154 | Reza Aslan on Religion, Metaphor, and Meaning

154 | Reza Aslan on Religion, Metaphor, and Meaning

Religion is an important part of the lives of billions of people around the world, but what religious belief actually amounts to can vary considerably from person to person. Some believe in an anthropomorphic, judgmental God; others conceive of God as more transcendent and conceptual; some are animists who attribute spiritual essence to creatures and objects; and many more. I talk with writer and religious scholar Reza Aslan about his view of religion as a vocabulary constructed by human beings to express a connection with something beyond the physical world — why one might think that, and what it implies about how we should go about living our lives.

Support Mindscape on Patreon.

Reza Aslan received his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is currently a professor of creative writing at the University of California, Riverside. He is the author of numerous books, including No God but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam; Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth; and God: A Human History. He has also worked in television, producing and writing documentaries, and serving as a consulting producer for the drama series The Leftovers. He recently started a podcast, Metaphysical Milkshake, with actor Rainn Wilson.


Avsnitt(423)

6 | Liv Boeree on Poker, Aliens, and Thinking in Probabilities

6 | Liv Boeree on Poker, Aliens, and Thinking in Probabilities

Poker, like life, is a game of incomplete information. To do well in such a game, we have to think in terms of probabilities, unpredictable strategies, and Bayesian inference. These are ideas that pla...

23 Juli 20181h 10min

5 | Geoffrey West on Networks, Scaling, and the Pace of Life

5 | Geoffrey West on Networks, Scaling, and the Pace of Life

If you scale up an animal to twice its height, keeping everything else proportionate, its volume and weight become eight times as much. Such a scaling relation was used by J.B.S. Haldane in his famous...

16 Juli 20181h 23min

4 |  Anthony Pinn on Humanism, Theology, and the Black Community

4 | Anthony Pinn on Humanism, Theology, and the Black Community

According to atheism, God does not exist. But religions have traditionally done much more than simply proclaim God's existence: they have provided communities, promoted the arts, handed down moral gui...

12 Juli 20181h

3 | Alice Dreger on Sexuality, Truth, and Justice

3 | Alice Dreger on Sexuality, Truth, and Justice

The human mind loves nothing more than to build mental boxes -- categories -- and put things into them, then refuse to accept it when something doesn't fit. Nowhere is this more clear than in the idea...

11 Juli 20181h 20min

2 | Carlo Rovelli on Quantum Mechanics, Spacetime, and Reality

2 | Carlo Rovelli on Quantum Mechanics, Spacetime, and Reality

Quantum mechanics and general relativity are the two great triumphs of twentieth-century theoretical physics. Unfortunately, they don't play well together -- despite years of effort, we currently lack...

10 Juli 20181h 12min

1 | Carol Tavris on Mistakes, Justification, and Cognitive Dissonance

1 | Carol Tavris on Mistakes, Justification, and Cognitive Dissonance

For the first full episode of Mindscape, it's an honor to welcome social psychologist Carol Tavris. Her book with co-author Eliot Aronson, Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me), explores the effect that ...

4 Juli 20181h 11min

Welcome to the Mindscape Podcast!

Welcome to the Mindscape Podcast!

I've decided to officially take the plunge into the world of podcasting. The new show will be called Mindscape, and will mostly consist of me talking to smart people about interesting ideas. (Occasion...

1 Juli 201816min

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