Matthew McConaughey Discusses His Religious Beliefs

We watched Contact again. I haven't seen Contact in forever. First of all, god damn what a good movie that was. That's a good movie. A great movie about aliens. A movie that gives you a different perspective on the possibilities of Contact and just the fact that it was a Carl Sagan book and there was just so much good to it. That character that you played was a fascinating guy and I kind of feel like there's some of you in that guy. Sure. I mean, you are, am I wrong here? You are religious in some way. Yeah, absolutely. And I want to bring this up in this day and age when people go, no, I'm not religious, I'm only spiritual. You know what the Latin root of religion is? Rie Ligare and Ligare means to bind together. Rie means again. Well in a world they're saying I'm only spiritual because I want unity. That's exactly what religion means. We bastardized the meaning of it over time and we've excluded people and we've corporatized it and such, but yes, I am religious. That character, I had written stories, I'd written a college paper called John Wayne Goes West and it was about how can you be a believer in a world of science? And I remember writing things like, during the making of that movie, like science is the practical pursuit of God. The two are not exclusive. They dance together. They go together. Belief in science. And I never saw those as contradiction and that's part of what the reason I attacked that role and became a part of that movie. I wanted to play a person that had that point of view of a believer in a world of science. Not at the exclusion of science and not at the exclusion of belief. Yeah, it's a confusing role for a lot of people if someone is a believer and also a proponent of science because they want to know what are your literal beliefs. Like, are you taking the Bible at its literal word or do you use it as some sort of a guidebook of the experiences of these people that lived thousands of years ago that have been translated from multiple different languages back to English? And is there wisdom in those translations? Is there wisdom in those original thoughts, these thousands of years of people contemplating and mulling on these things? And that so many have used these as a scaffolding for morals and ethics and for societies. Yeah. It's, I mean, you know, for people that go, oh, it's a circus book or people that are non-believers and I'm like, well, it's still the best one going. There's a lot of great truths that come out of the Bible and it is open for a lot of people that has been interpreted and reinterpreted, has been translated, has been handed down. I, for myself, I don't know what to do in my daily life with the burning bush. I don't know what to do with that. I do know what to do with Love Your Neighbor Like Yourself. I do know what to do with Matthew 6.22. If I be single, that whole body will be full of light. I do know what to do with some proverbs that I can take into daily practice and go, oh, I felt my life. I felt improvement. I felt success in my relationships and my relationship with the day, with my career by following that, by treating others how I wanted to be treated, the golden rule. So I take the practical stuff myself and try to utilize it and pick out what can work for me. When you say you don't know what to do with the burning bush, what do you mean by that? I don't know what to do on a daily basis with the teaching of, and then he showed up as a burning bush, or the magic tricks. I don't know what to do with, and Jesus healed everyone, and he couldn't walk, and now he touched me and he can walk. I don't know what to do with that. I don't know how to take that into my life and go, oh, there's something useful and practical and healthy for you, Matthew, that you can practice there. So the magic that leans in towards what we would call now more fantasy, I don't know what to do with that. There's philosophies, and there's proverbs, and there's teachings that I think are very valid and very helpful that we could all be reminded of that are in the Bible that I do find quite useful. Yeah, I think it's almost impossible to figure out what they were trying to say with a lot of the things. So it's open to interpretation, but also open to manipulation, and that's where people have a real problem with it when it's used to separate people, to exclude people, to marginalize people, to judge people. But it's hard for people that understand those aspects and that those things happen to actually parse out that there's good about it too, and that there's a lot of really valuable lessons in these books. 100%. Look, I get it. I mean, it's like, what are our fathers teaching? Does your father feel alive? Well, I don't really know him. I have a complicated family history. Okay. Well, fathers are father figures. I have a stepfather. He's still alive, and I'm close to him. Well, stepfather, when he goes, you'll find out some things where the messenger and the message weren't exactly in simpatico. Sure. Does that mean that you throw the messenger out? You're like, oh, bullshit, you weren't following all that stuff. No, you take the message, the stuff that you can that could work for you that maybe they wanted it for you. They couldn't follow through on it themselves. There's certain parts of the Bible that have that too. You don't throw out the whole, you can't think it makes any sense to throw out the whole book. It's what we're doing in society now. We're making people persona non grata because of something they do, and that is right now deemed wrong, or it's the hot point on a hot topic right now. You can't erase someone's entire existence. Where the heck does some forgiveness go? Again, that like optimism, it's not erasing the crisis. It's not saying there wasn't a problem first. It's not saying that there's various parts of the Bible that have been people have bastardized and used in the wrong way. But you don't throw the whole book out and say, well, it's all bad then. It's all used because it's false. Have you encountered difficulty expressing this in Hollywood? Hollywood is predominantly left wing and very secular or Jewish in some circles, but it's not like a place where Christian fundamental values are espoused openly. A lot of Jewish folks are in Hollywood and that seems to be okay with a lot of people, but some other religions, particularly if you're a fundamentalist Christian or if you have Christian values, a lot of people frown upon that. Why do you think that is and have you had difficulties with that? I don't know. I haven't had difficulties. I have had, and I won't throw any people into the bus, but I have had moments where I was on stage receiving an award in front of my peers in Hollywood. And there were people in the crowd that I have prayed with before dinners many times. And when I thank God, I saw some of those people go to clap, but then notice that, well, it's gonna be a bad thing on my resume and then sit back on their hands. Oh, wow. And I've seen people read the room and go, whoa, that wouldn't bode well for me in the future if forgetting a job or getting votes or what have you. I have seen that. I've witnessed that. I don't judge them for it. I just wish, you know, that it seems like a silly argument. You know, one of the things that are people, some people in our industry, not all of them, but there's some that go to the left so far as our friend Jordan Peterson, who's back, saw his video being back, that go to the illiberal left side so far that is so condescending and patronizing to 50% of the world that need the empathy that the liberal side gives and should give to throw some what is illegitimate them because they say they are a believer. It's just so arrogant. And in some ways hypocritical to me. Yeah, so I haven't run into, you know, I haven't headbutted trouble on that, but I've always seen my career pretty much gone my own path and by hook or by crook just trying to figure the way out into what I was doing. And I haven't measured or noticed where it has harmed or gotten my way of what I wanted to achieve in Hollywood. Episodes of the Joe Rogan experience are now free on Spotify. That's right. They're free from September 1st to December 1st. They're going to be available everywhere, but after December 1st, they will only be available on Spotify, but they will be free. That includes the video. The video will also be there. It'll also be free. That's all we're asking. Just go download Spotify. Much love. Bye bye. Mwah! Mwah! Mwah! Mwah! Mwah! Mwah! Mwah! Mwah! Mwah! Mwah! Mwah! Mwah!