Pod Only Knows

This week, Kelly and John take on July 4th and ask if it's possible to wrestle it away from the darker side of American history as well as its increasingly Christian Nationalist connotations.

Even though (or maybe because) America is not, in fact, a Christian nation and has no official religious identity, is July 4th a religious holiday? Has the project of state that (purportedly) guarantees freedom of religion and keeps the government (purportedly) independent of any religious affiliation actually made American history and its icons objects of religious devotion?

Also this week: The good news is dogs and Bears. And we spend too much time on Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA".

Plus, we talk about how where you are in America often reflects what you're actually celebrating on Independence Day, we bring up Robert Bellah's 1967 article "American Civil Religion", that time Thomas Jefferson tried to take all the miracles out the New Testament, and the fact that most of the founders were deists.

And we somehow make no references to the 1996 movie, while Kelly attempts to accurately employ the phrase "go to bat for".

Toby Ball is the host and creator of the series Strange Arrivals, a production of iHeart Radio an Aaron Mahnke's Grim and Mild.

The recently-concluded third season of his show looks at UFO researchers who developed theories to explain the phenomenon and the consequences those theories had for people who believed they had experienced the paranormal.

In the finale, Toby explores the ways in which belief in aliens via the UFO phenomenon functions as a modern religious movement, including the ways in which it pierce the boundaries of an obsession to become something more like a faith, and how UFO culture often bears the traits of a hopeful apocalyptic cult not unlike early Christianity.

Kelly and John talked to Toby about how his own religious perspective (or lake thereof) informs the series, how UFO culture is distinct from fully-formed religious identities, and if we have any reason to believe the latest guy with the "real story" of the US government and UFOs any more than the endless parade of similar guys who came before him.

You can find Strange Arrivals on the Grim and Mild website here: https://www.grimandmild.com/strangearrivals

You can learn more about Toby and his work here: http://www.tobyball.com/

This week was the tenth anniversary of the release of the The Last of Us on PlayStation 3.

The critically-acclaimed HBO television adaptation aired earlier this year, and so we thought it would be a good time to take a look back at its themes and messages, especially where it concerns religion.

Visions of the apocalypse can serve as great platforms to explore ideas about human nature, but, while they tend to be interested in the philosophy of religion, they often drop the ball when it comes to the actual depiction of religious people.

How does The Last of Us stack up as far as that goes? What did we think of the "religion episode"? Is Ellie a Christ figure? And how come all the spoons and can openers seem to vanish when the world ends?

We talk about that and more in this installment of our weekend chit-chat series!

Also, read Kelly's book about this: The Zombies Are Coming!

When you work in religious studies, sometimes you get to work on really cool subjects, like Dr. Shaily Patel, who works on magic.

For centuries, magic had been an integral part of religion. So much so, in fact, that it's hard to really see it as a separate category.

So when did we start removing magic from religious practice and putting into the wands of boy wizards and teenage witches, or the hands of bearded old men? Why is magic a Vegas act instead of Church liturgy?

The short answer is Christianity.

The long answer is what Kelly and John invited Shaily on to talk about this week.

Shaily Patel is an assistant professor of early Christianity at Virginia Tech. She earned her Ph.D. from The University of North Carolina in 2017 and holds master’s degrees from Vanderbilt Divinity School and The University of Chicago. 

You can find her on Twitter @vox_magica

In the first weekend episode, John bring Kelly the topic of the Buddhist teaching of The Middle Way.

One of the first breakthroughs in Siddhartha's journey to become the Buddha, the Middle Way reminds us that in order to be successful in our quests, we must center ourselves in moderation. This means avoiding the pitfalls of thinking in terms of extremes - that the answer to our problems is probably not ever the opposite of whatever caused them.

As a society, and as a culture, we suck at this. And, worse, we tend to confuse the wisdom of this teaching with an endorsement of centrism, contrarianism, or moderation for moderation's sake.

And as two people who tend to take on more than they can handle and are very bad at considering their own mental well-being, your two hosts consider where they might learn from the Buddha's insights here as well!

This week, Kelly and John talk to Dr. Megan Goodwin about the importance of getting religious studies out to the public and the challenges and tools for doing so.

Dr. Goodwin is the co-host of the podcast Keeping it 101: A Killjoy's Introduction to Religion. Her formal expertise is in issues of gender, sexuality, race, politics, and American religions. She is the author of the 2020 book Abusing Religion: Literary Persecution, Sex Scandals, and American Minority Religions as well as the forthcoming Cults, Inc.

Here she talks to your hosts about her journey into religious studies, why people should care about religion (even if they aren't religious), how her podcast works to demystify religion and make it more accessible, and why she calls Kelly "Kellsworth".

You can find out more about her here: https://www.megan-goodwin.com/

Mike Rothschild, author of the acclaimed 2021 book The Storm Is Upon Us: How QAnon Became a Movement, Cult, and Conspiracy Theory of Everything, is set to publish his follow-up, Jewish Space Lasers: The Rothschilds and 200 Years of Conspiracy Theories, in September.

The book covers the history of the antisemitic conspiracy theories surrounding the Rothschild (to whom Mike is not related) family and how they set a new model for framing Jewish people as responsible for major world events.

Mike joined Kelly and John to discuss the book, its title (a joking reference to a conspiracy theory concerning wildfires and satellites once voiced by congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene), why someone with his last name would want to get into this ine of work, and why antisemitism often isn't really about religion at all.

You can preorder Jewish Space Lasers here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/733925/jewish-space-lasers-by-mike-rothschild/

You can learn more about Mike and his work at his website: https://themikerothschild.com/

Mike is on Twitter @rothschildmd

Next week, we release the first official episode of Pod Only Knows. But to ease the transition from Hard to Believe, Kelly and John took some time to explain the idea and format of the new show and to let listeners get to know them both a little better.

This final official Hard to Believe episode is a bit of a personal indulgence - I have been listening to Garry Stevens’ History in the Bible podcast for years. In fact, when we bought a house a couple years ago, this was my official “packing” podcast.

Garry’s show is unique among history (and especially religious history) podcasts, in that he comes in with no pretense of objectivity and looks at the subject through the lens of a secular humanist without an axe to grind. 

He presents the material with a rare mix of clarity, warmth, and humor. 

I’ve wanted to have him on since my first season, but could never really figure out the right time. As fate would have it, History in the Bible is ending its 8-year run in the next few months, so it seemed like a good place to end my podcast too.

Thanks for listening over the last few years, and I hope you enjoy the show's next chapter as it morphs into Pod Only Knows in two weeks. We know we've enjoyed making it so far!

-John

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Garry's website: https://www.historyinthebible.com/

Hey Hard to Believe listeners - big news!

As of May, Hard to Believe will be coming to an end...but neither I nor the feed will be going anywhere!

Instead, I'll be joined by a new co-host, the wonderful Kelly J. Baker, and a slightly new angle, as we take our experiences working in the field of religious studies and focus more specifically on that topic.

The format is changing, but if you liked the content of Hard to Believe, I promise you will like this too.

So after a couple final episodes of Hard to Believe in April, the feed will automatically switch over to the new show and new title Pod Only Knows, and subscribers will automatically be subscribed to the new show.

We'll be releasing new episodes every other Wednesday, along with special bonus episodes and one-offs appearing on occasion and a regular monthly episode featuring Kelly and me discussing the big religion stories of the month.

We have some really awesome guests and topics already in store, and we're really excited to bring it all to you.

And finally, thank you so much for listening to Hard to Believe. It's been really fun having you along for that project, and I hope you'll stick with me and support and appreciate this new venture as well!

-John