Stephen’s new book, Why We Need Religion ... Who is Stephen’s intended audience? ... How religion shaped our emotional lives for millennia ... Can you benefit from religion without sincere belief? ... “False consolation”? No such thing, Stephen says ... Stephen learns to appreciate the “smells and bells” of Buddhism in Bhutan ... How will religion evolve in America? ...

The rise of "occult politics" in the Trump era ... Pepe the Frog and "willing Trump into office" ... Trickle-down metaphysics from Nietzsche to Trump ... Steve Bannon’s connection to European far-right esoteric philosophy ... "Putin’s Rasputin," Alexander Dugin ... Gary’s new project on the return of "Holy Russia" ... Gary's thoughts on Jordan Peterson ...

Ben's essay challenging Philip Zimbardo's famous Stanford Prison Experiment ... How a study about prisoners became a study about guards ... Evidence that Zimbardo improperly influenced the study ... The unexpected political effects of the experiment ... What explains the experiment's durability? ... When Zimbardo tried to get Bob to dance ... Is Zimbardo himself a victim of circumstance? ...

To understand Marx, start with Hegel’s dialectics ... Why Marx emphasized economic production over Hegelian idealism ... Dan: Was Marx’s concept of labor too narrow? ... What will happen if technology eliminates most jobs? ... Marxism post-WWII: More than college activism and Jefferson Airplane? ... Brian: Marx’s predictions were right, but his predicted timeframe was all wrong ... Why “diversity blather” is a capitalist wolf in Marxist clothing ...

What Katie saw at the Jordan Peterson roadshow ... Is Peterson peddling bunkum? ... Katie defends Peterson against charges of racism ... Peterson's views on gender: traditionalist, sexist, or misogynist? ... Peterson as a holy fool ... Jesse Singal's controversial Atlantic cover story on detransitioning ... Is the media telling the wrong stories about trans people? ...

Why Robin's head will be severed and frozen upon his death ... Robin used the phrase "redistribution of sex" and people got mad ... Robin defends his controversial blog post about rape and cuckoldry ... Robin's book about our selfish motives, The Elephant in the Brain ... Laughter as a signal about norm violation ... Robin: Politics is about proving your loyalty to your side ... What's the real reason we engage in conversation? ...

Try this at home: the rubber hand illusion ... Out-of-body experiences in VR ... Why you will never have a not-self experience ... Meditation, capitalism, and political activism ... The urgent need to teach meditation in schools ... Thomas's "transparent self" model ...

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 ...

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 ...

Vanessa's NYT Magazine piece on NXIVM, an alleged "sex cult" ... Why so many women rose to the top of the group ... The Hollywood actress who became a NXIVM leader ... The real story of the infamous branding of women's skin ... Is the group guilty of sex trafficking? ... Is NXIVM a sex cult? ...