This episode takes me back to my childhood roots as an independent Mormon fundamentalist. Matt and I trace the history of the fundamentalist Mormon movement from the advent of polygamy through the era of federal prosecutions for cohabitation (here’s a higher resolution picture of the Utah jailbirds, including Apostle George Q. Cannon), the Manifesto, the Reed Smoot hearings, and finally to Lorin C. Woolley’s claims surrounding John Taylor’s 1886 “revelation” (which I refer to as the “sentinel event” of fundamentalist Mormonism — what I meant to say was “seminal event” — clearly, this podcast has made me senile), including a supposed visitation by Jesus H. Christ and a resurrected Prophet Joseph Smith.

Also, we talk about leaky sphincters and polecat penises.

WARNING! This podcast contains explicit science not suitable for creationists!

In this episode Matt and I go over the history of spontaneous generation, how the idea began and how it fell out of favor. We then go over various myths of creation before proceeding to the Scientism myth of creation: abiogenesis. We take a whirlwind tour through hydrothermal vents, the Krebs Cycle, the iron sulfur world of Günter Wächtershäuser, and about a semester’s worth of high school biology in just a few excruciating minutes.

So strap on those nerd glasses, get your pocket calculators out, and let’s do this thang.

So he doesn’t have to look at CS Lewis’s face any more. Here’s Whiskers, the Irreligiosophy podcat. Thanks for the name, Moewicus!

Our four episode trek into the deep, dark recesses of the apologetic mind is finished. In this episode Chuck gets castigated for not allowing Matt to talk (suck it, Matt!), Chuck and Matt have a little penis talk, we converse about the intricacies of eating cocaine out of a brother’s butt, and then we spend the remaining forty-two seconds discussing CS Lewis.

Be warned! It is not for the faint of heart.

[chuck]The CoA guys had me on to ramble about stuff I don’t know a whole lot about: female reproductive cycles and anatomy, females getting abortions, and females in general. But hey, it’s a nice break from the never-ending talk of male circumcision going on around these parts.

We have returned to tackle Book II of Mere Christianity, in the 3rd episode of a 4-part series. Here Lewis explains clearly why we should believe in Christianity specifically rather than those other false religions, or the manly option of dualism. Also, in an attempt to rile feminists and appease men’s rights activists, we talk about male circumcision in Chuck’s medical corner.

CS is back for more “philosophy” and “arguments” as we finish up Book I of Mere Christianity. We talk about moral objectivity, the supernatural, and God’s keen interest in every last bit of your behavior. You better watch out, you better not cry …

In the second coming of the second coming of Irreligiosophy, Matt and Chuck tackle CS Lewis, his life and times, some of his fiction and non-fiction, and finally his most well-known piece of apologetic, “Mere Christianity.” In the middle we get sidetracked discussing the misogyny of 1940s apologetics as compared and contrasted to the 21st century atheist-skeptical movement.

After everything is said and done, we really only get through the preface and Book One, but it still compares well to the supernatural but quite real standard I like to call the “Law of Podcast Nature.” It’s just like the law of gravity but better.

[chuck]So I had initially planned to do a podcast every 2 weeks, but that won’t happen this month. Look forward to the next podcast on February 1st. I think I’ll skip the second part of the empty tomb podcast (as it’s mostly a rehashing of the first part, just fleshed out with more detail), and instead do episode two on CS Lewis and “Mere Christianity.” Lewis is possibly the foremost Christian apologist of the 20th century and “Mere Christianity” his foremost apologetic work.

I was surprised while reading the book how many of these arguments I’d already encountered in regular conversations with actual Christians, as opposed to apologetic Christians who can recount the Kalam Cosmological Argument by rote (while not fully grasping it or its implications), or attempt to grill me on context, chapter, and verse of the Bible. Lewis’s arguments are the ones you’re most likely to hear from your neighbor or coworker, so we’ll cover both the arguments and why they ultimately fail (… or do they?). It just might make for the best podcast in the history of the universe.

For the first episode of the second coming of Irreligiosophy, join Matt and Chuck as we tackle William Lane Craig’s arguments for the central claims of Christianity: the empty tomb and resurrection. I am willing to grant for the sake of argument that Jesus’s tomb was as empty as my rectal vault after a combo burrito from Pancho’s, but as we find out, the existence of an empty tomb does not necessarily lead to a conclusion of resurrection.

Source: Jefferey Jay Lowder, Historical Evidence and the Empty Tomb Story: A Reply to William Lane Craig, The Empty Tomb, pp. 261-306, Prometheus Books, 2005.