Episode 91 – Bringing Up Kids When Church Lets You Down

Summary

Episode 91, Bringing Up Kids When Church Lets You Down. In this episode Andrew and Matthew welcome Bekah McNeel to talk about her book and the deconstruction that prompted it. Bekah is an engaging author and a delightful individual and we both thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. We also highly recommend her book, it is insightful. Towards the end of this episode we touch on Bekah’s next book and we hope to have her back when that is out. In the meantime, if you know someone or you are someone, who can speak authoritatively on gun violence or on abortion and how each are impacted by fundamentalist Christianity, then please get in touch we are actively seeking out guests for both those subjects. Reasonpress@gmail.com

Bekah McNeel

https://bekahmcneel.com/about/

Tweets by BekahMcneel

Bringing Up Kids When Church Lets You Down

https://bekahmcneel.com/book/

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Transcription

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Podcast: I try poetry

I was inspired to try poetry. Why? Well I did do a lot of it during my teen years, mostly prompted by angst. But this year I had a different motivation.

I heard the apologist Glen Scrivener (https://christthetruth.net/about-2/) deliver his own poem about a fictional conversation with an atheist. You can read it here:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ex8GvfVysyZW4qde6WT83anCr9qQYSgwipUGJCe4jXo/edit

Though I do understand you can watch a delivery on YouTube if you ask google the right question.

My version is a fictional dialog with a Christian, written in a similar style to Glen’s. It is currently audio only, you can listen below.

https://anchor.fm/still-unbelievable/episodes/Episode-16-The-Still-Unbelievable–Poem-e4k9ic/a-air3ut

Podcast: Episode 18 – Ask An Atheist Day Question show special – part 3 of 3

Part three of the monster Ask An Atheist Day question show special is now live.

If you want to ask us a question, you can do so using this handy voice link: https://anchor.fm/reasonpress/message

https://anchor.fm/reasonpress/embed/episodes/Episode-18—Ask-An-Atheist-Day-Question-show-special—part-3-of-3-e3pv6u

 

Podcast: Episode 15: Easter Round Table with Skeptics and Seekers

https://anchor.fm/reasonpress/episodes/Episode-15-Easter-Round-Table-with-Skeptics-and-Seekers-e3o0ab/a-ad5lhg

It’s time for another Round Table episode; Andrew and Matthew are joined by Dale and David from the Skeptics and Seekers podcast for another of their regular round tables. This time fielding questions about Easter.

Find out more about Skeptics and Seekers at https://skepticsandseekers.wordpress.com/

 

 

Podcast: Episode 14 – Ask An Atheist Day Question show special – part 1 of 3

There’s going to be a flurry of podcast posts in the upcoming weeks. I have two in the queue waiting for me to hit the publish button, and I have 3 more in the edit process. I never wanted to publish more than one a week, but I don’t think I can avoid it right now. Today is Ask An Atheist Day and I recorded a four hour session answering various questions. Due to the length I have decided to split the recording into three parts, the first hour is available at the link below. The next two parts will follow, plus I have an Easter special episode to publish.

https://anchor.fm/reasonpress/episodes/Episode-14—Ask-An-Atheist-Day-Question-show-special—part-1-of-3-e3p327/a-adbbc2

This first part of the Ask An Atheist Day special covers the fire at Notre Dame, deconverting Christians, giving up beliefs, sex and marriage, and monkeys throwing poop! Have a giggle with us.

Podcast: Episode 13: The Burden of Proof, Bayes Theorem, and Molinism

https://anchor.fm/reasonpress/episodes/Episode-13-The-Burden-of-Proof–Bayes-Theorem–and-Molinism-e3n57p/a-ad1cgl

Another of my podcast episodes has gone live, this time Andrew and I are in discussion with Dale from the Skeptics and Seekers podcast (https://anchor.fm/skeptics-and-seekers)

The conversation is supposed to be about who holds the burden of proof for what, but there is a segment where Andrew and Dale get a little stuck on Bayes, don’t worry though, it doesn’t dominate the episode.

As always, comments and discussion are welcome, or join in at the the Skeptics and Seekers site: https://skepticsandseekers.wordpress.com/2019/04/09/ask-an-atheist-anything-when-does-the-atheist-bear-the-burden-of-proof-dale-guest-stars/

 

Podcast: How should the church respond to Transgender

Recently I was a host on the Still Unbelievable! talking about transgender and the church. This episode is responding to an episode of the Unbelievable? podcast on the same subject.

The Transformed document that is referenced in the episode is found here: https://www.eauk.org/resources/what-we-offer/reports/transformed-understanding-transgender-in-a-changing-culture/transformed-the-resource

It’s a shocking document and I recommend reading this critique of it: http://mikehigton.org.uk/a-critique-of-transformed-1/

Ask An Atheist Day, April 18

Ask An Atheist Day is a thing, Apparently, and this year it falls on April 18th.

To support this, the podcast I co host, Ask An Atheist Anything, is going to do a questions episode. In this episode we’ll field a bunch of questions and give brief answers. This will be a change from most episodes where we have tended to focus on a single question.

So, what question would you like to ask an atheist?

Or, if you’re atheist, what question would you like to be asked?

Or, if you’ve seen an interesting question or set of questions elsewhere, paste in the link.

 

 

Can atheism explain Consciouness?

 

The latest episode of my Ask An Atheist Anything podcast went live over the weekend. Listen to it at the link below or wherever you get your podcasts.

https://anchor.fm/reasonpress/episodes/Episode-12—Can-atheism-explain-Consciousness-e3fr5q

The conversation that Andrew and I have with Ernest is delightful and there is a lot of genuine laughter. Ernest’s enthusiasm for life is infectious and the world does need more people like him.

The blog post that prompted the discussion and eventual recording of the episode is here: https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Saturday/Unbelievable/Unbelievable-blog/How-consciousness-demolished-my-atheism-and-saved-my-faith

Comments are no longer visible or possible on the blog post, which I think is a massive shame. It was only through the ability to comment that I was able to make contact with the author and to organise the live conversation. Shutting down comments kills the ability for dialogue to spread.

I am hopeful that there will be a follow up episode, so any thoughts, feedback, or follow up questions will be welcomed and appreciated.

Twenty Arguments for God – A Summary

 

I’ve spent the last couple of months considering and responding to twenty arguments for the existence of the Christian god (http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics-more/20_arguments-gods-existence.htm).

To be blunt, I’m unconvinced and less than impressed. The bottom line is, when Christianity tries to argue for the existence of its god, it does so from a position of wishful thinking. Christianity desperately needs to appear reasoned and lacking in superstition, so arguments like that list emerge to try and show that face. Yet, when the bright light of reason does indeed shine on these arguments, what becomes demonstrably clear is that Christian arguments for their god are framed so that they can only conclude in their god and are worded so as to guide only towards the Christian god. It is the perfect example of putting the cart before the horse.

The big thing that is lacking in all these arguments is the test. This is the pinnacle of a reasoned argument. It’s all well and good making a case for something, but if you don’t create a test that will confirm or deny the validity of the idea, then you have only done half a job.

Christian apologetics as a whole is the school of half a job and this list of twenty arguments demonstrates that nicely.

When I started through the list I was hoping that I would be challenged to think deeper about why I rejected my former faith. I hoped that the challenge would stimulate me into having to think about the implications of the arguments and maybe even spend some time reading up on the background to the arguments. I did that a little for some of them, but over all I found that the arguments were light on substance to the point that my biggest challenge was to try to address the points thoughtfully and not resort to a sarcastic dismissal. It’s very possible that I wasn’t as successful on that as others would be.

The most disappointing argument for me was also one of the most popular and widely used, the Kalam Cosmological Argument. It really is a shocker. That intelligent people hold it in high regard demonstrates the wishful thinking element of religion and how far people will go to shore up their beliefs with arguments that have the superficial appearance of rationality.