GDay World 370 – Dr Greg Clarke on Australians and Jesus

My guest today is Dr Greg Clarke (PhD), Honorary Associate, Dept of Ancient History, Macquarie University
and Director of the Centre for Public Christianity.

We talk about the survey that the CPX has recently sponsored that finds that 55 per cent of Australians don’t believe that Jesus rose from the dead but only 11 per cent doubt that Jesus was a real historical figure. As you know, I am one of those 11 per cent. So Greg and I also had a chat about the lack of evidence (as I see it) for the existence of Jesus. As Greg works in the Dept of Ancient History I thought he could confirm for me that my basic facts are correct. As you’ll hear, that was like drawing blood from a stone. 🙂

Here are the census stats for religion in Australia.

If you want to join me in celebrating
Vanini Day, then join the club.

If you want to listen to some of my other podcasts on the history of Jesus, see this page.

And finally, please support TPN’s April drive! We need your support!

If you want to keep TPN on the air, please show your support. If just the listeners of this show contributed $20 a month, I could fund TPN indefinitely! Is the information and entertainment you get from TPN worth a bottle of cheap wine?

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GDay World 369 – The Marathon

OMFG. Last night I did a live show with my most-excellent co-host Mr Nick Hodge and WE TALKED FOR FOUR HOURS. I kid you not. I only recorded the first THREE HOURS and I present them to you here (well the audio version anyway – to see the video you have to turn up on the night). Oh and this audio recording only has two of the five live numbers I performed during the show. One was in the pre-show festivities (“Come On Eileen”) and there were a couple during the post-show wind-down (including “Ship Song”by Nick Cave).

During this four hour marathon, Nick and I discussed:

    Australia’s National Broadband Network
    America’s bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
    Whether or not Nick is an atheist or an agnostic
    The financial crisis scam and what we might replace capitalism with
    The ethics of veganism
    The Church of LOTU
    The historicity of Jesus (or lack thereof)

And much, much more.

Listen to the full three hours – if you dare.

Tune in to future live shows every Tuesday night at 8pm here.

Obama’s Top Economic Advisors and Their Ties to Wall St

clipped from www.salon.com

As much as he campaigned against anything, Obama railed against precisely this sort of incestuous, profoundly corrupt control by narrow private interests of the Government, yet he has chosen to empower the very individuals who most embody that corruption.  And the results are exactly what one would expect them to be.

A terrific article – must reading – on Salon which details how Obama’s administration is closely tied to Wall St firms that it is currently bailing out with taxpayer funds.

This paragraph sums up the scam:

Just think about how this works. People like Rubin, Summers and Gensler shuffle back and forth from the public to the private sector and back again, repeatedly switching places with their GOP counterparts in this endless public/private sector looting. When in government, they ensure that the laws and regulations are written to redound directly to the benefit of a handful of Wall St. firms, literally abolishing all safeguards and allowing them to pillage and steal. Then, when out of government, they return to those very firms and collect millions upon millions of dollars, profits made possible by the laws and regulations they implemented when in government. Then, when their party returns to power, they return back to government, where they continue to use their influence to ensure that the oligarchical circle that rewards them so massively is protected and advanced. This corruption is so tawdry and transparent — and it has fueled and continues to fuel a fraud so enormous and destructive as to be unprecedented in both size and audacity — that it is mystifying that it is not provoking more mass public rage.

William K Black on The Financial Crisis Cover-Up

Bill Moyers sits down with William K. Black, the former senior regulator who cracked down on banks during the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s. Black offers his analysis of what went wrong and his critique of the bailout.

I love the term they are using for bankers who deliberately defraud society – “banksters”. Black says the entire financial system is one big ponzi scheme, making Bernie Madoff looking like an amateur and fall guy for the larger crime which involved the entire financial system and governments who allowed them to go unregulated.

Watch.