A Pastor and a Philosopher Walk into a Bar

Text us your questions!Every now and then we like to talk to someone who is an expert in something we know almost nothing about. What better topic than philosophy and neuroscience? Andy Clark is Professor of Cognitive Philosophy at the University of Sussex, and is a well-known voice within philosophy of mind, pushing the boundaries of how we conceive of the brain, its connections with our environment, and in his new book, how it actively constructs our experience through prediction. The book is The Experience Machine: How Our Minds Predict and Shape Reality. We have a delightfully nerdy, scientific, and humble conversation with Andy about everything from why we sometimes feel our phones vibrating when they're not there, to whether AI can match human brains, to psychedelics, to whether there is a hard problem of consciousness. We even get him to talk a bit about religion. We barely scratch the surface, but it was a lot of fun!The beverage we taste in this episode is Blanton's Single Barrel bourbon from Buffalo Trace Distillery.Audio note: we weren't able to use our standard recording setup for this one, so if we sound a little odd, that's why. Apologies! To skip the tasting, go to 6:53.You can find the transcript for this episode here.Image credit: The New Yorker Magazine=====Want to support us?The best way is to subscribe to our Patreon. Annual memberships are available for a 10% discount.If you'd rather make a one-time donation, you can contribute through our PayPal. Other important info: Rate & review us on Apple & Spotify Follow us on social media at @PPWBPodcast Watch & comment on YouTube Email us at pastorandphilosopher@gmail.com Cheers!

Text us your questions!Do you keep a healthy distance between yourself and the book of Revelation? Have a loved one who believes super weird things about Revelation? If so, you're in good company. Scot McKnight wrote a brilliant book called Revelation for the Rest of Us that turns all of those weird ways of interpreting Revelation on their heads and shows us what Revelation truly is.  It turns out that the book of Revelation is a brilliantly subversive book about resisting the evil ways of whatever empire the people of God find themselves living in, whether it's Babylon, Rome, or America. Revelation calls us to give our faithfulness and allegiance to the slaughtered Lamb who has triumphed over the violent and oppressive ways of the empire.Scot is a brilliant New Testament scholar who has become a great friend of the podcast. We're excited to share more of Scot with you.In this episode, we tasted Leopold Bros. Straight Bourbon.To skip the tasting, go to 7:42.You can find the transcript for this episode here.=====Want to support us?The best way is to subscribe to our Patreon. Annual memberships are available for a 10% discount.If you'd rather make a one-time donation, you can contribute through our PayPal. Other important info: Rate & review us on Apple & Spotify Follow us on social media at @PPWBPodcast Watch & comment on YouTube Email us at pastorandphilosopher@gmail.com Cheers!

Text us your questions!In this special Easter episode, Kyle and Randy discuss all their questions about resurrection. They cover its significance to them, its coherence, whether it makes any sense to hope for it, apologetic approaches to it, how much it matters, and why Randy finds conversations about it kind of frustrating. Happy Easter!Extra resources (including those mentioned in the episode):N.T. Wright: Surprised by Hope and The Resurrection of the Son of GodSufjan Stevens: Carrie and LowellWe explore similar themes in another episode about afterlife in general: "What Happens When We Die?"For Brian McLaren's take on the importance of the resurrection, see this Patreon extra.For Kyle's take on why it matters, see "Why, Today, I Believe in Resurrection"For this episode's Patreon bonus question, see here.The beverage we tasted in this episode was Coeur de Cuvée Blend #11 from Side Project Brewing.To skip the tasting, jump to 6:28.You can find the transcript for this episode here.=====Want to support us?The best way is to subscribe to our Patreon. Annual memberships are available for a 10% discount.If you'd rather make a one-time donation, you can contribute through our PayPal. Other important info: Rate & review us on Apple & Spotify Follow us on social media at @PPWBPodcast Watch & comment on YouTube Email us at pastorandphilosopher@gmail.com Cheers!

Text us your questions!Who will be saved in the end? Does the Bible support eternal conscious torment, annihilationism, or ultimate reconciliation (or all three)? Can a good God condemn a majority of human beings who've ever lived to eternal hell? In this episode we tackle these questions and more, and we find out that Randy and Kyle don't quite agree on this one.In this episode, we tasted both Kinnickinnic Whiskey by Great Lakes Distillery and Heaven's Door Distillery's Straight Bourbon Whiskey.The resources mentioned in this episode are: C.S. Lewis: The Great DivorceRob Bell: Love WinsDavid Bentley Hart: That All Shall Be SavedBrad Jersak: Her Gates Will Never ShutEvent Horizon movie (don't watch it, it's terrible)To skip the tasting, jump to 7:10.You can find the transcript for this episode here.=====Want to support us?The best way is to subscribe to our Patreon. Annual memberships are available for a 10% discount.If you'd rather make a one-time donation, you can contribute through our PayPal. Other important info: Rate & review us on Apple & Spotify Follow us on social media at @PPWBPodcast Watch & comment on YouTube Email us at pastorandphilosopher@gmail.com Cheers!

Text us your questions!Are science and religion compatible? Should there be any crossover whatsoever? Why is it dangerous when we try to make our science fit into our religion? These are questions that Randy and Kyle chat about in our latest episode. Kyle strongly thinks that science and religion are in completely different categories and should almost never mix. Randy likes the "almost" in that statement.The guys really, honestly tried to have a debate in this episode...we'll see if they were successful.The resources mentioned in this episode are:Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life by Stephen Jay GouldThe Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief by Francis CollinsThe whiskey we tasted in this episode is the outstanding (for the price) Smoke and Sea by Oppidan.To skip the tasting, go to 8:26. You can find the transcript for this episode here.Content note: this episode contains some mild profanity.=====Want to support us?The best way is to subscribe to our Patreon. Annual memberships are available for a 10% discount.If you'd rather make a one-time donation, you can contribute through our PayPal. Other important info: Rate & review us on Apple & Spotify Follow us on social media at @PPWBPodcast Watch & comment on YouTube Email us at pastorandphilosopher@gmail.com Cheers!

Text us your questions!Bonnie Kristian is a journalist who writes for Christianity Today and has been published in The New York Times, The Week, CNN, The Daily Beast, and many more. Bonnie wrote the book Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community. The title says it all. How can we have good faith conversations and dialogue when we're dealing with "alternative facts" and call every report we don't agree with "fake news"? These are important questions for all of us.The resources mentioned in the episode are:Nancy L. Rosenblum and Russell Muirhead - A Lot of People Are Saying: The New Conspiracism and the Assault on DemocracyRadiolab - DebatableGeorge Yancy - "Dear White America"Bo Burnham - "Welcome to the Internet" [explicit]In this episode, we tasted Meyers's Single Barrel Select Rum from Story Hill BKC.To skip the introduction and tasting, jump to 10:42.You can find the transcript for this episode here.=====Want to support us?The best way is to subscribe to our Patreon. Annual memberships are available for a 10% discount.If you'd rather make a one-time donation, you can contribute through our PayPal. Other important info: Rate & review us on Apple & Spotify Follow us on social media at @PPWBPodcast Watch & comment on YouTube Email us at pastorandphilosopher@gmail.com Cheers!

Text us your questions!Brad Jersak is an Eastern Orthodox theologian, author, and great friend of this podcast. Brad recently published a book called Out of the Embers: Faith After the Great Deconstruction. In this interview, we chat about what Brad calls the Great Deconstruction, the history and tradition of deconstruction within and outside of our faith tradition, why Brad is a devotee of Simone Weil, and how to move forward in your faith after deconstruction (if you can).In this episode, we tasted Hooten Young's 6 Year Cabernet Cask Finished Whiskey from our friends at Story Hill BKC in Milwaukee, WI. Support is also in from Culver's Painting in Brookfield, WI.To skip the tasting, go to 7:20 You can find the transcript for this episode here.=====Want to support us?The best way is to subscribe to our Patreon. Annual memberships are available for a 10% discount.If you'd rather make a one-time donation, you can contribute through our PayPal. Other important info: Rate & review us on Apple & Spotify Follow us on social media at @PPWBPodcast Watch & comment on YouTube Email us at pastorandphilosopher@gmail.com Cheers!

Text us your questions!Humility is one of those fleeting virtues in our world, and it feels like we need a healthy dose. Being comfortable with what we know and what we don't know, what we're good at and what we're not, and not trying to live in hubris and pretense. It's not easy, but it is really important.In this episode, Randy and Kyle talk about humility, pride, certainty, apophatic theology, and more. In the most humble of ways, of course.The beer we tasted in this episode is Flesh to Stone barleywine from Bottle Logic. Thank you Doreen!To skip the tasting, go to 9:40. You can find the transcript for this episode here.=====Want to support us?The best way is to subscribe to our Patreon. Annual memberships are available for a 10% discount.If you'd rather make a one-time donation, you can contribute through our PayPal. Other important info: Rate & review us on Apple & Spotify Follow us on social media at @PPWBPodcast Watch & comment on YouTube Email us at pastorandphilosopher@gmail.com Cheers!

Text us your questions!Randy S. Woodley is a Native American theologian, community builder, and seed farmer, and sees little difference between those vocations. We speak with him about the relationship between Christianity, Judaism, and Native American religion, the contrasts and similarities between indigenous and Western worldviews, why he thinks the Bible shouldn't have been translated into indigenous languages, and what a sweat lodge is like. He's a prolific author with a podcast of his own, as well as a down to earth guy (literally and theologically). The books discussed or mentioned in the episode are:Indigenous Theology and the Western Worldview – Randy WoodleyShalom and the Community of Creation – Randy WoodleyMission and the Cultural Other – Randy WoodleyHealing the Soul Wound – Eduardo DuranThe bourbon we sampled in this episode is a New Riff Single Barrel Barrel Select store pick from Story Hill BKC.The beverage tasting is at 1:11. To skip to the main segment, go to 5:03.You can find the transcript for this episode here.=====Want to support us?The best way is to subscribe to our Patreon. Annual memberships are available for a 10% discount.If you'd rather make a one-time donation, you can contribute through our PayPal. Other important info: Rate & review us on Apple & Spotify Follow us on social media at @PPWBPodcast Watch & comment on YouTube Email us at pastorandphilosopher@gmail.com Cheers!

Text us your questions!For New Year's, we're re-airing an episode from Season 1 in which we discuss the question "What is truth?" We think it's as timely now as it was when we first released it and probably deserves a bit more attention than it got then. We hope you enjoy re-listening or perhaps catching it for the first time. We'll be back on our regular schedule with new content on January 13.=====Truth is a tricky term these days, with everyone believing their own "facts" or having their own "truths" or "alternative facts." How does a philosopher see truth? What is a healthy pastoral way to approach and pursue truth? Is there such a thing as truth at all, let alone "absolute truth," as so many Christians attest?Our resident pastor and philosopher dive in and bring us into a really fun and healthy conversation about truth that our society would do well to engage.The whiskey we sample in this episode is Four Roses Small Batch Select from the always stellar Four Roses Bourbon. The beverage tasting is at 1:11. To skip to the main segment, go to 5:03.The article that Kyle quotes in the conversation about humility can be found here. The episode that is referenced that had not yet been aired at the time of this recording is S01E23: "A Philosopher and a Philosopher Ruin Your Theology: Interview with Nick Oschman."You can find the transcript for this episode here.=====Want to support us?The best way is to subscribe to our Patreon. Annual memberships are available for a 10% discount.If you'd rather make a one-time donation, you can contribute through our PayPal. Other important info: Rate & review us on Apple & Spotify Follow us on social media at @PPWBPodcast Watch & comment on YouTube Email us at pastorandphilosopher@gmail.com Cheers!