God’s Dynamic Character

Mike and Todd discuss the work of Jack Miles and the different experiences and perspectives on God found in the Bible. Approached as a biography, the Bible crafts a fascinating and dynamic story of God’s developing character and God’s developing relationship with humanity. God is at times creator, destroyer, liberator, lawgiver, conqueror, executioner, wife, Holy One, recluse, puzzle, and Ancient of Days. And then, for Christians, the development and new birth of God as human being, co-sufferer, and teacher of nonviolence and universal love.

Category Theory

Jakob and Todd discuss category theory, an important field in modern mathematics that focuses on the relations (morphisms) between mathematical objects. We discuss the importance of abstraction and the development in the history of mathematics beyond solving particular problems to studying the general nature of mathematical structures as such, the kinds of problems that can and can’t be solved, their properties, etc. We also consider the significance of a relation-centered approach to other fields, how things like languages, theories, and beliefs can be analyzed by the relations between their constituent elements.

For the visual aids referred to in the discussion see the video version on YouTube.

Star Wars: Padmé and the Vote of No Confidence

Jeff and Todd discuss Padmé and her call for the vote of no confidence that launched Palpatine’s rise to the chancellorship and to absolute power. We look at her actions from different ethical perspectives – deontological, teleological, virtue – and at her complicated role in the narrative as both hero and pawn, as well as her dominant presence and importance in the arc of the whole saga.