10 July 2025
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Nov 1, 2019 —
Robert Wright & Preston Greene
- Why many intelligent people think we’re living in a simulation
- The philosophical argument that you’re probably not real
- How cosmic rays might (and might not) reveal that reality is fake
- Preston’s dire warning against trying to determine if we’re in a simulation
- Is the simulation hypothesis non-falsifiable?
- Is “the simulation” just religion for atheists?
TAGS atheism | cosmology | death | history | philosophy | physics | religion | science | technology | the future
Oct 18, 2019 —
Robert Wright & John Horgan
- What is scientism, and who is doing it?
- Postmodernism and whether science just tells “stories”
- John criticizes the “ideological fervor” of evolutionary psychology
- The hubris of scientists in the ’80s and ’90s
- Has science reached its fundamental limits in trying to explain consciousness?
- John wins his Nobel Prize “long bet” on string theory
- The various corrupting influences on scientists
- A brief debate on higher purpose
TAGS atheism | cognitive science | Daniel Dennett | evolution | mind-body problem | physics | religion | science
Oct 15, 2019 —
This Podcast Is Self Care (Aryeh Cohen-Wade, Drew Spears, & Cait Raft)
- Cait and Drew’s podcast, This Podcast Is Self Care
- Emotional labor vs. self care
- Unpacking the idea that self care is just for women
- Crystals, sage, and “fake magic is real”
- Why are Millennials so attracted to self care and the supernatural?
- Astrology as anti-capitalism
- The hot new trend of “self-grandparenting”
- Why Aryeh loves the podcast
TAGS compassion | gender | happiness | meditation | mental health | mysticism | religion | self | spirituality
Oct 4, 2019 —
Robert Wright & Bhikkhu Bodhi
- What is the foundation of Buddhist ethics?
- Experiencing not-self
- Buddhism is a synthesis of consequentialism and virtue ethics
- The origins of Buddhism’s concern for animal welfare
- Does the Buddha want you to be vegetarian?
- Why isn’t there more anti-militarist activism among Buddhists?
- Trying to comply with the Buddhist ideal of “right speech”
- Mental defilements and their eradication
- Does Buddhism’s emphasis on equanimity discourage activism?
Jul 16, 2019 —
Aryeh Cohen-Wade & Jamie Lauren Keiles
- Jamie’s NYT Magazine piece, “How ASMR Became a Sensation”
- Searching for the science behind ASMR
- Why are ASMR creators disproprotionately female?
- The strange life of Gibi, one of the top “ASMRtists”
- A temporary salve for Internet-era loneliness
- Will ASMR go corporate?
- Jamie researches the history of the Jewish American Princess
- Daddy’s money, girl power, and Juicy Couture
- Are there Jewish American Princes?
TAGS cognitive science | evolution | gender | happiness | human nature | Judaism | media | psychology | religion
Jun 1, 2019 —
Aryeh Cohen-Wade & Sarah Marshall
- Remembering the Satanic ritual abuse panic of the 1980s
- How the McMartin case launched the panic
- Sarah: Recovered memory therapy created the idea of Satanic ritual abuse
- Why hasn’t there been a large-scale reckoning with the panic?
- Contemporary resonances: witch hunts and moral panics
- Sarah visits Disney World and thinks about desire
- Why are there so many absent mothers in the Disney canon?
Apr 19, 2019 —
Robert Wright & John Thatamanil
- Alfred North Whitehead and his “process philosophy”
- “Process theology,” which features a changing, non-omnipotent God
- A God of persuasion, not coercion
- Whitehead’s conception of divinity
- Whitehead’s God and Christian theology
- Waiting, or not waiting, for God
- Beauty and the divine
- How Whitehead’s God solves the problem of evil
Apr 12, 2019 —
Aryeh Cohen-Wade & B. D. McClay
- B. D.’s essay on mononucleosis and gnosticism
- What the ancient gnostics believed about body and spirit
- Fingernail clippings and other problems with bodily resurrection
- Pros and cons of living in a body
- Did George H.W. Bush get to walk out of his wheelchair at the gates of Heaven?
- B. D. explains the Children’s Crusade of 1212
- The Children’s Crusade’s contemporary resonances
- Queer Eye, the reality show that makes you feel good about humanity
Mar 4, 2019 —
Nikita Petrov & John Horgan
TAGS ancient philosophy | Buddhism | Christianity | consciousness | enlightenment | human nature | literature | philosophy | religion | spirituality | technology
Jan 11, 2019 —
Robert Wright & John D. Caputo
- John, a theologian and philosopher, explains postmodern Christianity
- Why postmodernism is not “linguistic idealism”
- Religion’s tendency to literalize
- What Paul Tillich and Jacques Derrida thought about “the unconditional”
- John: The Scriptures present a poetic, topsy-turvy vision of life
- Where do our aspirations come from (if anywhere)?
- Have art, literature, and social activism replaced religion?
- Is there a link between the unconditional and Buddhism’s “unconditioned”?
Nov 23, 2018 —
Robert Wright & John Haught
- The prescience of theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
- Teilhard’s synthesizing of the “above” and the “ahead”
- John: The creation of humans is not the universe’s climax
- John: God is “not yet”
- Science and faith as different layers of explanation
- Searching for God in a scientific age
- Why John rejects perennialism
- Questions from the live audience
Nov 13, 2018 —
Nikita Petrov & Tanya Luhrmann
- Tanya’s “local theory of mind”
- Harry Potter, prayer, and other “cultural invitations”
- Psychotherapy in the US and witchcraft in Ghana
- American individualism and Asian interdependence
- The differences between hearing God in Ghana and the US
- The Internet as externalized imagination: Pepe and Kek
- A “hyper-real God”: having coffee with Jesus
- Thoughts, perceptions, the world, and the self
TAGS Buddhism | Christianity | consciousness | human nature | meditation | psychology | religion | science | spirituality
Nov 11, 2018 —
John Horgan & Rebecca Newberger Goldstein
- Rebecca’s childhood: poor, religious, and patriarchal
- How Bertrand Russell helped Rebecca lose her faith
- The problem of beauty
- When Rebecca shared a transcendent moment with a troop of baboons
- From physics to philosophy
- From philosophy to fiction
- Does art better address the mind-body problem than philosophy does?
- Reasons to feel optimistic about the world
Nov 3, 2018 —
John Horgan & Owen Flanagan
- Owen’s transition from Catholicism to “quiet skepticism”
- The problem of evil
- The hubris of modern philosophers
- Can we live with the scientific image of man?
- The origin of the universe, life, and consciousness
- Owen: Doubt yourself
- Does philosophy lead to practical wisdom?
- Mind-altering chemicals and free will
TAGS atheism | Buddhism | Christianity | consciousness | ethics | evolution | free will | human nature | mind-body problem | philosophy | psychology | religion | science
Nov 2, 2018 —
Robert Wright & Eric Kandel
- The research on memory that won Eric the Nobel Prize
- The difference between normal memory loss and Alzheimer’s
- Eric’s new book, The Disordered Mind
- Eric’s breakthrough study of marine snails with giant nerve cells
- What it’s like to win the Nobel Prize
- Eric’s childhood escape from Nazi-ruled Vienna to America
- Why Vienna was a center of intellectual ferment in the early 20th century
Oct 5, 2018 —
Robert Wright & Lama Surya Das
- Is Buddhism a philosophy or a religion?
- Surya Das: “I’m enlightened enough for now”
- Attachment, aversion, and “original goodness”
- Is an enlightened person by definition a moral person?
- Not-self and Emerson’s “transparent eyeball”
- The Dzogchen approach to enlightenment
- Surya Das: Trump has the spark of Buddha nature (and so do you)
Sep 20, 2018 —
Nikita Petrov & John Horgan
- John’s new book, Mind-Body Problems, is free online
- “What are we really, what can we be, and what should we be?”
- Robert Trivers, an evolutionary biologist with an affinity for violence
- Douglas Hofstadter, a playful writer, but a melancholic person
- Why ex-materialist Christof Koch embraced panpsychism
- How losing a daughter made Stuart Kaufman study the paranormal
- Story time! Nikita and John exchange psychedelic tales
TAGS biology | cognitive science | consciousness | enlightenment | evolution | human nature | meditation | mind-body problem | philosophy | psychology | religion | science | spirituality
Aug 15, 2018 —
Aryeh Cohen-Wade & Philip Christman
- Phil’s essay, “What Is It Like to Be a Man?”
- Modern male stereotypes: Homer Simpson vs. Harvey Weinstein
- Proud Boys, Jordan Peterson, and the crisis of masculinity
- The trans challenge to gender norms
- Phil explains why his Christian faith doesn’t provide him with certainty
- Contrasting certainty in Judaism and Christianity
Jul 11, 2018 —
Robert Wright & Michael Shermer
- Michael’s controversial Scientific American column on the “final mysterians”
- Bob’s thought experiment about God and quantum mechanics
- The split among philosophers over the free will question
- Revisiting Thomas Nagel’s famous essay, “What is it like to be a bat?”
- What’s a harder problem, God or consciousness?
- What laws should govern a colony on Mars?
- Michael reports from inside the Intellectual Dark Web
- Deconstructing Jordan Peterson’s appeal
- Bob: Life is hard and religion can help
TAGS consciousness | Daniel Dennett | free will | Islam | New Atheists | philosophy | physics | religion | Richard Dawkins | science
Jul 6, 2018 —
Robert Wright & John Haught
- John’s book, The New Cosmic Story
- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and cosmic evolution
- What it means to say that “God is more Omega than Alpha”
- John: We live in an “awakening universe”
- Putting religion in cosmic context
- Does “rightness” exist apart from human judgment?
- Why John takes comfort in the “unfinishedness” of the universe
- Alfred North Whitehead’s influence on John’s worldview
- Why John rejects Perennialism
Jun 27, 2018 —
Aryeh Cohen-Wade & Alissa Wilkinson
- First Reformed, Paul Schrader’s new film that takes Christianity seriously
- Schrader’s European art-house influences
- The film contrasts two versions of American Protestantism
- Ethan Hawke’s restrained lead performance
- Spoiler alert! Analyzing the film’s shocking twists
- The intentionally ambiguous ending
- Reaction to the film from the Christian press
Jun 20, 2018 —
William Black & Jemar Tisby
- Jemar’s path from educator to historian
- How racial history shapes the landscape of the Deep South
- The “quiet exodus” of black Christians from white evangelical churches
- Not a “skin problem,” but a “sin problem”
- Jemar: Kindness isn’t just being polite to avoid offense
- Bill explains the historic racial divide within the Cumberland Presbyterian Church
Jun 13, 2018 —
Stephen Asma & Rami Gabriel
- Where do culture, emotion, and cognition intersect?
- Is altruism a fluke of humans’ inherently selfish nature?
- How Western individualism clouds our view of human nature
- Stephen: The strongest cultural adaptations are shared unconsciously
- An evolutionary explanation of Trump’s cult of personality
- Complicating the narrative on immigrant cultural values and success
- Reactions to Stephen’s new book, Why We Need Religion
May 25, 2018 —
Robert Wright & Massimo Pigliucci
- What is the Logos?
- The practicality of metaphysics
- Philo of Alexandria’s vision of global harmony
- Plotinus and the connection between human and divine
- The Logos and Christianity
- The Logos as an algorithm
- Why do the laws of physics infallibly work?
- Carl Jung and the Logos (and Jordan Peterson’s Jungianism)
May 4, 2018 —
Robert Wright & Steven Pinker
- Steve’s new book, Enlightenment Now, and Bob’s critique
- Cognitive biases that undergird tribalism
- Bob wants to crowdfund a meditation retreat for Steve, who is uncooperative
- How Al Gore’s climate change activism may have hurt his own cause
- Is it crazy to suspect that there’s a larger purpose unfolding through the workings of nature?
- Has our growing grasp of computation and cognition made consciousness less mysterious or more so?
Apr 27, 2018 —
Robert Wright & Chris Stedman
- Chris’s experience as a humanist chaplain at Harvard and Yale
- Secular community with a moral tone
- Atheism, anti-theism, and humanism
- What Richard Spencer doesn’t like about the Abrahamic faiths
- Atheism and tribalism
- Atheistic fervor as a response to religious trauma
- An inspirational atheism
- Does some New Atheist rhetoric encourage bigotry?
Apr 23, 2018 —
Philip Menchaca & Kelly Baker
- The Ku Klux Klan’s appeal to Protestant America
- How the KKK rationalized a Jewish Jesus
- The Birth of a Nation and the symbology of the burning cross
- How to “love thy neighbor” as a Klansman (answer: very selectively)
- Kelly: The Klan declined, but its politics went mainstream
- Kelly’s search for apocalyptic rhetoric in Klan literature
Mar 8, 2018 —
Aryeh Cohen-Wade & Pater Edmund Waldstein
- Why the Mortara case is still provoking argument 150 years later
- Pater Edmund offers a defense of Pope Pius IX
- Integralism and different conceptions of liberty
- What would an integralist Catholic state look like?
- How Pater Edmund became a monk (with a blog)
- The day-to-day life of a modern meditating monk
Feb 5, 2018 —
William Black & Benjamin Park
- The Mormon Church’s new president, 93 year-old Russell M. Nelson
- The decades-long campaign to incorporate the Church into the American mainstream
- Does the Church clash with academic historical study?
- Untangling the fates of remarried Mormons’ souls
- The LDS Church as a contained society within the US
- Why did the first Mormon women choose polygamy?
Jan 29, 2018 —
Robert Wright & Michael Shermer
- The time Michael thought he was being abducted by aliens
- Michael’s new book, Heavens on Earth
- Deepak Chopra’s afterlife
- Why uploading your brain to achieve immortality makes no sense
- Is radical life extension just bunk?
- The Second Coming, presented by Ray Kurzweil
- What consolation can the atheist offer to the dying?
- The spookiest thing that’s ever happened to Michael
TAGS aging | atheism | Buddhism | consciousness | death | Hinduism | mind-body problem | New Atheists | religion | the future | transhumanism
Jan 8, 2018 —
Philip Menchaca & Jonathan Young
- Who was Joseph Campbell?
- Applying the idea of the monomyth to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
- Can we disentangle myths from culture?
- Cinderella and mental health
- How Jonathan uses mythology in psychotherapy
- Is it healthy to think of yourself as a hero on a quest?
- Religion and the experience of meaning vs. the idea of meaning
Oct 29, 2017 —
Robert Wright & Craig Harline
- Martin Luther’s Ninety-five Theses, 500 years later
- Luther was very hard on himself, and the consequences were huge
- Why Luther’s sermons went viral in 16th-century Germany
- Luther’s mark on future Protestant denominations
- The Diet of Worms and its improbably dramatic aftermath
- Why did Prince Frederick III of Saxony protect Luther?
Sep 24, 2017 —
Nikita Petrov & Tony Ortega
- Former Scientology executive Marty Rathbun’s private conflict with the Church
- New breakthroughs in media coverage of Scientology
- How the Church swiftly conquered US law and the IRS
- What makes Scientology different from other religions?
- How L. Ron Hubbard invented a reality for his followers
- Why Scientology isn’t concerned with the apocalypse
- The Church’s beef with professional psychology
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