Death, Love, and John's Religion: The Big Questions Take Over Question Tuesday

good morning Hank it's Tuesday it's question Tuesday the day that I answer real questions about the big questions let's get right to it I know you were once a hospital chaplain how does religion influence your life now nobody likes my answer to this question but here it is religion is an important part of my life I like going to church but I also find the way that people often talk about religion just like completely baffling for example I'm just not that interested in questions about like whether God really exists or whether Heaven is really real or whatever but I do get really excited about questions like what meaning can we find to human life together while we're here and can that meaning hold up to scrutiny does the meaning acknowledge and embrace the humanity of all people can we use the meaning to support and lift up the most vulnerable people in our community those are interesting questions to me as for my personal theology Dietrich Bonhoeffer summed it up very well in a single sentence God is weak and powerless in the world and that is exactly the way the only way in which God can be with us and help us when you use quotes do you have them memorized or do you need to google them most of them I need to Google but that one I do have memorized so when you go to church D sweet Holy infant baby Jesus that is enough talk about religion can't we talk about something less controversial like politics and money and sex how did stegasaurus reproduce not the sex question I was expecting but all right so the short answer is that we don't know but you're right to be concerned one study using computer models found that a male stegasaurus would risk castration if he tried to mount a female from behind so they may not have done it that way there are lots of theories about this the female stegasaurus may have lain on her side they may have also like backed up into each other but we don't really know all right that's enough sex let's move on to love do you believe in true love not really but I do believe in something I find even more miraculous and beautiful which is that two people who were not created explicitly for each other can still find a way to share a lifetime of joy and grief and wonder and hope we spend all this time in our culture talking about falling in love we should talk more about being in love and growing in love and how the decades of that can really be amazing all right let's move on to politics my friends don't want to vote because they say it won't make a difference how do I convince them otherwise so young people are much less likely to vote than olds like myself and I just don't think it's a coincidence that the structures of power also less likely to listen to young people voting is one of the central ways in our system of government that you can force the structure of power to listen to you so vote register your friends to vote even registered your enemies to vote what's your opinion on the current 2020 presidential candidates my opinion is that the presidential election is over 450 days away and this multi-year obsession with the presidential election is bad for us life in Canada the last election cycle lasted 78 days and they seemed to be doing fine I mean how long does it take to earn somebody's position on health funding and education policy it doesn't take 450 days all right that's enough politics let's move on to death how do you feel about being in the sunset period of your career um good yeah no fine no worries he said staring into the middle distance as the fact of his irrelevance washed over him have you thought about what you want your last words to be how old do you people think I am although yes yes I have thought about my last words look when it comes to last words I think you have to get pretty lucky like there's no way the writer Paul Claudel could have planned to say doctor do you think it was the sausage as his last words but those are still what perfect last words but honestly my friend Amy Krauss Rosenthal who died in 2017 always ended conversations by saying bye I love you thank you and that is what I would like to say to the people who've loved me at the end of my life bye I love you thank you that noted just based on frequency there's a pretty good chance my actual last words will be Hank I'll see you on Friday

Channel: vlogbrothers

Views: 265,063

Rating: 4.9504986 out of 5

Keywords: question tuesday, john green, religion, christianity, death, q&a, vlogbrothers, nerdfighters

Id: lHPMOCsH0YM

Length: 3min 47sec (227 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 03 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/ChimoEngr]

I had to pause the video to make this comment.

That 78 day campaign we had in 2015, that John finds amazingly short, was the longest in modern Canadian history, pissed off many people with how annoying long it was, and is seen as having contributed to the incumbent party losing control of Parliament. We only need 36 days from dissolving Parliament to voting for new MPs.

The US really likes to torture itself. Though it does make for an interesting spectator sport, but no way would I want to live through it.

[u/RubyandGoob]

That finishing line was perfect.

[u/Rjr18]

Man, I'd love to just see a true day in the life of John. Or even pick his brain unimpeded. It's fascinating how I hear his religion answer juxtaposed next to his answer on true love and think it's so arbitrary. And yet, it isn't to him! I'm sure he could say the same by looking some of my opinions side by side, but it's so interesting to hear that he doesn't believe we're purposed to have lovers and yet a God that is weak and suffers with us is exactly what he believes makes sense.

It's funny, as an Atheist, that quote he shared by Dietrich Bonhoeffer does the opposite for me. What I would give to have John and Hank in a room and have a frank discussion on stuff like this.