4 November 2026
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Nov 23, 2015 —
Robert Wright & David Carr
- How personal trauma inspired David’s book on trauma and the Bible
- Ancient Israel’s transition from polytheism to “monolatry”
- The Babylonian exile and the birth of Abrahamic monotheism
- The link between trauma and God’s covenant with Israel
- Why the crucifixion of Jesus shocked his followers
- Why have Biblical texts survived?
Nov 20, 2015 —
Robert Wright & Paul Knitter
- A Catholic questions whether Jesus is the “one and only savior”
- How Paul integrates Buddhism and Christianity
- Paul: Jesus, like the Buddha, “fully woke up”
- How “interbeing” leads to loving thy neighbor
- Meditation, the Eucharist, and the feeling that “all is well”
- Paul: Peace in the world starts with peace within yourself
Oct 26, 2015 —
Robert Wright & Dena Merriam
- Commonalities between Hindu and Buddhist meditation
- What a Buddhist calls “non-self,” a Hindu might call “oneness”
- Dena decries the commercialization of meditation
- The work of the Global Peace Initiative of Women
- An alliance of contemplative practitioners
- Could meditation help solve the Israeli/Palestinian conflict?
Oct 24, 2015 —
Robert Wright & Aliou Niang
- Parallels between Christianity and Africa’s Diola religion
- Essential Diola ritual practices
- How economics caused the French Imperial powers to suppress the Diola tradition
- The land as a “living being”
- Aliou’s path to Christianity via Diola and Sufi traditions
- Reading Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians from a Diola perspective
Oct 20, 2015 —
Robert Wright & Jay Michaelson
- Jay’s new book on sadness, The Gate of Tears
- The most common mistake we make in dealing with sadness
- Examining the contours of your negative emotions
- Connections between Jewish and Buddhist teachings
- Jay: Pushing away the difficult is 90% of the difficult
- Spirituality and the power of negative thinking
Oct 19, 2015 —
Robert Wright & Jorge Ferrer
- Do all religions have the same “esoteric core?”
- The psychedelic origins of transpersonal psychology
- Aligning your instincts, consciousness, and heart through “participatory spirituality”
- Constructing reality through “embodied cognition”
- Why Jorge would object to making participatory spirituality a religion
- The complicated morality of “enlightened” spiritual teachers
Oct 4, 2015 —
Jonathan Phillips & Steven Frankland
- How the brain builds complex thoughts out of reusable parts
- More fodder for the brain-as-computer model
- Sorry, we’re not quite there with the mind-reading thing
- Possible reasons for the brain’s topographic organization
- Why Steven’s paper is controversial (and exciting)
- Cognitive neuroscience questions for the near future
Oct 3, 2015 —
Daniel Kaufman & Massimo Pigliucci
- “Virtue ethics” vs. typical modern understandings of morality
- What do you need to live a “flourishing” life?
- How to tell the difference between a Cynic and a Stoic
- When our moral intuitions and our moral systems conflict
- What Massimo finds appealing about a Stoic lifestyle
- Why you shouldn’t focus on external outcomes
Sep 9, 2015 —
Robert Wright & John Thatamanil
- Paul Tillich’s conception of God as “the ground of being”
- Viewing the Christian tradition as symbolic, not literal
- Tillich’s engagement with Eastern mysticism
- How Tillich wrestled with the problem of evil
- Tillich’s recasting of the idea of divine revelation
- Is there consolation in Tillich’s view of death?
Sep 6, 2015 —
Robert Wright & Clayton Critcher
- Clayton’s research into the psychology of religious belief
- The difference between awe and inspiration
- Evidence that inspiration causes belief in God
- The effects of remembering personally inspiring events
- What happens during moments of spiritual transcendence
- Believing in a loving God vs. a controlling God
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