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Morgan Freeman Uttered One Wrong Word And Was Thrown Out Of A Holy Area In Israel

By Stacey Cole
Published on: 02:13 PST, Jan 23, 2017

Morgan Freeman won an Academy Award in the Best Supporting Actor category in 2014 for Million Dollar Baby, but he’s perhaps best known for his Oscar-nominated performances in The Shawshank Redemption and Driving Miss Daisy.

As Freeman nears his 80th birthday, he readily admits he has a curiosity about life and death. The Toronto Sun reported that while filming his documentary series The Story of God in Israel, Freeman used a word that has been banned in the area and was ultimately asked to leave.

On Monday, Freeman told the U.S. chat show The Talk that the word he spoke was “myth.”

“There are certain words you can’t use in certain places in the world. One of them is myth. You’re in somebody’s religious place, don’t say myth. I said myth. [They said], ‘You, out.'”

The show Freeman has been filming since last year uses the lens of several different religions to explore the concepts of death and the afterlife.

“I have this curiosity about life, and one of the things that surrounds life is the idea of death, and what comes with the idea of death is what comes after that. And all of that is encapsulated in our ideas of God and religion.”

The Christian Post reported that with the second season of National Geographic’s The Story of God now well underway, the talented and popular actor says his personal quest began when he discovered that other religions also acknowledged Jesus Christ.

Executive producers for the show include Morgan Freeman, Laurie McCreary, and James Younger, and during an interview with the Christian Post, Freeman explained how their pursuit of truth commenced.

“We were in Istanbul some years ago at the Hagia Sophia, a museum there that used to be a church and then a mosque. On the wall there, some of them had pictures of Christ, his resurrection and stuff like that. Lori asked the [tour guide] that when it was a mosque if they covered those paintings up, of Jesus? And he said, ‘No because in Islam Jesus is a prophet.'”

Freeman admitted that he had absolutely no idea Jesus was a figure in Islam, and his interest was stirred; however, it was still a few more years before he and McCreary decided to explore further.

“We eventually came up with the idea of doing a show that would air these kinds of information. ‘Let’s go see what we can find out about God in the rest of the world.'”

McCreary believes that hate and judgment are often simply a lack of knowledge, and Younger said their aim was to reveal the truth – things that people don’t know.

“There’s so much ignorance about other people’s faith tradition’s that we felt it was really important to get the message out. So people could see other’s faith and realize how much similarity there is between their beliefs and some of the ones that on the surface are different, but deep down are very similar.”

National Geographic reported that for over a year, Morgan Freeman has been traveling the world in search of God. The Story of God is now in its second season, and National Geographic interviewed Freeman to find out what he’s learned.

When asked what he’d discovered, the actor said he found that wherever he went, God was pretty universal. However, people simply have different approaches to the same idea. Universally, there’s heaven and hell and God, and that’s a commonality found everywhere. When asked how his celebrity affected his search for God, Freeman explained that, generally, after the initial few minutes, people settle down and are happy and honored others care about their religion.

In other news, the Hurriyet Daily News reports that Morgan Freeman has just become the new face of Turkish Airlines.

The company announced on January 19 that Turkey’s flagship carrier, Turkish Airlines, has signed Morgan Freeman to be their representative in the United States in their new advertising campaign. Some Morgan Freeman fans may not be aware that the actor has a private pilot’s license.

The new commercial will be aired on the night of February 5 during the Super Bowl. Last year, the Super Bowl was watched by 800 million people, and Turkish Airlines became the first Turkish brand to be featured at the event.

[Featured Image by Kimberly White/Getty Images]

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