Talk Heathen 06.45 with Secular Rarity and

00:00 Intro
11:05 Luc-(CAR) | Transubstantiation And The CCC
33:28 Patrick-FL | Can Atheism Lead To Nihilism?
54:03 Sven-WA | Souls Recognize Patterns
1:16:22 Bruce-AZ | Lack Of Contemporary Evidence For Jesus
1:26:16 Christopher-OR | Believers Should Read Every Word Of The Bible

SHOW NOTES
In today’s episode of Talk Heathen, Secular Rarity and Adam Elmasr will work through questions of existence, nihilism, Eucharist, contemporaries of Jesus, and Biblical studies.

First up is Luc from the Caribbean who sees the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) as more understandable than the Bible. How do we know what this book says is true? Do our thoughts have any bearing on the truth? How does the Eucharist change if it is not the matter or atoms? How is this different from declaring water within a water bottle is gold?

Patrick in Fl wants to know if atheism and agnosticism can lead to nihilism. A lot of ideas can lead to this. We give meaning to life subjectively and what matters are the people around us. It is more fulfilling to make decisions on our own, and not because of some deity. Why is the idea of no longer existing an upsetting thing? Accepting that once we die we are done, can be comforting. Rather than being concerned about what happens after death, how about using that time to help someone out? The footprint you leave behind may not be measurable, but can have a great impact on things 1,000 years from now. If you are not bothered about not existing before you were born, why would the idea of no longer living bother you?

Sven in WA has some thoughts about how artificial intelligence (AI) can help provide evidence for the soul by teaching us about pattern recognition. What is a soul and is it related to patterns? What are the properties of a soul? How do we demonstrate that the source of our knowledge is the soul? If we say the soul exists in the ethereal plane, are we able to measure this and what does it mean? How would you use a physical method or logic to demonstrate non-physical?

Bruce in AZ wants to talk about the lack of contemporary recordings of Jesus and how theasts claim there are. All the information comes from church tradition. There is no evidence other than this. Even the letters of Paul were 20 to 30 years after the death of Jesus, and he never even met Jesus. Dr. Joshua Bowen has written some helpful books on archeology that will assist with debunking claims of contemporary evidence for Jesus.

Christopher in OR encourages Christians to read every word of every page of the Bible if they truly believe. Muslims happen to have huge chunks of the Quran memorized and many have read it several times. We must be careful not to commit The No True Scotsman fallacy, however, it is important to voice the value of critical thinking. We all need good justification for what we believe.

Thank you for tuning in this week! Remember to push back respectively. Thank you front line workers!



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