413: We Disagree (But In A Cute Way)

How do I talk to my sister about our differing religious beliefs? Why do we draw stars as five pointed shapes when they are actually spheres? Has John tried blackberry Dr. Pepper and what are his thoughts? How do I cope with knowing I might not graduate college in four years? Which reptiles have souls? …Hank and John Green have answers! If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [email protected]. Join us for monthly livestreams at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn. Follow us on Twitter! twitter.com/dearhankandjohn See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Hank Green?

  You're listening to a Complexly podcast.

• 0:09Hank Green?

  Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you dubious advice and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. John-

• 0:19John Green?

  Hank forgot that I'm supposed to come in in the middle there because it's been so long since we made the podcast. Hank forgot the intro.

• 0:25Hank Green?

  It's been so long. What's the intro now? We did a different intro?

• 0:27John Green?

  No, I say I prefer to think of it as Dear John and Hank.

• 0:31Hank Green?

  Oh, you're right.

• 0:31John Green?

  Which in fact, starting in 2028, it will be.

• 0:34Hank Green?

  It will. Actually, Elon's trying to figure it out, John.

• 0:38John Green?

  Oh, let me tell you my level of confidence that this podcast is going to be called Dear John and Hank in 2028. I will now forget about the name of the podcast. I'll bet you whatever you want. Any, any amount of money.

• 0:53Hank Green?

  For those who don't know, a long time ago, we wagered, and I am the one, it's good to be humbled, we wagered that, that whether or not humans would be on Mars by the year 2028, which at the time seemed very far in the future.

• 1:10John Green?

  Yeah.

• 1:10Hank Green?

  Very far and in, in, inaccessibly far away.

• 1:14John Green?

  Right. That's the thing about the future, though. It just keeps happening.

• 1:19Hank Green?

  It does. It does. I was just, I was just having breakfast and I said to Catherine, "In five years, it's going to be 2030."

• 1:27John Green?

  Yeah.

• 1:28Hank Green?

  2030. That sounds so future.

• 1:31John Green?

  And this podcast will have been called Dear John and Hank for two years.

• 1:35Hank Green?

  It sure will. It sure will.

• 1:38John Green?

  I mean, very little in the future is inevitable. There's very little that we can predict about the future. The only thing we know about the future is that humans will not be on Mars by 2028.

• 1:48Hank Green?

  Yeah, it's too bad because there's this restaurant I want to go to on Mars. The food is fantastic, but the atmosphere is terrible.

• 1:54John Green?

  Oh, yeah. It's very limited. All right. That's your dad joke. That's, that's, that's your one for the week.

• 1:59Hank Green?

  I had a different one ready, but then I, but then we went on a Mars tangent. John.

• 2:04John Green?

  Hank.

• 2:04Hank Green?

  Where the hell you been?

• 2:06John Green?

  Well, where have you been? I've actually been-

• 2:07Hank Green?

  Where have you been?

• 2:08John Green?

  I've been all over.

• 2:09Hank Green?

  I thought it was all your fault.

• 2:10John Green?

  I've been on four continents promoting my book, Everything is Tuberculosis. It's been nonstop. It has not been all my fault, though, because a couple of times I was ready to record and you were too busy. So at any rate, we're very sorry to have been gone, not least because while we were gone, you missed the most dramatic five weeks in the history of AFC Wimbledon.

• 2:29Hank Green?

  It's true. We should have just recorded special AFC Wimbledon, like only AFC Wimbledon episodes. Is that what you want to do up top? You just want to go straight to the boys? Or you want to save it for the time when it's supposed to be?

• 2:40John Green?

  Uh, let me go straight to the boys real quick.

• 2:42Hank Green?

  I gotta tell you, as AFC Wimbledon news has gotten more exciting, Mars news is like, I don't want to think about this.

• 2:48John Green?

  Mars news is just a darkness all the time.

• 2:51Hank Green?

  I know. It always felt like so like, oh, people apolitical. But now I'm like, oh, God.

• 2:56John Green?

  Yeah, well, there's not a lot that's apolitical at the moment. But you know what is? Well, I was gonna say AFC Wimbledon, but no, nothing is. Nothing is. As the great theologian put it, "Politics isn't everything, but politics touches everything." Anyway, I got to go. So first off, AFC Wimbledon barely qualified for the playoffs. That's the context that you need. We had to win at Grimsby. And Hank, let me tell you a story that will astonish and shock you. We have a 35-year-old midfielder named Sam Hutchinson. He never scores goals. He scores like once every three years or so on average. And-

• 3:31Hank Green?

  How long is the average professional soccer career?

• 3:35John Green?

  Yeah, exactly. He's scored like four goals in his 35 years. So this guy, Sam Hutchinson, six minutes into the game, he feels a little bit of chest tightness. And he thinks about coming off. He's like, I don't feel right. This is really weird and unpleasant. And I'm kind of tempted. I'm kind of tempted to ask the coach to sub me off. But he doesn't because men don't look after their health enough. And that's actually the lesson of this story. So Sam Hutchinson continues to play with chest tightness throughout the game. He plays the entire 90 minutes and in the second half, he scores a goal. He scores a goal against Grimsby Town that is in fact, the goal that means that we make it to the playoffs.

• 4:15Hank Green?

  None of these games have more than one goal is what I'm, I've learned.

• 4:19John Green?

  That's definitely AFC Wimbledon's thing right now is not giving up any goals. And so if we score one, we win. So Sam Hutchinson scores a goal. Everybody's celebrating like wild. Sam Hutchinson, a little bit muted in his celebrations, it has to be said, but he does, he does celebrate. He finishes the game on the bus ride home. He's like, man, this chest tightness is not getting any better. He finally talks to a trainer and the trainer is like, pull over the, the car and get us to the nearest hospital.

• 4:42Hank Green?

  Oh my God.

• 4:43John Green?

  Sam Hutchinson had a heart attack six minutes into the game. He scored his goal against Grimsby Town that sent us to the playoffs after having that heart attack. Don't do this, young people.

• 4:54Hank Green?

  Sean, are they film, are, is the film crew there for any of this?

• 4:57John Green?

  Yeah, yeah. In fact, um, when you look at the halftime footage, which I have looked at because we're making a documentary. It's called Fan Owned Football. When you look at the halftime footage, you can tell that Sam Hutchinson is very uncomfortable and he's trying to figure it out. I know, cause he was having a heart attack. So he scored a goal that sent us to the playoffs while, after having the heart attack. He got treated, he got a stent put in, he's fine. He wants to play next year.

• 5:26Hank Green?

  We'll, we'll see if, uh, he gets cleared for that. He can, you know, it's good to be a healthy person.

• 5:32John Green?

  I'm not a doctor, but that's, that's the context for how we got into the playoffs. Okay. Then we get to the playoffs. Owen Goodman, our goalkeeper on loan from, uh, Crystal Palace has an absolute worldly of a game against Notts County. I mean,

• 5:46Hank Green?

  A real worldly.

• 5:48John Green?

  Oh, proper worldly Hank, and there's no other way to describe it.

• 5:51Hank Green?

  You can get heart attacks when you're 35. I'm worried now.

• 5:53John Green?

  Oh, you should be worried. It's actually more likely that you'll have a heart attack than it is that you'll have a recurrence of, uh, cancer.

• 6:00Hank Green?

  I mean, we don't need to talk about the odds of various things, but, but I'm so, I'm so glad that I went to John Green to ask whether or not I should be worried about something. That is always the right way to do it.

• 6:11John Green?

  Especially a health thing. What do you mean, excuse you be worried about it? Are you kidding? You have like a 25% chance of having a heart attack in your life.

• 6:18Hank Green?

  And a hundred percent chance of dying.

• 6:20John Green?

  Well, almost. Brian Johnson has entered the chat.

• 6:24Hank Green?

  Don't die.

• 6:25John Green?

  Don't.

• 6:26Hank Green?

  What? The why? I cannot believe I know his name.

• 6:29John Green?

  I can't believe I know his name either. He's been incredibly effective at making himself an influencer, despite the fact that, that I disagree with his fundamental precept.

• 6:39Hank Green?

  The weird thing is that like, we're enough in this, in this world that like, we have friends who are involved in Brian Johnson drama directly.

• 6:48John Green?

  Oh yeah, of course. But back to AFC Wimbledon.

• 6:51Hank Green?

  Okay. I just wanted to see that, let everybody know that we don't say everything we know.

• 6:55John Green?

  We don't say everything we know. There, we, we say most of what we know.

• 7:01Hank Green?

  We say a fair bit of what we know.

• 7:03John Green?

  We don't say everything. So anyway, point being, AFC Wimbledon, go to Knott's County, score a goal, don't give up a goal, and then play the second part of the playoff semi-final, score a goal, don't give up a goal. At the end of that game, there's so much celebration that, you know, we've got a mascot, he's a Wumble, which is like an 80's British television show mascot.

• 7:24Hank Green?

  Okay.

• 7:25John Green?

  And the Wumble was crowd surfing. They were singing, "We're gonna crowd surf the Wumble, we're gonna crowd surf the Wumble," and then they crowd surf the Wumble.

• 7:34Hank Green?

  That's awesome. That's like VidCon 2010, but with a tongue.

• 7:37John Green?

  Exactly. So we make it to the playoff final, Wembley, 50,000 people, 30,000 Don's fans. For context, Hank, nine years ago, when we made it to the playoff final previously, there were only 22,000 Wimbledon fans. So this is a, this is a fan, this is a club that has grown a lot in the last nine years, thanks to hard work from everybody. And we get there, I, I fly directly from the, I bike, I bike, actually. I ride my bike from the Indy 500 to the airport, which might be the first time anyone's ever done that.

• 8:10Hank Green?

  I thought about, recently in Boston, I thought about taking a bike to the airport because traffic was so bad, and somebody said, "Do not do that."

• 8:16John Green?

  Well, I will say, it was a bit sketchy in places. There was, there was a bike path the whole time, but I don't know how much you know about Indianapolis bike paths, but some of them leave a bit to be desired.

• 8:26Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 8:27John Green?

  So Stuart, my friend Stuart and I biked to the airport. We boarded a plane to Detroit and we boarded a plane to London. We get to London, we take a shower, we go to the pub. The Nerd Fighters are at the pub, Hank. The Nerd Fighter Dons are there. They've got their Nerd Fighter Don flag, the blue and yellow Nerd Fighter flag. We're hanging out, we're having a couple pints, and then it's time for the game. My dad's there, also your dad. Yeah, lucky, lucky charm. He's a lucky charm. He was there nine years ago, and so he felt like he needed to go back. It was very good of him to go. I think he's the reason why we won the game. And then it was a tense first half, looked very much like there was very little between the teams. Wouldn't say there was a ton of quality on the pitch. Then Marcus Brown,

• 9:11John Green?

  Nerd Fighter Zone Marcus Brown, had a shot. It got deflected, it fell to Miles Hippolyte, and Miles Hippolyte scored for only the third time this season with an absolute banger on the half volley. We were up 1-0 at halftime. It's a good goal. All the kids were in. Was it extra time in the half? It was extra time in the half, extra injury time in the first half. I went outside to get a beer at halftime, and all the kids were on each other's shoulders. One of the really encouraging things about this whole experience was seeing how many young people have fallen in love with AFC Wimbledon, you know, like, it's not just like me and people older than me. It's like there's a whole generation of youth who are bringing that energy to the stadium where they're like on each other's shoulders, like singing all

• 9:54John Green?

  the songs, and they were singing up, singing "The Dons Are Going Up, Olay, Olay", and then they saw me, and they sang my name, which was the highlight of my life so far. So we go into the second half. All we need to do is not give up a goal, and that is what we managed to do. And I would say with about 10 minutes left, it became impossible for me to speak or breathe. I was with my dad, with Stuart, with my buddy Ryan, with my buddy Aaron and his son, with Rosiana, with Lex and Nick, like all these people who've loved Wimbledon with me for years. And, I mean, it was so tense, Hank. I can't even tell, every time the ball went into the opponent's penalty area, or our penalty area, I was just.

• 10:35John Green?

  I was shuddering with terror. I just wanted to win that game so badly. I wanted to see Wimbledon become a third-tier English soccer team again so badly. And then the ref blew his whistle and we went absolutely bananas. We went berserk. It was incredible. It was the, it was like my, I wasn't even inside of my body. It was too, it was a world where all hope is justified. And I say that with all apologies to the Walsall fans who of course felt the exact opposite.

• 11:06John Green?

  After the game, we go to Box Park, which is this like somewhat sterile, uh, party venue near Wembley. Have a, have a couple more pints and then the players show up. All the players show up. I get to hang out with Marcus Brown, uh, and his girlfriend, who's very grateful to us, by the way. Uh, she said, thank you for giving Marcus a home.

• 11:28Hank Green?

  Oh.

• 11:29John Green?

  That's so sweet. And, uh, all the, all the players were great. A couple of them asked about you. Uh, Jake Reeves, Jake Reeves asked if you were in the building. I said, no, he had to be at his girl, wife's girlfriends.

• 11:42Hank Green?

  My current wife's birthday event.

• 11:44John Green?

  Your current wife's birthday event, which I, I said was a BS excuse, but he, he bought.

• 11:49Hank Green?

  And TikTok trend, by the way, the current wife thing. Current, I just felt bad about it.

• 11:55John Green?

  Oh, I don't even know. I don't know about that.

• 11:57Hank Green?

  Oh, it's just a thing where you call your wife, your current wife, and she chops you in the throat immediately. Or you call your husband, your current husband, and they're like, what did you?

• 12:05John Green?

  Oh, I get it. Okay. That's a, that sounds like a TikTok trend. I'm so glad I'm not using that particular, um, app, app, app these days. But anyway, um, it was magical, Hank. It was to, to be with the players and their families, to see Sam Hutchinson, be able to give him a hug, be able to see his beautiful kids. Uh, it was just magical. It was really, really special. And I'm so, so grateful for the opportunity to have lived this season with AFC Wimbledon. I went to seven games this season. I'm so glad that I was able to go to so many games, that I was able to see them lose away at Bromley, that my poor son continued his streak of only ever seeing

• 12:47John Green?

  Wimbledon lose, um, away at, at Knott's County. It was just, the whole season, just, you, you don't, the thing about football. Is it's a drama, it's a play, it's a muse, it's musical theater because the fans make it musical theater by all their singing. And the thing about football is that it's a play where nobody knows the end until the end. The players don't know. Are you still there? Hank's power just went out. But I'm not going to let that stop me. Nobody knows the end of the play until the play is over. And that is what makes football so beautiful,

• 13:31John Green?

  so stinking beautiful, is that together we wrote the end of this magnificent play. I wonder if Hank's power will come back on. In the meantime, let me tell you more about AFC Wimbledon. I've been talking to a wall for like five minutes with an utter joy. It hasn't bothered me at all that Hank wasn't here. I didn't even notice that he wasn't here. He just texted me that his power went out. So this, this whole experience, being with 30,000 Wimbledon fans, being at England's National Stadium, Wembley, being, knowing that, that I'm helping produce a documentary about this magical day, it all just felt so right. And you know how rarely, you know, listening out there, how rarely in life,

• 14:16John Green?

  things just feel right, like things just feel like everything went the way that you hoped it would go. And that was one day where everything went the way I hoped it would go. And I was with people I love. I was in community. I was fighting the terrible disease of loneliness, as Kurt Vonnegut called it, and it was just magical. I don't care whether you like football, or whether you like competitive jigsaw puzzling, or whether you don't like competition at all. I just want there to be something that you can love with other people, a third thing that isn't you or them, but is something that you can love together, whether it's poetry, or the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle, or birding, or whatever it is. I just want there to be something like that in your life. For me, it's AFC Wimbledon.

• 15:01John Green?

  For you, it can be whatever you need it to be. But that's what it is for me.

• 15:07Hank Green?

  All right. That's all I wanted to say. Now I'm gonna wait for Hank to come back. I'm gonna call Hank.

• 15:13John Green?

  Hello?

• 15:14Hank Green?

  I want you to know that I didn't even know you were gone for several minutes.

• 15:19John Green?

  To Catherine. I was just saying that to Catherine. I bet he doesn't even know I'm gone.

• 15:23Hank Green?

  Is the power still out?

• 15:25John Green?

  Yeah.

• 15:26Hank Green?

  Oh, no.

• 15:27John Green?

  It's out in the, it's out in the house. It's out in the neighborhood. I don't know. It's like, it's a weird time for it to happen because it's not like there's anything wrong. Like it's.

• 15:35Hank Green?

  Is there any way we can, is there any way we can keep what we've already recorded because it was magic?

• 15:40John Green?

  Was it magic? Is that what you think?

• 15:43Hank Green?

  Yes, because I was talking the whole time.

• 15:46John Green?

  Yeah. I assume. I mean, look, my side isn't important.

• 15:53John Green?

  Like, what did I do that whole 15 minutes?

• 15:56Hank Green?

  You set me up repeatedly in very nice ways and you made a good joke about Mars.

• 16:02John Green?

  Yeah, I made a good joke about Mars.

• 16:13Hank Green?

  We just teleported. I'm wearing different clothes and John's in a different place three days later because my, my power went out at my house for a full hour.

• 16:20John Green?

  Yes.

• 16:21Hank Green?

  And I, it was never truly explained to me why this happened, but they did say that this is a thing and they were aware of the outage and then there were trucks driving around and I assume a squirrel died very suddenly and that resulted in that podcast getting cut in the, in, in half.

• 16:36John Green?

  R I P that squirrel, but also probably a good time for me to stop talking about AFC Wimbledon. The listeners have probably had just enough AFC Wimbledon. I will remind our kind and forbearing listeners that AFC Wimbledon only get promoted on average once a decade. So you won't have to listen to that for a while, I suspect.

• 16:53Hank Green?

  They do also get demoted about once a decade.

• 16:56John Green?

  Uh, that, they, they do seem to be related because we're, uh, we're kind of a league one team and kind of a league two team. So hopefully.

• 17:04Hank Green?

  But now you got that league two stadium or is league two the?

• 17:08John Green?

  League two is the bad one. League one, you got that league one stadium. So hopefully we can stay up this time around. Hopefully no catastrophes like COVID, et cetera. I mean, not primarily for footballing reasons, but, but also that.

• 17:22Hank Green?

  There could be better reasons.

• 17:23John Green?

  I have to tell you, for those of you watching me on Patreon, my hair looks grayer than ever, but I think it's just because my shirt is gray.

• 17:30Hank Green?

  I don't know, man. I was just thinking I'd like a little gray. It's just...

• 17:34John Green?

  Oh, I refuse to indulge that. We're gonna answer questions from our listeners, beginning with this one from Emily who writes, "Hello, my name is Emily and I'm 27. I'm an atheist and I have a twin sister who's religious and we have a hard time talking peacefully about our different beliefs whenever they come up. In the past, we've gotten into huge fights over it and right now, we've agreed not to talk about it at all. But religion is extremely important to her and something she engages with daily, so if we never talk about it, I miss out on huge aspects of her life. You always seem to talk about this respectfully and calmly, so I thought y'all might be the right source to turn to. Emily."

• 18:04Hank Green?

  I feel very lucky that I don't ever feel like you think I'm doing a wrong thing that's like imperiling my immortal soul.

• 18:13John Green?

  That's the issue, is that if I thought Hank was imperiling his mortal soul and that like...

• 18:18Hank Green?

  Oh, is it mortal? Is my soul mortal or immortal? I don't know which one it is.

• 18:23John Green?

  Because you don't believe in one.

• 18:27Hank Green?

  I'm pretty sure the self is an illusion, yeah.

• 18:29John Green?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, your soul would be immortal. I apologize.

• 18:34Hank Green?

  But I feel like I have heard the phrase "mortal soul." I'm gonna look it up.

• 18:38John Green?

  At any rate, if I thought Hank was imperiling his immortal soul, I would obviously feel very different because I would feel like the most important thing in the world is of course to get Hank to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and have a personal relationship with Jesus so that he can avoid an eternity of damnation. Like, that would obviously be a very important priority for me. Now, that's not my particular brand of Christianity, and so I am not worried about Hank's immortal soul, nor am I particularly worried about my own. For me, thinking about that stuff is largely a thought experiment, and I don't see a ton of evidence for it in the Gospels. But, anyway, that's aside from the point. The point is that it is hard to talk about this stuff

• 19:22John Green?

  respectfully if the stakes are extremely high, and there are no higher stakes than what happens to you for the rest of all time, because you're only here for 100 years at the outside and the rest of all time is literally forever.

• 19:35Hank Green?

  Yeah, it does approach zero. There's some calculus there for you.

• 19:39John Green?

  Yeah, like this part of your life, if this is the life that determines your... Eternity, then this part of your life is basically irrelevant and all that matters is setting yourself up for eternity. That's one of the issues I have actually with the relentless focus on the immortal soul is that it renders this world a little bit irrelevant. And I don't think this world is irrelevant. I think this world is super important. And, and so that's one of the things that Hank and I share as beliefs.

• 20:07Hank Green?

  Yeah, I, yes, this world being super important and, and also I, that's, that's really interesting because like then this world is only sort of like shaping the key to the right shape so that you can unlock.

• 20:20John Green?

  Right.

• 20:21Hank Green?

  Yeah, I mean, and, and I, you know, obviously we don't know the details of your situation, but it, it's always seemed to me like this is one of the big weaknesses in religion, which is why I like talking about it with John, because it's not part of it. You know, it makes the whole religious thing seem stronger to me when the whole idea isn't, uh, like of course you must believe this or else.

• 20:46John Green?

  Yeah.

• 20:46Hank Green?

  Uh, which to me seems like a, like a pretty easy thing. Like it seems like the way you would construct it if you really wanted everyone to believe it as a human, if you were constructing it as people.

• 20:57John Green?

  It also seems like a threat, right? And my own religious experience is the opposite of a threat. It's a promise. It's an opportunity. It's a, it's a way into thinking about these big old questions around suffering and justice and thinking about them in the context that other people have thought about them in. Part of the reason Hank and I are somewhat insulated from these arguments is because we're able to see each other's perspective and really respect each other's perspective, but that's because we've done a lot of work to make, to build that common ground, I guess.

• 21:33Hank Green?

  Right. And it can't be one of us doing the work.

• 21:35John Green?

  Right.

• 21:36Hank Green?

  It has to be both of us doing the work.

• 21:37John Green?

  Yeah, exactly. We, we have to be able to do that. And I, by the way, I think Hank is like dead wrong about his, um, The way that he thinks about human life, and I think Hank thinks that I'm dead wrong.

• 21:49Hank Green?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, we definitely at the root, like, we do disagree.

• 21:53John Green?

  Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It just doesn't matter.

• 21:56Hank Green?

  I don't think that John thinks that because of my belief, I'm living badly.

• 22:02John Green?

  No, I don't.

• 22:02Hank Green?

  And I also don't think that he thinks that I'm, because of my belief, or anyone else's lack of belief that if they live a good life, then that some technicality could result in eternal suffering. I don't, I'm sure people might not love calling that a technicality, but yeah.

• 22:21John Green?

  I like the idea of you getting up to heaven and saying to St. Peter, I mean, we can agree this was a technicality, right?

• 22:28Hank Green?

  Here's what's up. What if I accept Jesus into my heart right now?

• 22:33John Green?

  This just feels like, this feels like some serious legalism, you know? It feels like the letter of the law, not the spirit of the law, St. Peter. And aren't we all about spirits up here?

• 22:44Hank Green?

  It seems like you're really excluding a whole lot of people from this just because of where they got born. That seems like mean.

• 22:51John Green?

  I, or when they got born. I, I mean, the vast, something like a small majority of people were born before the birth of Jesus, like of people who've lived so far, so.

• 23:01Hank Green?

  Is it really like, could it be the cutoff? Could it be like 50/50?

• 23:04John Green?

  It's very close to the cutoff. The year zero is very close to the cutoff so far. At some point, it will be the cutoff.

• 23:10Hank Green?

  That makes me, that makes me think.

• 23:12John Green?

  What?

• 23:13Hank Green?

  I don't know.

• 23:14John Green?

  Maybe there's something to it. On a journey of meaning.

• 23:19John Green?

  Yeah, I mean, my own, I guess my own response to Christianity is really grounded in my particular faith tradition of Episcopalianism. And also in, you know, an inevitably somewhat personalized theology that just makes a lot more space for people who disagree with me than other. Religious traditions are able to make. And like, that's part of the reason I chose Episcopalianism. So like, I, for me, I can't really separate all that stuff out. I'm a big fan.

• 23:54Hank Green?

  Do you get to choose? Do you just get to choose what part of religion of Christianity you're in?

• 23:59John Green?

  Well, I mean, I guess two schools of thought about that.

• 24:03John Green?

  I mean, you know, we, we grew up, we grew up Methodist, you and I, or Presbyterian. And now I'm Episcopalian and I'm Episcopalian for reasons. And so I guess it's a choice I make, but it's a choice I make that's deeply influenced, of course, by circumstance, just as the choices everyone makes are deeply influenced by circumstance.

• 24:22Hank Green?

  Interesting. I think this, what a great conversation to be having as we celebrate our second decade of Dear Hank and John. This is what the people want.

• 24:30John Green?

  Right. Oh, they do. No, people really want us to disagree about religion and they really want us to like, disagree loudly about it. But the metaphor I always use is that if you're in a burning building and you hear a voice that says, leave the building, the building is on fire. You have the debate about whether or not that voice came from God or came from someone. You have that debate later.

• 24:52Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 24:53John Green?

  Like first, first you have to get out of the building and like, as a people, we are in the burning building. Like Hank and I agree that we are in the burning building.

• 25:02Hank Green?

  And also will never, will never not be.

• 25:04John Green?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 25:05Hank Green?

  We will all, that's not like a, like a metaphor for climate change or for the erosion of democracy or something. The, the burning building is the, is like being a, a human and being unaware of how to handle that.

• 25:21John Green?

  Yeah. And the fact that like injustice has always been with us and always will be with us. So like the building will always be on fire and we will always be leaving it and trying to put out that fire. Like we will always be in that process, one way or another. The metaphor is getting a little strained, but I think it's still holding up under the pressure.

• 25:40Hank Green?

  A building is always on fire. And, and yeah, and like, I am, you know, aware that we don't know where all the voices come from, like the voice that calls us to justice, or the voice that calls us to greed, or the voice that calls us to family and loyalty. Like, like, I, you know, I have, obviously, I think that, like, we are cultural beings and evolved to be cultural. And, and so there's, so of course, we've got, we've got all these voices yelling. And it is hard. It's very hard. It's very hard to be a thinking thing.

• 26:14John Green?

  Yeah, I think that's part of making space for other people's beliefs is understanding that it's hard. Where it is hard to make space for people's beliefs is when they think that, like, your existence is invalid because of their beliefs. And that's really hard.

• 26:29Hank Green?

  Yeah, or even less, less intense than that, in the case of two sisters, you know, I don't think that she thinks that her sister is invalid, but I, you know, it may be that it is her sister's imperiling herself, or that she isn't getting to live the full, beautiful existence that you get to live when you, you know,

• 26:49John Green?

  Are close to God.

• 26:50Hank Green?

  It all in, yeah.

• 26:52John Green?

  Well, I actually do think that you're missing out on that, but we can move on to the next question.

• 26:55Hank Green?

  I know, I think you're missing out on stuff.

• 26:56John Green?

  [laughing]

• 27:02Hank Green?

  You know, but like, in a cute way.

• 27:04John Green?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Not in a, not in a way that I think imperils your enjoyment of being alive.

• 27:09Hank Green?

  Yeah, no, I mean, I think it would be like, really cool to like, believe in a deity. Like, that sounds intense.

• 27:15John Green?

  Yeah.

• 27:15Hank Green?

  And, and gratifying. And also, like, you know, it could be, for some people, very simplifying, but I think that that's the sort of dangerous direction.

• 27:23John Green?

  Yeah, it can be very simplifying, and it can, it can provide answers where you should be asking questions. And there are lots, there are lots of risks and dangers to embracing religious experience, for sure.

• 27:36Hank Green?

  We got another question?

• 27:37John Green?

  Yeah, you want me to ask it?

• 27:38Hank Green?

  Yeah, sure.

• 27:39John Green?

  All right, it's from, it's from Miri, who writes, Dear John and Hank, hi, my name is Miri and I'm 10 years old. I love to listen to your podcast before bed. Miri, we are a hit podcast for teens. We are not a hit podcast for tweens.

• 27:55Hank Green?

  Oh, yeah. Also, hit podcasts aren't sleepy. You can't fall asleep to a hit podcast?

• 28:01John Green?

  Great. Now we're a sleep podcast for tweens. This is a catastrophe. No, Mary, we're so lucky and grateful that you listen to our podcast. Thank you so much.

• 28:10Hank Green?

  Man, I'll tell you what, Mary is asleep already after that AFC Wubba the intro.

• 28:16Hank Green?

  Mary will never know.

• 28:20John Green?

  Mary says, "My question is, when we draw stars, why do we draw them as the five-pointed shape when in reality they are spherical balls of fire? Additionally, if the sun is a bigger version of a star, why do we not draw it as a five-pointed shape but as a circle with straight rays?" This is a great question. Almost never sneer, usually cheery Mary.

• 28:42Hank Green?

  It's because we used to draw stars before we invented glasses and everything was very fuzzy.

• 28:48John Green?

  Is that? No, that's not true.

• 28:49Hank Green?

  No, that's not true.

• 28:50John Green?

  No, it's because I imagine that it's because the stars twinkle. And in creating the five-point star, we're trying to express some of the twinkling, some of the ways that they appear to be almost pointed in our vision of them. Whereas when we draw the sun, which looks like a giant ball of fire in the sky, we draw it as a giant ball of fire. Now, I'd never have understood why we have those like rays coming out of the sun.

• 29:16Hank Green?

  There's rays sometimes.

• 29:16John Green?

  Not really, though. Not like, no, Hank, respectfully, the sun has never, I've been alive for 47 years and I've spent too much time looking at the sun, probably. The sun has never looked like a child's drawing of the sun, ever.

• 29:32Hank Green?

  So for the, that's true. For the most part, what you've got when you're looking at the sun is...

• 29:38John Green?

  What you shouldn't do, Mary.

• 29:40Hank Green?

  Is something you cannot see. So like, you can look at the sun and like, you basically can't see it. It's too bright to see.

• 29:47John Green?

  Yeah.

• 29:48Hank Green?

  Now, there are circumstances when it's setting in particular, when you can see the sun. Also, when there are wildfires, this is amazing. And so when there's a really bad wildfire, occasionally you can see the sun high in the sky, full sun, in its... Perfectly round little dime in the sky vision, which has like a red thing through the brown smoke. As a Montanan, I've seen this a few times. And, and that is wild and it doesn't really look like the sun to you. Because of course, one thing about the sun is you can't look at it. Another thing about the sun, though, is that it's lighting up the atmosphere next to it. And so there is this like fading out of brightness.

• 30:31Hank Green?

  And I think that those little like semi-circles, the consummate U's.

• 30:37John Green?

  Right.

• 30:39Hank Green?

  Are, are all sort of to kind of represent the fading out of the, of the brightness next to the sun.

• 30:45John Green?

  Yeah.

• 30:45Hank Green?

  It doesn't, there's not usually like a sharp line right around the sun. There's like brightness next to it.

• 30:51John Green?

  Right, okay. I still don't know exactly how that leads to little lines being drawn out of the sun.

• 30:57Hank Green?

  And then the lines, I think are maybe representations of when you see like crepuscular rays. You know about crepuscular rays, right?

• 31:03John Green?

  Well, I mean, it's one of my areas of expertise.

• 31:06Hank Green?

  You know about the crepuzzles? It's a, it's like when the, when, when the, when the sun shines through clouds, you can see it lighting up the water vapor in the air in like long, straight lines.

• 31:18John Green?

  Oh, yeah, okay. All right, well, I guess that's what it's expressing. So I guess we've answered.

• 31:23Hank Green?

  Which is like, not that usual of a phenomenon, but it's not also, it is something that like, if you were drawing the sun, maybe you would think about those.

• 31:30John Green?

  I also think that a lot of times we use weird shorthand and we, in our visual, in our visual language, and we don't know why, like, why is a heart shape, heart shaped? Like, hearts are not heart shaped and never were.

• 31:42Hank Green?

  Yeah, yeah, heart shapes are super weird.

• 31:44John Green?

  Heart shapes are weird. The five pointed star is weird. It's weird that sometimes when you draw an apple, you draw like a hashtag or something, like inside the apple to give it the illusion of, um, there's light shining on it or whatever. Like, there's all kinds of ways that we do this. We do this with, with metaphors in, in books, too. Like, certain things are just metaphors for other things and, and it's not really clear why. Like, lambs are metaphors for innocence and calves are not, you know? Why? Like, anyone who's ever been around a baby sheep knows that it's not that fun. It's not that innocent.

• 32:22Hank Green?

  One of my areas of expertise, baby sheep. You can actually watch a Minute Physics. So about the stars, so about stars having points, you can watch a Minute Physics video about this and it explains it very well. And it is basically that when you look at a point of light in the sky and relax your eyes, it actually does look like it has little lines coming off of it. And that's because of diffraction that happens as it is coming into your eye. And this also happens with telescopes and happens more with telescopes because they have things going on, optical things going on. And so when you look at Hubble Space Telescope images or Webb Telescope images, you can see what's called diffraction spikes.

• 33:00John Green?

  Right. Those stars look almost like the five pointed stars that people draw.

• 33:04Hank Green?

  Isn't that interesting? Yeah. And they have different numbers of points depending on the design of the telescope. This next question comes from Kirsten who asks, Dear Hank and John, but mostly John, have you tried Blackberry Dr. Pepper? My dad bought a case and I can't decide if it's good or not. The taste is what I can only describe as Dr. Pepper and blackberry jelly gotten in a fistfight. I'm not sure if anybody won though. Thoughts conflicted Kirsten? I'm sure you have.

• 33:30John Green?

  I have tried it and-

• 33:31Hank Green?

  As the world's foremost Dr. Pepper influencer, why didn't you make a video of this?

• 33:36John Green?

  I probably should. I should make a video where I try all of the bad flavors of Dr. Pepper, the strawberry and cream-

• 33:43Hank Green?

  To film really quickly now. You just pop it here in ZenCaster and just drink away at all the Dr. Peppers and do a tier list. I would love that. I would watch the heck out of that.

• 33:52John Green?

  Is that how you make your videos?

• 33:54Hank Green?

  That's how I watch a lot of my videos, not in ZenCaster. I have a software that I don't have confidence that you can function properly.

• 34:01John Green?

  You are correct to lack that confidence. And I think instead of making that video, I'm just going to live my life, if that's okay.

• 34:10John Green?

  I know that you have not realized this is an-

• 34:12Hank Green?

  I'm the skull of a YouTuber.

• 34:14John Green?

  I know you haven't realized this is an option, but I think I'm gonna go outside.

• 34:20John Green?

  I'm gonna get in the garden for a bit. Here's the thing about blackberry Dr. Pepper, which is the same problem as strawberries and cream Dr. Pepper, which is the same problem as cream soda Dr. Pepper, which is the same problem as raspberry Dr. Pepper. In 1889, Dr. Charles Alderton, who was a chemist, invented the world's perfect soda.

• 34:42Hank Green?

  Right. This is also true, by the way, of Dr. Oreo, who they keep messing with his invention. It's not going well.

• 34:49John Green?

  I've seen the Brennan Lee Mulligan sketch where he loses his temper about about different flavors of Oreo. It is the exact same phenomenon where you have a perfect product. The perfect product has been a best seller for literally over a century. Everyone loves the product and and yet you have a product design team that is tasked with designing new products. And and the truth is, we don't need a new Dr. Pepper. We don't need blackberry Dr. Pepper because Dr. Pepper already contains the exact right amount of blackberry. It contains the exact right amount of strawberry. It contains the exact right amount of chocolate. It contains the exact right amount of root beer. It's perfect.

• 35:31Hank Green?

  Here's the thing, John. This sounds ridiculous to me, but this is exactly how I feel about Coca-Cola, so I know you're being serious.

• 35:40John Green?

  I'm being serious. What do you mean? It sounds ridiculous to you like?

• 35:42Hank Green?

  Because Dr. Pepper tastes very, it tastes so weird.

• 35:47John Green?

  Yeah. It tastes weird because it was designed for the human palate and it has no real world analog.

• 35:54Hank Green?

  I need to talk to a flavor chemist. Because first of all, I almost, that was one of the things that I thought I might do with my career was.

• 36:03John Green?

  Flavor chemistry?

• 36:04Hank Green?

  And flavors.

• 36:05John Green?

  Yeah.

• 36:06Hank Green?

  And.

• 36:07John Green?

  Little did you know, you got in, you were gonna get into a field that had already been perfected in the 1880s.

• 36:11Hank Green?

  Yeah, well, I am curious about this because there isn't anything the Coca-Cola Company can do that makes a better Coke than the one they made 100 something years ago. And and I don't know what's going on because it must be psychological. It must be me. It can't be that they hit the best, the best perfect flavor.

• 36:35John Green?

  No, they did. No, they did, Hank. There were, there were thousands of soda flavors in the 1880s. And four of them made it down to us because there were only, because the best four did. Like, the four perfect ones made it to us.

• 36:51Hank Green?

  We have so many more tools now.

• 36:53John Green?

  But we don't need them because we already made the perfect soda flavors. We've done it.

• 37:00Hank Green?

  I also really want to go back in time and like taste a 1980s and a 1960s and a 1940s and a 1920s Coke.

• 37:08John Green?

  Yeah.

• 37:09Hank Green?

  I just, I want to know what it's like.

• 37:11John Green?

  I'm not sure that's the first thing I would do if I traveled back in time, but it would be on my list.

• 37:15Hank Green?

  A hundred percent. I don't, that way I'm not going to mess anything up, you know?

• 37:19John Green?

  Yeah, just kill baby Hitler and try an early Coke.

• 37:25Hank Green?

  Yeah, I just, where do you draw the line, though, at the killing baby Hitler?

• 37:29John Green?

  You kill baby Stalin, you kill baby Paw Pot.

• 37:33Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 37:33John Green?

  And then I think.

• 37:34Hank Green?

  Then, how many, but having how many babies are you going to kill, Tom?

• 37:38John Green?

  Five, six?

• 37:41Hank Green?

  Here's the thing, you have to set a limit on the number of babies.

• 37:44John Green?

  No, we solved this problem, we solved this problem back in 2007 with the evil baby orphanage. You don't kill the babies.

• 37:50Hank Green?

  God.

• 37:50John Green?

  You put them in, you put them in an orphanage and you raise them up to be good people.

• 37:55Hank Green?

  We, we legitimately, here's some, some 10 years of Dear Hank and John stuff. We thought pretty hard about like writing a young adult or like a, like a middle grade book or like a series of comic books about the evil babies in the evil baby orphanage.

• 38:11John Green?

  Turns out it's hard.

• 38:12Hank Green?

  It's a good idea, though, but there is like a, there's like a Vlogbrothers problem. There's like a Nerd Fighteria problem where it takes something that is too serious and makes it too silly.

• 38:23John Green?

  Right, that is the issue. I think that someone else could do it, but we can't do it because we take things too seriously.

• 38:31Hank Green?

  Yeah, yeah, it was like yesterday, uh, as we were recording this, Elon Musk and Donald Trump had a big fight.

• 38:37John Green?

  Yeah.

• 38:37Hank Green?

  Publicly, because of course that's how they would do it.

• 38:40John Green?

  Right.

• 38:40Hank Green?

  And, um, and, and I tweeted like a funny tweet and then I was like, I need to make a video about this. And I'm not, my first thought was, I can make a video where I just like, talk about people's funny tweets about this because there's like, of course, posters are posting. And this, and then the posters are like, yes, finally, an opportunity to post. And everybody will like my posts and everybody's running to the internet to like, enjoy the drama.

• 39:04John Green?

  Right.

• 39:05Hank Green?

  And I sit down to make this video and I'm like, you know what, I like, actually, now that I'm sitting here, I realize that this isn't the deal. Like, none of this, like, this is like, indicative of a larger problem, which is that we have normalized corruption in America.

• 39:19John Green?

  Yep. That's the right video to make. Can I tell you my tweet that I was very proud of?

• 39:26Hank Green?

  Mine just, mine just said, I wish both of them the worst.

• 39:29John Green?

  Mine was, this is like, this is like Kendrick versus Drake, except they're both Drake.

• 39:34Hank Green?

  Oh, that was you?

• 39:35John Green?

  Well, okay, I came up with it and I was super proud of it.

• 39:39Hank Green?

  Yeah, I saw that tweet.

• 39:40John Green?

  And I tweeted it. And then somebody replied that some, with, with a tweet that was five minutes older, that wasn't quite as good as my tweet, but was the same joke. And they were like, why did you steal this? And I was like, of course I didn't steal it. More than one person can have the same idea.

• 39:56Hank Green?

  There's just one other public feud that was recent.

• 39:59John Green?

  Exactly.

• 40:00Hank Green?

  And, and, and we all have thoughts about.

• 40:02John Green?

  And there's an obvious joke.

• 40:04Hank Green?

  And the first thought that you have is, but neither of these guys are anything like Kendrick Lamar.

• 40:09John Green?

  I was really proud of my joke. And then I was like, oh, I wasn't the first person with that joke. So I, I deleted it. But I delete almost all of my tweets. And I don't put them on Twitter. I put them on Blue Sky. So if you want to follow me, follow me on Blue Sky. Blackberry Dr. Pepper sucks. Dr. Pepper rules.

• 40:26Hank Green?

  Elon Musk drinks Blackberry Dr. Pepper.

• 40:29John Green?

  How about, how about instead of focusing on that, we just focus on Elon Musk's, uh, Doge decisions will directly lead to the deaths of millions of human beings.

• 40:38Hank Green?

  It is weird to like, that, yes, that, this is the, this is the thing. That like, every video, every column about this should be, this isn't the thing. And, and that's a really, like, I think that's actually a perfectly compelling frame that lots of people should be using.

• 40:54John Green?

  Yeah. I should probably show you my video for next week and have you rewrite it and make it a good YouTube video.

• 41:00Hank Green?

  Uh, I'll happily take a look.

• 41:02John Green?

  Okay. Uh, this next question comes from Elizabeth who writes, hey, John and Hank, I'm a junior at college. I recently transferred due to some mental health struggles. I'm having a hard time with the decision I made as it puts me behind in school. How do I become okay with the fact that I might not graduate in four years like I planned? How do I become okay with the feeling of being behind my peers? Thank you for everything you've unknowingly done for me. Elizabeth. Elizabeth, I have been in your, in your shoes. Hank Green graduated from college in four years, like the model student that he always was, but not me. I had a mental health breakdown combined with whooping cough, a classic John Green combo.

• 41:37Hank Green?

  It's true. It's true. The, the family really came together to support him. And by the family, I mean, everybody but me.

• 41:41John Green?

  I mean, who, who do you know who's more likely to have a concomitant mental health crisis and whooping cough?

• 41:49Hank Green?

  And whooping cough. Yeah. No, that sounds right. It's, it's all, the, the wild thing about John is, is like, sometimes somebody will say like, is John a bit of a hypochondriac? And I'll be like, yeah, but.

• 41:59John Green?

  Yeah, but, but.

• 42:00Hank Green?

  He also gets a lot of weird diseases.

• 42:02John Green?

  Yeah, no, it's like the time I went into the ER and I was like, I'm pretty sure I have meningitis. And they were like, listen, man, if you had meningitis, we'd know. And I'd be like, all right, well, you can test me. And they were like, dude, you have meningitis. And I was like, I know. Look, look, I know about all the diseases.

• 42:21Hank Green?

  I told John at the very beginning, when I was starting to have ulcerative colitis symptoms, I was like, I was like, I'm having this stuff. I'm going to see the doctor. They're going to give me a colonoscopy. And he said, man, I hope you don't have ulcerative colitis, but that's what it sounds like.

• 42:36John Green?

  Well, when we're.

• 42:36Hank Green?

  He's like, you just, you just like anxieties yourself into an M D.

• 42:40John Green?

  I missed most of your cancer diagnosis because I was in Sierra Leone. But when dad picked us up and told us that you had an enlarged lymph node and where the enlarged lymph node was, and that the doctors were concerned, I was like, of course the doctors are concerned. He might have Hodgkin lymphoma.

• 42:57Hank Green?

  Yeah. It was funny. Like the doctors were all, were all pretty sure what was going on the whole time.

• 43:05John Green?

  Right.

• 43:05Hank Green?

  And just wouldn't say it to me.

• 43:06John Green?

  Yeah.

• 43:07Hank Green?

  But there were like moments when they, you know, they had to rule out more, more. You know, mostly more severe stuff.

• 43:13John Green?

  Right.

• 43:15Hank Green?

  That I could have had like melanoma that moved to my lymph nodes or something. But yeah, it's wild. There was a lot of, of like, it might not be cancer. I'm like, but are you sure it might not be cancer? Cause it seems like it just is.

• 43:28John Green?

  It feels like six weeks ago, when I would go to the doctor, they didn't say it might not be cancer. They just said like, they just assumed it wasn't cancer. And now you're like, now you're trying to, to tell me that it might not be cancer.

• 43:40Hank Green?

  That there's still a chance.

• 43:41John Green?

  It makes it feel like it's probably cancer, right?

• 43:43Hank Green?

  Yeah, it might not be. It's definitely, it probably is. Anyway, what were we talking about?

• 43:47John Green?

  We're talking about this person, Elizabeth, having to take a semester off and feeling like, like they're behind their peers. I mean, I totally get it. I felt the same way. It was weird to graduate late. It felt weird not graduating with my class. It felt weird like standing in the audience and not being, you know, wearing the robes and everything. And so I get it. However, what you did was take care of yourself, which is the best thing that you can do. And you allowed yourself an opportunity to graduate from college eventually, precisely because you were taking care of yourself. And so you did yourself a huge favor. And you, it sounds like you're back at school, which is incredible, like, which is itself a huge achievement.

• 44:32John Green?

  And that's worth celebrating. So I would ask you to reframe it and frame it around what you've accomplished by taking care of yourself, taking that time off. Making sure that you get the care that you need and instead of what you haven't accomplished.

• 44:47Hank Green?

  You're not behind. You're on your timeline, right?

• 44:51John Green?

  That's right.

• 44:51Hank Green?

  And like, all of the wins are wins. And so you like, gotta look at those wins. And you're just like, I mean, this is so hard. I was just listening to, I was overhearing a conversation. I was in line for ice cream and I was overhearing a conversation about somebody who works at a coffee shop. And she's a college student and she serves her peers, like she serves her, like people that she is like in classes with her. And she's like, it's, it's so weird for me to be like in this position. Like, there's always gonna be like- These socially weird things and then we just have to like be ourselves and in the situations that we are in.

• 45:28John Green?

  Right.

• 45:28Hank Green?

  And in in that way, it is weird because we are imagining it to be weird, not because it's actually weird. And that, yeah, you're just you're on you're on the schedule. It's just that your schedule isn't the same as the person next to you.

• 45:41John Green?

  Yeah.

• 45:43Hank Green?

  Lots of people are on different schedules.

• 45:45John Green?

  Oh, yeah. Most people are on different schedules.

• 45:49Hank Green?

  Yeah. And so you're on the schedule you're on.

• 45:51John Green?

  Which reminds me that today's podcast is actually brought to you by Elizabeth's schedule, the correct schedule.

• 45:56Hank Green?

  That's right. This podcast is also brought to you by John's headphones. John's headphones, he should just buy 80 pairs and have them every room and in a pocket all the time.

• 46:08John Green?

  It's a good reference, but but we haven't talked about it on the pod.

• 46:13Hank Green?

  You're right. We didn't talk about it.

• 46:14John Green?

  So the pod was delayed by 15 minutes because I didn't have my headphones there. That.

• 46:20Hank Green?

  Now it makes sense.

• 46:21John Green?

  Nothing. Nothing works like a joke that you explain after the fact.

• 46:25Hank Green?

  I'm glad you remembered that we didn't talk about that because we did, of course, talk about it. We just didn't talk about a wild recording.

• 46:31John Green?

  Today's podcast is also brought to you by Hank's mortal soul. Hank's mortal soul. It's temporary.

• 46:38Hank Green?

  It's gonna die.

• 46:42Hank Green?

  And this podcast is also brought to you by crepuscular rays shining down on innocent baby lambs.

• 46:49John Green?

  That's good.

• 46:50Hank Green?

  It's just a nice little scene for you to imagine.

• 46:53John Green?

  It's good. That's the kind of thing that's hard to monetize, but we're gonna find a way.

• 46:58John Green?

  All right, we got to get to this question from Kyla Hank, who writes, Dear John and Hank, I've listened to an older episode recently, number 302, and in it, John states that most reptiles do not have souls. Now, Kyla, I want to correct you. I stated, or at least I believe that all reptiles do not have souls.

• 47:14Hank Green?

  I like the idea that there's just a couple, you know, like, like, somebody loved them enough that they insulted them.

• 47:20John Green?

  Kyla says, if most reptiles do not have souls, which reptiles do have souls? Reptiles and souls, Kyla, by the way, I disagree with John heavily on this. They are cute little guys like everything else. I'm not saying they're not cute, Kyla. I'm saying that when you go to heaven, you don't have to like, walk around snakes.

• 47:35Hank Green?

  So the one, so the reptiles that have souls are the ones that are like coolest to be around. So that just so that you can have them in heaven and it won't be bad.

• 47:46John Green?

  You know, when you put it that way, it seems a little problematic.

• 47:51Hank Green?

  But that's not what you said. You said no reptiles have souls.

• 47:54John Green?

  No, I think I said most reptiles don't have souls and then didn't didn't complete the thought. But I wanna I wanna amend it 100 episodes later and say no reptiles have souls.

• 48:04Hank Green?

  No, no, no, no, no. You said most and you have to defend yourself. Which are the reptiles that have souls?

• 48:11John Green?

  Well, I've looked into the eyes of a tuatara and I'll tell you, there's nothing there.

• 48:16John Green?

  That is a that is a 165 year old biochemical phenomenon and a biochemical phenomenon alone. Whereas, I don't know. I mean, when I look at a snake, I don't see much.

• 48:31Hank Green?

  Yeah, well, that's because they don't have eyes that look the same way.

• 48:35John Green?

  Thanks. Like, you know what that's because of? It's because nothing has a soul.

• 48:40Hank Green?

  Because their eyes don't look like they're smart. And if their eyes looked like they were smart, like they were owl eyes, if they like moved around and had had like, especially if they had whites around them, that then that that goes straight into hu- human brain stem.

• 48:54John Green?

  Are turtles reptiles?

• 48:56Hank Green?

  Yes, John.

• 48:57John Green?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. They've I've seen the occasional turtle with a soul.

• 49:00Hank Green?

  And like an old, an old soul.

• 49:02John Green?

  Yeah.

• 49:02Hank Green?

  Like those Galapagos boys.

• 49:04John Green?

  Oh, I mean, tortoises definitely have souls, you know? I'm talking I'm talking about water turtles. The water turtles, occasionally you'll see a water turtle with a soul. I think most tortoises have souls.

• 49:14Hank Green?

  But not snapping turtles.

• 49:15John Green?

  No, no, there's nothing there. Um, nothing behind those eyes. But I feel like some of the some of the milder turtles, you know, have souls.

• 49:24Hank Green?

  Here's what I think. I think that if if you develop

• 49:27John Green?

  Yeah.

• 49:27Hank Green?

  a deep relationship with a reptile.

• 49:29John Green?

  Yep.

• 49:30Hank Green?

  Then you give that reptile a soul.

• 49:32John Green?

  Here's what I actually think. I think that we make each other people, like we endow each other with personhood.

• 49:39Hank Green?

  Sure.

• 49:39John Green?

  And that is.

• 49:42John Green?

  And ultimately, we may also endow each other with souls. I'm not interested in the question of where the soul comes from. But that implies that reptiles can have souls.

• 49:56Hank Green?

  Right. So here's what I'm hearing you say. There is only one soul and it is divided up by human attention. And then we put it upon each other and upon. So you could even ensole like an object that you have a deep connection to, maybe.

• 50:14John Green?

  Yeah, I haven't sold a few objects over the years.

• 50:18Hank Green?

  So we're just, we're doing magic, doing magic in souling things.

• 50:24John Green?

  Hank's on a journey of meaning. He's getting close. That was close, Hank. Once you accept that you're doing magic, you're very close.

• 50:33Hank Green?

  Yeah, I mean, I'll tell you, like, I have had to think about. When I was writing my MIT speech and also just like how weird this world is right now. I've been having to think a lot about like consciousness and where it comes from.

• 50:50John Green?

  Yeah.

• 50:51Hank Green?

  A lot of people are, have a real hard time imagining that like the phenomenon of there being a way that it is to be a thing cannot emerge from chemistry. And I just think they're wrong.

• 51:04John Green?

  Well, you think it can emerge from chemistry, but that like that's equally or even more beautiful.

• 51:09Hank Green?

  I do think it's really beautiful that it emerged. And just like I think that life is very beautiful that it emerged. I don't think either of those things are miraculous. And I don't think that like the fact that it is beautiful is the reason to believe in. I just feel like that it is, it is the correct situation. But like, boy, what a thing.

• 51:29John Green?

  Can we agree that it's an astonishment?

• 51:33Hank Green?

  I am astonished.

• 51:34John Green?

  Okay.

• 51:34Hank Green?

  I am astonished that life has not just happened, but has continued to happen in sort of an unbroken chain for billions of years.

• 51:43John Green?

  Yeah.

• 51:44Hank Green?

  That's a really long time.

• 51:46John Green?

  Yeah.

• 51:46Hank Green?

  I think that that's probably, that's my pocket Fermi paradox solution is that it's just really hard to have stability for that long.

• 51:54John Green?

  Right.

• 51:54Hank Green?

  Uh, and you need stability for that long for intelligence to emerge.

• 51:57John Green?

  Yeah. I'm astonished that we are not, we are not looking at the universe, but we are the universe looking at itself. That astonishes me every time. That one gets me.

• 52:09Hank Green?

  That's really good.

• 52:10John Green?

  And that like birds are also the universe being, being, doing.

• 52:16Hank Green?

  The universe, this is great. This is a shirt. The universe farts.

• 52:21John Green?

  I mean, yes, that is correct. I don't know that that's a shirt, but it is, it is correct.

• 52:27Hank Green?

  That's, that's, that's, that's the second line in my Bible. I don't know what the first one is. It's prettier than the second.

• 52:36John Green?

  Yeah.

• 52:36Hank Green?

  But the second one is just nice to have.

• 52:39John Green?

  Yes.

• 52:39Hank Green?

  Just to keep everything in perspective.

• 52:40John Green?

  In the beginning was the universe, period. The universe farts, period.

• 52:48John Green?

  All right. It's time to get to the all important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon. And if you think we've already done the news from AFC Wimbledon, boy, are you wrong.

• 52:56Hank Green?

  Man.

• 52:57John Green?

  What's the news from Mars this week, Hank?

• 52:59Hank Green?

  Oh, God. I don't know.

• 53:04John Green?

  The news from Mars has become such a bummer.

• 53:08Hank Green?

  It's, it sucks, man.

• 53:10John Green?

  Well, you know, there is a great theologian who said, politics touches everything. But politics isn't everything, not by a long shot. And lately I have been reminded of the part of that phrase that is politics touches everything because it really does.

• 53:24Hank Green?

  Yeah. And then certainly politics touches Mars. I don't know. What do I do here? There's several pieces of Mars news.

• 53:33John Green?

  All right, you give me whatever you want.

• 53:34Hank Green?

  So we've got our 2026 budget proposal for, in general. And this calls for a billion dollars for Mars exploration, which includes a NASA initiative called the Commercial Mars Payload Services Program, or CNPS. And that would have NASA give contracts to companies to build things like space suits and communication systems, which companies? Your guess is as good as mine.

• 54:02Hank Green?

  It's all about making sure that this is a less nationalized system, which I'm not a big fan of. I think that it is good for NASA to be doing things on its own, though of course, there are problems with that system as well. And there was also a thing called the Commercial Lunar Payload Services Program that NASA has run with several companies for moon exploration. But at the same time, the overall $18.8 billion allocation for NASA would be 25% lower than last year, which is not great for NASA. A lot of the things that they are cutting are like the parts of NASA that study Earth, which I gotta admit is a more important planet than Mars.

• 54:42John Green?

  Appreciate that shout out to Earth.

• 54:43Hank Green?

  It's a good one. And then also, they are looking to cancel the Space Launch System rocket built by Boeing in favor of a new strategy led by other private companies. But we'll see how that goes now that everything between those two guys is drama.

• 55:01John Green?

  Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Fun.

• 55:05Hank Green?

  I might start a new news in our second decade.

• 55:08John Green?

  I'm glad that 10 years ago, we didn't do the news from Global Health, because then it would have been a bummer on top of a bummer. But instead, we get to do the news from AFC Wimbledon, America's favorite, wait for it, third-tier English soccer team.

• 55:24Hank Green?

  Hey!

• 55:25John Green?

  We can claim that because Wrexham is now in the second tier. So yeah, America's favorite third-tier English soccer team is crushing it.

• 55:33Hank Green?

  You're actually saying it is America's favorite. It probably is. You're probably right.

• 55:37John Green?

  I think it is.

• 55:37Hank Green?

  Entirely because of you.

• 55:38John Green?

  Well, it's a low bar to jump over, and it's not entirely.

• 55:40Hank Green?

  I don't know, why can't you make AFC Wimbledon like Wrexham? What's standing in your way?

• 55:45John Green?

  Literally hundreds of millions of dollars.

• 55:48Hank Green?

  Oh, that's a lot. I thought that it would be, I thought that it would just be millions.

• 55:52John Green?

  No, Wrexham raised, I think their most recent raise is at a $465 million valuation, which is about 20 times bigger than AFC Wimbledon.

• 56:00Hank Green?

  Double gas. I also can't believe AFC Wimbledon's worth that much.

• 56:04John Green?

  It's worth $25 million?

• 56:06Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 56:06John Green?

  Yeah, yeah. And think

• 56:09Hank Green?

  I don't understand the world at all.

• 56:11John Green?

  If you'd invested what I wanted you to, you would, your investment would have been bigger.

• 56:16Hank Green?

  Because it's fan owned.

• 56:17John Green?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, don't get me.

• 56:18Hank Green?

  I don't get that money back. It never gets sold.

• 56:20John Green?

  No, 25% of the, of the, of, of AFC Wimbledon is owned by, or potentially ownable by investors.

• 56:29Hank Green?

  But you can't, but it never gets, could it be sold?

• 56:31John Green?

  Yeah, you could sell it, you could sell it to another investor.

• 56:33Hank Green?

  But is there a way to make money off of that? No. Football teams don't make money.

• 56:37John Green?

  Football teams do not make money. That is actually the overarching theme of English football. Is, it's the old line about racehorses. You want to know how to make a million dollars in racehorses? Start out with $10 million. It's the Tommy Shrigley line, turning that $100,000 into $16,000.

• 56:57John Green?

  Okay, anyway, the news from AFC Wimbledon is really good. Obviously, we're in the third tier of English football. But also in between when I recorded the first bit of the podcast and now we've just, we've just re-signed our defender, Ryan Johnson, which is really good news for me because Joe Lewis came up to me at the after-party. Our defender, Joe Lewis, who's signed for another year, put his arm around me and said, I need you to sign Jono. And I was like, Joe? I do not make those decisions.

• 57:28Hank Green?

  Great that you think that I have that power.

• 57:30John Green?

  I will pass along the message.

• 57:34John Green?

  And so Jono has been signed. Our vice captain has signed up for another two years of AFC Wimbledon magic. This is great news. It means that we've got a strong leader in the locker room, but also an amazing player on the pitch. And yeah, so that's the beginning of our summer transfer window excitement.

• 57:53Hank Green?

  And of course, there's plenty of money to go around.

• 57:57John Green?

  No.

• 57:58Hank Green?

  Because you've got all these extra, extra games you got to play or something.

• 58:01John Green?

  No, no, there, you do get more money for being in League One than you get for being in League Two, but you don't get nearly enough more. So we did get a bunch of money because we made it through the playoffs. We played in front of 55,000 people at Wembley. Like all that meant that we were, we, we got more money, but. We are going to have one of the lowest budgets in League One. There's no getting around it.

• 58:21Hank Green?

  So what you need is for people to go to the games?

• 58:25John Green?

  I need for people to go to the games because it's so much fun. Like, the Nerd Fighter Dons are the best. So you should hang out with them. It's really fun. But I also need people to sign up for the Dons Trust. And look, Hank, ultimately, and I say this with immense, immense love for AFC Wimbledon, I need people to donate to Partners in Health.

• 58:45John Green?

  Like, I always want to be careful not to be asking people to be part of, like, you know, like, if you're gonna, if you're gonna do one thing for Nerd Fighteria, make it not that.

• 58:55Hank Green?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. The, um, interesting, fascinating. But, but is this ticket sales like the, like a big part of the budget?

• 59:02John Green?

  Huge part of it, huge part of it. Matchday sales are a huge part of the budget. Sponsorships are an important part, which is why I'm so proud to sponsor The Back of Shorts. But, uh, you know, also, we gotta go on some cup runs. We probably have to sell some players. We, we need things to go in our direction this year in order to stay up. That's just, that's just the truth. We need to win, we need to play like Chelsea or Liverpool once.

• 59:24Hank Green?

  Yeah. Is a cup run, it was just like when you go to the pub?

• 59:28John Green?

  No, no, that's when you like win your first round FA Cup game and so in the second round you get to,

• 59:33Hank Green?

  Keep playing some more games.

• 59:35John Green?

  You get to play bigger teams and then maybe eventually you play one game at Chelsea Stadium and make half your year's budget.

• 59:42Hank Green?

  Ah, cup runs.

• 59:44John Green?

  Cup runs.

• 59:46Hank Green?

  Go for, go on some cup runs.

• 59:47John Green?

  That's right. That's right.

• 59:50Hank Green?

  All right. Just be good at sports.

• 59:51John Green?

  Just be good at sports. Do good on the sports stuff. Well, Hank, thank you for podding with me. Thanks to everybody for listening. We're glad to be back. We're gonna be back more often.

• 1:00:01Hank Green?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like, I like recording this podcast, John.

• 1:00:04John Green?

  I do too. It's one of my favorite things. It's just the, it really does feel like some things were lining up against us. As Rosiana texted me when your power went out, I'm not superstitious, but I am a little stitious.

• 1:00:16John Green?

  Yeah, but we made it happen. Made it happen. We made it happen. It turned out good. Yeah. Thanks for everybody for listening and thanks, thanks to everybody for being here for the religion episode. Dear Hank and John is edited by Chris and Kiko. We're mixed by Joseph Tuna-Medish. Our marketing specialist is Brooke Shotwell. We are produced by Rosiana Hoss-Rohas and Hannah West. Our executive producer is Seth Radley. Our editorial assistant is Deboki Chakravarti. And the music that you're hearing now and at the beginning of the podcast is by the great Gonna Rolla. And as we say in my hometown. Don't forget to be awesome.