The Christian Transhumanist Podcast

Explore Christianity and Transhumanism, diving deep into the relationship between religion, technology, and the future of the human race—with provocative guests from the leading edges of science and theology.

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Ep 21: Science Mike—Losing & Finding God

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How to lose your religion, disrupt your life, and become a skeptic with faith! Science Mike describes his faith journey, and discusses brain science, space exploration, cryonics, and the oceanification of Miami.

  • Mike McHargue's new book: Finding God in the Waves: How I Lost My Faith and Found It Again Through Science, and the website, including more info about him, and his ongoing book tour
  • A photo of the moment when Micah and Science Mike unknowingly crossed paths years ago, as extras in the same scene of Blue Like Jazz
  • The weird and winding journey of Science Mike
  • as explored on the Pete Holmes show
  • Conservative evangelicalism. The great things about it, and its failure scenario: evangelicalism produces atheists.
  • The fallout of losing faith, personally and relationally
  • What it's like to be an atheist working to uphold other people's faith
  • How to navigate a relationship across a faith transition
  • Ending up as an Empirical Christian Mystic
  • God & the Brain
  • Why belief in God is beneficial to your brain
  • Brain science confirms the mystical idea that attempting to define God precisely is futile
  • How to start rebuilding faith in the presence of intense skepticism:
  • Science Mike's Axioms of faith
  • and Micah's Minimum Viable Theology
  • Richard Dawkins vs Science Mike: is religion beneficial or harmful?
  • Richard Dawkins assumes conservative authoritarian fundamentalism is the essence of religion, and progressive religion enables it
  • Mike McHargue argues that's not true. Authoritarianism is dangerous, but there is a strong move to remove it from religion.
  • "I don't know of any more ardent critics of Westboro Baptist Church than my Baptist friends." — Mike McHargue
  • Sam Harris on how skepticism often loses important elements of human well-being
  • When authoritarianism is eliminated from religion, the strong evidence is that religion becomes a force for good.
  • 3 proven nootropics: Exercise, Reading, Prayer
  • Reading the Bible in an age of science. Three different approaches:
  • NT Wright
  • Pete Enns
  • A human book about God
  • The future of faith
  • The world is not becoming more secular. But America and the West appear to be becoming non-institutional
  • The church will adapt to this new context. The history of our faith is the retelling of the story of Exodus, in new contexts.
  • The West is not becoming atheist, it's becoming less tolerant of boundaries.
  • Secular & Sacred:
  • Coloring Book by Chance the Rapper - "I'm a force to be reconciled"
  • Last Days in the Desert
  • Topics for the supernerds
  • The (scary!) ramifications of self-improving AI
  • Cryonics, ethics & the question of "Who's going to thaw you?"
  • Space travel, and the newly-discovered exoplanet Proxima B
  • Benefits of solar-system exploration: LIFE INSURANCE!
  • Populating other planets in the solar system is a top ethical priority. Should be a top human priority.
  • Why fixing climate change may have to wait until we're evacuating Miami
  • Why we need to reorient our faith to universal human flourishing
  • Why orthodox thinkers, and NT Wright and Richard Rohr offer a more progressive vision for the future of Christianity
  • NT Wright's newest book, The Day the Revolution Began: Reconsidering the Meaning of Jesus's Crucifixion
  • The book tour — see Science Mike live!
Ep 21: Science Mike—Losing & Finding God
Micah Redding
2016-08-29 10:10:00
01:15:44