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.
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An simple index of episodes can be found here.
Humanize Me is a production of Jux Media.
Where did our popular ideas of heaven and hell come from? Did Jesus teach eternal torture? How did our notions of the afterlife evolve?
Bart Ehrman is the author of over 30 books, including six New York Times bestsellers explaining critical biblical scholarship to a popular audience.
In this conversation with Bart Campolo, Ehrman talks about the difference between agnosticism and atheism and why he considers himself both, why the words translated ‘hell’ don’t mean what we think they do, how Jesus talked of ‘eternal life’, the early church theology of heaven and hell, how Jews of the 1st century understood bodily resurrection, the origin of the devil, our ideas of the afterlife and cosmic justice, whether we should try to deconvert people who are wavering in their faith, and more.
Pick up his new book, Heaven and Hell, HERE. Have a look at the Bart Ehrman Blog HERE.
“Hey Bart. As I grew up, prayer was touted as the answer to everything. Now with the shutdowns and loss associated with COVID-19, I still miss the feeling I had when I could ‘give it all to Jesus.’ I suppose this is part of taking back control of my own life and not depending on a higher, all-knowing power to save me all the time. But I still feel feel like I’ve lost something very powerful, if only in my own mind. Any ideas of how to move beyond this? Is it just a grieving process that I need to go through?” – Jonathan
“Hi Bart. I am concerned. During this strange and surreal time (I work in a hospital in the UK), I am finding myself more and more ‘sucked in’ to Christianity and have been attending Church services regularly. I do not want to be Christian but I am finding much support and solace within their boundaries and I can feel myself submitting to their ways!!” – Debbie
In this episode, we attempt an answer to both these (related) questions and give a little preview of the next one. Includes an update on life during the pandemic.
Bart reflects on two recent episodes that have generated the most mail ever for this podcast, and offers some thoughts on how to improve relationships during this extended lockdown.
It’s been a hard week for Bart! Episode 509 of this podcast featured his conversation with Michael Dowd, a fellow ‘apocalyoptimist’ who shares Bart’s belief that a great societal collapse is inevitable, and that the current pandemic represents the beginning of a difficult time for humanity.
Bart’s son Roman Campolo listened, and hated the episode. Not only did Roman have strong criticisms of Dowd, collapse-thinking, and the tone and content of the conversation itself, but he feels that Bart is wasting his unique skill set and intellect on apocalyptic thinking at a time when he could be applying himself to this moment more effectively.
In this episode, Roman lets Bart have it, firing on all cylinders. We thought about some different titles for this episode:
“Roman v Bart”
“An on-mic intervention”
“About last week…”
“A podcast massacre”
“Roman on a rampage”
“Bart gets taken to the woodshed”
“Roman takes no prisoners”
Ultimately, Bart acknowledges the validity of much of the criticism, and admits to feeling some paralysis in the face of the pandemic. He believes his mission is to offer strength and encouragement in a time of crisis, and to be a source of hope. The response to last week’s episode – from Roman, producer John Wright and others – is a call to be better than we were last week.
As Bart says in the intro, if you’re not comfortable with verbal conflict, or don’t want to hear a robust argument right now, you may want to skip to the one-hour mark and listen through to the end from there. But if you kinda want to hear a good old-fashioned brawl, this is your episode!
Roman also features heavily through Bart’s story of his first psychedelic experience. Hear it at Patreon.com/HumanizeMe. And our deepest thanks for your continued – and even increased – support over there; it means a lot.
Three years ago to the week, Michael Dowd talked with Bart on this podcast about our modern way of life, sustainability and the future of civilization. When the coronavirus pandemic hit, Bart could think of nobody he wanted to talk to about it more than Michael, so he’s back!
In this conversation, Bart and Michael talk about their shared sense that the pandemic will be followed by an economic recession or even depression, and that it signals the beginning of the end of our current way of life. Michael talks about the industrial world’s reliance on the ‘religion’ of growth-based progress, the ecological fallacy being committed, the illusion of control we have, the inevitability of collapse, the stages of grief in response, and his optimism about what lies beyond it all.
Michael’s website can be found at PostDoom.com. His 2017 conversation with Bart can be found HERE.
On Patreon this week, hear Bart’s story of his first psychedelic experience after taking LSD! It’s at Patreon.com/HumanizeMe.
Bart and John are socially distancing, like most of America. What does that mean for our all-important human connections? In this episode, Bart talks about his humanist community, Caravan in Cincinnati, and how they’re handling the crisis. Bart emphasizes the importance of listening to each other, reaching out, asking how people are doing and genuinely hearing the answer, and more.
Here’s some stuff we’ve been reading lately….
On potential silver linings:
On watching movies together remotely:
https://apple.news/AwpiLmYYwRC-lDtTh8hyafw
An editorial by Alain de Button:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/19/opinion/sunday/coronavirus-camus-plague.html
A reminder for materialists to cultivate wonder:
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