll catch you on 1670 AM WTDY.
	Welcome.
	Thank you for having Matthew on.
	He's a great guest.
	He is, yes.
	I have two questions for him, Art.
	The first question is, Matthew, hypothetically, if you could see God face-to-face, would that be something you'd be interested in?
	Absolutely.
	Actually, there's nothing I would want more.
	Maybe to find a soul mate, but other than that... You'd recall all your books, repay everybody the money they spent and burn them?
	Well, I don't even think I could afford to repay anyone anything, but I'd certainly shake their hand and apologize.
	Well, as a follow-up just to that first question, spiritual knowledge comes from spiritual practice, so what spiritual practices are you engaged in currently?
	Well, at the time when I was first asking these questions, I was engaged in probably all of them.
	I mean, I looked outward to God to solve my life's problems and to Question, why is there evil in his world, etc., and I studied world religions, and I practiced meditation.
	This is all in the past.
	He said, what are you currently doing, is what he said, and I thought it was an unfair question.
	Okay, well, then the second question, let me just get to that.
	Matthew, imagine if Matthew Alpert had seen God face-to-face in the future, what would he say to the current Matthew Alpert?
	He'd say you have something to look forward to in the future.
	Thanks for having him on, Art.
	He's a great guy.
	He really is.
	He really is.
	West of the Rockies, you're on air with Matthew Alper.
	Hi.
	Hi, Art.
	Boy, you're in great form tonight.
	Oh, thank you.
	And in New Mexico.
	Stating my position, my heart knows that Yahweh, the planner, executor, and revealer, has revealed to me through his word what's happening.
	I'm listening to you, and it's great.
	It's really great listening to you, Matthew.
	I think you're totally honest.
	That's what I like about you.
	You're talking about the programming, and you also explain the universe as phenomena of nature.
	Well, there's the phenomena, which all of this is, but then there's the noumena, which is the thing in itself.
	And that, to me, is Yahweh.
	Now, you mentioned programming.
	Who's the programmer?
	In your words, because I already know Yahweh.
	Okay, now I'm just curious.
	You know Yahweh?
	Yes, I do.
	Let's say, okay, and I believe you do, but hypothetically, let's say you were born 3,000 years ago, and as we know, men existed 3,000 years ago.
	We have the recorded history of the ancient Greeks, for instance.
	And let's say you were raised in a family that there was no Yahweh because there was no one who He spoke of such things, but instead there was Zeus.
	Do you believe that right now you'd be speaking with the same conviction of Zeus?
	No.
	About Zeus?
	No.
	How could you speak of Yahweh?
	He wasn't even created as a deity at the time.
	No, he's not created.
	He's the creator.
	And he revealed himself to the Hebrews.
	Right.
	He revealed himself according to one particular culture, but there were cultures that existed before the Hebrews.
	So imagine you were born in that time, before the Hebrews.
	Do you believe that you would be speaking of Yahweh at the time, or would you be offering, saying, you know, that you know the truth behind Ra, the sun god?
	Well, you know what?
	I can't really answer that question.
	Okay, well I'm just trying to point out that each person's belief system is relative in nature, relative to the culture that we're raised by.
	And people from the various cultures who were raised with these various belief systems believe they know their gods as truth with the same conviction.
	So the same people who are blowing up our soldiers in Iraq speak of their god, knowing him with the same conviction to the extent that they're willing to kill themselves in his name, but for us You know, those gods don't exist.
	We don't speak of them.
	Matthew?
	Yeah.
	Here's probably a hard question for you.
	Okay.
	Since you've studied religion and with your position on the God part of the brain, what religion do you think most appropriately services the God part of the brain?
	Most appropriately services The God part of the brain, that's right.
	The need for worship.
	Of the religions that you've looked at, what most... Well, you see, the fact that they all come from that part, they all equally serve it to whatever cultural manifestation they create.
	Oh, so they're all equal in servicing... They're equal in servicing that predisposition.
	They're not necessarily all equal in serving mankind.
	Some have more, you know, hopeful and beneficial power.
	Some are more, you know... No, but they're all equally satisfying to the God part of the brain?
	They're probably all equal to those who are worshipping the deity that their culture created.
	Yes.
	Okay.
	First time caller on the line, you're on the air with Matthew Alper.
	Hi.
	Hi, my name's Mike, listening from Springfield, Missouri on KWTO.
	Yes, Mike.
	And I was wondering, Matthew, you were speaking before about the cause of the selective agent essentially being our unwillingness to face our own demise.
	Now, I was wondering if you had considered the aspect of sexual selection as being maybe
	something driving the system as well, in that possibly the need for rules for choosing a
	mate and holding on to a mate.
	I believe that the primary impulse behind the selection of the God part of the brain
	was the fear of death, but there are other components to it.
	Thank you.
	Through our religiosity, every culture not just creates gods and a sense of worship and belief that console us, but at the same time They also give us a sense of community, a sense of purpose.
	They bind us through common laws.
	So that's almost like the ancillary, you know, purpose for the selection of this adaptation.
	So it serves other functions, and one of them is exactly what you're pointing to, which is to bond communities, give them purpose, give them laws, etc.
	So these things are also extremely important and played a very specific role in the emergence of Human religiosity, because prior to, you know, secular law, every culture was, you know, guided by religious law, and it was usually the shamans who created our laws.
	So, yeah, the two go hand in hand, and that definitely plays an important role in,
	played an important role in the selection of this part of the human condition.
	So I agree with you, that that also played a role.
	Okay, thanks.
	I look forward to reading your book.
	All right.
	Well, that's a good segue, actually.
	Then let's tell you how to do it.
	There's probably only, what did you say, a thousand copies, Matt?
	I have about a thousand copies left.
	I'm assuming they're going to last maybe A couple of months.
	Yeah, if that.
	I mean, there's gonna be a lot of people, especially with the validation you've received, even if...
	Unpublicized so far.
	You will be known to be the discoverer of this.
	I think there is no question of that.
	My opinion, you stated it here many years ago.
	It's well on the record.
	You deserve the credit.
	It's in the book.
	And they can get an autographed copy of the book.
	They can get an autographed copy.
	And I guess the sure way to get the autographed copy is to either, you know, just buy it outright on Amazon because their stock will be autographed, or are you going... Yes, I'm going to be signing all the shipments.
	Now, they might have books right now that they'll be sending out that I didn't sign, so I don't want to make any promises.
	Well, so then, to be sure to get an autographed copy?
	They would go to www.godpart.com.
	I keep telling you, there's three W's in there.
	Yes.
	Aren't I saying www?
	No.
	Oh.
	No.
	Okay.
	There's two.
	Yes, there are three.
	And they would order there.
	One more time, the address www.godpart.com.
	Godpart.com.
	G-O-D-P-A-R-T.
	A secure server there, right online, something like that?
	Yes.
	They can order it right online, and I'll send it out within the next couple of days, and they should get it probably before the end of the week.
	How much?
	$14.95?
	$14.95.
	Well, they'd get it either of the places, right?
	As usual, it's been a total pleasure having you on the air.
	You really are a pleasurable guest.
	I know you drive a lot of people crazy, but it's quite all right.
	You make them think, and that's what this program is all about.
	Is there another book in your future?
	I don't know.
	I've been so disheartened by what's happened.
	My life's work's been taken away from me, and I kind of almost feel like, why create more?
	Because it's just going to be robbed from me again.
	Well, you have sold a lot of books.
	I have sold a lot of books.
	It's been a popular book, so it's not a total loss.
	No, it hasn't been.
	But in the end, it was very disappointing and very discouraging to me, and the last few months have been very painful.
	But who knows?
	Maybe I'll forge ahead and something else will come out of me.
	Think positive.
	Good night, my friend.
	Or, thank you again, you're the greatest.
	Take care.
	Okay.
	All right, that's it, folks.
	Gotta go.
	Weekend's over.
	See you next weekend.
	Here's Crystal Gale.
	Just the right words to get us out of here.
	Good night.
	Midnight in the desert, shooting stars across the sky This magical journey, we'll take this on a ride
	Filled with a longing, searching for the truth We make it to tomorrow
	Will the sun shine on you?

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