Recovering Evangelicals

Deep ocean hydrothermal vents may have been the stage for the biggest play on earth, preprogrammed into the Big Bang: the origin of life! Over the past few weeks, we’ve been exploring the fine-tuning of the universe to produce life … complex, intelligent life.  This week and next, we’re going to look at how it […]

An atheist response to fine-tuning: a super intellect ‘monkeying’ with the physics, a cosmic computer simulation, the multiverse hypothesis, and “the Gambler’s Fallacy.” So far, we’ve heard from five different university-trained scholars with theistic worldviews about fine-tuning of the universe: a Christian astronomer, a Jewish mathematician/physicist duo, a Christian astr...

It takes an incredibly finer level of fine-tuning to produce a universe that has carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, sodium, potassium, calcium, iron, copper, zinc, selenium, molybdenum and many other trace elements needed for life. Last week, we explored the first of three meanings of the term “fine-tuning of the universe”: the delicate precision and balance of […]

Getting twenty five fundamental constants and physical laws just right to produce a universe full of electrons, neutrons, and protons … all the way up to planets and stars Last week, we learned that “Fine Tuning” can mean three very different things.  Today, we’re going to explore the first of those three: the exquisite precision […]

“Fine Tuning” really means three very different things, two of which are recognized by astrophysicists of all stripes; but one of them … not so much. We have often looked closely at Creationism in all of its various forms, flavors and dimensions.  Two particular aspects of Creationism are foundational for the faith of many Christians […]

Can we say God used evolution to produce a “good” creation if it involves so much pain, suffering, predation and death? Our listeners asked us to do an episode on how to rationalize Christian faith with all the pain and suffering that is brought on by the process of Evolution.  We spoke to Dr. James […]

Humans have been developing the toolkit needed to fulfill the Divine command: “learn to get along and take care of the planet”! Martin Luther King famously said: “We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”   The popular political commentator and TV host Jon Stewart added something […]

Human evolution is hard to take for some Christians, especially when we claim that humans have been climbing up the evolutionary ladder in the moral sense. It was only a few years ago that Pew Research found roughly one third of Americans believe that “humans have existed in their present form since the beginning of […]

The scientist poster-boy for atheism and an ex-Muslim, ex-atheist Christian have a conversation (not a debate) about worldviews (not God). One of our long-time listeners asked for our opinion on a ”debate” between Richard Dawkins and Ayaan Hirsi Ali: the conversation between the two of them raised many questions and points that resonated deeply with […]

Recent developments in the YECist world, according to a scientist who’s been watching them closely for two decades In this episode, we talk to Dr. Joel Duff: a professor doing biological research at a secular state university, and teaching students that come from the Bible belt of the USA.  He’s been a popular blogger for […]

Sparks fly when a Greek Orthodox evolution-accepting professor comes up against an Evangelical school headmaster bent on bringing in a Young Earth Creationist curriculum Why are we doing yet another episode on Young Earth Creationism?  The biggest reason is because it’s still a very potent ideology in Christianity, especially within Evangelicalism.  YECist parents and YECist […]

“The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind” (opening sentence of chapter one) It’s no secret that modern Evangelicalism is not noted for its intellectualism.  In fact, with groups in our midst like Young Earth Creationists, Flat Earthers, anti-vaxxers, and climate change deniers, and the constant criticism […]

In addition to enhancing hominid survival and reproduction, this software equipped us to become aware of and look for the Transcendent. Once again we’re asking the question: “why do we have this cognitive machinery in our head that predisposes humans to having spiritual experiences and religion-making?” But this time we talked to a scholar on […]

A retrospective journey through four years of episode releases had us asking this fundamental question. The short answer: of course it is! A few of the most recently released episodes prompted us to think back to about a dozen other episodes we’ve released in the past that focused on the cognitive machinery in our heads, […]

For some, the Bible takes on a deeper meaning when you read it less literally … exchanging certainty and rigidity for the fluidity of symbology, metaphor, and mysticism. If there’s one characteristic that sets Christian Fundamentalists apart from other forms of Christianity, it’s an over zealous commitment to a literal reading of the Bible.  Exaggeration, […]

A northern Irish philosopher (who grew up in the 30-year war between “Protestants” and “Catholics”) gives us a whole new perspective on this ancient religion. This week, we’ll hear from a very thought-provoking philosopher — Dr. Peter Rollins — who we guarantee will have you thinking about Christian faith in entirely new ways. Peter grew […]

An experimental psychologist and a theologian with a PhD in psychology give us their perspectives on the emotion of awe and its role in the spiritual/religious experience. Last week, we explained why we decided to look more closely at the emotion of awe and its role in the spiritual / religious experience, as well as […]

After a quick primer on this uniquely human phenomenon, we’ll hear from someone who had a profound, life-changing experience during a solar eclipse, and then relate all of this to religious/spiritual experiences. Humans seem to be unique among all other species on Earth when it comes to the emotion of awe.  Whether it’s experienced while […]

Many Christians can fully accept the idea of human evolution, but they use a language which betrays Young Earth Creationism. If we don’t update our language, we may lose a whole generation of Christians. Many Christians are perfectly fine with human evolution: descent over millions of years down a family tree we share in common with […]

A week after Easter 2024, and in response to questions from our listeners, we discuss a whole new perspective on who Jesus was, and what he gave the Jews, and the world, when he died on the cross. Several members of our private Facebook Discussion Group asked us to explain how we’ve been able to […]

Brian takes an entirely new and unexpected direction in this latest book: it’s not enough to talk about bringing heaven down to earth, we have to stop creating hell on earth. Brian MacLaren is widely recognized in the Evangelical community. In fact, in 2015, Time magazine named him one of the 25 most influential Evangelicals […]

A social anthropologist, with decades of scholarship on people striving to connect to another dimension, gives us her perspective on the Evangelical version of this phenomenon. “It’s not a religion … it’s a relationship!”  Many Christians claim this is what separates their faith from all others.  There was a time when I myself made this […]

We trace the evolution of the human construct “Hell” (Sheol; Hades; Gehenna; Dante’s Inferno), then talk about how hell may not be a place of eternal conscious torture by fire (the modern Evangelical version), but a transitional process intended to purify (Purgatory and Universalism). One of the most disturbing elements of the “Good News” preached […]

David Morris, with a PhD in psychology and theology, tells us about the psychology behind forming a spiritual/religious worldview, and then rejecting that worldview, and the mourning process that follows. In this episode, we talk to Dr. David Morris, who holds a PhD in psychology and in theology, worked for one of the largest publishers […]

For Sarah Henn Hayward, reading a few too many books, meeting a few too many beautiful non-Christians, and asking a few too many questions, was just too much for her Evangelical faith. For five years, we’ve been building a community of like-minded people wrestling with a spirituality that didn’t work for us  …. or even […]