Homebrewed Christianity

WINTER IS COMING!  A. Ron of the Bald Move is on the podcast talking podcasting, online community, and Game of Thrones (GOT). It is fun.

Not only is A. Ron host of my favorite GOT podcast, but he recently put out a two volume exploration of the religions of GOT. George R.R. Martin, author of GOT, recognized that many fantasy works (like LOTR) may explore religious themes, but they rarely have a rich tapestry of religious life. That is not a problem in Westeros.

I hope you enjoy the episode and get prepared for part two late this week with Dr. Anthony Le Donne.

In our conversation we cover a bunch of ground, including:

• How A. Ron fell in love with science fiction and fantasy
• forming community online and the Bald Move
• the Game of Thrones (GOT) experience
• what explains the cultural phenomenon that is GOT
• what is Martin getting at in the end game of GOT
• thinking through the redemptive arcs in GOT
• what are the motivations of the white walkers
• the Wall as the DMZ zone of the ancient war
• who is going to end on the iron throne... will there be a proto-democracy
• why we need more dire wolves
• Cleganebowl!!!

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Michael Ruse was a complete treat as a guest. He is an insightful, energetic, and humorous conversation partner. On top of that, as a philosopher of science, Dr. Ruse brings a career’s worth of insights into the present state of the religion and science conversation. I have quite a bit of gratitude that Dr. Ruse… Read more about Michael Ruse: Darwinian Existentialism

Michael Ruse was a complete treat as a guest. He is an insightful, energetic, and humorous conversation partner. On top of that, as a philosopher of science, Dr. Ruse brings a career's worth of insights into the present state of the religion and science conversation. I have quite a bit of gratitude that Dr. Ruse took his time to join the podcast. During the podcast we discuss:

• the changing shape of the relationship between Religion - Science
• the battle over Creationism
• is there a purpose?
• the meaning of life
• the problem of holism
• evil, violence, and the problem of war
• the New Atheism as a Secular Religion
•  moving beyond original sin
• growing up Quaker during war

Michael Ruse is Lucyle T. Werkmeister Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Program in the History and Philosophy of Science at Florida State University. He's a British-born Canadian philosopher of science who specializes in the philosophy of biology and works on the relationship between science and religion, the creation–evolution controversy, and the demarcation problem within science.

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I am super duper pumped to share my conversation with Robert Wright. For a long time I have enjoyed Bob’s podcast, books, and his new post-Trump newsletter. His return to the podcast follows my visit this past week on his own, which was a bunch of fun. Here’s a number of topics we tackle: Why… Read more about Robert Wright: From Mindful Resistance to the New Agnosticism

I am super duper pumped to share my conversation with Robert Wright. For a long time I have enjoyed Bob's podcast, books, and his new post-Trump newsletter. His return to the podcast follows my visit this past week on his own, which was a bunch of fun.

Here's a number of topics we tackle:

• Why Buddhism is True
• The problem with getting rid of prayers of confession from worship
• Why everyone could use a class in evolutionary psychology
• Western love of secular buddhism
• Robert asks Tripp about confirmation and facilitating experiments in truth
• What is a "wet baptist"?
• The role and desire of religious rituals
• Can religions leave competition behind? Can Christianity become a wisdom tradition?
• The New Agnosticism
• The hard problem of consciousness
• "purpose" in the story of evolution
• the possibility of moral progress
• how a simple theist may end up being more accurate than the New Atheists
• how Process theology's multiple ultimates gives a different way to connect eastern and western religious traditions
• the problem of religious pluralism and how to do solve it
• why I hope Bob talks with Simon Conway Morris

Want to check out more of Robert's work? Here's a few places to go.

• The video/podcasting network he started, BloggingHeads.TV

The Mindful Resistance Newsletter (it is so good)

His class on Buddhism and Modern Science

Here's his lecture from Union Theological Seminary on the New Agnosticism

Here's Robert's previous visit to the podcast from 2009

Here's the conversation I had with Robert the day before on his podcast Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

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What is morality for? Where did ‘the good’ come from? Is the human even a trustworthy partner for asking these questions? In this episode I am joined by Dr. Robert Kurzban, an evolutionary psychologist, who has spent his life studying human behavior through an evolutionary framework. Robert was a complete blast to converse with and… Read more about Dr. Robert Kurzban: Spotting Hypocrisy and Becoming Virtuous

What is morality for? Where did 'the good' come from? Is the human even a trustworthy partner for asking these questions? In this episode I am joined by Dr. Robert Kurzban, an evolutionary psychologist, who has spent his life studying human behavior through an evolutionary framework. Robert was a complete blast to converse with and I grateful he took the time to talk to me off a cold email through the digital-space.

Over the course of our time you will get to know a bit about his own life and research, including....

• What is Evolutionary Psychology?
• A Modular Brain?
• The evolutionary origins and functions of morality and virtue
• How we hide our agendas from ourselves
• Climate Change and the public good problem
• How people of faith can endorse policies counter to the basic tenants of their faith
• Religion and the abortion debate
• The coercive force of spotting hypocrisy
• The role of wisdom in overcoming our biological hardware

Robert Kurzban is an evolutionary psychologist and author of two very readable and enjoyable texts - Why Everyone (Else) Is a Hypocrite: Evolution and the Modular Mind and The Hidden Agenda of the Political Mind: How Self-Interest Shapes Our Opinions and Why We Won't Admit It. His research focuses on the nature of evolved cognitive adaptations for social life. These include processes involved with cooperative decision making, punishment, morality, close relationships, and mate choice. He uses methods drawn from experimental economics and cognitive psychology to study these processes.

Robert is proud to have served as both the editor-in-chief of the journal Evolution & Human Behavior and President of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society.

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Physicist and regular contributor to the religion & science conversation, Dr. Karl Giberson is on the podcast. You will get to hear the inside story of this ex-evangelical scientist's changing relationship to science and the church he first knew. Ultimately Dr. Giberson couldn't see a way for the American evangelical community to reconcile with science and today, while still a Christian, works in a Catholic context.

The topics we cover are wide-ranging and include:

• Physics & Cosmology
• the Multiverse (and his skepticism)
• the fine-tuning of the universe
• chance, randomness, and divine action
• (the lack of a) literal Adam and Eve
• life after evangelicalism
• LGBTQ equality in the church
• evangelical anti-intellectualism

Dr. Giberson holds a PhD in Physics from Rice University. Dr. Giberson has lectured on science-and-religion at the Vatican, Oxford University, London’s Thomas Moore Institute, and at many prestigious American venues including MIT, Brigham Young University and Xavier University.

Dr. Giberson has published more than 200 reviews and essays, both technical and popular, in outlets that include NY Times, CNN.com, the Guardian, USA Today, LA Times, Salon.com, Discover, Weekly Standard, Quarterly Review of Biology, Perspectives on Science & Faith, The Edge.org, and Books & Culture. He has written or co-authored 10 books, and contributed to many edited volumes. Currently, Dr. Giberson is a faculty member at Stonehill College where he serves as the Scholar-in-Residence in science and religion.

Here's Karl's critical review of Lawrence Krauss' account of Creation out of Nothing that gets mentioned.

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You don't have to be an Old Testament hater. I know it seems popular and pretty easy to dismiss the Hebrew scriptures, BUT it is a heresy and almost all the reasons you will think of apply to the New Testament as well. Here's the deal - the reason we are easily attracted to ditching the Hebrew scriptures may be we really don't want to read, hear, and listen as they intend to be heard. For that very reason I was pumped to Rolf Jacobson write the Homebrewed Christianity Guide to the Old Testament. The book is awesome.

We talk about the book and a bunch of other things in this podcast. I also hadn't preached in 2 weeks when we recorded it, so there's a small sermonette in the middle of it. [You can avoid a sermonette in the middle of a podcast by inviting me to speak :)]

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You don’t have to be an Old Testament hater. I know it seems popular and pretty easy to dismiss the Hebrew scriptures, BUT it is a heresy and almost all the reasons you will think of apply to the New Testament as well. Here’s the deal – the reason we are easily attracted to ditching… Read more about Rolf Jacobson: Israel’s In-Your-Face, Holy God