The Faitheism Project Podcast: Recent Episodes
A L Katz & Randy Lovejoy
On paper, putting hard-core atheist (film/TV writer/producer) A L Katz and Presbyterian Pastor Randy Lovejoy together should be a train wreck. Cats v dogs. Day v night. And yet, they've been carrying on a deep, heart-felt conversation about all the things they should disagree about for more than a decade.
The twist? Not only has it been a great conversation, it's been mind-opening, mind-altering and mind-expanding for both of them.
That's what they want to share here on The Faitheism Project Podcast. What Randy & Alan keep discovering is that ultimately they're both on very similar spiritual journeys (spirituality and religion being entirely different things); they just use different vocabulary to describe their journeys.
The bottom line? It ain't about winning an argument. It's about having a great conversation!
We hope this isn’t a revelation (or a Book of Revelation): these are incredibly challenging times. Between all the various wars – and forms of war – being fought all around the globe and all around our quotidien lives – it would be easy to back into a corner defensively or strike out wildly or Continue reading "The Faitheism Project Podcast S2E19: “Ye Olde Moral Compass Repair Shoppe”"
If the point of the exercise is to start a conversation with someone who – on paper anyway – you shouldn’t be capable of conversing with, no subject makes starting a conversation any easier than talking about food. Everyone eats. We have that in common no matter what. Even if we hate what we eatContinue reading "The Faitheism Project Podcast S2E18: “Food, Glorious Food!”"
On paper, Randy and I should be a train wreck of a relationship. In part, that should be because we have nothing in common. That’s not the case of course; this podcast is the weekly proof that Randy and I have way, way more in common than we do otherwise. This episode is more fuelContinue reading "The Faitheism Project Podcast S2E17: “A Few Words About Words”"
A devout atheist and a Presbyterian pastor walk into a conversation together. And nothing bad happens! It ain't about winning an argument - it's about having a meaningful conversation.
We all have (at least one) voice inside our heads. But, even when there’s a chorus involved, one voice will alpha all the others. That would be our “me”. The voice we think of as ourselves. It’s the person we address in the bathroom mirror – the “us” behind our eyeballs that only we everContinue reading "The Faitheism Project Podcast S2E15: “God v Consciousness”"
On paper, this whole podcast series either shouldn’t exist or should be a lot more combative than it ever gets. Mostly. That’s how opposite Randy and I appear – on paper. As this atheist has said here a few times before, Randy and I were social friends for a year before I knew he preachedContinue reading "The Faitheism Project Podcast S2E14: “It’s Opposite Day!”"
These are the times that try men’s souls, Thomas Paine wrote in “The Crisis” (1776). The American Revolution was happening all around him. He understood because he was living through it that “Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered.” Paine could easily have been talking about today – and about what Vladimir Putin has doneContinue reading "The Faitheism Project Podcast S2E13: “How To Be A Better…”"
A few podcasts back, Randy’s son Lukas and my son Tristan joined us for a wide-ranging, very compelling four-way conversation about how Gen-Z-ers approach matters of spirituality, faith and lack thereof. As conversations do around here, that one got all of us thinking – Tristan in particular. And all that thinking has produced a fewContinue reading "The Faitheism Project Podcast S2E12: “Questioning Faith”"
Randy and I recorded this podcast a few days before Vladimir Putin changed pretty much every conversation about everything. While we don’t reference Putin – and the pandemic raging inside his soul (if he has one) – one look at Putin sitting at one end of a very long table, his ministers at the otherContinue reading "The Faitheism Project Podcast, S2E11: “Pandemic Of The Soul”"
Climate change… nuclear weapons… evolution… these things all are what self described “environmental philosopher” Timothy Morton, the Rita Shea Guffey Chair in English at Rice University calls “HYPEROBJECTS” – a term he coined to describe entities of such vast temporal and spatial dimensions that they defeat traditional ideas about what a thing is in theContinue reading "The Faitheism Project Podcast S2 E10: “Is Christianity A ‘Hyperobject’?”"
Samaritans are good guys plus a little extra. They’re good guys when even good guys waver. At least, that’s how they’re depicted in the parable from whence our whole notion of “Samaritans” comes. Parables are short, direct stories – fiction – meant to make a moral or religious point. They’re fables – except fables have animals doing the storytelling and parables use only human characters.
Jesus, as we know, taught using parables. At present, 33 parables are attributed to Jesus. Let’s stick a pin in the “authenticity” question for a moment (did Jesus actually exist… did he actually say what the Gospels say he said…?) and agree that the messages contained in quite a few of the parables, when boiled down to their essence, are perfectly good ways to live one’s life.
Hey, who can really argue with “Do unto others”, right? And the notion of mustard seeds growing into bigger things? Whether you’re talking about faith or simply a great idea – the concept works. The parable makes sense. We’re not just saying that to be nice either. We really mean it.
Hey, wouldn’t it be ironic if a podcast about good Samaritans got testy? Spoiler alert – no such thing happens. But you might be surprised how much new information you walk away with having listened to this podcast. Oh… there’s us again — trying to be a good Samaritan again.
The Faitheism Project Podcast S2E9: “Is It A Bad Time To Be A Good Samaritan?” Or, if you’d prefer to watch –
NOTES & REFERENCES
From Randy —
I think the best place to start our conversation is with a reading of the story itself. Of course, it was originally remembered and shared through an oral tradition, eventually being written in Greek, the “trade language” of the day, as a part of Jesus’ teaching in the gospel of Luke. (Mark was probably the earliest “gospel” written around AD 60. Matthew and Luke are next written sometime between 60 and 80 AD.) The earliest manuscript we have today of the story is in the Chester Beatty papyrus, which dates from around 250 AD and was a part of early Egyptian Christianity. (It is interesting to note that the Chester Beatty papyrus is both the oldest New Testament papyrus in existence and the oldest manuscript of any kind in book form (as opposed to pages) in existence today.) It is also interesting to compare the number and date of New Testament manuscripts to other resources. I have two graphs to share showing that information. All of that to say, we have as much reason to trust in the reliability of this story as we do works of Plato, Sophocles and the Illiad. So, without further ado, here is the story of the Good Samaritan from Luke 10:25-37.
25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. ‘Teacher,’ he asked, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’
26 ‘What is written in the Law?’ he replied. ‘How do you read it?’
27 He answered, ‘“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind”[c]; and, “Love your neighbour as yourself.”[d]’
28 ‘You have answered correctly,’ Jesus replied. ‘Do this and you will live.’
29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbour?’
30 In reply Jesus said: ‘A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half-dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he travelled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii[e] and gave them to the innkeeper. “Look after him,” he said, “and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.”
36 ‘Which of these three do you think was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?’
37 The expert in the law replied, ‘The one who had mercy on him.’
Jesus told him, ‘Go and do likewise.’
Now, Alan has some background on the Samaritans and the Jews that has a direct impact on the meaning of the parable:
Key things to note:
-The parable is part of a wider discussion.
-The discussion is between Jesus and an “expert in the law” testing
Jesus With a theological question.
-Jesus and the expert agree on the first Q&A as Jesus replies with the shema and an additional command: love your neighbor as yourself.
-This leads the expert to ask an additional question of Jesus “Who is my neighbor?”
-Jump to the other end of the story (v.36) and we find that question, posed by the expert, reframed and posed by Jesus: ‘Which of these three do you think was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?’ This shift in the question is critical to the meaning of the passage.
-The parable takes us from one way of thinking about loving our neighbor to another.
-It does this by telling a subversive story in which the good and the bad people swap positions thus turning upside down the world of the listeners and opening (or closing) their mind to the shift in understanding about “love your neighbor as yourself.”
-Loving your neighbor is not about defining (thus limiting) who you show love to. Loving your neighbor is on you; it is about the quality of relationship you offer to others.
From Alan —
This is one of those episodes where I end up learning way more than I expect. Let’s start with who the Samaritans were. Or, ARE…
This is from the Britannica:
Samaritan, member of a community, now nearly extinct, that claims to be related by blood to those Israelites of ancient Samaria who were not deported by the Assyrian conquerors of the kingdom of Israel in 722 bce. The Samaritans call themselves Bene Yisrael (“Children of Israel”), or Shamerim (“Observant Ones”), for their sole norm of religious observance is the Pentateuch (first five books of the Old Testament). Jews call them simply Shomronim (Samaritans); in the Talmud (rabbinical compendium of law, lore, and commentary), they are called Kutim, suggesting that they are rather descendants of Mesopotamian Cuthaeans, who settled in Samaria after the Assyrian conquest.
Among the most significant differences between the Samaritans and the Jews is the site which they believe God chose for his dwelling. While the Jews hold that God chose Mount Zion in Jerusalem, Samaritans believe he chose Mount Gerizim near Shechem. After the Babylonian Exile, the Samaritans built a temple on Mount Gerizim, and the Jews built a temple on Mount Zion (see Temple of Jerusalem). This remained a considerable matter of dispute between the two communities, and, in the 2nd century bce, the temple on Mount Gerizim was destroyed by the Maccabean ruler John Hyrcanus (reigned 135/134–104 bce). The low esteem that Jews had for the Samaritans was the background of Christ’s famous parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37).
By the 20th century the Samaritan population dwindled to fewer than 200 individuals, but it grew steadily to about 800 in the 2010s. Only in recent years have men been allowed to marry women from outside the community, although women who marry outside the community remain ostracized. The Samaritans are somewhat evenly distributed between a village on Mount Gerizim, which is also the residence of the high priest, and the city of Holon, where a synagogue is maintained, just south of Tel Aviv–Yafo. They pray in an ancient dialect of Hebrew but speak Arabic as their vernacular; Samaritans in Holon also speak modern Israeli Hebrew.
Now let’s talk “parables”…
I’ve referenced THE JESUS SEMINAR here before and I’m gonna do it again. The Seminar was a group of about 50 critical biblical scholars and 100 laymen founded in 1985 by highly respected biblical scholar Robert Funk. Funk’s goal: to collectively attempt to coax out an historical Jesus from the New Testament texts – documents (not unlike the Old Testament texts that preceded them) not exactly reliable where “historicity” is concerned. But then, historicity wasn’t their point. Thus, the Jesus Seminar applied skepticism and critical analysis to the texts.
Under the aegis of the non-profit Westar Institute, the Seminar used a color-beaded voting system to keep the voting as untainted as possible. The parables the Fellows voted as most likely to be authentic were:
- Leaven (Matt 13:33b, Luke 13:20b-21)
- Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30b-35)
- Dishonest Steward (Luke 16:1-8a)
- Vineyard Laborers (Matt 20:1-15)
- Mustard Seed (Mark 4:31-32)
Parables the Fellows voted as somewhat likely to be authentic include (partial list):
- Leaven (Thom 96:1)
- Mustard Seed (Matt 13:31b-32, Mark 4:31-32, Luke 13:19)
- Lost Coin (Luke 15:8-9)
- Treasure (Matt 13:44, Thom 109)
- Lost Sheep (Matt 18:12-13, Luke 15:4-6)
- Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11b-32)
Maybe the best two songs (they’re the first two that race to mind) about how painful love can be are Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” and REM’s “Losing My Religion”. What’s interesting is that both express the nothing-else-quite-like-it pain of romantic loss as a kind of religious experience. Leonard Cohen gives love the biblical potency to “cut your hair” like Delilah betraying Samson. Peter Lawrence Buck, Michael E. Mills, William Berry & Michael J. Stipe choose their confessions from “every whisper, of every waking hour”. Nothing can blow your mind, it seems, like losing one’s religion.
Most of us meet religion as kids. That is, it’s introduced to us and we’re expected to let it in. But, what happens when the indoctrination either wears out or doesn’t work at all? Maybe you ask a question in Hebrew School or Sunday School and the answer – well meaning perhaps but unsatisfying – only inspires more (and, now, deeper) questions. Maybe some tragedy befalls you or your family and all the religious salves meant to ease your pain does nothing for you. Maybe you never had religion to begin with but you still feel a spiritual tug, but towards what? These are all the traditional places religion claimed for itself.
Let’s stop right there. What exactly do we mean by “religion”? While adherence to or membership in organized religion is shrinking in America, the amount of shrinkage and adherence isn’t uniform across organized religions. And it’s not entirely clear who the beneficiary is of religion’s loss. Atheism, while rising in America, still only clocks in at four percent of the population. Still, it’s better to be on the upswing than on the downswing – which is what’s happening to Christianity.
Okay, here’s the obvious question: WHY? And (next obvious question) what can Christianity do – if anything – to stop it?
This one means a lot to Randy (as you can imagine). He has skin in the game. Will Alan choose to be a “helpful atheist” or an unhelpful one?
The Faitheism Project Podcast, Season 2, Episode 8: “Losing My Religion” Or, if you’d prefer to watch…
RANDY’S NOTES
Why is organized religion losing its hold? What can it do to fix itself – if anything?
- Barna stats. But this is only in Western culture. Percentages in Africa as an example. If you want to sketch a “Christian” today it would be a person of color who worships in a Pentecostal church. It is in steep decline in the West but it is rapidly growing in the non-Western world.
- The question is, why is this happening?
- The first thing to note is that this has happened before. In fact, this has happened numerous times in Christianity, often enough to say that from an historical perspective Christianity is cyclical in nature.
- This is in distinction to other world religions. Christianity shows an interest in translatability which motivates the cyclical nature. The great faiths of India have emphasized that the human sphere has no permanent significance or reality. It is all Maya. No translation needs to take place. Hinduism is far older than Christianity but it has mostly stayed in the same location. Islam is delivered in Arabic at a particular time unaltered and unalterably fixed in heaven. When Islam takes a geographical space it tends to hold it.
- Jewish, to Hellenistic-Roman, to Barbarian, to Western Europe, to Expanding Europe, to Cross-cultural transmission. (6 times over the last 2,000 years)
- Phyllis Tickle has developed a similar concept believing that every 500 years or so the church has a rummage sale.
- What she fails to see, however, and this is directly related to our question today, is that in each case Christianity begins at a center from which it is transmitted to another culture and then the previous expression declines. So, we are in decline as the faith is expanding in the non-Western world.
- The core beliefs that have made each journey are: 1-The worship of the God of Israel. 2-The ultimate significance of Jesus of Nazareth. 3-God is active where believers are. 4-Believers constitute a people of God transcending time and space.
- Each time Christianity enters into an existing community it shapes and is shaped by the existing culture. Each transmission includes some aspects of the development of Christianity in the previous translation while developing new aspects according to the questions of the new culture it has entered.
- What can the Western church do? Go back to the core beliefs and begin a fresh translation. That is what my virtual platform is all about.
ALAN’S NOTES
I like to think of myself as “Alan, The Helpful Atheist” where that question was concerned.
Religions are all lens salesmen. They propose that you see the world through their lens. Do that, in theory, and all your questions will be answered. It used to work for people a lot more than it does now – those leaps of faith. I suspect more people than we realize may have accepted their church’s answers to their probing questions on the outside while, on the inside, they began to draw away from their church. Because the answer didn’t satisfy.
Religion’s big problem is the very thing it touts as proof of its universal truthiness: how old it is. Actually, here in America, it’s big problem is that it’s confused the message with the messenger. Religious institutions are not the message. Don’t try telling them that however.
Here’s a link to Pew’s latest research on Religion in America and a graph illustrating how religious observance is falling while people searching for spiritual satisfaction isn’t.
American culture completely buys into the idea that one culture owes other cultures, that, say, millennials owe baby boomers respect or that boomers owe millennials nothing. But, is that just another invention – that one group, born at a particular time owes other groups born at other times something of value? Are there even really “generations” in this sense? And does any “generation” really owe any other generation anything to begin with? It’s not like any of us demanded to be here.
The idea of generations being vastly different from each other is a fairly recent invention – an outgrowth of America’s “youth culture”. Rock n roll has a lot to do with it. Baby boomers were the product of “The Greatest Generation”, the one that fought World War Two. Up until Gen Z, every generation had at least a little memory of The Greatest Generation in mind (they were everyone’s grandparents or great grandparents). Gen Z has no idea who The Greatest Generation were (except as historical figures).
What DO we owe each other – if anything? For this podcast, we have a couple of guests – Gen Z-ers to compare generational notes with a couple of boomers. Turns out? We all DO owe each other something. And it’s pretty damned important what we all owe. This one will absolutely open your mind.
The Faitheism Project Podcast, Season 2, Episode 7: “Generation Why?” Or, if you’d prefer to watch…
Notes & Sources
Our guests for this podcast are social media influencer Karren Atacora and entrapreneur/artist Lucas Lovejoy (who also happens to be Randy’s son).
Karren’s YouTube Channel can be found here.
Lucas’ YouTube Channel can be found here.
What is the Faitheism Project Podcast? In a nutshell, it’s a frank yet congenial conversation between a devout atheist and a Presbyterian pastor that seems impossible on paper and yet works! Despite coming from two seemingly diametric opposite places on the philosophical spectrum, atheist film & TV writer/producer A L Katz and Presbyterian Pastor Randy Lovejoy have maintained a conversation about religion and spirituality for almost 20 years – and now they’re inviting everyone else in to be part of it.
It’s not about “winning” the argument, it’s about hearing what everyone has to say. And once you draw a distinction between religion and spirituality, it gets far easier to appreciate the context in which we all seek higher truths. In fact, when you see spirituality and religion as separate (but related) things? You begin to discern that, in an amazing number of ways, we’re all on similar spiritual journeys. It’s merely the vocabulary we use to describe our journeys that separates us.
Got four minutes? Have a listen! We think you’ll enjoy the conversation. Hell, we think you may even want to join it. And, to that, we say “C’mon in!”
This episode of the Faitheism Project Podcast is kind of a bonus episode. A few episodes back, we talked about rituals and how rituals transcend religion. As Randy and I were winding down after the episode, we ended up adding a few insights that we hated leaving on the cutting room floor.
We think of rituals as being predominantly religious probably because rituals and rites are religious. But, anyone who’s ever warmed up before a workout or gotten ready for a date or just sat down to a day at the computer, has done those things only after going through a process of rituals first. For instance – some writers have work avoidance rituals that take longer to get through than their whole working day.
What happens though when rituals ring hollow? What does one do with or about a ritual whose value has diminished with time? Should we continue to perform rituals that don’t mean anything to us anymore? If we do, aren’t we really undermining the ritual’s integrity?
Sounds like something we should talk about. Another ritual…
The Faitheiusm Project Podcast, Season 2, Episode 6: “For Ritual Or Poorer” Or, if you’d prefer to watch…
A few podcasts back, Randy and I invited our sons Tristan and Lucas to join us for a conversation about where they, two Gen-Z-ers, see themselves and the state of the world today. It was a robust and intensely philosophical back and forth. We all thought of it as an appetizer. In this podcast, Tristan and Lucas return for the next course as they talk about the future and how they see themselves in it. Clearly, this is not fast food; this is a smorgasbord that’s going to take many visits.
A lot of ground gets covered in this one: investing, social conscience, quantitative easing, Good v Evil, innocence, Truth, Aristotle, Nietzsche and “2001: A Space Odyssey” all get air time. Truth and innocence especially. Hard, thoughtfulo questions arise: “What’s useful about Truth?” and “Can we imagine a world that doesn’t need a messiah?”
Let that last one sink in a little. Consider what Gen-Z is asking the Baby Boom. Is it necessarily a given that they must inherit a world that needs “saving” (and from human beings no less)? Can we be more proactive?
We won’t risk a “spoiler alert”, but if you want to feel encouraged about the future, please listen or watch.
Our young people have no delusions about the state of things and the world they will inherit from us. They recognize that we are failing to live up to our potential as humans and citizens. And they have ideas about how they might fix the messy world that’s coming at them.
The Faitheism Project Podcast, Season 2, Episode 5: “Future Shocked“ Or, if you’d prefer to watch —
NOTES & SOURCES
For a quick primer on “quantitative easing”, there’s this piece from Forbes.
Here’s the “star child” ending from Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey”.
For some background on philosopher and art critic Walter Benjamin, please go here.
For more information on Canadian professor of Psychology Jordan Peterson, please go here.
We know – because it gets hauled out of storage every year along with the lights and tree ornaments – what Christmas means to those who practice Christianity and to those who follow Jesus (not necessarily the same people). Plenty of Christmas songs (many, ironically, written by Jews) celebrate good tidings, good cheer and good will toward all. But, underneath Christmas’ cheerful red and green exterior lies a neurotic mess.
The good news – such as it is – is that the commercialization of Christmas isn’t a modern invention. Harriet Beecher Stowe complained about how bad it was back in 1853! By 1867, Macy’s in NYC was holding Christmas Eve sales till midnight Christmas Eve.
Was Christmas ever really simpler or were we simpler (while Christmas was always fraught and complicated)? And how did Christmas get like this to begin with? We feel pretty safe in saying that you’ve probably never heard a Christmas discussion quite like this one. Is there a war on Christmas? Not really. But Christmas can definitely be at war with regular people.
Maybe that’s the question we should ask. Can Christmas really be a universal, one-size-fits-all holiday? Maybe. But, first, you’d have to remove the Christmas centerpiece: Jesus. And without Jesus…
The Faitheism Project Podcast, Season 2, Episode 4 – “Is There A War On Christmas?” Or, if you’d prefer to watch…
Show us a human, we’ll show you a collection of rituals. Though the word “ritual” comes to us from the Latin “ritus” (rites), what the word articulates transcends the church and even Latin itself. Human beings are suckers for having habits. Throw in a little of the sacred and even a mundane habit can become ritual. Yet. the more we ritualize a thing, the more mundane it become. Sometimes, the ritual is all that’s left of the profound.
When rituals overstay their welcome, they become dogmatic and counter productive. So – how do we stop that from happening (assuming that’s what we want)? Some rituals are essential to our spirituality or our work process. How do we keep them properly framed? Some rituals are essential to our work process. Sometimes the best part of a writing day is its hours of work avoidance rituals.
We think you’ll enjoy this conversation and find it both enlightening and entertaining. Let us know what you think!
The Faitheism Project Podcast, Season 2, Episode 3: “Of Rituals, Rites & Wrongs” Or, if you prefer to watch…
NOTES & SOURCES
Mason Curry: “Daily rituals”
https://www.masoncurrey.com/daily-rituals
The Atlantic:
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/03/chimpanzee-spirituality/475731/
Thank you for listening and, please – let us know what you think.
Show us a human, we’ll show you a collection of rituals. Though the word “ritual” comes to us from the Latin “ritus” (rites), what the word articulates transcends the church and even Latin itself. Human beings are suckers for having habits. Throw in a little of the sacred and even a mundane habit can become ritual. Yet. the more we ritualize a thing, the more mundane it become. Sometimes, the ritual is all that’s left of the profound.
When rituals overstay their welcome, they become dogmatic and counter productive. So – how do we stop that from happening (assuming that’s what we want)? Some rituals are essential to our spirituality or our work process. How do we keep them properly framed? Some rituals are essential to our work process. Sometimes the best part of a writing day is its hours of work avoidance rituals.
We think you’ll enjoy this conversation and find it both enlightening and entertaining. Let us know what you think!
The Faitheism Project Podcast, Season 2, Episode 3: “Of Rituals, Rites & Wrongs” Or, if you prefer to watch…
The Faitheism Project Podcast, Season 2, Episode 3: “Of Rituals, Rites & Wrongs” NOTES & REFERENCES
Daily Rituals (book) –
From The Atlantic: “Seeing Spirituality in Chjampanzees” –
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/03/chimpanzee-spirituality/475731/
This one’s special. As regular listeners and readers of this podcast and blog know, Randy and I began as social friends. Our sons went to the same elementary school here in LA. They played on the same sports teams (some of which I coached). Then middle and high school and college sent everyone in different directions. But, our sons are both very much products of the environments they grew up in. Randy’s son Lucas grew up in a religious household while my son Tristan grew up in a family that was one hundred percent secular if not downright irreligious. So, the first question we ask: how did that translate?
It’s part of the continuum of life, watching your kids take their place in the world. It’s even more spectacular when they take the lessons we put into their heads and go out and make them their own — or simply put new ideas entirely into their heads. Where Randy and I have ideas, Lukas and Tristan have ideas plus youthful curiosity.
And, boy, do they have questions.
The point of the exercise, as always, is a conversation that surprises and informs and even delights. I don’t think anyone listening to this one will be disappointed.
The Faitheism Project Podcast, Season 2, Episode 2 – Gen Z Calling Or, if you prefer to watch…
NOTES & COMMENTS
Some sources on panpsychism —
https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/panpsychism-the-trippy-theory-that-everything-from-bananas-to-bicycles-are
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-consciousness-pervade-the-universe/
Sources on the Gold Standard —
https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/09/gold-standard.asp
On History Of Consciousness —
https://histcon.ucsc.edu/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Consciousness