Dec 1, 2017
Cass Midgley and Bob Pondillo interview "Elle." She's not out to many of her friends and family as having left the Christian faith in which she was raised: Plymouth Brethren and a part of the Quiverfull Movement. She has a lot to say about women's issues, adopting orphans with down syndrome, her son coming out as gay, and the abundance of sexual misconduct in the Independent Fundamental Baptist denomination.
Cass' opening monologue is a complication of his thoughts, Friedrich Nietzsche, and an essay titled, "Self-Knowledge as Self-Narration in Nietzsche" by Kaitlyn Creasy.
As complex embodiments of drives and values, we act upon a world with its own drives and values--a world in which we are connected, embedded in fact. And this driven world acts also upon us. And both are changed. I'll close with this aphorism, number 119, from Nietzsche's book, "Dawn of Day."
"Every moment of our lives sees
some of the tentacles of our being grow and others of
them wither, all
according to the substance which the moment does or does not bear
with it… Take some
trifling experience. Suppose we were in the market place one day
and we noticed someone laughing at us as we went by: this event will
signify this or that to us according to whether this
or that drive happens,
at that moment, to be at its height in us and it will be a quite
different event according to the kind of person we are. One
person will absorb it like a drop of rain, another
will shake it from him
like an insect, another will try to pick a quarrel, another will
examine his clothing to
see if there is anything about it that might give rise to laughter,
another will be led to reflect on the nature of laughter as such,
another will be glad to have involuntarily augmented
the amount of
cheerfulness and sunshine in the world and in each case a drive has
gratified itself, whether it be the drive to annoyance or to
combativeness or to reflection or to benevolence.
This drive seized the
event as its prey: why precisely this one? Because, thirsty and
hungry, it was lying in
wait… What then are our experiences? Much more that which we put
into them than that which they already contain."
We
taped this conversation on November 4th, 2017. We interview people
you don’t know, about a subject no one wants to talk about. We hope
to encourage people in the process of deconstructing their faith
and help curb the loneliness that accompanies it. We think the
world is a better place when more people live by sight, not by
faith. Please subscribe to our podcast, and leave a review wherever
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Credits:
"Towering Mountain of Ignorance" intro by Hank
Green https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3v3S82TuxU
Intro bumper "Never Know"
by Jack Johnson
The segue
music on this episode is recorded by Sam Maher on a handpan in the
NY City subway.
Thanks for listening and be a yes-sayer to what is.