Preview Mode Links will not work in preview mode

Everyone's Agnostic Podcast


Cass & Marie 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.

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 you listen to podcasts. Also, you can support us monetarily in two easy ways: you can pledge one dollar per episode or more through Patreon; that’s www.patreon.com/eapodcast, or leave a lump-sum donation through PayPal at our website, www.everyonesagnostic.com. The smallest contribution is greatly appreciated.

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. 

Self-Knowledge as Self-Narration in Nietzsche - Kaitlyn Creasy