This Could Be Interesting

TCBI #16 - Evaluating Values - Taylor Ealand

Taylor Ealand runs a conservative news commentary show called "Contrarix". Taylor reached out to me to chat a little bit ago, and we had a great conversation on his show about religion and politics. We had such a good time we decided to follow it up for This Could Be Interesting. We were interested in trying to unpack a little bit of the conundrum of evaluating values in the modern sphere. Why do we value things, and how can we back up or defend those values? Can we even? Are there such things as "objective values". There were a few errors in how the file got saved, but I did my best to reconstruct the damaged parts. Garrett Vandenberg (host) https://twitter.com/GarrettJVMusic​​ https://www.facebook.com/garrettvandenberg https://www.instagram.com/garrettvandberg https://www.garrettvandenberg.com/​​ Taylor Ealand https://twitter.com/contrarix https://www.youtube.com/user/Taylorntaylorchannel/featured

TCBI #15 - Pierre Proudhon and the Individual - Cayce Jamil

Cayce Jamil is an RA and Ph.D. student at UNC Charlotte. While I spent some time in Charlotte growing up, I actually came into contact with Cayce via a conversation thread on Reddit on one of the previous videos for this project. His responses were thoughtful and interesting but definitely strayed away from my own views. His views also revolved around a political thinker I hadn't heard of "Pierre-Joseph Proudhon", and I was interested to hear more. I asked if he'd be interested in having a longer conversation on the podcast and he graciously agreed.

TCBI #14 - Where Christianity Hits the Fan - Kevin McCreary

Kevin McCreary is a YouTuber, podcaster, comedian, and all-around creative guy. I've known Kevin for a very long time. He was one of the very first connections I made with someone originally through the internet that ended up sticking around to be part of my life. Kevin and I have done various creative projects together here and there for the past 10 years. Kevin has always been a great friend as well as an interesting conversation partner. Our views clash on certain issues, but Kevin is such a genuinely funny and fun guy, it's impossible to have even a serious conversation about something we disagree about without spending a majority of the time laughing.

TCBI #13 - The Goat for Azazel - Daniel Townhead

I recently got to have a conversation with Daniel "The Wakeful" Townhead. Daniel wrote an article recently that really intrigued me, so I reached out to him to see if he'd be willing to talk about it! The article is about philosopher Rene Girard's interpretation of the ancient myths and archetypal patterns of the stories man has held onto since before history. Girard thought there was something connecting these stories and it hinged around two (complicated?) concepts: "Mimesis", and "The Scapegoat". Fundamentally, Girard thought all these stories pointed to a strategy societies all over the world had discovered for how to get along despite their differences, and once they did, codified through ritual and myth. Figuring out how to get along despite differences is exactly what this project is all about, so I knew we needed to have a conversation and unpack this guy's ideas to see how they apply to our current world.

TCBI #12 - Reality and the Emergence of God - JP Marceau

"As infants, we learn to perceive simple objects, and eventually people. As children, we learn to perceive increasingly complex emotions in people. Later, we begin to discern narratives and moral patterns. As we grow older, we learn to perceive social and historical patterns. As Christians, we strive to perceive the Pattern of all patterns, i.e., God." - JP Marceau, "Perception is Symbolic" Jean-Philippe (JP) Marceau is a self-described "part-time philosopher" (because who pays enough to let any of us do it full time?). After graduating with honours in 2015 from McGill University studying math and computer science, he pivoted from math to philosophy. In 2016 he began a master's degree in philosophy at Laval University. In recent year's he's become an active contributor to Jonathan Pageau's "The Symbolic World" website and youtube channel. I became aware of JP through Jonathan Pageau, Paul Vanderklay, and John Vervake who have all had conversations with him in the past. After listening to Jordan Peterson's latest conversation with Pageau as well as JP and John Vervake's discussion on miracles, I had some stuff I was looking for a thinking partner to process. I reached out to JP and he graciously agreed to have a conversation with me.

TCBI #11 - A Being of Pure Evil - Andrew Gaskin

Andrew Gaskin is one of the most intuitive and creative people I know. He's extremely talented and way too humble. Every time I talk to him I'm amazed at the vast connections he makes and the interesting insights he comes up with. He's also an extremely talented vocalist and lyricist and has been a part of several musical projects, including a few we worked on together. Not too long ago Andrew made the strange claim to me that "Evil doesn't exist". We had a few shorter chats about his idea, but I thought a discussion of evil as a concept might be an interesting enough topic to deserve a long-form conversation.

TCBI #10 - How To Prevent a War - Peter Farrugia

Dr. Peter Farrugia received his D. Phil. from Oxford in 1991 with a thesis on French Anti-War Thought Contrasted to Its British Counterpart. He's taught at various universities but in 1999 he started teaching at Laurier Brantford as one of the founding faculty members. I was introduced to Peter by Ken Paradis. He and Peter are good friends, and connected partly due to Ken's unique openness and interest in religion and Peter's staunch Christianity in a predominantly non-religious academic system. Peter had so many interesting things to share with me, from the premises of WWI&II and how they related to the current political moment to meaningful insights on how he balances his faith and work life.

TCBI #9 - A Theism Chat - Alex Pallas

Alex Pallas is an atheist/ex-evangelical from Australia. I met Alex through one of Paul Vanderklay's Q&A videos in February when he asked some thoughtful questions about the Christian stories. I was interested to pick his brain further, so I reached out to him and he graciously agreed to have a conversation with me. While coming to definitively different answers to the question "do you believe in God", Alex and I actually had a lot in common in our views. In the areas we differ, I really enjoyed hearing from him and what he had to say was genuinely interesting to me. --- Thanks again Alex for hanging out!

TCBI #8 - Religion, Faith, Pastors... What's The Point? - Paul Vanderklay

Paul Vanderklay is the pastor of Living Stones Christian Reformed Church in Sacramento California. While his position includes teaching a group of people in person, Paul teaches a much larger pool of people on a weekly basis via his youtube channel with a weekly series called "Rough Draft for Sunday" where he gives a first pass at delivering content he's putting together for a sermon the following Sunday. His channel has amassed a fairly large following, partly due to his engagement and commentary on the ideas of the thinkers in the IDW and Meaning Crisis movements, such as Jordan Peterson, John Vervake, Jonathan Pageau, and the Weinstein brothers.

TCBI #7 - Slightly Unorthodox - Devon Peacock

Devon Peacock is a very interesting person to me. I first met him when we were both in our early teens while I was traveling through Eastern Canada with my family. We reconnected recently after Facebook decided to start including his quips, memes, and political hot takes in my feed. I was especially interested to chat with him about Orthodox Christianity, as when we met we were both part of the Evangelical community and when we reconnected recently he mentioned his departure to the Orthodox Christian tradition. I had a great time getting to hear more about his perspective on things, and I hope you enjoy hearing from him too.