#rss get scared

[watcherwiki]

Pod Watcher is going to rebrand to a podcast called "Ryan, Shane, and Steven Get Scared" starting on April 21, 2025. The podcast format will be very similar to the current one, but will have a new name and logo. It will still be uploaded to the current podcast platforms and YouTube channel. Subscribe today if you aren't already! youtube.com/@watcherpodcasts

[thejoyofseax]

SCA Social Media

Aside from being a cooking nerd, I'm also very interested in communications and information flow. It would be reasonable to say that inasmuch as a Pelican is awarded for any one thing, I got mine in comms and diplomacy. (Or at least, I assume so; I don't have visibility on the discussions the Pelican circle had about me pre-elevation.) I'm also Drachenwald's social media minister.

There's a thing I see cropping up recently among Facebook users in the various social media: a strongly stated dislike of Discord. For context, there's a shift underway in Drachenwald for the bulk of day to day communications, from Facebook to Discord. Discord has a wide range of technical advantages over Facebook, and it's more used by the younger generations who are (gradually) taking over running things from the older folks. But there are many people who will happily state that they hate Discord.

I don't like Facebook, myself. It was a decent enough medium in about 2014; it has gotten worse in every measurable way since (except shareholder value, of course). It's particularly useless for trying to get information to people; every part of it is governed by an algorithm that selects what to show on any given screen, based mostly on what will annoy them most (annoyance leads to more time spent looking at the screen than any other emotion, ergo more time looking at ads, ergo more money for Meta).

Discord (at present; I make zero long-term predictions, and fully expect it to start getting worse at some point) has no such issues - the information flow on it is under the control of the server admin, pretty much, and it's searchable and categorisable as needed. Also, I just like the feel of Discord more; it's a lot more like a real conversation than Facebook's shouting-across-the-corporate-lobby atmosphere.

But this dislike of the new medium isn't new. Humans, for all we're supposed to like novelty, dislike change. I wrote as a comment in one of the discussions on Facebook:

"Facebook was massively polarising when it first started, because it was "taking over" from discussion lists. Discussion lists were massively polarising when they first started because they were taking over (assume scare quotes from here on) from newsgroups and phone trees. Phone trees and newsgroups were absolutely HATED when they started, taking over from paper newsletters (some of which were from before printing and photocopying was a thing, and were produced by mimeographic printing). If I dig around, I can find things written by Crusty Old Peers at each stage of this maintaining that the New Thing Will Destroy The SCA."

And you can extend that beyond the SCA right back to Plato complaining that the written word will prevent people from learning properly as they did in oral traditions.

My current position on this is that we should be using our websites - which are the one medium we actually "own", generally - as the source of actual information. We can then link to that from anywhere else on the internet, social or not. And the conversations can fall where they may, for each branch and household and other grouping, because honestly, that's how it's always been. If people don't like Discord, they don't have to use it, and it's only us unfortunate comms people who have to use all the different media.

(I recognise the irony of posting this on Another Social Medium. But Tumblr behaves more like a website for publication purposes, and comes with many of the advantages for getting information to people - RSS feeds, deep linking, etc.)

I'm also going to teach some classes on how to actually use Discord, I think. I've been steeped in talkers, IRC, and other channel-and-text media as long as I've been online, which is closing on 30 years now, so there are almost certainly aspects of functionality there that I take for granted and which are not evident to people unused to it. Or they're expecting it to work the same way as Facebook does, and don't have the technical experience to jump to a different medium. Either way, a start-with-the-basics actual-demonstration of how to use it is almost certainly useful.

[thatimageoftomscott]

i have nowhere else to yap about this but lmao there was some minor drama in the spotify comments section of the newest lateral where people were freaking out because there was no video and it was labeled as [ad-free], and a few people got scared that it was some new restriction to make listeners get paid memberships. and then some clown started spamming the replies that this was a stolen and reuploaded version of the episode with no video even though it appeared on the official feed?? thankfully producer david officially stated that it was an issue with rss feeds lol, and most of the comments of people freaking out were removed (i guess to stop people from freaking out even more). but it was crazy seeing the comments section explode with confusion like that.

yeah lmao when i first saw all that happening i just ignored it because its so dumbbb. isnt it obvious that they were just having some technical difficulties (heh.) ? 😭 like was it annoying ? yeah sure. they will fix it tho, its hardly the end of the world. people online need to learn to relax a bit more, maybe we would all be happier then.

[archoneddzs15]

Sega Saturn - Snatcher

Title: Snatcher / スナッチャー

Developer/Publisher: Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo

Release date: 29 March 1996

Catalogue No.: T-9508G

Genre: Cyber Punk Adventure

Snatcher is one of the cult classics and unlike many cult classics, this is actually good. Set in the cyberpunk future you take the role of Gillian Seed, a bounty hunter whose goal is to source out the cybernetic creatures known as Snatchers. Sound like a certain cult movie to anyone? Yep, Blade Runner in Japanese game form is a nice way to describe Snatcher.

Snatcher has been available on many formats such as the Japanese home computer systems mainly the NEC PC-8801 (where it was born) and MSX 2 [1988], NEC PC Engine Super CD [1992], Sega CD [1994], Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn [1996]. The strange thing is that the only English version released was for the Sega CD, the least successful console that this game was released for. Crazy! Anyway, Saturn fans will be very happy to know that the Saturn version is the best version released to date. Unlike the PlayStation version, the Saturn version is uncensored plus it has the benefit of having high-quality graphics from those versions that came before it. Now if only someone would produce an English patch for it (and the PS1 version, and the PC Engine Super CD version too.)

No one, at least in America, had ever seen a game like Snatcher, and thanks to the fact that Policenauts, Snatcher's unofficial "prequel", hasn't been and probably never will be released in America, we'll probably never see a game like it again (there is an English fan-translation for both PS1 and Saturn versions of Policenauts). It's a game that never fails to keep you on your toes. It manages to genuinely scare you, even though it never actively tries to. At one point I would even refuse to play the game at night, because as I would walk from my basement up to my room to go to bed, I would keep looking over my shoulder to check if a snatcher was sneaking up on me.

I actually grew up with Snatcher thanks to the Sega Saturn version, not the Sega CD, though I heard the Sega CD version is extremely popular. When a game that's running on a meager 16-bit machine with an onscreen graphics palette of only 112 colors (or in the case of the Saturn, a 32-bit console with an onscreen graphics palette of 256 colors) manages to scare you even after you've turned it off, that's the mark of something truly powerful. It could also be the mark of a paranoid coward, but I'd say it's a combination of both. Everything about the game is perfect. The graphics are in the style you'd find if you picked up an issue of Shonen Jump comic books, or manga. They're colorful and detailed, and even though they rarely move, they're too good for you to care. The sound is excellent. The voice acting is truly excellent, and although the voice actors seem to be overplaying their roles at times, we have to remember that decent voice acting at all in a pre-Metal Gear Solid era was pretty rare, and probably nonexistent to begin with. 

The music is excellently composed, and the right tunes play at the right times to get your heart truly racing. (The Saturn version swaps out the Sega CD and PC Engine's Roland Sound Scape [RSS] technology.) The game structure is a massive menu with a few shooting sequences thrown into the mix. It's the most entertaining menu ever made, in my opinion. All the choices one would want to make are there, and it rarely feels limiting. The shooting sequences are far and few between, and this is a good thing because once you start getting into the game, you'll want no interruption from your investigation. The storyline is top-notch- there are just enough plot twists and character developments to make it truly great. Luckily, there's no way to die in Snatcher. If you get killed during a shooting sequence, you push a button and attempt it again. Clumsy gamers like me appreciate the fact that you have infinite lives. All in all, there is much to love in Snatcher. Anyway, back to the game. Ungodly carnage, the greatest video game story ever, and an interface that is just the coolest. It's just pure quality at its finest.

As always, Konami gives us a quality color-printed disc and some nice stickers.

[audiofictioncouk]

New Fiction Podcasts - 11th August 2024

Dream Sequence Audio Drama When down-on-her-luck Kay Craft gets a call from her estranged genius sister Sadie inviting her to document Sadie’s new invention – a machine that records dreams – Kay can’t resist. What Kay doesn’t know is that Sadie’s come to believe there’s something alive in their dreams. Something that holds the key to the tragedy that tore them apart seven years ago. Something that can scare them to death.  https://audiofiction.co.uk/show.php?id=20240805-01 RSS: https://www.omnycontent.com/d/playlist/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/73ab9706-937d-4cc0-8bc7-b1a900d9901c/6ee041c6-4ac8-45ce-9b6d-b1a900e3b7de/podcast.rss

Eugene Barnes' Podcast Audio Book When Breaks the Maelstrom is a buffet of multinational intergalactic short stories that tend to mask genre lines. The stories defy convention because they are fantastical and interlude into the lives of men, women, children, and otherworldly beings.  Some events cannot be explained, except we accept the supernatural.  When we can break through the natural world's barrier, it is then that we can see other possibilities.  We can suggest that myths, phenomena, and legends may be familiar with reality.  It's an insight into situations we all may have faced at one time or another.  Since all skeletons in closets are not yet fleshless, it is only proper that we remake the frame to envision its beginnings.  Several stories are character continuations, such as Bounty Hunter: Japanese Style, Moon Trouble, and The Unnameable.  These tales loom prominently in their telling that they are the adventurers, adventures so many of us desire to be or become.  Please enjoy as you venture into original and undiscovered realms of fantasy and science fiction. https://audiofiction.co.uk/show.php?id=20240802-02 RSS: https://capporethpodcast.podomatic.com/rss2.xml

Urban Shorts Audio Book People's Choice Winner of "Best of 2035,"  as well as "Best Fiction Podcast 2026" by the Academy of Future Podcasters, Urban Shorts will stand out as an award-winning, critically acclaimed podcast dedicated to the art of short fiction. Each episode of urban shorts delves into a diverse range of stories, from life's raw and gritty realities to the whimsical and humorous realms of fantasy. Join us as we explore fictional people and places with familiar characteristics. Because sometimes, you don’t know what you’re thinking until you hear it.  https://audiofiction.co.uk/show.php?id=20240801-03 RSS: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/2390028.rss

DnD 4 Noobs Audio RPG Suivez les pérégrinations d'un groupe d'aventuriers débutants dans leur quête de... de quoi d'ailleurs? Pauline, Reynald, Jérémy, Emmanuel et Gilles vous emmènent dans le monde fantastique de Donjon et Dragons qu'ils découvrent eux-même en même temps que vous!Que vous connaissiez le JdR (Jeu de Rôle) ou pas, ce podcast vous fera voyager avec les 5 pires zigotos de la planète! Entre aventures épiques, blagues pourries et jets de dés improbables, vous trouverez ici de quoi passer vos meilleurs trajets en voiture!Attachez vos ceinture, serrez vos brettèles, remontez vos slips, DnD 4 Noobs démarre maintenant! Hébergé par Acast. Visitez acast.com/privacy pour plus d'informations. https://audiofiction.co.uk/show.php?id=20240727-01 RSS: https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/dnd4noobs

Turkish Delight Audio Book Welcome to “Turkish Delight,” a funny and heartwarming podcast series that brings the classic comedy charm to your ears! Join our intrepid heroines, Lizzie Snoopes and Millie Sparkes, as they embark on uproarious adventures in the picturesque yet remote corners of Southern Turkey. Each episode is filled with quirky characters, and laugh-out-loud moments as Lizzie and Millie navigate the trials and tribulations of running a rundown hotel from the sidelines. From leaky roofs to eccentric guests, no challenge is too big or too small for our plucky duo. Will they manage to revive the hotel, or will the mishaps and mayhem get the better of them? Tune in to find out! This podcast series is a delightful homage to the beloved British Carry On comedies, brimming with charm, and a touch of cheekiness. Perfect for anyone who loves a good laugh and enjoys stories of friendship, resilience, and fun-filled escapades. So, grab a cup of tea, sit back, and join Lizzie and Millie on their unforgettable journey. A good time awaits! https://audiofiction.co.uk/show.php?id=20240712-04 RSS: https://www.spreaker.com/show/6231194/episodes/feed

Fictional Frequencies Audio Book Welcome to Fictional Frequencies, a monthly podcast that transports you to different worlds with standalone fictional stories written by Anton Egorov. https://audiofiction.co.uk/show.php?id=20240803-01 RSS: https://anchor.fm/s/f988ae4c/podcast/rss

LOMA: AUDIODRAMAS Audio Book LOMA explora diferentes realidades por autores Puertorriqueños adaptando sus trabajos a audiodramas (audios inmersivos donde la realidad se vuelve completamente auditiva). Este podcast es una iniciativa de MAAC MEDIA, producido, editado y dirigido por Miguel A. Algarín Calixto. https://audiofiction.co.uk/show.php?id=20240804-01 RSS: https://anchor.fm/s/f942e31c/podcast/rss

The Weird Library Audio Book Listen in the Dark. https://audiofiction.co.uk/show.php?id=20240229-09 RSS: https://feed.podbean.com/theweirdlibrary/feed.xml

Imagine Dungeons Audio RPG We’re not the first Dungeons & Dragons podcast in the world, we’re just the like…15th best! Listen as Jordan, Doz, Carter, Vince, and Mariah dive headfirst into an epic adventure guided by their DM, Gage on Imagine Dungeons — an actual-play D&D podcast filled with real-life friends and imaginary dungeons! Tune in each week to hear stupid jokes, old friends pretending to be goofy-ass characters together, and some shockingly heartfelt moments that take the game to a level it was never designed for. Sorry again to Gage about all that. https://audiofiction.co.uk/show.php?id=20240731-03 RSS: https://feeds.redcircle.com/4709a5eb-cde4-44b3-a697-114ce6a45d9e

Dämonenjäger Ewald Heine - Grusel-Hörspiel-Serie | WDR Audio Drama Das Berlin der 1920er ist ein bebendes Zentrum des Okkultismus. Ominöse Bruderschaften, trügerische Schamanen und Monstren aller Art beleben seine Straßen. Mittendrin: Ewald Heine - Horror-Autor, Koks-Enthusiast und besessen von Dämonen. In jeder der 10 Folgen erzählt die Grusel-Hörspiel-Serie einen neuen mysteriösen Fall in einer Stadt der Sünde und finsteren Magie. https://audiofiction.co.uk/show.php?id=20240806-01 RSS: https://www1.wdr.de/mediathek/audio/wdr/ewaldheine/daemonenjaeger-hoerspiel-100.podcast

Monarch Audio Drama When Hallie Halprin - trail name Monarch - sets off to hike the Continental Divide Trail, she’s doggedly determined to go alone. While the people who know her best express concern, Monarch is unfazed. She has a plan to interview people for an audio project about supernatural encounters, a catalogue of campfire stories (no reason! she’s just interested!). The perils Monarch encounters on her five-month journey, real and imagined, mirror her complicated, optimistic, and doomed attempt to use adventure as a way to be reborn. https://audiofiction.co.uk/show.php?id=20240621-06 RSS: https://anchor.fm/s/f57d7648/podcast/rss

Moonpocks Audio Book When a calamitous prophecy unfolds in the dreamworld, a bumbling apprentice vows to become a great Mystic and halt the resurrection of The Mad Ones. Little does she know, the real threat is not always the one you see coming. Power is both a gift and a curse. https://audiofiction.co.uk/show.php?id=20240807-01 RSS: https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/moonpocksnativefay

Amarga Realidad Audio Drama Otra dramática obra de Clemencia del Castillo. Una historia de la amarga realidad del amor. Una historia que los llevara por un camino de desamor ya que si la amarga realidad llega a la vida nunca se quiere ir. Con la dirección de Raul del Campo Junior. https://audiofiction.co.uk/show.php?id=20240808-01 RSS: https://feeds.simplecast.com/WHKYyXwl

Skulduggery Pleasant: The Haunted House on Hollow Hill Audio Drama Step into the dark and twisted world of Skulduggery Pleasant, the bestselling book series by Derek Landy, in this brand new 6 episode podcast drama, not for the faint of heart. A pair of ghost-hunting journalists brave the most haunted house in Britain to interview the Dark King of television magic, Romeo Gideon. Instead, they discover a murdered man hanging from the rafters – the work of a killer wielding actual magic as viciously as his blade. With the storm closing in and the killer among them, their only hope lies with two Irish detectives who seem quite at home with all this bloodshed… https://audiofiction.co.uk/show.php?id=20240808-02 RSS: https://anchor.fm/s/f8ef097c/podcast/rss

The Rue Papers Audio Drama Deep in the heart of Darian library, Beatrice reads long lost stories of paranormal investigations, ghosts that linger, lost souls finding a way a home. Yet the more Beatrice reads, the wider the door back to our world opens. Soon, Beatrice might not be able to stop them coming back from the dead. https://audiofiction.co.uk/show.php?id=20240810-01 RSS: https://feed.podbean.com/theruepapers/feed.xml

[pojacket]

why is coding so bullshit, I made an rss file for my site and linked my homepage in the rss file. But when you clicked on the link, it would go to my site then redirect to ww1.neocities.org (no https)

And then I tested it on my phone and it redirected to 2 completely unrelated site back to back and the 2nd one’s url was just numbers, scaring me enough to close out and itslike how the fuck is it messing up on:

<link>https://pojacket.neocities.org</link>

i removed the link rn so clicking on it just downloads the rss file

edit I re-added <link>

If you add that to your rss reader, click on the homepage and get a virus don’t blame me (it’s /rss.xml)

edit again I think adding <link> makes the favicon not display in the rss reader, but not adding <link> makes it appear. does adding <link> make it…not read my site???? ?????????

[fahrni]

Saturday Morning Coffee

Good morning from Charlottesville, Virginia! ☕️

Pat Saperstein • Variety

Val Kilmer, who played Bruce Wayne in “Batman Forever,” channeled Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone‘s “The Doors” and starred as a tubercular Doc Holliday in “Tombstone,” died Tuesday in Los Angeles.

We lost a good one. I’ve always enjoyed Val Kilmer in his roles. My favorite is his portrayal of Doc Holiday in Tombstone but I also liked him in Real Genius, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and The Saint.

If you were a fan or are curious about Mr Kilmer give the documentary Val a viewing. It’s really well done.

Oh, I also liked his Madmartigan in Willow.

RIP 🪦

Namanyay Goel

Last Tuesday at 1 AM, I was debugging a critical production issue in my AI dev tool. As I dug through layers of functions, I suddenly realized — unlike the new generation of developers, I was grateful that I could actually understand my codebase. That’s when I started thinking more about Karpathy’s recent statements on vibe coding.

I’ve noted here frequently how slow I am to pick up new languages and frameworks. Largely it’s because I have to dig in, get to the bottom of things, and really develop an understanding of how things actually work. The more abstract — or magic — the language or framework the harder I have to work and the longer it takes for me to grok it. That takes time. For me it usually takes two times longer than most people. I’m a dumb redneck who likes computers, I ain’t that smart, so I learn via a lot of head banging and frustration, oh, and persistence and hard work.

All that to say, I love the craft of software development and I have a really hard time with the notion of using an LLM to develop and entire application for me. I can see using an LLM to get past things I’m not great at. Like my current huge struggle with auto layout in AppKit, but not for everything. 🧠

The Onion

You say ‘city,’ and I’m going to piss myself, and there’s no way I’m going to hide that wet spot just to make you libs more comfortable. I’m going to tell it like it is—for instance, I’m a man, and I’m scared of my own desires, and I don’t care who knows it!

When I think of Conservatives I think of folks who believe they’re patriots, self reliant, tough, and religious.

Often I think they’re none of those things. Being a patriot doesn’t mean wearing a flag shirt or having the Constitution tattooed on your arm or the American flag waving in your front yard.

A patriot is someone who loves their country and would do anything to protect it. That also means being critical of it and standing up for what you believe.

Many Conservatives I’ve met tend to be hateful of others and angry about what others have.

The Onion has a nice way of capturing that. 😃

Ashur Cabrera

I’ve been using the recently revamped Reeder on iOS, and after just a few weeks it feels pretty darned close to my ideal way of reading feeds.

Ashur has written a nice piece on his experience with Reeder. It is a very fine piece of software for iOS and Mac and Silvio Rizzi is an extremely talented designer/developer.

He’s taken a new direction with his beloved feed reader. It’s now more broad and can subscribe to more than RSS feeds, which is something I’ve wanted to do with Stream, and The Icon Factory have done with Tapestry.

It’s a new dawn for feed readers. They’re more general purpose viewers now. Expect to see more of this from other readers in future releases.

Also, thank you for the mention Ashur. I’m very grateful for your support over the years! ❤️

Tom Warren and Jay Peters • The Verge

A Microsoft employee disrupted the company’s 50th anniversary event to protest its use of AI.

The world is in such a strange place at this point in history and I hope we learn from it, otherwise we are doomed to complete failure. War, division, and climate change are all huge threats to humanity.

I don’t blame Israel for defending itself against Hamas. Who would? They were attacked by a terrorist organization who wants to exterminate them. We did the same thing after 9/11.

However, I do take issue with Israel attempting to obliterate Gaza and all her people.

Israel of all countries should know better. Jews were hunted by Hitler’s Nazi Germany who wanted to exterminate them. How can they turn around and do the same? 🙏🏼

Alan Ohnsman • Forbes

Elon Musk’s polygonal pickup is a polarizing sales flop that’s missed the billionaire’s volume goal by a staggering 84%. And there’s no sign that things are improving.

Yeah, the Cyber Truck. 🤣

Vojtech Novak, Shubham Gupta, Fabrizio Cucci, Riccardo Cipolleschi • React Native Developer Blog

This release ships React 19 in React Native and some other relevant features like native support for Android Vector drawables and better brownfield integration for iOS.

I hope we get an opportunity at adopt this on the project I’m on at WillowTree. It sounds like a nice step forward for hybrid apps like the one I’m working on.

Gus Mueller

Last week I bought a 13" MacBook Air in Midnight (24GB memory, 512GB SSD).

After reading this I’m tempted to go with a new Air as a personal Mac. I’ve been one of those die hard must own a MacBook Pro people but seeing a developer I have a lot of respect for say it works beautifully for an app like Acorn gives me confidence it would be a great choice for my less substantial projects, like Stream. 👍🏼

Tasha Robinson • Polygon

Warner Bros. dropped a new sneak-peek teaser for James Gunn’s Superman on Thursday out of CinemaCon, and it’s mostly just the same trailer we saw back in December, with the same quick-cut looks at Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced), Mister Terrific (Edi Gathegi), Guy “worst haircut in the ’verse” Gardner (Nathan Fillion), Metamorpho (Anthony Carrigan), a giant kaiju that might be Jimmy Olsen, and more. The difference is, there’s an extra two minutes of footage that might just be the full theatrical cut of the sequence that follows after Superman crashlands in the snow near the Fortress of Solitude — and it’s a long, agonizing two minutes.

Based on the trailers I’ve seen I don’t think I’m gonna like this Superman.

Henry Cavil is still the best Superman. 🦸🏻‍♂️

Sarah Perez • Tech Crunch

Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, Tumblr, WooCommerce, and a range of other online services, is reducing its workforce. The layoffs will impact 16% of staff across divisions, an Automattic blog post published Wednesday reveals.

I feel really bad for Automatticians. They’ve been through a real rough patch over the last year. First all the hubbub with WPEngine, the mass resignations, and now a layoff.

I hope they all land on their feet and Automattic survives and continues to lead the progression of WordPress far into the future.

I’d also like to see Matt Mullenweg loosen his grip on the open source organization so it can lead future efforts. ❤️

Matt Birchler

Back in 2019 I moved my blog off of WordPress and over to Ghost. In short, I wasn’t happy with WordPress and wanted a blogging engine that felt more like it was made for blogging than a full CMS where I didn’t use 99% of the features on offer. Ghost seemed to align with my values as a writer and a general user of technology, and over the past 6 years, that’s only become more clear that was the right choice for me.

Paying an organization to take care of the servers and infrastructure for your blog is very freeing.

I switched to Micro.blog a few years back and don’t regret it. The team makes sure we’re always up and running and the service and user experience are dirt simple for blogging. Just as they should be. ❤️

Matthew Haugey

I’ve used most Google’s products since the day they were introduced, so it was a great opportunity to see what these products are like for first time users, since the first time I used them long ago, they usually looked much different.

An interesting read on Google’s widely used products and services. Understanding how the Enterprise versions work is challenging. I’ve had a number of odd experiences with sharing documents over the years. Go read it. You may find yourself nodding your head in agreement.

Emma Roth • The Verge

France’s competition watchdog (Autorité de la concurrence) ordered Apple to pay €150 million (~$162.4 million) after finding that its App Tracking Transparency system allows the company to abuse its dominance in the mobile app market. In its decision, the authority says the initiative — which Apple pitches as a way to give users more control of their privacy — harms small publishers and “is neither necessary for nor proportionate with” Apple’s goal of protecting personal data.

Heh, App Tracking Transparency is something I really appreciate as a user but I can see how some App Developers would not like the idea.

At WillowTree we create a lot of what I refer to as “Marketing Apps.” Most large corporations who have something to sell you really need to have these beautifully designed and implemented applications that not only advertise their products but often need an ordering workflow. We do that and we do that really well.

Every one of the apps I’ve worked on is chock full of analytics measuring all sorts of things. The great companies take the user experience data they collect very seriously and make improvements according.

The app I’m working on now has improved dramatically over the last year because the company we’ve done work for studies their analytics. It really can work.

Politics

Johnathan V. Last • The Bulwark

Fittingly, it was the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, who declared the official time of death.

The United States of America is now a world wide embarrassment that cannot be trusted and has become a laughing stock.

Postpone any trip to the US you’ve had booked. It’s a real mess here.

Joan Westenberg • The Index

If you had told me a decade ago that a former president would waltz back into the White House, torch the global economy, slap double-digit tariffs on damn near everything, spook the markets into evaporating over three trillion dollars in a single day, and call it a “booming economy” with a straight face—I would’ve thought it a particularly cruel and poorly conceived joke.

Again. See my first comment above.

Trump and his administration are burning everything down. Morons all.

Of note, Joan Westenberg has become one of my favorite writers. She delivers facts and opinions with a dry wit I really appreciate.

Sharon Waxman • TheWrap

Now as the owner of The Atlantic, she is the quiet superhero behind the current Signalgate scandal. Editor Jeffrey Goldberg, who in full disclosure I know well enough to have his email, has rightfully been taking a hero’s tour on media everywhere since he broke the story of having been “accidentally” included in a Signal chat group of the top national security officials talking about an imminent attack on the Houthis, in violation of every imaginable security protocol not to mention common sense.

It took one brave woman to put all the billionaire bros to shame.

Now if we could convince Bezos to sell the Washington Post to Kara Swisher that would be incredible.

[podawful]

ALEX STEIN vs PODAWFUL: The King Of Trolls - PODAWFUL PODCAST EO7

After two years of being too scared to confront PODAWFUL, Alex Stein showed up on the Steel Toe Morning Show to hash things out with Jesse. It was a bloodbath. The audience was divided on who won the fight. All the Henchmen think Podawful won, all the Chat Rats think Alex won, all the Toe-heads asked Aaron why he got cucked on his own show, and everyone who is totally neutral thinks... Podawful won. EVEN MERSH. Watch the whole head-to-giant-head go down in full with a little added context as Alex Stein confirms he tried to sue Jesse over jokes, send bounty hunters to Jesse's parents' house, that Alex's grandmother plays FPS at school, and see the absolutely disgusting video Alex made of his dying mother. PLUS: Mersh says "PODAWFUL WAS RIGHT," Nick Rekieta gives a big fat shoutout, and Alex's biggest fans are all secretly henchmen.

https://podawful.pizza/posts/2453  Get the POD AWFTER SHOW where we speak to Alex's CHAT RAT QUEEN, Morgan Elizabeth, and go over the treasure trove of uncut Stein content we've gotten our hands on. Pizza Fund only: https://podawful.com/posts/2454 

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#NEETExamFurore : It was said Prime Minister Modi stopped the Ukraine-Russia War and Israel-Gaza war, But Cannot Stope Exam Paper Leaks Says Rahul Gandhi ; Dharmendra Pradhan Reacts

Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi has launched a scathing attack on the Centre over the alleged irregularities in NEET and cancellation of UGC-NET and said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has “psychologically collapsed” post-elections and will struggle to run a government like this.

Addressing a press conference in New Delhi as reported by PTI, he also said the main reason for paper leaks is that educational institutions have been captured by the Bharatiya Janata Party and its parent organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and paper leaks will not stop unless that is reversed.

Gandhi said the basic concept of Modi has been demolished by the opposition in the just-concluded elections and had it been a prime minister like Atal Bihari Vajpayee or Manmohan Singh, who believed in humility, the government would have survived.

Noting that there are interesting times ahead, he said Modi’s top priority now is to get his Speaker in Parliament and is not bothered about NEET, because of which lakhs of students are suffering.

“We have a government now and a prime minister who will find it very difficult to function. The prime minister is physiologically broken. He has collapsed psychologically. He will struggle to run a government like this,” Gandhi claimed.

“The silence is because the prime minister is crippled. Right now the prime minister’s agenda is the Speaker. He is not bothered about the NEET. He wants that his government should scrape through and he gets his Speaker’s post. That’s where his mind is right now,” he said.

Gandhi said Modi’s idea to run a government is to generate fear and frighten people and to make people not speak, but now people are not scared of him.

He said the main reason for the paper leaks is that educational institutions have been captured by BJP and its parent organisation RSS and paper leaks will not stop unless that is reversed.

Taking a dig at Modi, Gandhi said, “It was being said Prime Minister Modi stopped the Ukraine-Russia War and Israel-Gaza war, but he is either not able to stop exam paper leaks or doesn’t want to.”

He claimed that during his Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, he received thousands complained about paper leaks.

“There has been an expansion of idea of Vyapam to rest of country,” he said of the recent controversy while referring to the Vyapam examination and recruitment scam in Madhya Pradesh.

“Nothing should be done in arbitrary manner, rules that apply to one paper should apply to another,” Gandhi said.

He also said that the Opposition will raise the exam paper leaks issue in Parliament, asserting it will pressure the government to take action and bring the guilty to book.

Addressing media according to ANI, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said , “Some irregularities have come to the notice of the government. We take responsibility for it. I would like to request the students very politely not to believe in rumours…”

On Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s statement regarding NEET issue & UGC-NET exam cancellation, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan replied , “…I will again appeal to my opposition friends to have faith in our system… Our government is 100% committed to transparency, to the betterment of the future of our students. And I assure you again, no malpractice, no irregularity will be tolerated by our government.”

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Podcast: How Should We Respond to Our Doubt? (Randy Newman)

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Podcast: How Should We Respond to Our Doubt? (Randy Newman)

Podcast: How Should We Respond to Our Doubt? (Randy Newman)

February 26, 2024

by:

Crossway

This article is part of the The Crossway Podcast series.

Facing Our Questions

In this episode, Randy Newman discusses how all Christians struggle with various questions about their faith, and he explains that rather than viewing these questions as roadblocks to faith, we should see them as the natural twists and turns that accompany our lives as Christians—twists and turns that can lead us to a deeper trust and confidence in our heavenly Father.

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Topics Addressed in This Interview:

Living with Doubt

Switchbacks in the Journey of Faith

The Influential Power of Stories

Addressing Doubts and Questions in Faith

I Doubt Because of All the Pain and Suffering in the World

I Doubt Because of the Hypocrisy of Christians

I Doubt Because of All the Other Religions

I Doubt Because Christianity Is So Restrictive

Our Longings Lead Us to Jesus

01:09 – Living with Doubt

Matt Tully Randy, thank you so much for joining me today on The Crossway Podcast.

Randy Newman It’s great to be with you. Thanks so much.

Matt Tully As Christians, I think we all know what it is to struggle with doubt at different points in our lives—lots of different kinds of doubts that might be related to all kinds of things. And yet sometimes it can be hard to know how to talk about that or what to do with that doubt as believers. I wonder if you could start us off today by answering the question, If you were to sit down with a Christian right now—kind of like we’re sitting down right now, maybe at a coffee shop with some coffee in hand—and that person were to come to you and say, Randy, I’m struggling with doubt, and that scares me, what’s the first thing that you would say to them?

Randy Newman I think the first thing I might say is that I also struggle with doubts because I want them to know that they’re not alone—and I do, so I’m not just using that as a line—and that I think doubt may be more common than most people think. So I want to kind of soften the tension there. I think also I want to try to express that even really strong, solid, mature believers have times of doubt. And I think that there’s an image of the mature Christian—whoever he or she is—that they never have doubts. I don’t think that that’s realistic for most people. I can’t pass judgment on the people who say I never have doubts. I know where my mind goes. I doubt that they’re telling the truth, or I doubt that they’re in touch with all of their struggles. But that’s not the point. I think the teaching of the New Testament has places in it that imply there will be times of doubt and struggle and frustration. And so it’s not a question of, How do I get rid of this? I have doubt. I want to get rid of it. No, it’s, How do I dig into it and work through it and live with it rather than I’ve just got to get rid of it? So that’s the starting point I think of dealing with doubt.

03:17 – Switchbacks in the Journey of Faith

Matt Tully One of the things I really appreciated about your book is the ways that you approach these broader issues of our spiritual journeys with a very nuanced lens where even things like doubt can have very multifaceted dimensions to them. It’s not always a simple answer that we’re looking for that really is going to resolve that. You say in the book, “I’ve come to see that spiritual journeys resemble a series of twists and turns more than a direct ascent from one belief to another. My own story certainly fits that description.” So I wonder if you could just give us a brief summary of how your own life story has been marked by these twists and turns and even struggles with doubt at times.

Randy Newman First, I’ve heard a lot of stories of people’s lives about how they’ve come to faith, and for a while a lot of them fit in a very short, linear fashion. When I was this old, I believed this. Then, I learned this. Then, I found this. Then, I became a Christian. Straight line.

Matt Tully Yeah. Very simple.

Randy Newman Yes, very simple. I come from a Jewish background, and being raised in a Jewish background, we don’t want anything to do with Jesus. I mean, when I was growing up the only time Jesus was mentioned was attached to “those people” who are our enemies. They’re the anti-Semites. They’re the people who persecuted us. Germany was a Christian nation, and look what they did during the Holocaust. And so we don’t want anything to do with them. So for a long time when I had Christian friends who would say things like, You ought to read the New Testament, No, no, no! I don’t want anything to do with that! And yet at the same time there was this attraction of, Why is it that these people seem to know God in a personal way? They talk to him about everything. They pray about everything. They pray in English. And so there was sort of this, No, I’m repulsed by this and I’m drawn to it. It’s this back and forth kind of thing. I begin the book telling about how I went on this mountain climbing experience with my son, and I learned what switchbacks were. And switchbacks make it possible for people to get up mountains. They go back and forth and back and forth. I know this is audio so you can’t see my hands, but I hope you know what a switchback is. It’s this back and forth kind of thing that just moves gradually because the alternative is you have to climb straight up. I didn’t bring a helicopter that day. That’s the only way I could have gotten up.

Matt Tully Or climbing ropes.

Randy Newman Climbing ropes. You’ve got to have hammers and nails, but a switchback enables you. And I think that’s more the image about how people come to faith. I make some level of ascent, and then I turn back the other way. Then, maybe I stop and rest. I know in my own story there was a time in high school I knew a bunch of Christian friends. They shared a whole lot with me. That got me thinking. Then, I went off to college and for the first year and a half I didn’t think about God or Jesus or anything. I thought about beer and music and girls. Every Friday night I went to a party and got drunk. Every Saturday night I went to the Philadelphia Academy of Music and listened to some of the greatest music in the world. I was looking for something. On Friday nights I was looking for escape. On Saturday I was looking for some kind of transcendence. And both of them were tremendously disappointing. That was my freshman year in college and most of my sophomore year until a friend of mine died in this really tragic accident, and then I had to say, Wait a minute. Wait a second. Music is not going to help me with this, beer isn’t going to help. I’ve got to find something deeper. And that’s when I started reading C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity, I read the Gospel of Matthew, I read a lot of the New Testament. But again, it was this back and forth, indirect switchback kind of thing. When I got to a point of faith and belief and turned around and looked at where I had been, it’s like, *Oh, this was kind of a meandering that took three and a half or four years.

Matt Tully Do you think that those switchbacks, the searching for something and not always knowing what’s next and what the right answer is, did that continue after your conversion? Does that also characterize our lives as Christians sometimes?

Randy Newman Oh, sure. I definitely think so. There are certain truths of the Christian life that the first time you hear it, for a lot of us it’s exactly the opposite of what you were indoctrinated with. And I think there’s probably a hundred different examples, but for me it was all about Jesus. I was steeped in the view that Jesus was a good teacher—a very good teacher—that’s it. And so when friends said, Well, no, he’s God, are you kidding? No. Well, he claimed to be God. Well, then he’s a nut! The whole idea that God could take on flesh, that’s crazy! And so there are a whole bunch of ideas that you have to first say, Wait a minute. Hold it. Okay. A lot of people really believe this, s maybe I shouldn’t be so dismissive. And for some people, that just takes a while. For some people, it’s that God actually chose to reveal himself in a book for a whole lot of people. That’s just crazy! Really? God wrote a book? Well, no, he didn’t write a book. He revealed himself, and people wrote a book. Well, how did that happen? And again, people need to kind of sit with that. I think we as Christians think we just state the idea. There. It’s out there. It’s true. It’s a two-edged sword; it will cut through. Yes, it is true and it is a two-edged sword. But for a whole lot of people, they need time to kind of sit with it. Because the essence of becoming a Christian is admitting that you’ve been wrong about a whole lot of stuff—a whole lot of really big stuff. I was wrong about who God was, I was wrong about who I am, I was wrong about this thing called sin, I was wrong about who Jesus is, I was wrong about the Bible. So realizing, Oh, there’s another way to look at this. I might need to re examine this. And then, as you say, even after we become believers, there’s just a whole lot more of, Oh, I’ve always thought this, but you know what? It’s different. And it’s better. It’s a million times better. But that takes some time. It’s not just, Let’s transfer the information from the book into my brain. There. That’s done. Wouldn’t it be lovely if that would be that easy? Let me just plug myself into this information source, and now it’s in me.

Matt Tully It’s not the Matrix.

Randy Newman No, it’s not the Matrix. And it’s not medication. I mean, medication works that way sometimes. We think, I just need a shot of theology.

Matt Tully It doesn’t always work like that.

Randy Newman No.

10:02 – The Influential Power of Stories

Matt Tully One of the things that’s notable about your book is how many stories you include in it. And it kind of got me thinking about the role of stories as we think about both our journey coming to faith and even our journey as Christians and maturing in our faith and addressing some of the doubts and the struggles that we have related to the faith. How would you summarize the importance of stories for how we think about these things?

Randy Newman I’m tempted to want to answer your question by telling a story, but I can’t think of one right now, so that’s not going to work. Let me just back up a little bit. I’ve written several books about evangelism, and they’re written for Christians about how you do evangelism. And in all of them I talk about the importance of pre-evangelism. There are conversations we need to have before we have the conversation about the gospel. And there’s a million conversations we can have. We can talk about music, we can talk about art, we can talk about family, we can talk about so many things. And then I say how those things are pointers, pre-evangelism. And at some point I thought, I should practice what I preach. I should write a pre-evangelistic book. And I tried out these ideas as a talk, and I convinced friends to set me up in places where I could talk to both believers and non-believers on college campuses and different places. I gave this talk that I called “Considering Faith in the Twenty-First Century.” And all I was trying to say to people is, I’m trying to ask you just to consider or, in some cases, reconsider. And it was very pre-pre-pre-pre-evangelistic. I wasn’t presenting the gospel. I was saying, I want you to consider some ideas like, for example, we all approach this topic of faith with a whole mix of motivations, not just curiosity. It’s not just intellectual curiosity. It’s a whole lot of things playing. And then I would say things like, I’d like you to consider that maybe faith is inevitable, not optional. Maybe everybody has faith. And what I did was I would state the point first, and then I would tell some stories that illustrate it. So, I met with someone who knows about the world of books and publishing, and I said, I got this idea, I got this talk. And I told him about it and he goes, Well, that’s a really good talk but a really lousy book. Thank you very much! He said books work the opposite. In books, you tell the stories first, and then you draw the point. So a book begins with, Let me tell you about this story. Let me tell you this story. Let me tell you this story. Let me tell you how these stories are similar, which leads me to the point that we all bring different motivations to the topic of faith. So that’s how I wrote the book, telling these stories. And it does work better as a book that way than as a talk. There was also this sense, as I heard people’s stories and I read famous people’s stories, I thought people need to hear these stories. They’re just amazing. And nobody knows this part of that famous person’s life. For example, can I give you an example? Lots of people know who Christopher Hitchens was—an atheist, he wrote the book God Is Not Great, young atheists just love him. He tells a story in a memoir he wrote, and then I heard him on an NPR interview where he talked about his mother’s suicide. His mother had taken up with another man after she got divorced from Christopher Hitchens’ father, and the relationship didn’t work out. And so they both took their lives. They committed suicide together. He tells this on NPR radio. You could look it up online. He says, My mother tried to call me right before she killed herself. My mother tried to call me, and I didn’t get to the call in time. I just missed it by a few minutes, but I feel like if I would have gotten the call, I don’t think she would have done it. I could have stopped her from doing that. And then he says, So I’ve been trying to write myself out of that ever since. I remember I was driving in a car. I had to pull over to the side of the road. It was so upsetting. Trying to write myself out of that ever since—he feels like he could have stopped his mother from committing suicide. And all of a sudden, everything I had heard and read by Christopher Hitchens, because he’s a brilliant writer and I had read a lot of his stuff, all of a sudden had a whole different feel to it. Oh my goodness, this guy is just racked with guilt and pain and horror every single day. And he’s trying to write himself out of this mess, and it ain’t working. He was famous for how much alcohol he consumed. It wasn’t just alcohol. He was really trying to self-medicate and cover over a pain so deep. I think people need to know that about him. And so I found out those kind of things about famous people. And then I also talked to ordinary people and I heard their stories about how they became Christians, and they’re just ordinary people and they’re never going to be famous and they’re not going to write books and they’re not going to go on TV shows, but man, their stories are incredible. I want people to hear these stories. You did what? So I try to weave those kind of stories together in the book and say, Doesn’t this make us think that perhaps . . . ?

15:30 – Addressing Doubts and Questions in Faith

Matt Tully Stories can add so much color and an understanding to the things that we say, the things that we feel as we talk about this. When it comes to talking with people, you’ve spent countless hours talking with unbelievers and believers alike, hearing their stories of journeys to faith, hearing them articulate their doubts and their struggles with the Christian faith. I wonder if you can, thinking about all that experience you have, can you complete the following sentence in as many ways as makes sense to you: If someone comes to you with their doubts, don’t . . . ?

Randy Newman So I’m giving advice to the person who’s hearing someone share their doubts to them?

Matt Tully Right. Whether they’re a believer or unbeliever, you’re giving some advice.

Randy Newman You’re the Christian, and a Christian friend of yours comes to you and says, I’m having doubts.

Matt Tully Or a non-Christian friend. I think either of those.

Randy Newman Alright, well I’d like to do both. So the Christian comes and says, I’m having doubts. I would counsel the counselor to tell them they’re not crazy. They’re not losing their salvation. This probably is more common than they realize. The Christian life does have a bunch of times that We have doubts. C. S. Lewis talked about it as “undulations” in The Screwtape Letters. I think that’s just the reality of being human, living in a fallen world, living in a time between the times. We have the revelation of the cross, but we’re still waiting for the second coming, so I think doubt is probably going to happen a lot. I might tell hat person that if all of their Christian friends say, Oh, I never have doubts, I would say you should try to find some different friends. Did I just say that? Is that going to get edited out? I do think that there are pockets within the Christian world where they say, I never have doubts. I know that I know that I know. And I don’t think they’re reading their Bible as fully or as accurately as they should. So, wow, I wonder if you’re going to get some mail about that. If it’s a non-Christian who says, Well, I just can’t believe because I have too many doubts. I would try to say you can believe and still have doubts. You don’t have to be 100 percent certain. And then I would try to say there are all sorts of things in life that we live without 100 percent absolute certainty. For example, I recently had to go to the eye doctor, and he prescribed some eye drops. And then I had to go to the pharmacy and get the eye drops. And then I came home and I put the eye drops in. Now, I never tested these drops to make sure that they weren’t going to drive me blind, or that they were sulfuric acid and that my eyes were going to burn up. I had faith that the eye doctor knew what he was talking about when he looked at my eyes and said, Oh, you need this, and that the pharmacy was able to read his handwriting (maybe that was a step of faith) and that they prescribed the right thing. So I had a very high level of confident faith in the eye doctor and the prescription and our medical process. But did I have absolute certainty? No. And there’s just all sorts of things that we need to live in life with a high level of confidence. I believe God has revealed such tremendous truths to us. But in that truth, in the Bible itself, He tells us there are some things he’s not going to tell us. Deuteronomy 29:29 has got to be one of my favorite verses: “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us.” There are things he hasn’t revealed yet. Or Paul talking about “now we see through a mirror dimly (darkly).” Or Paul saying in 2nd Corinthians 4 “we are afflicted but not crushed, perplexed but not despairing.” There is perplexity. There are puzzles. And there are times we need to say, I don’t know why God did that.

Matt Tully Do you think sometimes Christians are guilty of, whether it’s talking to unbelievers or talking to other Christians, we’re guilty of presenting the Christian faith as the ultimate answer to all of life’s questions, and if you kind of just accept this, all those perplexities will disappear?

Randy Newman I think that has happened a lot. I think a lot of very thoughtful questioners have been told to stop asking so many questions. I think that’s a terrible thing to say to people. Let me just back up. I went for a doctorate, and I wanted to get a doctorate in evangelism or intercultural studies, and I went before the committee and said, What kind of research do we need to do? And they said, Well, we should interview a whole lot of people who became Christians and hear their stories. I thought, Oh, that’ll be great! And I knew that the standard in that kind of research was to interview about thirty people. So I thought I’d go low and say I’d like to interview twenty-five people, and they said, No, you have to interview forty. And I thought, okay, now it’s my turn to come back with thirty. And I said thirty, and they said forty. And I said thirty, and they said forty. So I interviewed forty. Actually, interviewed more. I ended up doing more. And since then, I just loved the process so much I’ve been interviewing and I just hear lots of these stories. But in a formal, sit-down setting, recording every word, transcribing every word, I interviewed forty college students who had become Christians within the last two years. That was the limitation we put on it. And there was this one guy who that’s exactly what he was told. He was told in the church where his parents brought him growing up, You ask too many questions. You just need to believe in Jesus as your Lord and Savior, and he’ll take away all your questions. And he thought, Well, that must be a religion for stupid people. And he was a really smart guy. He knew he was smart. He was getting good grades. He got a full ride scholarship to a really good university. And he thought, I don’t need Christianity because I’m smart, and Christianity is for stupid people. But then he went to an event because people invited him and there was free pizza (that’s really why he went), and it was one of these question and answer kind of things about God, and he only went to make fun of the Christians. And he would ask wise guy questions, but they were really nice to him. So he started going to a Bible study. The Gospel of Mark. And he met a group of people who respected his questions. At one point in the interview I said to him, Was there one major obstacle that you had to get past? And I’m thinking evolution, how we got the Bible, philosophical arguments for the existence of God. He said to me, Remember that story where Jesus cast the demons into the pigs? What’s up with that? And I thought, That’s your biggest objection? That’s really what’s holding you back? I said, Did you ask this in the Bible? The first thing the Bible study leader said to him is, Gee, I don’t know. I said, Oh, that’s a bad start. He goes, No, that’s a great start. It was great. It was great when somebody admitted they didn’t know something because I thought Christians are all a bunch of know-it-alls. But then the next thing the guy said was, Well, I guess what this story tells us is we really shouldn’t mess around with demons and that there must be something really different between being a person and being a pig. And I thought that sounds pretty good. It’s not the most thorough answer. I said, So did that satisfy you? He goes, Yeah. And the next thing he said was the most important. He said, You have to understand I was raised in a place where they kept saying stop asking questions; you don’t need answers to your questions. When this guy respected my question and gave me a pretty decent answer, I thought, ’Oh, Christianity isn’t for stupid people. There are answers’. And then I said, So did you ask a million questions He goes, No, I didn’t need to. I figured if there’s a decent answer to that question, there’s probably decent answers to my questions. I became a Christian soon after that.

Matt Tully That’s such a profound story because it does speak to the posture that we have sometimes as Christians speaking to unbelievers, speaking to weak believers who are struggling with different doubts, that can make all the difference. It’s not always, as you kind of said before, intellectual download of the right answer.

Randy Newman There is a posture that I’ve seen, and I see it far less today, but there was a time around thirty years ago where the posture in the apologetics world was we have the answers, we can answer all their questions. And the implication was their questions are stupid, but we’ve got the answers. And sometimes it’s, Their questions aren’t real questions. They’re just smoke screens. Well, sometimes they’re just smoke screens. Yes, but not always. I remember hearing one apologist say when people ask this question, they’re not really asking this question; they have a moral problem in their life. There’s some kind of immorality going on in their life. And I remember thinking that that might be true in some cases, but how can you make such a blanket statement? That’s not being respectful to people. Remember, Peter tells us to do all of this apologetics with gentleness and respect. And there was a time when it wasn’t very gentle and it wasn’t respectful. I think we’ve come a long way. I think there’s tremendous gentleness and respect now in the apologetics world and in the evangelism world. I’m very encouraged about the trends.

25:02 – I Doubt Because of All the Pain and Suffering in the World

Matt Tully I want to run quickly through a number of different reasons for doubt that both unbelievers and even some Christians might struggle with in their lives. I wonder if you can, as an example and as a model to those Christians who are listening who want to be a support to their friends, but maybe even for someone who’s listening right now who himself would be struggling with some of these reasons to doubt Christianity. I wonder if you can give us an initial stab at how you would respond to somebody who expressed this to you. The first one: I’m struggling with doubt because of all the pain and suffering that I see in the world around me. Every day we hear of new tragedies around the world and sometimes in our own homes that I just can’t reconcile with the God of the Bible.

Randy Newman Yeah, and I think this is very, very common, and whatever help I might be or whatever help you find, don’t be surprised if you’re going to need more help with this again in the future because there will be other things that come along. I’ll be very honest. I’m struggling at this very moment because of the horrors that are taking place in Israel and Gaza. I’m having to go back to lessons I’ve learned and repeat them and rethink them and re-wrestle with them and get on my knees and wrestle with God like the Lament Psalms model for me. How long, O Lord, will you let this kind of horror continue? So I think that there is a lamenting mode of being a believer in the world at this point in God’s plan or stage of history. I want to tell people don’t be surprised by these doubts, and I want to say to doubt your doubts. But I want us to dig into them and, either for the first time study or remind yourselves when you last studied, what are some of the best answers that have been given about this problem? So if it’s about the problem of pain and evil and suffering, I would read C. S. Lewis’s book The Problem of Pain, or Peter Kreeft’s book Making Sense Out of Suffering, or Tim Keller’s book Walking with God through Pain and Suffering. And these are difficult books to read. We don’t want to read them and we don’t want to watch the YouTube videos of people giving good answers to these because it’s painful to dig into it. But I also want to say that there is a temptation to walk away from God in these times. Well, then what? That’s walking into a worse place. The living apart from God’s answers leaves you with another set of answers that are terrible, that are pathetic, that are weak, that are no help at all. There are a lot of people who are atheists, and they became atheists because they saw suffering, so they walked away from Christianity. The atheist explanation for suffering has no hope in it whatsoever. No resources to be a good friend when somebody else is suffering. You’ve walked away from the resource of prayer that can give you a sense of hope in the midst of not having intellectual answers. So with all of its incompleteness, the Christian incomplete answer is a million times better than the skeptic atheist answer. And we need to look at the ugliness of that in its raw ugliness and say I’m going to cling to the Christian one because, yeah, I still have questions. If I drew a pie chart of how I handle this, there’s a big chunk of the pie chart that says “I don’t know.” But there are a whole bunch of the slivers of the pie chart that help me tremendously get through pain and suffering.

Matt Tully That’s such a helpful answer because, again, it seems like it does two things at the same time. On the one hand, it doesn’t over promise what Christianity will do and can fix in the midst of the suffering of this world. We don’t have an easy answer for why all these things happen. We don’t have a definitive way to put an end to all of it because we believe we live in a broken world. And yet your answer also reminds us that the grass isn’t always greener. I think sometimes as Christians we maybe are the most tempted, when we’re struggling with doubt in this area, we’re the most tempted to think that maybe there’s some other way of thinking that makes this easier. But you’re kind of saying that’s a fool’s errand.

Randy Newman You don’t have to dig too far to find some stories of skeptics and atheists and what they said about death and how they face their own death. And it’s pretty empty. And some of them try to joke about it and crack jokes. And you go, that’s not really that funny. And then it’s also good to look at some people who have really, really suffered who are strong Christians and they say, Here’s why I cling to it. Joni Eareckson Tada’s many writings. We need to look at that and ask why would a woman who’s in a wheelchair and a quadriplegic for fifty years still say, I sing praises to Jesus because I love him? And there are lots and lots of people like that. I mentioned this just almost as a little aside in the chapter I wrote on suffering in this new book Questioning Faith. Why is it that so many African Americans have become Christians and became Christians at a time when they were enslaved by white people who claim to be Christians? Why in the world would they latch onto the religion of their slave owners? There must be something about that faith that is strong and solid and good apart from people who claim to be Christians who really aren’t or people who are some of the worst hypocrites. Frederick Douglass said some really, really beautiful things about the Christian faith. As best as I can tell, I think he became a Christian. But he had a slave master who beat him every day except on Sunday because that’s the sabbath. That’s the kind of nonsense hypocrisy he was immersed in. And yet, when he heard the gospel preached, he found it irresistible. Those kinds of stories need to grab us and say wait a minute. Okay, I got doubts. I’ve seen evil and suffering. Nobody’s ever beaten me six days a week, claiming that they’re doing it because they’re a Christian. So I can learn some things from Frederick Douglass and other people and compare the very, very disparate stories of belief and non-belief.

31:54 – I Doubt Because of the Hypocrisy of Christians

Matt Tully That’s a good segue into another reason that we sometimes struggle with doubt. How would you respond to somebody who says, I’m struggling with doubt because of the hypocrisy of Christians? We often hear stories of Christians—those who supposedly have a relationship with the true and the living God—of them being just as selfish, just as cruel, just as deceptive as anyone else. So how can I really believe that Christianity is true when this is how Christians behave?

Randy Newman It’s very disturbing. I wouldn’t try to minimize it if people bring this up. I don’t want to say, Well, you know, that’s a pretty small minority. I don’t know how small of a minority it is. I do think it is a minority, and I would try to at least talk about that like, Do you think that that’s the norm? Do you think that’s what most Christians are like? But we can’t minimize that too much. We somehow want to make a distinction between those very bad displays of the gospel and Jesus. We want to look to him. I hope I get to deliver this line sometime. I haven’t recently, but I hope someone asks this question, and what I want to say is, Yeah, that’s really terrible. You’re right. I still think Jesus is worth following. When I wrote my first book Questioning Evangelism, I decided to go after this topic and I titled that chapter “If Jesus Is So Great, Why Are Some of His Followers Such Jerks?” And I had to kind of sell that a little bit to the publisher, but they liked it. So that’s the jerks chapter.

Matt Tully You hear this a lot from especially ex-Christians, people who have walked away from the faith of their younger years and the faith of their family and their parents, is they can say, I grew up in the church, and I have just seen the hypocrisy and it made me question whether or not this was all even real.

Randy Newman And there have been some terrible, terrible things. Maybe the starting point is yeah, I understand that. I think if I would have seen some of that stuff then I might have also walked away. I might have, I don’t know. But when I step back, I look at Jesus. There are people who have followed him who are not hypocrites. They’re really beautiful people. They’re broken, they’re sinful, they admit it. But there are some Christian people who do some really amazing things. So I just want to get the landscape as full as possible. I think what some Christians want to do is they want to take all those hypocrites and just get them off the table. Get them out of the picture. No, no, they’re in the picture. They are. But so is Jesus. And so is his resurrection. And so are some really godly people who do amazing things. And I don’t know where, but at some point I also want to point out, and I don’t know the best way to word this. So listeners to the podcast, please do not quote me on this, but at some point we want to say there are a whole lot of non-Christian jerks too. I mean, there really are. There are a whole lot of non-Christians who are hypocrites. There’s a lot of hypocrisy in the world. They’re all over the place. And they’re not just Christians. Christians don’t have a corner on the market of hypocrisy.

Matt Tully Okay, another area of doubt.

Randy Newman See? He just wants to move on from that. We’re going to talk to the editors about that.

Matt Tully No, that’s so true, and it is a good reminder. I think sometimes to Christians that can come across as, You guys are the ones who claim to know God. You’re the ones who claim to have this moral code from God that should make you better than the rest of us.

Randy Newman It should. There is an outrage in that that is appropriate. There is an outrage, and we want to join them in that outrage. You’re right. and we want to point to the fact that this bothers us is a pointer to the fact that there is such a thing as right and wrong. And wrong and sin should disturb us terribly. So we don’t want to minimize any of that. Anyway, you wanted to move on. I stopped you.

35:45 – I Doubt Because of All the Other Religions

Matt Tully Another source of doubt for us can be the person who says, *Look at all the different religions that exist in the world. If the God of the Bible is real, then why isn’t he 1) at least more universally accepted and recognized, and 2) how can I be totally sure that Christianity, out of all the religions, is the actual right one?

Randy Newman When people say, Look at all the religions of the world, I want to say, Yeah, let’s look at them.

Matt Tully So you’re not afraid of that challenge?

Randy Newman Well, I’m afraid of people who only look on the surface. And on the surface you’re not really seeing what’s really at the heart of things. So I do think it’s good to study and learn and to see how they’re different. And there is a point where we want to say God has revealed himself, and it’s possible for people to miss that or look elsewhere or try to find answers elsewhere. But this has always been a problem. This isn’t just a problem for our day and age when we’re so very well connected because of globalization. It’s more obvious, but it was a problem in ancient Israel for Jewish people to only worship the true God. And you read the Prophets, and they have some really, really strong condemnations of worshiping other gods. And that’s what other religions are—the worshiping of other gods. So this has always been a narrow problem for believers. God’s people have always been surrounded by people who believe other gods. I think it’s a very recent, modern thing, only in the last 100 years or so when people say, Oh, you know what though? No, they’re really worshiping the same God. They just worship him in different ways. Well, if you really dig in, or if you have a good conversation with a sincere adherent of another religion, you’ll find out no, they don’t think they’re worshiping the same God. A devout Muslim does not believe that Allah is the same God as the God in the Bible. They think the Bible got it wrong. The Bible distorted it. You talk to a Buddhist who really knows his Buddhism, they know Jewish people worship one God and say that belief in other gods is false. Buddhism says there really isn’t a personal god that you would talk to that would have a name. And so it’s sort of these people who are on the outside who look on a very surfacy kind of way who say, I think they believe the same things. Andy Bannister has written a whole book on do Christians and Muslims worship the same God. And he really digs into the Qur’an. He has a doctorate in Islamic studies. He’s a Christian who has a doctorate in Islamic studies, so he knows the Qur’an and he knows Islamic teachings. They don’t think they’re worshiping the God of the Bible. That’s some kind of a secular thing that secular professors of religious studies classes have come up with. But it doesn’t have much substance to it.

38:56 – I Doubt Because Christianity Is So Restrictive

Matt Tully Another area of doubt that people might struggle with is just the idea that biblical Christianity forces people into a very small box. The Bible defines us, it defines who we are, who we should be, how we’re supposed to live, who we’re supposed to love. All of these things are very restricting on our identities as people. And this feels like this is kind of an issue that has a lot of resonance today perhaps. Issues around like, Who am I? Who do I get to be and make myself to be? Christianity is just so restricting. How would you respond to that?

Randy Newman Well, let me back up and say I think the task for us as Christians in preparing how to answer questions has a three stage process of answering. The first stage is I want to make sure I’m really understanding the question. I hear the question and I ask more questions to clarify. I want to make sure that I’m really answering the question the person’s asking. Secondly, I want to think, Okay, so what’s the answer? What does the Bible say? But then there’s the third, and it’s the one that I think people ignore the most, and it’s, What do I say? I don’t just start with, Well, here’s what the Bible says. There. God said it, I believe it, that settles it. I mean, that may be theologically right and philosophically watertight, but it didn’t really help the person that we’re talking to understand or move from error to truth. And so there’s a lot of wisdom. We need to do our homework and know what the Bible teaches about that. But then there’s, Okay, where do I start?*I’m not ignoring your question.

Matt Tully It’s the question of how do I persuade or how do I help someone to understand something that, again, sometimes it’s more than just intellectual understanding that needs to be addressed in some of these doubts.

Randy Newman So we need to study the methodology of Jesus’s answering of questions. Because he didn’t always answer, or at least he didn’t give an answer right away. The classic case. The guy comes up to Jesus, Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? All right. That’s a pretty straightforward question. What’s the answer? What some of us would have said in that situation was, Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and receive him as your savior and Lord, and you’ll be saved. Or we would say, Well, your question implies that you’re trying to work your way into heaven, but you know, works don’t work. By the works of the law no one is saved. That’s the theology we would communicate. And that’s right. And that’s true. And eventually that’s what that guy needed to hear. But what did Jesus say? Jesus said, “Why do you call me good?” Wait a minute. I always picture the disciples in the background going, He gave the wrong answer. Go tell Jesus how to answer this question. This was an easy one. “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.” What’s he doing? He wants to get the guy at the root of his question. His question is, If I just know what to do, I’ve probably already done it. Because then when Jesus does quote commandments, what does the guy say? “All these things I’ve kept since I was a youth.” And Jesus is thinking, You still haven’t gotten to the point of realizing how impossible it is for you to save yourself, so I’m going to have to make you very uncomfortable by saying something that will show you, ‘Oh, I don’t want to do that’. So he quotes about giving away everything and the guy goes away sad. So what’s the question that’s being asked? What’s the answer? And then, what do I say? So with your question—Isn’t Christianity narrow and confining? And by the way, I think when someone asks that question, I think in a lot of cases it’s about sex. It’s telling me I can’t sleep with whoever I want to sleep with. So what’s the biblical answer? Well, the biblical answer is no, you can’t sleep with whoever you want to sleep with. God is very narrow. It’s one man, one woman, within marriage. Okay, yes, that’s the answer. But if you just quote that at bumper sticker level—Well, no, God says it’s one man, one woman for life—you didn’t really help the person. You didn’t meet them where they’re at. You didn’t connect with them in gentleness and respect. So what we need to do is a bunch of brainstorming of, Now, what do I say to people? And so what I want to say to people is, Don’t we need some limits? Shouldn’t there be some limitation? I’m a married man. I’ve committed myself to be faithful to one woman. If I said to my wife, Hey, I think this is too narrow. I want to go do things with other people, I’m doing terrible harm to her. I’m hurting her deeply. I’m violating things that I made commitments before God. I said I would be faithful till death do us part. I’m setting an example for my children and my grandchildren about how to live in ways that are destructive for them. So I want to say, Shouldn’t there be some limits? And I want the person to go, Yeah, there should be some limits. Okay. How do we figure out what those limits are? And what I want to get to is God does set limits because he’s a loving God. He knows what is best for us. And we think unlimited is best. Well, that’s a very modern, secular view that just came along fairly recently. People have committed immorality for a long time, but they knew that it was immorality.

Matt Tully Yeah, they hid it.

Randy Newman They knew they probably shouldn’t be doing it, but now it’s celebrated. Well, shouldn’t there be some limits about what we say? And what I’m trying to say is, in this third category of what we say, we need to make people uncomfortable before we bring them the comfort of the good news of the gospel. Many people are very comfortable. Well, I just think that’s too limiting, and I feel very comfortable. And I want to get them to be uncomfortable about unlimited. If you really live that way, would that really be good for you? At some point, wouldn’t you say, Oh, wait a minute? I love Sam Allberry’s book Why Does God Care Who I Sleep With? And he just turns it on its head. The very first chapter is “Why Do We Care Who We Sleep With?” And his point is we do because it’s a very big deal. It makes a very big difference. And if it makes a big difference to us, well then it would make sense that it makes a big difference to God. You just turn the question around long enough to help people think. I want to help you think about this, because I think for our culture that likes slogans, tweets, things no more than 140 characters, some topics are just a lot more complex than that.

46:09 – Our Longings Lead Us to Jesus

Matt Tully Maybe as a final question, Randy, at the end of your book—a book where, again, you look at lots of stories of people wrestling with the faith, wrestling with what it means to be a Christian and what they think about God, wrestling with some of these doubts that we’ve even talked about today—you turn to the topic of beauty. You include this really wonderful quote from C. S. Lewis that we’ve mentioned a few times already today. I wonder if you could read that quote for us first, and then unpack a little bit what do you think Lewis was getting at, and why does that maybe serve as a fitting conclusion to our conversation today?

Randy Newman I do love that quote. And this has such an important role in my own coming to faith because I used to go to those concerts at the Philadelphia Academy of Music every Saturday night and think, Someday I’m going to hear a piece of music that does it for me. I’m going to find my piece of music that connects me to the transcendent God. And it never quite came. Some of the pieces came closer than others, but then the piece of music was over and it was gone. So Lewis said that all those things are pointers. They’re not the end itself. They’re just pointing us in the direction that we should be looking. This was in his sermon “The Weight of Glory.” He said, “The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to [sic] them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself, they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.” I just love that quote and that insight that if you trust in it, if that’s where you put your trust, it breaks the hearts of its worshipers. If you find a person that you think, Ah! This is my perfect soulmate, give it a week. They’re going to disappoint you. You found the piece of music that just does it for you; the piece of music is going to come to an end. And the next time you listen to it, it’s just not going to be quite as good as the last time. Or you go to a place and say, Oh, I met God in this place! And then I went back and, I don’t know, they cut the lawn differently. But if you remember that those things are just pointers to the God who created them, it’s what Jesus said to the woman at the well. It becomes a spring of water from within that just keeps overflowing and overflowing and never leaves you thirsty.

Matt Tully Randy, thank you so much for taking the time today to help us to address some of the doubts that we can, even as Christians, wrestle with and point us to that spring of water that lives forever.

Randy Newman It’s my pleasure. Thanks.

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Go to Source Author: Crossway

[deliriumsdelight7]

Cherry and grapes, OUAT fruit, please.

And the Black Swan for the titles, thank you. :)

Thanks for the asks!

What’s your favorite character dynamic to write? (Can be romantic or platonic, specific or general!)

Nothing gets me like writing a character who has to learn how to accept love. Maybe they’re a codependent people pleaser who can’t let someone take care of them. Maybe they haven’t had a chance to learn that love doesn’t have to hurt. Maybe they’re cast out, or invisible. Maybe they’ve lost love before, and closed themselves off so they can’t get hurt again. No matter what it is, that is my CATNIP.

Is there a particular scene/episode/book/etc that you want to just write a million fics about, over and over? Which one?

Mmmm… no, not really. I mostly deal in AUs, after all (which is funny because I HATED AUs before I discovered Rumbelle).

For The Black Swan… well, first off, all credit goes to @abovethemists for the fic idea. It was their RSS prompt a couple years ago, and it inspired me. I’m actually only a chapter and an epilogue away from finishing. I could probably get it done by next month. But you know me - endings scare me! Still, I’d love to wrap it up soon.

[infosnack]

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Researchers try to tease out possible ties between long Covid and menopause https://www.statnews.com/2023/10/20/long-covid-menopause-research/?utm_campaign=rss When she stopped getting her period in March 2022, Daryn Schwartz wasn’t especially concerned. At 42, she had recently come off birth control, and figured her cycles were still adjusting. When it hadn’t come back by the summer, she sought gynecological care, but was told to wait it out. So she did, with no changes. She was having other symptoms, too — fatigue, chronic pain, and difficulty focusing. She would forget names, words even. “I started joking with my friends about cognitive decline,” she said, but “it was terrifying. It really scared me a lot.” Read the rest… via STAT Health - Science, medicine and healthcare news https://www.statnews.com/category/health/ October 20, 2023 at 04:30AM

[audiofictioncouk]

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Empire on the Edge Audio Book In tonight's feature, we delve into the gripping tale of Ning Xi, a young heiress caught in a whirlwind of family tragedy and corporate intrigue. As she faces the daunting task of saving her family's empire from the brink of collapse, Ning Xi turns to Jiang Lü, a former high school acquaintance and now a formidable Wall Street tycoon. With her father's life hanging in the balance and her brother wrongfully imprisoned, Ning Xi's desperate bid for Jiang's assistance unfolds into a saga of betrayal, old flames, and high-stakes negotiation. Join us as we unravel this compelling story of resilience, manipulation, and the lengths one will go to protect their legacy. https://audiofiction.co.uk/show.php?id=20240130-02 RSS: https://media.rss.com/empire-on-the-edge/feed.xml

Le meilleur pour la fin Audio Drama La mort au théâtre, étrange affaire, non? Qu’est ce qui pousse les grands auteurs, eux même souvent morts depuis des lustres, à tuer leurs personnages sur les planches? Et qu’est ce qui nous pousse nous spectateurs à assister à ce genre de représentation morbide? Une compagnie théâtrale tente de répondre à ces questions en montant la pièce “Le meilleur pour la fin” un florilège de toutes les façons de mourir au théâtre. Nous sommes au théâtre Henri Jeanson et nous écoutons une répétition… https://audiofiction.co.uk/show.php?id=20240130-03 RSS: https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/le-meilleur-pour-la-fin

Awakening Audio Book Embark on a suspenseful journey in "The Awakening" series as Amelia awakens in an underground nightmare, surrounded by uncertainty and fear. Join Amelia and her fellow captives as they uncover the secrets of their captors, harness their psychic abilities, and plot their daring escape from a labyrinth of horrors. Experience the growing camaraderie, the weight of captivity, and the flicker of hope that fuels their determination to defy the odds and regain their freedom. https://audiofiction.co.uk/show.php?id=20240130-04 RSS: https://anchor.fm/s/f1806618/podcast/rss

The Susie House Audio Drama A full-cast, Southern Gothic ghost story set in 1936. After falling on hard times, Honor, James, and their young son move into a rural town full of secrets -- many of them about her new home, The Susie House. https://audiofiction.co.uk/show.php?id=20240127-01 RSS: https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/thesusiehouse

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