Skeptiko
This podcast is a leading source for intelligent, hard-nosed skeptic vs. believer debate on science and spirituality. Each episode features lively discussion with leading researchers, thinkers, and their critics.
If you like what we're doing, subscribe (it's free):
iTunes,
RSS
December 6th, 2011 Alex
Interview with Buddhist meditation teacher Shinzen Young explores different views of God.
Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for an interview with Buddhist meditation teacher Shinzen Young. During the interview Shinzen discusses letting go of our simplistic view of God:
Alex Tsakiris: Let’s talk about God for a minute and how that fits into meditation practice and the Buddhist spiritual path in a general sense.
Shinzen Young: I love talking about this but I’m curious about your own thoughts about it.
Alex Tsakiris: I guess I think it is important we don’t get too hung up on the language. We have to acknowledge our society is materialistic and atheistic. We have academics pulling us that way, and we have “science” pulling us that way. So, in the simplest form, when we’re talking about spirituality, we’re talking about God because we’re talking about something that transcends this materialistic, atheistic mindset.
Shinzen Young: Okay. Traditionally in Buddhism, the historical Buddha negated certain ideas about God. So what you have is more Fundamentalist Buddhist teachers tend to shy away from the G word but a lot of other modern Buddhist teachers have no trouble with it whatsoever.
But I’ve devoted my life to directing people to an experience that is beyond time and space and what I would call the source of consciousness, which is the source of experience and since self and world are known only through experience, I can point people to an experience that could be described as Source. And when a person contacts it, it fulfills all the things that people would want from God.
Alex Tsakiris: I was recently listening to the Dali Lama give a lecture. He said that he tells seekers to look to their own tradition before turning to Buddhism. He’s emphatic about finding Buddhist teachings in Christianity and that Christianity can be this vehicle for creating a good heart and for a compassionate, loving person. More importantly, he goes out of his way to contrast that with the atheistic position and his implication is atheism leads nowhere.
Shinzen Young: Well, it depends on what we want to call atheism. I think it is important to distinguish three things. One, becoming a better and better person, which might be described as improving the self. Two, realizing the source of the self. And three, the relationship between these two. I would say that the gold standard for mature spirituality is to see that the endeavor of going beyond the self, which is to attain an unlimited identity, and the endeavor of refining the small self.
Shinzen’s Website
Play It:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Download MP3 (46:00 min.)
Read It:
Today we welcome author, lecturer, and highly respected meditation teacher, Shinzen Young to Skeptiko. Shinzen, thank you for joining me today.
Shinzen Young: My pleasure.
Alex Tsakiris: Well, as you know, as a longtime meditation student—I really have to say student—and a longtime Yoga practitioner, I have a great respect for what you do and the importance of the teacher in this whole process we’re going to talk about today. So I of course want to start just by thanking you in general for the work that you do.
Read the rest of this entry »
Podcast: Play in new window
| Download
SAY SOMETHING! Comments »
September 27th, 2011 Alex
Author and Satanist Winter Laake explains how his experiences with the occult have shaped his views on life and the afterlife.
Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for an interview with Winter Laake author of, The Satanic Paradigm. During the interview Laake discusses the hypocrisy of Christianity and Satanism:
Alex Tsakiris: I want to venture into is something that you alluded to when you were talking about the failed proposition that is Christianity, at least from your view, and the hypocrisy of it — the emphasis on self-denial that gets in the way of personal freedoms and self-development. But I wondered, can’t some of those same problems be reflected back on Satanic practices?
So, even if you practiced Satanism, and you try and live for the moment, or live for yourself, you’re going to die. You’re probably going to get sick and die. No one escapes that. Crowley didn’t escape that; Anton LaVey didn’t escape that. In the end, we all face the same fate. So aren’t there some of the same contradictions that we see in Christianity?
Winter Laake: It does in a sense, and that is where I feel that a lot of scientists are now trying to even break that foothold. They’re seeking singularity which is coming by about 2040 or 20/50 where it will be plausible to not die. I think we will see it in our lifetime.
But yes, the hypocrisy exists probably even more so in any Satanic or occult practices. To a lot of people it’s a phase they’re going through. They are very destructive and dangerous people, some of them. They are not nice people. Christians can be pretty ruthless, too, but Satanic practitioners on different levels can be very, very dangerous. Probably more so than Christians. A lot of Satanists don’t like to say that. They want to glaze it over and say, “oh, we’re all nice and get along,” but that’s not necessarily the truth. There’s a lot of hatred. There’s a lot of anger that’s self-created.
I personally don’t have that. I have a Mephistophelian kind of concept of where I’m at with things. But yes, hypocrisy is alive and well. It’s in our nature.
I think people are a summation of their decisions and I think if they make the asserted effort that they can achieve anything they wish.
Winter Laake’s Facebook Page
Play it:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Download MP3 (48:00 min.)
Read it:
Alex Tsakiris: Today’s guest is a successful author, a consultant on Hollywood horror films. He’s also a psychic and sometimes psychic detective. But Winter Laake is best known through his association with the occult, black magic, witchcraft, and Satanism.
Winter, thanks for joining me today on Skeptiko.
Winter Laake: Thank you.
Read the rest of this entry »
Podcast: Play in new window
| Download
SAY SOMETHING! Comments »
May 10th, 2011 alex
Cult expert Joe Szimhart discusses how genuine spiritual experiences can be exploited by religious cults.
Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for an interview with Joe Szimhart. During the interview Mr. Szimhart explains how religious cults use spiritual experiences to their advantage:
Alex Tsakiris: We can explain away spiritual experiences with materialist science, but that doesn’t really hold up very well, or we can look at the explanations cults give, and we know that can lead to some harmful behavior… so, from your experience, what should we do with these spiritual experiences?
Joe Szimhart: The key words are “stop and think.” And that’s something that people don’t want to do. To break it down and think about it and analyze it, you tend to lose what it is. Cults tend to tell people that the only thing between your heart and God is your head, my contention is that if that experience is as real as one feels it is, it’s not going to go away upon analysis. In fact, it can be strengthened if the analysis holds up the context of the experience.
Alex Tsakiris: I want to make sure that you’re not denying or trying to explain away that people are having these spiritual experiences. Do you believe there is such a thing as a genuine spiritual experience?
Joe Szimhart: Yes, to put it in one word. To back that up, I’ve had them myself. And to back it up even further, I’m a practicing Catholic. Now, a lot of people are very surprised when they hear that about me, but I have looked at its history and I understand all that’s wrong with it. I don’t deny any of that. But a Catholic has certain beliefs in miracles and all that sort of things and the Communion of Saints… it’s an article of faith.
Alex Tsakiris: Why would you offer up to us this strange little tidbit that as a Catholic it’s an, “article of faith”? Why would any of rational, logical person go there? I’m a believer in spirit and spiritual experiences as are you, but I don’t take anything as an article of faith.
Joe Szimhart: Being involved in Catholicism, I have to be very agile. In fact, some of my approaches, my personal approach to Catholicism could border on heresy. I don’t know. So it’s very difficult. It’s not easy. It’s an adult problem, you know? There are no clear, absolute answers to this, whether you’re a Catholic or not.
Joe Szimhart’s website
Play it:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Download MP3 (41:00 min.)
Read it:
Alex Tsakiris: Today we welcome Joe Szimhart to Skeptiko. Joe is an expert on cults and has been counseling, lecturing, and helping people with cult-related issues since breaking away from a New Age sect in the 1980s. Joe, welcome to Skeptiko.
Joe Szimhart: Yeah, glad to be on, thanks. Read the rest of this entry »
Podcast: Play in new window
| Download
SAY SOMETHING! Comments »
April 26th, 2011 alex
Neurotheology researcher, physician and author, Andy Newberg explains how fundamentalists Christians and Atheists share a minority view of God.
Join Skeptiko guest host Steve Volk for an interview with Dr. Andy Newberg. A distinguished researcher at Thomas Jefferson University Medical College, and professor in Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Newberg discusses his latest book Principles of Neurotheology:
Steve Volk: One thing that’s disappointing to me in these debates between believers and atheists is there’s usually a very narrow conception of God that’s on the table for discussion. It’s the Fundamentalist conception.
Dr. Andrew Newberg: I’d second your opinion. So often we say, “I believe in God,” or “I don’t believe in God,” and we assume that everybody knows what we’re talking about. Usually just the opposite is true. Oftentimes people who do feel very strongly one way or another do wind up with a very limited view about God.
A lot of times the Atheists look at God in a very anthropomorphic way, kind of mimicking the very doctrinal, Biblical kind of perspective on God. As you mentioned a few minutes ago, that sometimes is the problem in the debates between Atheists and religious individuals. Atheists have this very defined and very limited view about what God is or what they think other people think God is. If you have a religious person and an Atheist and both are arguing about the existence of God, you’ve got to figure out exactly what that means in the first place, because if our definition of God is that God is the universe, then everybody may say, “Yeah, sure, God exists.” If God is a being that created the universe, people are going to have different views. If God is a man in the clouds, you’ll have even more different views.
So it’s really important for a lot of these things. God, belief, religion, faith, soul, mind, brain, all of these things are things that we need to try and determine and define, at least within the context of whatever conversation we’re having. Even though another point that I try to make in my work is that whatever definitions we have today are most likely going to be dynamic and changeable and are going to evolve as our information changes, as our scholarship changes, as our research data grows, and we going to have to realize that none of these concepts are really very static.
Dr. Andrew Newberg’s website
Steve Volk’s website
Play it:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Download MP3 (51:00 min.)
Read it:
Hi everybody. Steve Volk here again, guest hosting for Alex Tsakiris on Skeptiko, where my guest today is none other than Dr. Andrew Newberg. A veteran of many years at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Newberg continues on there as a professor but has added a position as Director of Research at the Myrna Brind Center for Integrative Medicine at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital here in Philadelphia.
He is a radiologist by training but what he’s famous for and what drew my attention to him in my research for Fringe-ology is his work as a neurotheologist with his co-researcher, Mark Robert Waldman. No doubt Dr. Newberg will share with us his definition of neurotheology, but in simple, practical terms. Neurotheology is the study of the relationship between spiritual experience and the brain.
Newberg’s research in this territory has produced several books, including Why God Won’t Go Away and two with Waldman, Born to Believe and How God Changes Your Brain, but his latest solo work is Principles of Neurotheology, in which he attempts to lay a proper foundation for this new field of science.
Dr. Newberg is here to take a nuanced position. He will not tell us that God is in Heaven and everything is all right with the world but he will also not be telling us that all spiritual experience reduces down to brain function and there is no God. I don’t know about the rest of you, but that feels to me like a cool, refreshing, and rational breeze because sometimes it seems in media portrayals that Fundamentalist belief and Fundamentalist non-belief are the only two choices available to us.
So let’s get started and find out just what position Andrew Newberg is advocating. Dr. Newberg, welcome to Skeptiko.
Read the rest of this entry »
Podcast: Play in new window
| Download
SAY SOMETHING! Comments »
January 19th, 2011 alex
Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris and atheist blogger Greta Christina square-off for a debate on near Death Experience (NDE) science.
Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for an interview discussing the existence of the soul and the science of Near Death Experience. During the interview Tsakiris points out the lack of research among NDE skeptics, “And really, if we’re going to play the kind of credential game, you really wouldn’t want to stack Dr. Bruce Greyson, Dr. Jeff Long, Dr. Pim Van Lommel, one of the most highly regarded cardiologists in the world who’s been studying near-death experience for 30 years-you wouldn’t want to stack them against Keith Augustine, who really doesn’t have any kind of medical credentials. So I’m talking to you about published research in these cases.”
Ms. Christina responds, “There is what seems to me to be extremely shaky research and there’s no consensus about it in any sense-in fact, the overwhelming consensus among neurologists is that no, these people are, I’m not going to say crackpots, that’s too strong a word. But these people are mistaken. They’re being led down the garden path by their wishful thinking. And again, when you look at the history of thousands and thousands and thousands of years of human knowledge, where supernatural explanations consistently get replaced with natural ones and it’s ultimately when the research has been really done and it’s been really examined, it’s never been the case that it’s happened the other way around.”
Near the end of the debate, Ms. Christina sums up her argument “…even if I conceded everything that you’ve said in this whole conversation, all that it proves is that consciousness is weird and that we don’t understand it. That’s all that it proves. It doesn’t prove anything about there being an immaterial soul that animates consciousness. It doesn’t prove anything about immaterial soul surviving death.”
Tsakiris responds, “I don’t mind hearing your opinion, but you’ve got to back it up. You’re saying that every time somebody gives you research you go and look at it and it’s debunked. Well, tell me. Tell me what’s been debunked. You haven’t cited any real NDE research. You cited Keith Augustine and then you want to say Skeptical Inquirer and Skeptical Magazine?”
Greata’s Blog Post: Why Near Death Experiences Are a Terrible Argument for the Soul
Play it:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Download MP3 (43:00 min.)
Read it:
Welcome to Skeptiko, where we explore controversial science with leading researchers, thinkers, and their critics. I’m your host, Alex Tsakiris.
For a while on this show I’ve maintained that there really isn’t a good, solid, scientific argument against near-death experience science. If you’ve followed this show and you’ve listened to the guests that we’ve had on, people like Dr. Jeffrey Long, Dr. Pim Van Lommel, Dr. Peter Fenwick, Dr. Bruce Greyson (who we haven’t actually interviewed but who has contributed by email), if you stack them up against the skeptics we’ve talked to, Dr. G. M. Woerlee, Dr. Kevin Nelson, Dr. Susan Blackmore, Dr. Steven Novella, or even Dr. Sam Parnia (who’s kind of in the middle of this issue but we really have to put on the side of the skeptic) if you stack up the two arguments there’s really no comparison.
Read the rest of this entry »
Podcast: Play in new window
| Download
SAY SOMETHING! Comments »
September 14th, 2010 alex
Interview with author Ophelia Benson explores how a scientific understanding of life after death might impact an atheistic worldview.
Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for and interview with the author of, “Does God Hate Woman?”, and “Why Truth Matters”, Ophelia Benson. During the interview Ms. Benson expresses her admiration for being an atheist to the very end, “…Christopher Hitchens, as we all know, is admirably insisting that he’s not going to change his opinions about the nature of the world and about whether or not there’s a God just because he’s mortally ill. And if there are any rumors that he’s done a deathbed conversion, he wants it to be on the record right now that that’s not what he considers the real Christopher Hitchens.”
When pressed as to whether one could decide to not have a deathbed conversation prior to having such a conversion Ms Benson replied, “I know, it’s sort of tricky in a way, but on the other hand, I kind of think we all do have a right to do that. If you’ve been a lifelong atheist and are continuing to be an atheist, I think you have a right to say, ‘Well, okay, if at the last minute I mumble something, I want to go on the record right now saying I repudiate that in advance.’ It’s ours, so I think we get to do that.”
Ms. Benson also discusses how advances in near death experience science and other research that suggesting a continuation of consciousness might impact the “new atheist” worldview.
Check out Ophelia Benson’s Website: Butterflies and Wheels
Play it:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Download MP3 (30:00 min.)
Read it:
Alex Tsakiris: Welcome to Skeptiko, where we explore controversial science with leading researchers, thinkers, and their critics. I’m your host, Alex Tsakiris, and on this episode of Skeptiko I have an interview with Ophelia Benson, author, Atheist, and editor of the very popular and very well done Butterflies and Wheels website.
Now, this interview didn’t really go the way that I planned, but when I was editing it I realized that maybe it really made the point I was trying to make after all, and that’s just to demonstrate how this new science of consciousness that we’ve been exploring so much on this show in terms of near-death experience, medium communication, and psi phenomena, how that new science is making its way into the marketplace of ideas. So how a public intellectual like Ophelia Benson is processing this. And in that respect I think the interview is quite revealing. So listen in to my interview with Ophelia Benson:
Read the rest of this entry »
Podcast: Play in new window
| Download
SAY SOMETHING! Comments »
August 3rd, 2010 alex
Interview with Dr. Robert Price reveals why biblical scholar, and former Baptist minister, turned away from Christianity.
With battle lines in the culture war over science and religion firmly entrenched some Biblical scholars are still hashing out the Bible facts with logic, reason and historical scholarship.
Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for and interview with noted biblical scholar and Christian-doubter Dr. Robert Price. Dr. Price is a noted theologian and writer who well known for his debates with Christian apologists (those who defend the faith on intellectual grounds).
While Price doesn’t take a stand on the possibility that miracles and paranormal events like those described in the Bible can happen, he’s firmly against the position most Christian theologians take, “they argue again and again that if miracles are possible theoretically, then legends are impossible, which doesn’t follow… there approach is that if we can say miracles might have happened then there should be no problem in accepting all the ones the Bible mentions and none of the ones in any other scriptures. Wait a minute. What you’re really saying is you just want us to believe what the Bible says, period. You’re not really suggesting any new method of inquiry.”
While Price is skeptical of traditional Christian theology he remains opens good arguments, “fairness in argument and getting all the evidence together and trying to address it, that was crucial to me because even as a college sophomore, junior, Apologist, I was reading all this inter-Varsity stuff and such. I wanted to witness and I did witness to people about my faith and tried to defend it. But I felt like I have to be honest about this. I’m only going to present it if I find it convincing. And to do that I’m going to have to put my faith on the side for the moment… then when I was getting into my master’s program at Gordon-Conwell Seminary I realized this has been misrepresented. These arguments are just bad.”
Dr. Robert Price
Play it:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Download MP3 (90:00 min.)
Read it (abridged transcript… more good stuff in the audio version):
Alex Tsakiris: Welcome to Skeptiko, where we explore controversial science with leading researchers, thinkers, and their critics. I’m your host, Alex Tsakiris. On today’s show I have an interview with Dr. Robert Price, who despite having two Ph.D.s in Biblical Studies, describes himself as a Christian Atheist.
Read the rest of this entry »
Podcast: Play in new window
| Download
SAY SOMETHING! Comments »
July 20th, 2010 alex
Cornell University Professor and NDE researcher seeks to verify out of body experience after clinical death.
What will you see when you die? According to near death experience researcher Dr. Sam Parnia you may see a carefully hidden image placed several inches below the ceiling of your hospital room.
Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for the opening round of a dialog with well known near death experience researcher Dr. Sam Parnia. Dr. Parnia has made worldwide headlines with his novel approach to proving whether out of body experiences of cardiac arrest patients demonstrate proof of an afterlife, or whether such reports are merely a, “trick of the mind”. Dr. Parnia’s group is using visual targets placed near the ceiling of the patient’s hospital room in an attempt to objectively establish whether near death experiencers can see what others can’t.
According to Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris the study is unlikely to produce positive results, “I’ve spoken with a lot of near death experience researchers. They’re telling me Parnia’s methods go against what we’ve learned about NDEs”. Tsakiris continued, “near death experiencers have been know to bring back some remarkable, verifiable information about what happens after clinical death, but there’s little to suggest they will see and remember Dr. Parnia targets.”
Tsakiris also questions whether Dr. Parnia’s skepticism about near death experiences has led him to create an experiment that’s designed to fail, “it’s a subtle thing, Dr. Parnia public statements about his skepticism of the near death experience doesn’t mean he’s intentionally trying to debunk the survival of consciousness hypothesis… but it does make you wonder.”
Watch Dr. Parnia’s video lecture
Play it:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Download MP3 (17:00 min.)
Read it:
Alex Tsakiris: Welcome to Skeptiko, where we explore controversial science with leading researchers, thinkers, and their critics. I’m your host, Alex Tsakiris, and on this episode of Skeptiko, I’m going to be opening up a dialogue with Dr. Sam Parnia. Now, the unusual thing about that is that Dr. Parnia isn’t here and he isn’t going to be joining me for an interview. In fact, what I’m doing is preparing some questions that I’m going to transcribe and then send to Dr. Parnia in hopes of getting a response from him.
Read the rest of this entry »
Podcast: Play in new window
| Download
SAY SOMETHING! Comments »
July 7th, 2010 alex
Oxford Professor of Medicine, and theologian, Michael Marsh finds much he doesn’t like about near-death experience claims of spirit communication.
Many within the mainstream medical community have reservations about near death expereincers who claim to experience an afterlife, but many are surprised to hear the same doubts from Christian theologians.
Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for an interview with Professor Michael Marsh, a former Professor of Medicine, at Oxford who returned to Oxford to complete PhD in Theology. Dr. Marsh, who recently authored, Out-Of-Body Experience and Near-Death Experiences: Brain-State Phenomena or Glimpses of Immortality?, rejects claims made by near-death experiencers. When asked if those who claim to encounter Jesus during their near-death experience are communicating with Christ Dr. Marsh responded with and emphatic, “no!”
Marsh also offers his opinion on how near death experiences compare to biblical accounts of an afterlife, “I don’t think there’s much that compares with our ideas of resurrection or theology. We talked a little bit about spirituality, and I don’t think that the sort of disclosures that we have… the inconsistencies of the pictures of so-called heaven, and the pictures of so-called Jesus and all the rest of it are consistent. You might expect them to be consistent if people really had been to heaven and seen Jesus or been in the presence of God.”
Podcast: Play in new window
| Download
SAY SOMETHING! Comments »
October 30th, 2009 alex
Guest: Troy Conrad is a comedian, writer, actor, producer, and former college teacher who comments on the hypocrisy of religion through the Comedy Jesus Show.
Play it:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Download MP3 (29:50 min.)
Read it:
Announcer: On this episode of Skeptiko comedian and creator of the Comedy Jesus Show, Troy Conrad.
“We can’t just rest on a bunch of facts and expect that to be food for the soul. Even though it may not be proven that we have a soul, I still think it’s important to feed it.”
Announcer: Stay with us for Skeptiko.
Read the rest of this entry »
Podcast: Play in new window
| Download
SAY SOMETHING! No Comments »
