faith Archives - The ClearOut

Charlie Kirk, Christian Insulation, and a Lethal Amendment Cocktail – Episode 222

In this episode, Dara is reflecting on the killing of the prominent Christian Right thought leader, Charlie Kirk. Hailed by his followers as their Martin Luther King Jr i.e. a spiritual martyr and presumably, man of peace, it seems irresponsible not to discuss the tensions and contradictions that arise from the comparison. Kirk’s documented racism, homophobia, transphobia and misogyny seem to fly in the face of Christian values, but that is allegedly what he represented.

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Leaving the Room – Cheating Death, Solving Life, and a Planet Where Nobody Dies! – Episode 219

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In this episode, Dara is thinking about what comes next. Prompted by an article about Irish people signing up for their bodies to be preserved at death in the hope of waking up in the distant future, he finds himself perplexed by the desire to outlive a natural lifespan. While it is tempting to dismiss the participants as deluded fantasists, he recognises that something deeply anxious lurks beneath the aspirant futurism.

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Have You Done Your Homework? Oppression, Conflict, and the Pursuit of Truth – Episode 203

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In this episode Dara tries to thread the needle between domestic and personal crises and those of a much larger, humanitarian nature. Taking in current events in Gaza as well as historic instances of grievous abuse by Catholic institutions in Ireland, the question of truth seems to be of primary importance when a larger power treats others with such callous impunity and indifference to the consequences.

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Arrivals

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This year’s Christmas story is about a father who finds himself incapable of giving up on his missing child, even though it feels like a lost cause. You can hear my reading of the story on the Christmas Special episode of the podcast.

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The Finding of Gabriel’s Heart

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This year’s Christmas story features a man who is desperate for a break so he can feel worthy of his wife’s love. A larger-than-life blind man hijacks his night and steers him on a path towards victory. But is he all that he seems? And what does his one-eyed cat have to do with proceedings?

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Fractured Faith and Religion as Instrument of Terror – Episode 71

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In this episode, Dara doesn’t think he’s going to talk about Mahsa Amini, the Kurdish woman who was killed in police custody in Iran in recent weeks, but that’s what he does end up doing. He questions the strength of a faith that feels it has to police itself so viciously. He argues that when religious teaching becomes dogma, it weaponises itself and betrays an inherent insecurity.

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Staying in the room

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“Houses have their own ways of dying, falling as variously as the generations of men, some with a tragic roar, some quietly . . . while from others the spirit slips before the body perishes.” EM Forster, Howard’s End “It was the sort of house that you never seem to come to the end of,

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A question of faith

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How tightly do you hold on? Waiting for the next bad thing to happen. Waiting for the next good thing not to happen. Waiting for a door to be unlocked. Waiting for your breath to come. The question is both incomplete and somewhat ambiguous. There are related questions of why and what and how and when.

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Demons

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Evil does not exist ontologically. And that’s why it’s so powerful – because it’s so parasitic on our deepest desires – and why so oftentimes the most profound evils that are perpetrated are done in the name of the good. If God does not exist – at least the God we worship and Jesus Christ

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faith

Charlie Kirk, Christian Insulation, and a Lethal Amendment Cocktail – Episode 222

Leaving the Room – Cheating Death, Solving Life, and a Planet Where Nobody Dies! – Episode 219

Have You Done Your Homework? Oppression, Conflict, and the Pursuit of Truth – Episode 203

Arrivals

The Finding of Gabriel’s Heart

Fractured Faith and Religion as Instrument of Terror – Episode 71

Staying in the room

A question of faith

Demons

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