A weekly podcast about building great relationships, cultivating wonder, and making things better for other people. Hosted by veteran community-builder Bart Campolo, Humanize Me features friendly, thoughtful conversations with a wide array of scientists, activists, artists and oddballs.
Have a question you’d like us to answer on a future episode? Call the Humanize Me ‘Q Line’ at .
An simple index of episodes can be found here.
Humanize Me is a production of Jux Media.
Gretta Vosper is an ordained minister of the United Church of Canada who, as a self-professed atheist, has survived an official review from her denomination and continues to serve as the pastor of her congregation.
In this conversation, Bart Campolo talks with Gretta about the story of the last few years, why she stays in her church, what her congregation believes about a supernatural God (Gretta doesn’t think it matters), whether the foundational narrative underlying the good morality Gretta is teaching is important or not, the differences between the United States and Canada and whether the social safety net has an effect on the amount of religiosity, and their shared mission.
Gretta Vosper’s website can be found at GrettaVosper.ca.
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Humanize Me is hosted by Bart Campolo and is produced by John Wright at JuxMedia.com.
In episode 407, Bart and John attempted to answer the question of a 15 year-old listener who wondered aloud why people aren’t freaking out more, and doing more, about climate change.
In the wake of that episode, Bart heard from many other listeners who didn’t think we nailed it. So, this is our attempt at a redo! Let us know what you think.
Bart Campolo is a materialist, which means that he thinks that the physical universe and its movements are the basis of all reality, and that human consciousness, morality, meaning and everything else comes from physical nature.
So you may consider it odd that Bart would have Mark Gober on his podcast, whose book argues that science has proven the existence of consciousness beyond the human body. Gober says that there is evidence for the existence of phenomena like telepathy, precognition, remote viewing and psychokinesis, and that this evidence has convinced him that consciousness transcends the human brain.
Needless to say, Bart disagrees with this, but these kinds of views are common in our society, especially among people who are not part of ‘organized religion’. So, while this conversation is not a debate, it’s a lively discussion of why Mark thinks these claims are valid, particularly as someone who was once a materialist like Bart.
They hit on: What scientific evidence Marks thinks show that consciousness can happen outside the brain, that it predates matter and energy; Is creating your own meaning just rationalizing?; Is consciousness fundamental to the universe, expressing itself in different forms?
Here’s the article Mark cites in the American Psychologist journal by Etzel Cardeña:
https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Famp0000236
A summary of CIA experiments (noting ‘methodological problems’) on remote viewing:
https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP96-00787R000500250015-6.pdf
More on ‘cellular memory’, the idea that some aspects of consciousness can be influenced by cells in the rest of the body:
https://www.medicaldaily.com/can-organ-transplant-change-recipients-personality-cell-memory-theory-affirms-yes-247498
The coincidences between Lincoln and Kennedy’s assassinations:
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/linkin-kennedy/
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Bonus episode!
I had a very interesting conversation with my friend Ryan Meeks recently, who is the founder of Eastlake Church near Seattle. We talked about humanist content ideas, the music we should use, consciousness and more. It’s available at our Patreon page HERE for as little as a buck a month! Please support the show; it’s the only way we make it happen. Enjoy!
The earth is in trouble and nobody seems to care. That’s the observation of Josie, 15, who called the podcast after hearing more and more about humanity’s biggest challenges during science class:
“Hey Bart, I’m Josie, I just turned 15 and I am a big fan of your podcast. So I have this really great science teacher who is one of my favorite teachers ever, and he’s really passionate about a lot of things and will sometimes go on long trains of thought during class. One of the things he comes back to is basically how the well-being of earth is spiraling downhill and we will all be in serious environmental trouble in the near future, what with the spiking population and climate change. And then, once he talks about this, he sort of moves back to whatever lesson we’re doing – you know, Newton’s Third Law or whatever – and then I can’t really focus the rest of the class because I keep coming back to: Wow, we are in serious trouble. Everyone in the world is in serious trouble. Why isn’t this everyone’s first concern at the moment? Why aren’t we all trying to fix this? Is it because it’s such a great truth that no-one wants to actually acknowledge it? So, I guess my main question is: How do we cope with this really high probability that life on earth may be really, really miserable for us in the near future? Thank you.”
Bart Campolo and producer John Wright attempt to answer Josie’s question.
Is it even a word? Bart Campolo’s reaction to the anti-semitic shooting in Pittsburg was to reach out to his Jewish friends and ask how they were doing. It made him wonder if there is a way to be actively pro-semitic, and to support Jews more.
To answer this, Bart reached out to the hosts of the most popular Jewish podcast in existence, Unorthodox. Mark Oppenheimer, Stephanie Butnick and Liel Leibovitz chatted with Bart in this fun conversation about philo-semitism, stereotypes of Jewish people, the places where people can get to know more Jews, how to be part of a group identity, tribalism and bagel-sniffing.
Unorthodox is a production of Tablet magazine and can be found HERE and wherever podcasts are heard.
A letter this week from a listener who says he’s hungry for community with like-minded secular people is just the latest one like it. But this one couldn’t have come at a better time, or landed on more fertile soil.
Two Sundays ago, Bart Campolo and a team of like-minded people held their first content-driven gathering at his new house in Cincinnati. The theme of the event was, ‘Paying Attention.’ They have decided to hold these meetings once every 2 weeks, with a different theme each week. Bart has a hunch that their material may be of interest to the wider Humanize Me community, and his team are excited to share their format.
In this episode, producer John Wright reads Phil’s letter, and Bart answers by talking about what they’re doing in Cincinnati and what he thinks may be of use to the wider community. If you’d like to read the letter Bart sent out to local friends describing the vision for the gatherings, go to bartcampolo.org/2019/02/letter.
If the content was supplied by Humanize Me, would you be interested in running your own house gatherings? Let us know in the Facebook poll HERE.
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