I'm not sure I followed the full thread of his argument here, maybe because the clip's missing some context from the book or an earlier part of the lecture, but it seems to be just entirely founded on the Straw Vulcan fallacy.

straw vulcan fallacy..hehe..thats awesome.

i don't think hedges is making an either/or argument.he is just explaining why some may seek or find an aspect of religion that appeals to them.

It almost sounds like he is suggesting to keep an open mind and learn about other cultures, religions & mythology in order to understand those perspectives; and overall to be humble to the mystery: that we do not know.

In my opinion some of his opinions were a little contradictory - he doesn't believe in any sort of god or gods, but it seems that a wiser statement would be that he doesn't know, which would correspond with the "I don't believe in atheists" theme.

Furthermore, I honestly don't think that those who (in Hedges' words), "do not explore the religious impulse" are inhuman. Even if someone never explores it in their lifetime. In my opinion - the late bloomers who have disconnected themselves from all inclination of organized religion or spirituality, to find it on their own later in life might have a few more advantages than those that did not disconnect themselves from it at some point.

My personal preference is that I do believe in god because I want to believe in god. Whether it's a metaphor, completely abstract energy, a point in spacetime, a massive intelligent energy field that existed long before the big-bang, a life-force found only on Earth or the Milky Way or a fucking super mega alien technological consciousness program experiment or even a microscopic white dude flying on a microscopic magic carpet or all of the above and none of the above. I just believe even though my version of whatever creation/god is, is completely unidentifiable, it's everything and it's nothing.

Moving this video to enoch's personal queue. It failed to receive enough votes to get sifted up to the front page within 2 days.