ASM054 Self-worth, Universalism, and Other Holy Books

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self-worth universalism and other holy books 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 i'm in park city utah at the sundance film festival with my good friends in the wind writer institute if you're at sundance tweet me something i'd love to say hi and hang out there maybe even a couple events i could see you at but i can't really put them all on the website so just tweet me and we'll hook up and let's get it started [Music] hi science mike i'm wondering if i can ask you some questions about self-worth feelings of personal inherent value and contributing to society specifically what happens when all of those things just totally fall apart so here's the deal i have been diagnosed with a chronic and debilitating disease the life that i used to have has totally disappeared and now my days are filled with hours and hours of sleep and intermittent spurts of doing little things with my family my old active life is just totally gone one of the hardest adjustments for me has been that i feel like i'm no longer contributing to society or even to my family when i can't do anything christianese says i'm valuable because i'm a child of god spiritualism says i'm valuable just because i am but what about science is there a scientific or neurological reason i feel like i need to be a contributing member of society to be valuable i know i'm throwing you such a softball here it'll be so easy for you to answer i can't wait to hear your thoughts on this thanks well the first thing i'd like to say is i'm so sorry you are going through that what an awful experience i had a concussion uh late last year and i was in the middle of doing a lot of things i thought were really important my dad had had a stroke and i was actively involved in his caregiving and recovery and medical regimen i was in the absolute most intense time in working on and writing my book and i do this weekly podcast you may have heard of called ask science mike and we were trying to do some planning for uh the next season of the liturgists and i had to stop everything i couldn't do anything i had to just sit there i couldn't watch tv i couldn't read i couldn't answer emails i literally couldn't do anything for a few weeks it was incredibly frustrating and that was just a concussion for just a small period of time a couple of weeks and i think that gives me just enough of a taste of what you're going through for me to be able to say that from the bottom of my heart i am so sorry that you're going through this now you made a little bit of a joke there at another question about throwing such a softball the good news is scientifically this is actually a pretty easy question to answer but just because there's an easy scientific answer doesn't mean that your problem is difficult to deal with and that's a that's a critical distinction so although i might be able to give you some pretty straightforward information about science here and some pretty straightforward recommendations i don't want to say that putting those into practice is going to be easy they're actually going to be incredibly difficult especially where you find yourself but let's talk a little bit about the science of self-worth where it comes from how humans form self-worth uh psychologically and neurologically how that was shaped by evolution and then hopefully we can get a couple of glimpses about what to do because as you mentioned the church would say well god loves you so you have value full stop it's this it's the sanctity of human life and this is one of those instances where that's not a controversial idea everyone would say that your life has worth but okay let's talk about the science well first of all we are social animals we're one of the most social mammals in the world even before civilization and language and agriculture we still formed very large bands very large groups of humans you know probably around 150 individuals in size which is significantly larger than the social groupings you find in other mammals now of course insects have truly truly staggering colonies but individual psychodynamics don't really play an important role in their social order those are basically super organisms but for us the role of the individual is significant in how society unfolds because we're a social animal whose very survival depends on being a part of a group we have tremendous anxiety when we feel like we're losing our place in that group so a lot of our sense of self-worth and our our well-being it depends on our perception of how we are accepted socially a sense of acceptance is vital to us and if we ever feel like we're on the edge of our community or family or any other social group our sense of self-worth can take a dive we feel at risk now you think about the cultural values of americans especially protestant white north americans and there is this pull yourself up by your bootstraps contribute through hard work ethos that is in some ways admirable but when people like you are unable to especially when we stigmatize people who need any form of assistance and emphasize so much self-reliance the neurocognitive linguistic framework you have towards what it means to contribute to the group says you're not and on some level you get an anxiety that people will have enough and you'll be rejected and your sense of self-worth takes a dive but we need more than just acceptance because we can have acceptance and still not have a great sense of self-worth humans often need some mission or purpose in order to feel fulfilled enough to have a healthy sense of self-worth we're engineered by nature by our evolutionary background to pursue resources that are associated with our survival such as food and shelter but we've learned over time to accumulate more and to desire accumulating more we also want to find a mate and just things linked to survival and then beyond so we can survive for example in a temporary structure in the middle of the field but when everyone else has a house with shingles and windows we want a house with shingles with windows too as a signal of our status status signaling is also a part of self-worth so you can sort of hijack that process you can you can step off the materialism wheel by hijacking your drive for resources status mate shelter etc by instead linking accomplishment achieving and self-worth to a calling of purpose and meaning and this is remarkably effective at helping humans find lasting self-worth self-value and happiness viktor frankl talks about this a lot in man's search for meaning we can learn to take a redemptive perspective on our suffering when we see how it changes us for the better how it opens us up to something new and when we have achieving some purpose at the core of what we're trying to do in life that's certainly what i do a core calling for me is helping people make peace with god even in an age of of science and that mission i've noticed is starting to expand not just in an age of science but in an age when the claims of people of god can help some people feel marginalized or left out and because of that i've noticed i have a very healthy sense of self-worth but here's the problem even if you've built up a good sense of self-worth even if you have a missional focus in your life severe changes in your life circumstances can knock it down so social conflicts loss of resources or status broken relationships and yes debilitating illness can send your sense of self-worth into a deep dive and that's completely normal your brain is doing what evolutionary optimizing drove it to do it's trying to forecast the future and your brain is thinking you are at risk now because you can't do what you once did and this leaves you with a choice human brains in crisis can turn to two different metabrain systems that can respond to crisis you have one which is a threat protection system that's a linkage between parts of your limbic system and your prefrontal cortex whose job it is to watch out for danger and when you in crisis lean into this part of your brain it's more than happy to act as your inner critic analyzing everything you've done wrong and reminding you of your flaws and your faults and your limitations this part of your brain is more than happy to tell you that because you have to rest a lot people are going to forget about you people are going to resent you people are going to think you're lazy or you're not going to be able to be a fulfilling partner or parent but there's another system in your brain that can activate in response to crisis or loss of self-worth and that's your caregiving system this is largely composed of your anterior cingulate cortex but involves other parts of the brain as well it's the most mammalian part of your brain with nurturing sensibilities this is the part of your brain that loves to give people a hug and what i see in the research is that a critical component of you finding recovery yes is victor frankel's idea of a redemptive perspective on suffering can you look at this time in your life and find a way that it's changing you and growing you can you find a new purpose even with your more limited physical abilities but before you can do either of those things you've got to step away from your inner critic your threat protection system and instead offer yourself grace give yourself a mental hug think if you were talking to a dear friend in your situation what would you say and then extend that same kind of compassion and empathy for yourself you would never tell a friend in your situation they were worthless you would never tell a friend in your situation that they had nothing to offer and you wouldn't believe it either so my challenge to you and i am sure that it will be difficult is to be just as loving and gracious towards yourself as others are to you in this moment flip those words of jesus when jesus says love your neighbor as yourself will you already love your neighbor so i challenge you to love yourself [Music] our next question came in via email and it reads on what level are you or aren't you a universalist and what about universalism does or doesn't scare you and then a little peace sign emoji which is pretty funny you know i've noticed a trend friends out there on the internet uh we get less and less science questions on ask science mike and more and more theology and life questions on this program especially uh theology questions which would make excellent fodder for some bloggers to call me a heretic so i'm just gonna be honest you are challenging me on this thing this promise i've given you that i will answer questions honestly to create the space for other people to be honest questions like these oh man i don't want to answer them but you keep asking them and the patrons on patreon keep picking them to run on the show so i'll answer them but i'm going to be honest i think i'm a lot better at answering science questions and how science relates to god's questions than these kind of thorny theological issues i honestly don't understand why any of you care about my opinion on universalism like not a pastor not a theologian just a guy in a spare bedroom with a microphone so but i've told you i'll be honest so here it goes um first of all let's let's bring everyone on the conversation some of this stuff is kind of theology nerdy inside baseball stuff universalism specifically in the christian tradition is basically an idea that everybody goes to heaven many traditional ideas in christianity involve a dichotomy between heaven and hell salvation and sanctification and the people who experience salvation and are sanctified go to heaven the people who don't go to hell and there are like a gazillion different ideas in different christian traditions about how that happens and who goes where and it raises some thorny issues okay we talked about that some a couple of weeks ago when i talked about atonement but depending on where you are with atonement and heaven and hell you may be raising some really challenging images of god you i would ask anyone to just consider what it says about god that you know what punishment is actually worth eternal conscious torment that's what it all comes down to for me but back to universalism i don't know if i'm a universalist or not because here's where i'm way out in left field compared to most of the church i have no idea what happens after we die and i don't pretend to have an idea of what happens after we die i'm agnostic in regards to the afterlife i'm not agnostic i'm agnostic i think we aren't even defining the terms enough to have a conversation uh so let's let's first of all let's talk about the science of the afterlife if you look at it scientifically there's just very little reason to believe consciousness persists after death at all you know don't jump off the subway right now or crash your car we're gonna we're going somewhere with this but you know if you look at the science our consciousness our feelings our thoughts are all related to brain activity that it doesn't appear to be related to anything but our brains some of our body systems influence how the brain creates our thoughts and our feelings but if you cut your arm off you might be depressed you'll still be you but if you get say a you know pecan sized tumor near your amygdala well you might become a mass shooter we've done autopsies in the past and found that people became suddenly violent because of a brain tumor you might have a traumatic brain injury that dramatically changes your personality and that leads us to believe that consciousness comes from brains and when we die our brains stop working which means there is no more consciousness life we tend to consider you know the functions associated with our metabolism our respiration our reproduction that's why we're alive and trees are alive and rocks aren't alive we know those processes stop when we die and yet we also know that more than 80 percent of people worldwide believe in a persistence of life after death and even consciousness after death so this is a very natural human belief but science doesn't have a lot to say about it and the null hypothesis would say that since there is no evidence of anything else there's no reason to make any conclusion or put any belief in an afterlife so if someone said scientifically do you believe in an afterlife i would say no i don't believe in an afterlife which would be universalism i think the same thing happens to everybody after death nothing [Laughter] but mike what about the words of jesus what about all the points in scripture that that talk about something in the next life and surely science might hear not so reductive to believe that consciousness is only associated with the brain what about our spirit what about our soul again science doesn't speak to those things but i'll be honest with you there are beliefs i hold that are different than my scientific beliefs these are the kind of beliefs i have that i hold in an open palm that they rest there as lightly and as fragile as a butterfly and you know when the wind blows they're just as likely to fly away and maybe come back later but when i contemplate what happened to me on the beach this glorious moment where reality fell away and i stood in the presence of god when i think about that still small voice i've heard so many times in my life when i think about the truly transcendent experience of loving others and being loved in return yes i hope for and in some ways believe that in some way at the end of this life i will be reunited with the one who made me but i think if that's true if that happens if the streets of gold and scripture are a metaphor for a reunification with this brightest of all lights this source of everything that must happen to everyone else as well because why me why would i return to my maker and someone else would not i can't find any satisfying criteria for that and i just i have a hard time projecting the way we view reality that's built in our neurons and our synapses and our five senses into a realm beyond this one the same kind of decision making matrix or experience surely isn't what happens so i would say i am very comfortable with universalism and nothing about it scares me your mileage may vary uh again i have total grace disagreeing with people this is absolutely my opinion that i don't have any justification for if if we want to go where where i feel like i can best defend myself uh i'd be happy to debate you that there's no afterlife at all i feel confident i could take on anybody any theologian and i could raise some really difficult trying questions at the idea that anything at all happens after we die but i would rather lean in to that hope i have that comes with a god who loves me [Music] i'd like to take a moment to tell you about my new jam and it's called sanebox they're sponsoring a science mic this month and they're a product that i use and love because i get a ton of email and even though i'm disciplined and methodical in dealing with email i find that i just can't keep up it's so hard to find the message i need right now to respond to today to make my life happen so sanebox came to the rescue when you sign up for sanebox they start scanning your email for you and they find the messages from people you know and potential contacts and they put those in your inbox and they put everything else out of the way they don't throw it away they just put it in a folder you can look at later sanebox is really well architected it worked with almost any email provider and absolutely any email app you're using you don't have to change programs to enjoy the benefits of sanebox now my friends at sandbox have done something really nice in addition to their normal 14 day free trial they're offering 25 off any subscription to my listeners and all you have to do to redeem that is go to sanebox.com science mike i'm telling you your email has never been so easy to deal with as it will be if you give sanebox a try so go to sanebox.com sciencemike and sign up for your two-week trial today [Music] coming from the same email inbox of questions designed to get me in trouble on the internet our third question on this episode reads hi science mike even though i don't believe the bible is inerrant i still find it useful to read daily to stay inspired and grounded in god's love what is your opinion on other holy texts do you feel they are the same caliber slash value as people's experiences of god as the bible do you feel it would be helpful or harmful to do devotions using other holy books i'm not only speaking of non-canonized books from the bible but also the quran the book of mormon or the sarudi i probably said sarudi wrong there so just you guys i'm sorry and uh thanks for continually helping me examine my faith and life tracy well tracy uh let's start with why i think the bible is valuable and important because i do i absolutely think the bible is valuable important i read it every day i read the bible every day i do two things daily one is i i'm always part of a systematic reading where i'm going through the whole bible to keep myself familiar with his contents which i'll usually do for you know 15 minutes a day makes it pretty easy to read the bible in a year or less and the other thing i do is a much slower intentional reading using the lectio divina approach to scripture and that's where i really find insights about my life and maybe where god could be leading me is in that that type of prayer that prayerful approach to scripture but let's remember when we say the bible what are we talking about because there's more than one bible there's a catholic bible and there's a protestant bible and both are called the bible both were assembled by the church the protestant bible basically martin luther thought several books in the old testament didn't belong because they were based on a greek version of the new testament so he took books out of the bible it's not the catholics added to the bible it's that protestants took books out and now you have the apocrypha which protestants would say are extra biblical and catholics would say are biblical who's right and how do we know we've got to remember the bible was not only written by people it didn't fall out of the sky it was written by people and it was assembled by people church fathers church councils assembled the scriptures and that's precisely why i find them valuable it's not only that people wrote down their experiences with god it's that the church the church that i'm a part of the global movement of people following christ selected some books based on criteria that help people in their faith journey so for a christian i believe the bible is as high caliber as it gets i can't believe i just said that but i believe it i really have you know if you've known my story for a while i had a real hard time with the bible but when i've stopped trying to make it this you know law book this constitution from god that is binding in in every way and accurate to science and i've let go of that stuff and i've taken the bible for what it is a collection of stories and writings about people's experiences with god their understanding of god and how they've tried to serve god especially the parts of the bible that deal with how people reacted to the teachings and actions of jesus christ i am fascinated with those stories even though i fully understand that they were written and assembled by men i think the bible was inspired by god in the same way a love song is inspired by a person who is loved you can learn a lot about a person by listening to a love song written about them you can learn about their character you can learn about their actions and you also learn about someone's reaction to them and that's what we get in the bible and it's beautiful it's absolutely beautiful i love it what about other books um i've read the quran i've read most of the book of mormon but the fact is i'm not a part of the islamic faith tradition i don't have the cultural context to derive a lot of understanding from the quran so i also think some holy books were just written by charlatans and some were written by people who really had an experience with god or felt that experience with god i do l ron hubbard uh started scientology and before he started scientology the guy on record said it'd be easy to become famous and wealthy if you started a religion because he was a failed science fiction writer and what do you know that guy started a religion i tend to be relatively skeptical of uh you know joseph smith and therefore the book of mormon although i understand there are mormons who listen to my program and uh you know you'd probably say the same thing about you know some epistle or the new testament so i get that it's i don't really put myself in a position to judge the validity of other people's holy books again my faith isn't something i'm going to use to try to proselytize to other people or convert people to my way of thinking i think the power in christianity is in transforming the way that we live and in doing so helping heal this world so you know i don't think it's necessarily harmful to do devotions and other holy books if it provides you some degree of inspiration i've tried it done work for me i can't separate my faith from my faith background every experience i've ever had with god is in the context of jesus christ i can't speak to the validity of other approaches i honestly can't i know many christians would say you know jesus the way the truth in life the only way to the father is through jesus i get that uh i'm not going to take a moment to critique that that's whatever that's a that's a left-field kind of thing but i will say for a christian the bible is as good as it gets because of its unique association with this particular tradition of approaching god that started with the nation of israel in the old testament and then proceeded through the experiences with jesus christ and his followers in the new testament it's a 1500 year cohesive epic tale debate about god that then continues through church history and because of that because i plant my tree of faith in the soil of christianity the bible is the book for me [Music] hi science mike this is andrew i'm uh from england originally i live in atlanta now um superbunder got to miss your conference with the liturgists i just got married and so life's been crazy but um question i wanted to ask was actually about judgments and how you manage just that whole concept of judging other people i grew up in the uh i guess the free evangelical pentecostal sort of environment where people talk a lot about you know not judging others because you know the level at which you judge yourself you'll be judged by but at the same time there's a crap ton of judgment that goes on um and so i just i wanted to hear your thoughts on the scientific uh explanation of judgment what judgment does to the brain and just your personal opinion on how you've dealt with judging people being critical um and managing just that whole space in your head as you've navigated your deconstruction of your faith um i really love what you do ever since your your episode on you made it weird with pete holmes i've loved your work and it's been a massive part of my journey keep doing what you're doing i hope i can come to one of your belong conferences soon cheers well andrew as i think about judging others and judge not lets you be judged i am filled with a hope and that hope is that god does not have a human brain [Laughter] because if god is a human brain we are all going to be judged deeply indeed here's what research tells us our brains judge people in the very first moment that we meet them in milliseconds our brains even below the level of our consciousness are judging everyone we meet unfortunately this is one of the foundational aspects of racism when human infants are not exposed to a variety of skin tones and diversity and facial features you'll see for the rest of their lives even as they broaden their social circles the first few moments when their brain assesses the appearance especially the face of another person they'll start with a fear reaction in their amygdala that can be dispelled but is there anyway so yeah we're we're a judging species now here's what we're mainly looking for when we judge other people initially we're looking for warmth and competence so warmth how friendly are they how trustworthy are they and competence how capable are they of doing things we need them to do now if you look at for example business relationships in professional context people tend to try to project as much competence as they can job interviews and business deals and if you look at the way people make decisions it's actually more important to project warmth than confidence we want to work with and associate ourselves with people we can trust primarily and then if we can trust them we'll start considering their competence so a little side note there be a warm person now here's a here's another interesting thing some research says that our brains are often wrong in their initial judgments on worth warmth and competence but that we're prone to hold on to our initial picture our initial snapshot even as additional evidence and exposure may undermine that assessment it takes a lot of work to change a first impression neurologically speaking now here's another interesting tidbit researchers have found that the way you talk about others is a reflection of your own happiness and emotional stability so if you're the kind of person who tends to say derogatory things or demeaning things about people to be very quote judgey unquote it's probably indicative that you have a state of unhappiness or emotional instability in your own life now here's a flip side of that if you intentionally speak in a more kind manner about other people it can actually make you happier and more stable and it can even change the way your brain initially judges people over time so having an intentional discipline about speaking kindly and frankly non-judgmentally about other people actually changes the way that you feel isn't that interesting this by the way is a huge part of why i believe in god everything i've read in neurological research says that belief in a loving god has the same effect on your brain a tendency to be more gracious and less judging towards other people because you believe the world is safe because god loves you so even if things are really bad even if there's riots even if there's war you have this belief that god is working all things to good and therefore behave in a way that make things better it's fascinating stuff now of course there are times that we actually need to judge people the fact is some relationships really are harmful and some behaviors really are damaging either to ourselves or towards other people so here's my approach number one i'm not a very judging person my wife would go so far as to say that i am naive but i tend to see people in the best light i tend to speak highly of them after i've first met them and over time and frankly i'm a pretty happy person uh i mean there's a reason i laugh in this podcast all the time i'm just happy just having a good time i think life is good but listen sometimes there are people in my life that it's not a healthy relationship so how do i deal with that without becoming judgmental well i create boundaries i set boundaries on difficult relationships but without judging that person in fact i have empathy for the events and circumstances that have led to them being in whatever state it is that creates instability i'm very very hesitant to cut people out of my life and instead just set up boundaries as much as i can be without impairing my own emotional health i actually try to be a source of healing in their life but i don't i've learned not to have this savior complex i try to avoid having a savior complex and thinking you know i just need to dive in and save this person because i can't all i can do is be the best presence in their life that i can be that's that's it i can't save anybody so i set these boundaries with unhealthy relationships the other thing is when people genuinely are having um harmful beliefs that create harmful behaviors i'm very careful to critique the behaviors and not the person or the identity let me be specific the way we've treated lesbian gay bisexual transgender and queer people is appalling this has been done for largely religious reasons and finally society is starting to wake up about the harm we've caused people by calling their identity and abomination by making it illegal for them to be in a stable loving partnership but a lot of my friends aren't there yet a lot of my friends people in my life think that it's not only a sinful behavior but a signal that america is leaving god behind and i don't judge my friends who aren't there yet but i do critique their behavior and i do tell the stories of how people are hurt by their actions america is also one of the most racist societies in human history we have a real problem with race in this country and don't get me wrong we've made incredible progress it is possible for black americans to advance to have economic achievement i have neighbors in my mostly white neighborhood who are very wealthy but the fact is you can't ignore the data that it is much harder for a young black child to succeed in america than it is for a young white child even if they start in similar economic circumstances there is more of a headwind against that black person but i don't attack the identity of all my friends who unconsciously participate in systems of white supremacy i hold grace towards them and i understand because i have been and sometimes still am one of those people instead what do i do i critique the specific behaviors and i highlight the stories of people who have been affected i'm always trying to invoke empathy not incite conflict i can't judge people because i'm an idiot i don't know anything about anything ultimately the biggest thing it's not just separating identity from behavior is not just setting boundaries on unhealthy relationships the core of how i avoid judging other people is an acknowledgement that i'm no big deal on what grounds do i have to judge another person you know what in the past i was as against same-sex marriage as anybody in the past i have been as unthinkingly racist as any person in history i am as white as white gets so it means the only posture i can have is one of grace as i try to help other people move forward along the path that i have stumbled down blindly judge not lest you be judged if someone judged me they could do so harshly and so i think the answer is grace [Music] [Applause] okay there's so much going on there's just so much going on first of all this week i'm at sundance if you're in park city utah sundance hit me up on twitter i'll tell you where i'm at we'll hang out how's that okay because i don't know what the event schedule is a lot of people have asked i don't have it i'll be around i bet you'll find me a lot at new frontiers the kind of virtual reality exhibit love to see you right after park city i'm going to be in fort smith arkansas at the first presbyterian church that's at mikemcarg.com events or you can just go to ask sciencemike.com and click on events if you're in that area i'd love to see you there's going to be two events that sunday we're going to be talking first about uh kind of how we approach uh scripture in the face of modern science we bring peace with those things maybe deal with that a little bit and then later we'll be doing uh a science-based approach to walking without an uncertainty finding redemption and prayer finding redemption in the scripture really excited about it a little later in february i'm going to be in phoenix and los angeles with the liturgists doing lost and found it's an amazing event if you're in phoenix or la you've got to catch this now i know tickets are going fast there's not a lot left but you can still go so just go to the liturgist.com events and uh you can find those events and see where you can grab tickets i would not wait uh to try to grab tickets to the door i'd go ahead and buy them in advance and the other thing i want to let you know is we're doing liturgist conference in 2016. you heard people talking about belong which is a small event we've done we really enjoy but there's some problems with belong as much as we love it it's too expensive when there's only 100 people in the room and we've gotta cover all the travel and rent the space and deal with all the logistics it's just a really expensive ticket so a lot of people have wanted to come be a part of what we're doing and haven't been able to so we're gonna do a little bit larger event about 500 people which is going to bring the ticket price way down the other thing we're doing this year instead of just randomly announcing dates we're going to tell you everywhere we're going to be in 2016. okay so drumroll here's the deal we're going to be in denver we're going to be in dallas we're going to be in chicago and we're going to be in los angeles that should be a reasonable traveling distance for just about everybody in the united states who'd like to come to one of our events this year okay but here we need your help if you're in denver dallas chicago or los angeles and you're part of a church that can seat between 500 and 650 people and you'd like us to come to your church absolutely free absolutely free no you're not having to pay like a an honorarium or trial any we just show up to do this conference so just go to the liturgist.com 2016 event if you go to a church that might have a venue that we could host this conference in and we'd love to come you know be a part of your community for that time and also frankly bring a lot of people to your church who may be looking for the kind of church that would host the liturgists a safe church so again thelicious.com 2016 events to learn more about that i've got more events on the calendar i know that uh be doing an event with pete ends this year really exciting that's going to be in april i believe all this stuff will be on the events page of my website at ask sciencemike.com so i would totally love to see you this year uh as i get across the country and there's it's gonna be a lot of cities guys so i want to thank some folks i want to thank our patrons for not only financially contributing to the show but also picking the questions you guys are running the whole thing and i mean it like you are totally driving the direction the program because where we've gone the last couple of weeks is not where i would have gone with the show which is good because my sense of judgment is terrible and yours is good i want to thank sanebox for being our first sponsor of course a grant from wedgwood circle is a huge part of how this program happens and i'm so thankful for the people there and their commitment to creating art that's meaningful and glorifies god great people andrew golucky is doing all the pre-production work on ask science mike and i've gotten so much feedback that the quality of the questions have been phenomenal and they have this because i'm not picking them so i'm not even uh the patrons are picking from a poll but andrew's the one picking the questions for the poll and it seems like the less i'm involved with picking the questions the better the show gets why am i hosting the show again anyway uh so thank you so much andrew of course as always greg nordin is our producer does an amazing job that's why my voice sounds so phenomenal right now uh that's greg doing his magic i actually have a very squeaky high-pitched voice and greg does some pitch filtering and my dog jeb uh thanks so much for the theme song i'm having a blast you know we're a year into the program i just love hanging out with you all every week i really do thanks for making me a part of your week thanks for all the ratings on itunes thanks for sharing it with your friends just can't believe the download number i could not do this without you so thank you and i will see you next week [Music]