[chuck]Oklahoma Representative Sally Kern is up to her old tricks once again, this time kindly letting us know that our current economic woes are actually the wrath of God, punishing the USA for supporting Sally’s favorite sins like homosexuality and divorce. Thank Vishnu we have Sally to interpret God’s will for us, otherwise we would never have drawn that connection.

Also, gay demons are being indiscriminately freed from their hosts in Connecticut. Who knows what havoc will ensue. Catch our take on the whole thing here.

[chuck]In this episode, Leighton and I comb over the evidence for the existence of a historical Jesus (which is actually pretty small) with two pairs of skeptical eyes. We discuss the pagan sources of Pliny the Younger, Tacitus, and the possible reference in Suetonius and then move on to Josephus and the documents in the New Testament. It’s a wild ride through first- and second-century Judaism, Christianity, and the Roman Empire.

You can download it through iTunes or directly here. For my part in this conversation, I relied heavily on Bart Ehrman’s discussions in Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium, Misquoting Jesus, and Jesus, Interrupted as well as these three sites on the Josephus question.

Pardon my hacking, one of my patients gave me a nasty virus, which I hope to have passed on to Leighton.

[adsense]

[chuck]For the thirteenth episode of our wildly popular ANN, we discuss this article from the Boston Globe about the ultra-religious war briefings given to President Bush, which were brimming with not-so-subtle Christian propaganda and images. If not for the frightening nature of the quoted scriptures and blatantly jingoistic captions, I’m not sure this would even qualify as news, because given Bush’s tenure, this development is entirely unsurprising. Somehow I think President Obama’s current war briefings are just a little different.

[chuck]Remember waaaaay back when we talked about having our April guests on the show? Well even though it’s May, they’re here!

I think this is our best podcast to date. Pete Rollins is a fascinating fellow and Adele Sakler as always provides a unique perspective on everything we discuss. And since I’m a genius, the odd man out was Leighton, who really didn’t contribute at all. But that’s pretty much par for the course. Give it a listen!

[chuck]Despite all of Jesus’s attempts to keep the lid on this podcast, we’ve got it online. This week, we discuss how Christians ripped off the best and most interesting aspects of pagan theology, sometimes nearly exactly. The similarities were so disturbing, early Church Fathers resorted to the strange idea of anticipatory plagiarism by Beelzebub himself.

It’s all discussed, in detail, right here.

[chuck]We have a fascinating podcast in the works for our 17th episode. Consider the last podcast our pagan precursor “Old Testament Edition.” Episode 17 looks into pagan precursors of New Testament beliefs, practices, and rituals, and it is an eye-opener.

I am so absorbed by the topic that I’m going to require some extra time to complete my research and preparations. Since Leighton is lazing around doing nothing, the delay is entirely my fault. That having been said, I’m convinced the final product will be well worth the wait — it should be the best podcast we’ve done to date.