Explore every episode of the podcast Within Reason
| Title | Pub. Date | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| #125 Emily Qureshi-Hurst - Does God Know What Time It Is? | 12 Oct 2025 | 01:02:25 | |
Dr. Qureshi-Hurst is a Philosopher of Religion and Science at the University of Cambridge. Her work focuses on the relationship between physics—and time in particular—and theology. Her forthcoming book, Decoding the Cosmos: God, Physics, and the Search for Deeper Explanation, explores this relationship in depth. Improve your focus with Brain FM with 30 days free: https://www.brain.fm/withinreason. TIMESTAMPS: 0:00 - Does the Bible Predict the Big Bang?2:37 - Scientists and Theologians10:18 - Where Did Biblical Literalism Come From?17:31 - How Does Science Conflict with Theology?23:47 - Does God Experience Time?29:27 - The A, B and C Series of Time38:38 - Timeless God, Timed Universe42:52 - Christianity and the End of the Universe48:35 - Intelligent Design and Modern Science55:58 - Is Biblical Literalism a Plausible Reading?58:32 - Why Emily is an Atheist | |||
| #124 Sisyphus 55 - So You're Having an Existential Crisis | 05 Oct 2025 | 01:31:16 | |
Ben Thomas is @Sisyphus55, a YouTuber creating videos about philosophy, existentialism, nihilism, absurdism, and meaning. His new book, So You're Having an Existential Crisis: a Roadmap for Lost Souls, is available now.
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| #115 Phil Halper & Niayesh Afshordi - What Came Before The Big Bang? | 04 Aug 2025 | 02:00:05 | |
Niayesh Afshordi is a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Waterloo. Phil Halper is a science communicator and YouTuber. Together, they have authored a book called "Battle of the Big Bang: The New Tales of Our Cosmic Origins", an overview of the state of modern cosmology on the nature of the big bang.
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| #25 Andrew Mark Henry - What is Religion? | 02 Apr 2023 | 01:11:11 | |
Andrew Mark Henry is a scholar of religion specialising in early Christianity and the religions of the late Roman Empire. He is also the host of "Religion for Breakfast", a YouTube channel with over 600,000 subscribers producing informative videos on a variety of topics related to religion. Dr. Henry joins host Alex O'Connor to discuss a number of questions: what is religion? Where does it come from? Why is it so ubiquitous? To support Within Reason, please consider signing up at support.withinreasonpodcast.com
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| #24 William Lane Craig - Did Jesus Rise From The Dead? | 26 Mar 2023 | 01:03:40 | |
William Lane Craig is a Christian philosopher, author, and debater. He speaks to host Alex O'Connor about secularism in the US and UK, argument vs emotion in coming to faith in God, and the historical case for the resurrection of Jesus.
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| #23 Konstantin Kisin - Free Speech and Reparations | 19 Mar 2023 | 01:03:56 | |
Konstantin Kisin is a satirist, comedian, journalist, and co-host of the Triggernometry Podcast. He recently went viral for a speech delivered at the Oxford Union arguing that "wokeness has gone too far", which has since been viewed over 100,000,000 times across various social media platforms. Konstantin talks to host Alex O'Connor about the limits of free speech, whether he considers himself to be a conservative or right-wing, and whether there can be a sensible case made for reparations for historical injustices such as slavery.
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| #22 Bishop Robert Barron - Seeking Meaning, Finding God? | 12 Mar 2023 | 01:07:18 | |
Bishop Robert Barron is the bishop of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester and the founder of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries. His website, WordOnFire.org, reaches millions of people each year, and he is one of the world’s most followed Catholics on social media. Bishop Barron joins host Alex O'Connor to discuss the "crisis of meaning" we might be living through, the reducibility of purpose to evolutionary drives, the conditions for salvation on Christianity, and whether God can be accurately described as analogous to a tyrannical dictator.
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| #21 Trent Horn, Cameron Bertuzzi & Joe Schmid - The Problem of Evil | 12 Mar 2023 | 01:13:49 | |
In this episode of the Cosmic Skeptic Podcast, Alex is joined by Joe Schmid, an agnostic, Cameron Bertuzzi, a (then) protestant, and Trent Horn, a catholic, to discuss the problem in detail, and analyse various responses to it.
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| #20 Joe Schmid - Arguments For God Tier List | 17 Jun 2022 | 01:54:56 | |
Joe Schmid is the owner of the Majesty of Reason YouTube channel, a platform dedicated to the analysis of a variety of philosophical topics. He is the author of "The Majesty of Reason: A Short Guide to Critical Thinking in Philosophy", and in this episode joins Alex to rank eight arguments for the existence of God, and discuss them in depth.
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| #19 Genetically Modified Skeptic - Do We Still Feel the Same Way About Religion? | 07 Jun 2022 | 01:02:57 | |
Drew McCoy is the host of the Genetically Modified Skeptic YouTube channel, which is, with now over 500,000 subscribers, perhaps the largest atheist YouTube channel in the world right now. The last time we collaborated was in 2017, arguing that as well as being false, religion is also mostly harmful. In this podcast we discuss our current views on that subject, and examine how they have changed.
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| #18 Ed Winters - Veganism Reconsidered | 21 Apr 2022 | 01:16:24 | |
Ed Winters ("Earthling Ed") is a vegan educator, best-selling author, public speaker and content creator, widely known for his viral debates, speeches, and video essays. Ed was on the Cosmic Skeptic Podcast in 2019, making him the first guest to appear for a second time. He and Alex discuss the definition and nature of veganism, the limits of "practicability", the ethics of unnecessary vegan food, and much more.
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| #17 April 1st - Why I'm a Christian Now, with Stephen Woodford | 21 Apr 2022 | 01:25:42 | |
Released on April 1st, this podcast details Alex's conversion to Christianity, a position he defends against the criticisms of Stephen Woodford (Rationality Rules).
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| #16 Alex Hershaft - Surviving the Holocaust | 20 Nov 2020 | 01:04:44 | |
Dr. Alex Hershaft is a Holocaust survivor, animal rights activist, and co-founder and president of the Farm Animal Rights Movement (FARM). He has previously had a 30-year career in materials science, and holds a PHD in inorganic chemistry. Dr. Hershaft speaks to Alex about his experiences in the Holocaust, and how they inspired the work he does today.
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| #114 Simon Blackburn - What is Ethical Emotivism? | 28 Jul 2025 | 01:21:30 | |
Simon Blackburn is well-known both as a writer of popular philosophy introductions (like Think), and also a significant figure in non-cognitivist meta-ethics, having invented the term “quasi-realism” to describe his moral philosophy.
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| #15 — Michael Sandel | The Tyranny of Merit | 09 Sep 2020 | 00:54:25 | |
Michael J. Sandel is an American political philosopher, and Professor of Government Theory at Harvard University Law School. His public lectures have been viewed by tens of millions of people around the world, including in China, where Sandel was named the "most influential foreign figure of the year". Dr. Sandel talks to Alex about his new book, The Tyranny of Merit, discussing not just whether meritocracy is achievable in practice, but also whether it is even something we should aim for at all, highlighting the wealth of potential damage that meritocracy can affect on a society which embraces it.
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| #14 — William Lane Craig | The Kalam Cosmological Argument | 21 Jun 2020 | 01:15:27 | |
William Lane Craig is an American philosopher and Christian theologian. He holds two PHDs in philosophy and theology, and is a professor of philosophy at both Houston Baptist University and Talbot School of Theology at Biola University. Dr. Craig is arguably the world's most famous Christian apologist, and often cited as its most effective public defender. He has taken part in high-profile debates with Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Anthony Flew, among others. Dr. Craig is the man who gave the kalam cosmological argument its name, and he speaks to Alex in this episode about that argument, and answers a number of objections to it.
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| #13 — Joey Carbstrong | Why Won't Vegans Just Shut Up? | 24 May 2020 | 01:05:42 | |
Joey Carbstrong is an Australian animal rights activist and vegan. Formerly a criminal, Joey turned his life around and now campaigns for animals, his views having been widely syndicated across various platforms including national television, radio, and his own highly popular YouTube channel. Joey speaks to Alex about how to advocate for veganism, and whether the forthright methods employed by many activists does more harm than good. Should vegans calm down?
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| #12 — David Benatar | Is It Immoral To Have Children? | 26 Apr 2020 | 01:27:04 | |
Professor David Benatar is a South African philosopher, academic and author, and head of the philosophy department at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. He is best known for his defence of antinatalism, the view that it is immoral to have children (though more specifically, to bring new sentient beings into existence). Professor Benatar speaks to Alex about the asymmetry of pleasure and pain, and the two debate whether being anti-birth commits one to being pro-death.
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| #11 — Douglas Murray | Gender and Activism | 25 Nov 2019 | 01:23:31 | |
Douglas Murray is a British conservative author and journalist, and associate editor of The Spectator. In 2017 Murray wrote The Strange Death of Europe, taking on the issue of the global immigration crisis, and now he returns with The Madness of Crowds, a book about identitarianism in four areas: 'gay', 'women', 'race' and 'trans'. Douglas speaks to Alex about the logic of reparations and a retributive approach to historical injustice, as well as the nature of gender, and the advocacy tactics of the LGBT community.
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| #10 — Richard Dawkins | Outgrowing God | 19 Sep 2019 | 00:44:44 | |
Richard Dawkins is the world-famous evolutionary biologist, New York Times bestselling science writer, emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, and previously Oxford University's Professor for Public Understanding of Science. Dawkins rose to prominence after his 1976 publication The Selfish Gene, which introduced the term 'meme' and began a series of highly popular books including the Blind Watchmaker, The God Delusion, and, most recently, Outgrowing God. Professor Dawkins speaks to Alex about the meaning of atheism, the labelling of children as 'atheists', the evolutionary and social bases of morality, and the usefulness of theology as a discipline.
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| #9 — Earthling Ed | Veganism Can Be Complicated | 13 Sep 2019 | 01:55:22 | |
Ed Winters, known online as Earthling Ed, is a vegan educator and public speaker, co-founder and co-director of Surge, which founded the annual Official Animal Rights March, producer of the documentary Land of Hope and Glory, and my most requested podcast guest to date.
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| #8 — Andrew Copson | What Is Secularism? | 28 Aug 2019 | 01:12:57 | |
Andrew Copson is is Chief Executive of Humanists UK and author of Oxford University Press' Very Short Introduction to Secularism. He speaks to Alex about the meaning of secularism, its distinction from humanism, liberalism and atheism, and how it might be achieved.
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| #7 — Anthony Magnabosco | How To Change Minds | 09 Aug 2019 | 00:52:41 | |
Anthony Magnabosco is the founder and executive director of Street Epistemology International, a non-profit organisation formed to encourage critical thinking and scepticism while providing people around the world with the resources needed to develop and promote Street Epistemology. He speaks to Alex about how to get people to rethink their beliefs and discard of falsities they might hold to.
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| #6 — Peter Singer | Utilitarianism and Animals | 21 Jul 2019 | 01:30:56 | |
Peter Singer is an Australian moral philosopher and author of the seminal Animal Liberation, a book credited with initiating the modern animal rights movement. He speaks to Alex about utilitarianism and how we might apply it to all sentient creatures.
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| #113 Sabine Hossenfelder - Superdeterminism: Why Are Physicists Scared of It? | 21 Jul 2025 | 01:00:51 | |
Sabine Hossenfelder is a German theoretical physicist, author, science communicator, and YouTuber. She is the author of Existential Physics: A Scientist’s Guide to Life’s Biggest Questions.
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| #5 — Justin Brierley | Why I'm Still a Christian | 12 Jun 2019 | 01:48:02 | |
Justin Brierley is the host of the popular radio show 'Unbelievable?' which platforms debates between Christians and non-Christians. He is the author of 'Unbelievable: Why, After Ten Years of Talking With Atheists, I’m Still a Christian'. He speaks to Alex about his reasons for retaining his faith, and the nature of reason.
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| #112 Rick Alan Ross - Do Cult Leaders Believe Their Own Lies? | 13 Jul 2025 | 01:54:41 | |
Rick Alan Ross is an American deprogrammer, cult specialist, and founder and executive director of the non-profit Cult Education Institute. Frequently appearing in the news and other media, discussing groups some consider cults. Ross has intervened in more than 500 deprogramming cases in various countries. (Wikipedia) Get Rick's book, "Cults Inside Out: How People Get In and Can Get Out" here.
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| #111 Helen Bond - The Forgotten Female Disciples of Jesus | 06 Jul 2025 | 01:25:09 | |
Helen Bond is Professor of Christian Origins at the New College, University of Edinburgh, and former head of the School of Divinity there. She is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. In 2023, she co-authored a book with Joan Taylor called Women Remembered: Jesus’ Female Disciples. Watch the documentary version here.
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| #110 The Cultural Tutor - Why Modern Love Fails and How to Rescue It | 01 Jul 2025 | 01:16:17 | |
Sheehan Quirke is The Cultural Tutor. A writer on history, art, and architecture with millions of followers, he is also the author of the forthcoming The Cultural Tutor: Forty-Nine Lessons You Wish You’d Learned at School, which is currently available for preorder here.
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| #109 David Pakman - The New Threat Donald Trump Poses to America | 22 Jun 2025 | 01:08:36 | |
David Pakman is an American progressive political commentator and host of @thedavidpakmanshow . Buy David's book, The Echo Machine here
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| #108 Marcus du Sautoy - Do Numbers Exist? | 16 Jun 2025 | 01:06:29 | |
Marcus du Sautoy is a British mathematician, Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford, Fellow of New College, Oxford and author of popular mathematics and popular science books. Buy Blueprints: How Mathematics Shapes Creativity here.
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| #107 Dale Allison - Did Jesus Rise From the Dead? | 12 Jun 2025 | 01:27:00 | |
Dale Allison is an American historian and Christian theologian. His areas of expertise include the historical Jesus, the Gospel of Matthew, Second Temple Jewish literature, and the history of the interpretation and reception of the Bible. Allison is the Richard J. Dearborn Professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary (2013- ). (Wikipedia) By Dale Allison's book, The Resurrection of Jesus, here.
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| #106 Diarmaid MacCulloch - Sex and Christianity: a Tumultuous History | 29 May 2025 | 00:58:48 | |
Diarmaid MacCulloch is an English academic and historian, specialising in ecclesiastical history and the history of Christianity. Since 1995, he has been a fellow of St Cross College, Oxford; he was formerly the senior tutor. Buy Lower than the Angels: A History of Sex and Christianity here.
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| #123 Candida Moss - Were Early Christians Really Persecuted by Rome? | 28 Sep 2025 | 01:21:17 | |
Candida Moss is a historian of Christianity and author of The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom.
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| #105 John Lennox - Why Science Needs God | 22 May 2025 | 01:42:24 | |
John Lennox is a Northern Irish mathematician, bioethicist, and Christian apologist originally from Northern Ireland. He has written many books on religion, ethics, the relationship between science and God, and has had public debates with atheists including Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens.
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| #104 Annaka Harris - Is Consciousness Fundamental? | 04 May 2025 | 01:32:32 | |
Annaka Harris is an American writer. Her work touches on neuroscience, meditation, philosophy of mind and consciousness. She is the author of the New York Times bestseller Conscious: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind. Get Annaka Harris’ documentary Lights On here.
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| #103 Rhett McLaughlin - Why I Left Christianity | 20 Apr 2025 | 01:52:58 | |
Rhett McLaughlin is a comedian best known for creating the internet’s most-watched daily talk show, Good Mythical Morning along side Link Neal; their award-winning weekly podcast The pair also host a weekly podcast, Ear Biscuits; and the instant #1 New York Times bestseller Rhett & Link’s Book of Mythicality.
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| #102 David Deutsch - You're Not Smarter Than a Caveman | 07 Apr 2025 | 01:55:28 | |
David Deutsch is a British physicist at the University of Oxford, often described as the "father of quantum computing". He is a visiting professor in the Department of Atomic and Laser Physics at the Centre for Quantum Computation in the Clarendon Laboratory of the University of Oxford. (Wikipedia)
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| #101 Brian Greene - String Theory, Fine Tuning, and Divine Design | 02 Apr 2025 | 01:20:28 | |
Brian Greene is a professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia University, director of its centre for theoretical physics, and the chairman of the World Science Festival. He is best known for his work on string theory, especially in his book “The Elegant Universe”, which turns 25 this year.
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| #100 Philosopher Shootout - 16 Thinkers, Ranked (With Joe Folley) | 23 Mar 2025 | 03:08:46 | |
For episode 100 of Within Reason, I'm joined by Joe Folley, from the YouTube Channel "Unsolicited Advice", to tackle a completely arbitrary and ridiculous tournament of thinkers, each of whom are to some degree relevant to the show. Joe graduated from Cambridge University with an MPhil in Philosophy, specialising in logic, in 2023.
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| #99 Penn Badgley - My Religious Conflicts With Playing a Killer | 17 Mar 2025 | 01:56:26 | |
Penn Badgley is an actor best known for his roles in Netflix’s You and the popular drama series Gossip Girl. He is less known as a podcaster and member of the Baháʼí Faith, a religion which teaches that there is a historical unity between major world religions and their prophets, having itself developed out of a branch of Twelver Shia Islam in the 19th century.
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| #98 Jacob Hansen - A Mormon Explains Mormonism | 10 Mar 2025 | 02:21:53 | |
Jacob Hansen is a Mormon YouTuber at the channel Thoughtful Faith.
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| #97 Kipp Davis - What Are the Dead Sea Scrolls? | 02 Mar 2025 | 02:15:06 | |
Kipp Davis (@DrKippDavis) is a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Agder in Kristiansand, Norway, where he specialises in the assignment and reconstruction of fragments from the Dead Sea Scrolls and their interpretation. (Google Books) The Dead Sea Scrolls are a set of ancient Jewish manuscripts from the Second Temple period. They were discovered over a period of 10 years, between 1946 and 1956, at the Qumran Caves near Ein Feshkha in the West Bank, on the northern shore of the Dead Sea. Dating from the 3rd century BCE to the 1st century CE, the Dead Sea Scrolls include the oldest surviving manuscripts of entire books later included in the biblical canons, including deuterocanonical manuscripts from late Second Temple Judaism and extrabiblical books. At the same time, they cast new light on the emergence of Christianity and of Rabbinic Judaism. (Wikipedia)
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| #96 Music, Mormonism, and Peter Hitchens - 1.25m Subsrciber Q&A | 01 Mar 2025 | 01:01:46 | |
A Q&A to celebrate hitting 1.25 million subscribers on YouTube.
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| #122 Robert Greene - Near-Death Experiences and the Mind Apart From the Brain | 21 Sep 2025 | 01:23:41 | |
Get Huel today with this exclusive offer for New Customers of 15% OFF with code alexoconnor at https://huel.com/alexoconnor (Minimum $75 purchase). Robert Greene is an American author of books on strategy, power, and seduction. He has written seven international bestsellers, including The 48 Laws of Power. He is working on a book about the concept of the sublime, and speaks today about its relation to near-death experiences, dreaming, consciousness, and religious belief. Buy his books here.
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| #95 James McGrath: John the Baptist, the Bible's Most Mysterious Man | 31 Jan 2025 | 01:23:47 | |
James Frank McGrath is the Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University. He is the author of two books on John the Baptist: "John of History, Baptist of Faith: The Quest for the Historical Baptiser", and "Christmaker: A Life of John the Baptist".
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| #94 Dan McClellan - What Does the Bible Say About Abortion? | 27 Jan 2025 | 01:19:56 | |
Dan McClellan is an American public scholar of the Bible and religion. His forthcoming book, "The Bible Says So", is available here.
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| #93 The Etymology Nerd - How Social Media is Transforming Our Language | 21 Jan 2025 | 01:09:39 | |
Adam Aleksic is a linguist known online as "The Etymology Nerd". His educational videos are watched regularly by millions. His forthcoming book "Algospeak" is currently available for preorder.
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| #92 Bart Ehrman - The Dark Side of Christmas | 20 Dec 2024 | 01:01:16 | |
Bart Ehrman is a New Testament scholar focusing on textual criticism of the New Testament, the historical Jesus, and the origins and development of early Christianity. Get Bart Ehrman's new course, The Dark Side of Christmas (affiliate link).
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| #91 Filip Holm - What is Sufism? Islam and Mystical Experience | 13 Dec 2024 | 01:24:02 | |
Filip Holm is the creator and host of "Lets Talk Religion", a YouTube channel which aims to educate on the subject of religion from an academic perspective. He joins the show to discuss Sufism, which can broadly be defined as the mystical tradition within Islam.
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