Star Wars Philosophy 101 ... St. Augustine on why people join the Dark Side ... What makes Jedi better than terrorists, and the Empire worse than the U.S. ... Midi-chlorians and the mind-body problem ... The Lucas Empire v. the Fan Alliance: battle for the imaginary universe ... The Force Awakens: spoilers and speculations ...

What does it mean to be Jewish? ... The development of different Jewish movements ... Barbara: God doesn't change; our understanding of God changes ... The Torah, the Talmud, and the Jewish canon ... Bringing the old ways into modern times ... Why moral philosophy alone isn’t enough ...

Buddhism in a nutshell ... The meaning of life according to Tibetan Buddhism ... The key to liberation ... Talking about tantra ... If science is power, what happens to religion? ... What does renunciation mean for Buddhists? ...

Rebecca’s “mind-blowing” encounter with the problem of consciousness ... David’s famous zombie thought experiment ... Rebecca: “We are material things” ... Does an electron have a kind of mind? ... Where does meaning come from? ... Describing a satisfactory model of consciousness ...

What is Confucianism? ... Living with both a Confucian and a Christian identity ... Wisdom accumulates slowly ... The power (and difficulty) of radical love ... Melancholic freedom and existential angst ... Finding and losing meaning in the scientific age ...

John’s new old book, The End of Science ... How grand is the unified theory, really? ... Cancer, brain lasers, and other things that matter ... Mind-blowing potential of dark energy and dark matter ... The mind-body problem ... Will science shed any new light on basic philosophical questions? ...

Why conservative Catholic Michael likes the New Atheists ... Finding strength and unity in Scripture ... What's the true meaning of Christmas? ... Michael: Catholic ritual defines my religion ... Michael's Irish heritage and Bob's West Texas roots ... How a fear of Hell affects everyday life ...

Lawrence on religion's "most immoral" aspect ... A defense of giving offense ... Why is there something rather than nothing? ... Bob accuses Lawrence of avoiding the key question ... Debating whether evolution has directionality ... Can science fill religion's place in people's lives? ...

Alex's new book, The Audacity of Hoop ... How basketball shaped Obama, personally and politically ... The significance of Obama's move to golf ... Life lessons from playing pickup ... A beautiful merging of individual and collective goals ... The San Antonio Spurs as a model of global cooperation ...

Revisiting Frank's "End of History" thesis ... Trump, China, and the threat of illiberal democracy ... Frank: The singularity is an "idiotic" idea ... Should we fear homemade eugenics? ... Why Americans need to improve their moral imaginations ... Does religion unite more than it divides? ...