Taylor and Todd discuss Carl Jung, the collective unconscious, intergenerational trauma, race, sexual identity, and gender consciousness. We discuss how these can enable us in the Jungian process of 'individuation', self-understanding, and healing.

In Marilynne Robinson's novel Gilead the preacher John Ames finds theological inspiration from the atheistic critic Ludwig Feuerbach. Feuerbach is one of Christianity's most interesting critics and arguably a critic of the caliber Christianity deserves. Though his intentions were to undermine Christianity he managed to produce some rich insights that Christians can adopt into their theology.

Alex and Todd sit down again to talk about religion. Alex asks Todd about his faith and his deep interest in religious issues. Why take religion, God, and scripture seriously?

Schopenhauer was one of the most influential modern philosophers to develop a philosophy of music. He thought of music as the most direct access to fundamental reality, which he called Will. Roger Scruton, in a reworked Schopenhauerian theory saw music as inducing a response of "overreaching intentionality" in which we acquire a first-person perspective on a state of mind that is not our own.

Jakob and Todd discuss leisure as a source of culture, drawing primarily on the thought of Josef Pieper and Bertrand Russell. How activities beyond work for the purposes of sustenance and material wealth can be good for their own sakes and even constitute higher goods; how a full life of genuine wealth implies an inbreaking of grace "overflowing into superfluities".

How can entities be picked out as individual and distinct entities? Sunny Auyang presents a Kantian model of spacetime as an absolute and indispensable structural scheme we project onto the world to organize it and to pick out individual elements, or events in it. Using fiber bundles she packs together a complex structure of individuating qualitative features that she links to individual points in spacetime.

We talk about George Lucas, his background and influences. Flash Gordon, Akira Kurosawa, Horse Opera and Spaghetti Westerns. The sequel trilogy: overall coherence, the Star Wars tradition of seeing contradictions "from a certain point of view". The sequel trilogy characters: Rey, Rose, and Vice Admiral Holdo.

It's undeniable that living in a secular age brings significant challenges to belief in God and to religious practice. And it's understandable. Still, there are reasons to give it a second look, or maybe a new first look with a fresh perspective.

One of the great things about Mesoamerican history is that we know so much about it. Names of places like Tikal, Calakmul, and Copán might inspire images of stone temples with a mysterious, long-lost history. This may have been true one hundred years ago. But today we know a great deal about their history because we can read their writing. We know the names of their rulers. We know important things that they did. In fact, they put a lot of effort into making sure their histories were preserved for posterity. Thanks to these records we have some very exciting and interesting history.