Dr. Jay Bhattacharya on Rene Girard and Lockdown Religion

In this special THINGS HIDDEN/The Science episode, David Gornoski sits down with Dr. Jay Bhattacharya for a conversation on why the lockdowns failed, meeting René Girard, scapegoating in the scientific community, the religious motivation behind the pandemic restrictions, the strange paradox of medicine, how we can escape scapegoating, science divorced from love, and more.

Follow Jay Bhattacharya on X here: https://twitter.com/DrJBhattacharya
Visit https://aneighborschoice.com for more

Intro by Fools for Christ

Timestamps
0:53 Introduction
3:15 Background as a professor in Stanford
4:51 Exposure to the public eye
9:36 Mimetic contagion in the plague
12:26 Meeting Rene Girard
13:58 Bible study with Peter Thiel
16:48 Death dominion
19:05 The object disappears
21:10 Witch hunts
28:58 The reigning religion of lockdown
31:23 Pseudo gnosticism
45:22 "Super Christianity"
45:59 Churches have been complicit
49:06 Deification of victims
50:54 Scapegoating from both sides
55:16 Difference between scapegoating and naming the culprit
55:55 Forgiving enemies
58:53 How the Gospel disintegrates sacrifice
1:03:18 Science divorced from love
1:08:24 Hermeneutic of suspicion
1:10:13 What Jesus' personhood revolution means
1:12:10 Abusive victim-garbed power
1:13:17 Herd immunity
1:16:08 Christ-hauntedness
1:18:13 Sacrificing reputation to save lives
1:20:01 Who is your neighbor?
1:20:12 What's going on now?
1:22:24 What would you ask Girard?
1:23:25 Closing