David Gornoski Shows

During challenges like pandemics, the rule of law is essential to protect. Without a moral foundation for law, societies breakdown, families are torn apart, and cures for diseases are prevented. Collectivism depends on scapegoats. Freedom depends on self-sacrifice and skin in the game. David Gornoski explores what's at stake. Also, cow's milk and nuclear fusion. A Neighbor's Choice original live air date 3-18-20

David Gornoski explores the anthropological origins of the recent attempts to quarantine guilt onto the back of President Trump, China, and other entities for the coronavirus pandemic emergency. Sir James Frazer's classic book "The Golden Bough" is explored to see how primitive societies used rainmakers, chiefs in charge of good weather to blame when bad weather and drought occurred.

How did Christianity change the world? Can we trace a path towards a less violent world due to the impact of the story of Jesus's death on humanity's sense-making? David Gornoski talks with acclaimed historian Tom Holland on his new book Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World and how his study of history is drawing him back to the faith of his youth.

David Gornoski explores how our forms of collective violence increasingly fail to deter violence because of our lack of appetite for publicly sanctioned brutality. This phenomenon, a product of the Gospel's influence in the West, will continue to render state coercion impotent in foreign nation building campaigns and domestic wars on nonviolent choices. Media ecology and anthropology are employed to see this trajectory.

Where did political correctness come from? Why is it unique to the West? What force provides the context by which this contagious complex of victim-posturing for power arose? David Gornoski explores how our gradual demystification of historical texts acts as a blame-the-messenger self-obsession with attacking Western institutions and traditions.

David Gornoski explores why politics is failing to contain our violence and animosity increasingly in AD 2020. We examine the anthropological forces at play as division grows in politics the longer cultures steep in the story and values of the crucified one.

In this episode, David Gornoski analyzes the Apollonius of Tyana mythologically-intermediate story of a miracle in Ephesus. The pagan miracle worker is often favorably compared with Jesus of Nazareth by moderns anxious to posture rebellion towards their parents' Christian affinity. We then use this demystification process to deconstruct a modern news report on a pharmaceutical drug for Alzheimer's disease.

For many years, conventional medical science has concluded that mental disorders were genetic only partially manageable via pharmaceuticals. But Harvard psychiatrist Chris Palmer MD discovered a whole new paradigm of treating mental disorders through metabolic treatment: getting patients to do a carefully monitored ketogenic diet. Patients are treating depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and other conditions through this paradigm shifting breakthrough. This is an episode of A Neighbor's Choice, the radio program of David Gornoski. Co-host physicist Dr. Yu joins as well.

David Gornoski explores how the story of Jonah, Susanna's persecution, and Daniel's imprisonment serve as evidence of early Christianity's deeply anti-sacrificial meaning and aesthetic. These stories deal with averted sacrifice and mercy for the weak, misfits, and outsiders.

David Gornoski and Craig Stewart have a wide-ranging discussion on the cultural, media, political, and ethical implications of Rene Girard's groundbreaking Mimetic Theory. Does it lead to political atheism? Does the Gospel have a media technological effect? Will Mimetic theory become a dominant intellectual force in the near future?

We talk about human sacrifice in history and our modern times. What binds us together? What is the psychological-social force that unites us out of our personas? We look at the earliest depiction of the Cross of Christ in history--a telling piece of street graffiti meant to deride the new concept of Christ followers that the highest social good belongs with the outcast, misfit, and wrongful victim.

David Gornoski analyzes the new Joker movie, uncovering its themes about culture, scapegoats, hierarchy, doubles, envy, and the breakdown of myth with the support of the Mimetic theory of Rene Girard. Saturnalia and other winter solstice carnival festivals preceding sacrifice, Cain and Abel, Romulus and Remus, Jesus and the Demoniac and other stories are brought in to illuminate why this film strikes a nerve in our times.

Jesus's persecution looks like the Saturnalia sacrificial festival of the Romans as well as the scapegoat ritual of Leviticus and the Greek pharmakos purge. This was a feature of Jesus's plan in demonstrating the ugly reality of how humans make culture, order, and peace. Find out how this social mechanism Jesus uncovers operates in world history and political power. THINGS HIDDEN picks up the headlines and uncovers the similar patterns in history so that we can discover the error of collective coercion. Those seeking a first-class education of Rene Girard's mimetic theory applied to current events will not want to miss this series.

In this inaugural episode of THINGS HIDDEN, we learn about the phenomenon Jesus describes as "Satan casting out Satan." How does this seemingly obscure passage inform your world, meaning, and order of your life? Along the way, we will use the Mimetic theory of the late French anthropologist Rene Girard to help us dissect the ancient and modern world through the ultimate toolkit of the Bible.

Imagine facing tens of thousands in fines and foreclosure just because you painted your house to soothe your child's medical needs. Nancy Nemhauser joins David in studio for a fascinating story of how she triumphed against the city of Mt Dora with the help of Pacific Legal Fund. Also on the show, NASA physicist Dr. Weiping Yu joins us again for our Science segment of the show where he shows how rethinking electricity can open up new technological breakthroughs in engineering. Visit aneighborschoice.com for more content by David Gornoski.