Badgey returns! Jimmy Akin, Dom Bettinelli, and Fr. Cory Sticha discuss this story of these three homicidal megalomaniacal AIs from previous stories and their redemption arcs through love and friendship.
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In 1896 and 1897, Mystery Airships were reported from California to the Mississippi, which some believed were alien ships. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli eliminated many theories about the airships, and now address the final mystery: what were the airships, who made them, and was the government involved?
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Tim Shevlin’s Personal Fitness training for Catholics. Providing spiritual and physical wellness programs and daily accountability check-ins. Strengthen yourself to help further God’s kingdom. Work out for the right reason with the right mindset. Learn more by visiting fitcatholics.com.
The Grady Group, a Catholic company bringing financial clarity to their clients across the United States. Using safe money options to produce reasonable rates of return for their clients. Learn more by visiting GradyGroupInc.com.
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This version of The Weekly Francis covers material released in the last week, from 2 October 2023 to 11 October 2023.
Angelus
General Audiences
Messages
Speeches
Papal Instagram
Lilliputian Doctor! Jimmy Akin, Dom Bettinelli, and Fr. Cory Sticha discuss this story of the 3rd Doctor and Jo getting shrunk into an alien flea circus of sorts and getting caught up in an attempted coup and a slave rebellion. Who are the real monsters here?
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Rom and Leeta! Jimmy Akin, Dom Bettinelli, and Fr. Cory Sticha dicsuss this story that brings Lower Decks to Ferenginar; brings back our favorite Ferengi-Bajoran couple; and makes Tendi and Rutherford confront their suppressed feelings for each other.
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In the late 1890s, there was a wave of sightings over the US of mysterious airships displaying unusual flight characteristics. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli discuss these unusual airships and the theories that they were aliens, hoaxes, or maybe something else.
The video will be available at noon Eastern on the day of release.
Help us continue to offer Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World. Won’t you make a pledge at SQPN.com/give today?
Links for this episode:
This Episode is Brought to You By:
Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World is brought to you in part through the generous support of Rosary Army. Featuring award-winning Catholic podcasts, Rosary resources, videos, and the School of Mary online community, prayer, and learning platform. Learn how to make them, pray them, and give them away while growing in your faith at RosaryArmy.com and SchoolOfMary.com
Deliver Contacts, offering honest pricing and reliable service for all your contact lens needs. See the difference at delivercontacts.com.
Tim Shevlin’s Personal Fitness training for Catholics. Providing spiritual and physical wellness programs and daily accountability check-ins. Strengthen yourself to help further God’s kingdom. Work out for the right reason with the right mindset. Learn more by visiting fitcatholics.com.
The Grady Group, a Catholic company bringing financial clarity to their clients across the United States. Using safe money options to produce reasonable rates of return for their clients. Learn more by visiting GradyGroupInc.com.
Great Lakes Customs Law, helping importers and individuals with seizures, penalties, and compliance with U.S. Customs matters throughout the United States. Visit GreatLakesCustomsLaw.com
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Support StarQuest’s mission to explore the intersection of faith and pop culture by becoming a named sponsor of the show of your choice on the StarQuest network. Click to get started or find out more.
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This version of The Weekly Francis covers material released in the last week, from 8 September 2023 to 4 October 2023.
Angelus
Apostolic Exhortations
Homilies
Letters
Messages
Speeches
Papal Instagram
The subject of Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) came to public attention with the release of Raymond Moody’s book Life After Life.
In it, he recounted numerous incidents from people who were on the brink of death or who had even clinically died.
They reported things like leaving their bodies, looking down and seeing doctors and nurses working on them, traveling through a tunnel, encountering a bright light, meeting dead loved ones and religious figures, experiencing a review of their entire life, glimpsing a beautiful realm, feeling peace and joy, and ultimately being told that they needed to return to their bodies.
Since Moody’s groundbreaking work, other researchers have continued to look into NDEs. One of them is British doctor Sam Parnia, who now works in New York.
Between 2008 and 2012, he led what is known as the AWARE study (for AWAreness during REsuscitation), which examined the Near-Death Experiences of people who had undergone cardiac arrest and were in the process of being brought back.
More recently, he led a follow-up study called AWARE-II, and the results were recently published in the journal Resuscitation.
AWARE-II studied the cases of 567 people who experienced cardiac arrest. Unfortunately, only 53 of them survived, and only 28 completed interviews, so the sample size was small. Of the interviewees, 6 of them (21%) recalled transcendent experiences that have commonly been called NDEs. This is broadly in line with previous studies.
When the study was published, press accounts misleadingly claimed that it suggested dying people access “new dimensions of reality,” which without context would suggest other planes of existence.
Dying people may do that, but this isn’t what the authors of the study meant. They meant something more mundane and named the “other dimensions” as “including people’s deeper consciousness—all memories, thoughts, intentions and actions towards others from a moral and ethical perspective.” In other words, as part of the “life review” that NDErs commonly report, they are accessing other dimensions of themselves as they look at the events of their lives from a moral perspective.
Among the things that the study did find is evidence that consciousness persists even when it is not detectable, which the authors pointed out has broader implications, such as for people in “persistent vegetative states.”
They also found that substantial brain activity could resume as long as 60 minutes into cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), challenging the idea that irreversible brain damage occurs by 10 minutes after the heart stops.
The surprising lucidity of the patients’ transcendent experiences—such as their detailed life reviews—suggested that a form of “disinhibition” occurs that allows them to access long-dormant memories.
When it comes to the nature of consciousness—whether it is generated by the brain or by a separate entity (i.e., soul) that interacts with the brain, the authors concluded:
Although systematic studies have not been able to absolutely prove the reality or meaning of patients’ experiences and claims of awareness in relation to death, it has been impossible to disclaim them either. The recalled experience surrounding death now merits further genuine empirical investigation without prejudice.
However, they also noted that “the paradoxical finding of lucidity and heightened reality when brain function is severely disordered, or has ceased, raises the need to consider alternatives to” the idea that consciousness is generated by the brain.
Hopefully, future studies of NDEs will further clarify matters and provide additional evidence that consciousness is not generated by the brain and thus provide scientific data supporting the existence of the soul.
The 9th Doctor on the edge of space! Jimmy Akin, Dom Bettinelli, and Fr. Cory Sticha discuss this audio story featuring Christopher Eccleston, including its connection to a Dickens story; the moral choices the Doctor makes; and how he gives some hope.
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In this bonus episode, Tyler McNabb of Furthering Christendom welcomes Jimmy Akin on his show to discuss the topic of alien life and its implications for Christianity.
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