Best Luke Jeffrey Janssen Podcasts (2024)

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#170 – Putting together a new Christian worldview

3M ago

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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 — …

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#169 – Life starts shape-shifting

3M ago

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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…

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#168 – Life from non-life?

4M ago

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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 b…

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#167 – Fine-tuning without a “Tuner”

4M ago

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An atheist response to fine-tuning: a super intellect ‘monkeying’ with the physics, a cosmic computer simulation, the multiverse hypothesis, and “the Gambler’s Fallacy.” So far, we’ve heard from five different university-trained scholars with theistic worldviews about fine-tuning of the universe: a Christian astronomer, a Jewish mathematician/physi…

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#166 – What it takes to make a LIVING universe

4M ago

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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 balanc…

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#165 – What it takes to produce a universe

4M ago

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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…

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#164 – Fine Tuning: getting the pencil to stand on its tip!?

5M ago

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“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…

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#163 – Evolution, a “good” creation, and the problem of pain

5M ago

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Can we say God used evolution to produce a “good” creation if it involves so much pain, suffering, predation and death? Our listeners asked us to do an episode on how to rationalize Christian faith with all the pain and suffering that is brought on by the process of Evolution. We spoke to Dr. James Stump, whose recently released book — Sacred Chain…

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#162 – Bending the arc of the moral universe

5M ago

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Humans have been developing the toolkit needed to fulfill the Divine command: “learn to get along and take care of the planet”! Martin Luther King famously said: “We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” The popular political commentator and TV host Jon Stewart added something poignant to those …

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#161 – Human evolution, morality, and our ultimate purpose

5M ago

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Human evolution is hard to take for some Christians, especially when we claim that humans have been climbing up the evolutionary ladder in the moral sense. It was only a few years ago that Pew Research found roughly one third of Americans believe that “humans have existed in their present form since the beginning of time” (and in case the obvious r…

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#160 – Richard Dawkins v. Ayaan Hirsi Ali

6M ago

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The scientist poster-boy for atheism and an ex-Muslim, ex-atheist Christian have a conversation (not a debate) about worldviews (not God). One of our long-time listeners asked for our opinion on a ”debate” between Richard Dawkins and Ayaan Hirsi Ali: the conversation between the two of them raised many questions and points that resonated deeply wit…

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#159 – Answers-in-Genesis are getting a new leader …. and a Tower of Babel theme park!?

6M ago

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Recent developments in the YECist world, according to a scientist who’s been watching them closely for two decades In this episode, we talk to Dr. Joel Duff: a professor doing biological research at a secular state university, and teaching students that come from the Bible belt of the USA. He’s been a popular blogger for twenty years, and more rece…

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#158 – A clash of wills in a Young Earth Creationist school system

6M ago

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Sparks fly when a Greek Orthodox evolution-accepting professor comes up against an Evangelical school headmaster bent on bringing in a Young Earth Creationist curriculum Why are we doing yet another episode on Young Earth Creationism? The biggest reason is because it’s still a very potent ideology in Christianity, especially within Evangelicalism. …

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#157 – The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind

6M ago

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“The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind” (opening sentence of chapter one) It’s no secret that modern Evangelicalism is not noted for its intellectualism. In fact, with groups in our midst like Young Earth Creationists, Flat Earthers, anti-vaxxers, and climate change deniers, and the constant criticism …

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#156 – An expert’s proposal for this religion-making software in my brain

7M ago

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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 s…

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#155 – “Is it all just in my head?” 50:30

7M ago50:30

50:30

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 spir…

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#154 – Eastern Orthodoxy, symbolism and mysticism 1:04:53

7M ago1:04:53

1:04:53

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. Exagger…

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#153 – A post-Christendom Christianity 1:14:14

7M ago1:14:14

1:14:14

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 Irel…

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#152 – Awe and spiritual experience, pt 2 55:53

7M ago55:53

55:53

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 emo…

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#151 – Awe, and the religious/spiritual experience 57:57

8M ago57:57

57:57

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…

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#150 – Human evolution and Christian theology 1:11:43

8M ago1:11:43

1:11:43

Many Christians can fully accept the idea of human evolution, but they use a language which betrays Young Earth Creationism. If we don’t update our language, we may lose a whole generation of Christians. Many Christians are perfectly fine with human evolution: descent over millions of years down a family tree we share in common with the chimpanzees…

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#149 – Creating a new Christian worldview 1:05:08

8M ago1:05:08

1:05:08

A week after Easter 2024, and in response to questions from our listeners, we discuss a whole new perspective on who Jesus was, and what he gave the Jews, and the world, when he died on the cross. Several members of our private Facebook Discussion Group asked us to explain how we’ve been able to reject so much of our Evangelical faith, and yet stil…

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#148 – Brian MacLaren: Life After Doom 59:15

8M ago59:15

59:15

Brian takes an entirely new and unexpected direction in this latest book: it’s not enough to talk about bringing heaven down to earth, we have to stop creating hell on earth. Brian MacLaren is widely recognized in the Evangelical community. In fact, in 2015, Time magazine named him one of the 25 most influential Evangelicals in America! But he’s be…

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#147 – The “personal relationship” with the divine 1:07:06

9M ago1:07:06

1:07:06

A social anthropologist, with decades of scholarship on people striving to connect to another dimension, gives us her perspective on the Evangelical version of this phenomenon. “It’s not a religion … it’s a relationship!” Many Christians claim this is what separates their faith from all others. There was a time when I myself made this claim. I don’…

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#146 – Hell? or Purgatory? 1:08:29

9M ago1:08:29

1:08:29

We trace the evolution of the human construct “Hell” (Sheol; Hades; Gehenna; Dante’s Inferno), then talk about how hell may not be a place of eternal conscious torture by fire (the modern Evangelical version), but a transitional process intended to purify (Purgatory and Universalism). One of the most disturbing elements of the “Good News” preached …

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#145 – Grieving the loss of faith 1:00:58

9M ago1:00:58

1:00:58

David Morris, with a PhD in psychology and theology, tells us about the psychology behind forming a spiritual/religious worldview, and then rejecting that worldview, and the mourning process that follows. In this episode, we talk to Dr. David Morris, who holds a PhD in psychology and in theology, worked for one of the largest publishers of Christia…

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#144 – Giving up God – a personal story 1:17:52

9M ago1:17:52

1:17:52

For Sarah Henn Hayward, reading a few too many books, meeting a few too many beautiful non-Christians, and asking a few too many questions, was just too much for her Evangelical faith. For five years, we’ve been building a community of like-minded people wrestling with a spirituality that didn’t work for us …. or even harmed us. We’re all Recoverin…

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#143 – Season 5 opener 1:04:15

10M ago1:04:15

1:04:15

Setting the stage for the next season of episodes, and how we want to move beyond merely “dancing in the ruins” of a deconstructed faith We’re back! After a 3-month hiatus to recalibrate and strategise, we’re now embarking on a season in which we’re emphasizing reconstruction of a new Christian worldview that works … for us at least … in the 21st c…

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#142 – Putting together a new Christian worldview (part 6) 57:56

1y ago57:56

57:56

A brief retrospective on Season 4, and a longer one on the journey that the podcast has taken us on through Christian belief. Well, we kept it going for over a year, and added 54 more episodes to our archive. But all good things must come to an end. And so this will be the finale for our fourth season of episodes. This podcast grew out of a blog si…

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#141 – The Teleological Menace: Why Biology (Still) Requires God 1:20:49

1y ago1:20:49

1:20:49

Biology is unique among the sciences in its apparently absolute dependence on language that implies a goal, direction, or intention. Does this mean that biology IS goal-oriented, or directed? If so, that has huge philosophical and theological implications!? Our deep-dive into Intelligent Design got us wondering why so many people embrace that world…

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#140 – LTEE shows evolution in real-time! 1:22:58

1y ago1:22:58

1:22:58

The details behind the story of how bacteria mutated in order to grow bigger and better by eating oranges, instead of sugar. Last week, we talked to a member of the Long-Term Evolution Experiment, Dr. Zachary Blount. He and his colleagues followed 75,000 generations of bacteria competing for a limited food resource — sugar — and described many diff…

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#139 – The Long-Term Evolution Experiment – not “just breaking genes” 1:14:53

1y ago1:14:53

1:14:53

Two very different interpretations of the same set of data: one from Creationists and ID proponents, and the other from the scientists actually doing the work. Here, we talk to one of the latter. A frequent talking point for creationists and Intelligent Design proponents in their anti-evolution rhetoric is a ground-breaking scientific project refer…

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#138 – Science denial / Science education 1:19:32

1y ago1:19:32

1:19:32

Dr. Janet Kellogg Ray, a deeply Evangelical believer and state college professor, has long been speaking to and educating Evangelicals about their science denial Unfortunately, science denial and pseudoscience run rampant in Evangelical circles. In our previous episodes, we’ve learned about the exceptionally strong correlations between being Evange…

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#137 – Putting it all together 1:03:44

1y ago1:03:44

1:03:44

After a seven-episode deep-dive into Intelligent Design, we finally arrive at our better informed opinion of our position on this worldview. We started this 7-part mini-series introducing the Intelligent Design proposal that many creationists hold, and also shared our position at the outset on it: at that time, we were not convinced, feeling like w…

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#136 – a leading ID proponent rebuts our anti-ID challenges 1:08:46

1y ago1:08:46

1:08:46

After last week’s scientific experts cleared up much ID-rhetoric, we ask a rising star in the ID movement — Dr. Jonathan McLatchie — to respond to our reinvigorated questions, concern, and critiques of Intelligent Design After starting this mini-series with an interview with one leading ID proponent, and then hearing from a number of scientific exp…

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#135 – The expert’s fascinating version of how the flagellum really came to be 1:06:31

1y ago1:06:31

1:06:31

Three internationally-recognized, world experts on the bacterial flagellum connect the dots regarding the evolutionary origin of the flagellum, and draw some compelling comparisons to the evolutionary emergence of the Bible! Three episodes ago, Dr. Michael Behe used the bacterial flagellum as Exhibit A in his defense of the Intelligent Design propo…

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#134 – The bacterial flagellum according to an expert 47:18

1y ago47:18

47:18

A scientist who specifically studies the bacterial flagellum using some of the most cutting-edge research tools clears up a few myths and misconceptions. Much of Dr. Michael Behe’s defense of Intelligent Design rests on claims made about the bacterial flagellum. It certainly has become his signature, and one could even say it’s become the symbol or…

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#133 – Five things you probably misunderstood about genetics 1:15:14

1+ y ago1:15:14

1:15:14

Most people don’t know: the genome is a formatted database with read/write memory systems which can reorganize itself to produce new species. This is a re-release of an episode we put out almost two years ago. In the episode that preceded this re-release, and which set the stage for this interview, we had given a thumbnail sketch of genetics as mos…

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#132 – Intelligent Design and the bacterial flagellum 1:17:34

1+ y ago1:17:34

1:17:34

Dr. Michael Behe, a biochemist and Intelligent Design proponent, gives us his perspective of ID, and responses to several counterarguments against ID. To start off our deep-dive into Intelligent Design, we wanted to talk to a knowledgeable representative of that movement. Dr. Michael Behe, a biochemist who has been waving that flag for three decade…

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#131 – Cell Biology 101 (essential background for ID talks) 1:03:47

1+ y ago1:03:47

1:03:47

Before hearing from Intelligent Design advocates, we thought we’d give our listeners some useful background information about how cells work …. it turns out it’s all about making shapes out of string. Before we present our interviews with Drs. Michael Behe and Jonathan McLatchie (both leading proponents of Intelligent Design), we feel we should giv…

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#130 – Intelligent Design – an introduction 1:03:24

1+ y ago1:03:24

1:03:24

A short introduction to start a mini-series on this Christian apologetic idea, and some of the reasons why we have such difficulty with it. Intelligent Design” has attracted much criticism — certainly from the secular, scientific community, but even from Christians of all stripes … including ourselves. Over the next few weeks, we’re going to talk t…

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#129 – A new way to “do church” 1:02:52

1+ y ago1:02:52

1:02:52

“Why not just throw the worship service out the window, and re-think what it means to be a Christian community?” Most Christians today have nestled into, or hopped between, a very standard modern expression of Christian faith, one that involves meeting for an hour on Sunday and having an unchanging mixture of songs, scripture reading, announcements…

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#128 – Lessons learned from our listeners 1:12:40

1+ y ago1:12:40

1:12:40

Four particularly toxic ingredients make it especially hard for some (many?) Evangelicals to maintain their belief system beyond a few decades. Christianity, in the West at least, is certainly experiencing a “great falling away”: churches closing, memberships dropping, people leaving the faith entirely. Some might conclude they’re leaving in order …

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#127 – Rachel’s spiritual journey 1:03:18

1+ y ago1:03:18

1:03:18

A traumatic experience while serving in a church led to a complete deconstruction of her Christian faith: she’s still “a hopeful Christian agnostic” who finds Jesus’ message “beautiful and life-giving” Another one of our listeners tells her story. Rachel Sanders also grew up in a conservative Evangelical home, and went to a Southern Baptist church,…

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#126 – Ruth’s spiritual journey 47:43

1+ y ago47:43

47:43

Her spiritual journey was going perfectly well, until life circumstances blind-sided her and the “body of Christ” failed her, putting an end to her journey. This week, another long-standing member of the podcast discussion group drops into our “studio” and shares her spiritual journey. She was perfectly comfortable for the first few decades with he…

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#125 – Paul’s spiritual journey 58:35

1+ y ago58:35

58:35

Another listener tells his story of navigating a long and meandering path through Evangelicalism: many detours, but the same destination. This week, we talk to an old friend of both of ours: Paul Almas. Paul played a key role in Luke’s reconstruction journey, was someone that both Luke and Scott looked up to 20 or 30 years ago in two very different…

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#124 – Doug’s spiritual journey 1:10:38

1+ y ago1:10:38

1:10:38

Getting to know one of our listeners, and his very unique and thought-provoking path into and out of Evangelicalism. We talked to Doug, one of our listeners, to learn a bit about his very unique story through Evangelicalism: from Fundamentalism, through progressively more liberal churches, eventually going back to Bible Seminary as an atheist to be…

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#123 – “The Exodus”: Sunday School version or scholar’s version? 1:02:56

1+ y ago1:02:56

1:02:56

Science now makes the former no longer tenable, leaving three options for believers: ignore the problem, reject the Bible, or revise one’s theology. The story of “the Exodus” has traditionally been seen to involve millions of Israelites following Moses out of Egypt: this image is derived from a literal reading of the Old Testament, with more than a…

1
#122 – the Exodus from Egypt 1:06:12

1+ y ago1:06:12

1:06:12

Although the origin story for Jews, and the foundation for much of Christian theology, many scholars will ask: did it really happen? Moses leading the newly-born nation of Israel out of slavery in Egypt, wandering through the desert for 40 years, and taking possession of Canaan is an iconic story. Not only is it the central national origin story fo…

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#121 – Human sexuality and gender: our own perspective 56:25

1+ y ago56:25

56:25

We look back on the previous four episodes, evaluate what we learned, pull together some loose threads, and set some objectives for future episodes. This is our fifth and final episode in our mini-series on the Christian view of human sexuality and gender. After listening to four scholars give their various expert perspectives on this topic, Scott …

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