reclaiming the good, the beautiful, and the true
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The Theology Pugcast is three over-educated Reformed guys grumbling about what bugs them, and sometimes even barking about what they like. The show usually is recorded in a pub--that's why there is some background noise on occasion. The topics can vary widely seeing as the Pugsters have different spheres of knowledge and interest, but common themes which appear regularly include the transcendence of God and the meaningfulness of His creation.
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The Pugcast is produced by The Logos Center and features Dr. Thomas Price, Dr. Glenn Sunshine, and Pr. C. R. Wiley. The Pugcast is recorded at The Corner Pug--a well-known watering hole in tony West Hartford, Connecticut. (Hence the name, "pugcast"--also the reason there is so much background noise.) The show could be described as "3 over-educated Reformed guys riffing on philosophy, theology, and stuff that bugs them." Each episode they invite you to take a seat in their booth and listen in ...
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This week, as I’ve been considering melancholy, I’ve defended it as that sweet feeling of twilight, with the moon shining on the waters, and perhaps a loneliness that is not unpleasant, because you know that it is a temporary thing. Your loved ones are in the house on the hill, and the lights are shining. But there is another melancholy that in fac…
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Anthony Esolen on Artificial Intelligence and the Desecration of the Word
1:01:32
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1:01:32Today the Pugcast is pleased to welcome Anthony Esolen on the show! Tony is a prolific author and translator. Perhaps his best known work is his translation of Dante's Divine Comedy. Today the pugs ask Tony for his thoughts on Artificial Intelligence, particularly Chatbots and Large Language Models (LLMs). As you might infer from the title of the s…
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When I go through my many old hymnals from all kinds of places and traditions, I am struck by the sheer variety in the best of them, the range of human feelings, the meditation on not only what is light and pleasant, but on the sorrows of this life — a fitting thing for our Word of the Week, melancholy. So you may have supposed I would come up with…
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In this episode, the Pugsters take a look at Mariology from a Protestant perspective. While they don’t agree with a number of elements of the Catholic doctrines of Mary, the guys agree that Protestants don’t pay enough attention to her and that there are many valuable things she can teach us. As usual, the conversation ranges over a variety of topi…
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In this episode, the Pugsters take a look at Mariology from a Protestant perspective. While they don’t agree with a number of elements of the Catholic doctrines of Mary, the guys agree that Protestants don’t pay enough attention to her and that there are many valuable things she can teach us. As usual, the conversation ranges over a variety of topi…
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Our Friday podcast is open to everyone in this week, in honor of Saint Valentine’s Day. Click on the image below for a special gift discount today. .When did young lads and lasses begin to give each other presents on February 14? All the way back in the French courts in the high Middle Ages, it seems – and those French courts included the ones in E…
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You might think it would be hard to turn our Word of the Week, romance, to a hymn — unless you’re steeped in the poetry of the Middle Ages. Every time I say, “Middle Ages,” I hope you’ll think of all the bold and bright color of those high times between about 1000 and 1300, when the weather was warm, the Vikings were growing barley on the coasts of…
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What if Screwtape Were Female? An Interview with Tilly Dillehay
1:01:54
1:01:54
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1:01:54Today the Pugs are pleased to welcome to the show Tilly Dillehay, author of My Dear Hemlock. Tilly has taken Lewis's ingenious book, The Screwtape Letters as inspiration for her book in which Madame Hoaxrot (a female Screwtape) instructs a junior temptress named Hemlock (her Wormwood) in the fine art of leading a young woman astray. It's a fun epis…
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1
What if Screwtape Were Female? An Interview with Tilly Dillehay
1:01:53
1:01:53
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1:01:53Today the Pugs are pleased to welcome to the show Tilly Dillehay, author of My Dear Hemlock. Tilly has taken Lewis's ingenious book, The Screwtape Letters as inspiration for her book in which Madame Hoaxrot (a female Screwtape) instructs a junior temptress named Hemlock (her Wormwood) in the fine art of leading a young woman astray. It's a fun epis…
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In honor of our Word of the Week, candle, I’d like to look at someone whose works to me are like a candle in the dark, Charles Dickens. I’m thinking here of that powerful light in the window, set in that wonderful ship turned into a house on the beach at Yarmouth, in the novel David Copperfield. The situation, as you may remember, is this. Mr. Pegg…
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Who said that the contemplative life is superior to the active life? Well, everybody did. You can find it in Plato — as C. S. Lewis’s Professor Kirk said, scratching his head as he wondered why young people didn’t know this or that, “It’s all in Plato, you know.” But you will find it everywhere in Scripture too. Debra’s long thought that poor Marth…
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1
Anthony Esolen on Artificial Intelligence and the Desecration of the Word
1:01:33
1:01:33
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1:01:33Today the Pugcast is pleased to welcome Anthony Esolen on the show! Tony is a prolific author and translator. Perhaps his best known work is his translation of Dante's Divine Comedy. Today the pugs ask Tony for his thoughts on Artificial Intelligence, particularly Chatbots and Large Language Models (LLMs). As you might infer from the title of the s…
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The 1890’s was a decade of great hope — and retrospection — in the United States. On the one hand, what is a mere one hundred years to a nation? But on the other hand, the new nation’s first century was marked a second war with England in the teens, by bitter civil war and the 60’s, and by great and life-altering innovations in transportation and i…
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Called to Freedom—An Interview with Brad Littlejohn
1:02:31
1:02:31
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1:02:31The Pugcast is pleased to welcome Brad Littlejohn back on the show to discuss his latest book, Called to Freedom. If there's one thing western culture seems to celebrate, it's freedom. But just what are we talking about when we speak of it? Does freedom mean doing anything you want, just so long as no one gets hurt? If so, is that even possible? Th…
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1
Called to Freedom—An Interview with Brad Littlejohn
1:02:32
1:02:32
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1:02:32The Pugcast is pleased to welcome Brad Littlejohn back on the show to discuss his latest book, Called to Freedom. If there's one thing western culture seems to celebrate, it's freedom. But just what are we talking about when we speak of it? Does freedom mean doing anything you want, just so long as no one gets hurt? If so, is that even possible? Th…
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While we don’t have a full podcast episode for you today, we do have something even better! A Pugcast Pilgrimage: Lewis, Oxford, and Our Postmodern Age (Our Pugcast Documentary filmed Spring 2024) is now publicly available on Youtube. Thank you again to all our Indiegogo supporters who made this possible! Follow this link to find it: https://youtu.…
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While we don’t have a full podcast episode for you today, we do have something even better! A Pugcast Pilgrimage: Lewis, Oxford, and Our Postmodern Age (Our Pugcast Documentary filmed Spring 2024) is now publicly available on Youtube. Thank you again to all our Indiegogo supporters who made this possible! Follow this link to find it: https://youtu.…
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If men would only read more, especially more fiction, would not political nightmares, such as our current presidential turn, be avoided? The feminized cultural commentators continue to think so. The pugs engage a recent Vox article that takes seriously such a claim, and while the article finds the claim to be built on a questionable statistic, it n…
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If men would only read more, especially more fiction, would not political nightmares, such as our current presidential turn, be avoided? The feminized cultural commentators continue to think so. The pugs engage a recent Vox article that takes seriously such a claim, and while the article finds the claim to be built on a questionable statistic, it n…
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Today the Pugs reflect on a Substack article by N. S. Lyons entitled, The Reality War. This insightful piece notes that we are living through a revival of the most pernicious of all heresies--Gnosticism. The bitter irony of our time is it is occurring in what many people have wrongly assumed is the triumph of materialism. Lyons begins with recounti…
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Today the Pugs reflect on a Substack article by N. S. Lyons entitled, The Reality War. This insightful piece notes that we are living through a revival of the most pernicious of all heresies--Gnosticism. The bitter irony of our time is it is occurring in what many people have wrongly assumed is the triumph of materialism. Lyons begins with recounti…
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Magic [Systems?] in Fantasy Literature
1:01:20
1:01:20
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1:01:20A recent post at Screen Rant complained that C.S. Lewis never explained Narnia’s magic system. This is an example of completely missing the point, as myth and legend never explain magic, though in recent fantasy lit, detailed out magic systems are almost an essential. For his part, Tolkien believed that fantasy had to make rational sense for it to …
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1
Magic [Systems?] in Fantasy Literature
1:01:20
1:01:20
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1:01:20A recent post at Screen Rant complained that C.S. Lewis never explained Narnia’s magic system. This is an example of completely missing the point, as myth and legend never explain magic, though in recent fantasy lit, detailed out magic systems are almost an essential. For his part, Tolkien believed that fantasy had to make rational sense for it to …
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Today's episode delves into how the mystery of God assuming human flesh has continued to upturn paradigms of what it means to be a human creature, of what it means to be divine, and how the two are related. The pug’s engage this rich and timely topic by delving into the history of the scandal such teaching has evoked and ways we can draw upon this …
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Today's episode delves into how the mystery of God assuming human flesh has continued to upturn paradigms of what it means to be a human creature, of what it means to be divine, and how the two are related. The pug’s engage this rich and timely topic by delving into the history of the scandal such teaching has evoked and ways we can draw upon this …
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Today the Pugs discuss a post by Ted Gioia on his Substack, The Honest Broker. The title of the post is, "The State of the Culture, 2024" Gioia is a well known music critic, and is actually the brother of Dana Gioia (the poet). Ted Gioia's Substack is nearing 200,000 subscribers--that's very impressive. In the post the Pug discuss he outlines the d…
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Today the Pugs discuss a post by Ted Gioia on his Substack, The Honest Broker. The title of the post is, "The State of the Culture, 2024" Gioia is a well known music critic, and is actually the brother of Dana Gioia (the poet). Ted Gioia's Substack is nearing 200,000 subscribers--that's very impressive. In the post the Pug discuss he outlines the d…
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1
How to Build a Family Economy: An Interview with Rory Groves
1:02:55
1:02:55
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1:02:55Today the Pugs welcome Rory Groves, author of Durable Trades, and a new book, The Family Economy: Discovering the Family as It was Designed to Work. Rory transitioned out of a high tech career a few years back in order to build a family based economy with his wife and children. It took time, and there were many challenges, but he learned some impor…
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1
How to Build a Family Economy: An Interview with Rory Groves
1:02:56
1:02:56
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1:02:56Today the Pugs welcome Rory Groves, author of Durable Trades, and a new book, The Family Economy: Discovering the Family as It was Designed to Work. Rory transitioned out of a high tech career a few years back in order to build a family based economy with his wife and children. It took time, and there were many challenges, but he learned some impor…
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Today the Pugs are joined by writer and editorialist, Bethel McGrew to discuss Paul Kingsnorth’s Erasmus Lecture for First Things. The Pugs found themselves both barking when they found disagreement as well as agreement, with a slight weight given to disagreement. We hope that you enjoy the show. Paul Kingsnorth’s Erasmus Lecture: https://www.youtu…
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Today the Pugs are joined by writer and editorialist, Bethel McGrew to discuss Paul Kingsnorth’s Erasmus Lecture for First Things. The Pugs found themselves both barking when they found disagreement as well as agreement, with a slight weight given to disagreement. We hope that you enjoy the show. Paul Kingsnorth’s Erasmus Lecture: https://www.youtu…
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1
Cloning, Sheepzilla, and Transhumanism
1:03:09
1:03:09
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1:03:09Article: https://breakpoint.org/bioethics-and-big-sheep/ Support the Pugcast on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thetheologypugcast?fbclid=IwAR17UHhfzjphO52C_kkZfursA_C784t0ldFix0wyB4fd-YOJpmOQ3dyqGf8 Catch our new documentary ‘A Pugcast Pilgrimage: Lewis, Oxford, and Our Postmodern Age’ on Canon+: https://canonplus.com/tabs/discover/videos/34865?f…
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1
Cloning, Sheepzilla, and Transhumanism
1:03:08
1:03:08
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1:03:08Working off a Breakpoint article on a Montana man serving time for cloning a Central Asian bighorn sheep and crossbreeding it with American bighorns to produce 300 plus pound sheep for hunting preserves (yes, it really happened), the guys get into a discussion about cloning, designer babies, life extension and attempts at human immortality, transhu…
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An Interview with Vishal Mangalwadi
1:06:15
1:06:15
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1:06:15In this episode, Glenn and honorary Pug John West of the Discovery Institute interview Indian Christian philosopher Vishal Mangalwadi about his life, his proposals for recovering the role of the church in higher education, and his analysis of where Western culture epistemology went wrong. This last point generated a lively discussion about general …
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1
An Interview with Vishal Mangalwadi
1:06:14
1:06:14
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1:06:14In this episode, Glenn and honorary Pug John West of the Discovery Institute interview Indian Christian philosopher Vishal Mangalwadi about his life, his proposals for recovering the role of the church in higher education, and his analysis of where Western culture epistemology went wrong. This last point generated a lively discussion about general …
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Today Chris shares some thoughts on techno-utopianism--namely, what characterizes it? He proffers six distinctives and asks the guys to reflect with him on them. He suggests that while very few people would say they're on board with all six, most people seem to at least think that technology inevitably makes the world a better place. But is that ne…
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Today Chris shares some thoughts on techno-utopianism--namely, what characterizes it? He proffers six distinctives and asks the guys to reflect with him on them. He suggests that while very few people would say they're on board with all six, most people seem to at least think that technology inevitably makes the world a better place. But is that ne…
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Today the Pugs welcome Rhys Laverty (all the way from the UK!) to discuss a new collection of essays on C. S. Lewis's Ransom Trilogy (sometimes misleadingly known as the Space Trilogy). The collection is being published under the title 'Life on the Silent Planet' by the Davenant Trust. Contributors include many friends of the Pugcast, including Mic…
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Today the Pugs welcome Rhys Laverty (all the way from the UK!) to discuss a new collection of essays on C. S. Lewis's Ransom Trilogy (sometimes misleadingly known as the Space Trilogy). The collection is being published under the title 'Life on the Silent Planet' by the Davenant Trust. Contributors include many friends of the Pugcast, including Mic…
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1
Are Russell Brand and Jordan Peterson Idolatrous Pseudo-Christians? Purist Conversions, In a Liberal Key!
1:02:30
1:02:30
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1:02:30This week's episode engages an article by moral theologian, Luke Bretherton of Oxford, who suggests that the recent swath of conversions by public intellectuals like Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Paul Kingsnorth, and flirtations with Christianity by figures like Jordan Peterson, Douglas Murray and Luise Perry are best understood as idolatrous pseudo-conversi…
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1
Are Russell Brand and Jordan Peterson Idolatrous Pseudo-Christians? Purist Conversions, In a Liberal Key!
1:02:30
1:02:30
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1:02:30This week's episode engages an article by moral theologian, Luke Bretherton of Oxford, who suggests that the recent swath of conversions by public intellectuals like Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Paul Kingsnorth, and flirtations with Christianity by figures like Jordan Peterson, Douglas Murray and Luise Perry are best understood as idolatrous pseudo-conversi…
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Unconfirmed reports coming out of North Carolina of the government simply bulldozing areas affected by Hurricane Helene without searching for bodies prompted Glenn to raise the question of how we think of and treat the bodies of the dead. Historically, Christians have always believed that we belong, body and soul, to the Lord, and thus even after d…
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Unconfirmed reports coming out of North Carolina of the government simply bulldozing areas affected by Hurricane Helene without searching for bodies prompted Glenn to raise the question of how we think of and treat the bodies of the dead. Historically, Christians have always believed that we belong, body and soul, to the Lord, and thus even after d…
…
continue reading
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A Talk with Allan C. Carlson : October 25-26 Fatherhood Intensive : TRAD DAD 2024
4:49
4:49
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4:49Trad Dad is back (Oct 25-26) in Battle Ground, Washington for our Second Annual Fatherhood Intensive. This year we will hear from Scott Yenor, Allan C. Carlson, and C.R. Wiley on Pro-Natal Fatherhood and the recovery of a proper philosophical, political, and most importantly, Biblical perspective on children. Today’s conversation features CR Wiley …
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A Talk with Allan C. Carlson : October 25-26 Fatherhood Intensive : TRAD DAD 2024
4:49
4:49
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4:49Trad Dad is back (Oct 25-26) in Battle Ground, Washington for our Second Annual Fatherhood Intensive. This year we will hear from Scott Yenor, Allan C. Carlson, and C.R. Wiley on Pro-Natal Fatherhood and the recovery of a proper philosophical, political, and most importantly, Biblical perspective on children. Today’s conversation features CR Wiley …
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October 25-26 Fatherhood Intensive: A Short Conversation with Scott Yenor : TRAD DAD 2024
3:42
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3:42Trad Dad is back (Oct 25-26) in Battle Ground, Washington for our Second Annual Fatherhood Intensive. This year we will hear from Scott Yenor, Allan C. Carlson, and C.R. Wiley on Pro-Natal Fatherhood and the recovery of a proper philosophical, political, and most importantly, Biblical perspective on children. Today’s conversation features CR Wiley …
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1
October 25-26 Fatherhood Intensive: A Short Conversation with Scott Yenor : TRAD DAD 2024
3:42
3:42
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3:42Trad Dad is back (Oct 25-26) in Battle Ground, Washington for our Second Annual Fatherhood Intensive. This year we will hear from Scott Yenor, Allan C. Carlson, and C.R. Wiley on Pro-Natal Fatherhood and the recovery of a proper philosophical, political, and most importantly, Biblical perspective on children. Today’s conversation features CR Wiley …
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On today's show Chris leads the Pugs in a reflection on the story of Jonah--not the Biblical prophet, but the seminary student Rod Dreher interviewed for his book, Living in Wonder. Jonah was raised in an evangelical home, and was even homeschooled, yet fell into a spell of dark enchantment that included visions of demons and the use of psychedelic…
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On today's show Chris leads the Pugs in a reflection on the story of Jonah--not the Biblical prophet, but the seminary student Rod Dreher interviewed for his book, Living in Wonder. Jonah was raised in an evangelical home, and was even homeschooled, yet fell into a spell of dark enchantment that included visions of demons and the use of psychedelic…
…
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Are We Really Becoming Pagans Again?
1:00:52
1:00:52
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1:00:52On today's show Tom brings along Paul Kingsnorth’s article, The Illusion of a Pagan West, for the Pugs to engage. Topics delved into range from why we still talk about Roman Civilization to the theatrics of subversive woke culture. Most interesting is Kingsnorth’s claim that we are not returning to paganism but are locked into to a shallow culture …
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