The Hinterlands

Tracking Truth, Part 2

This is the second part of my conversation with Matt Leavenworth. On his suggestion, we recorded a conversation on trying to tease out the truth about God, the Bible, and mythology. How should we understand these ancient human fixtures in light of changing standards of truth? What we intended as a guest-hosted interview to help me sort through my changing views on these topics turned out to be more of a heart-to-heart between two earnest seekers.  Story mentioned on parenting: https://link.medium.com/j7CWjl1fCmb Matt's climbing group meets at SteepWorld on the 3rd Saturday of every month at 5:30PM. Cost: $10.00 for climbing, $5.00 for pizza. Reduced admission is available upon request. Pay what you can! The focus is on setting goals and building a compassionate community around mentorship and the shared experience of climbing. Ages 8-18+. Members pay for pizza only. Families welcome. SteepWorld:  (406) 696-2500 1230 S 31st St W, 59102 Support the show [https://www.patreon.com/thehinterlands]

Tracking Truth, Part 1

Matt Leavenworth is a new friend of mine. On his suggestion, we recorded a conversation on trying to tease out the truth about God, the Bible, and mythology. How should we understand these ancient human fixtures in light of changing standards of truth? What we intended as a guest-hosted interview to help me sort through my changing views on these topics turned out to be more of a heart-to-heart between two earnest seekers.  Support the show [https://www.patreon.com/thehinterlands]

A Farewell Confessional

The way we handle our knowledge of good and evil divides the world, philosophically, into two camps. On the one side are those who implicitly rely on their grasp of good and evil to inform and justify their attempts to control the world. On the other are those who hold loosely or doubt or reject their own ability to parse good and evil. The first type ends up doing things like making laws to condemn particular behaviors and beliefs. The second type sees the futility of condemnation as a solution—not out of a denial of moral values, but because the one who condemns the world must try to control it, and because those changed by condemnation will extend that condemnation to others. The Hinterlands publication on Medium: https://medium.com/the-hinterlands [ https://medium.com/the-hinterlands] Transcript of episode (with images): https://medium.com/the-hinterlands/a-farewell-confessional-dca7a0cedd04 [https://medium.com/the-hinterlands/a-farewell-confessional-dca7a0cedd04] Support the show [https://www.patreon.com/thehinterlands]

Acknowledging Difficulties In The Bible

Given the scope of the topic, this discussion is bound to be both insufficient and controversial. Be that as it may, I'm grateful to have such an experienced voice on the podcast. Steve Scansen shares some of his background in the faith and suggests three categories of biblical difficulties--similarity to other ancient texts, internal discrepancies, and OT citations in the NT--while I press him with my hopelessly anachronistic expectations of the text. Am I a child of the Enlightenment? Guilty as charged.    Books referenced and recommended by Steve: The Enuma Elish The Epic of Gilgamesh The Code of Hammurabi The Bible Tells Me So, Peter Enns Cross Vision, Gregory Boyd Support the show [https://www.patreon.com/thehinterlands]

Rule 9: Assume Interlocutor Intelligence (The Full Embrace of Seth Hirschkorn)

In the process of discussing Rule 9 on the topic of listening to the person you're talking to, Seth and I stumble into religion and politics, personhood, self-examination, advice-giving, the divide between love and truth, intellectual blindspots, and coping with the discomfort of disagreement, among other amusing conversational pitfalls.  Email comments to: abram.hinterlands@gmail.com Support the show [https://www.patreon.com/thehinterlands]