Pod Only Knows - Weekend Chit-Chat Episode #1 - The Middle Way

Weekend Chit-Chat Episode #1 - The Middle Way

Explicit content warning

05/27/23 • 44 min

Pod Only Knows

In the first weekend episode, John bring Kelly the topic of the Buddhist teaching of The Middle Way.

One of the first breakthroughs in Siddhartha's journey to become the Buddha, the Middle Way reminds us that in order to be successful in our quests, we must center ourselves in moderation. This means avoiding the pitfalls of thinking in terms of extremes - that the answer to our problems is probably not ever the opposite of whatever caused them.

As a society, and as a culture, we suck at this. And, worse, we tend to confuse the wisdom of this teaching with an endorsement of centrism, contrarianism, or moderation for moderation's sake.

And as two people who tend to take on more than they can handle and are very bad at considering their own mental well-being, your two hosts consider where they might learn from the Buddha's insights here as well!

In the first weekend episode, John bring Kelly the topic of the Buddhist teaching of The Middle Way.

As a society, and as a culture, we suck at this. And, worse, we tend to confuse the wisdom of this teaching with an endorsement of centrism, contrarianism, or moderation for moderation's sake.

Previous Episode

#002 - Dr. Megan Goodwin on public scholarship in religious studies

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This week, Kelly and John talk to Dr. Megan Goodwin about the importance of getting religious studies out to the public and the challenges and tools for doing so.

Dr. Goodwin is the co-host of the podcast Keeping it 101: A Killjoy's Introduction to Religion. Her formal expertise is in issues of gender, sexuality, race, politics, and American religions. She is the author of the 2020 book Abusing Religion: Literary Persecution, Sex Scandals, and American Minority Religions as well as the forthcoming Cults, Inc.

Here she talks to your hosts about her journey into religious studies, why people should care about religion (even if they aren't religious), how her podcast works to demystify religion and make it more accessible, and why she calls Kelly "Kellsworth".

You can find out more about her here: https://www.megan-goodwin.com/

Next Episode

#003 - Magic's a Messy Bitch - with Dr. Shaily Patel

When you work in religious studies, sometimes you get to work on really cool subjects, like Dr. Shaily Patel, who works on magic.

For centuries, magic had been an integral part of religion. So much so, in fact, that it's hard to really see it as a separate category.

So when did we start removing magic from religious practice and putting into the wands of boy wizards and teenage witches, or the hands of bearded old men? Why is magic a Vegas act instead of Church liturgy?

The short answer is Christianity.

The long answer is what Kelly and John invited Shaily on to talk about this week.

Shaily Patel is an assistant professor of early Christianity at Virginia Tech. She earned her Ph.D. from The University of North Carolina in 2017 and holds master’s degrees from Vanderbilt Divinity School and The University of Chicago.

You can find her on Twitter @vox_magica