Virgil, master of the setup, is now laying the groundwork for some of the Aeneid's major setpieces: the love affair with Dido, the voyage into the underworld. But first Aeneas has to pass a different milestone, one that people sometimes miss: he has to say goodbye to his father. It's one of the most human moments of the poem--something every single one of us has to go through--elevated to magisterial significance in the hero's journey. Follow along with us to the end of Book III as Aeneas enters a new stage in his adventure. Plus: a firsthand update from the Ivies after my trip to Ithaca to give a speech at Cornell.

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My friend Dr. Brian Keating, leading cosmologist and all-around mensch, joins me to discuss one of the most brilliant, complicated, and misunderstood men in all of Western history. No, not Elon Musk. Galileo Galilei! We cover Galileo's daring philosophy of science, his contributions to human knowledge, his devout Catholic faith, and his many, many mistresses and children. Plus: what can believers learn from scientists, and vice versa? It's a terrific conversation and the kind you could really only get on Young Heretics.

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Find Dr. Keating's work at https://briankeating.com

Listen to our interview on Into the Impossible: https://open.spotify.com/episode/34zBv8p7SphrsuKsfufsFL

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It's time to embark on Book III of the Aeneid, and with it a mini-Odyssey. But there's a catch: Odysseus had home waiting for him at the end of all his wanderings. Aeneas has left home behind him, and he can never return. This episode is about why that's so important--for Virgil, for Augustus, for Rome at the dawn of its imperial age, and for America on the verge of its 250th birthday. Plus: my daily routine does not involve rubbing banana peel on my face. But it does involve the liturgy of the hours. 100/10 would recommend!

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Map of Aeneas' wanderings by Simeon Netchev: https://www.worldhistory.org/image/16056/the-journey-of-aeneas-from-troy-to-rome/

iBreviary: https://www.ibreviary.org/en/

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I'm back from Hungary, where the topic of the day was the future of faith in the West, without which it seems unlikely we'll survive. But are we on the brink of a revival? There are some hopeful signs, and no one better to discuss them with than my guest today. Justin Brierley has been podcasting and writing about the return of religious faith for 20 years. The trends he's been watching all that time are suddenly coming to a remarkable prominence. We talked faith and politics in the U.S. and the U.K., how the church may have let men down, and where this is all going next.

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This is a podcast about the West, which means Athens and Jerusalem. Without the second part of that equation you don't get the key notion of the "Imago Dei," or mankind's creation in the image of God--and without that, arguably, that you don't get America. Then of course there's the enormous storehouse of political wisdom that makes Israel a bulwark against globalism both ancient and modern.

All this makes it hugely distressing that antisemitism--philosophical, virulent, and open hatred of the Jews--has returned to prominence in developed nations. My guest today, Josh Hammer, has written a book explaining the indispensable value of Israel to the West, and to civilization more generally. We had a great conversation about the deep history and immediate future of the West.

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Speaking just for myself, I'm still not over Creusa. Aeneas' first wife, the woman who bore the future forefather of Rome's emperors, must stay behind to die in Troy while her family forges on ahead. Today we'll talk about why that has to be, what it says about the tragic cost of destiny for each of us, and how book II of Virgil's epic concludes. Plus: the cast list for Christopher Nolan's Odyssey is out! My reaction to Zendaya as Athena, and a mailbag question about the legacy of Carthage.

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We will not live in the pod. We will not eat the fake meat. We will not perform robot necromancy. But then...what should we do? With the Right in political power and a radically new mood sweeping the country, Jon Askonas of the Catholic University of America is among those thinking about how we can use technology well and in service of our humanity--not the other way around. I called him up to discuss a new First Things statement on preserving the family in the digital age. We talk AI, lab-grown meat, cursed robots, Soviet Ender's Game, Potempkin Dystopia, and so much more.

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Follow Jon on X: https://x.com/jonaskonas?lang=en

Protoclone, the horrorbot: https://x.com/clonerobotics/status/1892250639360561234

A New Technology Agenda for the Right, from First Things: https://firstthings.com/a-future-for-the-family-a-new-technology-agenda-for-the-right/

When we first met Aeneas, he wished he could have died at Troy. Today, we find out why. By all accounts, the honorable thing to do would have been to go down with the burning citadel of his fathers. But this ain't your daddy's Iliad, and one thing we're learning is that honor and glory don't fetch quite the price they used to. If there's anyone who understands that it's Neoptolemus, AKA Pyrrhus, AKA Achilles' hellspawn, AKA the living wages of Greek decadence. It's not a pretty sight. Plus: what should we make of the Septuagint?

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Hey look, it's some Greeks! Bearing gifts! What could possibly go wrong?

Today the Trojans will find out the answer to that very question, which will take us (at last!) into the story of that freaking horse. In Virgil's masterful hands it becomes a parable of Greek rhetorical trickery, Odyssean danger, and above all Roman anxiety over just how we should feel about the Greeks. On the one hand, without them, there would be no Aeneid. On the other hand, they're...kinda sus. Plus: why you should read the Aeneid instead of letting Grok do it for you.

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Don't take money...don't take fame...just takes a primordial deity whose powers of creation and destruction supervised the origins of the world, who is now divebombing straight at Dido's heart. What could go wrong? This extremely twisted Valentine's Day special will bring us to the end of The Aeneid, Book 1, which ends in blood-pumping fashion with a moment of extreme sexual tension. In the midst of which, Aeneas will be asked to relive the time his home got obliterated by a ruthless army of bloodthirsty Greeks. Fun! (No actually, it's fun.) Plus: the Drake and Kendrick of the ancient world.

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