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Does Religion Lead to Tolerance or Intolerance? An international three-day conference in Oxford, organised by the Science and Religious Conflict Project team. It is an interdisciplinary conference on the theme of empirically informed approaches to understanding the ways in which religion increases or decreases tolerance.
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Just Human Podcast

Mohammed K Paika

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This podcast song was penned in light of the current crisis in Israel-Palestine as well as Russia-Ukraine, but also reflects upon the countless unnecessary wars and battles over centuries in the name of politics and religion. Human beings have advanced in warfare to the extent that they can now destroy entire cities or communities with the push of a button, as seen with the atomic bomb - a prime example of the destructive extent of humankind. Furthermore, warfare has become increasingly inse ...
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Have you ever gotten tired of all of the foolishness and religious rules that bad religion inevitably adds to New Testament Christianity? If so, this is the podcast for you. Spotting bad religion, practicing the presence of God, New Testament Christianity, relationship not religion, love instead of rules, realizing who God made you to be, being the person God made you to be, tolerance, acceptance, love, enlightened, the keys of Christianity, open-minded, unlocking the power of God inside of you,
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A lovely young woman gambling at a casino in Leubronn, Germany. A young man watches, fascinated from afar. She begins to lose heavily and leaves the casino. Thus opens the last and probably the most controversial of George Eliot's novels. Published in 1876, Daniel Deronda is also the only one in which the great Victorian novelist portrays contemporary society of her own time. There were only a few murmurs when it first came out, but later, they became a full fledged outpouring of resentment ...
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For centuries, the world has been going through a great transition. In the midst of this great change, there are several important questions to ask: “Who are we as Humanity? Who are the Influencers? What are we Tending towards becoming? In other words, aside from all the destruction, ambition, greed and “Me Only awareness” that makes up our current civilization, we have a spiritual potential of what we may become. Our potential rests on members of the Evolutionary Service Groups waking up an ...
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The Catholic Information Center is committed to making the Catholic Church alive in the hearts and minds of men and women living and working in our nation’s capital. Through a variety of spiritual, intellectual, and professional programs, the CIC offers the tools to live an integrated life and to engage in all areas of human endeavors.
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show series
 
A short 9 years after the fourth Crusade ended the Pope called for a fifth. And the aim still was? Taking back Jerusalem. But the Crusaders—again!—made bad strategic decisions. And then, of all weird things, in the middle of the Crusade the Sultan was visited by Francis of Assisi. I recount the exchange between those two men and reflect on the spir…
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The Fourth Crusade was arguably the most disastrous of them all. In the year 1204 Catholics betrayed Catholics, Catholics and Byzantines betrayed one another, and Byzantine royal family members betrayed and murdered one another. What could go wrong?! I narrate the role and place of Venice in the fourth Crusade. Across the episode I also ruminate ab…
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The Crusaders held Jerusalem and the Holy Land for a short 88 years (1099-1187). But when Caliph Saladin (a Sunni Kurd) recaptured both the relic of the "True Cross" and Jerusalem itself a third Crusade was called for by Pope Urban III. Among those who answered that call was Richard the Lionheart, the King of England who carried King Arthur's famed…
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I'm interrupting my series on the Medieval Crusades to think with you about the question, why do Christian Colleges always slide to the Theological (and with that, Cultural) Left? I listened to a recent Theology Pugcasters podcast episode and they really got me to thinking. I add my own reflections and experiences to their insightful analysis. Then…
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What happened in the Mid-East that motivated the second Catholic Crusade? Why did a monk, Bernard of Clairvaux, preach the Crusade? What happened to the armies of King Conrad and King Louis VII along the way over and down to Constantinople and Cappadocia? How did the centuries-old suspicion between Orthodox and Catholic Christians play out during t…
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Truth is? I hadn't planned on producing this episode. But way back when I was working on my PhD I learned that one has to go where the historical record takes one. So in this episode I narrate details about the Jerusalem Kingdom (the 600 square mile empire) that arose after the First Crusade. Led by different orders of Knights, the Jerusalem Kingdo…
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They started heading southeast in 1096. Three full years later, June of 1099, the Crusaders arrived at the walls of Jerusalem, multiple armies led by multiple personages. And, other than wanting to rescue the Holy Land from Muslims, they weren't even on the same page. So then, what happened when they finally sieged the walls of Jerusalem? On a rela…
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European folk, besieged in the East and invaded in the South, believed their civilization was at stake. They heard all about the Muslim invasions in the Balkans and the Muslim destruction of Christian Egypt. So the truth is there were many battles prior to the Crusades and in this episode I unpack three of those: one in Syria, one in Constantinople…
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Welcome to the most-difficult-to-produce episode I've ever put out! Why? Because I am talking about Islam following the way Mohammed and the Koran talk(ed) about Islam. The West suffers from a kind of historical amnesia about both the Crusades and Islam; almost like there is a willful ignorance at work. But what did Mohammed himself offer to Muslim…
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In my first two episodes I laid out geographically-oriented motivations for Crusading. This week we explore the religious motives of Crusaders. What were they offered by the papacy in return for joining a crusade? Was every Crusader on a journey of religious gain? Were Crusaders motivated either by their own poverty or a desire to evangelize pagans…
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What stirred up the Crusades? Last week we saw that it was the spread of Islam, and Muslim invasions of Christian lands. In this second episode I explain how Muslim violations of holy Christian sites and locales (and monks and women) was further grist, greater motivation, for Holy Roman Empire Catholics to ride far East and Crusade. But first? What…
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There are several curated narratives pertaining to the Crusades. Those narratives dominate not only our understanding of the Medieval Crusades but understandings of the Middle East today. But, what really happened? What initially, and really, motivated Holy Roman Empire Catholics to travel over 1200 miles eastward at the price of great sacrifice? T…
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This song was penned in light of the current crisis in Israel-Palestine as well as Russia-Ukraine, but also reflects upon the countless unnecessary wars and battles over centuries in the name of politics and religion. Human beings have advanced in warfare to the extent that they can now destroy entire cities or communities with the push of a button…
  continue reading
 
Perhaps more than other people, Christians are susceptible to having their emotions manipulated. After all, love of neighbor is an express way to show love of God. But that beautiful attribute can be abused, primed, and played. What's happened? Well, we used to encourage compassion: feeling for the other such that one is moved to action. Today the …
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The Bible is most aware of the problem of anxiety vortexes. But whereas too many believers today get sucked into those vortices the Bible counsels sober-mindedness. In this episode we unpack just what is sober-mindedness and offer some steps for how to achieve emotional sobriety. If you've ever watched professional golf you'll have realized that th…
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We get enculturated: the anxiety of someone (anyone!) should trump the norms, behaviors, hopes, and values of everyone. "Anxiety trumps all!", we are incessantly taught. So what to do? How to respond? When to respond? I offer several strategies for dealing with hyper-anxious groups and persons, strategies oriented in the notion of differentiation. …
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Families and churches are swept through with anxiety, and they get split, shredded. If we don't see it everywhere we feel the power of anxiety everywhere. Why does anxiety disassemble entire communities? Why is it that the entire community gets pulled down to the level of its least mature members? In this first episode in a new series we talk about…
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After a four-month series on Jesus' harsh sayings what are my final takeaways? I work through why Jesus was a first-century shock-jock, how in light of Jesus love can be tough, Jesus' axiology, why He was a man's man, how amazing it was that Jesus was not snared by the anxiety of those around him, and why—when it comes to my faith—I am "Curious Edd…
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"Jesus was just a common Jew who wanted the best for everyone." "Jesus was a liberal first-century rabbi." Those memes have captured much of the public's imagination about Jesus. But they both are 180 degrees off the mark, especially when we read what Jesus said about himself. He said, "I am Lord of the Sabbath," and "I am greater than the Temple".…
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"If they will not welcome you shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them," Jesus said as he gave the Twelve missional instructions. That just seems so abrupt! And it wouldn't have been recorded as part of the Gospel if it were recorded for us by someone from the 21st century; it's just too embattled. So why did Jesus say that? What di…
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It was brutal when in Luke 12:51 Jesus said, "Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, I came to bring division!" That embattled utterance falls inside a three-chapter-or-so pericope of urgent proclamations from Jesus. Why did he say such harsh things? How should we understand that he said he came to bring fire? In this…
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"Unless you hate your parents and siblings, and even your own life, you cannot be my disciple," Luke 14:26. What a harsh statement! We have to hate our parents? Our sisters? Children? Why was that utterance even more severe in the first century than it is today? Was Jesus being literal? How does that square with "love your enemies"? We're to love e…
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Hindus who've never read four Gospel sentences and Wiccans all know he said it, "love your enemies." But since we know Jesus was not trying either to lay down a new ethical code or teach pacifism, what was his point? What did his words mean in a first century business framework of amicitia? What did Jesus' words mean in light of the Old Testament t…
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This is a Happy New Years, more light-hearted, episode for my listeners. There are two extended reflections: what are mind and consciousness in light of the prevailing evolutionary narrative? And, what hopes do I have for the newly configured Trumpian DOGE? But along the way I also variously interweave reflections on New Years resolutions, Trump's …
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It's Christmas time so it's time for a more light-hearted episode! In this potpourri I work through: my favorite and least-favorite Christmas music, my favorite and least-favorite Christmas food, my best-ever Christmas present, Jesus' first-century audience and their worldview, the snare that the Democrats laid for themselves and then walked into, …
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