Weird Religion

The aftermath of the July 2023 Congressional UFO hearing has been fascinating, infuriating, mysterious, and ominous. We get you caught up, and present a chilling conspiracy theory about what has become already one of the most famous airplane disappearances of the past several decades—Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 in 2014.

The Congressional UFO hearing on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/live/KQ7Dw-739VY?si=7iKLViEo9ZS-iy8_ 

Wikipedia page for the whistleblower (David Grusch) claims: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Grusch_UFO_whistleblower_claims

NPR summary of the UFO hearing: https://www.npr.org/2023/07/27/1190390376/ufo-hearing-non-human-biologics-uaps 

The Hill article puts the situation accurately in Brian’s opinion: https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/4134891-a-monumental-ufo-scandal-is-looming/ 

Jesse Michels interview with David Grusch: https://youtu.be/kRO5jOa06Qw?si=lu69_M0SlBdCh9qE

Joe Rogan interview with Jeremy Corbell and George Knapp: https://open.spotify.com/episode/04gQ8km0XhEitU1Vz4lA3j

Malaysian Air (MH370) mystery on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_370 

Netflix show about MH370: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDg0m2Q3H8c

The orbs video where the orbs take the plane: https://youtu.be/iZPHGJHXNXg?si=45OdsZWDvCA0_Q81 

Reddit threads on the orbs video are wild: https://reddit.com/r/UFOs/s/drEbOTTmDD 

Some have compared this conspiracy to the Netflix show “Manifest”: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8421350/

Seems maybe the orbs video has been debunked…but you can always go double conspiracy on it! ​​https://twitter.com/528vibes/status/1693008013278302498?s=20

Article Leah mentioned: “Prophetic Failure and Chiliastic Identity: The Case of Jehovah's Witnesses”: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2776152

Let Halloween feelings shower over you as you listen to this, our Halloween episode. One of us loves the horror genre on TV and movies, and the other absolutely does not. One of us can barely handle even watching the trailer for one of these films.

Children of the Corn (1984): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087050/ 

The Satanic double scene in The Passion of the Christ: https://youtu.be/YgwXF60RTik?si=vEv3anusf4rTpoI7 

The TV version of Stephen King’s IT: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099864/ 

The original Scream, 1996 (opening scene clip): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sn5SkCvPEYo 

Signs (2002): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0286106/

The Village, 2004 (trailer): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTGyhwvdY6k 

Arrival, 2016 (trailer): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFMo3UJ4B4g

Smile (2022 film) (the trailer we played part of): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcDK7lkzzsU 

The Black Phone: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7144666/ 

Brandon Grafius, Reading the Bible with Horror: https://www.amazon.com/Reading-Bible-Horror-Scripture/dp/1978701683 

NOPE (trailer): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=In8fuzj3gck

The Haunting of Hill House (TV): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6763664/ 

Midnight Mass (TV trailer): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89UV8vmWXlY 

The Cabin in the Woods (2011): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1259521/ 

Using liking scary movies romantic compatibility: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2582872/Do-like-horror-movies-surprising-questions-tell-relationship-likely-last.html

What would it be like to grow up in a household guided by the principles of Ayn Rand’s Objectivist philosophy? We talk to Things Not Seen radio host Dr. David Dault, of Loyola University Chicago, about being expoed to the ideology of Ayn Rand at a young age. If you’ve ever wanted to know about Rand’s “Objectivist” idea but were too afraid to ask, we’ll take you there. Along the way, Brian mispronounces Ayn’s name, David shares several fascinating and vulnerable personal stories, and we review the dystopian novella Anthem, ending with the hard question: Are these principles of radical self-interest compatible with Christianity?

David Dault: https://www.luc.edu/ips/about/faculty/daviddaultphd.shtml

Things Not Seen Radio: https://www.thingsnotseenradio.com/

Ayn Rand on the pronunciation of her first name: https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2011/1015/Six-things-you-probably-didn-t-know-about-Ayn-Rand/The-name-s-not-Ann

The Ayn Rand Institute: https://aynrand.org/

Max Stirner: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/max-stirner/

Ayn Rand’s Anthem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthem_(novella)

“Paul Ryan and Ayn Rand” (Washington Post): https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/what-ayn-rand-says-about-paul-ryan/2012/08/13/fd40d574-e56d-11e1-8741-940e3f6dbf48_blog.html

Matthew Sitman, Know Your Enemy: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/know-your-enemy/id1462703434

Jordan Peterson on Ayn Rand: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9aHYj93xJY

As longtime Weirdo Listeners know, we don’t always have guests—but when we do, they win awards. Or they should. New York Times contributor Sam Kestenbaum won a 2023 Wilbur Award this past spring and now an AAR Journalism Award for a captivating article on Kathryn Krick—a Christian social media celebrity and charismatic preacher who frequents parks in the Los Angeles area to perform healings and exorcisms. The article is called “Demontime: How a former actress-turned-Christian EDM singer from small-town New York became a Pentecostal faith healer for the TikTok era”: https://thelandmag.com/krick-ministry-faith-healer/.

—> In honor of the awards, we’re rebroadcasting this, one of our most popular eps from 2022! In which we talk with Sam about the article and the person behind it. 

Updated Notes: Kathryn is still going strong…

Kathryn Krick on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ApostleKathrynKrick [[where the majority of her activity seems to be now?]]
Kathryn Krick on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@_apostlekathrynkrick [[she seems to have stopped posting new material here??]]
Sam Kestenbaum on Twitter: https://twitter.com/skestenbaum
Kathryn Krick’s church webpage: https://5fchurch.org/leadership
Interview with Sam Kestenbaum: https://therevealer.org/insights-from-a-religion-reporter/
Sam’s website: https://samkestenbaum.com/ 
Sam’s Wilbur Award: https://religionnews.com/2023/03/28/religion-communicators-council-names-2023-wilbur-awardees/
Sam’s AAR award: https://aarweb.org/AARMBR/Publications-and-News-/Newsroom-/News-/2023/2023-Journalism-Awards.aspx

Rebroadcasting a popular season finale from several years ago. Aliens are the quintessential sci-fi topic. Leah admits she used to watch Alf. Brian watched Alf too! We all did. Was The History Channel ever really respectable? The true utopian technology prophets will tell us when everything has been illuminated at the same time. Is it possible that…

UPDATED SHOW NOTES

Ancient Aliens is doing live shows now, on tour: https://bit.ly/46rjfsE

Ancient Aliens on the History Channel: https://www.history.com/shows/ancient-aliens

To celebrate what appears to be a departure of people of some amount from “Twitter” (now “X”?!), we run to the new “Threads” app and find dueling weird religious stories to share: (1) Leah finds a joke that leads to rumination on “premillennial dispensationalism” (2) and Brian offers an engaging TikTok sermon by “Real Talk Kim.”

Threads has lost 80% of its daily users: https://gizmodo.com/threads-has-lost-more-than-80-of-daily-active-users-1850707329

Musk erodes Twitter’s brand with X thing: https://time.com/6297303/twitter-x-rebrand-cost/

Leah’s rapture joke Thread: https://www.threads.net/@drleahpayne/post/Cvca3OrACHj/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA%3D%3D

One third of pastors share end-times theology of “Left Behind” (in 2016): https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2016/april/sorry-left-behind-pastors-end-times-rapture-antichrist.html 

Premillennial dispensationalism: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/003463730910600105 

Brian’s Real Talk Kim Thread: https://www.threads.net/@realtalkkim/post/CvFP7Vuv_5m?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA%3D%3D; if the Thread link doesn’t work, it’s here on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@realtalkkim/video/7257640531201625390?lang=en 

Real Talk Kim: https://realtalkkim.com/

Real Talk Kim talking about her life: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=309314860357378

Rebroadcasting because we are jonesing for a new season of Stranger Things. Monsters, the 1980s, neon clothes, loaded memories of teenage drama, and a time when malls ruled supreme over the lives of adolescents. We talk about the Cold War and the child abduction fear craze in the 1980s and wonder: Why are we looking back on this era with fondness, exactly?

UPDATED SHOW NOTE

Stranger Things Season 5 (the final season) updates: https://www.popbuzz.com/tv-film/stranger-things/season-5-release-date-cast-plot-trailer/ (Terminator legend Linda Hamilton joins the cast in an undisclosed role; production suspended currently due to strike; was scheduled to begin filming in June 2023; S5E1 titled “The Crawl”; S5 storyline will take place entirely in Hawkins, with Will Byers as the main focus…)

HEY. Tune in for musings on the definition of a mustache, a profound application of 1 Corinthians 6:12, and a note on our episode rhythm during what’s left of July and on into August and September. In short: we’ve worked to create content this summer around travel and so on, and we’ll continue to be a little every-other-week-ish until maybe September, when we’ll get back into an every-week-new-content rhythm for the school year. And we’ll rebroadcast some “classics” in the gaps. We love you.

1 Corinthians ch. 6: http://web.mit.edu/jywang/www/cef/Bible/NIV/NIV_Bible/1COR+6.html

Does a beard include a mustache? https://www.quora.com/Does-the-word-beard-include-moustache-too

This week we’re reviewing recent religion news in order to: explore the location of falling gold dust of God’s presence…discuss the latest UFO surprises…get specific how about AI will kill us…be shocked that Silicon Valley is trying to build God and control humanity…and understand “Seven Mountains Theology.” Read these stories along with us, or listen to us tell you about them:

Aspen Ideas Festival spirituality: https://www.axios.com/2023/07/01/aspen-ideas-festival-2023-postcard

UFO under a building? https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/ufo-hunter-claims-spaceship-too-30477150 

Government to make UFOs public? https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4097653-senators-to-offer-amendment-to-require-government-to-make-ufo-records-public/

7 AI human extinction scenarios: https://inews.co.uk/news/science/ai-humans-extinct-seven-deadly-scenarios-how-likely-2376633?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email 

Restaurant hires fake priest to spy on employees: https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/254594/california-restaurant-had-a-fake-priest-hear-workers-confessions-labor-department-says 

Bethel Church tries to take over California town: https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/how-bethel-megachurch-conquered-redding-18170873.php

“The Woman Who Bought a Mountain for God” (Atlantic), Seven Mountains theology: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/06/christian-movement-new-apostolic-reformation-politics-trump/674320/ 

Leah Payne with PRRI on popularity of charismatics: https://www.prri.org/spotlight/the-future-of-born-again-evangelicalism-is-charismatic-and-pentecostal/

“Silicon Valley’s Quest to Build God and Control Humanity”: https://www.thenation.com/article/economy/silicon-valley-artificial-intelligence/ 

Mysterious creature in Illinois: https://www.theintelligencer.com/opinion/article/mysterious-creature-reported-downtown-alton-18167740.php 

Mormons try to save Great Salt Lake from drying up: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/its-promised-land-drying-mormon-church-works-to-save-the-great-salt-lake/ar-AA1d0p0G 

This rebroadcast revisits an unfortunately still-timely topic. We begin with a throwback to the Cold War of the 1970s and quickly arrive at the current war instigated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. What are the demographics of religion in Russia today? What is the relationship between Church and State in Russia? How does Ukraine function as “spiritual space” in the Russian imagination? Is this a “religious war”? Check out the sources we’re discussing:

UPDATED LINKS

The Guardian’s Ukraine news page (updated): https://www.theguardian.com/world/ukraine

The so-called “Wagner Uprising” in Russia (attempted coup?): https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/25/prigozhins-march-on-moscow-chronology-of-an-attempted-coup

The Late Great Planet Earth (Hal Lindsey): https://www.amazon.com/Late-Great-Planet-Earth/dp/B000GT1GUS 

US State Dept. on Russian religious affiliation (see Section I: Religious Demography): https://www.state.gov/reports/2020-report-on-international-religious-freedom/russia/ 

Putin’s spiritual destiny: https://unherd.com/2022/02/putins-spiritual-destiny/ 

Between Two Fires (Joshua Yaffa): https://www.amazon.com/Between-Two-Fires-Ambition-Compromise/dp/1524760595 

A critique of Levada’s “Soviet Man”: https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/rip-soviet-man-scrapping-homo-sovieticus-the-spirit-yuri-levada 

Understanding Putin’s narrative: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/23/putin-narrative-ukraine-master-key-crisis-nato-expansionism-frozen-conflict?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other 

Putin wants religious soul of Ukraine: https://religionnews.com/2022/02/24/putin-is-after-more-than-land-he-wants-the-religious-soul-of-ukraine/