Podcast #85: The Murder of Justice Scalia

69 February 21, 2016 by

85_rectangleThis edition of Drunk Ex-Pastors begins with a depressing reminder that we are aging and on a steep decline in health and wellness followed by an economics lesson on how, if we are all dying anyway, we can live for free off other people’s money until we meet our untimely end. We then hear from a local listener whose Valentine’s Day ended with some sexy lovin’ despite how it began (with public half-naked man-wrestling). We then take a caller’s question about whether CrossFit is a cult or merely a lifestyle-defining group with incredibly devoted members whose zeal to convert others to their way of life utterly consumes them. Another caller asks whether Jason’s insistence that Leftist extremists are more benign than their Right-wing counterparts is actually true or just special pleading, after which we recount the birthday festivities that took place after last week’s show as recorded. We seek to put to bed all present and future charges of racial and political bias by criticizing a bunch of white people, and then continue our “Pagan Repent!” discussion by examining why God, despite having a myriad of options, would choose to reveal himself to first-century Jews (or as Christian calls them, “those people”). Our “Feeding Friendsy” portion of the show seeks to get to the bottom of Justice Scalia’s obvious murder, ascertaining whether the killer had help or if Obama simply acted alone. And finally, Christian is biebered by the fact that he apparently looks like a teenager (albeit one with chronic breathing problems).

Also, if Bernie doesn’t win, look at the bright side — at least he can get back to his real passion: stabbing babies with scissors on their birthday

Links from this Episode:

69 Comments (click here to leave a comment)

  1. Regarding Manning – I’m wondering if anything a 19-year-old does that is as stupid as what he did, should be held against them for life? Full disclosure: I’m a die-hard Broncos fan and have been a Manning fan since before he came to Denver.

    What he did was disgusting and so fucking stupid. I wouldn’t call it sexual assault as it wasn’t sexual in nature, so mush as it was meant to degrade her, and was definitely assault. What he and Archie did later by trying to cast her as a horrific human being and a woman who “sleeps with lots of black men” *(WTF?!) was inconsolable. She has a right to sue them for defamation and breach of their non-disclosure. I’d love to see what was in the lawsuit that has since been destroyed. But this, as far as we know, hasn’t been his MO – he’s not repeated it with other women and I believe learned a valuable lesson and grew up after it.

    I could be wrong and am open to correction – if he were a rapist and that came out, I’d be shouting his behavior from the rooftops – and denouncing him and the Broncos for affiliating themselves with him.

    As for the 19-year-old issue – I think that brings up what the caller today spoke on, insofar as SJW’s. There are people out there, who when a person makes one mistake, are hell bent on destroying them – rather than educating and rehabilitating them. I would hope that (god forbid) if this were my 19 year old son who did something so foolish, his life wouldn’t need to be destroyed, but a valuable lesson in integrity, personal responsibility (I think Peyton got that, but not Archie) learned.

    I’d also like to note I do have an 18-year-old daughter and if someone did this to her I’d be livid. But by no means would I want the young mans life ruined – I’d want him to get help to understand why this isn’t acceptable and why it was assault. Now, if he did it again to her or others and this was a lifestyle – Burn the fucker, I’m all in.

    Peyton has conducted himself with integrity for most of the game – I don’t know what his off filed life is – and i hope that if it is full of assaults, sexual or otherwise, that those things come out and we know – I’d rightly judge him from that – Not from this one incident.

    As to the HGH thing – He probably did. At the time it was illegal in the NFL, but not tested for (it is tested for now). It would explain how he healed the way he did and how he came back better than ever. Honestly though, who cares? It also shouldn’t be illegal for these guys to smoke weed or use cannabis oil – they pump them full of other shite, and they get penalized for the more natural stuff? So stupid. The whole game is stupid, I know – I still love it. Blame my husband.

  4. The only reason we talked about Cam Newton for 3 episodes is because of daft people who couldn’t get it through their heads that we weren’t criticizing him for “having fun” or being black.

    I also didn’t realize it was the length of time you spent talking about someone. I thought it was the actual content of what you said, but I realize that some people just aren’t all that bright, so if we keep getting ridiculous, illogical comments like this one, I’m sure we’ll talk about Peyton for 3 episodes too.

  6. • This opening segment is like a class in what not to do with credit cards.

    • If I could mandate one thing to be taught in public schools, I would demand they teach about compound interest until every child left high school knowing just how badly the system is out to fuck them if they aren’t vigilant.

    • As it stands, we throw 18 year old kids into the wind knowing very little about money and being raised in a consumerist culture, leaving them prey to banks and credit card companies.

    • Yes, credit cards and banks can provide a useful service, but consumers should go into adulthood armed with more knowledge about how the system works and will do its damnest to make as much money off of them as possible.

    • Yeah, sometimes, I hang around a site after posting a comment and watch the Likes come in.

    • Yes, I do realize that my life is rather pathetic.

    • Yes, he could have shot the intruder, but do you have any idea how hard it is to get bloodstains out of carpet? It’s almost impossible! Uh… not that I would know about that… What happens in Mexico, stays in Mexico.

    • I think there are a lot of people out there with a predication towards addiction. Some of them choose unhealthy addictions, like drugs or food or alcohol or sex or fundamentalism, and some choose less destructive addictions, like exercise and being vegan. They’re all equally annoying.

    • How can you tell if someone is a vegan? Don’t worry, they’ll tell you every five minutes.

    • Do you also have the mutual pact that if one of you dies, the other erases their browser history?

    • It’s possible that the writer of Hebrews took those stories at face value.

    • When dealing with myths and the power of myths, it’s not always helpful to think in terms of truth and falsehood when it comes to details. The truth of David and Goliath seems to be that Elhanan killed a warrior named Goliath, and over time, the deed became attributed to David, Israel’s greatest king, and at some point, a scribe pieced together a narrative of the myth from different sources. But the truth of the myth, that of the unlikely hero answering the call to faith and action and accomplishing great deeds doesn’t depend on 100% historical accuracy.

    • Have they brought out guns and occupied a government building and threatened to kill any government agents that tried to bring them out?

    • The French revolution was more about class than politics. The masses of peasants were upset at the wastefulness and corruption of the aristocracy and revolted. They were caught up in the revolution as many revolutionaries are and ended up committing atrocities as bad or worse than the aristocracy did. But I wouldn’t qualify them as progressives.

    • Fanta… yeah, tasty orange flavored Nazi Coke… Mixed with vanilla vodka.

    • Yes, I realize that’s probably an abomination, but it does taste like a 50/50 bar.

    • And it’s like a reenactment of the eastern front in WWII, at first the Nazi coke overwhelms the vodka, but the vodka lingers on with a pleasant aftertaste and then comes back and kicks ass after about 3 drinks.

    • I wrote up a nice long point on abortion and the deleted it because I’m tired of talking about the subject.

    • Eh, I’ve never really liked Peyton Manning. He’s always seemed to me like an entitled jock-type.

    • Not for whatever reason. It was buried because he was a star player and he was making a lot of money for his university. The brand and the profits always take primacy over the people.

    • I can accept that a 19 year old kid is stupid and shouldn’t be defined by one incident for the rest of his life, but if he then goes on to write a book that defames his victim when he’s an adult, then he’s an asshole through and through.

    • Sort of like how I could forgive Lance Armstrong for doping when everyone else in the sport was doing it, but then the guy had to go and basically do his damnedest for the longest time to ruin anyone who said “This guy is doping.”

    • Donald Trump is an asshole. We can all agree on that.

    • I do believe in the incarnation, but I can see the point given 2,000 years of distance from it, that it does seem like a hopelessly inefficient way to distribute a message to all of mankind. Not that long after Pentecost, we had competing groups of Jesus followers debating who Jesus was and what it all meant. They were sometimes so opposed to one another that the groups hated each other and saw the other as heretical. It was the heretical Marionites who first had the idea of compiling an official canon and may have been responsible for creating parts of the gospel of Luke. The Gnostics had their own writings. Today, various churches have various canons and even when one dominant point of view came to prominence, it didn’t stay unified for all that long with the Coptic Church sort of doing their own thing and the Orthodox breaking off, followed by Protestants centuries later, the Dispensationalists of the 19th century, and the more modern American fundamentalists who would view the original Christians and early Church Fathers are mistaken at best or heretical. And everyone loves to try and tie back their own particular point of view back to the apostles. The message has gotten garbled, conflated with politics, abused and corrupted by the elite, passed off to thousands of different groups all playing a game of Telephone with it.

    • God is always telling people they should run for president, often against each other. You think God enjoys fucking with fundamentalist politicians just for laughs?

    • A 79 year-old, obese smoker who has been eating Italian food most of his life just doesn’t drop dead of a heart attack, for God’s sake. Of course, he was murdered by Obama. It’s the only thing that makes sense.

    • 9/11 Truth conspiracy is bullshit.

    • I tried yoga once, but a sweaty, hairy man with a spare tire bending over in a room full of mirrors is not something I want to inflict on other people.

    • Costco is awesome.

    • I’m funny how, I mean funny like I’m a clown, I amuse you? I make you laugh, I’m here to fuckin’ amuse you? What do you mean funny, funny how? How am I funny?

  7. Christian and Jason,

    This video ties in closely to your pagan repent conversation. Christian says that a calm man answering questions for God would be enough to inspire faith. Checkout Richard Dawkins and Peter Bogghosian discussing what it would take for them. Starts at 11:40 and ends at 19:40

    https://youtu.be/VZVhNySvOd0

  8. No, you were obstinately interpreting his actions as indicative of poor character. When others offered alternative explanations, such as celebrating in the spirit of entertainment and pleasing the fans, you simply doubled-down and said, no, its ego and arrogance. The racist component is contained in your lack of insight and imagination to consider the alternative interpretation, i.e., its a matter of your prejudice. We are all prejudiced in one degree or another, its no shame to own it, look at it, and grow past it.

    The first statement in your second paragraph is not a coherent sentence. You might want to take the time to sound literate when you are going to make claims about other people not being bright, or other comments being ridiculous and illogical. It does not take much time to show what a dreg you are. In the present instance, you agreeing one hundred percent with someone who is arguing that if (1) a man committed sexual assault, then years later made defamatory comments about his accuser, then years later got ahead of the recovery curve by using illegal drugs, but (2) was a stand up guy the rest of the time (i.e., other than the times he was sexually abusing a woman, defaming her, and cheating in his sport), then (3) he should not be judged by the times when he acted criminally. But Cam Newton is an asshole, an arrogant egomaniac, because he celebrates after touchdowns, as we, the DXP fucktards, are happy to insist upon for three weeks in a row.

    Do I really need to go further pointing out what is wrong with these positions, whether you take them singly or in juxtaposition, in short snippets or mind-numbing length? If that is the kind of thing that passes muster with you guys, then the wheel is broken. Obviously, the wheel is broken. Its nice to watch it play out, if only to confirm my own prejudices about liberals and such ilk.

  9. your lack of insight and imagination to consider the alternative interpretation

    Says the guy (from Charlotte, North Carolina) who can’t imagine the fact that he’s the one that is biased.

    The first statement in your second paragraph is not a coherent sentence.

    Let me break it down for you. Your comment implied to me that the amount of time we spent talking about Cam Newton was disproportionate to what we spent on Peyton Manning and that was somehow important to the discussion since you mentioned the “three weeks.” My response was: “I also didn’t realize it was the length of time you spent talking about someone. I thought it was the actual content of what you said…” I don’t claim to be a writer, but I don’t think it’s that difficult to understand.

    he should not be judged by the times when he acted criminally

    I’m wondering if you even listened to the podcast. We clearly stated that if he’s guilty of those things (and we made it clear that we think he probably is), then he’s an asshole and a much worse person than Cam Newton. I think we said we’d even rather hang out with Cam Newton than Peyton Manning. I don’t think we’re the ones with the “prejudice” here.

    Its nice to watch it play out

    We had a guy from OL a while back who acted a lot like you and said things like this. I don’t remember his name, but his criticisms really dealt a huge blow to Drunk Ex-Pastors. We’re still trying to recover.

    DXP fucktards

    Stay classy, Andrew! Nothing makes me more sure of what I don’t believe than knowing Christians like you.

  10. Why would a christian cursing and being pissy confirm your non belief? If an agnostic liberal got pissy and cursed at you would your skepticism be in crises?

  12. Yeah, I can see their point. However, if there is a god, I don’t think they’re giving him enough credit. If god exists and he wants to prove to me that he exists beyond a shadow of a doubt, he is really the only one that can. They’re right that showing me something can be explained away as a hallucination or the brain malfunctioning or whatever. But god, if he’s around, can truly change the heart and mind of someone. I will need him to do that to me if he doesn’t want to torture me for all eternity. 🙂

  13. I was referring to the comment above with which you agreed, and the insistence (by two white, liberal assholes in Seattle, Washington) that Cam’s celebrations are indicative of low character. So, you see, I was criticizing the content of what you said or agreed with, relative to both guys, and the repetitive criticism of one of those guys, the black one.

    I am not trying to deal DXP any sort of blow. My comments are of the “answer a fool according to his folly” variety; hence, the insults. Your response about being classy is exactly the sort of hypocritical double-dealing that you guys lean upon whenever some blowback comes your way. The podcast is full of “fuck you”s “assholes” “snail trails” “swarthy people” and the like. But by all means, keep it classy–everybody else.

    Neither am I here to try to convince you, by word or example, of anything you don’t currently believe. That would be a waste of my time and yours. As I said before, your show is funny, highly listenable, and mostly based upon bullshit in the ideas department. That’s all good at the level of pure entertainment, but when the ideas at least serve as a pretext for the humor, and the humor trades upon insults and caricature, it seems fair game to hit back at the level of ideas, with the other tacked on for good measure.

    So suck it up, pussy-ass libs.

  14. We all need God to do that! I’ll have Mary pray for you. Jesus is her son and I’m sure she can get Him to get God on board. We gotta go up the chain of command obviously.

    I think the video is interesting because it shows how important our theory of knowledge is in making these decisions. Look at how hard these two (very intelligent) men had to think just to come up with some evidence that would satisfy them. In my opinion, their epistemology (theory of knowledge) makes it essentially impossible for them to accept God exists.

    You’ve said before that there are many good arguments for Gods existence. I’m pretty sure you would also grant that belief in the resurrection is reasonable, even if improbable. So your big issues are hell and suffering.

    Question: why do those two issues stop you from having faith in Jesus. The hell question is doctrinal and can be interpreted a million different ways. The problem of suffering is not conclusive. Even if suffering makes it improbable an omnibenevolent God exists, when placed on the scale next to the mountain of other arguments that show such a God DOES exist these at LEAST balance out. And if 50/50 why not just hope?

  16. That’s all good at the level of pure entertainment…

    Good, because that’s all we care about. Our ideas are what they are, but our reason for putting them out there is simply to entertain people (which is working quite well, thank you very much).

    As for convincing Carolina fans that we aren’t racists? Well that’s a fool’s errand if there ever was one.

  17. Not that long after Pentecost, we had competing groups of Jesus followers debating who Jesus was and what it all meant. They were sometimes so opposed to one another that the groups hated each other and saw the other as heretical. It was the heretical Marionites who first had the idea of compiling an official canon and may have been responsible for creating parts of the gospel of Luke. The Gnostics had their own writings. Today, various churches have various canons and even when one dominant point of view came to prominence, it didn’t stay unified for all that long with the Coptic Church sort of doing their own thing and the Orthodox breaking off, followed by Protestants centuries later, the Dispensationalists of the 19th century, and the more modern American fundamentalists who would view the original Christians and early Church Fathers are mistaken at best or heretical. And everyone loves to try and tie back their own particular point of view back to the apostles. The message has gotten garbled, conflated with politics, abused and corrupted by the elite, passed off to thousands of different groups all playing a game of Telephone with it.

    Agreed. However if the Catholic paradigm were true, it would provide a way out of the he said / she said hermeneutical quagmire. No Protestant paradigm can make that kind of claim, but only leaves their members in a situation where every doctrine is up for grabs and everything is negotiable.

    Which is why evangelicalism is just liberalism in infancy form.

  19. Christian ~”Peyton Manning’s actions were worse than Cam’s”. Yay! All I have ever wanted is Cam’s actions to be viewed with some perspective. Any charges of racism toward Cam’s detractors weren’t due to the criticism itself, but to the level and depth of criticism offered – especially when compared to other incidents that get brushed under the rug.

    As I assume you would quickly acknowledge, in any other aspect of American culture, racism is alive and well. Most of the time, it is subtle. Maybe a black motorist is pulled over for something minor. A minor incident is considered much more serious if the assailant is black. White guy hanging out? Must be waiting for someone. Black guy hanging out? Must be up to something lets stop and search him. Why can’t that dynamic be happening here? The Peyton Manning examples show how lopsided people are.

    Was I ever frustrated over the criticism itself? Not really, just the intensity of it. I was also a little surprised about how unwilling you guys were to the suggestion that racism might have an effect on people’s views. Any other situation you would have been sympathetic.

    Maybe I’m just a biased Carolina fan. Sure. But maybe my bias allowed me to see through the racist bias I and others might have.

  20. An atheist, a crossfitter, and a vegan are all sitting at a bar…
    and I only know this because they won’t shut the fuck up about it.

  21. That is the catch-22 with an entertainment program that trades upon the purveyors’ philosophy, or in your case, ideology. Convincing a Seattle-based liberal that there might be a racist dimension to his one-sided critique of a black man, something he might want to think about–fruitless exercise–as ya’ll have amply demonstrated. So the take-away here is: fuck you too.

  22. The thing is, Lane, you are the one who asked us to address this issue of Cam Newton. If you hadn’t, I can guarantee you that it was of so little importance to us that we never would have mentioned it. When it became non-trivial was when people made it an issue of race (or culture or whatever bigger issue they were trying to make it into). To me, he’s just an athlete who goes beyond celebrating and moves into taunting and gloating, which I find unpleasant and classless if done on a consistent basis. On its own it’s trivial though. I thought about it when watching the Panthers game and it never occurred to me again until you brought it up. I’ve seen players with different skin colors in a myriad of sports do the same thing and I never like it. I also don’t like it when players are sore losers. Skin color has nothing to do with it. Claiming it to be an issue of race and culture is what turned it into a bigger issue than it was.

    All you wanted was perspective? When did we ever not have perspective? Did we say that he was as bad as someone who beats his wife, or takes drugs, or sexually assaults someone? Give me a break. It would be like if someone complained about our talk about CrossFit, and came to us and said, “The Branch Davidians are worse! They’re a real cult! I can’t believe you’re picking on CrossFit!” No shit. We were just answering a voice mail about whether or not it’s cultish. We’re not the ones that need perspective here. You and everyone else who lost their shit over Cam Newton (the majority of who are located in the Carolinas) are the ones who need to get some perspective. We weren’t ranking human beings on a scale of sociopath to philanthropist. The context was what he thought of him as an athlete. I believe we even said multiple times that he may be the greatest guy off the field. All the Carolina fans sending us Peyton Manning articles detailing his alleged sexual assault and drug use to make a point of how much better Cam Newton is are the ones who need to get some perspective.

  24. Christianity being true isn’t 50/50 for me. It’s not even 1/100. It’s way less, and the further I get from it, the less likely it becomes. I don’t really think that belief in the resurrection is reasonable. However, I have yet to see the movie Risen, so.

  25. “The thing is, Lane, you are the one who asked us to address this issue of Cam Newton. If you hadn’t, I can guarantee you that it was of so little importance to us that we never would have mentioned it.”

    Not so little that you had a fully formed opinion of who Cam was and from what you saw in his celebrations. I recall you, throwing around the term douchebag and tool frequently in the first episode. And I believe you immediately said something to the affect of “you don’t want me saying what I think of that tool!” when I initially brought up the topic.

    “I believe we even said multiple times that he may be the greatest guy off the field.”

    And I appreciated that clarification. But that wasn’t what I heard initially. Recall that most of the blow back was from the first episode. Which I thought was way over the top critical. Have you provided more context and perspective sense, sure.

    Still, I am a little surprised how strongly you are resisting the idea that race might have an impact on people’s reactions here. And I’m speaking generally to the public reaction to Newton, not to your personal reaction. For goodness sake, a mother wrote a letter to the newspaper talking about how scandalized she was to have Cam celebrating touchdowns in front of her 9 year old daughter! This is an example of the stupid over the top reaction I’m talking about.

  26. Well then your goal posts are pretty shifty… Because a few months ago Jason pressed you for these same percentages and it wasnt so far gone. Unless your constant news feed checking has set you back lol

  28. Haha and as long as you’re an opinion free agnostic you remain bullet proof! A man of many opinions who stands on the foundation of nothingness 🙂

  29. Unfortunately, me too. I always tell myself to have no regrets, but I really regret believing what I did for so long, (raised evangelical and believed that way up until three or four years ago – I’m 32). It definitely deterred me from being more open minded about a lot of things at the time and I think was detrimental to my overall mental and emotional growth and well being.

    I think the thing he said that really stuck out to me was:

    So do you see how this intellectual climate would predispose a group of people to accept that a normal human being like Barack Obama, who is himself a family man who routinely professes faith in the Christian God, could be an evil overlord in disguise? With apocalyptic expectations like the ones so many Christians have inherited, the line between fiction and non-fiction gets blurred beyond any meaningful distinction.

  30. I think a number of people are tools and/or douche bags. That doesn’t mean that it’s important to me or that I think it’s significant in any way. If you were to ask me about Steve Doocy, I’d tell you that I think he’s a tool, but that doesn’t mean I’m thinking about him all the time. I couldn’t even remember his name until I just looked him up.

    I’m not resistant to the idea that race may have an impact on some people’s reactions to Cam Newton. I’m sure it does for some. That doesn’t mean that what people find distasteful about him is based on racism though. Are there Republicans that dislike Obama because they’re racist? Of course there are. Do all or even a majority of Republicans dislike Obama because he is black? Nope. Many or even most opponents have objections to Obama that have nothing to do with race. The rest would dislike him no matter which party he is from or what his ideas are because they are racist.

  34. “So the take-away here is: fuck you too.”

    Well, that’s my cue to sever ties with you. I mean, you can hurl insults at my co-host all you want, but when you slag off my favorite band, you’ve crossed a line.

    All the best. . . .

  35. @boywonder23k:disqus, curious how you’re feeling about the election these days. Last time we talked, you were beyond confident that the Republicans were going to demolish the Democrats. Are you still feeling the same way? (And this is not a snide question. I’m sincerely curious.)

  36. “Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks a word against Bono will not be forgiven in this age or the age to come”

  37. Well, I’ve been a little blind sided by the Trump phenomena. I sincerely thought he would cap at around 30% and the GOP would rally behind Cruz or Rubio. But, after Nevada, im really not sure. I feel confident that Rubio destroys Hillary and Bernie easily. I think that Cruz would likewise win. But Donald Trump is really throwing me for a loop.

    I keep thinking he will self implode and that is just not happening. I thought he was unelectable because he had no chance with Hispanics, but then he got 46% of them in Nevada! Wtf?!?

    At the end of the day Bernie is a socialist and Hillary has too much baggage…. But if Trump gets the nod and then the media vets the shit out of his former playboy ways I just don’t know.

    In short, I’m still supremely confident that the DNC screwed its shot. Biden would have made me nervous teamed up with that chick that you and Jason love….. But I just don’t see Hillary winning the general. If Bernie runs against Trump though I don’t know what the hell happens

  38. The polls I have seen have Bernie beating all the GOP hopefuls pretty roundly, while Hillary is only within the margin of error against Trump.

  39. Yes that’s true but hypothetical polls are always BS IMO. If he was that electable he would be pounding Hilary. Same with Rubio.

  40. Aren’t all polls hypothetical? Wait, I guess we could start polling people about what happened yesterday. . . .

  41. If he was that electable he would be pounding Hilary.

    A poll that pits Hillary against a certain Republican candidate and then Bernie against the same candidate is polling both parties. Isn’t that a truer picture of who would beat whom in a general election than which candidate is getting the most votes for the nomination among Democrats alone?

  42. Not in the sense that I’m talking about. There is a difference between

    “who would you vote for out of these three candidates that are going to be elected in your state next month”

    And

    ” if Kanye West and Pete Sampras were running for Senate who would you vote for?”

    The general public is barely paying attention today. The ones that are really just focus on their own party. Sanders vs Trump and Hillary VS Rubio polls are meaningless today.

    You can prove this to yourself with a common sense thought experiment. When election season really heats up and people start tuning in do you think any of these hypothetical will be accurate from today? I say no. Just my opinion

  43. No, for the reasons I spelled out for Jason.

    The GOP is praying for the fall of Trump….. I think that both Hillary and Bernie are just as unelectable as he is…. So I don’t know who the DNC should be rooting for when it comes to electablility

  44. If the only people paying attention are just voting for their own party, then why do the percentages change substantially depending on which Democratic candidate is facing the Republican candidate? Wouldn’t the percentages be the same for Hillary vs Cruz as for Sanders vs Cruz?

  47. For what it’s worth, it seems likely that, barring a bombshell, Trump will be the nominee. That’s the best case scenario for the GOP. If there is a bombshell that causes some Republicans to defect from him, he’ll blame the GOP and run as an independent taking some of his angry GOP followers that hate the GOP with him.

    Clinton will win the race over Sanders, but it will be closer than it should have been. She will have people telling her to pick Sanders as a running mate to garner and energize the youth vote.

    Both candidates have negatives. Trump is rich Archie Bunker, Clinton is, well, Clinton.

    Clinton will win the debates and probably capture more moderates than Trump. But there is the possibility that Trump with his bombast captures the angry white guy vote.

    So ultimately, I think it will come down to turn out. Will youth energized by Sanders stick with a Clinton/Sanders ticket? Will evangelicals really turn out for Trump? Will voter ID laws end up suppressing the minority vote?

    At this point, I think I’d give Clinton a very slight edge, but there is the very real possibility that January 21, 2017 will bring us the first day of the Trump Administration. And that is insane.

  48. Part of me thinks that if Trump was elected President that he’d quit at some point, saying something like, “I can’t work with these people. They’re idiots and I have better things to do. If they were serious about getting things done then I’d stick around, but they’re not. I’m leaving the Presidency in good hands with Sarah and I wish her the best because congress is a joke.”

    The presidency is hard. You don’t get to make your own schedule. There’s not much time to relax. Trump is a spoiled billionaire who has companies to run. I can’t imagine he would handle the responsibilities of the presidency very well.

  50. His statistical model has corrected predicted the results of every election for the last 104 years… huh? I can do one better. I can predict the results of every election for the last 208 years!

  51. I’m sure your mathematical model is using only data available prior to each election as well. [eye roll]

  54. Because you don’t have a list of books that come up on Amazon when I search your name with titles like:

    “Economics and Politics: The Calculus of Support” and
    “Analysis of Variance (Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences)”

  59. Jason, you said:
    “…However if the Catholic paradigm were true, it would provide a way out of the he said / she said hermeneutical quagmire…”

    Wouldn’t this be an anachronistic solution at best? Chris condensed almost two thousand years of history into a paragraph, in and throughout which this Roman “Catholic paradigm” was being developed, all the while partaking in the very same negotiating of all the up for grabs doctrines of their respective times.

  60. That debate last night. My god…. I feel bad for Kasich. He was the most reasonable out of the whole lot and doesn’t have a chance in hell. I hope that was as off-putting for everyone else as it was for me.

  61. Not sure I’m completely understanding you, Jeremiah, but my point was that the mere fact of disagreement over doctrines (or the canon from which they arise) does not mean there is no way to determine the truth (any more than the mere fact that some said that Jesus was Elijah, John the Baptist, or one of the prophets meant that he had no true identity).

    According to the Catholic paradigm, the Magisterium (the bishops and pope) exists to definitively settle disputes if they see fit to do so. It doesn’t mean that there will be no more disagreement, but it does mean that there is now a definitive position for people to be in schism from or ignore.

  62. Can you imagine if Hillary’s legacy ends up being that she is the person who lost America to Donald Trump? I would expect her to just immediately kill herself, purely for honor’s sake.

  67. I understand man, the idea just sounds as flaccid to my mind as the Reformed understanding of imputation in Paul. No worries though, I know where you’re coming from.

    I actually came on to comment on the pagan repent segment and got a little feisty in the process I guess, a common reaction of mine to much of the podcast 🙂 . I do appreciate Peter Enns’ position, though I’m not sure his methods of arriving where he does are necessary. Are you at all familiar with Greg Boyd’s thoughts on this? He’s supposed to have a big book coming out soon called The Crucifixion of the Warrior God dealing with this exact issue. His solution seems much more simple, though it’s not entirely alien to what Enns is saying. They have a lot of overlap. He basically starts with the Hebrews 1 passage of Jesus being the radiance of God’s glory, and the exact representation of his being—ultimately concluding with the cruciform God. And like many others, he recoils at the idea of squishing God’s loveliness with ‘His’ ugliness as depicted in much of the Hebrew scriptures, as if there’s no problem.

    I was glad to hear you mention Brad Jersak again. Have you read his book on the Apokatastasis?

  68. We see in European social democracies that where there is a widespread, generous, and destigmatized support system for all poor and disadvantaged people, and for mothers especially, that the public also supports much stronger restrictions on abortion than America has and abortion rates are lower than in America.

    Is this true, that some European countries support stronger restrictions?

    Overall I am sympathetic to the argument. I think both should be pursued at the same time. And I agree that legal restrictions are the most effective. The threat of more liberal supreme court justices have become even more important since the death of Scalia. If Obama puts a liberal Justice on the court, any small chance of me supporting Bernie would go away. The Court is simply too important.

  69. Haven’t read Boyd, in what way is he simpler than Enns? And I have read two books by Jersak, the second of which (Her Gates Shall Never be Shut) deals with that. Was that the one you meant?

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