skeptical

From the teaching series Skeptical: Challenges to Christianity. A teaching answering the question: Is Jesus the Only Way? Deuteronomy 6:4 + John 14:6 + Acts 4:12. Wesley Towne. 

From the teaching series Skeptical: Challenges to Christianity. A teaching about faith, doubt and deconstruction. Matthew 11:1-6. Wesley Towne. 

From the teaching series Skeptical: Challenges to Christianity. A teaching about hypocrisy and imperfect people in the church? Dena Davidson. 

From the teaching series Skeptical: Challenges to Christianity. A teaching answering the question: If God exists, why is the so much evil and suffering in our world? Romans 8:28. Wesley Towne. 

From the teaching series Skeptical: Challenges to Christianity. A teaching exploring the intersection between God & Science. Romans 1:20 + Genesis 1:1. Brannon Shortt. 

From the teaching series Skeptical: Challenges to Christianity. A teaching exploring the questions around the reliability of the Bible. 1 Peter 3:15. Curt Harlow + Wesley Towne.

Resources for Disability Ministry in church - see link below: 

Church Training Resources | Joni and Friends

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Thank you for listening! Your support of Joni and Friends helps make this show possible.

Joni and Friends envisions a world where every person with a disability finds hope, dignity, and their place in the body of Christ. Become part of the global movement today at www.joniandfriends.org.

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Hello and welcome to episode 304 of The Stress Factor Drum & Bass Podcast. We have Ste-J back with a 90 minute studio mix for June of 2023 with loads of great tunes to get The Summer Season started off right! Loads of the usual Ste-J style inside for those of you who have been waiting 6 months for a new show since his last one, number 300. We hope to see Ste-J back for another wicked show ASAP.  

Artists and labels included in this episode are: Calibre, Signature Recordings, LSB, Footnotes, SPMC, Carbon Music, BASSHUNTERZ, Holographic Audio, Formula, CruCast, Klinical, Critical Music, Dom and Roland, Over Shadow, Quartz, Metalheadz, Seba, Secret Operations, Loomis, Ink, Kaybee, Nova, Architecture Recordings, Neve, Thirtyone Recordings, Black Barrel, Zero T, Dispatch Recordings, OB, Precinct, Scar, Phase, Particle, Skeptical, DNB Arena, Rockwell, Obsolete Medium, DLR, Nicky Blackmarket, Liondub, Navigator, Critical Impact, Liondub International, DRS, Tyler Daley.  

Tracklist

01. Calibre - Breather [Signature Recordings]

02. LSB - Find A Way [Footnotes]

03. Calibre - No Sense [Signature Recordings]

04. SPMC - No Escape [Carbon Music]

05. BASSHUNTERZ - Deep Hollers [Holographic Audio]

06. Formula - Vindicator [CruCast]

07. Klinical - Forbidden [Critical Music]

08. Dom and Roland - Dutty Drum [Over/Shadow]

09. Quartz - Blacklist [Metalheadz]

10. Seba - Are We Dreaming? [Secret Operations]

11. Loomis and Ink ft. Kaybee - Resolution (Nova Mix) [Architecture Recordings]

12. Neve - Heartless [Thirtyone Recordings]

13. Black Barrel and Zero T - Deep Inside [Dispatch Recordings]

14. OB - Say Your Name [Precinct]

15. Scar - Losing Your Mind [Metalheadz]

16. Phase - I need A [Metalheadz]

17. Particle - Fall 2 Fast (Skeptical Remix) [DNB Arena]

18. Rockwell - Rocognise [Obsolete Medium]

19. Black Barrel - Fabric (DLR Remix) [Dispatch Recordings]

20. Nicky Blackmarket and Liondub - Lifestyle ft. Navigator (Critical Impact Remix) [Liondub International]

21. DRS, Tyler Daley and Calibre - I Remember [Footnotes]

22. Seba - Interstellar [Secret Operations]

Do you believe the balloon was a Chinese spy/surveillance operation?

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See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hello and welcome to the long-awaited Stress Factor Podcast episode 300 Part 4! We would like to wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and an amazing New Year 2023.

Not only is this episode 300, but it's also been 13 years in the making because we celebrate our 13th birthday on January 1, 2023. This is going be a 5 part Best Of episode featuring the entire Stress Factor Crew including DJ B-12, DjR1, Scottie B, Ste-J and Tribo, all to be released between Christmas and New Years.

For Part 5 and our second show for 2023, we have Ste-J with a 2 hour long, 31 track best of mix. Ste-J has mixed a top-notch best of set showcasing his favorite tunes.

This episode features: Siren, Silence Recordings, Alix Perez, Exit Records, Scar, Metalheadz, Skeptical, Spectrasoul, dBridge, Shogun Audio, Andy Skopes,  Mr. Joseph, BR UK, Interactive, Rufige Kru, Blocks, Escher, Loxy, Resound, Narratives Music, Skream, Dub Phizix, Chimpo, Soul R, Gremlinz, Homemade Weapon, Architecture, Commix, Need For Mirrors, Full Cycles Records, Marcus Intalex, Paradox, Paradox Music, Ash Jerona, Med School, Alibi, SL8R, V Recordings, Simula, Neksus Sounds, FD, Satl, The North Quarter, Seba, Combination Records, Sinistarr, Alix Perez, 1985 Music, Rockwell, Obsolete Medium, Ulterior Motive, Jubei, Guidance, Lynx, Detail Recordings, Q Project, Bal, and Calibre.

Please subscribe to the podcast everywhere including Simplecast, Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Tune-In Radio, iHeartRadio, Amazon and various other places you can find and subscribe to us.

We really hope you enjoy this very special episode and all of its parts. Don't forget to keep as eye out for all of them.

Links below will take you there. You can also download the full 320k MP3 from Soundcloud hidden under "more".

Full quality 320k MP3 can be download here under the "more" button.  

SHARE, COMMENT, LIKE & FOLLOW THIS MIX!!!

LINKS

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Tracklist

01. Siren - Broken Silence [Silence Recordings] [2010]

02. Alix Perez - Recall and Reflect [Exit Records] [2015]

03. Scar – When [Metalheadz] [2014]

04. Skeptical - Instant Reflex [Exit Records] [2015]

05. Spectrasoul - Glimpse ft. dBridge [Shogun Audio] [2012]

06. Andy Skopes and Mr. Joseph - Stalker [Unreleased] [2010]

07. DBR UK - Mind State [Interactive] [2012]

08. Rufige Kru - Is This Real? [Exit Records] [2007]

09. Blocks, Escher, Loxy and Resound - Monsters [Narratives Music] [2013]

10. Skream - Firecall [Exit Records] [2011?]

11. Dub Phizix - Come Fi Clash Bad Sound [Unreleased] [2012]

12. Chimpo - Buzzin ft. Skeptical and Dub Phizix [Soul:R] [2013]

13. Gremlinz and Homemade Weapons - Ruff Age VIP [Architecture] [2013]

14. Commix - Underwater Scene [Soul R] [2008]

15. Need For Mirrors - Hurts [Full Cycles Records] [2016]

16. Marcus Intalex - Step Forward [Soul R] [2016]

17. Paradox - Drum Machine [Paradox Music] [2013]

18. Ash Jerona - You Got Me [Med School] [2014]

19. Alibi and SL8R - Break The Machine [V Recordings] [2021]

20. Simula - Angels [Neksus Sounds] [2021]

21. FD and Satl - LIN002 [The North Quarter] [2021]

22. Seba - Special Operations [Combination Records] [2008]

23. Sinistarr - Sunburn [Sinistarr Bandcamp] [2014]

24. Alix Perez - The Raven [1985 Music] [2016]

25. Rockwell - Belief Systems [Obsolete Medium] [2018]

26. Ulterior Motive and Jubei - Walnuts [Guidance] [2019]

27. Lynx - 2nd Floor [Detail Recordings] [2016]

28. Q Project - Wrong Again [Unreleased] [2009]

29. Bal - Want [Unreleased] [2008]

30. Marcus Intalex - Princess Warrior [Soul R] [2006]

31. Calibre - Oh Please [2008]

WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS  TO HIT YOUR QUOTA THIS YEAR?

HAVE YOU FIGURED OUT HOW YOU’RE GOING TO PROSPECT?

Well, it’s your lucky day! Walker has a 3-way prospecting game plan to prospect his way to 2023, and he will be sharing it with us and breaking them down one by one so that we can all have a quicker prospecting season this year. Learn more about these 3 ways of prospecting by tuning in to the latest episode of No BS Sales School.

NON-BS WORDS TO THE WISE

WALKER: REACH FOR YOUR DEAD FILES, CALL THEM

“Reach out to your dead files. My guess is there's at least $100,000 in my dead files. My guess is there's is at least that much in yours as well. If you just got the guts to pick up the phone and call them reach out. Don't send a damn email, pick up the phone.”

Where to find Walker:

• LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram | Free training course | WalkerMcKay.com

THERE ARE 2 THINGS YOUR PROSPECT HAS TO ANSWER FOR THEMSELVES

Before you can ever sell to a prospect, he/she has to answer these two questions.

The first question a prospect has to answer for themselves before any kind of sale is made is am I going to do something? The second question is what am I going to do? and most salespeople only focus on the second question. If you can help your prospect answer the first question, you will be much more successful. Walker breaks down how you can do this, so tune in to the latest episode of No BS Sales School.

NON-BS WORDS TO THE WISE

WALKER: MOVE FORWARD, TAKE RESPONSIBILITY

“Before you serve on tell them how you're going to fix the problems, you need to figure out why in the world, would they change what they're doing now? Is it really that bad? Because chances are, it's not that bad. It's really not, they'd have to prove to you why it's bad.”

WALKER: REASON FOR CHANGE

“The only reason somebody would make a change a hard change is that they have a personal, compelling reason why they have to do something.”

Where to find Walker:

• LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram | Free training course | WalkerMcKay.com

In this episode we follow up Fun Satanic Hoaxes by looking at how Lord of Flies is used by the dark side of the force. Demonstrably dishonest diatribe, designed to deceive damage and destroy distributed by disingenuous dickheads driving division dissention and dividends as always been a thing. I don’t know how long it was between the first human inventing the first god and then coming up with the first devil but I’d bet you could count it in minutes.

We look at some of the hoaxes where Satan has been thrown into the mix to maximize harm and or profit. Like the persistent rumors' that various company CEO’s like McDonald’s founder Ray Croc and fashion designer Liz Claiborne have appeared on Phil Donahue, The Jenny Jones Show, Sally Jesse Raphael and Oprah professing their love of the devil admitting to donating company money to Anton LeVay’s Church of Satan!

Household goods company Proctor & Gamble have been battling an urban legend that paints the company as a conduit for Beelzebub for over 50 years now! What makes this hoax interesting is not the overly stimulated pattern recognition mind and wilful ignorance of your average conspiracy theorist but WHO kept it alive.

We’ll look at ridiculous claims about non-alcoholic grape juice in the Bible by temperance fundamentalists Al and Alice Lunden and how the Prince of Darkness himself has misguided the Catholic Church in its transubstantiation rituals.

And we’ll hear from corporate copywriter and Electronic Voice Phenomenon pundit Roderick Millington who claims to have Old Scratch’s voice on tape!

We’ll also mention, Jim, Dan and Steve Peters of the Zion Christian Life Center in Minnesota, problematic columnist, author, commentator and former Alice Cooper roadie, Bob Greene, Multi Level marketing company Amway and pasteurization innovator and hero of the Underground Railroad, Thomas Bramwell Welch. 

In this episode we will look into some fun Satanic Hoaxes. We still live in the shadow of the satanic panic of the 1980s and under the spectre of Qanon today but those hoaxes have cost people their lives and that’s not fun. I thought in this episode we would look at some of the less famous stories where the devil is to blame.

We will investigate the fake Satanic ritual sites discovered on the Scandinavian island of Anholt and their connection to Devil coins turning up all over Europe including Bath Abbey in the U.K.

We examine how Danish newspaper Politiken, uncovered the three men behind the mystery, Knud Langkow, Jørgen Sømod and Bent Jensen.

We deep dive into, ‘The Well to Hell’ story that had Trinity Broadcasting Network fooled TWICE! And see how an annoyed Norwegian school teacher, Åge Rendalen performed what we would call these days, a ‘White Hat Hoax’ on the network.

We find even Justin Bieber has been a victim of one of these Satanic hoaxes with his innocent little minor hit from a few tears back, ‘Baby’ being accused of being back masked by brain bending bangers beatifying Beelzebub.

We look at how a simple photoshop joke by comic book creator Cody Frederickson went viral.

And we’ll find out if it’s now safe to return to the San Bernardino Mountains after campers were warned of Satanic activity in the area.

Also mentioned in this episode, Kola Superdeep Borehole, Lotte Geevan, Art Bell, Coast to Coast and The United States Forest Service. 

In this episode we return to the blight on Chri$tianity that is Prosperity Gospel and this time look at one of the important conduits through which this hedonistic blasphemy finds its way into homes of everyday people, Paul and Jan Crouch’s Trinity Broadcasting Network or TBN for short.

The Trinity Broadcasting Network is one of the largest group owners of broadcast TV stations in the U.S and probably the biggest Chri$tian television network in the world. 

Evangelical husband and wife preachers, Paul and Jan Crouch founded TBN in the 1970s, by the 90s the couple were so wealthy they owned, matching his and hers, multi-million dollar mansions and private jets.

The opulence of the Crouch’s would grow so out of control they even had a hundred thousand dollar air-conditioned motorhome for Jan’s beloved dogs, Pinky, Baby and Jazzie. 

In 1973, the Crouch’s along with Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker set up their own TV station in California. 

This television station of theirs was only on air 3 days before they held their first telethon and raised $30 000.

This telethon style approach to money raising would become a signature of TBN. Always claiming they were on the verge of bankruptcy and donations were required to keep the word of the lord on the air. They would run what they called ‘Praise-A-Thons’ at least twice a year for the next 40 years.

The business model for this growing television network was pretty simple. Paul and Jan would host their own show,

The rest of the hours in the day were sold to other preachers. Imagine the Shopping Network but 24 hours a day of infomercials for Chri$t. 

Much of the criticism aimed at Crouch over the years, even by other preachers was his particularly pernicious penchant for procuring payments from the most impoverished people. He would use all kinds of manipulations on the most vulnerable of people.

He often claimed giving money to TBN would free you of debt. He read out letters from alleged donors who had given him their very last dollar to find their debts would miraculously disappear just a short time later.

Or they would suddenly and unexpectedly receive a sudden and unexpected payment that would be more than they donated AND cover all their aforementioned debts.

In this episode we play a little game called, ‘Crouch or Caliph’ where Tee Teaz will read out a statement and I’ll give you a couple of seconds to guess, is it a quote from Chri$tian Evangelical Preacher Paul Crouch or are they the words of former caliph of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi? It’s not as easy as it sounds.

We’ll look into Jan’s puppet, Babushka, Paul Jr’s crusade against Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven, Chri$tian film The Omega Code starring Michael York, Holy Land Experience Theme Park in Orlando Florida,  Kenneth Copeland, Joyce Meyer, Creflo A. Dollar, Joel Osteen, Pat Robertson and even Kirk Cameron.

We also investigate the numerous controversies and legal battles that have plagued TBN for nearly 60 years! 

In this episode we dip back into our Dungeons and Dragons discussion and bring it to a conclusion but not before doubling down on the delusional deluge of disinformation. 

If you think the dishonest disreputable deriders of Dungeons and Dragons disgraced themselves in the last episode then dig in for a downpour of disturbed deceptive ding bats.

We’ll delve into the deranged world of Fundamentalist Christian comic book creator Jack Chick. The most published comic book author in the world, whom you’ve never heard of. A man into all kinds of conspiracy theories. He is most obsessed with the Catholic Church claiming they keep the name of every Protestant in the world on file with the intention of carrying out another inquisition one day. He also attacks the Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Muslims and of course it goes without saying, Freemasons.

We’ll return to Virginia, the spiritual home of Dungeons & Dragons hysteria and hear from Winston Mathews who sought the Republican nomination for attorney general in the state of Virginia. He proudly announced he was campaigning on just on 2 issues, maintaining the death penalty and abolishing Dungeons & Dragons, claiming it contained, ‘devil worship, Satanism and pornography.’

We’ll investigate the links between Capital Punishment and DnD you weren’t even aware of. 

Like Oklahoma teenager Sean Sellers who shot a convenience store clerk, Robert Paul Bower then 6 months later shot dead his mother and stepfather, Vonda and Lee Bellofatto while they slept in their bed. Throughout the lengthy trial and appeals process Sellers had claimed to have been a practising Satanist and possessed by a demon. He claimed DnD manuals helped him convert others to Satanism.

What Moral Panic would be complete without Geraldo Rivera and we’ll look at his 2 part series for Entertainment Tonight in 1987. 

Pastor George Grant makes a return with co-author Peter Leithart expressing their deepest fears about imagination and their claims Jesus is a character in the game.

Homophobic radio host and author Texe Marrs who believes the world is flat, Judaism and Catholicism are Satanism, the Clintons and Newt Gingrich are Marxists and Barbie Doll is Goddess of the Sun among many other things makes an appearance.

Pastor Win Worley who claims the Star of David, Karate, tattoos and piercings are all occult spirits, paraphrases Exodus in his attack on the game.

But it is alleged former Satanist Bill Schnoebelen who steals the show with his claims of being a vampire. And when I say vampire I mean an actual vampire. Fangs, unable to walk around in the daytime and drinking blood. He really claims this. He also claims he has had sex with a fallen angel!

We discover the people most afraid of a Table Top Fantasy Role Play Game are the very people whose grip on reality is the weakest.

DnD gets wrapped up in the Satanic Panic along with other pure fantasy like Michelle Remembers and The Satan Seller by an overly superstitious market, ready and waiting to be thrilled and terrified by tales of Demons and evil cabals.

And this fear didn’t all end in the 80s. In the 21st century the game has been targeted by a Spiritual Warfare Network Regional Coordinator, Diane Buker, televangelist Pat Robertson and author Gary North who predicted Y2K was going to destroy western civilization would like to see the U.S. become a Handmaid’s Tale styled theocracy. And also wants offenses like blasphemy and homosexuality to be punishable by death. And when I say death, Gary advocates the method of execution be a good old public stoning. 

In this episode we will investigate the gateway drug to hell known as Dungeons & Dragons. A table top fantasy role playing game that I’m sure you have at least heard of. 

We follow the games invention by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson in 1974 to moving 750 000 copies per annum by 1984.

We look at the official magazines it spawned and the arrival of and attractive new character, Satan, introduced by Alexander von Thorn in 1979.

Former lord of the 9 Hells, this shape shifter whose most potent power is temptation was toppled from his throne by a more powerful demon called Asmodeus, according to D&D lore.

As the Satanic Panic of the 80s got underway and D&D got caught in the crossfire the devil found himself sidelined. The Newsweek article read out by Eddie Munson, played by Joseph Quinn in Stranger Things is real!

From 1986 until 2007 the mere mention of The Wicked One was forbidden in official D&D products.

We trace D&D’s contribution to the Satanic Panic to the 1979 disappearance of 16 year old James Dallas Egbert III and the public allegations made by the private investigator hired by the family to find him, Bill Dear who describes himself as ‘the real James Bond’.

We look at how Dear capitalized on the media frenzy around the case now known as ‘The Steam Tunnel Incident’ and published a memoir entitled, ‘The Dungeon Master: The Disappearance of James Dallas Egbert III’

Through Dear’s love of the spotlight we talk about the exhumation of Lee Harvey Oswald in 1981, his claims O.J. Simpson is innocent and he can prove it and his involvement in the infamous, ‘Alien Autopsy’ video for the Fox special, ‘Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction.’

We also follow D&D’s public scrutiny at the height of the panic through Rona Jaffe’s novel, ‘Mazes and Monsters.’

Which was turned into a made for TV movie starring Tom Hanks just a year later.

Then we turn our attention to the most prolific anti-D&D campaigner Patricia Pulling and lobby group called, B.A.D.D. reminiscent of Tipper Gore’s PMRC campaign.

We investigate claims in Pulling’s 1989 book, ‘The Devil’s Web: Who Is Stalking Your Children for Satan?’

Pulling claimed to have investigated the subject of teenage devil worship for 7 years and created educational material for schools and police departments which she distributed all across the U.S.

In her uniformly uninformed way she claimed the number one pathway to hell, even above Role Playing Games was ‘Black Heavy Metal Music.’

We’ll take a close look at her 38 page pamphlet, ‘Dungeons & Dragons: Witchcraft, Suicide, Violence.’

In which she quotes convicted murderer Mitchell Rupe and Church of Satan founder Anton Levay as if they are comparable.

We’ll pull apart her particular offense to the ‘Girdle of Femininity/Masculinity’. A D&D artefact that can change the gender of any character. She also gets very upset that the Player’s Handbook allows players to choose the gender of their character. 

Then we introduce our hero of the piece author Michael Stackpole who in 1990 published ‘The Pulling Report’

Accusing Pulling of inaccuracies in her so called data showing she was not an expert in anything. For example this so-called Satanist investigator does not even know the Necronomicon was a fictional creation of H.P. Lovecraft.

Favourite of the show, Thomas Jefferson gets a mention. Virgil’s epic poem ‘The Aenid comes into it and somehow D&D finds itself wrapped up in the ‘New Age’ movement.

Finally we will see the rise and disgraceful fall of founder of the National Coalition on TV Violence, psychiatrist and lawyer Thomas Radecki. 

In this episode we will be looking at the shaping of Satan in the 1st century Chri$tian writings.

There is a plethora of early Chri$tian writings on our favourite subject. For now we are sticking to canonical scripture but that is not to say the non-canonical stuff isn’t relevant. It paints a picture of the mindset of the early Chri$tians. 

In the King James Version of the New Testament the word Devil or Devils comes up 102 times. Satan gets mentioned 32 times. There are also other synonyms used to describe Lucifer. Despite all the mentions he doesn’t get a lot of screen time and is mostly an off-screen character, spoken of but rarely seen like Voldemort or Sauron. I won’t be covering every mention of Lord of Flies but will look at the ones where I feel who and what he is gets established for later generations to build on and create the Satan we know and love today.

The New Testament is not JUST 4 similar stories about the same events. There are also a bunch of internal church memos and other documents bundled up and paper clipped to the back of the gospels, known as the epistles.

We look at the earliest mention of Old Scratch in the New Testament in the Epistle of James all the way to the Gospel of John.

We watch the Satan character develop from a metaphorical representation of human desire to a little gremlin coercing events to megalomaniacal entity of enormous power. 

We will follow Saul of Tarsus from 1st century tentmaker who got his kicks beating up early Chri$tians on the weekends to self-proclaimed apostle Paul megalomaniacal entity of enormous power.

We review the attitude of the juvenile apocalyptic cult to the antichrist and the impending end of the world with the return of their Chri$t.

There’s fornication with step mums, a ravenous reptilian hell beast, murder, Romans, Ancient Greeks, Hentai, Pagans, Zeus, Odin, Ahura Mazda, an attack force of shock preachers, an army of serpents and scorpions, gardening tips from Jesus, the rapture, a proxy war between YHWH and the Devil, Astro Boy even gets a mention! 

In this episode we will look at the obstacles faced by Copernicus, Galileo and others in trying to convince humanity we are not the centre of the universe.

Having brought you right up to the present with Flat Earth theory and its pundits in the previous 2 episodes, ‘New Flat World Order 1 Flimflammers Charlatans and Snake Oil and New Flat World Order 2  Liars Deniers and INCELs’, we will now take a detour back in time. The denial of a heliocentric solar system is crucial to any flat earth theory.

As discussed in the first episode of this trilogy the spherical nature of the earth was pretty much accepted fact by most educated thinkers since the early Greeks. But even people who believed the evidence we live on a round planet found the idea of it spinning on its own axis and orbiting the sun a bridge too far. 

This idea of the Earth orbiting the sun goes back to at least the 5th century BCE. Greek philosopher Philolaos was the first to put forward the idea that the Earth was not the centre of the universe. He even went one step further and proposed the sun and all the stars and planets we see orbited a central fire. Philolaos may have been the first to allude to the super massive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way.

Aristarchus of Samos in the 3rd century BCE and Seleucus of Seleucia in the 2nd century BCE would also famously argue for this heliocentric theory.

As discussed in the first episode many of the church’s thinkers and writers were not flat earthers, but the idea that the sun went around the Earth would take more than a millennia and a half to knock out of them. This geocentric view of the universe would actually cause them nothing but trouble for that whole time.

The church had a vested interest in accurate astronomy dating back to at least the 4th century CE and the first ecumenical council of Nicaea. 

The Catholic Church would become a major mover and shaker in astronomy.

Theologians Thomas Aquinas, Giovanni Tolosani, John Calvin, Martin Luther, Francesco Ingoli, Tommaso Caccini, writer Alexander Ross and demonologist Jean Bodin couldn’t imagine an Earth not at the centre of the universe.

It was up to Nicolaus Copernicus, Galileo Galilee and other enlightenment thinkers to finally convince the church it was clutching a dogma brick in an ocean of scientific observation.

Eerily reminiscent of the recent Hollywood film Don’t Look Up, Galileo even had trouble convincing the powers that be to simply look through his telescope and see for themselves!

So troubled by Galileo’s revelations Pope Urban VIII had him arrested and refused him a burial befitting his stature when he died.

A pre Paradise Lost, John Milton even gets involved in our story. 

Ironically it was at The Basilica of San Petronio in Bologna that the theories of Copernicus, Galileo and Johannes Kepler were finally proven true by Catholic astronomer Giovanni  Cassini late in the 17th century. 

Eventually the ban on Galileo and Copernicus’s books was lifted by the Vatican, another century after that all opposition to Heliocentric Theory had disappeared from the church.

Despite the fact that modern flerfers have not caught up, the Catholic church at least has completely dropped any claim to a geocentric universe and in 1992 Pope John Paul II formally acquitted Galileo of heresy.

In this episode we also ask the question, ‘where else is dogma and doctrine holding science back today’? 

Will CRSPR CAS9 and Artificial Intelligence be delayed  by superstitious mumbo jumbo written on goatskins by a bunch nomads thousands of years ago?