Humanize Me

On this Q&A episode of the podcast, we take 3 questions in a row! Question 1 is about why Bart decided to tell his parents he wasn't a Christian anymore at the time he did, and how the calculation would have been different if he wasn't a 'professional Christian'. Questions 2 is about starting humanist communities like Caravan in Cincinnati. Bart talks about Caravan and how one may go about using it as a template for new communities. Question 3 is about the impulse to avoid hanging with old friends one doesn't see much anymore, who you suspect may want to change your mind and get you back into your old life.

Greg Asbed is a human rights strategist developing a new model—worker-driven social responsibility (WSR) for improving conditions for low-wage workers within the twenty-first-century labor market.

Bart takes a call from a questioning Christian looking for advice on who and what to listen to. It's a reminder that our listeners aren't all in the same place on their religious journey, and Bart shares some thoughts on the many paths ahead.

In previous episodes of this podcast, we've established that rituals are important. But why? And how is it connected to our own nature, and the nature around us? Sasha Sagan has written a book all about the subject. It would be hard to imagine a more 'Humanize Me' book, and by such a gifted communicator! In this conversation, Bart Campolo talks with Sasha about the kinds of rituals we have, how they operate for secular people, encouraging deeper thinking about why we mark the occasions we do, and how to create good conversations around them. Sasha Sagan is a writer and speaker living in Boston. She shares another feature with Bart: a famous dad. Carl Sagan, the popular cosmologist and science communicator, was a huge influence in Sasha's life, and they talk about him near the end of their conversation. Her book, 'For Small Creatures Such as We', can be found on Amazon.

Bart Campolo has been a counselor in one context or another for many decades. As listeners to this podcast, we invite you to submit your questions! Are you looking for advice about a relationship in your life? Got a friend in a predicament? Want to know how to handle a situation? Call us at the number on our site - HumanizeMePodcast.com - or write your message at BartCampolo.org/Contact.

'How are you not freaking out?' is the question Gabe asks in one of the two songs we play in this inaugural episode of 2020. Gabe is an artist, musician, poet and more. His C5 spinal injury, incurred when he was 15 years old, left him paralyzed from the armpits down. What more could there be to freak out about? In this conversation, Bart talks with Gabe about finding a room of one's own in a hostile world, his art including an electronic rock opera telling the story of his life, sexuality and intimacy as a disabled person, music as therapy, Gabe's agnosticism about God and more. Gabe's music can be found on Spotify under his stage name Freaque. He's also on YouTube.

It's an end-of-the-year podcast from Bart Campolo, who answers a question from a listener called John. John wants to know whether faith (of a sort) can still be useful for a post-Christian, whether believing something without evidence can sometimes have its benefits. Bart answers with a riff on the difference between optimism and hope, and thinks about its applicability to the new decade we're going into this week.

Emma Bloomfield researches the intersection of science and religious rhetoric, particularly around issues of climate change, human origins and the body. In this conversation with Bart Campolo, Emma talks about how Christians tend to think differently about science and the environment, the three ‘types’ of religious climate skeptic (separators, bargainers and harmonizers), the similarities and differences between creationists and climate change skeptics, how language matters, how ideological 'purity' and orthodoxy can push people away from contributing to positive change, the importance of storytelling, and why she feels hopeful after her conversations with the groups she wrote about.

Thanksgiving has been and gone, and now we're into a whole month of Christmas in America. How does one navigate a time that can be very tricky for those who have deconverted from faith? In this Q&A episode of our podcast, Bart Campolo tries to answer three questions related to being post-faith at the holidays.