How does consciousness weave its magical web of inner awareness-appreciating music, enjoying art, feeling love? Even when all mental functions may be explained, the great mystery-what it "feels like" inside-will likely remain.
What can we know about God? The easy answer is "nothing": God is not like anything. But that's not good enough. If there is a God, God must have traits. No?
The expanding universe is humanity's monumental discovery. Beginning with something infinitesimally small, the universe has become something majestically large. How could this happen? What could this mean?
What makes a human being a "person?" What provides our sense of unity and continuity? While most people assume that to be a person is to have a soul, most philosophers-and some theologians-believe that persons are all material.
All who affirm that God does exist should examine the strong attacks of those who conclude that God does not exist, and then assess the sharp counterattacks of scholarly believers. Belief in God is too important to be determined by cultural circumstances.
Extra dimensions-beyond length, width, height-seem the stuff of science fiction. What would extra dimensions be like? Is time the fourth dimension? Could deep reality be so strange? And, anyway, why would we care?
Whether extra-terrestrial intelligences exist has profound implications for human religion. We are either alone or not alone in the universe, but no matter the ultimate answer, theists and atheists will each mold that answer, alone or not alone, to fit their opposing worldviews.
Whoever believes in the existence of God must explain the presence of evil. To theists, it's "the problem of evil," which they struggle to resolve. To atheists, it's "the argument from evil," which they wield like a sword. Moreover, if God is all-powerful and all-knowing, how could God not have created evil?
Mathematics describes the real world of atoms and acorns, stars and stairs, with remarkable precision. So is mathematics invented by humans-like chisels and hammers and pieces of music? Or is mathematics discovered-always out there, somewhere, like mysterious islands waiting to be found?
Many theologians take angels and demons seriously. Why? Certainly, most human beings believe in angels and demons. Certainly, such nonphysical beings, in one form or another, populate most of the world's religions.
What's real? What's fundamental? There are regularities in nature, things that are or work the same-always, everywhere, across the universe just like in your kitchen. Down deep, what are the laws of nature? What makes them "laws"? And where do they come from?
Every religion thunders its day of reckoning, and to examine God's judgment is to probe God's character and perhaps assess God's existence. If God does not exist, God's judgment may expose it. If God does exist, and assuming God is merciful as well as just, maybe we've missed the meaning of God's Judgment.
The search for meaning and purpose is humanity's never-ending quest. It is said that "How Questions" belong to the realm of science, but "Why Questions" do not. Yet startling scientific discoveries offer radical powers of explanation. Can "Why Questions" belong to science? What about the biggest "Why" of them all?
Most people believe that God exists and religion is God's revelation. But some claim that religion needs nothing supernatural; that religion, without God, can flourish because personal psychology and group sociology drive religion.
Time seems natural and absolute: the flow of moments one following another from the unknown past to the knife's edge present to the unknowable future. But this is not so. Einstein shocked the world by showing that time was "relative." What's the latest about time?
What does it mean to be a "self"? Look at an old photo. Then look in the mirror. Those two images are of the same person, right? How so? They don't look the same. Their memories are different. And virtually every atom is different. We feel unity across time, but is this solidified self an illusion?
If God exists, one most important question is whether God is a "person". Only a person has awareness, beliefs, intents, goals, relationships. An impersonal force has none of these. If my hope counts, God exists and God is a person. But that's absurd: my hope counts for nothing.
I like pushing boundaries, trying to discern existence, searching the foundations of reality, knowing all that can be known. Overly ambitious? Sophomoric? I don't care. I do it anyway. Here are ultimate questions.
If I seek God, I cannot avoid evil. Can the enormity of evil ever be compatible with an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good God? Couldn't God have created the world without such evil? Featuring interviews with Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Richard Swinburne, Robin Collins, David Shatz, and Robert Russell.
Does God exist or not exist? How can so many people be so absolutely sure-either way? But maybe that's the point! Maybe "God" and "No God" are both defensible. What would that mean?
If mind and brain are the same thing, then the physical world is likely all that exists. But if mind and brain are not the same thing, then what? Could reality go beyond the physical?
Our human sense is that our will is fully free. Our scientific sense is that every action is determined by a prior action. Free will versus determinism is a big question, affecting morality, responsibility, even consciousness. Featuring interviews with John Searle, Richard Swinburne, Ned Block, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Alfred Mele, Thalia Wheatley, Jenann Ismael, Adina Roskies, Tim Bayne, David Hunt, and Alvin Plantinga.
Who's the boss, me or my brain? Data from the brain, by itself, does not favor free will. But is there more to me than my brain? How to judge among the vast and competing claims about free will? Featuring interviews with Galen Strawson, Alfred Mele, Christof Koch, Uri Maoz, Richard Swinburne, and Colin McGinn.
How normal brains work; effects of brain damage.
Whether humankind has underestimated the risks of global catastrophe and human extinction.
If there is a God, how does God make miracles happen; what miracles imply about how God relates to the world.
Consciousness, inner experience and language; whether consciousness causes language or vice versa.
Science and religion.
Whether God or human psychology generates faith.
Whether physical facts about the brain account for mental experiences of the mind.
Whether there is more to materialism than the laws of physics.
Whether anything exists beyond the physical world.
Mistakes made by those who argue the existence of God.
The essence of science.
Whether there are limits and boundaries to science.
Cognitive scientist Marvin Minsky's analysis of brains, minds, artificial intelligence, religion and God.
The concept of life after death.
What is faith, and what it means to have it.
How the subconscious works.
What the word "God'' actually refers to; God's nature and traits.
World religion scholar Huston Smith discusses God, spirit, soul, eternal life, judgment and existence.
Whether the act of observation affects what exists or what happens in the external world.
Whether there is unification or a final theory about the universe.
The entirety of existence.
Theories about how the universe began.
Whether the universe confirms or denies the existence of God.
The risks of scientific knowledge.
Consonance in science and religion.
Explaining consciousness.
Cosmology may eliminate the need for supernatural causes.
The underlying structure and understanding of biology.
Having confidence in what is known and believed.
Whether deep questions about God can be addressed precisely.
Philosopher Hubert Dreyfus.
Evolution and theology.
How the mind works.
God's radical, maximal nature.
Comparing analytic theology with philosophy of religion, biblical studies and exegesis and systemic theology.
What is philosophy of cosmology? We search the deepest levels of cosmic reality, the big picture of the puzzle of the universe — beginning, size, structure, future, far future. We seek significance in cosmology, if there’s any to be. Featuring interviews with Barry Loewer, Mario Livio, George F. R. Ellis, and David Albert.
What is fine-tuning in cosmology? Here’s the claim: cosmic conditions that allow complex structures — galaxies, stars, planets, people — depend on a few “constants of nature” lying within tight ranges of values. But is fine-tuning valid? Featuring interviews with Geraint Lewis, Luke Barnes, Fred Adams, Joseph Silk, and Abraham "Avi" Loeb.
What is fine-tuning in physics? Why do the “constants of nature” — masses of subatomic particles and strengths of forces like gravity and electromagnetism — have the values they do? Does fine-tuning “cry out” for explanation? Featuring interviews with Bernard Carr, Luke Barnes, Geraint Lewis, George F. R. Ellis, and Abraham Loeb.
Is the Anthropic Principle significant? Here’s the claim: conditions of the universe relate to the presence of observers. Does the Anthropic Principle convey deep insights? Or thwart science? For sure, it’s often misunderstood and controversial.
Each level of the scientific hierarchy has its own laws that can't be explained by deeper laws.
What is absolutely fundamental and non-reducible -- the fewest number of categories within which everything can be classified.
Why there is something rather than nothing.
What it means to know God.
The claim that Jesus is God.
How one God can be three persons.
Why would God become human; how could divine and human natures interact.
Whether atonement absolves sin.
Salvation equals eternal life with God.