The Big Chew Podcast

The Big Chew Podcast

By Maria Theresa StadtmuellerSociety & Culture
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The Big Chew Podcast episodes

  • Why Are Americans Leaving Religion? Interview with James Nagle
    Why are record numbers of Americans and Europeans exiting the religions they grew up with--especially Christians? Is Christianity toast? What might come next?
    James Nagle studies this "deconversion" at Fordham University. He considers himself a "deconvert" and describes his path--from a tattooed, skateboarding, Mass-missing kid to a seminarian training for the Catholic priesthood; to his years of teaching high school religious studies and then leaving his belief behind. Now a doctoral candidate at Fordham, Nagle researches why people leave religion (and explains that often it's for "religious" reasons). We talk about how the nonreligious "nones" seek meaning outside religion, why Christianity is declining, and what he thinks will happen after he dies.
    Music in interview: Ayla Nereo--Bonteko (Scott Nice Remix)from the album All the Wild Creatures. Used through Creative Commons.
    1 hr 13 min
  • Tradd Cotter: Our Future is Fungal
    Tradd Cotter is a researcher and mycologist who's doing amazing things with mushrooms. Mushrooms can fight disease-causing bacteria, can purify water, help disaster victims...and they're delicious! (Not always the same ones, btw.) Mushrooms are also being studied now for treating end-of-life depression and PTSD. And then there are shamanic reindeer and eating the yellow snow...
    Get more Big Chew episodes at www.meetyourmyth.com. You can also find out how to contact Tradd, where to buy Tradd's book, Growing Organic Mushrooms, and how to subscribe to future episodes.
    1 hr
  • Plant Life with Herbalist Julie Mitchell
    Maria talks with herbalist Julie Mitchell about the modern revolution in herbal knowledge. We talk about how to get to know plants, and if they’re sentient; what herbs can do for humans; the ecstatic approach of the poet Goethe to the study of plants; and who I would kill if I could go back in time.
    34 min
  • Laura Lomas, Intuitive: Is Our Spiritual Culture Shifting?
    Maria talks (and cracks up!) with intuitive Laura Lomas, who helps people worldwide reconnect to their more authentic natures and to the Earth. Why are so many people bailing on religion? And what will take its place? How gigantic was Maria's head as a child?
    Show Notes:
    If you’d like to know more about Laura and her work, here’s her website.
    http://divineintuitivehealing.com/
    Books we mention in the podcast:
    The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself, written by Michael A. Singer, is a profound book. It’s deceptively simple to read, in the way Shaker furniture is simple. http://untetheredsoul.com/
    Byron Katie’s Loving What Is teaches a deeply effective practice of asking about the people and situations that bug you, “Is it true?” A counselor in this method very quickly helped me shift my beliefs about a painful dispute with a neighbor–and I discovered something important about myself in a different area. Plus I like Byron Katie’s eye make-up. No way I could wear that in Vermont.
    http://thework.com/sites/thework/downloads/Little%20Book.pdf
    46 min

About The Big Chew Podcast

From the publisher's feed

Can we change our futures by changing our story? Yup. Big Chew host Maria Theresa Stadtmueller and her guests take apart our culture's stories and look for ones without the stupid. Stories tell us what matters.The story that still runs our culture was created back when people thought the Earth was flat—by religions Westerners are leaving. That story says a god made us superior to all other creatures and our real home is "up there" in the sky—not here on Earth. When that old origin story combined with the Cartesian one of dualism, that Nature and the universe was a machine—well, now we're talking stupid. And that's what we're living now.