This episode is dedicated to Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. He was a French Jesuit, Catholic priest, scientist, paleontologist, philosopher, mystic, and teacher. The church refused to let him publish his works while he was alive, but they were published after his death. His works are unfortunately not that well known, but he has had a great influence both in art and science.
In this episode we try to bridge creation and the big bang with Brian Cranley. We get insight in his book The call of wonder, his inspiration and how he structured a book bridging the belief in a monetheisitc God, philosophical argumentation and natural science. One of the main dilemma is how to connect this notion of a God with a religous thought system and the how this phenomena is presented trough out such a system. To learn more on Brian Cranleys work, please visit: https://briancranley.com/
In this episode, we discuss different ways to argue about the relationship between religion and science. The most typical approach is to use religious premises to prove scientific facts or to use scientific premises to prove religious beliefs. Steven argues for a more circular form of argumentation, unfolding axioms that must serve as both the conclusion and the premise. A fourth way of arguing could be to explore the tacit knowledge of reality, experiencing the wonder of life and one’s own existence.
In this episode, Natia Natsvlishvili is visiting our podcast and we discuss how spirituality motivates our actions. An important question is what we mean by spirituality. We also touch upon the difference between animals and humans, understanding that animals also have a spirituality. On this topic, the four of us don't agree on human superiority, but there must be some kind of abilities in human spirituality that are different from all other creatures. Maybe it is our ability to be the conductor of our action, and it is our spirituality that brings this conducting into a good, rational and moral manner, or maybe the animals also are the conductor of their own way of living according to the universal order?
In this episode we discuss AI. What is the future of existence related to AI, what is the difference between humanity and AI and is it possible to bring ethical values into the algorithms of AI?
In this episode Kamran and I discussed the universe within human being. What are we searching if we wants to know oneself? What is the essence of human existence and what and how could a curriculum and the fostering generation unfold these essences to the next generation?
In this episode we start discussing Spinoza's thoughts on God, universe and the human existence. In the end we discuss what kind of abilities human being have that should be unfold in school. Maybe there is a connection between Spinoza's philosophy of human being as part of the eternal universe, and to try to raise children based on the nature God has given us, that school could be a space where children are able to search and find their inner gems?
In this episode we explore the phenomenon of praying. What does it really mean to pray and what is the meaning of this kind of activity. We also touches upon love and the courage to risk loving someone or something in the world and what kind of dimention of hope this receivingness of inner lust could bring into existence.
In this episode we discuss the holy. Our starting point is Mircea Eliade and Rudolf Otto. The German theologian and philosopher Rudolf Otto in his influential 1917 German book The Idea of the Holy gives us the term numinous, meaning "arousing spiritual or religious emotion; mysterious or awe-inspiring" also "supernatural" or "appealing to the aesthetic sensibility." Eliade, a historian of religion is famous for splitting the human experience of reality into sacred and profane space and time. In the podcast we discuss how the modern world has become more profane than sacred, and how the sacred could still be an essential part of human existence.
In this episode we discuss the relation between faith and everyday life. How does faith motivate our action, or is our action the expression of our faith?
In this episode we discuss Leo Strauss' lecture on Athens and Jerusalem. This is the first out of three lectures, delivered in the fall of 1950, investigate the agreement, disagreement, and conflict between the biblical and the philosophic “ways of life”: “Philosophy in the full sense is [...] incompatible with the biblical way of life. Philosophy and the Bible are the alternatives or the antagonists in the drama of the human soul. Each of the two antagonists claims to know the truth, namely, the decisive truths, the truths regarding the right way of life. But there can be only one truth, and, hence, conflict is inevitable.” The first lecture is uploaded to Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KQ_U9Nt3YE
The lecture is also made as a transcript: https://www.academia.edu/29738143/Leo_Strauss_Jerusalem_and_Athens_1950_
In this episode we discuss a youtube video of Richard Dawkins and Jordan Peterson. Dawkins is a British evolutionary biologist known for being an atheist. Peterson is a Canadian psychologist known for his psycological perspective on religious belief. Our starting point is the similarities and differences between Dawkins' concept of meme and Peterson's concept of archetype.
The link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wBtFNj_o5k
In this episode we discuss the catholic encyclical letter "Fides et Ratio" written in 1998. This was the first encyclical since Pope Leo XIII's 1879 Aetern Patris to address the relationship between faith and reason. We recommend to read the letter, we only interpret some of the issues been highlighted in the letter.
https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_14091998_fides-et-ratio.html
In this episode we have a jam session discussing truth. You may have heard some of the tunes or stanzas before, but not in this rhythm and order.
In this episode we elaborate on some of the ground questions of being a human being. What are we and were are we coming from and what if we are not coming from anything, would that mean that we have always existed and will always exist. Such cosmological questions often unfolds when death becomes part of life. Life understood as a small universe starting with a bang when conceived and ending with another big bang called death.
In this episode, we elaborate the relationship between human and divinity. In the beginning of the episode, we believe we need some kind of understanding of what divinity is and what human is. But we end up, thinking that maybe the relationship can be experienced just by raising an awareness towards such a relationship. Underneath this discussion is a search for a common universal narrative of the divine that could incorporate all kind of religious or non-religious existence.
In this episode we discuss if history has a course or not and if this course are of progress or decline. We further discuss what possibility human existence has to develop a good society. Could such a society be based on facts or do we need a narrative based on faith? Underneath these discussions are the question of what is human being and what kind of potential do human have to actualize our faith and facts in an ever changing reality.
In this episode we explore the value of historical knowledge could have to present being and even the future. Based on the epic dimension of human being, what kind of power provides knowledge from the past? We touch upon different dichotomies like, spirit and matter, trust and criticism, origin or progress, and love vs suffer as sources of creativity.
In this episode we continue to discuss what forms of transformation we believe to be done in school.
In this episode we discuss the idea of abolishing school. Is this a good idea or is it a dangerous one? Maybe we need that dangerous idea to keep the meaning of school alive and not turning the school into a factory to produce children as cogs in the society machinery?