Podcast #47: Transgenderism, Starring Caitlyn Jenner

91 June 7, 2015 by

47_blogIn this episode, the drunk ex-pastors begin by reveling in the power we recently wielded to divest the former president of FIFA of his position, after which we debate whether one of last week’s callers was a dot- or feather-Indian, as well as whether saying that is totally racist. We then reminisce about our favorite ‘80s TV shows for some reason, which the cool ones of our audience will love and the ones who are the wrong age will find incredibly boring. Christian gets some much-needed support from a caller, and another listener defends the idea of snobbishness (which Jason, of course, also has no problem with). We answer a challenge to what we said last week about whether death gives life meaning—this time with Jesus brought into the mix—and then we get to the main event: Caitlyn Jenner. Does gender inform sexual preference? Does genitalia determine gender? We tackle these and other questions as we stammer and stumble our way through this important issue. Christian’s bieber involves wasting time at events that honor his children, while Jason is biebered by things that happen in parking lots.

Also, we’re hoping to find that we’re two of a kind. Making a go, making it grow, together. We’re gonna find our way….

Links from this week’s episode:

91 Comments (click here to leave a comment)

  1. Good podcast, guys. Random thoughts:

    The Thorn Birds actor is Richard Chamberlain.

    The neighbor in Office Space was Deitrich Bader, who was also the neighbor on the Drew Carey show.

    As a companion series to pair up with Manimal, there was Automan, back in the Tron days when computers were magic and you could program a superhero to come out and fight crime. I think it lasted fewer episodes than Manimal did, but to 4 or 5 year old me, it was awesome.

    Relationship with God… that phrase is a bit of a pet peeve of mine.

    How exactly do you have a relationship with God and how is that different from simply being religious? Can you really have a personal ‘love’ relationship with someone you’ve never met, who has never spoken to you or communicated with you and whom you only know through reading things about them that other people have written?

    You don’t have a relationship with God in a personal sense. You may have a relationship with God in an impersonal sense where he is creator and you are the created being, or a relationship in the sense that you consider him as your Lord or your father, but you do not have a personal relationship with God. You are religious and you have warm fuzzy feelings about being religious.

    Reasons I may sit in my parked car:

    1. My wife is running an errand that will take a few minutes and I don’t want to leave the car.

    2. I’m waiting for someone to come out of a place or location.

    3. I’m reading a newspaper or book and having a coffee or meal on my lunch break away from everything and everyone who might disturb me.

    4. I’m pulled over because I got drowsy and want to take a few minutes to rest so I’m not a danger to myself or others on the road.

    5. Just to annoy Jason.

  2. Damn, here I was thinking (somewhat rightly) that the whole Indian accent thing was a simple omission on the part of Jason to full on racist about people with accents. Being in the Seattle area probably does expose you to an overrepresentation of non-native Indians (who are here on H-1B) but your implication that one needs to be “incredibly immersed in American culture” in order to not speak with an accent. How about just someone who’s grown up here?

    Obviously I say the racist bit with tongue in cheek but something about your surprise(?) at someone who can speak without an accent (or at least “foreign” accent) seems off.

  3. Come on, Greg, you’re picking nits here. All I meant was the guy sounded like 100% of the native Americans I have ever heard speak, and like 0% of the Indians I have ever heard speak.

  4. They’re all doing it for reason #5. I know it, they know it. We all know it.

  7. Really? You’ve never spoken to an Indian that didn’t have an accent? Anyway, it’s not that big a deal, but just the qualification you put around the whole accent thing seemed a bit off for me.

  8. I seem to keep beating this horse to death but agnosticism is not the same thing as atheism. In fact, if you think of religion and atheism as poles from one another, agnosticism sits in the middle. So of course Richard Dawkins and hardline atheists would have a problem with agnostics, because we are _not_ atheists!

  9. Just an opinion, and I’m sure you’re doing a lot of this already, but I think it’s time to filter out all voicemails that are just glorified “comment sections” of previous podcasts. Unless they allow you to spin off into new subjects, I don’t see the point in re-treading and re-clarifying.

  10. @JasonStellman:disqus i have a good friend who is also a massive fan of Phil Hendrie’s and tried to get me to listen on several occasion. The first few times, I have to admit, it was pretty funny but over time, I just got the sense that the whole shtick of the show is for those in the know to make fun of those who didn’t. Now, you’ve got to be pretty obtuse because some of the voices/positions that Hendrie takes is pretty unbelievable and obviously a joke but still, it became tiresome and kind of mean.

  11. Just to be “that guy”, you have already used people sitting in parked cars as your bieber in a previous podcast. =)

  12. I’m all for loving and helping every person. However, I’m not convinced that helping a person who is experiencing gender confusion (which I believe is real) is necessarily the same thing as enabling them to permanently mutilate themselves. There is clearly some level mental illness going on, even if some don’t want to call it an “illness” for wishing not to offend. I also don’t want to offend, but I also don’t want to confuse “helping” with hurting.

    I take a similar stance with suicide (and yes, I realize that some won’t like the comparison). If a person I knew came to me and expressed the desire to commit suicide, I would help them. And by “help”, I don’t mean assist them killing themselves. Strangely, this isn’t a universal stance. I have seen conversations between “progressives” who would try to figure out if the suicidal person is of sound mind before deciding whether or not they would help by assisting in the suicide. That is absurd. If you are suicidal, you are not of sound mind by definition!

    Here is another example that has been making the rounds recently:

    http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/becoming-disabled-by-choice-not-chance-transabled-people-feel-like-impostors-in-their-fully-working-bodies

    This is a group of people who feel that they are meant to be disabled, for example their left arm doesn’t feel like their arm. They will intentionally attempt to maim themselves, such as cutting off their arm or leg, to feel “whole”. They are calling themselves “transabled” – obviously trying to piggyback on sympathy toward the transgendered. These folks are clearly, to nearly everyone (for the moment), to have some sort of mental illness. Should we “help” them as well by providing “corrective” surgeries?

    This progressive streak to “help” people by enabling every possible deeply “felt” desire is going to be disastrous. Yes help people, but not every desire a person has is properly ordered to their good. Every parent should recognize this. It seems a first glance that encouraging people to chase after every desire is freedom, but it is really slavery.

  14. That would be great if we had a feasible procedure to let people receive brain modifications with the same degree of risk and likelihood of success as surgery. The literalistic, super-sciencey origin of gender dysphoria is in a mis-formed section of the brain, not in a mis-formed body, and that’s probably one of the UN-PC but fact-based things that this “Dr Phil” chap is saying. But the origin of the dysphoria is irrelevant, what matters is how effectively we can alleviate the distress caused by the mismatch.

    IF, IF it were equally risky to “realign” body as to “realign” mind, then it would be a coin toss for the patient. BUT, at the moment, all the options for “realigning” the mind are no better than glorified suppression and psychological abuse, the same as we see in “gay cure” programs. The idea that psychology is a feasible alternative solution to surgery in most cases? A dangerous misconception. It’s not that mind fixes are rejected, it’s that they’re currently snake oil.

    Those of us who fight with our own minds go through long periods of knees-to-the-floor, screaming to a god we might not even believe in, “TAKE THIS AWAY FROM ME!”. From St Paul’s burden of sin to my own self-loathing as I impulse-eat another deep fried pizza to Caitlyn’s lifelong sense of misalignment. If there was a mind bullet? It’d be selling like nothing else on earth.

  15. I think I agree with a lot of what you are saying.

    But the origin of the dysphoria is irrelevant, what matters is how effectively we can alleviate the distress caused by the mismatch.

    I also want the distress alleviated. However, if you don’t know what is causing the distress, then you are simply treating symptoms. And treating symptoms might not be all that bad if it were not for the severity of the treatment in this case. Do we know how people fair long term following these treatments? Do we know if they still have psychological distress despite the surgery?

  17. While discussing the idea of skepticism, this subject came up, and I’d like to post a general question.

    Why is it exactly that if I or someone else said that I had seen a bright light and Jesus appeared to me and commissioned me to be one of the 13 major leaders of the church, I would probably be dismissed as a charlatan or someone suffering from hallucinations or religious monomania, but everyone just sort of takes Paul’s story at face value?

    “Oh yeah, Paul had a vision of Jesus. I mean his companions saw a light, but didn’t hear anything… or maybe they heard something, but couldn’t make it out… or maybe they didn’t see or hear anything… the story changes a bit, but it was completely legit.”

  18. Because the first Pope, St Peter, vouched for St. Paul and his writings:

    And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. (2 Peter 3:15-17 ESV)

    If the current Pope vouched for your vision, it would also be taken seriously.

  21. It’s all anchored on whether or not Jesus really rose from the dead. Everything else flows from that historical truth, such as books being able to be inspired and churches having authority and so forth.

  22. Leaving aside the question of the epistle’s authorship and dating, which were of some debate starting with the council that started to build the Christian canon, the reason we can trust Paul’s vision as accurate is because another man who wasn’t present at the event compared Paul’s writings to scripture?

    Well, since you put it that way, how could I not set aside any skepticism about it?

  23. I just noticed that St. Peter says that Paul is writing according to the wisdom given to him only in certain circumstances – “when he speaks in them of these matters”. The context arguably being on matters of the Faith and morals. This sounds similar to the conditional infallibility that the Catholic church speaks of.

  24. Well, of course, they don’t believe in the authority of a man with a funny hat, how could they be anything but ignorant and unstable? 🙂

  25. So you are asking about Paul being included as an apostle. I’m sure a number of his epistles were accepted as cannon with little to no doubt due to their traditional usage universally in the early church. How would that have happen, if the early church didn’t trust him? Why would they have trusted him? Because he was clearly accepted as authoritative by the Apostles.

  26. They twist it to their own destruction by convincing themselves that holiness and following commandments aren’t that important. They believe that they can’t fall away by coming up with doctrines of OSAS, teaching lawlessness.

  27. I’m saying that if I came up to you and said I saw Jesus and He wants me to be the apostle to this generation and you should all listen to me and recognize my authority, you’d rightly be skeptical.

    So I’m not sure why we take the 2,000 year old claim with any less of a critical eye. And appealing to the early church in a culture steeped in mysticism doesn’t really work. There were far more people in that age who were just as convinced that the pagan gods existed.

  28. The 2000 year old claim was dealt with 2000 years ago. If you were to do the same thing today, it would have to be investigated by the Magisterium of the Catholic Church today. People claim visions all the time, and they are investigated; this isn’t new.

    The problem is that you doubt the Church not only in the present, but in every generation all the way back to the first generation. If the Church has any authority at all, it definitely had it in its earliest generations.

    And appealing to the early church in a culture steeped in mysticism doesn’t really work. There were far more people in that age who were just as convinced that the pagan gods existed.

    We aren’t talking about just any people. We are talking about the line of teaching authority back to Jesus Himself. If God really did become incarnate, dwelt among us, and died for us; I would expect that same God could and would protect knowledge of that event – especially if that event is still important to us today. So if you are investigating the possibility of something, you can’t start with a premise that that something was impossible.

  29. “Test all things. Hold fast to what is true…”

    I don’t think Paul would have an issue with me asking questions or being skeptical.

    I find little basis in the gospels and epistles to support the notion of Jesus establishing the organization of the Catholic Church, let alone elevating Peter to the role of Prince. He was arguably first among equals, and not even that at times as Paul calls him out and openly rebukes him for hypocrisy and James supercedes him as both the first bishop and the head of the first ecumenical council.

    Peter does play an important role per Acts in both establishing the church first to the Jews and then first to the Gentiles.

    So, at best, I find your answer to be simply an appeal to authority. You believe because the church you have decided to join tells you that it is so.

    And believing because the bible tells me so or because a pastor or priest say so is no longer good enough for me.

  31. The Bible quite clearly shows Jesus has authority from the Father, and that He passes that authority to the Apostles and Peter specifically. In numerous places the Church is given authority over teaching and settling disputes. The Church is referred to the “manifold wisdom if God” and the “pillar and bulwark of truth”. There is way more I could give you, but I’m going to hold off.

    Yes, my answer is an appeal to authority, divine authority. I’m convinced from philosophical arguments and intuition that God exists (at minimum deism). I’m further convinced from historical evidence that Jesus rose from the dead, and that He is that God. I’ve seen enough to trust the Scripture and the Church. I simply don’t have the need to spend years and years constantly questioning the foundational claims. I saw enough to become convinced and moved on. I now spend my time climbing the heights of knowledge, truth, and devotion revealed to and developed by the Church over the last 20 centuries – and it is absolutely beautiful! That’s how I want to spend my life. Hopefully you will join me one day.

  33. The Bible quite clearly shows Jesus has authority from the Father, and that He passes that authority to the Apostles and Peter specifically.

    And Non-Catholics would disagree with the latter notion, with Orthodox Christians accepting apostolic succession in the form of bishops, and Protestants for the most part viewing the authority as passed to the general Church and specific Christians called by God to perform service.

    Yes, my answer is an appeal to authority, divine authority.

    Which is exactly like the Protestant appeal to the divine authority of Scripture, which I also now find unconvincing.

    In reality, you’re ascribing divine authority to something built and maintained by men.

    I’m further convinced from historical evidence that Jesus rose from the dead

    Read the apologetics arguments. Read the counter-arguments, the collection of data is less compelling that you might think, but that’s another discussion, I think.

  34. I don’t wish to get into a point by point dialog over these subjects you raise here (there are plenty of places that do that), but I will briefly address some of your broad ideas.

    “And Non-Catholics would disagree with the latter notion, with Orthodox Christians accepting apostolic succession in the form of bishops, and Protestants for the most part viewing the authority as passed to the general Church and specific Christians called by God to perform service.”

    Protestants (and all Christians) accept that the Church is authoritative in theory, but undermine the identity of the church and practically how that authority works. Protestants are all over the place precisely because of their confusion over authority. The Orthodox are much better, but lack the visible ecclesial unity that God intended and the Pope provides. But all recognize and agree that God has given us accessible authority (we just disagree on exactly what it consists of). Catholics simply have the best arguments for authority – especially over against Protestant arguments for Sola Scriptura.

    “In reality, you’re ascribing divine authority to something built and maintained by men.”

    Given how shitty some of the men have been over history, the very existence of the Catholic Church for such a long period of time, crossing country and cultural lines over so many centuries, is proof that it isn’t only men that are maintaining the Church. If were just men, it would have collapsed centuries ago.

    “Which is exactly like the Protestant appeal to the divine authority of Scripture, which I also now find unconvincing.”
    I think there is plenty of evidence for God and the Christian faith. However, the evidence isn’t going to demand your submission. If you have resolved to not believe, nothing will convince you.

  35. Speaking of the impressiveness of the Catholic Church, I’m reminded of an article I read a while back on a popular atheist blog. Scott Alexander (not his real name), who I believe is a practicing psychologist, is trying to figure out how atheists might follow the Catholic Church’s model, if they could, or even if they should. But here is what he had to say about the Catholic Church that I found interesting: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/14/ecclesiology-for-atheists/

    So much for a description of what an atheist ecclesiology might be about. What about the experimental results of such an ecclesiology?

    Most of the people I know who have thought about this problem hard agree upon one major ecclesiological principle that neatly summarizes the gist of their investigation into this area:

    The Catholic Church is really, really impressive.

    It is the oldest continuously-operating organization in the world. It is the largest organization in the world, as measured in number of members. It is probably the richest non-state organization in the world. Although we can debate how closely they have stuck to the founding principles they had as of 114 AD or 1014 AD, they are doubtlessly a lot closer to those principles than, say, modern China is to 1014-AD-China.

    Although there are other religions nearly as large as Catholicism – Islam and Hinduism, for example – they lack the same level of organization or really any organization at all. And although there are various governments that are probably a bit more powerful, they cheat by being able to throw anyone who doesn’t support them in jail.

  36. Of course there are very holy people (and not so holy) in both groups. Catholic doctrine takes sin very seriously, so seriously in fact that they teach one can fall away. Some sects of Protestantism are very presumptuous with their understanding of their own salvation, some even believe that you say the magic words of the “sinner’s prayer” that your good – no matter what happens afterwards. Have you ever heard of Antinomianism? It didn’t seem to exist until after the Reformation.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antinomianism

  37. If were just men, it would have collapsed centuries ago.

    Hinduism is the eldest of the great religions and the third largest in the world. Islam is only ~600 years younger than Catholicism and is the second largest religion in the world. Does your logic apply to them as well? Are they being supported by God because they have existed for some time and have large numbers of followers?

    Ideas, especially those tied to culture and government, can thrive even in the face of poor leadership.

    If you have resolved to not believe, nothing will convince you.

    Get over yourself. I have doubts. I was a devout and devoted Christian for 20 years, now I find myself much like Thomas, I would like something more substantial than “The bible says so”, the word of the ministry of suits and ties or funny hats, or the sophistry and unconvincing arguments from the apologists.

  38. Lane, I feel the need to jump in briefly here, just to say that, as a former Reformed Baptist (my church taught the five points of Calvinism as being Scriptural), I was *never, ever* taught that holiness and foliowing commandments aren’t that important. Historic Calvinism does not teach OSAS in a way that would encourage lawlessness. If that was your experience with Calvinism, then it does not reflect what Calvin taught. He believed in the Perseverance of the Saints, meaning that if one is truly elect, one *will* persevere in obedience to God. At my old church, we were regularly exhorted to examine ourselves, to see if we were growing in obedience to God, and we were warned that professing Christians who don’t care to obey God could very well be deceiving themselves about being “saved.” That warning included us as a congregation. Any of us who thought that we were Christians but who were not seriously following God in obedience could well be deceiving ourselves. I believe quite similarly as a Catholic too– but now, as opposed to the thinking about salvation in Calvinism, I believe that one can be a Christian, and then, one can actually, truly leave the faith, and, possibly, lose one’s salvation. (I did this myself, twice, many, many years ago.

  39. Hinduism and Islam have no unifying organization. BTW ISIS, is an attempt by some in Islam to create it.

    “Get over yourself. I have doubts. I was a devout and devoted Christian for 20 years, now I find myself much like Thomas, I would like something more substantial than “The bible says so”, the word of the ministry of suits and ties or funny hats, or the sophistry and unconvincing arguments from the apologists.”

    Forgive me if when I see you repeatedly refer to Catholics to as the ministry of “funny hats” that I don’t immediately take your sincerity seriously.

  40. Fair enough. The original comment was meant as a quick poke. But there are subsets of Protestantism for which it is true.

  41. @christiankingery:disqus and @JasonStellman:disqus I want to pose a question for drunken wild speculation:
    How do you think Christians of varying strips would respond if aliens landed tomorrow. Would it crush their faith? Would they try to evangelize them? How would other faiths respond?

    What if the aliens had religious beliefs that were something parallel to Christianity (monotheism, ~Trinity, focused on love, incarnate God,…) or one of the other major religions (Islam, Buddhism, Mormonism…); how would atheist and agnostics respond? Would they try to convinced them that there is no God?

    Reminded me of a comic:

  42. Perhaps I just find it a bit odd that folks claiming a direct lineage to 12 homeless wandering apostles of a homeless wandering rabbi who told his followers to forego all but the barest necessities on their journeys would dress in fine robes, hats that serve as crowns or status markers, gold adornments, or a corrupt money laundering bank.

    Much as I find it odd that a Protestant pastor would need a $4,000 suit, a 65 million dollar airplane, or a Bentley.

    But I’m sure that’s just my fault because I refuse to recognize church authority.

  43. I tend to agree. Especially if it is the form of unnecessary luxury for only the people in charge (homes, bank accounts, personal possessions…). On the other hand, I don’t have as much problem with the beauty of the church that is accessible by all (art, sculpture, music,…), that reflects God’s glory and adds to a sense of vertical experience for everyone.

  46. To be fair the religious (monks and sisters) take vows of poverty, so they are the “poor”. 😉

  47. Assuming they appeared benign or benevolent (or at least benevolent enough to want to establish friendly relations and trade and not blow up our cities) they would probably be seen as demons trying to sway mankind from the truth by many evangelical Christians, especially if they had their own religion. Others would see them as God’s creatures, but fallen and in need of salvation.

    I think a majority of Catholics, Orthodox, and maybe Mormons would probably see them as another of God’s creatures to be respected.

    Doing a cursory search on Islam, it looks like they might be amendable to the idea of aliens existing elsewhere as creations of Allah. Though, the fundamentalists would frown on them if the aliens had their own religion that was distinct from Islam.

    Of course, if the aliens were truly alien to us, we might not even be able to communicate beyond mathmatics, and if the aliens were more Star Trek-y humanoids, there would be no reason to assume they wouldn’t be as divided as we are on the questions of origins and theism. Hell, they might be Crusaders who caught our TV broadcasts, decided we were pagan barbarians that needed the wisdom and knowledge of Klzacktzu the Wise and demand we convert.

  48. The magic prayer will save you, but then you have to do as your told, or you weren’t really sincere in saying the magic words and weren’t really saved.

    You’re saved by grace, but if you’re truly saved, you’ll obey the Law. But you have to obey the Law with the purpose of making God happy and not do the Law for the purpose of getting into heaven.

    As someone who spent many nights as a sleepless Protestant child worrying that God was pissed at me and was going to throw me into hell because I couldn’t stop sinning, trust me, holiness was pretty well emphasized in my Protestant experience.

    Also, fuck anyone who tells a child that God’s going to burn them forever and ever and ever unless they do exactly as their religion says.

  50. Yes the constant interior self reflection trying to figure out if you are really sorry, if you were really forgiven, if you were really elect, is terrible.

    I noticed an interesting thing the first time I went to confession. Actually confessing out loud to a priest that you believed had been given the authority to forgive sins and hearing him say the words of absolution is altogether different experience. Walking out I knew I was forgiven. Every sin in the past was concretely forgiven and in the past. I felt like a completely new person. Amazing.

  51. @comrade,

    If 1 person claimed to see elvis Presley alive again I wouldn’t believe it. If hundreds of people all claimed the same thing I might raise my eye brows. If those same hundreds were willing to die for this belief I would be curious. BUT if even the people who were sent in to kill the elvis seekers came back claiming THEY ALSO saw elvis alive and were willing to die for it…. I might just start to believe. Paul represents that last person and that’s why his testimony is so very valuable.

  55. Lol! It only qualifies as an eye brow raise. They aren’t willing to be tortured for it….. at least I hope not

  56. I’m curious to see if the media will proclaim her a trans-racial hero!!!!! She should do a special with Bruce lol

  58. Scores of people died at the command of David Koresh and Jim Jones (including themselves) convinced utterly that they were the Messiah. Joseph Smith died on account of his Mormon beliefs that conflicted with US law and never recounted. The LDS church has a list of martyrs as well. Muslims are willing to die.

  60. Yes but I think there is a key difference. Obviously many people are willing to die for books, traditions, or ideas that they are passionate about. But the apostles, and specifically Paul, were unique in that they were all getting killed because of something they claim to have seen. Many hundreds of people all willing to be killed for something they saw with their own eyes. This is clearly a different kind of animal than Jones and Islam.

  61. Yes but I think there is a key difference

    Shocker. 😉

    Specifically Paul? Paul was not an eye-witness to anything.

    Question: when is most of the documentation about all of these eye-witness martyrs from?

  62. Paul was an eye witness to the post mortem appearances of Jesus. The testimony of the eye witnesses predominantly comes from Paul and his letters are dated very early. Within just a few years of the actual event.

  63. Oh, you mean because he claimed to have had a vision of Jesus after he was crucified and allegedly resurrected and ascended into heaven? That’s what qualifies as an “eye witness” to you?

  64. He was one of the hundreds who claimed to have seen Christ after his death. According to most historians his conversion is rather bizaar and shocking. Do you disagree?

  66. Christian, thanks for the recommendation for Rectify. I watched both seasons. Do you think Daniel killed her or not? There seems to be a lot of ambiguity about the issue since he seems to have some mental illness. Do you think the next season will have him getting arrested for George’s murder? Is Teddy a good guy or a bad guy or is that the wrong question? He seems SO bitter and mean-spirited; it’s hard for me to imagine he really loves Tawney at all. Is Daniel a believable character?

  67. Trans-racial, now that’s progressive! If you don’t accept her as black, you’re on the wrong side of history! 😉

  68. Glad to hear you liked it, Susabella! I’m interested to see where it goes. Third season starts July 9th. I think Teddy is a jerk, but not necessarily evil…yet. Daniel seems pretty believable to me as a person. Intelligent but shy and then locked up for more than half his life in solitary confinement on death row. That could definitely screw someone up. @christopherlake:disqus should weigh in on this too. He’s the one that originally recommended it to me.

  69. After Jesus flew up into the sky a la Neo from the matrix he zipped back down for Paul. He asked him “red pill or blue pill”. Paul chose wisely.

    You regurgitated your meds and went back into the maybe matrix 🙂

  70. Acts 9:

    As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. 4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”

    7 The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone.

    Acts 22:

    6 “About noon as I came near Damascus, suddenly a bright light from heaven flashed around me. 7 I fell to the ground and heard a voice say to me, ‘Saul! Saul! Why do you persecute me?’

    8 “‘Who are you, Lord?’ I asked.

    “ ‘I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting,’ he replied. 9 My companions saw the light, but they did not understand the voice of him who was speaking to me.

    Acts 26:

    12 “On one of these journeys I was going to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests. 13 About noon, King Agrippa, as I was on the road, I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, blazing around me and my companions. 14 We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’

    Leaving aside for now, the differences in what his companions supposedly experience and how the resurrected Christ still apparently doesn’t know the Greek language, there is no vision of Christ. There is a light and there is sound which he hears as a voice.

  72. And that sound, which he hears as a voice, identifies itself as Jesus and asks him to stop trolling the streets for believers.

  73. I know you have read Bart so I wanted to remind you of his comments on this topic.

    Bart Ehrman:

    It is a HISTORICAL FACT that some of Jesus’ followers came to believe that he had been raised from the dead soon after his execution. We know some of these believers by name; one of them, the apostle Paul, claims quite plainly to have seen Jesus alive after his death. Thus, for the historian, Christianity begins after the death of Jesus, not with the resurrection itself, but with the belief in the resurrection.

    Ehrman also says:

    We can say with COMPLETE CERTAINTY that some of his disciples at some later time insisted that . . . he soon appeared to them, convincing them that he had been raised from the dead.

     Ehrman also goes onto say:  

    Historians, of course, have no difficulty whatsoever speaking about the belief in Jesus’ resurrection, since this is a matter of public record.

    Why, then, did some of the disciples claim to see Jesus alive after his crucifixion? I don’t doubt at all that some disciples claimed this. We don’t have any of their written testimony, but Paul, writing about twenty-five years later, indicates that this is what they claimed, and I don’t think he is making it up. And he knew are least a couple of them, whom he met just three years after the event (Galatians 1:18-19).

    This is great apologetics material because

    1. These Jews had no expectation of a messiah that would get killed and rise again from the dead.

    2. Some of these converts lost more than even Jason Stellan via conversion (thinking of Paul)

    3. The experiences are just too far spread apart and numerous to ascribe group halucination.

    In other words, these guys were not predisposed to look for a ressurection AND had no motive to make it up. That’s not PROOF that Jesus is risen…. but it certainly counts as interesting historical evidence

  74. @ComradeDread,

    If ancient miracles aren’t doing it for you anymore why don’t you look to more modern miracles? I always ask agnostics to consider Lourdes France. I very rarely get decent replies. The drunks should do a podcast on these Marian apparitions because it’s frankly astounding that more people don’t address them. The Catholic Church has been a hurricane of miracles for 2000 years. Take on Lourdes France with your most skeptical gaze and get back to me. Pick anyone of the miracles approved by either the Church OR the indipendent medical commission issued by France. These are amazing stories man.

  75. I was surprised I had never heard of them until they were briefly mentioned in RCIA. They are pretty interesting.

  76. One thing that really biebered me was when you said that Mike Huckabee comment about wanting to shower with the girls when he was in high school was in response to Jenner coming out as Caitlyn. Those remarks, which were rather stupid for someone who’s going to be running for President to make, were made back in February, http://time.com/3905462/mike-huckabee-transgender-joke/

  77. We had that discussion a few podcast threads ago. Given the ratio of ‘miracle’ cures that have happened to the number of visitors, these spontaneous remissions or healings seem even less than the estimated number of spontaneous remissions that happen naturally within the world population.

    There are some things we simply don’t have answers to yet. Maybe every case of spontaneous remission or healing is a miracle of God, maybe it’s something within our genes that science hasn’t discovered yet. I lean toward the latter. You lean towards the former.

  79. I hear that response frequently but I don’t think it’s adequate. First of all, we have NO IDEA how many people have been cured at Lordes. Atheists and Skeptics often claim that “because the Vatican only approved X amount of claims, X amount of claims are the only miraculous events that took place”. This is false. There were thousands and thousands of people claiming to be cured, and the Vatican selected out of those the people that had the most evidence of being sick. That does NOT mean that the other tens of thousands were lying. Only that they couldn’t prove it to the satisfaction of the vatican.

    Second, it seems highly unlikely that so many people would spontaneously activate their mutant healing powers in the same city that just happened to be a religious pilgrimage. But once you are dedicated to playing the extreme skeptic card any skeptical response will do. Did master shredder put the “ooz” in the water to chemically transform people’s healing mechanism? Who knows?!?! Sounds better than God. Did some aliens secretly perform surgery on people while they slept? Who knows?!?! Sounds better than God. Maybe everyone just spontaneously healed from quantum fluctuations and genetic mutations? Yeah. Totally.

  80. I’ve read 7,000 claims of miraculous healing, of which 69 were approved. I also read that Lourdes sees an average of 5,000,000 pilgrims every year.

    Span out the claims over 150 years.

    I don’t call it extreme skepticism to compare that to the average claims or cases of spontaneous healings or remissions and see that at best, we have similar numbers and at worse, the numbers from Lourdes are less than the ‘control’ population.

    And the human mind is a wonderful thing. As I recall, we have evidence that faith and a positive attitude help during sickness. Who is to say that in some cases, if one believes themselves or expects themselves to be cured, that would act as a trigger? We don’t know.

    And I’m comfortable with that answer for now. And I’m glad some scientists aren’t comfortable with it and continue to investigate those spontaneous healings so maybe in the future, everyone can experience ‘mutant’ healing from cancer.

  81. Again, these numbers are faulty. 7k claims with the vatican approving 69 or so. The French medical commission approved even more than that. The point is that these “aprovals” do NOT disprove the others. They simply say “these are the best for consideration”. 5 mil people travel to lourdes per year but NOT 5 mil people all looking for a miracle! Lol most of these are just pilgrimages sponsored by churches. If there was nothing shocking going on why would France issue an indipendent medical commission to investigate what was going on?

    None of these handwaving responses about mutant cures and random quantum fluctuations do these people’s story justice. But of course, once your ready to play the skeptical card, and skeptical response will do.

  82. And once you’ve decided to ‘handwave’ away inconvenient data and non-religious ‘healings’ you’ve already decided that it must be God and nothing will sway you. So let’s leave it at that.

  83. As soon as you produce relevant data you will have an argument. So far, you have neither.

  85. That’s funny. No, we both have the EXACT same data. We have incidents of spontaneous healing throughout the world, some of which occur on or after a religious pilgrimage. Some of which do not.

    {The statistic I quoted regarding spontaneous remission in cancer is on the NIH website (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3312698/)

    “The spontaneous healing of cancer, after having been the subject of many controversies, is now accepted as an indisputable fact. The percentage of spontaneous regression as quoted by Boyers is 1 in 80,000 and 1 in 100,000 by Bashford; it may be subjected to criticism but proves a remarkable fact that cancer is not an irreversible process.”

    Per the American Cancer Society, there will be 1.6 million new cases of cancer in the United States this year. Which would statistically mean that if the dice rolled that way, up to 16 of those people might experience sudden remission.}

    Where we differ is in the conclusion we draw from that singular set of data. Given that data and only that data, the only conclusion I think you can logically draw is that we don’t know how it is happening.

    You are allowing your confirmation bias to influence your conclusion. God is real and miracles are in the bible, therefore these cases MUST be a miracle from God. I think that is jumping to a conclusion unsupported by the available information.

  86. I didn’t even know we were discussing cancer lol Lourdes France isn’t the mayo clinic. The healings that took place were from multiple and numerous ailaments. Paralysis, nerve damage, spinal injuries, etc. etc. If we were strictly speaking of cancer you might have a glimmer of a point, but that’s not what’s under discussion.

  87. Cancer is the most readily available disease with statistics of spontaneous remission.

    Nerve damage, spinal injuries, and paralysis can heal if the nerve isn’t severed. The brain can recover and remap itself too. Hell, I just listened to a Protestant minister talk of how he went from an active healthy lifestyle to being confined to a wheelchair within weeks, his throat and swallow reflexes paralyzed, spent months like that, and then spontaneously was able to swallow and eat again.

    No visitation to a holy site, nothing special at all. People prayed for him the same as they’d prayed for the last year. His body just started functioning again.

    He chalked it up to divine intervention, which is possible. But it’s also equally possible that something happened with his body that we can’t explain.

    And once again, that’s the difference between where we stand. You are confident based on your presupposed world view to see the divine in it as well. I am willing to admit this is a possibility, but find it inconclusive to say with any certainty.

  88. Whether these comments were made in February or today, it really doesn’t matter. As long as he still believes the sentiment behind the comments. But honestly, Huckabee’s got more issues to worry about than some offensive and frankly childish comments he made. There are even more people associated with Huckabee who are child molesters. Example, John Perry who he co-authored a book with. Or Wayne Eugene DuMond, a convicted rapist (only on one count but had avoid trial for several other rapes), whom Huckabee helped obtain release from prison. We all know how this story ends, DuMond moved to Missouri where he raped and murdered a woman.

    http://www.rawstory.com/2015/06/mike-huckabee-has-a-brand-new-child-molester-problem-the-co-author-of-his-books/ && http://www.rawstory.com/2015/05/meet-mike-huckabees-rapey-2016-running-mate-who-will-keep-him-from-being-president-forever/

  89. Glad you liked the series, Christian! I hope that Jason checks it out too! I don’t think that Daniel killed her, and I think that is the general leaning of the show’s narrative, but I could be wrong. I do like that the show leaves at least some room for ambiguity. Overall, I like Daniel, but I struggle with Teddy. Sometimes, I can’t stand him, and sometimes, I feel for him. More often, I feel for Tawney as his wife though. (Alas, I won’t be able to watch the third season until it is over and comes to Netflix streaming, as I don’t have cable!)

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