Jimmy Akin Podcast

A grieving admiral wants 5,000 people killed to be sure of one cloaked ship, and only Kirk objects. Dom Bettinelli, Jimmy Akin, and Fr. Jason Tyler take on Strange New Worlds S4E8, and ask why nobody calls it an illegal order.

An EgyptAir 767 fell out of a clear sky off Nantucket in 1999, and two governments read the same black boxes and reached opposite verdicts. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli weigh four theories and one Arabic prayer.

Trelane turns the Enterprise into a soap opera for a school project, and only Pike notices. Dom Bettinelli, Jimmy Akin, and Fr. Jason Tyler ask whether *Strange New Worlds* S4E7 survives a five-minute bit stretched to an hour.

Could Jesus have incarnated on a Klingon world while he walked in Galilee? Jimmy Akin takes that question and eleven more from patrons — telekinesis, the Mary Celeste, Salem, ley lines — with Dom Bettinelli.

A table tears loose in sickbay and cuts Dr. M'Benga nearly in half — and Nurse Chapel refuses to let him go. Dom Bettinelli, Jimmy Akin, and Fr. Jason Tyler take on *Strange New Worlds* S4E6, the real-time hour that finally feels like *Trek*.

Early Christians read it in church beside the Gospels; a fourth-century Bible bound it in after Revelation. Then it vanished. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli open the Shepherd of Hermas — a tower, a beast, and a question about forgiveness.

Is Star Trek's puppet episode genius or a cop-out? Dom Bettinelli, Jimmy Akin, and Fr. Jason Tyler split over whether Strange New Worlds S4E5's dream-ending twist earns its plot holes, plus a hidden Lucille Ball reference few will catch.

Colored light around every living thing, readable by anyone with the right training — or by a camera at the mall. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli follow the aura from Mesmer to the selfie app, and weigh what happened under controlled testing.

In Strange New Worlds S4E4, Number One gets stranded on a Klingon-occupied world that's basically Casablanca in space. Dom Bettinelli, Jimmy Akin, and Fr. Jason Tyler debate the shaky black-and-white science and cheer her overdue spotlight.

A flashlight, three discs over a Missouri ranch, and a ray that cured fifteen years of back pain. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli follow Buck Nelson from Ozark farmer to saucer celebrity — and to a twist that isn't funny at all.

Ortegas and Scotty wake up on a drunk planet with no memory of the night before — and a bomb on their shuttle. Dom Bettinelli, Fr. Jason Tyler, and Jimmy Akin call this Strange New Worlds S4E3 comic relief a mid-range Hangover riff.

You are sitting with someone as they die, and the room fills with a light that is not from this earth. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli examine shared death experiences — the cases where a perfectly healthy bystander sees it too.

A derelict starship weaponizes its rescuers' worst fears, and Strange New Worlds S4E2 flatly refuses to explain any of it. Dom Bettinelli, Jimmy Akin, and Fr. Jason Tyler ask whether an unsolved mystery makes better television.

A monk who sold his soul to write a book in one night, the naked man fleeing Jesus' arrest, and whether Jesus was just an alien with good technology: Jimmy Akin takes on eleven listener weird questions with Cy Kellett and Dom Bettinelli.

This August, I'm teaching a four-week course for the Rhine Education Center on Psi and Christianity. We'll look at telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, mind over matter, and the survival of the soul after death. For 2,000 years, Christians have been wrestling with the very phenomena that parapsychologists study today. Audit it or take it for a grade. Tuition $119 ($109 for Rhine members). Visit RhineEdu.org to register.

Sixty-five million years in the past, Pike can save a planet or keep his own future — not both. Dom Bettinelli, Jimmy Akin, and Fr. Jason Tyler take on Strange New Worlds S4E1: dinosaurs, Martians, and the ethics of time travel.

Dozens of unrelated children said shining, winged figures stood over them as an EF5 tornado destroyed Joplin. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli weigh cryptids, trauma, folklore, and guardian angels behind the butterfly people.

Radiation from a black hole turns the crew into a shipful of obsessives in Enterprise S2E9, "Singularity." Dom Bettinelli, Jimmy Akin, and Fr. Jason Tyler ask whether you can really build a whole plot on a pun.

He spent his career debunking fake mesmerists and mediums — then dreamed his brother's funeral weeks before it happened. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli trace Mark Twain's strange turn toward telepathy and ask what the Catholic has to say about it.

A powerful alien telepath locks Voyager's crew in private hallucinations and then vanishes without explanation. Dom Bettinelli and Jimmy Akin on whether "Persistence of Vision" earns its mystery.

The U.S. government holds real patents for putting voices in people's heads — and thousands say it's happening to them. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli separate the real physics from psychiatry, internet lore, and outright fraud.

When Klingons destroy the conference she was headed to, Kira ends up teaching guerrilla tactics to a demoted Dukat. Dom Bettinelli and Jimmy Akin unpack DS9 S4E14's moral complexity, Damar's debut, and whether Dukat is tragic or just evil.

A Liverpool merchant spent 30 years tunneling beneath his own neighborhood and never said why. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli weigh seven theories about Joseph Williamson and his mysterious underground labyrinth.

A separatist leader kidnaps Beverly Crusher and makes arguments the Enterprise crew can't quite answer. Dom Bettinelli, Jimmy Akin, and Fr. Jason Tyler on TNG's toughest terrorism episode: "The High Ground" (S3E12).

An alien observer who detaches his own body parts puts Kirk and Spock through their paces in TAS S2E2. Dom Bettinelli, Jimmy Akin, and Fr. Jason Tyler weigh whether "Bem" earns its strange premise — and how this episode named James Tiberius Kirk.

The most famous lost object in history — the Ark of the Covenant — vanished from Scripture before 586 BC and was never seen again. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli examine what it was, trace its history, and weigh nine theories for where it went.

No Christmas special. No showrunner. No production partner. The BBC has put Doctor Who out to competitive tender, and Dom Bettinelli and Jimmy Akin weigh what the shake-up means for Billie Piper, the Timeless Child, and the show's next era.

A lost communicator on a war-torn pre-warp world forces Archer and Reed to risk their lives over an ethic the Prime Directive hasn't invented yet. Dom Bettinelli, Jimmy Akin, and Fr. Jason Tyler take on Enterprise S2E8, "The Communicator."

Thousands of star-like flashes flicker across sky-survey plates shot in the 1950s, before any satellite existed — some clustered, some lined up, some on famous UFO nights. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli weigh five explanations for the pre-Sputnik transients.

When pirates steal Voyager's computer core, Janeway's holographic Leonardo da Vinci ends up on an alien black market. Dom Bettinelli, Jimmy Akin, and Fr. Jason Tyler debate whether John Rhys-Davies alone can save it.

It's a fifth Friday, so Jimmy Akin is answering weird questions from Catholic Answers listeners, about topics like alien demons, vampire ethics, Jesus's DNA, ancient tech, how much water a priest can bless, and more.

The Circle falls, but the price is one hero's life. Dom Bettinelli, Jimmy Akin, and Fr. Jason Tyler close the DS9 opening trilogy: duty vs. family, a holosuite trap, and the politics that end a coup.

A lake in the Indian Himalayas holds hundreds of human skeletons from multiple centuries and continents. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli trace six theories, and the truth turns out to be stranger than the legend.

Minister Jaro is the Circle — and he's willing to torture Kira to keep it that way. Dom Bettinelli, Jimmy Akin, and Fr. Jason Tyler dig into Part 2 of DS9's season-opening trilogy.

Something happens at the moment of death. Sometimes the living sense it from miles away. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli examine 140 years of research into crisis apparitions: who experiences them, what the science says, and what the faith says.

A legend built on a lie. Or is it? Dom Bettinelli, Jimmy Akin, and Fr. Jason Tyler discuss DS9's first three-parter, Li Nalas's complicated myth, the rise of the Circle, and a father-son scene that carries more weight than it first appears.

Jesus' most misunderstood prophecy has sent readers down the wrong path for centuries. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli examine the Olivet Discourse: what did Jesus actually predict, and did it happen?

Starting Wednesday, May 6th, Jimmy Akin is teaching Introduction to Parapsychology for the Rhine Education Center—8 weeks of live online classes (Wed, 7–9 PM ET, recordings available) covering the scientific evidence for psychic functioning and survival of bodily death. You'll look at telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, psychokinesis, near-death experiences, apparitions, mediumship, hauntings, poltergeists, reincarnation cases, and the major criticisms of the field—plus how it all fits with the Christian view of the human person. Audit it or take it for a grade. Tuition $225 ($200 for Rhine members). It's also the required first course for the Rhine's certificate programs. → RhineEdu.org

There are more mattress stores in the US than McDonald's. They're almost always empty. They cluster suspiciously close together. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli investigate the internet's wildest retail conspiracy theory.