The Michael Shermer Show25 Maalis 2023

335. Jennifer Michael Hecht on How to Find Meaning, Purpose, and Happiness in Everyday Life

We have calendars to mark time, communal spaces to bring us together, bells to signal hours of contemplation, oﬃcial archives to record legacies, the wisdom of sages read aloud, weekly, to map out the right way to live ― in kindness, justice, morality. These rhythms and structures of society were all once set by religion. Now, for many, religion no longer runs the show.

So how then to celebrate milestones? Find rules to guide us? Figure out which texts can focus our attention but still oﬀer space for inquiry, communion, and the chance to dwell for a dazzling instant in what can't be said? Where, really, are truth and beauty? The answer, says historian and poet Jennifer Michael Hecht in her new book, The Wonder Paradox: Embracing the Weirdness of Existence and the Poetry of Our Lives, is in poetry.

Shermer and Hecht discuss: awe and wonder • science and religion • the new atheists • humanism and atheism • secular Judaism • replacing religion, with what? • the original meaning of liturgy and why it's still important • rituals for atheists • how to cope with loss, death, and grief • what to say at weddings and funerals • Alvy's Error (the universe is expanding but Brooklyn is not) • what we do in the hear-and-now matters, whether or not there is a hereafter (which there probably isn't) • love.

Jennifer Michael Hecht, a historian and poet, is the award-winning and bestselling author of the histories Doubt, Stay, The Happiness Myth, and The End of the Soul. Her poetry books include Who Said, The Next Ancient World, and Funny. She earned her PhD in history from Columbia University and teaches in New York City. Her new book is The Wonder Paradox: Embracing the Weirdness of Existence and the Poetry of Our Lives.

Tämä jakso on lisätty Podme-palveluun avoimen RSS-syötteen kautta eikä se ole Podmen omaa tuotantoa. Siksi jakso saattaa sisältää mainontaa.

Jaksot(640)

Why America Failed to Stop 9/11 | Gerald Posner & Michael Shermer

How did 19 hijackers evade the world's most advanced intelligence apparatus despite years of warnings? Twenty-five years after 9/11, journalist Gerald Posner joins Michael Shermer to explain the secur...

11 Syys 42min

Why Be Honest When Cheating Pays?

Most of us think of ourselves as honest. But would we still tell the truth if lying got us what we wanted—and nobody would ever find out? Philosopher Christian Miller joins Michael Shermer to discuss ...

9 Syys 1h 45min

Is the Future Unknowable? Uncertainty, Free Will, and the Limits of Science

What if uncertainty isn't a temporary problem science will eventually solve, but a fundamental feature of reality? Neuroscientist Stuart Firestein joins Michael Shermer to make the case that the unive...

1 Syys 1h 23min

Why We Want to Believe in Aliens and Why We Still Haven't Found Them

UFOs were once the stuff of tabloids and conspiracy theories. Today they're the subject of congressional hearings, Pentagon investigations, mainstream news coverage, and a new wave of claims about gov...

25 Elo 1h 13min

Is There a Second Arrow of Time? A New Law of Evolution, Information, and Complexity

Why does the universe produce ever more elaborate forms, from atoms and minerals to cells, organisms, brains, technology, and civilization? The familiar laws of physics can explain much of what happen...

18 Elo 1h 18min

Why Good People Disagree About Right and Wrong

Why do reasonable people disagree so strongly about right and wrong? And why are we so quick to assume that people on the other side of a moral or political issue are irrational, selfish, ignorant, or...

11 Elo 1h 57min

Are We Building a God? AI, Superintelligence, and the Coming Singularity

Robert Wright joins Michael Shermer to discuss his new book, The God Test: Artificial Intelligence and Our Coming Cosmic Reckoning, and why he thinks the AI revolution may be moving much faster than m...

5 Elo 1h 22min

Can You Trust Wikipedia? Co-Founder Larry Sanger on Wikipedia's Bias and Why He Was Banned

Michael Shermer speaks with Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger shortly after Sanger was permanently banned from editing the site he helped create. Sanger tells the story of Wikipedia's founding, how it...

30 Heinä 2h 3min