Undeceptions with John Dickson

For years, people have argued that our minds’ natural default position is non-belief. Left to ourselves, we would never grow up thinking about God.Religion is, therefore, an imposition on the susceptible minds of children. Some have suggested that teaching kids about God comes close to a form of brain washing.Our guest for this episode, Justin Barrett, says that is actually getting harder to argue.Research from the last 20 years indicates that thoughts about God aren’t by-products of American or Western culture. It’s not indoctrination. These thoughts are natural.Believing that someone - not something - governs the world comes as easily to kids as curiosity, imagination and play. Special thanks to Zondervan Academic, our show sponsor, publishers of How NOT to read the Bible, by Dan Kimball.LINKSFind out more about our guest Professor Justin L Barrett.Get Professor Barrett’s book, Born Believers: The Science of Children’s Religious BeliefMore on Ludwig Feuerbach and his ideas on religion as “wish fulfillment’Watch more of comedy trio Just These Please here.Read more about Sigmund Freud’s views on religion in this New York Times Magazine piece called 'Defender of the Faith'.Professor Barrett is a big fan of Deborah Keleman’s work from Boston University. Find out more about Keleman, here.And read this article from New Scientist about one of Keleman’s studies from 2009, 'Humans may be primed to believe in creation'.And this article from American Pscyhological Association titled ‘A Reason to Believe’Keleman’s findings about children in China who endorse teleological explanations of natural phenomena can be found in the May 2017 Journal of Experimental Child Psychology.What in the world does ‘teleological’ mean? It’s an explanation by reference to some purpose, end, goal or function. So, a teleological explanation is an account of a given thing’s purpose. Check out this explanation on Britannica.Keleman, with other researchers, has only completed studies on whether non-religious adults have a tacit tendency to view nature as purposefully created by some being. They conducted research in Finland (a notoriously secular country) and the US and compared results. Read the report here.How the Borks Became: An Adventure in Evolution by Jonathan EmmettHis Dark Materials by Philip PullmanThe Atlantic interviewed Philip Pullman about His Dark Materials, which has recently been made into an HBO series:“Storytelling, for Pullman, is a way into our world—not out of it. He loves folktales and fairy tales for their clarity and everydayness; he loves William Blake; he loves what we might call the Luciferian or deity-defying side of John Milton. He even, in a cranky and rather beautiful way, loves Jesus. But he hates the bloody Church.“You’ll pick this up quite quickly when you watch the first episode of HBO’s new dramatization of His Dark Materials. A body called the Magisterium holds a centuries-long dominion over the earthly realm. It spews doctrine; it crushes heresy; it circumscribes knowledge and inhibits discussion. Its priests are everywhere, like secret police. It’s also stealing children.”Here's a different take on His Dark Materials, from Christianity Today: "The church without a Savior is an empty shell, a vacuum that inevitably seeks power. And in His Dark Materials, the absence of Jesus is strikingly conspicuous even though he is never named. Pullman told Williams in 2004 that Jesus does not exist in the realm of his Magisterium, an acknowledgement that his church offers no redemption and is only an organization of human power. And in a world where the church controls the government, it is hardly a fantasy that the human authorities use religious manipulation to cement their control."The New Testament has a fair amount to say about structuring the church so that it supports the goal of pointing its people to Christ and it describes a church body with dispersed power. Without Christ at the head, the church is a slave to sin instead of proclaiming its purpose: “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free” (Gal. 5:1)."John Dickson was on ABC’s Q&A program in 2013. Watch it here.Justin Barrett has written a research paper on Why Santa Claus is not a God. Check it out here.Read A.C Grayling’s attack on Professor Justin Barrett in The Guardian here (from 2008)And then read Professor Barrett’s response.Watch the Centre For Public Christianity’s interview with Olivera PetrovichWant to send John Dickson a question? He loves them. Just click here to provide a query for our next Q and A show!Undeceptions is part of the Eternity Podcast Network, an audio collection showcasing the seriously good news of faith today.

In Episode 28 (Creation's Music) we spoke with Jeremy Begbie and Kirsty Beilharz about how music can point us to God. But what if it's music we just don't like? What about music that's genuinely bad. Or dissonant. What is the purpose of that type of music? Can music that's really hard to listen to still point us to the divine? Special thanks to Zondervan Academic, our show sponsor, publishers of How to Talk about Jesus (without being that guy) by Sam Chan.LINKS: Find out more about our guest Professor Dr Jeremy Begbie here.Find out more about our guest Professor Dr Kirsty Beilharz here.Seek out Jeremy Begbie's book Theology, Music and Time. Get your hands on Kirsty Beilharz's book Music Remembers Me: Connection and Wellbeing in Dementia.Listen to 20th century composer Arnold Schoenberg's works on Spotify. Jeremy Begbie talks about Schoenberg and his creation of new methods of musical composition involving atonality. Kirsty talks about 20th century composer Olivier Messiaen. This is a great article about his 'Turangalîla-Symphonie', from NPR: Finding God, Love And The Meaning Of Life In Messiaen's 'Turangalîla-Symphonie'Listen to more of Olivier Messiaen on Spotify, too.And another insightful article, this time from The Guardian on Messiaen's 'Quartet for the End of Time', which he composed while in a Nazi concentration camp. Check out this live recording of Handel's Messiah from early this year, by the Sydney Philharmonia Choirs, performed at the Sydney Opera House.And here's some more history about Handel's Messiah from the Smithsonian Magazine.Read more about Luther and Calvin's approach to music.Jeremy Begbie says Oscar Peterson can move him to tears. Let it move you. Listen on Spotify, here. Also, Brahms (here).Kirsty Beilharz went through the Life of Jesus course as she wrestled with Christianity. Check out that course, here. (Pssst... it's a John Dickson course!) Want to send John Dickson a question? He loves them. Just click here to provide a query for our next Q and A show!Undeceptions is part of the Eternity Podcast Network, an audio collection showcasing the seriously good news of faith today.

What is music and what is it about music that stirs the human soul?Is it just a series of sound waves producing neurological responses … or could music be - as so many ancients believed - a signal from God?Join us for this episode as we take a look at the enduring love affair between music and the human heart. Special thanks to Zondervan Academic, our show sponsor, publishers of Evangelical Theology by Michael F Bird.LINKS: Find out more about our guest Professor Dr Jeremy Begbie here.Find out more about our guest Professor Dr Kirsty Beilharz here.Check out this interview Professor Begbie did with Christianity Today in 2018, about Christian artists and their need for a firm grounding in Scripture.Read more about the conundrum of consciousness here.Seek out Jeremy Begbie's book Theology, Music and Time. Want to start listening to St Matthew Passion but don't know where to start? Check out this helpful guide from NPR (America's National Public Radio). Get your hands on Kirsty Beilharz's book Music Remembers Me: Connection and Wellbeing in Dementia. Kirsty spoke to Eternity News in 2016 about dementia care and music. Read the article here.Do Mark Hadley a favour and read The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien.Centre For Public Christianity fellow Barney Zwartz wrote this piece for the Sydney Morning Herald, titled 'The power of music is a path to God'. Read the story of AN Wilson's conversion back to Christianity in The New Statesman, where he says "The existence of langauge is one of the many phenomena - of which love and music are the two strongest - which suggest that human beings are very much more than collections of meat. They convince me that we are spiritual beings, and that the religion of the incarnation, asserting that God made humanity in His image, and continually restores humanity in His image, is simply true." From this episode's 5 Minute Jesus, read the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Want to send John Dickson a question? He loves them. Just click here to provide a query for our next Q and A show!Undeceptions is part of the Eternity Podcast Network, an audio collection showcasing the seriously good news of faith today.

Katharine Hayhoe, an atmospheric scientist and professor at Texas Tech, dives deep into climate change's reality irrespective of one's beliefs. She discusses the critical human impact on the environment and the varied perceptions across demographics. Hayhoe emphasizes the importance of biblical stewardship and challenges traditional views on humanity's responsibility toward nature. She shares how personal faith can bridge divides in climate discourse, advocating for urgent action and equitable policies to support vulnerable communities facing these challenges.

In the first episode of our third season, we're taking a close look at the New Testament - the second part of the Bible. Many scholars have pointed out historical inaccuracies in the gospels, or inconsistencies between the gospels that would surely call into question their reliability as sources for the historical Jesus. Some have suggested that the gospels weren't actually written by who we think they were written by. Or claim that many of the letters written by Paul that appear in the Bible weren't penned by Paul at all. Professor Craig Blomberg has spent a lifetime digging around these 'Bible mistakes'. And he's not convinced that they are, in fact, mistakes. LINKSFor more on Professor Craig Blomberg, check out his website.And while you're clicking, have a look at Undeceptions.com for all sorts of cool stuff related to undeceiving the world.Special thanks to Zondervan Academic, our show sponsor, publishers of the Collected Essays of N.T. Wright.Read more about the famous 'Wicked Bible' in this Washington Post article.Grab Craig Blomberg's latest book, The Historical Reliability of the New Testament, here.Other scholars who have written about the Book of John: Martin Hengel and Richard Bauckham.Episode 7 of Undeceptions, called Gospel Truth with Peter Williams is a good sister-podcast for this one. Check it out.Read Saint Saul: A Skeleton Key to the Historical Jesus by Donald Harman Akenson (mentioned in this episode's 5 Minute Jesus)Want to send John Dickson a question? He loves them. Just click here to provide a query for our next Q and A show!Undeceptions is part of the Eternity Podcast Network, an audio collection showcasing the seriously good news of faith today.

We're back with a new season of Undeceptions. Join us as we chase down facts and explore the best arguments, to explode some of the myths about history, science, psychology, and the good life … and how it all relates to the Christian faith. This season, we're talking climate change, public health, why belief in God is natural, how music points to the divine, mistakes in the Bible, and … the end of the world.

John Dickson takes a deep dive into the murky world of church finances to discover the pagan ruler responsible for granting Christian congregations their special financial privileges.When the most powerful man in the world becomes a believer, things are definitely going to change.But what did this ruler actually have in mind when he gifted churches and clergy their tax free status? Press play to find out.

Dr. Laurel Moffatt makes a return to Undeceptions with a single aimed at making us consider the level of our indifference.The Black Lives Matter campaign has focussed America's attention on statues that commemorate the great military leaders and politicians of the slave-supporting Confederacy. Should these symbols be taken down and our values rebuilt? Or would that leave a greater human failure still standing? 

Matt Andrews makes a guest appearance on Undeceptions, tackling the thorny topic of slavery in Australia.Have Aboriginals been enslaved at various times in Australia's history? Certainly. Was that the intention of its British leaders? Certainly not. There are two key things to undeceived of here, but you'l have to click play to find out what they are.

Eligius of Noyon was a French jewellery smith of uncommon talent who counted royal families and the highest nobility amongst his clients. As a young man, his success allowed him to dress so exorbitantly, his sense of luxury made it into the history books.However when Eligius' attention turned from kingly clients to the Kingdom of God, an incredible transformation took place. He became so concerned for the slaves around him, that his finery became the means for setting them free.In this fourth single on the hidden Christian history of slavery, John Dickson shares how Eligius impoverished himself so that others might know the grace of God.