Sam Harris, mystic and atheist ... The mystery of consciousness ... Is mysticism more like science than like religion? ... How religion makes progress ... Sam's case for intolerance ... The root causes of extremism ... Religious and secular reasons to do good ... Ways religion may be closer to the truth than atheism ... A secular approach to death ...

The non-Euclidean nature of coral reefs ... When physics defies human comprehension ... Bad blood between the sciences and the humanities ... The limits of scientific knowledge ... Are scientists asking the wrong questions about consciousness? ... The intenseness of having an identical twin ...

Kevin Kelly's new book The Inevitable ... Technology as an extension of evolution ... Will Google monopolize AI? ... How to foster an ethical AI ... People of the screen ... The importance of seeing the glass as half-full ...

Joan Didion and the New Journalism ... Didion's warning against trusting our own stories ... How and why are millennials and Gen Xers different? ... Didion's critique of second-wave feminism ... The greatness and sadness of Hunter S. Thompson ... Local news: MeaningofLife.tv is adding a YouTube dimension ...

Trumpism as a spiritual problem ... John extends some Christian charity to Trump ... What motivates Trump supporters? ... How anti-elitism fuels Trump’s campaign ... John: Trump’s use of fear is spiritually toxic ... Trump’s mistaken belief that invulnerability = power ...

Joseph's book, Patterns of Sin in the Hebrew Bible ... Ancient metaphors that endure ... Sin then and now ... The influence of metaphors on how we think about social issues ...

The seminal Buddhist philosopher Vasubandhu, hero of Paving the Great Way ... Buddhist and Darwinian arguments for reality not being as it seems ... The 'hyper-reductionism' of Buddhism ... Meditation and the doctrine of emptiness ... Does the Buddhist view of causality leave room for agency? ... Are the past and the future real? ... Hindu and Buddhist versions of non-duality ...

Wesley explains “transreligious theology” ... What’s religious about religious naturalism? ... Can science help us understand ultimate reality? ... Bringing religious thought and philosophy together ... Be skeptical of spiritual experiences ... Don’t just love your enemies, understand them ... Wesley: “Purpose" isn’t a useful category ...

The Geography of Madness, Frank's book about "penis theft" and other "culture-bound" syndromes ... How believing that you’re going to die can kill you ... How to cure "penis theft?" ... The challenge of ethically responding to seemingly crazy beliefs ... Frank: The body isn’t like a machine ... Belief-boosted runners, windmill syndrome, and the weird case of Coca-Cola poisoning ...

Hugo’s theory about why people reason and argue ... When can arguments change minds? ... How trust and argumentation work together ... The virtues of speaking directly to an adversary ... Debating whether the mind is designed to delude ... How publicly expressing beliefs affects them ...