ASM070 Humanism, Harmony, and Spontaneous Human Combustion

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humanism harmony and spontaneous human combustion all that and more on this week's episode of ask science mike

[Music]

welcome to ask science mike the weekly podcast where i answer your questions about science faith and life this week june 9th i'll be in saratoga at the saratoga federated church for the village forum we'll explore the tension between science and faith in christianity and doubt in a one evening event and i'd love to see you there but for now we've got a podcast to do so let's get it started [Music] [Applause] [Music] hey mike it's keith here from st catharines ontario in canada i'll be amazed if no one's asking this question yet it's on spontaneous human combustion i just want to know your thoughts on it is it possible and what's the science behind it i've watched some silly documentary on it but i don't really know whether to take it as a joke or if it's actually possible or not so yeah thanks for considering my question love your show keep being awesome peace out well spontaneous human combustion is a fascinating somewhat macabre subject and if you've never heard of it the idea is that some people catch fire without any obvious source people believe that because some human remains have been found where there's been obvious fire damage to an individual extensive fire damage especially to the torso and often people's extremities are still on the scene unburned like their hands or their feet or segments of arm or leg and these surroundings typically aren't uh up in flame or burned or show signs of fire damage other than whatever the person was in immediate proximity with and this has led to an idea that somehow under some circumstances human beings can catch on fire and you'll hear people that are proponents of spontaneous human combustion talk about interactions between like methane and the gut and enzymes or maybe talk about digestive gases being sparked by charged particles in the earth's magnetosphere or even one man who talks about an undiscovered fundamental particle in physics called the pyroton you've heard of the proton the neutron and the electron well this is the pyroton and the one thing all these theories have in common is pseudoscientific language they use technical sounding terms to lend credence to hypotheses that haven't been tested or demonstrated scientifically so you can talk about a pyroton i suppose but there's been absolutely no evidence in particle accelerators or any other experiments in physics to demonstrate the validity of that idea so i think spontaneous human combustion is extraordinarily likely to impossible now why don't i just say impossible well in particle physics some truly strange things are possible it is possible that the random motion of all the atoms in a statue happen to line up in just such a way for a moment that a statue would wave to someone that is possible it is possible within the laws of physics but it is incredibly unlikely it is astronomically unlikely even if you had a statue that had been around the entire age of the universe you still would have no significant statistical chance that that statue would have waved at any point in its existence because generally the random motions in atoms and molecules within a given structure cancel each other out in the same way that you it's either impossible or extremely unlikely to have thermal energy to coalesce in some mass of human tissue in such a way that you get sufficient heat to trigger ignition the fact is human bodies aren't terribly combustible so for people to catch on fire you need some kind of accelerant and you need some material that catches fire more easily and stays on fire to keep the kind of sustained thermal pressure on our tissue to cause it to ignite so what about these bodies that have been discovered well there's a couple of ideas in more plausible science that could describe this one is something called the wick effect basically that some small fire perhaps from a cigarette or other small source of flame caused either clothing or body hair to catch fire in such a way and for such a time uh that as the person passed from surface wounds to their body and burns or were immobilized then their body fat began to burn and uh basically you got a candle-like assemblage of human tissue this is really macabre stuff uh i just realized this is a weird question to lead with like oh how frivolous spontaneous human combustion but what are we talking about the you know combustion of human tissue so so there's the wick effect that's one possibility another idea is heat gradients when you light a match and you hold it up vertically the bottom of the mat stays cool right the same thing would be true if a person's torso caught on fire the flame wouldn't necessarily spread down to their limbs but it would almost certainly spread up to their their face and then i think the most likely explanation for most cases of so-called spontaneous human combustion is a bad actor trying to cover up foul play they're eliminating evidence of whatever trauma was involved when they ended someone's life so i know there's those documentaries out there and believe me they are fascinating but i don't find them particularly credible or compelling from a scientific standpoint again why they have all the markings of pseudoscience technical language used incorrectly original scientific theory from non-credible sources and of course a failure to demonstrate through experiment or observation a basis to justify their claims our next question came in via email and it reads hey science mike you seem to be a fan of humanism i mean from what i've heard you think it's pretty great for me most of my adult life has been shaped by the idea that humanism is bad which is mostly rooted in the paris read head definition of humanism editor's note or science mike's note i don't have any idea who that person is paris read head definition of hism being that the end of all being is the happiness of man in my experience humanism has been prevalent in the church and no one needs to look farther than the doctrine of heaven and eternal rewards to see how humanistic the evangelical church can be in fact most religions seem to focus on what we can get out of it my question is why is humanism such a positive thing is it really rooted in our own happiness or is there a deeper science to it that enables us to do the right thing for the sake of what we might gain from it st thomas aquinas pointed out that doing the right thing for the wrong reason is in itself an evil act so is humanism enough or rather am i off on my understanding of what humanism is that is a phenomenal question thank you for asking it and giving me a chance to clarify humanism one thing that grieves me in the church is when we do something called the straw man fallacy now i'm actually not really into pointing out logical fallacies in rhetorical discussions logical fallacies have to do with the formal logic process and although they can inform our thinking i think we're too quick to throw out and quote fallacies on the internet in the course of just a normal discussion that isn't actually a rigorous exercise in logic but in this case it seems that christians are not immune from the very human tendency to define an oppositional group or an opponent in a way that makes them more convenient to defeat so if you define humanism as an idea that human happiness matters more than anything that's a relatively easy idea to take apart it is not humanism let's talk about a couple of definitions of humanism here from the oxford english dictionary humanism an outlook or system of thought attaching prime importance to human rather than divine or supernatural matters humanist beliefs stress the potential value and goodness of human beings emphasize common human needs and seek solely rational ways of solving human problems you will notice the word happiness was never mentioned here's another definition that i think is shorter and more concise humanism is a democratic and ethical life stance that affirms that human beings have the right and responsibility to give meaning and shape to their own lives again the word happiness is not part of that definition and i would challenge you to find anyone who identifies as a humanist who defines humanism as pacing prime importance on human happiness i am actually a huge fan of humanism as a philosophy and here's an interesting thing about moral philosophies like humanism it's not a science now humanism is certainly a philosophy largely compatible with the scientific method and with empiricism as a philosophy of knowing or an epistemology but it's not it's not a science based it emphasizes the importance of rational thought in addressing problems but it's not a science for people who no longer believe in god or never believed in god they can't use divine will or divine law as a basis for moral thinking in fact most of them find it very difficult to use any objective standard for morality but that does not mean they are without morals so humanism is a moral philosophy used to guide ethical decisions and in its decision-making rubric instead of what does god have to say on this topic it's how do actions affect other people and how do we protect the right of human beings to shape their own destiny and when does that right end and humanism would say your ability to shape your own destiny ends when it robs someone else of that same basic right so if you believe your destiny is to be the overlord to every human being on the planet humanism would rob you of that destiny why because you would then be eliminating the rights of other humans and that right being their ability to shape their own existence i call myself a religious humanist as opposed to the far more common secular humanist secularists tend to be post-religious the fact is i'm learning i am a deeply religious person i love science uh but i'm deeply religious but what i i don't do is use my religious beliefs to mandate how other people live their lives because i have found a faith that makes me feel close to god but i don't make any objective claims that have special knowledge based on that religious faith i can't demonstrate to a legal or scientific standard of evidence why my faith is any more correct than someone else's which is why i am a humanist because i believe every person has a right to shape their own life and to find their own meaning i find my meaning in god i find my meaning in the life i see modeled in jesus christ but as a religious humanist i don't expect other people to follow the same breadcrumbs to chase the same experiences to offer the same authority to this this religious belief system i can understand why people object to a jesus who was resurrected from the dead or who was the incarnate of god i can even understand why some people reasonably say that jesus as a person doesn't fit enough of a standard of evidence to even say conclusively that he existed in the first place so i can't ask people to live a judeo-christian life but i can choose to live on so yeah absolutely i'm a huge fan of humanism i think humanists do good in the world i think in many ways humanists represent moral progress and i think that many humanists do a good job of calling out the ugliest pieces of our faith the parts of the church that are most desperate need of reform it's humanists who speak loudest about child abuse in churches about authoritarian and abusive systems and also about the tendency in america especially for conservative politics and the christian faith to conflate together and move in ways that threaten the well-being of mankind i think for example of climate change so i appreciate humanists as people i appreciate humanism as a philosophy and i absolutely appreciate the way humanists call out the church and challenge us to be better humans [Music] do you ever feel completely overwhelmed by email like you don't even want to open it because on your phone that little red circle says 200 or 300 or 1100 unread emails do you find that you spend more time during your work day responding to email than anything else do you wish your email was just a little more saying well i use a product called sanebox and sanebox is a surface that is absolutely magical when you sign up it connects to your email server and it goes through and sorts all your email for you so your inbox becomes nothing but messages from the people you work with the most messages that actually require a response and everything else gets put in a different folder you can look through when you have more time i am not kidding when i say sanebox has changed the way i do email it works with any device it works with any mail program you don't have to change anything about your setup sanebox will work with how you work today so if you're interested in taking control of your email just go to sanebox.com sciencemic where you can not only get more information but you can also get a discount on any sanebox plan against sanebox dot com slash science mike for more sanity in your email [Music] hey science mike got a leo question for you a lot of your questions are geared towards the science and christian community my question is from the atheist perspective i am an atheist much to the sugaring of my parents who are in the ministry i became a very angry christopher hitchens kind of atheist but thanks to your doubt series that very much changed my perspective but not so much my resolution i see the idea for god as a force for good in the world my facebook is 97 christian there are a lot of times people will post very right wing or conservatives ideas and posts one time i couldn't help it but posting atheist meme to counter the person's argument now i am a closeted atheist and this caused quite a big a stir so i removed the post not long after i've come to the realization that any extremism in any group is wrong and not a true representation of that group like christians saying thank god for dead soldiers or muslims or terrorists or atheists are the only school people my question is how do we be passionate about what we believe but still have love and harmony for each other thanks science mike that's a fantastic question and i'm glad you care about it i'm really encouraged anytime i hear that people want to have more gracious discussions the entire reason i do this podcast i guess not the entire reason but a huge reason i do this podcast is just to try to encourage people to have better conversations to be more gracious to each other because there's billions of us on this planet all just trying to figure out how to get through life and so my answer starts there i realize that everyone on my facebook timeline and my twitter feed in the grocery store and the highway are all just people trying to get through life and that they've got stress they have to figure out how to pay the bills they have to figure out how to keep the house clean and eat they've got to take care of their kids or their pets there's all these stressors on them and sometimes they feel lonely other times they feel overwhelmed or they fear rejection i understand that in many ways human life is hard i know sometimes in the morning before i've had my coffee even if i've had a time of reflection and meditation i can be distant or grumpy with my own family the people i love the most and if i can be grumpy with my wife and children just because i haven't had a cup of coffee yet well certainly other people could be more than grumpy on the internet i start by understanding that people are often operating from places of fatigue or stress or pain and i think how would i want to be treated if i was tired or stressed or hurting i also am propelled to a posture of humility there are just so many things i don't know and there's so many things that i hold dear that i've researched and i'm still wrong about earlier in this program in an earlier episode i was describing egalitarianism as a philosophy not egalitarianism eagletarianism here i am a person who reads all the time and i'd never heard that word said aloud so how can i look down my nose at someone else who uses a word incorrectly or pronounces a word incorrectly or is somehow misinformed i work as hard as anyone i know at being well informed and i am very often misinformed i understand that people did not choose the cultures or families they were born into and so i offer people grace but that's not all i don't take the internet very seriously it's an amazing encyclopedia i love seeing vacation pictures and family photos in facebook but the vitriolic discourse so common to our online spaces i just kind of check out of without hesitation i unfollow people or media sources on social media that continually put harsh emotional energy into my social media experience because i understand that i'm human and if i too often allow my amygdala to get fired up because of the internet it will create a pattern of behavior that i will later regret so i step out it's frankly a waste of my precious time to try to convince or cajole people one-on-one to think differently on the internet so in your case if i you've asked for my advice i'll give it if if you hadn't asked i would never say this but in your case why not just unfollow those people it's that simple if it's the same people over and over putting right wing information in your news feed that just seems vitriolic or misinformed to you unfollowed now i am careful i like to keep thoughtful people who disagree with me in my social media news feeds and i actually try to fill my news feeds as much as possible with thoughtful people who come from different perspectives but you know i know what you're talking about there's there's unthoughtful opposition and i'm not interested in it so just unfollow and in terms of the closet atheist thing that's a rough spot i've been there and i'm sorry you're going through that and i hope somehow you're able to come to a point in your life where you can be honest with those people closest to you about how you see the world and yes how you see god if you're anything like me there's a particular type of exhaustion that comes from hiding your beliefs all the time and it may be possible that some of your frustration with what you see on social media is actually related to an emotional psychological fatigue related to being a closet atheist and i would spend some time in reflection to see if there's any way any plausible avenue that you can live your life in a more whole way in a way there where you can be yourself for all of my christian friends listening right now how can we be better friends to our friends who don't believe in god anymore how can we make them feel more safe and more comfortable with where they are because i think if we can learn to do that we'll actually do a better job of living out the gospel in this world do you ever get a thank you card in the mail or get well soon card how about a gift do you ever do you like to receive those i do i am always challenged that i should be a more thoughtful person when people send me cards and letters but the fact is my handwriting is terrible and it's always hard to find a stamp and honestly i'm the kind of person that likes to do things that stand out which is why i think pinatagrams are so much fun you go to pinatagrams.com you fill out a simple form you pay twenty dollars and a pinata gets mailed to the person you choose it's full of candy it has a message on its label for the person you send it to it's an absolutely whimsical way to make an amazing impression try it yourself today at pinatagrams.com our last question came in via email and it does contain a little uh adult theme not super heavy but it will have some adult terms so if you're listening with your kids and you haven't had the talk yet maybe hit pause and pick this back up after they've gone to bed hi science mike love this podcast big fan my question is this what good to believers is a non-sexual jesus non-sexual jesus is a phrase i recently heard on the you made it weird podcast with pete holmes where i first heard your story and refers to a jesus who while fully god and fully man never had a sexual experience i.e intercourse masturbation etc at least based on what we know from the bible as a man who has been married for seven years and has had what i'd consider a fairly intense sex drive my whole life what good is a non-sexual jesus to a guy slash gal who at some times feels insatiable or like their sex drive is out of control what could i or we i'm likely not alone here possibly take away from his teachings that applies to a specific aspect of humanity that he never experienced i'm sure the answer to this question has loads of applications for the single slash non-married folk as well thanks so much for your podcast dn minnesota when i saw your question i got selected for this week's patreon poll i was like maybe they just won't vote for it i won't have to answer this one and then it was of course the most voted for question on this week's poll by far which means i have to answer it and why i don't want to answer it will maybe surprise you i'm not squeamish about talking about sex and sexuality that doesn't bother me at all i am reticent about speaking on theological matters that have to do with a detailed understanding of ancient history of which i am no expert so kind of like last week where someone asked me what philosophies informed early christianity to talk about this question we have to talk about first century ideas of sex and sexuality and i'm just not an expert i've read more than the average bear but holy cow am i not an expert uh so let's think about this first of all um the first century jewish ethic about sexual purity uh was primarily about the protection of property it's primarily about the protection of property daughters were property of fathers and they were exchanged for economic goods or services or some combination in a marriage ritual at which point that property was transferred to another family and part of the value of a daughter was virginity probably based on a primitive understanding of sexually transmitted diseases that could have been a role and why virginity was so valued and the main focus for a woman was her ability to produce children children were a sign of prosperity and wealth in that culture this meant that kids got married when they were 12 or 13. so there's a reason a premarital sex wasn't discussed all that often it wasn't a huge deal just wasn't extramarital sex was a big deal because humans are humans to sleep with another man's wife was to defile or steal property and i'm sure some historian is screaming right now so whatever i've missed i apologize i look forward to your email and getting smarter on this topic now that was kind of the first century judeo outlook now the greco-roman outlook was completely well not completely different but different rome cared a great deal about masculinity versus femininity and if you could look at a gender binary or an orientation binary in roman society it had to do more about active penetrator versus receiver or penetrated and so it was perfectly acceptable for example for a man who was high in roman society to penetrate whom he pleased um totally normal in that society for men to be attracted to teenage boys or girls but it was also frowned upon to be unrestrained or uncontrolled sexually it's kind of a strange dynamic especially in our modern context so it's not it's not fair to say that rome was without sexual norms or ethics that was just some sort of completely unrestrained sexual culture that is not historically accurate it is fair to say it was very different from modern sexual ethics uh and you know you could make an argument that we're actually more obsessed with sex today than first century jews or greco-roman cultures in the first century but that means you know we have this fourth century view on sexuality most of the church's views on sex aren't actually related to teachings in the time of christ or even teachings of jesus but to some bishops in the 4th century whose beliefs got really magnified in the puritanical movement and there's a very strong puritanical undercurrent to american sexuality even to some degree european sexuality although nowhere nearly as strong as an influences as is in the united states where all sex is sort of taboo and dirty that's a newer idea historically uh masturbation for example uh isn't mentioned much in the bible when it is it's in the context of a man named onan who spilled his seed on the ground but that was not his sin his sin was actually his failure to impregnate his deceased brother's wife and then in the law of the day he had an obligation to help her father children after his brother died and instead he spilled his seed into the ground which was the sin of onan there's not actually to my knowledge any specific prohibition against masturbation in the bible and if you look at things like christ talked about lust my understanding of the original language is that word lust is a covetous desire you wish to have something that's not yours which comes back to what that property view of sexuality well what on earth use is that jesus to us a jesus who really only spoke about what divorce adultery lust well if the bible is to be believed and if christian theology is to be believed then jesus was fully man and fully god and he experienced the full range of temptations that humanity experiences and resisted them that's the gospel story for most of the church anyway what use is that jesus to us well what uses a jesus who lived in a culture where women were viewed as property what use is the jesus who spoke arabic instead of english we can't ignore the fact that we're separated by 2 000 years we're separated by language we're separated by cultural norms from jesus this is not the sexuality issue is not the only way in which we are very distant from the life of christ and that's why i think it's important as a thoughtful believer to engage in some degree of historical study so you can better understand the context in which jesus lived and if you'd like to know what good is a jesus to you today i'd like to share with you the most helpful book i've ever read on the topic it is called sitting at the feet of rabbi jesus how the jewishness of jesus changes our faith and it's based on a movement called hebrew roots christianity where scholars learn as much as they can about first century judaism in order to better understand the gospel texts in the relationship of the gospels to the other books of the bible it's a it's a very accessible book um there are certainly critics of hebrew roots christianity in the church but i have personally found it helpful and illuminating even if i don't agree with all of the theological implications and the whole idea here is that by looking at jesus through the lens of his culture we learn more about his actions and his words and it actually makes jesus more relatable to us today because we understand the cultural context for what he did i highly recommend the book it's an easy read and it may start you down a journey where you can understand why there's so many differences and so many points where from a modern american perspective it's difficult to understand or relate to the historical person of jesus well that's another week's worth of ask science mike um forgive me if it's a little noisy this week i'm recording in the gungers studio i forgot my microphone in tallahassee while we're in la this week and a few announcements for you number one as i said at the top of the show june 9th i'll be in saratoga california for the village forum at saratoga federated church you can learn more about that event by going to ask sciencemike.com and clicking on the events tab also last week i mentioned we're going to do a book tour for finding god in the ways which is my upcoming book this fall and i asked if you're interested in bringing in your town to just go to findinggonthewaves.com launch and oh wow a lot of you did so if you'd like me to come to your town don't wait go to findinggodintheways.com launch before all the cities where you can get me to come at a discounted rate of well actually no fee at all just travel that's all you need to get me to come to your community uh you can figure out more about that and learn all the details finding god in the waves dot com slash launch donald tilly dally there won't be you won't be able to get me anyway the fall is filling up fast um i also want to tell you some friends of mine i'm going to be at wild goose and i'd love to see you there you can get a discount of 25 off your ticket by using goose cast 16 when you buy your ticket but there's a really cool pre-festival activity and that's a done by the racial justice institute now this has got some of my favorite people leading here mickey scott b jones is heading the whole thing up kenji kuramitsu just an amazing voice on intersectional christianity and on the role that mixed race people have in the church and in society as a whole it's also going to have dr paul alexander reverend jennifer bailey and others it's going to be a personal and communal journey of a deeply intersexual quest for more understanding self-reflection healing and moral imagination around issues of race and oppression in the american and international context so it's 59 bucks i think in addition to your wild goose ticket so you buy it on the same uh wild goose festival website uh that you buy your main ticket on and you just come a day early and this is gonna be mind-blowing if you listen to our racism in america our first show called black and white and you wanted to learn more you're going to learn more in this day than you will if you listen to all of our podcasts okay these are these are the people doing this work and doing it well highly recommend that the day before wild goose thursday july 7th it's gonna be 8 30 a.m to 4 30 p.m take some energy bars because your brain's going to need it seriously don't miss it there's there's space available and uh they'd love to see you and finally uh you know the largest gathering is coming up denver and chicago uh chicago's over half full now it's june and chicago's over half full uh denver is about 35 full so hurry up and get your tickets if you wait until august even july you might not get in this is a an amazing event it's not just you you're not the only person who's trying to figure out what it means to be a follower of christ today you're not the only person who thinks these weird thoughts about science and how it informs our faith you're not the only one hungry for deeper more authentic and more beautiful artistic expressions in the context of our faith so we're going to get together in denver and chicago and talk about it tickets are 75 we've worked so hard to bring the cost of the tickets down and make them accessible it's going to be an intimate gathering you're going to hang out with me michael gunger lisa gunger the honey badger my wife will be there uh we may have some special friends join us as well especially if we sell out but you don't want to miss it so you go to the liturgist.com gathering you can get a ticket we've even got a discounted rate for couples as in lifetime committed couples without any prejudice towards orientation or gender but you do need to be a lifetime committed couple to get that discount the litters gathering is going to be amazing it came out of what we did with belong along with some of the most powerful things i've been a part of and i know the lure just gathering is going to be the same way i'd love to see you there i want to thank andrew gallucki uh for not only doing the pre-production work on the show but also for what he's done with together we're trying to help people find each other and coordinate meetups in cities across america you can go to this week's episode on ask sciencemike.com and click the together link to find if together is in your city or requested to come to yours so andrew thanks for taking that on that's an amazing amazing thing greg nordine as always makes the show possible by producing it and jeb botiford wrote that theme song that you sing to me in airports and at events and it never gets old thanks for listening everybody and i'll see you next week [Applause] [Music] so i'd like to take a moment and talk to you about the show's two sponsors this week i really love them both and they're products i use personally the first is pinatagrams i mentioned it on last week's show and it they've told me there was a big response from that so thank you it's amazing you send people a pinata in the mail you go to pinatagrams.com you fill out a form you pay 20 plus shipping and they ship a pinata full of candy to a person of your choosing it is adorable it is simply adorable i've sent one to a couple of folks and then i've received one as well you literally not in a box or 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