Brian Cox has expressed his opinions on religion in a new interview, and has criticised the Bible as being “one of the worst books ever”.
The Succession star spoke with Rich Leigh on the latest episode of The Starting Line Podcast, where he opened up about the impacts of religion on politics and humanity.
On whether religion holds humanity back, the 77-year-old actor responded: “Oh considerably, yes – I think religion does hold us back because it’s belief systems which are outside ourselves.”
He explained: “They’re not dealing with who we are, we’re dealing with, ‘Oh if God says this and God does that’, and you go, ‘Well what is God?’ We’ve created that idea of God, and we’ve created it as a control issue, and it’s also a patriarchal issue … and it’s essentially patriarchal – we haven’t given enough scope to the matriarchy.”
He went onto explain why he disapproves of the Bible, referencing its representation of arguably patriarchal narratives.
“It’s Adam and Eve, I mean the propaganda goes right way back – the Bible is one of the worst books ever, for me, from my point of view,” he shared.
“Because it starts with the idea that Adam’s rib – you know that [from] Adam’s rib, this woman was created, and they’ll believe it cause they’re stupid enough.”
He continued: “They need it, but they don’t need to be told lies, they need some kind of truth, and that is not the truth. It is not the truth, it’s a mythology you know … it’s not really to do with what women understand more than anybody.”
Elsewhere in the interview, he discussed his views on the difference between mothers and fathers: “The mothering thing is the thing which is the real conditioning of our lives, our fathers don’t condition ourselves because they’re too bloody selfish, but our mothers have to, because they have an umbilical – that’s what the umbilical cord is about”.
He continued: “Even though it’s cut away, there’s an umbilical relationship to your child, and the women have that, men do not have that, they’re just sperm banks.”
Speaking about the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, Cox explained how he believed the issues would eventually be solved. However, he argued that the problems won’t disappear, because of religion. “You know they’ll sort it out, but it’s never going to go away because of belief systems – belief systems, which don’t serve equanimity.”
“It’s all about this notion of God, that the idea that there’s a God that takes care of us all – there’s no such thing, doesn’t happen, that’s not what it’s about,” he continued.
“It’s about us and we don’t examine ourselves nearly enough we don’t look at who we are. We’re always looking outside of ourselves, instead of looking inside ourselves.”
In other news, Cox recently slammed Joaquin Phoenix’s performance in Napoleon, describing it as “truly terrible”.
Cox said on the Joker star’s performance: “It really is appalling. I don’t know what he was thinking. I think it’s totally his fault and I don’t think Ridley Scott helps him. I would have played it a lot better than Joaquin Phoenix, I tell you that. You can say it’s good drama. No – it’s lies.”
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