030 – Two Men and a Mic Podcast: Thirty Episodes!

Two Men and a Mic Podcast - By Erik Smith Christianity

Two Men and a Mic Podcast: 30 Episodes!

Join Erik and Seany-Mac as they discuss how life has been during these 30 episodes. Listen to their answers to some of the awkward questions. Find out why Sean wants others to smell his fingers! 12 countries and the USA are tuning in and it is a blast!

This Week In the News:

Alex Johnson with NBC News reports the following:

Support for same-sex marriage grows sharply in the U.S., survey finds

The American Values Atlas sees a significant increase in support for LGBTQ issues across all races and ethnicities and almost all faiths.

Support for same-sex relationships is rising sharply among all major ethnic and racial groups and most religious groups, according to a major new survey.

The American Values Atlas, conducted by the nonpartisan, nonprofit Public Religion Research Institute, comes as the Supreme Court is considering whether a Colorado baker may legally refuse to make a cake for a same-sex wedding on First Amendment grounds.

The survey found a dramatic increase in support for same-sex marriage across all racial and ethnic groups and almost all religious groups just since 2013. More than 6 in 10 — 61 percent — of Americans say same-sex couples should be able to marry legally, compared with 30 percent who are opposed. Five years ago, support was at a bare majority of 52 percent.

The survey — one of the most extensive of its kind, questioning more than 40,000 Americans in weekly installments for eight months last year — focused on issues of importance to the LGBTQ community, including same-sex marriage and protections against discrimination in housing, public accommodations, and employment.

It reported a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 1.2 percentage points, with a 95 percent level of confidence.

The Public Religion Research Institute found that supporters of same-sex marriage now make up majorities among Democrats and Republicans; blacks, whites and Latinos; Catholics; and most white mainline Protestant denominations.

Notably, opinions among black Americans have shifted from the opposition — 41 percent supported same-sex marriage in 2013 — to help, with 52 percent signaling approval, the survey reported. The debate among black Protestants has shifted especially sharply, falling from 57 percent in 2013 to just 43 percent, it said.

Who is holding out?

“The country has reached a milestone moment in the debate over LGBT rights,” said Dan Cox, the institute’s research director. “At a time when Americans are more divided than ever, the sea change in support for LGBT rights that now crosses lines of race, ethnicity, religion, and geography means that LGBT rights are becoming one of the few areas of public agreement.”

The main holdouts remain conservative Republicans. While a majority of all Republicans now support same-sex marriage — 51 percent — only 36 percent of conservative Republicans agree, according to the survey.

Perhaps not surprisingly, only two groups significantly aligned with conservative Republicanism statistically — Mormons and white evangelicals — continue to support allowing merchants to refuse to provide goods and services to same-sex couples, both at 53 percent. Black Protestants, by contrast, oppose refusing such service by almost two-thirds, the institute reported.

Opposition to refusing services spans the country, with residents of only three states falling below a majority: North Dakota and South Dakota (both at 49 percent) and Utah (48 percent).

By comparison, 60 percent of Americans overall oppose withholding service.

“While religious liberty is a widely held value, most believe that small businesses that are open to the public should serve all customers. Personal religious objections of the owners should not be proper grounds for refusing service to gay and lesbian customers,” said the institute’s chief executive, Robert P. Jones, co-chairman of religion and politics for the American Academy of Religion.

Majorities of white evangelicals and Mormons may remain opposed to refusing service, Jones said, but “combined, they represent less than 1 in 5 Americans today.”

SNOPES

Snopes.com is the definitive Internet reference source for urban legends, folklore, myths, rumors, and misinformation. They report the following.

Did a Former Canadian Official Say the Illuminati Are Real—And Hiding Alien Stuff?

FACT CHECK

Canada’s former minister of defense has long espoused conspiracy theories.

CLAIM

A former Canadian defense minister said aliens have visited earth and have technology that would solve climate change, but won’t share it with humans because we are too destructive.

RATING

TRUE

ORIGIN

On 12 February 2018, multiple tabloids including the British Daily Mail published a story reporting that former Canadian defense minister Paul Hellyer said that the Illuminati were not only real but suppressing “exotic” technology from extraterrestrials that could solve climate change. Daily Mail reported:

Paul Hellyer, who oversaw the Canadian defense forces in the 1960s, has come out and said that the illuminati is a real entity and is controlling the world – making him the highest ranking government official worldwide to do so.

Hellyer told the Lazarus Effect podcast he believes the world’s elite has the technology to reverse the effects of climate change, but is holding back from the public. When asked why, Hellyer said that the Illuminati wanted to help the petroleum industry.

The Illuminati are a group that conspiracy theorists assert controls the world’s affairs and economy, and its members come from the worlds of politics, business and entertainment.

According to Hellyer, many members of the Illuminati have stakes in how well the oil industry performs financially.

From the tabloids?

You wouldn’t know it from the tabloid headlines, but this is hardly breaking news. Hellyer, who did serve as Canadian defense minister in the 1960s, has been on the record making these types of comments for years.

In fact, a simple web search of his name reveals that news stories about Hellyer’s outlandish theory appear with some frequency and they rarely veer off the same theme — aliens have visited Earth and are hiding key technology from humans because they believe we are too destructive and irresponsible. Daily Mail has previously published at least two nearly identical stories about Hellyer’s alien conspiracy theory: one in 2011 and another in 2014.

Repetition doesn’t make Hellyer’s theories correct, however, regardless of his former title. The “Illuminati” conspiracy theory is a long-standing and pervasive yarn in which a secretive global cabal is aiming to form an authoritarian single world government pulls strings and is behind primarily every major event. Although the idea that aliens have visited Earth is favored among UFO enthusiasts self-proclaimed abductees, scientists haven’t found evidence that intelligent extraterrestrial life exists, let alone any that have visited Earth and judged humans beneath them.

NBC NEWS REPORTS:

Chris Mohney The number of men who secretly don’t wash their hands after using the bathroom would horrify you

I am a man of the world and a father of a son, so I am familiar with filth and the masculine will to ignore it. But this is shocking.

While my knowledge of New York’s public restroom infrastructure will never top George Costanza’s, the consultant lifestyle of itinerant meeting-taking, co-working and WiFi-sponging has given me a useful map of favorites. In particular are the more helpful, semi-public facilities attached to hotels, clubs, bars, restaurants, offices and other establishments whose identity I will not reveal here.

However, my increased reliance on these places for relief has led me to notice a disturbing trend: Men who casually — or even boldly — decline to wash their hands after concluding their “business.”

What I see lately is not happening in a derelict holes-out-back of state-route gas stations, where every surface may subtly pulse and writhe with infection. No, these are posh joints — clean, bright, well-appointed, even pleasantly-scented at times. And these hygienic delinquents are young and old, hip and unfashionable, coolly professional or chill.

Something is profoundly wrong with them all.

Let’s accept as a given that different cultures and places have different standards and practices for personal hygiene. But perhaps the most common excuse for not washing after restrooming is some variation of I know what I’ve touched, I know what my junk has felt, I don’t know about any of these other guys or all the stuff in here. While I admire this view’s epistemological absolutism, it falls apart under (reluctant) scrutiny.

Science uniformly recommends washing your hands in the bathroom, though it is true that bad things can live on the knobs, taps, dryers and soap dispensers of the most luxurious public restroom. But that’s not an excuse not to wash.

“One recommendation is to use a paper towel to wipe off surfaces before washing hands,” said Dr. Melissa Hawkins, director of the Public Health Scholar Program at American University. “It’s also a good idea to use a towel or your shirt sleeve to open the bathroom door when leaving the restroom.”

Good Hygiene!

But, she added, there is one key thing to remember. “Don’t sacrifice good hygiene practices — just be aware of ways to identify bacteria.”

Jolie Kerr, a cleaning expert, and host of the podcast Ask a Clean Person, responded to the oft-cited my-junk-is-cleaner-than-the-faucet excuse. “Even if you’re a person who thinks you don’t need to because you’re only touching yourself, consider that your hands have come in contact with the surfaces that every other dude who doesn’t wash his hands after he pees has touched.”

Understand that I am not naive: I am a man of the world and a father of a son, so I am familiar with filth and the masculine will to ignore it. After all, the private bathroom is its own story and what happens between a man and his home stadium is his affair (and that of his probably unfortunate cohabitants).

However you behave at home, and yet, people wash or don’t wash somewhere else, I live in New York City, where a delicate web of mutually-understood social contracts is what keeps us all from murdering each other wholesale every day.

Sweaty Quarters

We are packed in very close quarters, it’s true, but our intimate parts are packed in even closer quarters inside our clothing. It’s warm, humid and sweaty down there and, in a restroom, you manipulate those parts complementary to their very natural and normal function of waste elimination. All of that — and all the product and evidence of that — should remain within the confines of the little room constructed for that purpose. When you emerge, and we get closer and shake hands or slap backs or do anything else of a manual nature, other citizens reasonably expect to remain free of the most base of your corporeal influence.

Think of it this way: If you feel empowered to veto the social contract of handwashing, why bother using the public restroom at all? Why not just relieve yourself in a corner, or the street? Are you merely — grudgingly — willing to use the dedicated and lawful facility to take care of your biological urges, and take no responsibility for what you do in there or what you bring out of it?

And don’t think that other men don’t notice you doing it. When I’m at the sink washing up in a public restroom, and I see another man depart the stall or urinal and lope around behind me, straight to the door, you can bet that I am watching with narrowed, disapproving eyes.

And I know they know it! That’s why they don’t glance over or nod a greeting because deep in their hairy, manly hearts, they feel the shame of their transgression. What’s more, because they are bypassing a handwasher even as they refuse to do the same, the disgusting individuals are implying they’re wiser than me, better than me. Or worse, that I am in fact the one who’s unclean for washing up in this contagiously soiled environment.

Big Misake

When it happens, all I can do is deliberately fuzz my vision or look away, so I won’t recognize the non-washer in the outside world.

But I made a mistake recently of noticing one such person’s unique haircut as he left without washing, a handsomely-done high stack of dark black with light gel and a particular leftward shelf. Minutes later in the restaurant outside, I realized that same haircut was seated in an adjoining booth, talking with friends. I couldn’t see his face, but I was mesmerized as he reached into a shared breadbasket and delicately broke apart and ate a crusty dinner roll with his quite nicely manicured (and secretly disgusting, pee-splashed) hands.

Christ Figures, Assemble! Examining Sacrifice in Avengers: Infinity War

SARAH WELCH • MAY 2, 2018 From Think Christian

There are plenty of sacrificial acts in Infinity War, but how well do they evoke the work of the cross?

It’s difficult to judge a two-part movie based on the first half alone, but Avengers: Infinity War—which sets up dominoes that will fall in next year’s Avengers movie—still gives us a lot to work. A lot of plot, anyway. Despite its length, most of its many stars have limited screen time. There’s plenty of planet-jumping and precious little character development.

The slow-motion sequence of an entire team running into battle is the cinematic equivalent of a splash page. In the world of comics, these pages are used for dramatic effect, punctuating a clash between titans and making the action seem larger than life—or at least more significant than the panels that dictate the traditional comic-book layout. Infinity War, directed by brothers Joe and Anthony Russo, uses its splash shots liberally, an artistic choice that makes sense because of the sheer number of heroes populating its scenes. But the most effective splash shots in the movie are not the ones of the Avengers on the attack; they’re the ones of heroes sacrificing themselves for the greater good.

The Concept

Thanos himself (Josh Brolin) is devoted to the concept of sacrifice, albeit a twisted version of it. His goal is to wipe out half the beings in the overpopulated universe to “bring balance.” Thanos also sacrifices his adopted daughter Gamora (Zoe Saldana) so that he can attain one of six Infinity Stones. Possessing all six would give Thanos the power to achieve his goal. The scene in which Thanos gives up Gamora mirrors Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac, but it’s a dark mirror that offers a warped reflection. Instead of a sacrifice in devotion to God, Thanos’ sacrifice is for selfish and malicious ends. Instead of a ram taking Gamora’s place at the last minute. . Quill proves unable to fulfill her request, and Gamora dies for the stone anyway.

The most effective splash shots are those of heroes sacrificing themselves for the greater good.

John 15:13

At its best, Avengers: Infinity War brings to mind John 15:13: “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” It also reminds me of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s claim that “when Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” There is plenty of voluntary sacrificial love in Infinity War. Yet it still falls short of the ultimate sacrifice and atonement in the salvation narrative, in which Christ’s death was not a preventative of oncoming danger, but a cure for an already broken world and a promise that the world will be made new again.

The world will be redeemed. God will be glorified.

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