Tag: resurrection, death
-
#146 – Hell? or Purgatory?
We trace the evolution of the human construct “Hell” (Sheol; Hades; Gehenna; Dante’s Inferno), then talk about how hell may not be a place of eternal conscious torture by fire (the modern Evangelical version), but a transitional process intended to purify (Purgatory and Universalism). One of the most disturbing elements of the “Good News” preached…
-
#112 – Easter
Comments/questions from our listeners and members prompt this deep-dive into this most important of Christian holidays It’s always tempting to do a blog or episode every year on Christmas and on Easter. They’re both such easy, ready-made topics, with many obvious angles and discussion points. Bloggers and podcasters find them hard to resist. In almost…
-
#110 – Putting together a new Christian worldview (part 5)
Piecing together what the previous four episodes showed us about the End Times and Christ’s second coming. After four weeks of talking to experts on various aspects of “End Times” theology, this episode is our chance to put together many pieces of the puzzle into a coherent picture. In part, this means we have to…
-
#109 – “End Times”, an ancient Jewish perspective
A close look at apocalyptic literature written before Jesus (and with which he interacted), and long after him (including John’s book of Revelation). In this fourth and final episode of our miniseries on “the End Times”, we talk to Dr. John J. Collins (Prof. Old Testament; Yale Divinity School) about ancient Apocalyptic literature … a…
-
#96 – a response to Swamidass and Alexander
Our listeners … and we ourselves …. raise some questions about the previous two episodes and the whole ideological motive behind asking “who is Adam?” Over the last two weeks, we’ve been perusing scholarly works on the subject of “Who was Adam?” [note: a pet peeve of mine … Eve is almost always left out…
-
#93 – Mailbag #3
Our responses to a flurry of comments and questions to two recent episodes: one on Open/Process Theism, and the other comparing theology and science as legitimate avenues in the search for Truth. Two of our recent episodes both evoked a tremendous response from our listeners, in terms of comments left at our two Facebook sites…
-
#91 – Science, Theology and the search for Truth
Luke asks two theologians to convince him that theology is a legitimate avenue for coming up with robust models of our reality Science and theology are both human endeavours seeking to explain our past, our present reality, and possibly also the trajectory of our future. Both build elaborate ideas on the foundation of previous scholars,…
-
#90 – Open Theology and Process Theology
A brief introduction to two forms of theology that are as old as the Bible itself, but have labels that are only a few decades old. One of the biggest problems in Christian theology arises out of the simple belief that God is all-loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful. The problem? … why, then, is there so…
-
#88 – Hell
Our understanding of Hell has been evolving for thousands of years … and we’re the ones making all the changes! Dr. Meghan Henning (Associate Professor of Christian Origins; University of Dayton, OH) gives a scholar’s view on the historical evolution of JudeoChristian thinking about this … “place?” … state? …. concept? For thousands of years,the…
-
#86 – Putting together a new Christian worldview (part 4)
A third and final look back at the last 20 episodes: our “Origin and Evolution of …” series. In this final episode of Season 3, we looked back a third time at the “Origin and Evolution of …” series of episodes that we started at the beginning of the year. That series was a deep-dive…
-
#85 – Resurrection
A close look at how this is quite different from mere resuscitation of a dead body, and how it’s the crucial evidence for Christianity being “the true myth.” For millennia, we humans have been making myths: stories of heroes, villains, tests-of-character, conflicts, rescue missions, and more. It’s a distinctly human trait, and the foundation for…
-
#83 – Jesus as cosmic divine being
Paul and John seem to paint a different portrait of Jesus than those who walked and talked with him (last week’s topic). Last week, we looked at the first half of that paradoxical Christian expression: Jesus was “fully human and yet fully divine.” We learned that the people who walked and talked with him found…
-
#54 A global deconstruction network
Last week, we talked about believers starting out with a simple but passionate Christian belief (stage 1) which crumbles as doubts and questions erode the pillars of their faith (stage 3). This is such an unsettling experience for anyone going through that, but Brian McLaren showed that it is still possible to find Faith after…
-
#53 Back to church III – growing up
Last week, we heard about people returning to church after COVID had kept the doors closed for over a year. This week, we hear about people returning to faith after doubts and too many questions kept them locked out for much longer. In his latest book … Faith after doubt: why your beliefs stopped working…
-
#45 – Neurobiology of spiritual experience – part 3
The neurobiology of the spiritual relationship is such a big topic, we thought it would be good to hear from a second scholar who comes at this from a completely different angle. Dr. Sarah Lane Ritchie obtained her graduate degree in Theology and Science studying consciousness, neuroplasticity and religious belief … we couldn’t have found a…
-
#44 – Neurobiology of spiritual experience – part 2
Having described the neurobiological mechanisms behind our relationships with other people, Dr. Smith then addressed our original question: “how do we humans relate to God?” Her answer: “in exactly the same way.” Some might be surprised that I even had to ask. They might shrug their shoulders or flip their hands and say: “Of course…
-
#43 – Neurobiology of spiritual experience – part 1
At this point in our mini-series looking at spiritual/religious experiences, we thought it would be good to understand how we perceive the rest of the world around us, including our relationships with other people, or our pets. This is still one of the biggest questions in science: one that is still entirely unresolved. And it…
-
#42 – “Personal relationship”
Many Christians insist that this is the main thing that distinguishes Christianity from all other religions: “we have a personal relationship with the Divine”. I certainly heard this many times during the first few decades of my spiritual journey. The problem for me was, I just didn’t seem to ever experience what they claimed. The…
-
#36 – COVID-19, part II
It’s been almost a year and a half since we’ve had COVID-19, and over half a year since we’ve talked about it. It’s time for an update. Global deaths have now exceeded 3 million, despite our having several vaccines with high efficacy. At the heart of this paradox: people refusing to wear masks, to socially…
-
#33 End of the World (ITEOTWAWKI)
View the autosave [This is a re-posting of an episode with a broken link] There’s never been a shortage of reasons to think that the Apocalypse was right around the corner. But Covid-19 and worldwide socio-political-economic unrest have recently ratcheted that fear to a whole new level. It takes some effort to not get caught…
-
#32 – Mailbag episode – the Bible
. Looking back at the comments and responses which have accumulated at this WordPress site, at Facebook, and sent to us by email, we thought it was time to respond to a few of them in more detail. We noticed a couple recurring themes, one of which related to the Bible itself: All great questions.…
-
#27 Science Denial
We all do this: we dismiss verifiable scientific fact because we think we know better, or because we think we’re an outlier case. For some, this looks fairly innocuous. Resorting to medicinal herbs and Gwyneth Paltrow to treat health problems. Thinking that cell phones cause brain cancer … wind turbines cause leukemia … 5G networks…
-
#20 Atonement Theology: what does science have to say?
The last in this four part mini-series. Previously, we’ve talked about what science has to say about “Original Sin,” and then last week about seven ideas the Church has had for ten or twenty centuries about “Atonement.” Here, we see how those seven ideas about Atonement stand up to our new modern understanding of human…
-
#19 Atonement Theology: the traditional view(s)
Atonement … aka, salvation. The whole point behind Christianity. In fact, the main reason we have religions of any kind. Atonement is basically about finding a way to God. Given that this is so central, you might think that the Christian church would have had a unified understanding about this right from its earliest days,…
-
#18 Original Sin: what does science say?
Our goal next week is to talk about the core of Christian faith: Atonement Theology. But before we can do that, we need to talk about a fundamental concept on which it’s built: a concept called “Original Sin.” The Christian understanding of that idea is rooted in the story found in the third chapter of…
-
#17 Original Sin: the traditional view(s)
One of the core tenets of Christian theology … is also often one of the hardest to embrace, and all-too-often a reason for giving up on the faith. How is an abstract, theological concept like guilt or sin transmitted down through genetic lines? Can that really be inherited like skin color, or a tendency towards…
Reaching into Plato's Cave 