Podcast: Conversations from the Pale Blue Dot (index)
Episodes of my podcast, Conversations from the Pale Blue Dot (feed, iTunes).
This podcast aims, as philosopher Tim O’Connor approvingly noted, to “take philosophy to the street, illustrating how conversation… can be carried out in a careful, civil, and constructive way by people who disagree.”
Quick guest list, alphabetical:
H. Avalos, E. Baldwin, L. Barnes, D. Basinger, A. Buckareff, R. Carrier, R. Chang, T. Clark, R. Crisp, G. Dawes, T. Edis, E. Fales, S. Finlay, A. Fyfe (2), G. Ganssle, J. Gericke, J. Graham, C. Hallquist, B. Hayden, M. Licona, D. Loeb, J. Loftus, N. Manson, J. McGrath, D. McNaughton, Z. Moore, S. Maitzen, T. Mawson, S. McDowell, M. McCormick, W. Morriston, L. Muehlhauser (2) (3), T. O’Connor, G. Oppy, R. Otte, A. Paramore, J. Pierce, M. Pigliucci, S. Porter, R. Price (2), J. Prinz, K. Pulliam, D. Ray, E. Reitan, R. Russell, T. Schroeder, S. Sehon, J. Sennett, J. Shook, J. Spiegel, M. van Steenwyk, K. Timpe, N. Trakakis, R. Trigg, K. Talmont-Kaminski, J. Weyer, E. Wielenberg.
Upcoming guests: Andrew Melnyk, John Doris, Stephen Law, Andrew Chignell, Robin Hanson, John Caputo.
Fan favorite
057. “Desire and Morality” (July 2010)
Guest Tim Schroeder: philosopher at Ohio State University.
056. “Emotions and Moral Judgment” (July 2010)
Guest Jesse Prinz: philosopher at City University of New York.
055. “The Limits of Science” (July 2010)
Guest Massimo Pigliucci: philosopher at City University of New York.
B03. “Luke on Euthyphro, Ignosticism, and More” (July 2010)
I respond to questions about the Euthyphro Dilemma, ignosticism, and more.
054. “The Case Against the Case for Christ” (July 2010)
Guest Robert Price: Bible scholar.
053. “Naturalism as a Positive Worldview” (July 2010)
Guest Tom Clark: evangelist for naturalism.
052. “In Defense of Atonement” (July 2010)
Guest Steve Porter: philosopher at BIOLA University.
051. “The Design Argument” (June 2010)
Guest Neil Manson: philosopher at University of Mississippi.
050. “Miracles and Open Theism” (June 2010)
Guest David Basinger: philosopher at Roberts Wesleyan College.
049. “The Morality of Liberals and Conservatives” (June 2010)
Guest Jesse Graham: psychologist at University of California, San Diego.
048. “Naturalism and Supernaturalism” (June 2010)
Guest Konrad Talmont-Kaminski: philosopher at Marie-Curie Sklodowska University.
047. “The God Virus” (June 2010)
Guest Darrel Ray: psychologist.
046. “The Golden Rule and Historical Method” (June 2010)
Guest James McGrath: Bible scholar at Butler University.
045. “Is Christianity Responsible for Science?” (June 2010)
Guest Richard Carrier: historian and philosopher.
044. “The New Atheism” (June 2010)
Guest Greg Ganssle: philosopher at Yale University.
043. “A Fine-Tuned Universe” (May 2010)
Guest Tim Mawson: philosopher at Oxford University.
B02. “Luke Answers More Questions” (May 2010)
I respond to more questions from listeners.
042. “Christian Apologetics” (May 2010)
Guest Sean McDowell: Christian apologist and author.
041. Philosophy of Ancient Israelite Religion (May 2010)
Guest Jaco Gericke: Bible scholar at Northwest University, South Africa.
040. 11 Responses to Fine-Tuning (May 2010)
Guest Luke Barnes: astronomer.
039. Atheists and Believers Working Together (May 2010)
Guests Ashley Paramore and Jonathan Weyer.
038. Science and Nonbelief (May 2010)
Guest Taner Edis: physicist at Truman State University.
037. The Christian Delusion (Apr 2010)
Guest John Loftus: atheist author.
036. The Problem with “God is Mysterious” (Apr 2010)
Guest Scott Sehon: philosopher at Bowdoin College.
035. Theism and Ultimate Explanation (Apr 2010)
Guest Timothy O’Connor: philosopher at Indiana State University.
034. How to Study the Historical Jesus (Apr 2010)
Guest Robert Price: atheist theologian and Historical Jesus scholar.
033. Evolution 101 (Apr 2010)
Guest Zachary Moore: medical writer.
Bonus 01. Luke Answers Your Questions (Apr 2010)
I respond to questions from listeners.
032. Christianity and Pseudoscience (Mar 2010)
Guest Chris Hallquist: philosophy postgrad at the University of Notre Dame.
031. Is the Bible Divinely Inspired? (Mar 2010)
Guest Thomas Crisp: philosopher at Biola University.
030. Divine Command Morality (Mar 2010)
Guest David McNaughton: philosopher at Florida State University
029. Non-Natural Moral Realism (Mar 2010)
Guest Erik Wielenberg: philosopher at DePauw University
028. Christianity Beyond Fundamentalism (Mar 2010)
Guest Eric Reitan: philosopher and theologian at Oklahoma State University
027. Encouragement to Doubting Christians (Mar 2010)
Guest Ken Pulliam: former Christian professor and apologist
026. Naturalism, Humanism, and Democracy (Mar 2010)
Guest John Shook: philosopher with Center For Inquiry Transnational
025. Can Theism Ground Morality? (Mar 2010) [transcript]
Guest Stephen Maitzen: philosopher at Acadia University
024. The End of Biblical Studies (Mar 2010)
Guest Hector Avalos: Biblical scholar at Iowa State University.
023. How Immorality Leads to Atheism (Feb 2010)
Guest James Spiegel: philosopher of religion at Taylor University.
022. Religion in the Public Square (Feb 2010)
Guest Roger Trigg: philosopher at Oxford University.
021. What is Morality? (Feb 2010)
Guest Ruth Chang: philosopher at Rutgers University.
020. The Renaissance of Christian Philosophy (Feb 2010)
Guest James Sennett: philosopher at Brenau University.
019. God and Free Will (Feb 2010)
Guest Kevin Timpe: philosopher at Northwest Nazarene University.
018. Plantinga and Pluralism (Feb 2010)
Guest Erik Baldwin: philosophy postgrad at Purdue University.
017. Theism and Double Standards (Feb 2010)
Guest Matt McCormick: philosopher at California State University.
016. Belief, Acceptance, and Panentheism (Feb 2010)
Guest Andrei Buckareff: philosopher at Marist College.
015. God, Genocide, Craig, and Infinity (Jan 2010)
Guest Wes Morriston: philosopher at University of Colorado, Boulder.
014. Prehistoric Religion (Jan 2010)
Guest Brian Hayden: archaeologist at Simon Fraser University, Burnaby.
013. Evil and Miracles (Jan 2010)
Guest Richard Otte: philosopher at University of California, Santa Cruz.
012. The End of Philosophy of Religion (Jan 2010)
Guest Nick Trakakis: philosopher at Monash University.
011. Contemporary Atheism (Dec 2009)
Guest Graham Oppy: philosopher at Monash University.
010. Animal Morality (Nov 2009)
Guest Jessica Pierce: independent moral philosopher.
009. Moral Irrealism (Oct 2009)
Guest Don Loeb: philosopher at the University of Vermont.
008. The Error in the Error Theory (Oct 2009)
Guest Stephen Finlay: philosopher at University of Southern California.
007. Theism and Explanation (May 2009)
Guest Gregory Dawes: Bible scholar and philosopher at University of Otago.
006. Reformed Epistemology (Apr 2009)
Guest Evan Fales: philosopher at the University of Iowa.
005. Desire Utilitarianism (Apr 2009)
Guest Alonzo Fyfe: independent moral philosopher.
004. Missional Christianity (Feb 2009)
Guest Mark van Steenwyk: a leader in the American neomonastic missional Christianity movement.
003. Morality without God (Jan 2009)
Guest Alonzo Fyfe: independent moral philosopher.
002. Debating the Resurrection (Jan 2009)
Guest Mike Licona: Christian apologist and New Testament historian.
001. God and Physics (Jan 2009)
Guest Robert Russell: physicist, minister, founder of the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences.
20 Comments »
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Cool. Downloading. Ben
These are awesome so far, dude. This is more depth and better interviews than I’ve listened to anywhere else on these topics. I appreciate your dedication. You have a good open speaking voice, solid questions, relevant guests, decent music, and I like the foreshadowing quote you drop in the beginning. Only complaint is the sound quality is a little off, but I imagine you will find ways to improve that since you are always tinkering with your site.
Keep it up. I hope I’m not your only subscriber. :D Not everyone wants to know just how much Reformed Epistemology royally begs the question in myopic ways that fall by basically the exact same criticisms of every religious formulation that came before. Oh well. I’m still working on the Mike Licona one. Astounding. I don’t know what keeps that guy believing, but at some level I gotta respect the journey.
Ben Ben
Ben,
Thanks. Yes, I’m constantly working on my interview skills and the sound quality. :) lukeprog
Hey Luke – I miss your podcast; are you taking a break for a while? Karl
Thanks, Karl. Working to schedule with a particular guest right now, actually. lukeprog
The content of your podcasts is so good that the ‘cellphone/AM radio quality’ is completely sufficient for my ears. :)
Recording a cellphone or Skype conversation on the receiving end lowers quality over transmission; usually, this can’t be avoided unless both guests are in the room/studio together or they arrange a remote recording situation. Recording with better tools will improve quality (at a price- consider: laptop mic, headset mic, SM58, Neumann condenser, etc). However, even lower-quality source stream audio quality can degrade further if it isn’t handled properly in post-processing.
Some tips to preserve audio quality (if you’re interested):
You might consider providing your podcasts in Ogg Vorbis format; it’s an open format, and at lower bitrates it sounds better than mp3. A disadvantage is that it won’t play on iPods (unless they run Rockbox), but you’d be fine with your Sansa e200 (which does). :) More proprietary options are Apple’s AAC/m4a aka iTunes format or the Windows Media Audio/WMA format, both of which are still better quality in lower bitrates than mp3.
Although it would increase file size, you might also consider increasing the sample rate at which you record (of course you could increase the MP3 bitrate as well and avoid changing formats). You might just experiment and find out what works best for you and the site.
Feel free to email me any questions, I’m working as a graduate student in digital audio right now :) urbster1
urbster,
I start out with WAV files and to my ears I don’t lose any quality when encoding to medium bitrate MP3 because that’s not where the lack of quality is. The lack of quality is in Skype. Which can’t easily be avoided. I can’t fly to Australia just to interview a few people. lukeprog
Hi, Luke,
Thanks for this!
What about William Vallicella, one of the best contemporary non-Christian theists and bloggers?
What about Timothy or Lydia McGrew? Great, technical apologists. Lydia is a blogger, too. Vlastimil Vohánka
Yup, I’d love to interview them all. lukeprog
You are missing the interview with Brian Hayden on archaeology. John D
John D,
Thanks. Fixed. lukeprog
Hi,
there seems to be a problem with the feed; it won’t load in iTunes. The validator reports a number of errors (see http://www.feedvalidator.org/check.cgi?url=http%3A%2F%2Fcommonsenseatheism.com%2Fcpbd.rss), but I suspect the problem is caused by the invalid UTF8 character in the 18th conversation (I could download the podcast before that conversation).
Thank you Frederic D
Frederic D,
Thanks for the heads up. How about now? lukeprog
It works perfectly now. Thanks. Frederic D
This is great stuff, keep it up!
Interview Alexander Pruss of Baylor, he’s one of top philosophers of religion of the rising generation, or Thomas Crisp of Biola, who is also quite up there.
Best Alex
Alex,
Tom Crisp is recorded and will be up in the next few weeks.
I’m working my way up to somebody like Pruss. lukeprog
Wow, cool, you got Tim O’Connor! I’m looking forward to it. You’re doing a great job. Also thanks for having Thomas Crisp. Newman
Hey Luke,
I made some recommendations here: http://landonhedrick.blogspot.com/2010/04/conversations-from-pale-blue-dot.html Landon Hedrick
Landon,
Thanks for your recommendations. lukeprog
Luke, my longer comment here did not show. But let me add that just because your guest can cow the uneducated into thinking that endogenous retroviruses prove evolution does not make it so.
But the fact that so many Christians whom your guest talks to don’t really have a PhD into the science shows that
1. Evolutionists have to retreat to esoterica to try to prove it, and so most laymen can’t keep up and may be intimidated, and
2. Most christians need to educate themselves instead of take someone’s word for it. I did, and I am a YEC sympathizer, and not at all cowed by the disdain of evolutionary bullies. danielg