In this episode we look at several leaders of the New Atheists, including Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Alex O'Connor and more. What valid critiques of Christianity do they have? Do they reflect adequately on some of the shortcomings of historical atheism? How is their fascination with a cultural form of Christianity and antipathy toward Islam consistent with their atheistic beliefs?

We'll also dive into Steven D. Smith's book The Disenchantment of Secular Discourse and explore his concept of "moral smuggling" as it relates to the New Atheists and moral categories in a pluralistic society more generally. 

Since we did an epiphany special last year, this isn’t quite our third annual Christmas Special, but close enough! This year we take a look at the story of Jesus' birth from Luke chapter 2, which (surprise surprise!) is just as challenging to the status quo of wealth and power as chapter 1. 

We also explore how to reclaim gift giving as a meaningful act in the age of hypercommercialism and (envelope please!) give a short but hopefully entertaining “Best of” list for 2025! Be sure to listen all the way to the end to hear who our pick is in the category of Best New Pope!

In part three of the Dumb and Christendumber trilogy we look at the Christian Nationalist attack on empathy. We had this crazy idea that the concept of empathy would mesh well with Jesus teaching in the gospels that we should treat people how we want to be treated. Who could have imagined how right we were?

We take a deep dive into some critiques of empathy, explore some notoriously bad takes on the parable of the Good Samaritan, and in the end, establish that empathy is both a baseline Christian practice and a unifying value held across many belief systems (which is probably why Christendumber hates it so much). 

In Part II of our "Dumb and Christendumber" mini series, we look at the origins of Christian Nationalism, the connection between Christian obedience cults and Christian Nationalism, and what Christian Nationalists ignore from the Bible.  

For our Bible passage we wish literalists would take literally we discuss Genesis 17: 15-22 where, in promising the birth of Isaac, God also promises to bless Ishmael who is considered the father of the Arab nations in many Christian, Jewish, and Islamic traditions.

There's a lot more in here and as always, plenty of tangents! 

This is the first in a three part series exploring how the United States got to the current multi-faceted crisis. 

In Part I, we discuss how most of the moral and theological questions leading to the Civil War never really got resolved and have now come roaring back like a virus that's mutated into a stronger strain. 

In Part II, we'll look at the rise of Christian Nationalism and how myths of Christian America mix with Christian Reconstructionism to create the toxic concoction that is dismantling democratic institutions. 

In Part III, we'll try explain the concerted attack on the concept of empathy (led particularly by Christian Nationalists) and why that is...hoo boy...so dumb.

Our Bible Passage We Wish Literalists Would Take Literally for Episode 2 is 
I Timothy 6, vss 9-10.

We’re back with Season 3 of A Christian and an Atheist Walk into a Bar and our theme is (totally coincidentally) Dystopian Non-fiction. In Episode 1, Neil gives us an update on the impact of the fires in LA and we discuss the efforts to dismantle the Federal Government. We’re also introducing two new regular segments: 1) Bible passages we wish biblical literalists would take literally and 2) things Neil thinks Americans should know about the rest of the world. So obviously, we will talk about Psalm 72 and English Premier League Darts.

SPOILER ALERT: All the spoilers! If you have not watched the amazing series Reservation Dogs, just hit the mute button now! 

So we've finally reached what we are considering the final episode of Season 2 . The world is on fire literally and figuratively and so yeah, we're going to spend an hour talking about our favorite TV series maybe ever, Reservation Dogs.

If you're feeling numb from the chaos and just need a great, highly entertaining, thought provoking series to binge, go watch Rez Dogs. Then come back and listen to this episode. 

We'll be back soon with the start of Season 3 where we'll explore the theme of dystopian non-fiction. So it will be a lot less fun. 

In Season 2 (ish) Episode 6, Neil relates an encounter with an unhoused person in LA, Dan (or Danzilla), who offered a very unique take on one of our favorite films, The  Big Lebowski.

We then take a deep dive into what Phil considers to be perhaps the most Big Lebowski story in the Old Testament, Judges 17-18, wherein Micah, a Levite, and the tribe of Dan very confidently get everything completely wrong.

We checked the "explicit material" box for this because there are a couple of F-bombs in honor of The Dude.

What we're drinking:

Phil: Sioux City Sarsaparilla
Neil: a White Russian

(What did you expect?)

We were determined to do another holiday special and this year we wanted it to be about the Magi/astrologers in Matthew 2, which is technically not Christmas but Epiphany. The season of Epiphany begins on January 6 and runs all the way to Ash Wednesday (which this year is also Valentine's Day, so Ash Valentine's Day!) so we are getting this baby in right under the wire!

In this Epiphany special we discuss the wise astrologers from the East, Herod and other tinpot despots, and weird divination practices that hang around in the Bible even though they're not strictly sanctioned. We'll also discuss the meaning of tarot cards, modern day astrology, and a little quantum mechanics and chaos theory.

What we're drinking in this episode
Neil: Los Angeles tap water (!)
Phil: Lemon Zinger

We wanted to do an episode on Critical Race Theory because it’s one of those phrases that has come to mean everything except what it is. We draw a careful (and we would argue obvious) distinction between discussing the history of race relations in the U.S. and Critical Race Theory as a  discrete legal movement addressing racism in the American system of justice. Along the way we dive into controversies surrounding important Black Christian writers like Jemar Tisby and Esau McCaulley and critique some of the gratuitous attacks on their work. 

So this one has been a long time coming. How long, you ask? So long ago Neil was attending a Dodgers/Pirates game in LA that very night. How long, you ask? So long ago running against “the woke mind virus” seemed like a winning strategy for Ron DeSantis. And yeah, the episode runs kinda long, but we hope it’s worth the wait for our regular listeners. If not, here are…

Three books that are better ways to spend your time than listening to this podcast:

Critical Race Theory: an Introduction by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic

The Color of Compromise by Jemar Tisby

Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope by Esau McCaulley

What we’re drinking

Phil: Mighty Fortress Imperial IPA from Acrospire Brewing in Glenshaw, PA

Neil: whatever he got at the Dodgers/Pirates game later that night

With both the writers and now the actors who play Neil and Phil on strike, it’s taken a while to get this episode (which was recorded on Easter Sunday 2023) out. Fortunately, the episode was completed by AI and we think you’ll notice a big improvement over the organic episodes. 

In Season 2 - Episode 3, “Neil” and “Phil” discuss the increasing brazenness around racism and fascism and explore the role disobedience plays in the story of creation and fall in Genesis. I, your Robot Overlord… uh… Neil and Phil… come to some surprising conclusions.

What we would be drinking if we were not a disembodied sentient computer program:

Phil - Blackhat Schwarz Bier, Akronym Brewing 

Neil - Tenshen red wine

Humans don’t like being told what to do. Shocking, we know!

In Episode 2 we explore one of the three freedoms David Graeber and David Wengrow postulate in The Dawn of Everything, the freedom to disobey.  We start with how the freedom to disobey is expressed in the Old Testament prophets' relationship to the priesthood and the monarchy, and do a deep dive into I Kings 22 where Ahab and Jehoshaphat plan a battle with Aram. Only one prophet, Micaiah, is willing to say anything contrary to what Ahab wants to hear. (It’s a wild passage and Phil has never heard anyone preach on it in a lifetime of church attendance.)

We then explore how the freedom to disobey applies to contemporary issues like voting rights and in particular, the many problems with taking away the franchise of convicted criminals—even after they have completed their sentences. 

No beers for this episode. Neither of us were in the mood to drink, which is a shame really.

Season 2, Episode 1 is finally here! And y’nz are not gonna believe it, but we have…A PLAN! This season we will use the amazing book by the late David Graeber and David Wengrow, The Dawn of Everything: a New History of Humanity to frame many of our discussions about  the Bible. We love this book — enough to shamelessly crib from the title for the name of Episode 1. We spend a good bit of time discussing the book and why it’s important, and we give particular attention to what Graeber and Wengrow describe as three freedoms that are a common pursuit across human history and prehistory. They are: 

• freedom to move away or relocate from one’s surroundings
• freedom to ignore or disobey commands issued by others
• freedom to shape entirely new social realities, or shift back and forth between different ones.

But the big question is: what does this possibly have to do with the Bible or religion or Christianity? After some general examples of where we see these freedoms expressed in the Bible, we dig into a truly wacky and wonderful passage from Genesis 30 in some detail. We think it turns out to be a fairly fruitful approach and we hope you’ll agree. 

What we’re drinking

• Neil: Xingu
• Phil: Dragon’s Milk White

In this bonus episode, Neil and Phil compare the story of Hannah in the book of I Samuel to the story of Mary in the gospel of Luke and draw out some themes that turn out to be important throughout the Bible. In the course of the conversation, they discover that the Old and New Testaments have surprising parallels to the Peter Green and Buckingham/Nicks eras of Fleetwood Mac. And speaking of music, as an homage to Vince Guaraldi’s classic music for A Charlie Brown Christmas they’ve composed a jazzy, Christmas Special theme featuring Phil on electric guitar and drums and Neil on mandolin and electric bass. 

Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year to everyone!

We said Episode 10 was the season finale, but then SCOTUS unleashed a series of really stupid and damaging rulings and we needed to talk about it. One of the questions we keep hearing is, "Why do guns have more rights than women?" It seems like an obvious logical contradiction, but historian Kathleen Belew has shown that within the white power movement lots of guns and  complete opposition to abortion form a twisted sort of coherence. 

In this episode 

• we spend a lot of time talking about Belew's book, Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America (in fact you should probably just turn off this podcast and go get a copy right now), 
• Phil digs into Psalm 139 and explains why it can't possibly mean what the pro-life movement thinks it means, 
• and Neil makes his first foray into biblical exegesis by examining how Exodus 21 gives us some context for understanding the Bible in relation to arguments about abortion.

Our Season I Finale was delayed by supply chain issues, but it's finally here! In episode 10, Phil and Neil discuss whether aliens exist, why they may or may not believe in aliens, and how belief in aliens may have more in common with belief in a deity than we thought. 

In the triumphant return of "Should I Really Care About This?" Neil and Phil squeeze in a convo about Wordle just in time for the full Wordle backlash to begin. 

What we're drinking: Hitchhiker Brewing Company's "Clouded Distraction" Imperial Smoked Coffee Stout

In this episode we get down into the weeds discussing the philosophical problem of dualisms touching on the work of Hermann Dooyeweerd (Dutch Neo-Calvinism), Graham Harman (Object Oriented Ontology), and Emmannuel Levinas. But hang in there! We also delve into some very concrete expressions of dualism as found in Terry Gilliam and Tool, and it may even help us understand why the internet is so frequently awful! On a more serious note, understanding and dismantling dualism can give us tools to help confront white supremacism. 

Beer appearing in this episode: Cinderlands Spirit Clean Triple IPA

Should I Really Care About This? We recorded a segment of SIRCAT discussing whether protective gear in American football can in fact, make the game more dangerous. We concluded that it does but talking about CTE just wasn’t as lighthearted as these segments usually are. So, should I really care about how protective gear in football can make the game more dangerous? Yes, for sure. We’ll be back with a new SIRCAT in the Episode 10.

In this episode of ACAAAWIAB, Neil and Phil discuss how plutocrats use philanthropy for image laundering as well as to protect their power, an emerging movement of entrepreneurs who have embraced the idea that treating your workers well is both the right thing to do and good business, and how to move toward a just society so that we need less philanthropy.

This isntallment features a lot of essential reading (but don't let that stop you from downloading):

Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World by Anand Giridharadas
Philanthropy from Aristotle to Zuckerberg by Paul Vallely
Worth It by Dan Price

In "Should I Really Care About This," your hosts tackle the perplexing question of how many streaming services one person should have. 

Beers appearing in this episode:
Samuel Smith's Imperial Stout
Hitchhiker Brewing, Point of Confusion (also a stout)

In Episode 7, Neil and Phil take a deep dive into Bart D. Ehrman's Heaven and Hell: a History of the Afterlife. They'll talk about how dualism effects both ideas of heaven and of hell, Biblical concepts of embodiment, pan-psychic notions of consciousness, and more or less spoil the final season of The Good Place (you've been warned!). 

In "Should I Really Care About This?" they discuss the nagging question of whether we need courses in composting.

Beers appearing in this episode:
Chameleon New England IPA, Grist House Brewery
Pranqster Belgian Style Golden Ale, North Coast Brewing Company

In this episode of a Christian and an Atheist Walk into a Bar, Phil and Neil read and discuss Leo Tolstoy's The Gospel in Brief.  Much like Thomas Jefferson, Tolstoy wanted a version of the gospel that preserved the teachings of Jesus without referencing what we usually refer to as miracles or the supernatural. So is Tolstoy's "demystified" Jesus an appealing moral teacher or  just an arrogant jagoff?

For "Should I Really Care About This" your hosts reveal the hidden fascism of the oft-used terms "impactful" and "addicting."

Beers* appearing in this episode: 
Double Edged Sword, Grist House Brewing Company
*Neil was on antibiotics so he didn't have any beer. 
 

In this episode of A Christian and an Atheist Walk into a Bar, Neil and Phil dig into the Scopes Trial and reassess the competing legacies of William Jennings Bryan, H.L. Mencken, and Clarence Darrow. Along the way they’ll talk about memes that have nothing to do with kittens.

In “Should I Really Care About This?” they expose the injustice of serving appetizers in odd numbers.  

Beers appearing in this episode:
Cinderlands’ Tracks Again Unfiltered Pilsner
Ayinger Jahrhundert Beer

Indispensable Reading: Under God: Religion and American Politics by Gary Wills

In Episode 4 of ACAAAWIAB, Neil and Phil explore the meaning of freedom of religion. What is  is it? What are some common ways it's misunderstood? Can real belief even exist without it? We'll discuss British theologian Leslie Newbigin's distinction between de facto and ideological pluralism and how it applies to contemporary society, the parable of the blind men and the elephant, and the telephone game. And it will all connect… somehow…

In “Should I Really Care About This?” we discuss relegation and promotion in professional sports and why U.S. sports desperately need it. 

Beers appearing in this episode:
Modern Times Coffee Stout
Trace Brewing Tessellated Paradise

In Episode 3 of ACAAAWIAB, Neil and Phil explore how there is often a difference between what we say we believe and what we really believe. Maybe we participate in institutional religion and maybe we don’t, but either way we may find that aspects of our experience such as economics, science, or technology (or all three) begin to function as unofficial belief systems. We’ll discuss ideas by Roy Clouser, Bob Goudzwaard, John Rapley, Kenneth, Arrow, and David Graber who makes an encore appearance. (Editor’s note: when Phil was talking about Roy Clouser’s theory of religious dependency structures, he mistakenly called him Neil Clouser. Probably because he was talking to Neil at the time.)

In “Should I Really Care About This?” We’ll discover the important truth that orange juice and eggs are not just breakfast foods.

Beers appearing in this episode:

Cinderlands Brewing Monaca S’mores Stout

Einstok Icelandic White Ale

Resources:

Kenneth Arrow's "Uncertainty and the Welfare Economics of Medical Care" (1963) can be found here.

John Rapley's "How Economics Became a Religion" (2017) in The Guardian

In this episode, Neil and Phil talk about the Levitical Jubilee (Leviticus 25), how the concept of Jubilee gets transformed in both Old and New Testaments, and the implications of Jubilee principles on how we think about ecology, debt, justice and more. Along the way they discuss ideas about debt and society by David Graeber, Louis Althusser, and more.

In "Should I really care about this?" Neil and Phil  unpack the Pittsburgh Left and the its LA counterpart. What is the Pittsburgh Left you may ask? Listen in and find out!

Beers appearing in this episode:

Hitchhiker Brewing Opposite Bane IPA

Karl Strauss Brewing Red Trolley Ale

In the premiere of A Christian and an Atheist Walk into a Bar, Neil Newton and Phil Thompson talk about their back stories and how they came to hold their beliefs, the general idea of belief systems, common grace, Emmanuel Levinas, empathy, and more. For this episode’s “Should I really care about this?” segment, Phil and Neil will hold forth on VAR/Instant Replay. 

Beers appearing in this episode: 

Cinderlands Skydog IPA

Lucky Luke Millwright Oatmeal Stout