Latest / Whereabouts Tales | Stories of Belonging and Immigrant Experiences / #0044 - Brian Cranley: Bridging Reason and Revelation

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#0044 - Brian Cranley: Bridging Reason and Revelation · Whereabouts Tales | Stories of Belonging and Immigrant Experiences

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Hey everyone, and welcome to another episode of What about
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Stales between books. Today we're embarking on a truly
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captivating journey into the heart of wonder, where science
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and faith beautifully inter wine.
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We're joined by Bryan Cranley, the brilliant author of The Call
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of Wonder. Brian wears many hats for
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medical devices to a unique background in biomedical
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engineering and theology. He'll share how a single YouTube
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video about The Big Bang ignited his quest to explore the
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profound connections between ancient philosophy and cutting
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edge science. We'll dive into what he calls
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the three miracles of science, the universe, life, and the
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human mind, and discover how cultivating wonder isn't just
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the mindset, but the vital spiritual practice for our busy
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lives. Prepare to look at the world and
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yourself in a whole new light. Let's get started.
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This is what about stills between books?
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Enjoy. Good evening on my side.
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My side afternoon on your side. Yeah, today we have Brian
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Cranley, which is the author of The Call of Wonder.
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We will discuss today with Brian about the book.
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How did he came to the idea and what's the what are what is the
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main focus of the book. Let me let me say it like this.
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Before we get into the book, like always, I like to know your
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whereabouts, a bit of about a bit and a bit about your
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background. Yeah.
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Thank you so much for having me on.
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I appreciate it. So I am located in Texas.
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I was kind of, I was born in Michigan in the US, but moved to
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Texas when I was young and I've kind of lived all over Texas.
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But right now I'm working in Fort Worth and living in San
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Antonio. So I'm commuting like 4 hours
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back and forth each week. Yeah.
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So anyway, I do medical device sales as my daytime job, and
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I've been doing that for about 16 years with two different
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companies. Really enjoy it.
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It's a lot of fun. But I have this random
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educational background of biomedical engineering on one
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side for science and philosophy and theology on the other side,
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because I went to the seminary for five years and got
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philosophy, theology. And so I never thought the two
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would go together since I decided not to do full time
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ministry. But then one day I was watching
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a YouTube video and the two worlds came colliding and that's
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what started the book. So here we are.
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Are you coming from a from a family with the with the
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religious background that says so The religion came from home.
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Yes, yeah. My family is Catholic and we
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grew up Catholic. My parents kind of raised us in
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that. And then I kind of fell away for
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a while, came back, fell away, came back.
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And yeah, so I'm still Catholic today.
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That's my faith background. But I also like to just study
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religion. So I study world religions and
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love the cult documentaries on Netflix and all that.
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I had AI had a cult member. I had a cult member inviting one
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of the episodes and she. Yeah.
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And she was a prisoner in a cult in London.
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Man, if you can imagine. Oh.
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Wow, did she? Get out yeah, did she did get
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out It's it's insane to hear her story like it's insane.
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It's just crazy. Sorry for going on a red.
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So maybe maybe for for transparency and non practical
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orthodox here. So that we did.
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Did your family encourage the the dual interest like the the
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the science and the religion or the science was something that
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that came from you? Yeah, Now I would say they
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encouraged it. My dad and my mom are both
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chemists, so they work for Dow Chemical.
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They met, they're both chemists. And then my dad was really good
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about, you know, recognizing our personal interests when we were
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growing up. And he and I, I wanted to go to
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medical school, so that's where I went into biomedical
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engineering. But I also just loved math and
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physics. And so he encouraged me to get
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the engineering degree instead of just a biology degree on the
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pre Med track. And so I did that, which turned
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out to be great because I fell back.
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I didn't go to Med school and I ended up falling back on the
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engineering degree. So I'm glad I did that.
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But yeah, I kind of combined sciences in my undergrad and
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then because we were raised in the faith that, you know, felt
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like a higher calling to go to philosophy and theology.
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And to be honest with you, I was terrified to, to study
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philosophy. I thought I'd be bored out of my
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mind. And some of it I was, but I
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remember telling my dad, I'm, I'm scared to study this.
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And then after I read or after that, you know, we, we learned
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about Plato and Aristotle and some of the scholasticism.
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It's just something that I could never forget after I learned it,
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you know, just kind of change the way I thought from then on.
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I think it's something which is coming more and more in the
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public speech lately, at least this my feeling.
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Yeah. So I think the Stoics more than
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anything because they they try to order or let me put another
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way, they bringing in an A peace in the in the crazy world that
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we're living in. And I think that's why they are
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in the in in the foreground. But I think the the philosophy
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is coming back in trend. Let's.
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I think Stoicism is big because you can avoid the religious
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discussion. You can use it as a philosophy
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for, you know, you can use it whether you're religious or not
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as a as a way to handle life. And so it's a useful tool for a
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lot of people. So I can see why it's making a
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big impact, you know, around the general public.
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But I kind of, that's kind of my impetus is wanting to join in
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that conversation and help bring some of these old ideas back to
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the modern conversation because I think they're valuable for our
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day today. It's it's so interesting and I
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and I will stop the rent. It's so interesting.
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I read Marcus Aurelio's book and it's it's impressive how actual
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the the his statements are. Yeah.
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It's not something that you can explain to someone.
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I I didn't believe it before I read it so.
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He's just a normal guy, the emperor normal guy.
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And he wrote that for himself, like he wrote that like not even
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not having in mind that someone will ever read that.
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And it's absolutely, absolutely correct today, even today.
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Crazy. Yeah, great point, Great point.
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Can you said something about the the video that kind of brought
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the words together, the words together for you?
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Can you can you tell us the story of the science video that
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you've seen? Yes.
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So I was just coming home from work looking to relax, and I'm a
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science nerd, so I looked up a video on the origin of the
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universe, the first moment of The Big Bang, and it was put out
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by Fermi Lab, a particle accelerator lab in Chicago, I
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think. Anyway, it's just about what
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happened at the beginning of the time or what happened at The Big
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Bang and the way they described some of the new theories that
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are coming out. Basically that mass and energy
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were one in the same thing, like a radiation type plasma energy,
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because the conditions of the very early universe were so
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intense. And then there's another theory
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called the Grand Unified Theory that talks about the four forces
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of physics under those intense conditions.
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All might have also been one in the same force.
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And a lot of this is coming out of the particle accelerator,
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particle colliders like CERN. And so you had mass and energy
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were equal, all one thing, all the four forces of physics were
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one thing. And that's when my philosophy
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just hit me in the face because that sounded exactly like how
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Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas describe a doctrine known as the
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divine simplicity, which basically says it's a
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philosophical way to describe God, that he is perfectly
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indivisible. So he is 1.
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Not only is he one God, but he's one in everything.
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So, you know, we talked about God's power, God's love, God's
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goodness, but the reality is in God, those are all one in the
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exact same thing. There's nothing to divide out in
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God. And so that was like the main
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idea. I was like, gosh, the first
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moment of time sounds a lot like how the philosophers of old
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describe the essence of God. And that started the book but
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LED to so many more really fascinating things about the
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universe and biological life and the human mind.
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And so it's been a learning process as I wrote.
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But I you know, my own wonder continues to grow in these
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topics even after finishing the book.
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Do you have to? Do you think that the video was
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the the click overnight? Oh, and that that triggered this
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idea that was in there since long time.
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Or do you think if if the video was just what brought the ideas
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together? Great question because the ideas
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were building over time. So my, my 2 physician buddies,
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Tim and Tom Rotino, they went to Creighton, a Catholic University
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and in their biology class they were, they were made to read
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Richard Dawkins book The Blind Watchmaker, which is, you know,
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total atheist account of evolution.
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And so I was like, man, at Creighton University they had,
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they had you read this? So I went and read it and I
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remember thinking, I, I understand a lot of what he's
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saying. A lot of it makes sense that
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evolution looks random. And then at the very end he
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describes God. What I thought is incorrectly at
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the very and he describes God as the most complex.
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You know, he would have to be the most complex composite being
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sort of at the top of the chain of all the animals, the most
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complex. And I was like, well, that's
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kind of his, his picture of God is the opposite of the divine
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simplicity, which I had learned where God is the most simple of
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all creatures, but also the most powerful, you know, simple in
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composition. And so I, I was thinking, man, I
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wonder if God wrote his Infinity into the evolutionary process.
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And maybe that's why it looks random.
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Is that the actual path taken through an infinite number of
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choices, You know, it appears random, but maybe on some other
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scale in God's mind, it's not random, it's guided.
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And so those ideas were kind of brewing, but it wasn't until I
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saw that video by Fermi Lab that it kind of like cemented this
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idea that this is, this is a strong enough idea to, you know,
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pursue. And, and So what I did after I
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had those, you know, that that aha moment was I looked online
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for six months to see if anybody had said these ideas in this
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way, because I just, I, I still hadn't thought about writing a
10:48
book, But after I couldn't find it anywhere and it just kept
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sticking with me. Then I heard, I think Tim
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Ferriss talk about you, you should only write a book when
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the pain of keeping the idea in is worse than the pain it takes
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to write a book. So that's what I found.
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It was like, all right, I need to write this down and get it
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out there. So that's what started the book
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off. You know, the, the, the
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connection between, between religion and science is
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something which is it's really interesting.
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As I said, I'm a I'm a baptized Orthodox because the habit is
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like in in Catholics here, you're getting baptized like
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really early with some months. So I was, I, I was a
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practitioner as as long as I was at home, but it was not so
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strong as I know it from the American culture.
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So it does every once in a while, maybe for Easter, maybe
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for Christmas, and that was it. So.
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I mean, that's American Catholicism.
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That's, you know, 95% of Catholics.
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OK. Maybe 80%, yeah.
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But and I always had this, this, this big questions in my head,
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but like nobody was I didn't had the I I was doing my own
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research, like you said, and there was a there was a
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statement. And I will make a a funny
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escorts, I hope at least. I don't know if you know the the
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TV series Young Sheldon. Yeah, You know, Young Sheldon.
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Yeah. So Young Sheldon in Young
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Sheldon, there's an episode in which he has, you know, he has
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the discussion with his mother. His mother is an is a religion
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freak. I would call it like this.
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And he's a science freak. And they have the discussion
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together. And she was really upset and and
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then at the end he said, you know, I think it exists because
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the gravity, it's so exact. If it would be less, we would
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fly. If we would be more, it would be
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hard to walk. And it's perfect and that's
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something which struck and crazy, crazy thing in my head I
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said, you know, that really makes sense.
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It's ATV series, but that really makes sense.
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Yeah. And I think the gravity is not
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the only one. Like you said, there are a lot
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of things which are connected and everything.
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It's too perfect, like everything is too perfect.
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But most probably not know we can make assumptions.
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It's nice to discuss about this, but.
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I love, I love, I love hearing both sides of of it as well.
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Exactly. Why the title?
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The call of wonder. Yeah, So the only thing I knew I
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wanted when I started out the book was the word wonder
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somewhere in the title. And for anyone who's written a
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book, they know that almost every title has been taken
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already. So if you try to put in whatever
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title you want, there's probably two other books already written.
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And so I, I can't even remember what originally.
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I think I just wanted to call it wonder, but that's a really,
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yeah, popular, not fiction book with a movie.
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So the call of wonder came about because two things I wanted
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wonder, because wonder is the common experience between
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science and faith. So if you, you know, you go into
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a cathedral or an Orthodox, you know, church with all the
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iconography, there's just a sense of awe and wonder and
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you're humbled. You know, even whether you
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believe in God or not, you go into some of these cathedrals,
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these old cathedrals and churches and it's just it's
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beautiful art, beautiful architecture.
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But then the scientist, you know, you think of the atheist
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scientist. Why are they drawn to
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continually search the stars and find out more?
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What is that in us that keeps drawing us towards understanding
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more almost this this insatiable drive to understand?
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And then you think of the philosopher, you know, Socrates,
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I think said wisdom begins in wonder.
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The pursuit of wisdom begins in wondering.
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For him, it meant like philosophical inquiry, like
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wondering about the world around you.
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Why is the world the way it is? Why does change happen?
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Why? What is a good life?
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Just asking these why questions. And so wonder in one word
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encompasses philosophy, theology and science, which is what I'm
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trying to bring together in this book.
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And then the call of wonder I put on there.
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Sorry, I'm looking at the title right here.
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The call of wonder I put on there because I wanted the
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action to be that God is the one calling us.
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You know, he's written something into us as humans that desires
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to know and to find out. And he's the one that created
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everything, you know, that exists.
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And so it's a response to an active call and not our, you
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know, we didn't create this wonder, but it's it's a it's a
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response to a call. So the title kind of encompasses
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all that together. This is so interesting because I
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always thought, I always have seen it as the experience of
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wonder, that we are experiencing the wonder, not that, but this
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is that. This makes it even more
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interesting. I like, I like the idea.
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I like it because I, I, I was, I saw it from a different
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perspective and I saw it like we are experiencing the wonder,
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which is also something that we do.
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Exactly. We do experience it, yeah.
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Exactly. But like you said, that the,
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that we all have this call to, to find stuff around to, to, to,
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to investigate, to research. And I think that's, that's,
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that's a nice way of putting it. Like, I like it.
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I'll admit, Brian, when I, when I first saw the subtitle, I
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expected a more heavy-handed religious argument.
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That was my prejudice when I took the book in my hand.
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Yeah, yes, absolutely. I'm, I'm absolutely honest with
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you, but the book surprised me. I spend a lot of a lot of time
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with with philosophy and science before it even touches theology.
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What can modern readers learn from?
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From Plato, From Aristotel, From God, From the great philosophers
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about God and meaning? Yeah, yeah.
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So that's a great. I'm just going to show the cover
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one more time because the subtitle is, I don't know if we
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can see it, but how the God of reason created science in his
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image. And the God of reason is how we
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learned in, in seminary. There's, there's, there's the
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God of revelation. Whether you're, you know, you,
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you follow the Bible or the Quran or whatever your holy text
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is there, there it's revealed to you.
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God himself tells you what he's like.
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And then there's the God of reason, which is a 2000 plus
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year old conversation that's been going on that the modern
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civilization has kind of lost. And that's what I wanted to
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summarize in the first half of the book.
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So the conversation from Plato to Aristotle to Augustine to
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Aquinas is basically the arguments for God's existence
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from natural reasoning and logic.
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And it's the philosophical arguments for God, which is why
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I was trying to get that across in the word the God of reason.
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But I don't know it's I could have said the God of philosophy.
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But basically, you know, Plato was the first one to argue that
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material, immaterial and non physical things can actually
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exist. So does courage, beauty, truth,
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are those real things in themselves or or are those just
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made-up and things that humanity agrees on in our minds?
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Then Aristotle took this idea of these immaterial forms is what
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Plato called them. And he said they do exist, but
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they exist within individual material things themselves and
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in our minds as well. Then Augustine and Aquinas took
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that conversation farther and said, well, they can't only
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exist in our minds because if all of humanity died out and a
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whole new race of humans came to earth, they would discover the
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same laws of physics, the same idea of truth, beauty, goodness.
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So they must have an existence on their own.
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And that's where scholasticism came to the conclusion that all
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these things, math, beauty, courage, exist in the divine
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intellect. That's the only place that they
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can actually exist is in the mind, in the intellect of God.
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And so once you get to this argument that immaterial things
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can exist, then you can get to the idea that God, who is
19:02
immaterial can exist. And so it's sort of like the the
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foundational conversation for the proofs of God that Aquinas
19:10
is known for. So I wanted to summarize that
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education that I got, that stuck with me for the people that no
19:16
longer get that education because liberal arts educations
19:20
are much rarer these days. You're playing so nice.
19:26
So I'm trying to trying to summarize it in four chapters
19:29
for you. It's a lot, yeah, you're pretty
19:31
nice. But no, you put it so nice when
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you said that it's it's not, it's not so common these days.
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I would say it's absolutely missing and I'm sorry to say.
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Yeah, I mean, now we just specialize in, in our career,
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you know, computer programming or engineering.
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We specialize in our whatever we're going to do.
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But we I think we've lost some of the just wisdom about life in
19:49
general. General knowledge, general
19:51
knowledge. I think general knowledge is is
19:53
missing and we it's called the Romanian and the the one to one
19:58
translation is called general culture.
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But I don't see it as culture it's self.
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I think it's general knowledge which is missing.
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Like I keep giving this example, which is funny like always, when
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you ask someone from Europe where is, I don't know, Illinois
20:13
in US, the state of Illinois, nobody's will be able to point
20:17
it on the map. And it's the same like if we
20:19
have someone from US, where is Hungary?
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I don't know if there are a lot of people who are able to put it
20:25
so it's exactly, it's the same. It's absolutely the same.
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Like it's general knowledge, like we don't care that much.
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It's not something which impacts our life.
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And I think that's, that's the that's the problem where we
20:37
learn to see everything, what's here and of course what social
20:40
media is feeding us day by day. Yeah.
20:46
You met you. You quoted a lot of
20:48
philosophers, Brian. Which one resonates with you the
20:51
most? Thomas Aquinas is probably the
20:56
pre eminent Catholic philosopher, but he resonates
21:01
with me the most because like I mentioned in my book, he's known
21:05
as the great synthesizer because he had access to all of the
21:10
philosophers and theologians that came before him, plus a
21:14
genius level intellect. And so in Aquinas, you know,
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he's quoting Agustin, Maimonides, Averroes, Avicenna,
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he's quoting Scripture all over the place.
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And he's, he's quoting Plato and Aristotle.
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But Aristotle is the one he loves the most.
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So he just calls him the philosopher instead of by his
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name. And so I feel like it, if you
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read Aquinas, you get a lot of these other thinkers, kind of
21:38
like if you read Plato, you get Socrates as well.
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But I I guess Aristotle's probably one of the most
21:44
influential philosophers for all these ideas because Aquinas
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based almost everything he did on Aristotle.
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That being said, it's very difficult to go read the source
21:54
text for any of these guys, you know, I feel like most of what I
21:57
learned was from a good teacher who could translate it for me.
22:00
So I tried to do that. Another level down for the
22:02
person who's never had any of this and just wants to read one
22:05
book. Correct.
22:07
Correct. Absolutely agreeing with you.
22:09
Absolutely agreeing with you. It's.
22:10
Not easy reading. No, especially because like you
22:14
have the translations and then you have translation of
22:17
translations and then you don't have the original anymore and
22:19
then it's gone. Like it's I think the devil
22:23
sticks in the details, right? And it's always like, yeah, 3
22:29
miracles of science. You're mentioning the book.
22:33
Why this three? Why Universe, Life and mind?
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Great question. I think, and I've thought about
22:42
this more since writing, but those are the three big
22:46
mysteries that we can't really explain, even though atheist
22:50
materialists would like to say they all have a purely natural
22:54
explanation if maybe we haven't quite found it yet.
22:57
But I've been thinking more and more about miracles in general
23:02
and what is a miracle. And I feel like these miracles
23:05
of science, The Big Bang, which is, you know, matter and energy
23:09
from nothing, abiogenesis, which is the first living cells that
23:15
came from non living matter and the human mind.
23:18
If if you're a pure evolutionist, an atheist
23:21
evolutionist, then we just somehow got these cognitive
23:25
abilities through, you know, biological processes of a larger
23:29
brain or more complex brain. But I don't think any of those
23:33
purely naturalistic explanations explain those three events well
23:38
enough, because the distance between our cognitive ability
23:42
and the second smartest animal is almost infinite.
23:45
You know, it's just as chasm. You don't, you don't see this
23:48
sort of animal that's almost as intelligent as we are.
23:53
And then in the first cells, we can't, we still can't recreate a
23:57
living cell in our labs, even though we should have the
24:00
knowledge necessary to do that by now.
24:03
We still can't do it. And we still can't explain,
24:05
obviously, a universe from nothing.
24:08
Even if you go to the multiverse explanation or the cyclical
24:11
universe where it's Big Bang, we're expanding and then we
24:15
somehow crunch back down and we keep cycling, or there's an
24:18
infinite number of universes. It still doesn't explain.
24:22
Like Aristotle's unmoved mover first caught, then the necessity
24:26
of a first 'cause it kind of just pushes the problem back
24:29
farther or into an infinite number of dimensions.
24:33
So I feel like there's this mystery to those three things.
24:38
And now I see that almost every miracle in the judeo-christian
24:44
scriptures has the same sort of quality to it, which blows my
24:48
mind. Now every time God acts, you
24:51
know, he, he does some kind of supernatural event, but he uses
24:54
a natural medium. So the the burning Bush uses a
24:58
Bush that's on fire. But he didn't necessarily need
25:01
to do that. He could have just appeared.
25:02
He parts the Red Sea again. He could have, you know, brought
25:05
down something, horses from heaven, who knows?
25:10
Jesus uses mud to heal. You know, he's spitting, He uses
25:13
spit, He uses water for baptism, bread for communion, fish, right
25:18
to pay the temple tax or fish just catching the loads of fish.
25:21
It's always something natural. And this is blowing my mind now.
25:25
And so if you're Catholic or or Orthodox, that's how we view the
25:28
Mass. You know, the, the Divine
25:30
Liturgy is the bread turns into the body, blood, soul and
25:35
divinity of Jesus, but it doesn't look like it.
25:37
It still looks like bread. And so there's this natural
25:40
miracle. I don't know how to best like
25:43
define it, But what's blowing my mind is that these miracles
25:46
throughout Scripture are matching these three miracles of
25:48
science. And that is just kind of
25:52
something cool to think about. I never thought about this like
25:56
like this, but like you said, it's the it's the body, but it's
26:00
not the body. Like you don't say it like this.
26:02
You see it like the actual, the actual nature.
26:04
So. It appears like bread.
26:07
Yeah. So, so like with the first cells
26:10
of abiogenesis, they would just look like it just happened.
26:13
You know, this cells happened, you know, the amino acids,
26:16
everything came together form the first cell wall.
26:19
But in that is the miracle is what I'm trying to say in this
26:22
apparently natural thing is the miracle.
26:26
And another way I, I at the very end of the book, I talk about
26:29
how this happens every time nature levels up like a, a step
26:35
in being. So you have nothingness, then
26:37
you have The Big Bang and it goes to material, inanimate
26:40
material. And then you have material
26:43
floating around in the oceans. And then you have the first
26:45
living cell. So you step up to life.
26:48
Then you have millions and millions of years of life and
26:51
eventually the first human. And so you step up to the
26:53
immortal soul. You know, my argument is that
26:55
God places the soul into the primate line at the right time,
26:59
and then at the virgin birth of Jesus, it steps up to God.
27:02
And so you have, you know, nothingness, material life, the
27:06
immortal soul, and God. And so just trying to say he's
27:10
patterned everything after his himself.
27:13
And you can see it in the science, which is pretty cool.
27:16
But this is what I want to say. It's like evolution, but it's
27:19
indifferent, right? Yeah, yeah, I'm still a
27:23
proponent of evolution. I don't exactly know, you know,
27:26
the fine details of how evolution happened as well as
27:31
some of my friends do. But I think God placed a soul
27:34
into the evolutionary line to create humanity.
27:37
And so the body comes from science and nature, but the soul
27:42
comes from God. Just like we believe every baby
27:44
that's born has a soul created, but the material stuff of our
27:47
body comes from our parents. So I'm also fascinated with the
27:52
miracles of science and the miracles of Jesus because
27:56
there's no like fanfare involved.
27:58
Like if God really did create the world with a Big Bang, it's
28:01
just blows my mind that no one knew about it until, you know,
28:05
our generation, just very recently, we figured out how the
28:08
universe started. And when Jesus does miracles,
28:12
you know, a lot of people, there's, there's no fireworks,
28:14
there's no fanfare. You know, people walk away.
28:16
They don't even come back to say thank you.
28:19
It's just what it does for me is it elevates the everyday world.
28:23
The miracle is just the normal everyday world.
28:25
That is the miracle. It doesn't have to be this
28:29
crazy, you know, big spectacle. It's the everyday.
28:33
That is where the miracles found.
28:36
Do you think we have lost the capacity to see these miracles
28:41
today? Why I'm asking?
28:44
I I always made the made the example that if today a guy is
28:48
coming on the street in New York and says I'm Jesus, they will
28:52
just ask him. Where did you buy your weed?
28:54
That's the only question that they that you'll get.
28:58
Yeah, well, I think, yeah, the the human conversation is
29:03
obviously moving away from these type of things.
29:06
But like we said, I think the human hunger is, you know, dying
29:12
for something deeper. And so I'm fascinated with the
29:15
with the onset of AI and all this artificial intelligent
29:18
content on social media. It's pretty cool.
29:21
Like it's, it's cool, but it lacks depth, you know, it lacks
29:26
the human creative touch. And so I think we're going to
29:29
get sick of that more and more and more as a culture and be
29:32
looking for the deeper. And so hopefully this
29:34
conversation sparks back up because people are yearning for
29:38
it. I love the paper from from Apple
29:40
who actually came in, came out and said no, no, there, there
29:43
there is no power of argumentation.
29:45
There is no, there is no reasoning.
29:47
No, no, it's just patterns. Like it's just patterns.
29:50
Don't, don't, don't, don't get so excited.
29:52
It's just better that they identify and they give your
29:54
answer. That's it.
29:56
That's all right. What AI is.
29:57
Yeah. Why is the why is consciousness
30:03
such a mystery? And how do?
30:06
How would you define it based on your research until now?
30:12
Yeah, I'm, I'm so formed in scholasticism, that ancient
30:15
scholasticism, I, I define the human person as the hybrid of
30:21
body and soul. And so you have this spiritual
30:24
immortal soul that animates the body, but both are necessary.
30:28
So the brain, there is something to evolution, there is something
30:31
to neuroscience, obviously. But consciousness, there's 2
30:37
powers to the soul that Aquinas talks about, which is the
30:40
intellect and the will, your ability to think and rationalize
30:44
and then your ability to choose freely.
30:47
And so I would, I would think consciousness is the combination
30:50
of those two, the intellect and the will.
30:52
But I think it's so mysterious and so deep because it's
30:58
directly tied to God and the divine life.
31:02
And so I think it's going to be an eternal mystery for the
31:05
atheist that's trying to explain it through biology alone.
31:09
You know, I don't think there's ever going to be a good
31:10
explanation just from that. That is part of the explanation,
31:14
but not the whole story. And so that that depth to the
31:17
human person and obviously the inherent dignity to each person
31:21
comes from the soul that animates it and that connection
31:25
with God living in the soul. I think that's a that's a really
31:30
interesting point because that was one of the things that I was
31:33
thinking while reading the book. If there were come a day in
31:37
which science will be able to explain all of this.
31:40
Like because I think that there are other things which which we
31:44
try to explain for ourselves and we don't know if if one day
31:49
there's going to be a science based beside this.
31:51
So I think this combination, like I do have the same, the
31:55
same appearance interest. So interesting.
31:57
It's so interesting. We live thousands of mile away.
32:00
We have different backgrounds. And I do have the same opinion
32:02
that we have a unique identifier if we call it like pure
32:05
scientific, which is the soul and the body.
32:08
Like you cannot say you cannot combine or switch one to the
32:12
with the other because you would get a different person.
32:15
That's my understanding as well. I cannot explain it I I cannot
32:19
explain it but this is my assumption that I have my
32:22
working assumption. And I, I, I talk about this in
32:25
the book, you know, if you're looking from a pure human
32:29
history point of view, art and worship are found almost
32:34
everywhere that human remains are found after about 70 to
32:37
250,000 years ago, something like that.
32:41
But before that time, there's never any art or worship in the
32:45
animal Kingdom. And so there's definitely
32:47
something different about the human animal and that it
32:51
recognizes these deeper things in life.
32:54
And one of the basic philosophical principles is that
32:56
like recognizes like, so if you, if you are able to know what
32:59
truth, beauty, goodness, and the idea of Infinity are, there has
33:03
to be something in you that has some sort of equivalent nature
33:08
to it. And so it's just a a basic
33:10
philosophical argument for the existence of a soul or something
33:14
deeper that matches the world that we have visibility to that
33:18
no other animal does. Absolutely talking about
33:25
different different our different backgrounds.
33:29
How do you think the different faith traditions are interpret
33:33
interpreting the the scientific discovery?
33:38
Because we have we have like there isn't God like explanation
33:47
for everything in the culture where I come from.
33:49
Some of them are extremely funny, some of them are sad.
33:58
How do you think they got them? The science that their views on
34:02
science, Yes. Well, I mean, if you read
34:07
Genesis, most of us grew up thinking Genesis is literal.
34:11
As a kid, this the story of Genesis.
34:14
And then as you get older you learn about science and that
34:18
view is still around today called young Earth creationism.
34:22
But then as you learn about science, you start thinking I
34:24
will. Maybe it wasn't 24 hour literal
34:26
days. Maybe the creation happened over
34:28
eons and that's called old Earth creationism.
34:32
And then now you have people like Francis Collins, the head
34:36
of the Human Genome Project, who talks about theistic evolution
34:41
or evolutionary creationists, which I'm leaning more towards,
34:44
which is that God used evolution as his tool to create.
34:48
And that Genesis has to be read sort of poetically like, like
34:52
the in context of the type of text it is not that it's not
34:56
true, but just that it has to be read in that context.
35:00
And so a lot of people, if you don't follow those arguments,
35:03
you're still left with the literal interpretation of
35:06
Genesis that you grew up with. And some cultures have that
35:09
deeply baked in. You know, I can't speak as well
35:13
for Islam or Hinduism on their beliefs on creation or science,
35:19
but I like the faiths that allow reason and rationality to be a
35:25
big part of it. And that's why I've kind of
35:27
stuck with Catholicism, because they have a, a deep respect for
35:32
the rational side of faith. But I don't, I don't know, you
35:34
know how, that's just my, my personal experience.
35:37
I don't know how everyone else was raised and, and what that
35:40
is. But I mean, what?
35:41
What are your thoughts on Orthodoxy?
35:47
I think the, the problem with Orthodoxy that I was raised in
35:50
is that it has a powerful political influence from Russia
35:56
because the, the Orthodox, we are Russian Orthodox because we
36:00
are, we had, we had a big influence from Russia back then.
36:05
And the problem was that they, it wasn't, it's so, it's so, so
36:09
interesting. So the whole area that I come
36:11
from was the beginning. So before communism, it was
36:14
Catholics, all the areas. So you can see it in the
36:17
churches, how the churches are layout and so on.
36:19
And they were, they were Orthodoxified, if I can use this
36:23
term, with the coming of communists at the beginning,
36:26
because, you know, the beginning of the Communist Party, they
36:29
were Orthodox. But then they decided, no, no,
36:31
no, religion is not something that we will allow because that
36:34
allows people to think. And they made it illegal.
36:38
So the churches were still there, but there was a war day
36:42
on Sunday. So you could not go like, for
36:45
example, a crazy story. There was an during Easter there
36:48
there was this it the habit says that we have to have the
36:54
resurrection service happening in the middle of the night.
36:58
So exactly 12 AM. Don't ask me not how, why, but
37:02
that was the reason it was not allowed to be done 12:00 AM
37:05
because everyone was at work and it was done 3/4 5:00 AM in the
37:07
morning so that people could secretly go to the to the
37:12
service. And but I want to say everything
37:14
that was was included in the beliefs of the church had the
37:19
powerful political influence. Like, I don't know things like
37:23
like tradition, like we are the biggest and the greatest and
37:27
everything is we are allowed to have everything and everyone has
37:30
something against us. And that was powerful in in, in,
37:34
in injected in the in the religion.
37:36
So that's why I I feel that I'm a bit subjective and I had AI
37:42
really had a bad influence in the religion.
37:44
And I can say that the unfortunately, what you see
37:47
today in the Orthodox Church is the same that as it was.
37:49
So the politics had not changed. Most of the the big boss of the
37:55
of the Romanian Orthodox Church was a was a formal political
38:01
police. Wow, yeah, man.
38:04
But so. Is that true for all or most
38:08
Orthodox like the Greek Orthodox and Armenian or is it just for
38:12
Russian? Just for Russian, because the
38:14
Russian OK. Because is it legal now?
38:16
Is is Russian Orthodox illegal in Russia?
38:19
It's, or the guy is also an FSB contributor in Russia, the
38:26
Kiril, which is the boss of the, of the, of the, of the Orthodox
38:31
Church in Russia. So it's the same not for the
38:34
Greek, no, not but everything which which came with a huge.
38:37
So I would say all the countries that had a big Russian influence
38:40
was it's, it's hard to to express that.
38:46
I think it's hard to express the real Orthodoxy.
38:49
Yeah, well, that's fascinating. I did not know all that.
38:53
Yeah, I want to ask you because I, I went with that prejudice,
38:58
but then I, I had, I, I had, I raised the question in my head,
39:01
why did you, why you didn't make it the more explicitly Christian
39:05
book from the from the beginning?
39:07
Yeah, it's a good question. I purposefully wrote this book
39:11
for the person who's left faith because of a love of science and
39:15
the idea that they're incompatible.
39:18
And I wanted to keep it applicable to, you know, the
39:23
three major monotheistic faiths. And I also wanted it to
39:27
emphasize what we hold in common.
39:29
So what Christianity, Islam and Judaism hold in common, which
39:32
are, you know, the same sort of description of God from a, you
39:37
know, that he's one infinite, eternal, unknowable.
39:42
So I stuck with that. And then I put in, you know, why
39:45
Christianity at the very end, just to kind of communicate my
39:49
book, my personal beliefs. And I've gotten some, you know,
39:52
some a lot of Flack from evangelical Christians for
39:56
including, you know, Islam and Judaism in there and not being
39:59
stronger about why Christianity. But that wasn't really the point
40:02
of the book. The book was in to join the
40:04
discussion more against atheism and agnosticism that that
40:09
discussion. And so if I write book 2, it'll
40:12
probably be a little bit more Christian, but this one was just
40:14
trying to be God versus no God and those ideas.
40:19
So. I'm pretty sure that you'll,
40:22
you'll, you get more readers excited about the book like this
40:28
because you start with the with the perspective, which is shared
40:31
by a lot of people, I would say. And you, you leave it open until
40:36
the end to explain exactly how the things are connected.
40:39
So I think it's I, I that's why I'm saying it's an it's an
40:42
interesting book. I'll link it down national
40:44
caption just for the when I published the episode because I
40:47
think for whomever wants to wants to wait, it's only
40:50
available on Amazon or you have a different a different place
40:54
where it's also available. It's on barnesandnoble.com,
40:57
Amazon.com and bookshop.org, I think.
41:01
So pretty much anywhere online that you order books, it's
41:04
pretty good. Nice.
41:06
Also, you can read you can read chapter one for free on my
41:08
website. If you go to bryancranley.com
41:11
and sign up, it'll send you chapter 1 if you just want to
41:13
get a taste of it. I didn't know that.
41:16
Thanks for the tint that I will. I will put everything in the in
41:19
the show notes caption below. Brian, I would like to go in the
41:27
in the direction of the of the of the real world application of
41:31
the wonder because I think it's something that, like you said,
41:35
we have, we have I think we have the call.
41:37
I was I saw it as a practicing and this is the direction when I
41:41
went with my questions, to be honest.
41:44
But you can also give the examples from your perspective,
41:48
which I think it's even more interesting than mine because
41:50
you wrote it. How do you, how do you, how do
41:55
you keep the one that alive every day in your life, Brian?
41:59
Great question. So I noticed that ever since I
42:03
learned these, these ideas and philosophy that they kind of
42:06
stuck with me. And after studying theology, a
42:10
lot of that stuck with me. And then couple that with just a
42:13
natural love of science, images from the James Webb telescope,
42:18
the Large Hadron Collider, all that stuff is just kind of
42:21
naturally interesting to me. And then I noticed, you know,
42:25
kind of you're working all day long, you're exhausted, you go
42:29
home, maybe you have a family, kids.
42:31
And so we all know there's a mental health crisis in the
42:36
world today that like anxiety, depression are sky high.
42:40
And I started thinking of it as almost a mental health thing
42:45
that I, I noticed that when I would go to these topics in my
42:49
mind, start thinking about nature, The Big Bang theology,
42:54
you're humbled. You get perspective really
42:56
quickly. It it doesn't take very long.
42:58
You kind of get outside yourself and outside your problems.
43:01
And I think it's just an absolutely useful practice to
43:06
get into is if, let's say you read this book, the Call of
43:09
Wonder, whatever book you read, just to have that information in
43:13
your head that you can call upon at any time.
43:15
And these mysteries are things you'll, you can think about the
43:17
rest of your life. There's not like answers, you
43:20
know that you can just answer it.
43:22
So there's these questions and these mysteries that are outside
43:25
of yourself. They're bigger than you.
43:27
And then they have this sort of healing quality about them.
43:30
So I think about them all the time.
43:32
You know, in between work, if I get stressed out, I will
43:34
intentionally think about something, you know, related to
43:37
the book just to kind of relax and get perspective on life.
43:42
So it's been, yeah, exceedingly helpful for me.
43:44
But I was doing that for a lot of years before the book.
43:48
And I think after writing the book, it's only gotten, you
43:51
know, the wonder has kind of exponentially increased.
43:53
Honestly, it just, it just kind of these are things you you can
43:57
never get to the bottom of and that in itself is kind of
44:01
fascinating. Do you see one that is a as a
44:05
spiritual practice or do you see it as a mindset?
44:10
Definitely a spiritual practice, and like I said, I think it is
44:14
the mind part of your soul, and so it is nourishing your soul in
44:18
a sense, like we were taught in seminary that knowledge is its
44:22
own good. Like you don't have to like the
44:25
American culture is you learn something so that you can do a
44:28
job, so that you can earn money. Like it's, it's a, a production
44:31
value to knowledge. But philosophy, theology, they
44:34
are a good in themselves. They, they call them, I don't
44:36
know, secondary end or something where to just learn about these
44:41
things makes your life richer and more fulfilling.
44:45
And I, I've purposefully, you know, increased my reading list
44:48
now for that exact reason, that knowledge is a good in its own
44:52
end. And I think it is spiritual, but
44:54
I think it leads to a more fulfilling life all around.
44:59
How do you see, or I will try to formulate it different because I
45:05
I try to connect the wonder with meditation and I see meditation
45:11
as a part of wonder. Because you are wondering, not
45:14
you're wondering. You are.
45:16
You are searching for the you are searching for something
45:19
inside yourself. You are try to connect with the
45:22
maybe with this soul part of yourself which you don't know
45:25
exactly how to connect. Do you see?
45:27
Do you think meditation is also a spiritual practice?
45:33
I guess it depends on what you mean by what type of meditation,
45:37
because you can meditate on the scriptures or you could do like
45:39
Transcendental Meditation, like a Buddhist type practice.
45:45
So I guess it depends on what type of meditation you're
45:47
referring to there. Usually the one that that I'm
45:53
practicing at least is the is the guided respiration only.
45:58
So focusing trying to to get the connection with myself, but not
46:03
to focus on try to free your mind.
46:07
I think it's, it's an exaggeration because it's you
46:09
cannot empty it like never like come on.
46:13
But with you try to get to focus your attention to control your
46:17
attention. Actually, that's the point of
46:19
it. Yeah, I mean, I, I don't
46:23
practice meditation, so I don't, it sounds like it's a calming of
46:28
the mind and a, you know, focusing on, I guess clearing
46:32
out all the thoughts that are constantly coming at you like a
46:35
mental practice. So I don't, I don't know.
46:40
I mean, I, I, I guess I don't know enough about it to know if
46:43
you could add wonder into that, you know, bringing are you,
46:46
you're intentionally not thinking about anything.
46:48
Is that right? Yes and no, because at the end,
46:51
you are the, the the intention is to have your, your focus.
46:55
You guide your focus. And for me, that's also a way in
46:59
which we discover ourselves because we tried to control
47:01
something which is normally not controllable.
47:05
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I, I don't know how you would
47:08
add wonder into that unless you were allowed to focus on one
47:11
thing, you know, and maybe take it with you into meditation.
47:15
But I think if you want to do the like the Christian form of
47:20
meditation where you're actually trying to meditate on a, you
47:24
know, Scripture verse or a topic, I find the great
47:27
mysteries of theology just fascinating.
47:30
Like, you know, is Jesus fully God or fully man?
47:33
You can probably think about that for the rest of your life
47:35
because there's been heresies to both sides of that throughout
47:39
history. Having like these these thoughts
47:44
that you can return to Frank, she talks about they're an
47:47
infinite well where you can draw on and gain something more
47:51
forever. I think it, it's a type of
47:54
meditation in itself and, and just maybe having that practice
47:57
where you think about, you know, a specific mystery for 5 minutes
48:01
every day, I think that would be a, a type of meditation that
48:04
would be extremely beneficial. Correct.
48:08
Absolutely. I think the the the the place in
48:12
which you guide you your your thoughts towards is not so
48:16
important is just the just the power of control over your
48:20
thought that I think that's something which is which is
48:22
whichever is trying to achieve with meditation.
48:25
Yeah. As a as a parent, Brian, how can
48:33
we carve the how can we, how can we nurture the wandering
48:40
children? Yes.
48:42
That's a great question. I I like the simple 15 minute
48:47
daily walk. You're trying to get back into
48:50
nature. That's whether you're, let's say
48:52
a believer in God or your atheist.
48:55
Either way, God created us in a garden or we evolved outside.
48:59
I mean either way, we do better outside or both.
49:05
So getting back outside, taking your kids outside and obviously,
49:09
you know, the screens are a constant battle for all of us
49:13
and just, you know, a 15 minute daily walk is just absolutely
49:17
life changing. Taking when you go on vacation
49:21
with your kids, planning in natural wonder whether it's a
49:24
museum or a, you know, a National Park or something.
49:29
Having that in mind and being intentional about it, I think
49:32
it's great. Another thing I'm trying to do
49:34
with my two daughters is I am trying to equally emphasize the
49:40
importance of science and the importance of faith.
49:43
And I think that's where people fall off is they forget one or
49:47
the other. And so, you know, I, I want to
49:50
make sure they know about all the modern science that we're,
49:53
that we're discovering, because that's absolutely fascinating.
49:55
But I also want them to know about the ancient philosophy and
49:58
theology and the idea of the soul.
50:01
And I think when you have both those sides, you're, you're
50:05
living a much more complete human life.
50:08
And I think, you know, I'd say those two things outside and
50:11
then make sure you hold the real world, the physical world and
50:14
the world of faith in a, in a good tension.
50:17
I think that's that's kind of where I'm trying to go.
50:20
I can only confirm what you're saying about the walk.
50:24
I do have this habit with my son since a few a few months.
50:27
We are doing it every evening and with my wife and I.
50:30
I have to say it's, it's, it's magic what's happening like you.
50:36
It's magic. It's so easy.
50:38
It's so easy, it's so easy, but it's life changing.
50:41
I agree. I agree.
50:45
Brian, having in mind the fact that the science is evolving,
50:52
the science is changing, the science is never settled for, I
50:55
don't know, forever isn't. Do you see a risk in merging
51:01
science and fade too closely? I think you have to hold science
51:07
with an open hand, that idea that you could push it away all
51:13
together. But we are discovering a lot of
51:15
things and we have some some measurements down with pretty
51:18
astonishing accuracy. And So what I did in this book,
51:24
I think, you know, I did a lot of theological speculation in
51:30
this book and throw out some what ifs.
51:33
And I tried to write it with that attitude in mind that, you
51:37
know, I'm not saying this is how things are, but kind of like,
51:40
oh, this is a pretty cool revelation of how faith and
51:42
science go together. But you know me personally, if
51:45
science changed, yeah, I'm, I'm holding it with an open hand.
51:49
So it's not the end of the world of science if some discovery of
51:52
science changes. Like let's say there is a
51:54
multiverse and it wasn't just the beginning of time at The Big
51:57
Bang. You know, I, I, I'm just
52:03
fascinated by science, but I don't hold it to be like
52:07
Revelation in the sense of the Bible.
52:16
OK. What's your thought?
52:18
I'm the my thought is that in fact, what we see around us is
52:31
that somehow we managed to find things from the Bible which are
52:35
matching with the new scientific discoveries.
52:38
And I have the feeling that Bible is there where the science
52:40
is not yet. And it could be that we are not
52:45
able to interpret everything that we see there or that we
52:49
read there. It could be that we are
52:53
misunderstanding things that were meant in the other way in
52:57
the Bible. And I think, I think if we are,
53:01
as I said, not practicing, but I think if we manage to read it
53:05
right, we might see things that are are soon to be come to come
53:10
in in science. That's yeah, I mean, that's a
53:14
good point. You think of Saint Agustin
53:16
talked about in the Confessions, he talks about he's writing to
53:21
God, but he's saying God, you did not create the universe in
53:24
the universe. Like there was no universe for
53:26
which you to create the universe.
53:27
And that was, you know, you're what, 5-6 hundred something like
53:32
that. 4500 And then we only discovered recently that there
53:37
was the idea of a Big Bang and an expanding universe.
53:40
You know, for for centuries upon centuries and millennia,
53:43
philosophers and scientists thought the universe was eternal
53:47
and static. And so this idea that space-time
53:50
itself had a beginning is a relatively really new idea.
53:54
And so that kind of goes with what you're talking about, that
53:56
maybe theology knows these things before science gets
53:59
there. But on the other side, you have
54:03
to be careful not to, I guess, manipulate the science to fit
54:08
the Bible or manipulate the Bible to fit the science.
54:12
And so I've tried, I've tried really hard to take the science
54:15
as we find it today. You know what we know.
54:17
And then you know ideas from the past and, and tried to keep the
54:21
two. Try to stay loyal to the two
54:23
ideas and see where they go together.
54:27
I think the risk is there. The risk is there.
54:29
The risk is it's a big in, in manipulating water one or the
54:35
other to feed the other one. And I think that's something
54:37
that you're like you said, it's we have to be really careful
54:40
with that because it's so easy to go that on that.
54:42
Yeah, and a lot of us do it without knowing it.
54:44
You know, you're not conscious of your own biases and your and
54:47
your upbringing. So I think it's important to
54:49
just to realize that you do have biases.
54:52
You know, I know I did when I wrote the book.
54:53
I think I started out the book that you just can't get away
54:55
from the way you're raised and what you've learned.
54:57
That's just who you are. So.
55:02
What kind of reader did you had in mind when you were writing
55:07
the book? If you had a kind of.
55:10
Yeah, I, I, you know, when when you write, they tell you to try
55:13
to picture your target reader as an actual person, like one or
55:16
two people and pick them out. And for me, that target was my
55:20
friends up here, you know, the professional person that has an
55:24
education and they're thinking, they love science naturally.
55:28
They're thinking about why am I here?
55:30
The big questions of life, but they're too busy.
55:33
Because what I realized is none of my friends have this
55:37
education, this philosophy education that a lot of people
55:40
used to get. No one has it anymore.
55:43
So the reason why I wrote the first half of the book to kind
55:45
of catch was to catch people up on this 2000 year old
55:48
conversation because they probably never heard it.
55:51
But I think knowing that history is important to developing your
55:55
own thought on the present. And so that's who I had in mind,
55:59
the person who loves science. But maybe they, you know, they
56:02
were raised with the idea that God's an old man on the cloud
56:04
and that he's judging you for everything you've done.
56:07
And now, you know, The Big Bang and science and people like
56:10
Richard Dawkins and these really loud atheists are screaming,
56:13
science has figured it all out, figured it all out.
56:15
So the person who's uneducated just sort of slowly drifts
56:18
towards, I guess science hasn't figured out.
56:21
And, you know, everything I learned as a kid is wrong.
56:23
You know, they just kind of slowly go away, but what they
56:25
don't even realize it's happening.
56:26
And so that's who I wrote it for, was kind of pull people
56:29
back, hold on, go back to religion.
56:31
There's a whole rational side to it that is fascinating.
56:35
I like the fact that you are. You are mentioning every
56:37
possible way in which people are talking about this.
56:40
Like all men sitting on the clouds.
56:43
It's the funniest one. Yeah, exactly.
56:49
You got you got the few a few receptions for your book.
56:55
And I want to ask you, how is it to be to be praised both from a
56:59
from a NASA scientist and from a hardware neuroscientist?
57:03
Oh, you saw that? Yeah.
57:04
Yeah. So.
57:05
So I reached out to each one of those endorsements and it
57:08
started because I think my sister said it'd be cool to get
57:11
a, an astronaut to endorse the book.
57:14
And so I, I found Doctor Tom Jones because I think he, he
57:20
took communion to space and so he had.
57:24
I saw that I have to interrupt you when I saw the name first.
57:26
I I I really googled to see if that's not the singer.
57:29
If it was real. No, though, because there's a
57:32
singer. Do you know Tom?
57:33
Jones Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
57:36
Different one different. One sorry, sorry for
57:40
interrupting you, right. No so.
57:42
So after he agreed to read it and endorse it, I was like, oh,
57:45
that's cool. And then I thought I'd really
57:47
like to have a scientist who's at a PhD level for space,
57:53
biological life and the human mind.
57:55
And so I found these people like Doctor yeah, Doctor Martin,
58:01
Doctor Martin Novak wrote books that are like really similar to
58:04
mine, but I didn't find them until I, I, I found him, you
58:08
know, I searched for somebody like that.
58:09
And he's an evolutionary or mathematical models of
58:13
Evolutionary biology at Harvard professor.
58:16
And his book Beyond and Within are just absolutely fascinating.
58:20
They like take mine to the next level.
58:23
And so we also realized that in both of our books, we have this
58:26
sort of feminine wisdom, divine figure in both the books and in
58:33
mine. It's like a fable that runs
58:35
through every chapter where she's guiding you.
58:36
Lady Wisdom is like guiding you through the book.
58:39
And he has like the same character.
58:41
He was really crazy. And so him and I have stayed in
58:43
touch and we're talking a lot. And then Dr. Sophia Carosa is a
58:49
neuroscientist, PhD level, who's also a believer.
58:52
And she told me when I emailed her, she said I'll be happy to
58:57
read the book, but I'll let you know.
58:59
I've been asked a lot of times to endorse, and I've never given
59:02
an endorsement. So she was kind of warning me up
59:04
front. And then when she came back and
59:06
said, I like what you're doing here.
59:08
I want to endorse it. That was a huge honor because
59:11
she hasn't endorsed anyone before.
59:13
And so I took that, you know, that was, that was pretty
59:16
awesome. It's, it's not important that
59:21
you reach them. It's important that they have
59:23
done it because nobody would do it if they don't believe what
59:25
they are writing. This is my, my, my feeling at
59:28
least. So I think that's that's the
59:31
most important. Yeah, and I didn't pay any of
59:34
them. I just asked them.
59:38
They were very kind. I mean, I I don't, I don't, I
59:45
will not go that. Now I have to ask you a serious
59:54
question. I can't.
59:55
Yeah, go. Ahead Did writing the book
1:00:02
changed the way in which your friends, colleagues are are
1:00:06
seeing you? For sure.
1:00:09
Yeah, I think it's probably true for a lot of us.
1:00:13
A lot of people listening. I think about these things a lot
1:00:17
and I have for 20 years because I went to school for them, but
1:00:19
also because I think a lot of us are just wired that way.
1:00:22
But I almost never talked about them.
1:00:24
You know, I'm, I'm running a medical device business and so
1:00:30
you know, your day-to-day is about Med device, not about
1:00:33
philosophy and theology and whatever 0.
1:00:37
Relation 0. Yeah, yeah.
1:00:40
So, yeah, I think now that I wrote it, some people are like,
1:00:44
that's a whole new dimension that, you know, but it has
1:00:47
opened up phenomenal conversations with people that
1:00:49
you never would have talked about this stuff before.
1:00:52
And so I think trying to approach it from both sides,
1:00:55
science and faith, allows people to be open to being honest.
1:00:59
Like I've had atheist friends come up and say they're atheist.
1:01:02
I didn't know that before. And so it opens the conversation
1:01:06
because, I don't know, it's all in a book now.
1:01:08
You can just go read what I think.
1:01:12
It's all in a book. It's out there.
1:01:14
That's that's a nice, that's a nice point of view.
1:01:16
I mean, if you want to know what I think about, just read the
1:01:19
book. It's.
1:01:19
Yeah, excuse the book. What do you want listeners to
1:01:25
take away from from the book? If it would be one thing from
1:01:29
the book. I mean, I want them to take away
1:01:33
that God is real, but I think like we talked about a return to
1:01:38
wonder. I think that's, I don't mean it
1:01:40
in the cheesy sense, but like authentic wonder.
1:01:42
I think that is a one of our like final ends as humans.
1:01:49
If you know, if heaven is real and it exists, I think part of
1:01:53
that experience of the afterlife is going to be sort of the aha
1:01:58
moment that never ends. Like you're just constantly the
1:02:01
aha moment for eternity. And I think that starts now with
1:02:06
things like wonder. And so preparing for that is,
1:02:09
it's the well that never runs dry.
1:02:10
I think it's, it's, it's, it'll restore a lot of mental health,
1:02:14
I think is what I'm trying to get at.
1:02:16
You know, the whole nihilistic, it's just, I'm just a body, you
1:02:20
know, nothing matters leads to depression.
1:02:25
And so I think it, it restores a mental health because, because I
1:02:29
think it's reality. It's true that there there is a
1:02:30
spiritual side to things, but that's what I hope they take
1:02:33
away. I think that's all that if, if
1:02:38
you find it, if you managed to find it, it could be a cure
1:02:41
maybe for the cynicism and the board now that we have these
1:02:45
days. Yeah, and there's a lot of ideas
1:02:48
out there. It's not like you're just
1:02:49
learning this is the way it is, that these are like like the
1:02:52
great book series, the great thinkers of history.
1:02:54
There's competing ideas, but if you don't even know what those
1:02:57
are, you can't formulate your own ideas off of those.
1:03:00
So quite a time to jump back in that conversation.
1:03:06
Brian, it was an amazing discussion, but we are not
1:03:10
finished. But I have to, I have to mention
1:03:13
it again. I I knew it was nice, but I
1:03:15
didn't expect how nice it would be.
1:03:17
I have to. Yeah, I'm positively surprised.
1:03:21
Thank you, I've enjoyed it too man, it's been awesome.
1:03:24
I have I usually have 5 rapid fire questions tailored to the
1:03:29
guest at the at the end and I also have them for you haven't
1:03:33
sent them out up front because the element of surprise plays a
1:03:37
big factor and spontaneous city has played plays a big factor in
1:03:43
it. So most awe inspiring scientific
1:03:47
fact you've ever learned? The currents, are they estimated
1:03:52
size of the universe? Just absolutely mind blowing.
1:03:57
True. I I I follow Brian Cox.
1:04:03
I I follow Brian. Cox, I like him a lot.
1:04:06
An amazing human being, that. Explains everything so well.
1:04:10
And the the the passion with which she explains it's.
1:04:14
I think he's my favorite. Also, I like, I like Brian Cox a
1:04:16
lot, yeah. Absolutely.
1:04:19
Philosopher. Philosopher or a theologician
1:04:24
that you would like to have dinner with?
1:04:30
Let's say Agustin, because he was a philosopher and a
1:04:35
theologian and he started out a lot of these ideas on the
1:04:38
Christian thread that the Christianity, you know,
1:04:41
followed. And he was a normal guy.
1:04:44
You know, he lived a life of ill repute for a long time and then
1:04:50
had a conversion. He was just kind of this normal
1:04:53
guy that became a world class thinker and that'd be cool to
1:04:59
meet him. One daily habit that keeps you
1:05:04
your sense of wonder alive. I think we mentioned walking.
1:05:07
Already daily walk, yeah, 100% the 15 minute daily walk.
1:05:10
I may I I don't do it every day but I try almost every day to
1:05:14
get outside. I did want to mention because
1:05:18
you mentioned walking and I had AI had a long period in my life
1:05:22
and I was waking up 5:00 AM every morning and I had a 1 1/2
1:05:25
hour walk. Nice.
1:05:27
And I usually got to see the sunrise every morning outside.
1:05:34
That's. Beautiful.
1:05:36
That's just magical. Yeah, I agree.
1:05:40
If you had to choose telescope or microscope.
1:05:44
Telescope. I'm a space guy.
1:05:47
Absolutely, absolutely. And what's the what's the single
1:05:54
word you'd use to describe the relationship between science and
1:05:57
faith? Wonder, I mean, I, I just think
1:06:03
it's the, it's written in the human person, which is so what's
1:06:06
so fascinating. You can like watch it happen to
1:06:08
people, whether they're atheist or believer, just that sense of
1:06:12
awe and wonder when you encounter God.
1:06:13
And then when you encounter space, let's say it's, it's
1:06:16
almost a very similar experience.
1:06:18
That's why I want to say it's almost the same.
1:06:21
Brian, thanks so much. Tell people what's what's next
1:06:24
for you? Is there another book in the
1:06:27
making? Oh yeah, I'm working on Book 2,
1:06:29
which is much more about. So I talked about how the soul
1:06:33
has the intellect and the will. One is, you know, to contemplate
1:06:37
and one is to choose. So this first book was about the
1:06:39
intellect and how God, how the experience of God is in your
1:06:43
mind and in the intellect of the soul.
1:06:45
Book 2 is going to be about the will and how it's going to be
1:06:48
centered around peace, the idea of experiencing peace and how to
1:06:52
experience that by choosing the good.
1:06:54
So the intellect knows the good and the will chooses the good.
1:06:58
And you know, in religion we say God is the summa bonum, the
1:07:01
highest good. And so that's why there's no
1:07:03
peace without him because he sort of orders your life.
1:07:06
And so second book, I'm a big experience guy.
1:07:09
And so the second book is going to be centered around the
1:07:12
experience of peace. I'm waiting for that e-mail when
1:07:18
the book is out. Awesome.
1:07:21
Brian, thank you so much. It doesn't.
1:07:22
It does an awesome discussion, I have to say it.
1:07:24
Was awesome. Thank you very much.
1:07:27
Thank you. We'll have to do it again.
1:07:28
Absolutely. And I'm waiting for the for the
1:07:32
e-mail to your when your next book is out.
1:07:35
Very cool. Thank you very much.
1:07:37
Brian, tell people where they can find you.
1:07:40
My website, Brian Cranley, BRIANCRAN ley.com.
1:07:46
That's where you can get chapter 1 and also get that e-mail about
1:07:49
when the next book is coming out.
1:07:52
And then I'm on actually LinkedIn as a social media the
1:07:55
most and also XA little bit. But LinkedIn is what I had
1:07:59
before I wrote the book. So I kind of built off there and
1:08:02
I post a lot of things like book signings and stuff.
1:08:06
Brian, thank you very much for your time and I really hope we
1:08:11
can do this again one day. For sure.
1:08:14
Let's definitely do it again. Talk to you.
1:08:16
Thank you. Bye.
1:08:16
Bye. Bye.