Join host Edouard Tahmizian for three-quarters of an hour in his follow-up interview with Richard Carrier on the metaphysical impossibility of libertarian free will. Jesus, Tahmizian points out, allegedly had free will, yet was not able to sin. So why would Adam be any different? Ultimately the only thing that would enable Adam and Eve to sin is a moral imperfection, a dysfunctionality designed by God within them. For historical context Carrier notes in response that despite modern theological overlays, the earliest Jews and Christians did not in fact believe that God was all-knowing, maximally perfect, or disembodied. So the internal contradictions that contemporary theologians have had to deal with, like why an innocent Adam would have any inclination to sin in the first place, are a modern invention. Historically, the ancients were telling a story to answer why life is so hard, why women go through such difficult childbirths, why people treat each other so badly, and so on. On the modern account, though, how would Adam and Eve even know at the outset that obeying God is good and disobeying him is evil unless they had already partook of the forbidden fruit? And why would they have any interest in that knowledge unless they were already inbuilt with a desire to know, rather than being indifferent to knowledge of good and evil? Moreover, the Genesis story never tells you why it's bad to have knowledge of good and evil in the first place. The only bad thing that's evident is that God will punish you if you have it! This time around check out a more biblically centered dive into this age-old philosophical issue!

Join host Edouard Tahmizian for a little under half-an-hour with biologist and science popularizer Melanie Trecek-King on misinformation, "artificial intelligence", young-Earth creationism, and declining birth rates. While on the one hand increasing reliance on the constantly evolving large language models branded as "artificial intelligence" threatens to weaken the basic critical thinking skills needed to distinguish between misinformation and knowledge, on the other hand directly challenging people's identity-based beliefs (about evolution or climate change, say) is likely to be less effective than giving them the evidence-based reasoning skills to rout out misinformation themselves. The discussion then turns to how birth control, resources, and giving women more choices over their lives inevitably leads to the declining birth rates that we see across the globe today before delving into how the Earth's "carrying capacity" is highly dependent upon human consumption levels. Tune in for a wide-ranging discussion and check out Trecek-King's forthcoming A Field Guide to Spotting Misinformation: How to Survive and Thrive in the Digital Age, already available for pre-order.

Join History Valley Podcast host Jacob Berman as Internet Infidels President John MacDonald opens a roughly hour-and-forty minute dialogue with Berman on what historical scholarship suggests about the deaths of Jesus and Paul, as well as how the historical Jesus' message differed from the message later promulgated by the historical Paul. Though chock-full of relevant facts, MacDonald helps viewers absorb and reflect upon the large number of details grounding his understanding by accompanying his presentation with a number of clarifying PowerPoint slides. After about the first hour Berman then offers feedback on specific points in the presentation based on his own knowledge of the scholarship. Check it out!

In this under a half-hour lecture to the Unitarian Universalist Church of Spokane (Washington state) on February 22, 2026, Los Angeles constitutional lawyer Eddie Tabash—and 29-year member of the Board of Trustees of Americans United for Separation of Church and State—shares his expertise in demonstrating that there can be no church/state separation without equal rights for atheists. The history of the crafting of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment demonstrates that the Framers intentionally designed the First Amendment to require that nonbelievers have equal rights. Tabash discusses how this perspective leads to the truth that no branch of government is permitted to favor believers over nonbelievers such that believers and nonbelievers are equal under the law.

Join hosts Edouard Tahmizian and John MacDonald for about an hour in this interview with one-time Jesus Seminar co-chair John Dominic Crossan and his recent coauthor and community organizer Michael Okinczyc-Cruz as they explain their motivation for writing Jesus and Justice: Organizing for God's Reign on Earth Then and Now. After explaining their aim and process, the interviewees turn to why a contemporary secular audience can still find much of value in the moral principles attributed to a first-century leader, whether Jesus went into Jerusalem for martyrdom, substitutionary atonement, or obedience, why claiming to be the Messiah would be a capital offense to Jesus' contemporaries, and how both first-century Israelites and later Christian sects came to understand the concepts of Resurrection and Ascension. Tune in for a wide-ranging interview on the moral and political relevance of the teachings ascribed to Jesus even—and perhaps especially—today!