September 3 2012

Show open and the building-maintenance grievance

The show opens from the Pathway Studios on a warm evening. A host vents comic frustration about the building: chairs left out, the air conditioner turned down by someone, and a pile of rock and a broken sidewalk that have gone unrepaired for months. The bit closes with a mock-vow to 'never pursue a building' until they learn to care for the one they have, then pivots into the night's agenda.

Tonight's agenda, Pants banter, and a video glitch

The hosts lay out the night's plan: week 16 of the GodIsImaginary.com series (contradictions in the Bible), the return of the 'non-biblical signs of the apocalypse' game, and Dear LFTP advice. A host jokes that Pants is on hand to give advice, identifies Pants as the voice of the show's opening and YouTube buffers, and the segment ends amid a short video feed glitch.

Guest Rick Gray on his veteran mural

After the feed returns, guest Rick Gray is brought on-air and asked about his latest project: repainting a giant mural in Valley Junction commemorating the American veteran, on the local VFW hall. Banter follows about retouching the mural's faces and whether Dan could have fought in the Revolutionary War, and a host rehashes the night's agenda for viewers who missed it.

Week 16 of GodIsImaginary.com: 'Contemplate the contradictions'

• Do the alleged contradictions in the Bible prove that God is imaginary?
• Does Moses ordering the deaths of 3,000 people after receiving 'thou shalt not kill' contradict God's character?

A host reads aloud proof number 16 from the GodIsImaginary.com author: that biblical contradictions prove God is imaginary. The proof cites Moses ordering 3,000 deaths after receiving 'thou shalt not kill' (Exodus 32), alleged biblical support for slavery and torture, hell as eternal torment, and God's curse of painful childbirth on Eve (Genesis 3). The reading is followed by the hosts' first rebuttals: the author is not disproving God, only disagreeing with him.

Hosts' rebuttal: murder versus God's justice

The hosts answer the Exodus 32 objection by distinguishing individual murder from God-commanded justice: 'thou shalt not kill' forbids taking justice into one's own hands, while God as sovereign judge may decree a cleansing judgment. They argue the author's premise fails on its own terms: disliking God's justice does not make him imaginary, prompting the riff that his site should be renamed 'idontlikegod.com' — '50 ways to leave your God.'

Childbirth, consequences, and consistency

The hosts take up the 'childbirth is torture' claim and answer that consequences are not contradictions: God warned, people disobeyed, and the result is consistency, not inconsistency. The discussion touches divine versus human consequences and the limits of human comprehension of God's purposes ('we can't comprehend the game' as pawns on a chessboard).

Adam in the garden: did he just stand by?

A host wonders aloud whether Adam simply stood by while Eve ate the fruit, musing that Adam might have hoped God would replace Eve ('God will make me another one'). The hosts joke about retiring Adam-and-Eve marriage illustrations ('love your wife like Adam'), one is teased for being asked to defend Adam, and another reframes the moment as humbling: everyone makes the same choice.

Kids, Scripture, and the Trinity at bedtime

Several hosts share stories of young children and faith: a six-year-old reading the Egermeier Children's Bible grasps that Satan twists Scripture; another child asks whether Jesus praying is 'just praying to himself,' prompting a fumbling bedtime explanation of the Trinity that ends with the child's conclusion that God 'will explain it to us when we get there.' A second child's plan to save Jesus from the devil by hitting him with a rock 'present' closes the segment with laughter.

Heart check and a preview of week 17's leprechauns

Wrapping the series segment, a host distinguishes honest questions from hostile ones: many of the proofs rest on decent underlying questions worth wrestling with, but the value is lost if the motive is just 'giving God the middle finger.' Christians are urged to have a real defense of their faith. The night ends with a look at proof 17 ('think about leprechauns') and a joke about a Lucky Charms sponsorship.

Cereal and gross-food banter

• Would you eat a stranger's half-eaten bowl of your favorite cereal?

A long comedy riff sparked by eating noises: whether one could eat someone else's half-eaten bowl of cereal (peanut butter Captain Crunch gets a pass from one host), wet bread in the sink giving 'the three-bucket willies,' a childhood brother who lost his appetite to sibling slurping, and Pants' willingness to eat anything. The segment is pure studio banter with no theological content.

Why they don't obsess over end-times predictions

Before the game, the hosts share their philosophy of eschatology: end-times fixation annoys them when the lost are dying outside the church's door. One guarantees the world will not end in December of the current year because of Mayan 2012 predictions — 'a thief that bought a billboard' is not 'thief in the night.' They mock far-future prophetic timelines (blue heifer ashes, a 3,600-year alien-seeding planet from a book) and land on 'live ready, let God handle the rest.'

Non-biblical sign #1: the Fix-a-Flat buttocks case

• Is this news story a non-biblical sign of the apocalypse, or do we have more time?

The game opens with the news story of O'Neal Morris, arrested in South Florida for injecting Fix-a-Flat and other substances in a black-market buttocks-enhancing business, facing manslaughter charges after a client's death. The hosts riff on hearing the aerosol can shake and the absurdity of van-based cosmetic surgery, and the chat votes this story 'end times.'

Non-biblical sign #2: the mayor and the 500-pound donkey

The second news story: a South Texas mayor found dead, apparently kicked and trampled by an aggressive 500-pound donkey. The hosts dig into donkey facts (territorial range, brays audible for three kilometers), joke about the donkey defending its nine square miles, and vote 'more time' — though they pledge to watch that part of Texas.

Non-biblical sign #3: the man who only says 'yeah'

The third story: Jason Gordon Youngblood, found in a Key Largo resort pool in all his clothes, answering every question from security and deputies with a screamed 'yeah' and karate gestures. The hosts imagine the James Brown versus Kool-Aid Man variants, note he was jailed without drug charges, and split the vote — one calls it 'the end' for its sheer quirkiness.

Game wrap: the rejected story and final tally

The host discards a fourth news story he failed to pre-read ('I've made the mistake of picking random news stories before') and tallies the votes: roughly two for 'more time,' one-and-a-half for 'end times.' The segment closes with the 'yeah' chorus, the 'Botox donkey' joke, and a Balaam's-donkey punchline, then yields to the advice segment.

Dear LFTP: the mother-in-law's pre-death eulogy

• Should we honor a living mother's demand that we write her eulogy for her to read and approve before she dies?

A listener writes that their mother-in-law insists her adopted son and the listener each write her eulogy so she can read it before she dies. Guest Rick Gray says he would just refuse; the hosts riff on Dr. Seuss eulogies, being fired from the eulogy committee, and the impossibility of writing with real feeling for someone still alive. The advice settles on a polite but firm 'no.'

Sign-off and contact info

After a quick apology for camera problems ('you've been looking at me for the last three minutes'), a host gives the weekly schedule (Monday nights 10–11 p.m. Central at livefromthepath.org), the YouTube channels, and the advice email address, and closes the show.