Richard Dawkins and Ayaan Hirsi Ali engage in a conversation about worldviews, not a debate about God. They discuss Ayaan's journey from critic of Islam to Christian convert, different expressions of Christianity, cherry-picking beliefs, and the evolution of woke culture.

Dr. Joel Duff, a seasoned scientist, dissects the financial stronghold of Answers in Genesis, their plans for a Tower of Babel theme park, and the lack of scientific expertise in YECist circles. He questions why AiG doesn't invest in credible experts and delves into the controversial world of young earth creationism.

A clash between Evolution and Creationism in Evangelical education system. Discussion on the persistence of Young Earth Creationism in Christianity. Insights from a former Evangelical professor. Challenges of teaching Christian worldview and evolution. Navigating conversations about Creationism respectfully. Examining prophecy in Isaiah and Matthew. Upcoming projects in biblical studies education.

The podcast explores the anti-intellectualism in Evangelicalism, discussing the impact of 'The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind'. Dr. Mark Noll, a renowned historian, critiques Evangelicalism's approach to intellectualism. The discussion includes historical perspectives, challenges in conveying academic insights, and the intersection of faith and science. They also address the evolving relationship between evangelicalism, politics, and societal perceptions.

In addition to enhancing hominid survival and reproduction, this software equipped us to become aware of and look for the Transcendent. Once again we’re asking the question: “why do we have this cognitive machinery in our head that predisposes humans to having spiritual experiences and religion-making?” But this time we talked to a scholar on the subject. We could have talked to a neurobiologist or psychologist (in addition to the handful we’ve already heard from; #43, #44, #45, #78, #152) … a paleontologist (we’ve had a couple of those as well; #77 and #72) … or a literary scholar who reads ancient texts and clay tablets.  But we chose to talk to a philosopher/theologian.  You see, scientists study the physical, but in the process of being reductive, often include a metaphysical claim that there is no ultimate reality beyond the physical world.  But that’s a metaphysical claim, not something that can be tested in the physical realm, so they can’t / shouldn’t be making that claim.  Philosophers/theologians, on the other hand, take a step back and look at the big picture, and are free to openly and honestly make the metaphysical assumption that there is a God (or not) when trying to make sense of the data.  Both groups can learn much from each other. Our guest, Dr. Chris Barrigar, with a PhD in Philosophy and the pastor of a large church in Montreal, Quebec, has talked on our podcast before about big metaphysical things.  You can hear about his fascinating journey through Evangelical Christianity, then Buddhism, then atheism, and finally back to Evangelical Christianity in Episode #29.  And then in episode #30, we heard him talk about the ultimate meaning behind the universe! This week, we stumbled upon a paper he just published [“Evolutionary accounts of religion within a Christian account of Big History,” in Perspectives in Science and Christian Faith, 76(1): 35-54, 2024] which explored in great detail all the points we made and the questions we asked last week!? Chris first walked us through some background material from two books authored by two prominent anthropologists. One of these (Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, a clinical psychiatrist with graduate training in anthropology) outlined a series of seven or eight different cognitive advances that occurred in the minds of ancient hominids over the course of several million years.  They first evolved through progressively higher levels of intelligence until they eventually became self aware (a sense of self), then morphed that awareness into an ability to step into someone else’s mind (theory of mind, or empathy).  They also began to develop a sense of past and future, which eventually got them thinking about ancestors, and then about the afterlife.  That in turn set the stage for them imagining/creating gods and deities, moral/ethical laws, and finally religion-making. The second author (Dr. Robin Dunbar, an anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist) outlined a different evolutionary time-line.  In particular, he focused on humans as paleolithic hunter/gatherers in Africa fifty thousand years ago, who migrated into Europe and Asia to become neolithic farmers/settlers in large cities ten thousand years ago. The transition from migrating bands of fifty to settled cities of five thousand required massive changes in cognitive ability, as well as a lot of rule-making (morality; ethics; religion). Many “New Atheists” such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens see religion as harmful, and maladaptive. But Dunbar concluded that, given how much time and energy it took to develop and maintain a religious mind and behavior, there has to be something evolutionarily useful about it.  And being inclined to rule out anything metaphysical, he proposed that it was somehow useful for reproduction and survival.  Torrey, on the other hand, couldn’t identify a clear evolutionary advantage, nor a reason to see it as maladaptive, and so concluded that this cognitive machinery is just an evolutionary spandrel. Dr. Chris Barrigar, on the other hand, remained open to metaphysical possibilities, and found that, in addition to being useful for survival and reproduction, this evolutionary process has been directed toward the appearance of and flourishing of intelligent, agape-capable beings who are equipped for relationship.  For Chris, this interpretation/proposal is far richer and more intellectually and existentially satisfying for explaining so much about humanity, than the conclusion that it was merely for survival and reproduction (or an accident). We discussed how this cognitive machinery is universal in that we see it in all humans across all societies and periods of human history. But it’s also very vague and imprecise: it doesn’t point humans specifically to one transcendent being (for example, the Judeo-Christian God), but to something beyond the physical … “something bigger than us.”  As always, tell us your thoughts on this topic … If you enjoyed this episode, you may also enjoy our previous conversation with Dr. Chris Barrigar, when he explained to us the meaning behind the universe. Or check out our other episodes which focus on the cognitive machinery in our heads: you can find those at our theme page entitled “Religious experiences, spiritual encounters.” 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, and find us on Twitter or Facebook. Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

A retrospective journey through four years of episode releases had us asking this fundamental question. The short answer: of course it is! A few of the most recently released episodes prompted us to think back to about a dozen other episodes we’ve released in the past that focused on the cognitive machinery in our heads, and got us asking: are spiritual/religious experiences a figment of our imaginations? This retrospective line of thinking began with the pair of episodes released a couple weeks back, looking at the emotion of awe (#151 and #152): a uniquely human emotion which always accompanies a spiritual experience (animals seem to experience other emotions like joy, rage, surprise, sadness … but not awe, because they don’t exhibit the other physiological changes in breathing, heart rate or goosebumps that accompany awe).  One of those guest experts had already talked to us a couple years ago about two other forms of software in our head which also contribute to a spiritual or religious experience: the “hypersensitive agency detector” and the “promiscuous teleology detector” (#78).  Those two detectors are behind the human tendency to think there’s a reason or explanation for things that happen and an intention or will or agent behind it (“why did that family have to die in that tornado?”).  This reminded us of three episodes we did a while back that looked at the neurobiology — the “wiring” — behind a spiritual or religious experience, one that can be hijacked by hallucinogenic drugs (#43, #44, and #45), as well as the machinery and molecules that seem to contribute to our sense of having a soul (#8, #9, #10, and #75) and consciousness (#16). I’ve outlined all of this and more in a lot more detail in my third book: Soul-searching: the evolution of JudeoChristian thinking on the soul and the afterlife. That collection of cognitive machinery explains a number of other religious/spiritual phenomena that we looked at in other episodes: humans feeling a special connection to another unseen dimension or being (#147); the “personal relationship” with the Divine (#42); speaking in tongues (#100); prayer (#99); the belief in divine inspiration of scripture (#57, #81, #101) and divine revelation (#115); the evolution of a religious streak and morality in humans (#76, #77).  In fact, it would also contribute to the output of the entire brain in general, and so we might also list the dozens of episodes we’ve done looking at this-or-that aspect of philosophy, theology and science. So again, this integrative retrospective at that string of episodes over the past four years had us asking: “are spiritual/religious experiences all in our head?”  We went back and forth on the topics of: solipsism; the circular logic of Descartes’ famous line: “I think, therefore I am”; where and what is the soul; Artificial Intelligence developing consciousness and becoming sentient; our own reality being a computer simulation (like Neo in the Matrix); the nature of the soul, Alzheimer’s disease and Phineas Gage.  And then we tried to pull all these thoughts together into some kind of conclusion, which kept weaving back and forth between yes and no: of course it’s all in our head … but so are all our other experiences.  I interact with my wife using the same machinery; in fact, I experience everything around me (a mosquito on my arm) or inside me (that bowl of bean and lentil soup that’s stirring things up inside me) using that same machinery.  We don’t negate the existence of any of those … nor should we feel compelled to negate the reality of our spiritual/religious experiences.  what about the fact that we can measure all those other things using science and scientific tools, but we can’t [yet] measure the spiritual realm?  Well, there was a time when science couldn’t measure ultraviolet light, atoms, or radioactivity either… does that mean we have to be sheeple, and superstitiously embrace every claim out there?  No, we’re allowed to question things (something that religion finds to be prohibitively dangerous … the dreaded “slippery slope”). For four years, this podcast has been questioning and testing theological claims.  And at this point, we find that accepting the reality of a God, a creative life force, or even just a Universal Consciousness helps put certain things — like the exquisite fine tuning of the physical constants of the universe, beauty, and life itself — into a framework that makes better sense of our reality.  As CS Lewis said: “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” We ended the episode off with the question of why we humans have this cognitive machinery in the first place.  Did it evolve, or were we given it?  Was it an accident … an evolutionary “spandrel”? Does it confer some kind of selective advantage?  Or is it a toy that some higher being(s) gave humans to play with?  Or did the Divine intend some kind of divine-human relationship, for the same reason that we might get a pet?  Or all of the above? Let us know how you might answer those questions by email, our by leaving comments at the podcast’s WordPress site, my public Facebook page, or at our private Facebook Discussion Group. If you enjoyed this episode, you may also enjoy …. well … any of the ones we linked you to in the text above! Or some of the other ones listed at our theme page entitled “Religious experiences, spiritual encounters“ 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, and find us on Twitter or Facebook. Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

For some, the Bible takes on a deeper meaning when you read it less literally … exchanging certainty and rigidity for the fluidity of symbology, metaphor, and mysticism. If there’s one characteristic that sets Christian Fundamentalists apart from other forms of Christianity, it’s an over zealous commitment to a literal reading of the Bible.  Exaggeration, embellishment, hyperbole, and wordplay are all part of daily conversation, but Fundies seem to think these have no place when it comes to the writing, reading and interpretation of scripture.  Just think Young Earth Creationism and the Chicago statement on Biblical Inerrancy. Today we talk to someone from the other end of the Christian spectrum, one who grew up in a Roman Catholic environment, spent the first 20 years of his life as a Baptist, but was eventually drawn into the Eastern Orthodox tradition.  In fact, he has carved a career out of symbolism.  Jonathan Pageau is a world-recognized sculptor from Montreal Quebec, who has devoted his talent to Eastern Orthodox iconography; he often speaks on that art form and on that Christian perspective.  In our conversation with him, we talked about: mysticism is missing from much of evangelical practice, even though it was practised by the earliest Christian fathers and leaders …. “read the gospel of John for goodness sake!” there is a long history of mysticism in early Christianity reason vs symbolism, and their roles in the spiritual experience deep familiarity with Roman Catholicism, Protestantism (Baptist), Evangelical youth culture in his 20s, Jonathan went to college, which led to reading books and exploring questions that eventually drew him to the world of Eastern Orthodox faith and its art (first painting, then later iconography) iconography is a powerful language … tries to capture patterns, resonances all around us (in daily life … in science … in the Bible) iconography is a visual language …. universal …. developed very early in Christianity Jonathan exchanged the certainty and rigidness of Evangelical religion for a more fluid, symbolic form in Eastern Orthodoxy Jesus always taught in parables, rather than literal didactic sermonizing … very symbolic and metaphorical teleological language is every where in scientific discussion also see this in the secular world: Star Wars, Marvel Universe, Burning Man are drenched in symbolism and imagery; devotees of things like these are [unconsciously] exploring religious themes … maybe even Christian themes …. they are being liturgical Tolkien, allegory, eucatastrophe, and “True Myth” Christ and the self-sacrificial motif, which is also employed in all kinds of stories, movies, songs we asked if, having left a literal, rigid, Evangelical world for a symbolic Eastern Orthodox perspective, does Jonathan now find the Bible becomes more real when you take it more metaphorically in the world of science and math, Logical Positivists thought they could reduce reality to numbers and equations, and take meaning out of reality…. but they couldn’t!   They found language and symbology to be more effective Western society has tried several times to remove religion from our world/reality, and the result has not been good, sometimes even disastrous (French Revolution; Communism).  Today, the Enlightenment has played itself out, and left us empty.  Now we see religion coming crashing down on us in the form of Woke Culture … bending truth, twisting meaning and reality …. some things you can’t say because they’re “sacrilegious.” As always, tell us what you think (comment below, or in our private Facebook Discussion group) … Find more information about Jonathan Pageau at his website and at his YouTube channel. If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like our previous conversation with Dr. Louis Markos about literature, mythology, and Jesus as “the True Myth,” or the one with Dr. Seth Hart about how scientists can’t avoid injecting purpose and meaning in their descriptions of science, including evolutionary biology. Episode image by permission. 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, and find us on Twitter or Facebook. Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

A northern Irish philosopher (who grew up in the 30-year war between “Protestants” and “Catholics”) gives us a whole new perspective on this ancient religion. This week, we’ll hear from a very thought-provoking philosopher — Dr. Peter Rollins — who we guarantee will have you thinking about Christian faith in entirely new ways. Peter grew up in Ireland during “the Troubles” …. a 30 year conflict between “Catholics” and “Protestants,” marked by bombings and brutally vicious killings. At that time, identity became weaponized (much as we see happening today). Nihilism triggered a fundamental rupture of his worldview, and the resulting cognitive crisis led Peter into religion and religious studies. His academic studies “broke [him] in the best possible way.” He’s “not a confessional Christian” (he doesn’t define himself along a set of doctrines and beliefs). Instead, he’s interested in “different modes of being” and is drawn to the Christian mode of being: “Christianity is the insight that there is a fundamental antagonism, assymetry or lack at the heart of everything, and the universe is fundamentally incomplete, fundamentally contradictory. The cure is the ability and the courage to embrace this contradiction at the heart of everything.” In our conversation with him, we spent about ten minutes on each the following five main themes: (1) Christianity: the contradictions and incompleteness inherent in the universe and experienced reality, and how that frustrates the insatiable desire of humans to fill an inner void through money, love, power, sex, knowledge …. or even religious faith.  But all of these will fail. Christianity is unique among other faiths in having a belief in the death of God and a self-divided absolute: this frees us from the pursuit of trying to be happy, whole and complete.  Hegel provided a whole new perspective on Christ’s cry: “My God, why have you forsaken me?”  Philosophers thought they could find certainty in mathematics, but even there they found contradictions and paradoxes. (2) God: Supreme Being?  Beyond being?  Ground of being?  Event?  Anselm: God is that which none greater can be conceived.  The mystics (Eckhart): God is the name for that which cannot be conceived.  Existential thinkers (Tillich): that which you cannot objectify, but is present in the rationale behind truth and reality.  Karl Barth and the numinous.  Kant versus Hegel.  Kierkegaard versus Hegel (or Hegelians).  Roger Penrose: quantum indeterminacy and proto-consciousness.  Transcendence and immanence.  Jacques Derrida: deconstructing words and ideas. (3) God-is-dead theology. The notion of the death of God actually began with the Apostle Paul, who saw this notion as essential for salvation.  Luther, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Freud all built on this idea.  We also talked about one of Rollin’s latest projects: “Pyrotheology” (the inspiration for this name came from Spanish anarchist Buenaventura Durruti, who once said that “the only church that illuminates is a burning church”). (4) the Bible, and Divine Inspiration.  Rollins puts a new spin on inerrancy and infallibility: we have to treat the Bible as real and “literally” true in the same way that a psychoanalyst needs to take their patient’s dreams as real and literal before looking for the true meaning deep down.  We need to take the words, images, ideas as absolute truth, and then begin to parse and deconstruct them. (5) Christ.  The paradox of his humanity and divinity.  Tertullian: I believe in the crucifixion because it’s absurd.  Hegel and the monstrosity of Christ.  The historical Jesus versus “the Christ.”  The paradox of the incarnation (and resurrection) within a first century Hellenic Greek context (which saw the body as evil, and the spirit as good). Find more information about Dr. Peter Rollins at his website and at his YouTube channel. Episode image by permission. 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, and find us on Twitter or Facebook. Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

An experimental psychologist and a theologian with a PhD in psychology give us their perspectives on the emotion of awe and its role in the spiritual/religious experience. Last week, we explained why we decided to look more closely at the emotion of awe and its role in the spiritual / religious experience, as well as how scientists measure this emotion (external physiological and behavioral changes; internal changes in emotion, perception).  We also heard a personal story of someone whose life was altered dramatically by his experiences during a solar eclipse. This week, we talked to two scholars, one of them an experimental psychologist (Dr. Justin Barrett), and the other a theologian with PhD training in psychology (Dr. Kutter Callaway).  Our conversation with them covered a lot of diverse territory: the distinct overlap between the experiences had by a non-religious person during a solar eclipse, and a new religious convert having a “born-again” experience during a church revival rally Emmanuel Kant, the sublime, the numinous awe can be measured/experienced in six dimensions: altered time perception sense of self diminishing sense of connectedness beyond the self (to people, the university, …. or deity) sense of vastness physical sensations like goosebumps need for accommodation awe can be mixed with other emotions which modify the experience and give it a positive or negative impact … with fear (it’s not just overwhelming …. can also be scary, terrifying) … with affection … with surprise … joy awe falls under the umbrella of “positive psychology” (some people might think psychologists only look at dysfunction like depression or schizophrenia), and thus can promote well-being at the individual and societal levels awe can have impact on social dominance orientation (aka, racism), and can be manipulated when presenting an ideology (protests, rallies) can animals experience awe (given that some species seem to experience happiness, sadness, grief, gratitude)? if this is a uniquely human thing, why did humans evolve this complex response (or why were we given it)? is it “just” an evolutionary spandrel (one of the triangular spaces between two arches in a cathedral) or “exaptation” (in other words, is it an accidental by-product)? Gobekli Tepe, the world’s oldest temple, has massive anthropoid monoliths which, when struck with your palm, emit an eerie moan or gong sound: experiencing this during dim lighting, burning incense, animal sacrifices must have been an incredibly awe-inducing experience!  Such an experience could unite the group, draw them closer, make them feel like they were led and protected by a supernatural being … all of these outcomes would confer an evolutionary advantage if/when the group faced an external threat does awe play into spiritual/religious experiences today?  We talked specifically about people who deconvert but still want to be “spiritual-but-not-religious,“ as well as proponents/adherents of Intelligent Design ideology humans are inclined to seeing purpose and agency, because of two peculiar cognitive processes (“software”) that have evolved in the human brain: the “promiscuous teleology” and “hypersensitive agency” detection systems. As always, tell us your thoughts on this topic … Find out more about Dr. Kutter Callaway at his personal web-page or faculty web-page. Learn more about Dr. Justin Barrett at the web-page for his new professional outlet … Blueprint 1543 … as well as to a video library in which he explains a variety of aspects of cognitive anthropology. If you enjoyed this episode, you might also enjoy our previous episode with Dr. Justin Barrett, in which we talked at length about the “promiscuous teleology” and “hypersensitive agency detection” systems in human evolution, or our episode with Dr. Seth Hart addressing how even atheists cannot avoid invoking teleology (purpose, design, directedness) when speaking about biology (a prime example of the promiscuous teleology detection system?).  Or check out our collection of episodes which focus specifically on the religious experience and spiritual encounters. Episode image by Memory Catcher from Pixabay. 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, and find us on Twitter or Facebook. Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

After a quick primer on this uniquely human phenomenon, we’ll hear from someone who had a profound, life-changing experience during a solar eclipse, and then relate all of this to religious/spiritual experiences. Humans seem to be unique among all other species on Earth when it comes to the emotion of awe.  Whether it’s experienced while standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon, staring up at Niagara Falls from the bow of the Maid of the Mist, looking at Earth while doing a space-walk outside the International Space Station, or physically bumping into Taylor Swift getting out of her limo, awe evokes a physical response: you might gasp, start breathing faster, your heart races, you get goosebumps on your arms and the hairs on your neck start to rise.  You’ll also experience cognitive changes: you suddenly feel small, or that your very being begins to dissolve …. you might suddenly feel more connected to humanity, to nature, to the universe … or to Deity. Psychologists and anthropologists are now paying a lot more attention to the emotion of awe.  It seems to be important to a greater sense of well-being.  And it might be an important part of a spiritual/religious experience. Next week, we’re going to hear from an experimental psychologist and a theologian about that last point.  But in this episode, we thought we should first give a bit of background on this uniquely human emotion (many animals seem to experience joy, rage, fear, sadness/grief, curiosity …. but not awe!?). And we wanted to give you a prime example of a personally profound awe-experience.  Before witnessing a solar eclipse a couple decades ago, David Makepeace really had no religious/spiritual inclinations whatsoever.  After encountering one, though, his life was changed: his relationship with the universe became personal, and existentially compelling.  He found a reason … a purpose … for his existence on this planet at this time.  He now understood what Carl Sagan meant about humans being a way for the universe to know itself.  And he now has a greater sense of happiness, fulfillment … even gratitude.  My words won’t do justice to his story as he tells it: you need to hear it from him.  And I guarantee you’ll find it provocative; it will definitely make you think. And ask questions. One of the questions Scott and I asked ourselves was: how is David’s experience different from a typical spiritual/religious experience that one might have at a revivalist church meeting?  There is so much overlap with respect to the physical, cognitive, and emotional responses. Both result in a complete reorientation of one’s place in “the big picture.”  In fact, David’s enhanced sense of being a conduit for the consciousness of the universe sounds quite a bit like some newer forms of Christian theology — Open Theology and Process Theology — which claim that God experiences history and time along with us as life happens and we make choices (that he’s not omniscient). Let us know what you think. Find more information about David Makepeace, including contact info, upcoming appearances, and a number of “awesome” videos at his personal webpage and his business webpage. If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like our previous episodes looking at the brain software that equips humans to having spiritual/religious experiences (episodes #43, #44, #45, and #78), or our episode on Open Theology and Process Theology. Episode image by fe31lopz at Pixabay. 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, and find us on Twitter or Facebook. Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive.