Elijah is a philosophy prof (and PhD theologian) in Vancouver who was a die-hard, evangelical Christian but gradually became liberal and then atheist. In light of his latest book that collects all your favorite arguments for and against the existence of God, called UnBelieving God: A Skeptic’s Guide, Mark and Mary chat with him about his journey and about the degree to which we should care about others’ beliefs in this area so as to engage them in debate. In the course of this, as you’d expect, God makes a personal appearance (with Mary), and there’s an aborted sketch about a brainwashing service.

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Image Note: Today’s MidJourney prompt was “god smiting a cowering, bearded philosopher, as drawn crudely in crayon by an 8-year-old.” For some reason all of the results showed only one figure, making God INTO the bearded philosopher, but I liked one of them, so here we are. I’m particularly intrigued by what the shapes on the edges of the drawing might be: is that a donkey’s nose on the left?

To kick off the Year of Our Lord 2026, Mark and Mary talk about memory: memory care for the elderly, the relation between things and memories, what professional activities are worth preserving (improv performances?), being the tchotchke, womb nostalgia, puppets and percussion, plus a visit from the future.

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Image note: A lot of frustration with MidJourney today. I initially asked for “a rainstick and percussion triangle having a conversation on a shelf, as drawn in crayon by a child,” and this was one of the results. I reran it and asked for two variations, and it all just got worse. In all cases, MidJourney seemed unable to grasp what the musical instrument triangle looked like, even when I looked up its technical name (an idiophone) and tried that. It just produced geometric triangles: pyramids and cones. Per usual, the options all to various degrees had crayon-like texture but looked nothing like what a child would draw.

Rich runs the Dare to Fail improv school and is author of Improv Made Easier. He joins Mark and Mary to discuss contexts of failure, failing to meet your goals vs. “objective failure,” how to react in an improv scene to some topic that’s too offensive for you, graveyard humor vs. reverence. Featuring Steaks You Deserve, Robo-Carson, cancer torture, interactive cemetery, Sounds of Failure, and open-sourced MST3K. Did you know Mary talks to plants? “That was so nice, sweetie!”

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Image Note: I asked MidJourney for “An obviously robotic Johnny Carson with an ‘F’ tattooed on his forehead, as drawn by an 8-year-old in crayon.” I had to run it three times and finally got one that actually looked like Johnny Carson, had some obviously robotic features, and had a legible F. Per usual, this looks far beyond what a child could possibly draw, and I would say this is colored pens rather than crayon, but at least there’s some scribbling involved.

Philosopher/writer/critic/podcaster Lawrence Ware returns to the show to meet Mary and talk about how Mark is his own personal Leroy Jesus. We act out and/or discuss orphan greeting cards, face-to-face instruction vs. writing books, imaginary friends, laugh trumpets, black ice, and is aesthetic judgment (especially of yourself) a mistake?

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Hear Lawrence on The Partially Examined Life talking about Jesus’ parables.

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Image note: Again using Midjourney AI, I attempted to have Lawrence dressed as Santa drawn by a child with crayon. None of the options looked particularly like Lawrence, so I uploaded his photo and asked again, but the results were even worse, so either I don’t know how to use the program to work on an uploaded photo or it is just janky. Note that I also ran one asking for “podcaster Mark Linsenmayer” dressed as Santa, and the results demonstrated conclusively that MidJourney is not going online and finding an actual photo of the person you specify.

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Is argumentation essential to philosophy? Should you always be open to arguments challenging your beliefs? An actual argument would not be just two abstract positions being measured against each other, but two people with some stakes in the issue, and of course the most interesting philosophical issues have to do with how we live our lives, and so what could be more personal and potentially insulting than challenges to your life choices?

We act out a few symbiotic scenarios and reflect back on our last couple of episodes interacting with people not named Mary or Mark. Plus animal facts, complaining to your significant other about exes, astrology prejudice, sexual harassment videos, and on-stage self-pleasure.

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Image note: MidJourney did OK showing a sucker fish on top of a frog, and it does look like a crayon drawing, but still fails to know how a six-year-old would actually draw. They added a new “figure out a style” system which I’m trying to use to train it how to draw like a six-year-old, but given that they just present a variety of styles to choose from and none of them are remotely close, this seems unpromising.

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Seth is an improviser and aspiring professional “muse,” which is a type of life coach that hangs out with you to see where you could be more in touch with your humanity so that you can then work out a coherent plan for your adult life. He discusses with Mary and Mark the conflict between authentic individual humans and a social structure filled with oppressive systems.

Should we “deprogram” ourselves from our standardized upbringing? Is there actually an authentic core we would uncover if we do so, or just a void ready to be filled with the promises of self-help gurus? We act out the personality store, the physically safe space, vulnerability coaching, ankle removal consideration, and more.

Image note: The (second try) MidJourney prompt this time was “various knick-knacks, crudely created as if by children.” When I initially tried for “various small tchotchkes drawn by a seven year old,” it just gave me, like a uniform series of rocks with drawings on them, or a large set of fridge magnets.

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Scott, until lately a philosophy professor at Oklahoma State University, joins Mark and Mary to tout his new book, Thinking Ethically: A Handbook for Making Moral Choices. The point is to provide some helpful tips in our age of non-communication for how we can explore and debate varying positions on hot button social issues. So how does debate role-playing jibe with improv comedy? Scott is also a “philosophical counselor,” so what’s that all about, and can we play with that? Should you discuss controversial ideas with people sitting next to you on an airplane?

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Image note: MidJourney does a less terrible job this time, in response to the prompt “A drawing by a six-year old of a debate club.” Seems like a bit too much detail for six, but at least it looks crayon-produced, and I can nearly guarantee that no actual six year old would choose this topic.

Mark and Mary are joined by improvisor/comedian/actress/filmmaker/host Vickie to talk about code switching and authenticity. Can you be authentic and still work a day job? Can Problem Solvers, Inc. solve the office restroom schedule? Are authentic hippies really beatniks? Also, displaying comic America on Korean talk shows, ethical pornography, commerce vs. art, granola in your hair, feet picks vs. feet pics, and more.

Vickie sticks around for a bit of post-game (usually restricted to supporters but shared with you this time), where we talk about the improv lessons and techniques from the episode and refresh what the point of this podcast is.

Image note: I’m continuing to experiment with MidJourney, which absolutely doesn’t know how to draw like a child draws. My query this time led off with: “I’m looking for another drawing that looks like it was created by a 5 year old. NOT a drawing FOR a 5 year old, but DRAWN BY a 5 year old,” and I see no evidence that this direction was followed. Otherwise, I just asked for some hippies, one of which looked more punk, one more beatnik, so you can decide for yourself which is which and whether MidJourney is sexist for not being able to perform such hybridization on its AI women. Oh, also, here it is animated; I find it fairly ghastly.

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How does your body talk to you? Your favorite hosts-of-a-philosophy-and-improv-comedy show Mark Linsenmayer and Merry Mary Hynes re-connect after both being sick to get a bit Halloweeny so as to talk about various food-related monsters, experiencing art by disgraced creators, inner homunculi a la “Inside Out,” movie talk, Nietzsche’s nose fetish, and more.

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Image Note: Once again MidJourney fails to imitate a child’s drawing style, instead giving us a pretty awful take on art made FOR children. My prompt was for a Vitruvian-man-looking body with various dialogue bubbles, such that the brain is saying “Relax,” the stomach is saying “Chocolate,” and the butt is saying “Toot.” I had to run the query multiple times, and this was the best it came up with. I do not know what “Toat” means or why the image has that title.

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Mark’s Partially Examined Life co-host Seth joins us (i.e. Mark and Mary) to introduce Seth to improv and continue introducing philosophy to Mary.

We discuss Seth’s attraction to depressing texts, act out couples’ therapy and monster beauty parlor, and open up a few philosophical cans of worms: Is truth relative? (Hint: no!) Does outer beauty reflect inner beauty?

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My image for the last episode was created with Claude AI, which informed me that it is not actually an image generator, so I have taken the plunge and have gotten a MidJourney subscription. This image of some couples’ therapy by a pit was supposed to be “as if drawn by a 4-year-old,” but I think achieving the desired level of shoddiness may be an ongoing struggle with this tool. Why are there people in the pit? I don’t know; I didn’t ask for that. Why is the therapist apparently a child? No clue. MidJourney generates several options based on any given query, and I picked this one, but they all featured people in the pit, and many of them looked much less child-drawn, so this is what you get today.