Special Podcast Series: The Modern Relevance of God - Ep. 6: Trouble from the Start

Welcome to Episode 6 of our Modern Relevance of God podcast series here on Thinking with Somebody Else’s Head. I’m Richard Lloyd Jones. 

You might have noticed in our first few episodes, I've been mentioning the importance of the wisdom of the past to our understanding of the present. And especially in our understanding of God and spirituality.  

That's not been by accident. There were some smart dudes back then, and Norberto Keppe's work has been in part about going back and rescuing the correct knowledge from these great thinkers and sages throughout history. That's really not a modern view, I know that. We tend to be much more of the mind today that what went before was interesting, perhaps as an archaic allegory, but hardly relevant anymore in our digital app for that, do all your banking online, superiority. We just threw away all those guys with a dismissive shrug and a raised eyebrow. What could Aquinas or Plato or the Divine Comedy possibly teach us about the important stuff in life, like creating passive income or lowering our toxic exposure or reducing our carbon footprint? 

In Mrs. Kent's English Lit 12 class way back when — not quite Middle Ages but still a long time ago — we studied Milton's Paradise Lost. Studied the language and the rhythm, the poem's epic story and heroic nature. "Bloody long thing," I thought at the time. The poem tells the story of the war for heaven and of man's expulsion from paradise. Benjamin Ramm in his recent BBC article, Why You Should Reread Milton's Paradise Lost, declares it to be a powerful meditation on rebellion, longing and the desire for redemption. 

But I think we're missing a point here. Paradise Lost is not just an allegory about non-conformist, anti-establishment rebellion. It's a real story, about what really went on. A real event with real people. A story that continues right up to this present moment. 

And I know how that must sound here in the 21^st century. Like I've just suggested there was no moon landing, right? Well, stay with me! In this episode, we'll introduce a scientific explanation of the Biblical story of the Fall of Man, and see if we can't rescue the story from the clutches of ancient mythology and restore it to its rightful place as the real story of Man that we ignore and banalize to our peril.

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Special Podcast Series: The Modern Relevance of God - Ep. 5: Who Is this God We're Talking about Anyway?

Welcome to Episode five of our Modern Relevance of God podcast series here on Thinking with Somebody Else’s Head. I’m Richard Lloyd Jones. 

In our last episode, we looked at some of the scientists responsible for modern science's turn to materialism. Something that sought to make God irrelevant in the creation of life. English biologist, Richard Dawkins, perhaps best epitomises that point of view, opining in The God Delusion that God is arguably the most unpleasant character in all of fiction. And then swinging from the heels with a brutal list of negative adjectives describing God that to my mind, simply substantiates the discoveries of the early explorers of the psyche who showed that sickness lies in projecting our evil qualities outward onto others.

 

That dismissive view of God is more than obvious in countless modern art, too, that looks at the mess in the world created by man as proof that God doesn't exist. Well, I'm struck hard by that modern conceit because … well, I'm a product of it. Moving to Brazil 20 years ago with my wife at the time, Madalann, began a process of change inside me, a gradual opening to a theological reality that had simply not been part of my life ...the spirituality I delved into in the New Age movement, notwithstanding. That had been insufficient to feed this quest for truth I hungered for. It was the certainty of the existence of God that marks Brazil that began to turn the tide in me from disdain for God, picked up through modern science and art, to a budding belief in something concrete. A real God in place of that vague and simplistic notion of cosmic energy coming from New Age spirituality.

It was when I began to study Norberto Keppe's concept of inversion, which we talked about in our second episode, that I began to think, "Well, wait a minute! If we're inverted, we must be inverted from something. What would that be?" That's what we'll begin to explore in our podcast episode today with Claudia Bernhardt Pacheco: Who Is this God We’re Talking about Anyway?

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Special Podcast Series: The Modern Relevance of God - Ep. 4: Some Scientific Anti-Christs

 I'm Richard Lloyd Jones, and this is Episode 4 of our Modern Relevance of God special podcast series on Thinking with Somebody Else's Head.

In our last episode, we looked at some of the consequences of materializing science, the reverberations of which we are obviously still feeling today. From elevating the bean counters to the lofty perches of power to resolving pandemics with material products, we are far from any spiritual considerations in our modern science.

We can even put some names to that process, some of the most famous names in scientific history actually. All of whom, unknowingly, led us down this mathematized trail of inverted world views that is largely responsible for the myriad seemingly unresolvable problems facing us today.

And at the same time, Cesar Soós and I will explore the tremendous healing power in nature. All of which provides more evidence that a great Designer is at work behind all this. 

Welcome to Episode 4 of the Modern Relevance of God special podcast series. Cesar Soós on some scientific anti-Christs.

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Special Podcast Series: The Modern Relevance of God - Ep 3: Science Turns its Back on God

I'm Richard Lloyd Jones, and welcome back to our continuing series. This is Episode 3 of our special podcast series, The Modern Relevance of God.

This episode is the first of 2 parts exploring how science turned its back on God. Well, the dominant scientific view has actually never been tolerant of dissent, and we know the consequences of challenging authority, don't we? From burning at the stake to shunning to YouTube and Facebook removal to Cancel Culture, the repercussions of independent thinking can be quite drastic. The modern power structure frowns on whistleblowers, and bots and algorithms are programmed to control more and more the scientific and political discourse on our planet.

 So today, we'll introduce some fundamental disagreement with the metaphysical basis of modern science, and science's part in removing considerations of God from our modern world.

Today on Thinking with Somebody Else's Head, our special podcast series, The Modern Relevance of God continues with Episode 3: Science Turns its Back on God.

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