Using the modified Wesleyan quadrilateral to summarize my current understanding of the Bible, God, Jesus and the human condition. In this episode, I explain how my Christian understanding on several key theological ideas has changed. I came from a very Fundamentalist Evangelical upbringing, and all our listeners know that I’ve completely left behind the Young Earth Creationism and superficially literal readings of the Bible that characterized the Christianity of my first three decades. And they’ll also know that I’ve been developing some rather creative transformations of a variety of aspects of my Christian faith. But what about the very basic core elements of Christianity? Where have I landed on those? Before we get into that, let’s be clear how I’ve modified and used a centuries-old theological tool for clarifying true, meaningful and practical beliefs: the four pillars of the Wesleyan quadrilateral. Many others emphasize the load-bearing capacity of two of those pillars: scripture and church tradition. How many times haven’t we heard Fundamentalist phrases like: “if the Bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it” and “we’ve always thought that way”? But I’ve given full flexibility and load-bearing capacity to all four corners so that, in some cases, reason and experience can bear most of the load, sometimes even eclipsing the explanatory power of scripture and church tradition. In response to those two well-worn Fundamentalist phrases I just quoted, I’m not hesitant to ask whether certain difficult Biblical passages are “just ancient Jews talking” (Psalm 137:8,9), and to suggest that “Christianity has ALWAYS been evolving in response to science, philosophy, culture, and politics.” And I’ve added in that ramp of reason that focuses and re-directs the leap of faith. Using this tool, I explain where I now stand on four central Christian ideas … the Bible, God, Jesus, and the human condition? For this episode blurb, I tried many times to summarize these deeply nuanced shibboleths into just a few pithy sentences. But I kept finding myself adding more and more paragraphs to each. So …. instead of reading it here, you’re going to have to listen to me unpacking those in the conversation recorded with Scott. Next week, we’re going to talk to Dr. Roger Olson, a very prominent Conservative theologian and scholar. We’ll ask him to comment on my new found theology, and to explain why I can’t call it “orthodox” … in the literal sense of that word (“true teaching”) rather than the traditional one (adhering to a literal reading of Scripture or a long church tradition). And the week after that, we’ll do the same with an equally prominent scholar on the other side of the theological spectrum, Dr. Douglas F. Ottati. As always, listen and then tell us your thoughts on this discussion … If you enjoyed this episode and want to dig deeper, you might want to go to our previous episodes on: the deconstruction and reconstruction of Luke’s faith how humans gave us the Old Testament how humans gave us the New Testament how humans re-wrote the Biblical texts Divine inspiration a personal relationship with the Divine prayer as a cognitive exercise human consciousness and the evolution of our mind and soul Jesus as a human Jewish Messiah and a cosmic divine being Atonement theology and what science has to say about it a new meaning of Easter the evolution of human religion and human morality Episode image by Andrew … thanks Andrew! To help grow this podcast, please like, share and post a rating/review at your favorite podcast catcher. Subscribe here to get updates each time a new episode is posted... Subscribe Join our private discussion group at Facebook. Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

Discover the intriguing journey of individuals transitioning from traditional beliefs to a reformed Christian worldview. Explore the art of deconstruction, understanding it as a thoughtful re-evaluation of theology rather than mere destruction. Delve into historical influences on belief systems, from ancient philosophy to modern complexities. The nuanced interpretations of scripture and the historical tensions of authority within the church take center stage. Engage with evolving thought on faith, particularly regarding women's roles, and the dynamic relationship between Scripture and contemporary understanding.

This season kicks off with a deep dive into the relationship between original sin and Darwinian evolution, suggesting a rich dialogue between science and theology. The hosts scrutinize various theories of atonement, revealing their historical evolution and implications on God's nature. They explore the Day of Atonement's symbolism and discuss the intricate bond between God and creation. Throughout, the conversation challenges traditional interpretations, inviting a blend of faith and scientific thought that promises both intrigue and reflection.

A retrospective that spotlights a provocative thread with huge theological and existential implications: the primordial cosmic ‘egg’ was fine-tuned, preprogrammed, and front-end loaded! In this Season Finale, we look back at an incredible series of episodes — most of them in the past few months, but many others from as far back as four years ago — and tease out a thread that’s central to the re-building of our Christian faith.  In contrast to the traditional Young Earth Creationist version of the origin of the universe and life, we look at a narrative that has grown out of on-going work done by scientists.  Millions of scientists, working over many centuries, many of them self-identifying as Christian, pursuing a divinely-inspired search for truth. The primordial cosmic egg that ‘exploded’ in the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago — estimated to be “the size of a grapefruit” — was packed with an amazing array of ingredients.  Over the past couple months, several world-class astrophysicists, mathematicians, and philosophers talked about those ingredients including quantum mechanics, relativity, string theory, atomic properties, and a couple dozen physical constants (such as the cosmological constant, gravitational constant, speed of light, weight of an electron, and many more).  But we also heard in Season One about other ingredients: thermodynamics, entropy, randomness, probability, order, predictability, determinism, massively large numbers, dynamic complexity, chaos theory, and biological evolution. Those conversations had us repeatedly using three provocative descriptors of that primordial cosmic ‘egg’, descriptors that have huge theological and existential implications. (1) that ‘egg’ was fine-tuned.  Among scholars who are properly trained to weigh in on this aspect of astrophysics, there is little disagreement that this ‘egg’ was incredibly fine-tuned to produce a universe full of ‘useable stuff’ … stars, planets, and a Periodic Table full of elements (from cell-building blocks like hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon and oxygen … all the way up to biochemically-reactive inorganic metals like iron, nickel, copper, manganese, selenium and zinc).  The delicate balancing of the various physical constants is often compared to balancing a pencil on its sharpened tip. (2) that ‘egg’ was preprogrammed to produce life.  Other scholars who are properly trained to weigh in on biology and biochemistry will agree that “life hit the ground running.”  In the cosmic equivalent of the blink of an eye, almost as soon as Earth formed, thermodynamics, deep-sea hydrothermal vents, and inorganic metals began churning out the building blocks of life, forming ever more complex organic structures, biochemical synthetic pathways and “prebiotic entities” which eventually produced living organisms.  The latter then embarked on a journey of inventing and exchanging newer genetic solutions to physiological and environmental problems, until we see the rich, diverse ecosystems of today. (3) the ‘egg’ was front-end loaded to produce agape-capable beings, and the cognitive machinery in our heads evolved to point us toward something much bigger than ourselves. No one can deny that humans are a religious species.  It’s built into our brains.  Why? This episode had us reminiscing over the many conversations we had with dozens of scientists and philosophers, and we called out the episode numbers that each of them featured in so that you can go back and unpack the claims they made. In the end, we feel that in trying to make sense of how we humans came to this point in space and time, it comes down to a choice …. a leap of faith. One either believes in some kind of a Divinity, or believes that we’re a computer simulation in some multi-dimensional hypercosmic experiment, or believes that we are the product of a mind-breaking stroke of luck, a freak cosmic accident.  What’s at stake in that choice? … meaning, purpose, fulfilment, self-actualization. Once again, this is the end of Season Five.  If you want to be notified when future episodes will start coming out, you’ll need to subscribe.  In the meantime, check out our archive of 170 episodes: they’re listed chronologically, thematically, and by name of our guest experts.  Tell your friends, family, and followers about this rich resource made freely available to anyone who wants to explore aspects of science, theology and philosophy from an exVangelical point of view. Yet another novel creation by Andrew, to whom we give a huge thank you for your many other contributions over the course of this podcast! To help grow this podcast, please like, share and post a rating/review at your favorite podcast catcher. Subscribe here to get updates each time a new episode is posted... Subscribe Join our private discussion group at Facebook. Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

After life got a foothold on Earth, it immediately set about to filling the various emerging ecosystems with new organisms. If you compressed the 3.7 billion year march of life on this planet down to 24 hours: earth comes into existence at midnight, the first fossils of life appear in the wee hours of the morning, the first multicellular life forms at dinner time, the first fish, land plants and amphibians by 10 pm, dinosaurs by 10:30, birds and mammals by 11:30 at night, and humans at midnight. A lot happened during the last few hours of that day: what was life doing all morning and afternoon? We found out last week, in our conversation with Dr. Stephen Freeland, that it was building things using the complex macromolecules synthesized by non-living minerals around deep ocean hydrothermal vents, integrating together metabolic and genetic networks.  Increasing the levels of complexity.  Building genes, and sharing the information with neighboring bugs.  Writing pages and pages of ideas.  And then, right around the dinner hour on our metaphorical clock above, life hit the ground running.  Combining, consolidating, integrating, experimenting …. producing plants, fish, amphibians, reptiles, insects, birds, mammals … and consciousness. In this episode, we talk to Dr. Simon Conway Morris about that cosmic terraforming experiment, and some of the mechanisms involved.  In particular, we talked quite a bit about convergence: different life forms on parallel evolutionary journeys landing on the same winning strategies again and again.  I used the analogy of “reaching into the freezer” for solutions to physiological, environmental and evolutionary problems.  That ‘freezer’ was the collective biotic genome that had been building up during the first two or three billion years … between “the wees hours of the morning” and the late afternoon on our metaphorical clock.  Dr. Conway Morris wasn’t too comfortable with my ‘freezer’ analogy …. it sounded too much like Intelligent Design, and he is absolutely no fan of that ideology (nor am I or Scott).  His preferred wording was to refer to the genome as being “seeded with inevitabilities”, which I think resonates perfectly with our overall theme of fine-tuning to produce life. We also spent some time talking about Simon’s latest book: From Extraterrestrials to Animal Minds: Six Myths of Evolution.  He clarified some of the myths that have been built up around so-called ‘missing links’, mass extinctions, human exceptionalism (how we’re so different from all the other animals), extraterrestrials and the Fermi Paradox. As always, tell us your thoughts on this topic … Find more information about Dr. Simon Conway Morris at his university page. If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like a couple we did three years ago with Dr. James Shapiro and with Dr. Jeffrey Schloss on the topic of speciation, or the many other episodes we’ve released on the subject of Fine Tuning. Episode image is once again thanks to Andrew. To help grow this podcast, please like, share and post a rating/review at your favorite podcast catcher. Subscribe here to get updates each time a new episode is posted... Subscribe Join our private discussion group at Facebook. Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

Deep ocean hydrothermal vents may have been the stage for the biggest play on earth, preprogrammed into the Big Bang: the origin of life! Over the past few weeks, we’ve been exploring the fine-tuning of the universe to produce life … complex, intelligent life.  This week and next, we’re going to look at how it seems that the appearance of life was baked into that fine-tuning.  That the moment the universe had presented a platform or stage, life appeared almost immediately on that stage, and just as quickly began to complexify, as if it were all preprogrammed. We talked to Dr. Freeland, who studied at Oxford, York, and Cambridge Universities, did his post-doc at Princeton University, and spent four years as project manager for NASA’s Astrobiology Institute, leading a team of astrophysicists, astrochemists and astrobiologists, all focusing their efforts on trying to understand the origin of life. We began with the fact that it took roughly 10 billion years to create Earth itself, but then only half a billion years for life to appear and spread across that newly formed Earth to such a degree that it left fossil evidence that we can now read several billion years later.  (Earlier this week, it was in the news that the same may have been found on Mars!) Next, we talked about the conditions on Earth that seemed to be so permitting for life: there was almost no oxygen, no land, and relatively few free minerals!  But two key ingredients that were present was tectonic activity and hydrothermal vents on the ocean surface.  Those vents began spewing out minerals, heat, and acidity, which in turn began to create oxygen, electricity, and complex macromolecules.  All of those together led to the appearance of life!  And that early life began complexifying.  One of the things that living organisms did was replicate the conditions around those hydrothermal vents: they learned how to use complex lipid membranes and inorganic metals to set up gradients of acidity and electricity, and use those to then generate energy molecules (we now call these mitochondria).  At the same time, they were creating genetic information, and setting up metabolic and synthetic networks.  And they started freely sharing that genetic information, passing it around through horizontal gene transfer (neighbor-to-neighbor transmission, in contrast to the more familiar parent-to-child transmission). This may be the first step toward solving a few of the biggest questions in origin of life research: how did life originate … was it genes/reproduction first, or metabolism/energy production first, or lipid membranes first.  The answer that Dr. Freeland posits: minerals alone were creating complex macromolecules first, and life then replicated what the minerals were already doing (some listeners might here recall an often used analogy of the wooden scaffolding needed to produce stone archways).  For the past few decades, people have been talking about the RNA World that preceded our own DNA World; but both were preceded by the Mineral World! Putting all of this together with the past three episodes, what we get is a Big Bang that seemed to be finely-tuned to produce stars, planets, atomic elements, and the periodic table, which in turn followed their own built-in rules and properties to create complex macromolecules and even more complex bundles of amino acids, nucleic acids, and lipids (‘prebiotic entities’, loosely comparable to what we now call viruses), which eventually combined to produce what we would now call ‘life’.  We ended with what all of this has to say about any possible meaning and purpose of the universe! As always, tell us your thoughts on this topic … Find more information about Dr. Stephen Freeland at his current institutional faculty page and his web-page at NASA. If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like Episode #66, in which we talked to Dr. Freeland three years ago, or the many other episodes we’ve released on the subject of Fine Tuning. Episode image is once again thanks to Andrew. To help grow this podcast, please like, share and post a rating/review at your favorite podcast catcher. Subscribe here to get updates each time a new episode is posted... Subscribe Join our private discussion group at Facebook. Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

In this enlightening discussion, Dr. Geraint Lewis, a university-trained astrophysicist and atheist, challenges the fine-tuning debate. He acknowledges the intricate constants of the universe but insists there's no ‘Tuner’ at play. The conversation dives into the multiverse theory and cosmic computer simulations, exploring how these frameworks could explain fine-tuning without a divine creator. Lewis also tackles the gambler's fallacy, illustrating our misinterpretations of probability within cosmic theories. His insights offer a compelling perspective on the intersection of science and belief.

It takes an incredibly finer level of fine-tuning to produce a universe that has carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, sodium, potassium, calcium, iron, copper, zinc, selenium, molybdenum and many other trace elements needed for life. Last week, we explored the first of three meanings of the term “fine-tuning of the universe”: the delicate precision and balance of the fundamental constants and laws needed just to produce a universe full of simple atoms (like hydrogen and helium), planets and stars.  This week, we look at the second meaning of that term: how that delicate and precise balance has to be even more finely tuned so that a wide variety of different kinds of atoms are produced … including those that are absolutely essential for life.  Not just the lighter ones that are necessary for making the basic structural components of cells (hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, sulfur) and the slightly heavier ones necessary for basic cell physiology like generating electrical signals and causing contraction (sodium, potassium, calcium), but also the much heavier and more complicated atoms that give many enzymes their core functionality that is so necessary for life (the iron in your blood cells, or the copper, zinc, selenium, and molybdenum in your liver enzymes). We talked to Dr. Luke Barnes (PhD in astronomy from Cambridge University), who continued the conversation that Elie and Aaron started with us last week. He explained how those fundamental constants and laws of physics needed to be so very precisely tuned in order to produce the bewildering array of atomic elements (we have 118 of them here on earth) that are so necessary for intelligent life.  He also told us how that precise tuning is so provocatively disturbing that even the staunchly atheistic astrophysicist Sir Fred Hoyle said more than once to his equally atheistic peers: “A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super intellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature.”  Dr. Barnes also talked at length about how the common atheistic response to this fine tuning is to appeal to the multiverse, and how those that do so don’t properly understand that the probabilities do NOT in fact substantiate their belief (that word “belief” is chosen carefully and deliberately), and this appeal is really not much more than a “luck-of-the-gaps.”  Using the multiverse to “explain” the problem is not scientific, since it can’t ever be put to any kind of a scientific test.  And, in one sense, it pushes back the goalposts, since even that multiverse would need to be incredibly fine-tuned in order to be capable of producing a finely tuned universe. The episode concluded with the “so what?” question … What do we do with this idea of “fine-tuning”?  How does it affect us?  Does it say anything about the meaning of life, or whether God exists? As always, tell us your thoughts on this topic … Find more information about Dr. Barnes at his university faculty page and his personal web-site, and check out his book A Fortunate Universe: Life in a Finely Tuned Cosmos. Episode image: once again a work of genius from Andrew! I asked him: “How about taking the iconic image of Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam, and have God manipulating a machine with buttons/dials/knobs etc., and that machine producing living animals?” And this is one of many images he came up with using his generative AI! Thanks Andrew!  To help grow this podcast, please like, share and post a rating/review at your favorite podcast catcher. Subscribe here to get updates each time a new episode is posted... Subscribe Join our private discussion group at Facebook. Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

Getting twenty five fundamental constants and physical laws just right to produce a universe full of electrons, neutrons, and protons … all the way up to planets and stars Last week, we learned that “Fine Tuning” can mean three very different things.  Today, we’re going to explore the first of those three: the exquisite precision needed to produce a universe made up of “usable stuff” … electrons, protons, and neutrons, all the way up to planets and stars. Our guests today — Elie Feder (PhD in mathematics) and Aaron Zimmer (physics, mathematics and philosophy) — are the hosts of a podcast which focuses exclusively on that question. Scientists have long been looking for a Grand Unifying Theory: something that would explain everything.  What they’ve found are a variety of physical laws and a collection of 25 different fundamental constants.  And there’s something odd about those constants: they’re not straightforward numbers that derive cleanly from any equation … they can only be measured. And when measured, they’re not simple numbers: they’re unpredictable and often involve long strings of digits.  They look strange, contrived, and … “ugly.”  In our metaphor from last week, it’s like trying to explain why there are 1760 yards in a mile: … why 1760? … why not 2000, or 1500, or even possibly 1750?  Why?  Who came up with this number?  This was puzzling to astrophysicists.  A big mystery. But as those astrophysicists continued to put a microscope on those constants, they learned something new; something very provocative.  As they developed methods to better measure the constants, they found the constants were tuned to an exceptionally high degree of precision. And if the constants were changed by a little bit, the equations wouldn’t work.  The analogy that’s often used is balancing a pencil on its sharpened tip.  It was as if we learned that it’s not 1760 yards to a mile, but rather 1759.4691269378 yards.  And adjusting that by even a few per cent was enough to make it so that global distribution networks like Purolator and Fedex would no longer be able to function.  Getting back to cosmology, changing these 25 constants by even a few percent means the universe can no longer make electrons or atoms …. can no longer make planets or suns …. can’t make the variety of types of atoms needed for life! And then some highly educated people began to wonder if this exceptionally high degree of precision — this Fine Tuning — is actually the key to the Big Mystery referred to above.  There’s a future purpose to those constants: to create a universe full of “usable stuff,” including life.  Those constants aren’t random, but have to be precisely tuned in order to achieve that goal. As if those values were selected!  Some, for ideological reasons, opt for explanations that involve chance and luck, like multiverse theories or infinite iterations of a single universe; but Aaron and Elie show how those “explanations” actually fall flat when you look at them more carefully. Verbs like “selected” and “tuned” suggest agency, and intelligence. Of course, this is where theists will point to God, while atheists — again, for ideological reasons — might suggest we’re living in a computer simulation.  We guarantee that if you listen carefully to what they say, and keep an open mind that doesn’t automatically discount logical inferences that have ideological consequences, you’ll see that this is not a mere God-of-the-gaps explanation intended to replace the reigning luck-of-the-gaps explanations. Let us know if you think differently (we tell you how to contact us at the end of the episode). Find out more about our guests Elie Feder and Aaron Zimmer at their podcast: Physics to God. If you liked this episode, you might also like the one we released three years ago on the same topic, when our guest was an astronomer: Dr. Robert Mann. Episode image by Andrew: it’s amazing what he can come up with when I simply ask for “something with knobs and dials that produces galaxies.” To help grow this podcast, please like, share and post a rating/review at your favorite podcast catcher. Subscribe here to get updates each time a new episode is posted... Subscribe Join our private discussion group at Facebook. Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

“Fine Tuning” really means three very different things, two of which are recognized by astrophysicists of all stripes; but one of them … not so much. We have often looked closely at Creationism in all of its various forms, flavors and dimensions.  Two particular aspects of Creationism are foundational for the faith of many Christians (not a tenet of their faith, but a rationale, in the same way that Noah’s Flood or near death experiences may not be tenets of faith, but scientific evidence for both might be a rationale for their faith).  Those two aspects are Intelligent Design and Fine Tuning.  Intelligent Design was at one point foundational for my own Christian faith.  But then we did a mini-series of episodes focusing on that particular idea.  We brought in two of the biggest ID-proponents (Drs. Michael Behe and Jonathan MacLatchie) and they gave their best arguments and used their favorite examples (the bacterial flagellum and the Long-Term Evolution Experiment, respectively).  Then we brought in four world-renowned scientists who actually do benchwork in both areas of scientific study and who have published literally hundreds of scientific papers based on that work, and they gave us completely different explanations than Behe and MacLatchie (both of whom have only ever read about the flagellum or the Long-Term Evolution Experiment).  And what’s more, the story that those experts told was much more believable (being based on evidence, not on rhetoric), more beautiful, and more mind-blowing than saying simply: it was Designed by God.  Both of us have since soured on the idea of Intelligent Design. Now we’ve decided to also do a mini-series of episodes on Fine-Tuning (FT).  And once again, we’re going to bring in experts who actually work in the relevant areas — astronomy, astrophysics, and mathematics.  More on that later: first, we need to build a foundation for our audience, going through a few definitions and basic concepts, so they can better keep up with those experts. One hugely important matter is for the listeners to see “Fine Tuning” as meaning at least three very different things. First, there is FT of the universe to manifest itself.  We talk about how the Big Bang produced a universe-full of energy, which then cooled and pulled itself together into physical stuff (matter is a frozen form of energy).  Without getting into too much detail, the weak nuclear force holds subatomic particles together (neutrinos, bosons, etc.), the strong nuclear force holds atomic particles (protons and neutrons) together to form the nucleus, electromagnetic force holds the nucleus and electrons together, electrostatic forces hold atoms together into molecules, and gravity holds molecules together to form “usable stuff.”  There are lots of other fundamental particles and forces to talk about, but these are enough to explain Fine Tuning.  Astrophysicists, irrespective of whether they’re Theists or not, will widely agree that those particles and forces need to be incredibly “tuned” to a precision that boggles the mind: the analogy that’s often used is of a pencil standing up on its sharpened tip.  If the tuning is too much in one direction, then the particles produced in the Big Bang never come together, and the universe is never more than an ever expanding cloud of dispersed particles.  If too much in the other direction, the particles come together so fast and so hard that they quickly form one super massive black hole.  Either way, you don’t get “usable stuff” … the pencil falls over.  But if the tuning is just right — again to a mind-blowing degree of precision — the particles pull together in a way that produces electrons, protons, neutrons …. all the way up to planets and stars. Second, there is FT of the universe to produce life.  The FT is further refined in a way that we just don’t end up with a few types of atoms, but focused to such a laser-point precision that it produces a bewildering and complex mixture of different kinds of atoms: from small ones needed to make cells (carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen) and do basic cell functions (sodium, potassium, calcium) all the way up to larger and heavier metals that are exploited by enzymes (iron, magnesium, copper, manganese), and even the heaviest elements of all (uranium, plutonium). Sir Fred Hoyle, a world-renowned astrophysicist and ardent atheist, famously said that the carbon atom looked suspiciously like it was produced by some super-Intellect who had monkeyed with the physics! Third, there is FT of the universe to support life.  This is the version of FT that I have little patience for.  It encapsulates a wide variety of arguments which point at the rotation of earth, its axial tilt, its distance from the sun, the positive influences of the moon, or Jupiter or Saturn, the position of our solar system in the galaxy, the wavelengths of light produced by the sun, the presence of oxygen and water in the atmosphere … and a long list of many other parameters like these.  And they all share this in common: their values or their influence are said to be ideally suited to life [on Earth].  Proponents of this form of FT don’t realize that they’re not pointing at FT of the universe for life, but rather FT of life for the universe. One of our listeners asked why so many astrophysicists and proponents of Fine Tuning — be they Theist or atheist – say that the values of the physical constants “demand an explanation” or “scream design”?  Scott and I went through a little exercise that we think will give the listeners a really fun insight into what goes on in the mind of an astrophysicist atheist like Sir Fred Hoyle to bring out such conviction.  You’ll have to listen to our conversation if you want to be enlightened. As always, tell us your thoughts on this. If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like our first look at Fine Tuning from three years ago, or a conversation we had with Dr. Chris Barrigar three years ago which looked at the primordial cosmic egg being finely tuned to create agape-capable beings, or a second one a couple months ago looking at biology and evolution being tuned to point those beings towards a Creator God. Or, for a better understanding of how atoms can interact and pull themselves together into molecules, check out our Introductory lecture on how proteins are made. Image by Andrew. Thanks Andrew! To help grow this podcast, please like, share and post a rating/review at your favorite podcast catcher. Subscribe here to get updates each time a new episode is posted... Subscribe Join our private discussion group at Facebook. Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive