Holy Watermelon

Did you know that the 8-day Jewish celebration of Hanukkah isn't in the Hebrew Bible? It's origins are much more recent than that! This episode, we learn about how the celebration of Hanukkah began with the Maccabees, and how your Jewish friends and family celebrate today.

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Katie Dooley 00:09

atheist not doing it needed at Clay and went strain ready the day that I shall play. Hey, today on the holy watermelon podcast are talking about Hanukkah, right wanted that as our soft opening so I thought I'd oblige. I like it last episode we talked about Diwali, which is the Hindu festival of light. And now we're talking about Hanukkah, which is the Jewish festival of light. Yay,

Preston Meyer 00:47

yay. That's pretty awesome. I've been celebrating Hanukkah for a long time. Now you have and

Katie Dooley 00:54

it's always fun. Can I ask why you started doing that?

Preston Meyer 00:58

As I'm trying to remember the first thing that that really made me want to do it. And I think it was mostly about celebrating the dedication of the temple. And the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has a few temples that were dedicated over Hanukkah, which, out of almost 200 temples, it's a very small handful that are dedicated over Hanukkah, which is the festival of celebration of the dedication of the temple, the temple. Yeah. So it's kind of cool. And the Edmonton temple fairly close to here is one of those very few that's dedicated over Hanukkah.

Katie Dooley 01:40

Interesting. Hanukkah means dedication. Exactly. Sounds very redundant.

Preston Meyer 01:48

If you didn't get there already, you're there. Now. You're

Katie Dooley 01:51

all here together now.

Preston Meyer 01:54

Yeah. And so this year, it ran from November 28 to December 6, which is the day that this episode will be reaching our listeners. Katie's double check. I

Katie Dooley 02:06

really don't know if I believe you. 22 Six, Okay, you're right. Yes, Hanukkah is over today. Yay. Happy.

Preston Meyer 02:22

So for those of you who have been celebrating Hanukkah, I hope you've been enjoying it.

Katie Dooley 02:28

So, so future, Katie, you'll have already gone to prescence Hanukkah party when she hasn't even confirmed if he's having it or not. That's cool. I definitely told you we were doing more traveling. Yeah, so that made me I'm not invited. Similar to Diwali, its Hanukkah is celebrated on the 25th day of Kislev of the Hebrew calendar. And the Hebrew calendar is also a lunar lunar calendar just like the Hindu and Muslim calendar. My from what I've read, it's basically only the Gregorian calendar, which is what we follow. That is a solar calendar. Everything else seems pretty lunar.

Preston Meyer 03:07

I mean, I've never looked into it, but I bet you there's a couple other solar calendars out there. So we

Katie Dooley 03:11

should do an episode on calendars, because some of them are tied to religions, right? Absolutely.

Preston Meyer 03:18

I mean, the Gregorian calendar is a religious calendar. It's basically the Catholic calendar. It's slightly different from the Julian calendar, which started out in Rome as well, but was basically yeah, it got abandoned by the Catholics and the Orthodox like, oh, we still like it for a while.

Katie Dooley 03:40

Anyway, that's a digression. But we'll maybe we'll do an episode on calendars. So just like Diwali, it's meant to be solid braided during the darkest days of the year, because it's the festival of light to help with both the metaphor and to make the light Salaat more spectacular.

Preston Meyer 03:56

Yeah, that's pretty great. So even though it happens in December, alongside huge holidays, like the ones you're familiar with Christmas and ...

What qualifies a man to lead the Ummah? Islam, like any religious tradition, is not monolithic. Let's explore the history of schisms and the personalities behind them in the early Islamic period. After Muhammad's death in 632 CE, there was a succession crisis; for some, it was a bigger crisis than for others.

The first to be elected to take over leadership was Abu Bakr, the prophet's father-in-law. For decades, the followers of Muhammad were fairly united, until one of his sons-in-law, Ali ibn Abi Talib, took over as the fourth caliph. This was followed by a great schism between what would come to be known as the Sunni and Shia Muslims.

The Shia have splintered further since the 7th century: The Ismailis adhere to inheritance of a lost son, and the Twelvers hope for the return of a mysterious claim of a hidden child.

Despite the many schisms that established the disunity of Islamic thought, there is much that they retain in common.

We also explore the traditions that fuel the authoritarian fundamental extremists that so many are rightly worried about.

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There's no shortage of saints with questionable careers, even during their "faithful years." For others, we might be looking at people who never existed. Let's explore more saints who might not deserve such exalted status.

We can say with almost rock solid certainty that Saint Vernoica never existed. She is famed for the veil that bears the imprinted face of Christ--in fact, that's how the name Veronica was derived: the TRUE ICON [of Christ]. Nothing about her can be verified, but the veil (certainly a hoax) has well documented travels and miracles.

Saint George of Lydda is the patron of several countries and military bodies, but there's some doubt on whether he was real. Certainly, his most famous conquest of the dragon is a fiction, typical of the knightly figures of the middle ages, and nothing more. If the man is real, then he might have been a soldier-martyr under Diocletian, and that--at least--is worth some regard, but the doubt remains--especially surrounding his various forms of attempted execution. To add further confusion around the figure, his popularity among Muslims brought new tales to his martyrdom.

Saint Angela of Foligno might have led a misguided life before confessing her Christian faith and joining the Church of Rome, but what's chilling is the possibility that she murdered her family to focus on her religious observances. She certainly liked being in the limelight, so prophecy and theological literature became the new means to that end. Always be suspicious of people who can't handle being out of the spotlight.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta (Agnes of Kolkata) was a vicious monster! Even though we've spoken of her before, there's more to say. While Katie might focus a little too much on Teresa's crisis of faith, there's a lot to unpack around how happy Teresa was to see other people suffer. Add to that the fraudulent fundraising she did for the church and you get somebody who was sainted with alarming speed.

They're not all bad saints, some of them never existed at all. For more saints that make bad role models, check out our June 2021 episode, "Guess Who's Been Sainted."

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Fascism has earned an ugly name over the last century, no question about it. Some religions lean into it, some look forward to a day when it can be openly celebrated, especially in monotheistic traditions. This week, we're exploring what it really means to be inside, to see fascism differently than what history has shown us. Straight out of the mouths of Benito Mussolini and Francisco Franco, we examine the difficulty in defining fascism, and why some Christians are taking advantage of that obscurity.

We get a little help from Umberto Eco and Stanley Payne in our efforts to delineate the nature of the beast, but few organizations hit all the landmarks--watch out for the ones that do. Ultimately, when it comes to religious groups throwing their hats in with the fascists, as we see all around the world today, it's up to every good person to stand against these fundamentalist authoritarian parties while it's still safe to do so.

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Sinclair Lewis: “When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross”
[00:00:01] Katie Dooley: I felt like you were gonna inject something else there.

[00:00:18] Preston Meyer: We don't usually record this early.

[00:00:21] Katie Dooley: Yeah, I thought you were going to say something. You did.

[00:00:23] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:00:24] Katie Dooley: Yeah. No, we don't record this early. And you can tell on this episode of.

[00:00:31] Both Speakers: The Holy Watermelon Podcast

[00:00:35] Katie Dooley: Everyone can hear our morning voices.

[00:00:36] Preston Meyer: Yum, yum.

[00:00:39] Katie Dooley: We're ready to roll.

[00:00:40] Preston Meyer: We'll see.

[00:00:42] Katie Dooley: So last episode we talked about.

[00:00:45] Preston Meyer: Communism.

[00:00:45] Katie Dooley: Communism. Why are we talking about this episode?

[00:00:48] Preston Meyer: Today we're going to talk about fascism.

[00:00:50] Katie Dooley: The opposite.

[00:00:52] Preston Meyer: I mean, they're not opposites. They're on two different spectrums. Communism is an economic policy that leans into politics in other ways. A little bit. Fascism is a governmental style that occasionally includes economic policies. And just like last time when we talked about communism, we brought it around to validate its presence on our podcast. And fascism does a really good job of pushing its way into the religious sphere.

[00:01:28] Katie Dooley: I was gonna say it's like self-validating.

[00:01:31] Preston Meyer: Uh, the vast majority of Christians are patiently waiting for a world where everybody will kneel at the throne of a single God, one that is painted as darkly totalitarian in several Christian traditions. And this looks a little bit fascist in some situations. So before we get into what that looks like in the religious sphere, I think we do need to talk about fascism in general. And if we're not describing you personally, we're probably not talking about you. A lot of people get their heckles up about fascism. It's a word that gets used as a weird pejorative. An awful lot more than it should. Yeah, a lot of people just don't like the word fascism because, you know, the fascists were the enemies during the Second World War. And that's actually the only association that a lot of people have with the word is fascists are the bad guys without any understanding why. So very few.

[00:02:32] Katie Dooley: To the point where some people don't even realize that they themselves are a fascist.

[00:02:35] Preston Meyer: Correct. Because they don't understand the word. They don't recognize what it means.

[00:02:40] Katie Dooley: I think Steve Rogers would really be really upset with the state of America right now.

[00:02:44] Preston Meyer: That definitely played into his representation in the MCU that when we first see him, he's got the star on, he's got the stripes. His second movie, the Winter soldier....

"You're a saint" might not be such a big compliment once you hear this episode! There are a lot of saints in the Roman Catholic Church... we're talking about some more questionable ones!

In this episode, we’re talking about five Catholic saints that probably shouldn’t be saints.

Saint Barbara

While her story is interesting, we have no evidence that Barbara ever existed!

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux

Saint Bernard was really devoted to Mary. Like, a little too devoted. The miracle that got him canonized is an intimate dream her had about Mary feeding the baby Jesus and squirting some milk at Saint Bernard.

Saint Thomas Moore

A devout Catholic, Thomas Moore oppressed the Protestant reformation. He didn’t want anyone wrecking his version of Christianity so he even stopped the printing and distribution of the Bible in English by destroying buildings and printing presses. If you didn’t agree with his beliefs, well he had no problem using violence against you.

Saint Junipero

Saint Junipero was a Catholic missionary that founded settlements across what is modern-day California. He was a big fan of corporal punishment and slave labour. As he converted the indigenous community of the region he forced them to do hard labour in cramped and unsanitary conditions. He was recently canonized by Pope Francis, who should’ve known better.

Mother Teresa

A literal monster, Mother Teresa created shelters for the sick and dying in Kolkata, India. However, she believed that suffering was a gift from God and that people should accept their suffering like Christ on the cross. Her mission raised hundreds of millions of dollars, but none of the money ever went to help the poor beyond sheltering them. She also baptized people without their consent to increase the numbers of the Catholic Church. She openly admitted in an interview that she didn’t do her work to help people, but rather to help the church. Oh yeah, and she would reuse needles on patients.

In addition to chatting about saints that should be saints, we discuss the process of canonization in the Roman Catholic Church and the difference between veneration and worship (hint, there isn’t any!)

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*******

Katie Dooley 00:12

Hi, Katie. How are you? Oh, great.

Preston Meyer 00:15

Excellent. Ready

Katie Dooley 00:16

to record another episode of

Preston Meyer 00:19

this the holy watermelon podcast? Absolutely, I am. Man, I've put a lot of work into studying this subject today actually

Katie Dooley 00:28

did so much and I've done so little. I'll just chime in with charming quips and and that's how I'll probably do this. I think I'll introduce it because I don't for it heart. Yeah. This is all person's idea. We're kind of going off of our path. We've we really thought methodically about what the next episode in the next episode next episode will be. And there's just so much content to cover on this topic. We didn't really know what to pick. So it's sort of throw a dart at a wall.

Preston Meyer 01:01

We used a couple of ideas here and there. And I feel like an episode or two ago, I teased what this one was going to be yes.

Katie Dooley 01:09

So today, we're talking about saints. That shouldn't be saints.

Preston Meyer 01:17

Yeah, there's there's a lot of complicated business around sainthood. Specifically, we're talking about the saints of the Roman Catholic tradition. Their the, their tradition is the most well recognized. system of saints were saints mean something.

Katie Dooley 01:36

Yeah, we haven't dived into Catholicism specifically, we had our Messiah Complex episode Christianity as a whole. But yeah, saints are huge in the Roman Catholic Church to the point where they're near deities, people pray specifically to their patron saint.

Preston Meyer 01:56

Yeah. It's, it's a behavior that is called veneration, but looks an awful lot like worship to me. We'll get into that a little bit later.

Katie Dooley 02:08

I figured we would start the episode with how does one even become a saint? So that we have a it's, how do I put this, you don't just become a s...