When a musical subculture adopts religious ideas ... Meet Kali, a Hindu goddess and extreme-metal music icon ... “Left-hand” vs. “right-hand” Tantric practice ... Gateways to forbidden power ... Spiritual elitism in the extreme-metal music scene ... Questioning the value of the transgressive mindset ...

The limits of human knowledge ... Confronting the weirdness of quantum physics ... Einstein, relativity, photons—and time travel! ... What good is a legacy if you’re dead? ... George's ideal afterlife ... The human compulsion to find order in the world ...

How mental breakdown could prime one for spiritual awakening ... Russell: Cracks in our sense of self are helpful ... Why mental health prognoses are worse in the West ... Has meditation become commodified? ... How practicing mindfulness can make you a better therapist ... Can mindfulness replace traditional therapy? ...

What is Theosophy? ... A Theosophical explanation of psychic phenomena ... Do all religions contain the same truth? ... Synthesizing religion, philosophy, and science ... Is there an ordering force in the universe? ... Theosophy’s most important teaching ...

Will's new book Doing Good Better and its topic, effective altruism ... A shockingly cheap and easy way to help schools in Africa ... The perils of pursuing only the quantifiably good ... The case against buying fair trade products and donating to disaster relief ... Long-term do-good planning ... Why it makes sense to invest in apocalypse prevention even though we'll probably be fine ...

Jesse's article on the closure of a gender identity clinic ... The rise of #firejessesingal ... The real-world consequences of abusive online discourse ... The social dynamics driving internet vitriol ... Why engage at all? ... Life lessons from being shamed on Twitter ...

Melanie Brewster and other Atheists in America ... Can atheism be a source of community? ... What about hope, consolation and wonder? ... Melanie's book and why it was originally titled The Other Closet ... Why do New Atheists tend to be white, male and angry? ... Are atheists understudied? ...

What constitutes an explanation in the natural sciences? ... Looking for a categorical difference between natural and social sciences ... Biological and social explanations of human behavior ... The difference between the narratives of social and physical sciences ... Does social science explain events or their interpretations? ... Must a science have “laws”? Are there social scientific laws? ...

A quick look at the life of Wittgenstein ... The misunderstood philosopher ... How does language represent reality (if at all)? ... Wittgenstein the Mystic ... Why your private thoughts are public ... Cognitive science's big Wittgensteinian problem ...

The fractured evangelical vote ... State of the evangelical mind (with a cameo by Sarah's dog Karma) ... The trajectory of Sarah's relationship with Judaism ... Journalistic work as a source of pleasure and meaning ... Mourning without the consolation of an afterlife ... Hillary's brand of liberal Christianity ...