Penn Jillette - Magician/Television
By: Dominick A. Miserandino
Penn of Penn and Teller fame
The famous magician duo, Penn & Teller's television show, Bullshit, doesn't
claim to have all of the answers, but they do know one thing. With science
and research they are more than ready, willing and able to defraud and debunk all bullshit that is out there. Penn explains how he thinks about things, which really gives a good in-depth look at the show itself.
DM) After watching Bullshit and seeing you debunk nearly everything; I am left wondering if there is anything that you can just have faith in?
PJ) Those are very, very big words. It depends on how you define faith. If it's Ambrose Bierce's definition, I don't think you should leave any room for faith. If you're believing in things that just come from within you, it seems to me to be a bit dangerous. The way we live in the world, the way we're supposed to interact in the world is by having an objective world that we agree on. At some point in high school you run through the possibility that this is all an illusion, you go see the Matrix and you're done with that. If you stay with that, there's no way you can disprove it. It's a perfectly valid philosophical position. Then, you're done and anything you believe, think and feel is completely valid. Then, you can believe that aliens are coming to earth and you can believe any of those things. It's all inside of your head and it's what's true to you. If you want to interact with other people, part of the definition of that is that it's an objective work. The real intellectual battle being fought now, and for the past 300 years since the clear celebration of science working, is between objective and subjective. Do you go with what you feel or what you think? Science can be defined as a way of stripping away the feelings on the animal side and trying to get to the truth. Copernicus was able to intellectually stand in a place and see the planets move. Whereas, if you stay with your feelings, you can clearly see the sun move across the sky and you can make up whatever you want for how it's doing that. The brilliance of that was to get out of the emotional feeling about the sun moving across the sky and go toward the intellectual proof that the planets were moving.
People tend to use the word faith as if it's a good thing and it often is. If you're talking about it in terms of loyalty and in terms of your friends, then it's a beautiful thing. If you're talking about it in terms of optimism and of being happy about life and things will turn out okay, then, it's also okay. If you're talking about it in terms of Allah taking care of me in the next life for being a martyr and, therefore, I will fly the planes into the Twin Towers, I don't know how you can justify that as a good thing.
There is no difference between Mel Gibson's faith and the terrorist's faith. We have no evidence that there was a historic Jesus, we have no evidence that he died for our sins. We have no evidence, that we can agree on, for any of that. If you look at the distribution of religion, it tends to be geographical and not intellectual, which is a another discussion.
If you come down to a show like our show, Bullshit, it is just trying to be a celebration of community and of things that we can share and learn about together. The fact that all of us are smarter than one of us. Maybe you can have a strong feeling that this bottle of water tastes better, but if we get together and play around with it, we'll find out that it's not the case. That's what I find. I find that skepticism is a celebration of community and a rejection of loneliness.
DM) The reason that I brought up faith was admittedly the concept of religion. Using the concept in Bullshit seems that anything that couldn't be scientifically proven, could be debunked.
PT) No, no, no, no, no, no. You couldn't be further from the truth. You need to think about what you need to think about and you need to feel what you need to feel. You don't want to think that you're in love, you want to feel you're in love. You don't want to feel that the speed of light can go a little faster than 186,000 miles a second, you want to think that and you don't want to confuse the two. It's wonderful for me to say the latest movie that came out was emotional, full of love, and full of hope and you can think it was full of crap, but we should agree that we were both in the theater together at the same time. We should agree that the temperature was about the same. We should agree with the stuff that we can prove and think about, but the other stuff, the love, the art, the emotion, the passion is all individual and left up to each individual. The
example that I like to use is the last time that you were sitting in a dentist chair the 15 minutes might have seemed a little slower than the last time you were getting a blow job for 15 minutes. If you were going to talk to me and say, "the dentist felt like an hour." We are talking and it's human and it's beautiful. However, if you say, "I looked at the clock and it says 15 minutes, but it felt like an hour, therefore, it is an hour." I start thinking that you're insane.
DM) But it seems that there is no scientific room for faith.
PT) If you want to say that Mel Gibson believes that Jews are evil and
beat the shit out of God and he suffered to save your sins and you can do
anything bad that you want as long as you embrace him, and you're going to
do okay. I can't argue with you. You shut me out because you say, "All that
matters is what's inside me and not what other people think and do." This
year we're doing one show on the Bible and the first monologue that I give
is, "if you take this religion on faith and you just say I know it's hard
to believe in, but that's what God wants me to do and I feel that in my
heart" we can't argue with you at all. There's no room, no move on the
chess board, you just go and believe. However, if you want to say what you
believe in your heart has some historic accuracy, you're screwed.
DM) Are you saying that it's okay to have faith in things as long as it's based on our feelings?
PT) No, I'm saying, if somebody believes that what they believe is more important than what's all around them, great. You can believe whatever you want, but there's no room to talk to about it. There are certain cults, like UFO cults that share their stuff with everybody around them. For example, certain things get blurred. Environmental movements are based on real evidence and confront real problems, but some people take it overboard. There is another thing like bottled water, which is a clear consumer rip off. There's things like UFOs where people are making up a reality for which we have no evidence.
As a skeptic, we're not saying, "this is the way it is;" we're saying, "this is the evidence that we have right now." I will promise you that when evidence comes in differently I'm the first one to change. If you show me evidence of a God, I'm not an atheist. Atheism only means that I don't believe in God. I don't believe a God is impossible, I just don't think there is evidence of one.
DM) Maybe I'm confused on definitions, but it sounds like you're saying
you are an atheist.
PJ) An atheist means you don't believe in God. Being an atheist does not mean that you believe there is no god. Those are two different things.
DM) So you have no believe in God?
PJ) Absolutely not, I have no belief in a God whatsoever, but if you
show me some evidence, that could change. I have no evidence whatsoever of a God, I don't think anybody does.
DM) But you're open to the possibility.
PJ) Absolutely. I've just yet to see the evidence. The UFO argument is even easier. We have more camcorders than any other time in history, yet the evidence for UFOs has gone down.
DM) When you refer to Bullshit and the segments that you create, you
say we, but, of course, you're the only one speaking. When you say on the
show, "We believe..." this or that, is it truly a 50/50 partnership in thought with Teller?
PJ) Oh, no, no, no, there are other fine writers. Teller has equal input to me, but so do all of the writers. Our disagreements are not in anything that you're going to bring up today. When I say, "We think" I am absolutely speaking with Teller.
DM) So there are discussions behind the scenes on what you both feel?
PJ) Every word. Teller and I would not be partners if we did not agree on the most important philosophical issues. The idea of Penn and Teller was a pro-science idea. Teller and I have not been battling this stuff. The day we met we were both atheists and skeptitics. We argue intensely over artistic stuff, but it's not like once somebody leaves the room we say, "maybe there are UFOs"
I'm oversimplifying a little bit, though, as when we did a show on hypnotism
there was disagreement among everybody so we did more research. We are in the fortunate position that when we are dealing with the facts, we can actually find out with research. On the show, Bullshit, we are perfectly willing to shrug our shoulders and say, "We don't know."
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