Closer To Truth

CONSCIOUSNESS — What is happening in our brains when we perceive and appreciate the arts? What are the neural substrates of artistic sensations, feelings, and emotions? How do diverse arts affect the brain?

COSMOS - What’s the ultimate stuff of reality? What’s absolutely fundamental and non-reducible — the fewest number of categories within which every specific thing, of every general kind, can be classified?

MEANING - It’s intended as ultimate purpose: salvation means eternal life with God. For believers, what actually happens, what kind of life? For non-believers, what can we learn about how religion works?

MEANING - Can atonement absolve sin? For believers, how could The Atonement work? What’s the process? For non-believers, what does The Atonement say about the kind of God that supposedly designed it?

MEANING - Why the astonishing claim that Jesus is God? Not like God. Not representing God. But literally God? One need not be a Christian, or even a theist, to appreciate the arguments.

COSMOS - Here’s the claim: each level of the scientific hierarchy — physics, chemistry, biology, psychology — has its own special laws that can never be explained by deeper laws (physics). How can this be?

CONSCIOUSNESS - 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.

CONSCIOUSNESS - 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.

COSMOS - 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.

COSMOS - We search 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.

COSMOS - 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?

COSMOS - 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?

COSMOS - More than one universe? A ridiculous question no more! How could multiple universes be generated, and can we ever find evidence, one way or another? Talk about expanding your horizons: you can't imagine what's in store! COSMOS - More than one universe? A ridiculous question no more! How could multiple universes be generated, and can we ever find evidence, one way or another? Talk about ex...

COSMOS - What could be more startling than many universes – multiple universes, innumerable universes, perhaps an infinite number of universes? But does the multiverse really exist?

COSMOS - Is there more than one universe? According to current cosmology, our entire gigantic universe is only one of innumerable universes, each universe like one tiny bubble in a limitless ocean of universes. What could all this mean?

MEANING - I hope God exists, which is why I listen to atheists and follow their arguments. If hope trumps reason I may be entombed in false belief.

MEANING - 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.

MEANING - Arguments for God, and against God, each call the universe as witness, each count the universe as evidence. God believers invoke the universe's apparent fine-tuning. God deniers envision a vast number of universes, so that anything can happen by accident, including us.

MEANING - How can we have confidence in what we know or believe? What is knowledge? What is belief? How is belief justified? And, is justified belief, knowledge? How can we not doubt everything?

MEANING - Can the analytic enrich the theological, sharpening distinctions of doctrine? Can deep questions about God be addressed with methods and practices that are precise and rigorous?

MEANING - Is analytic theology for the better, clarifying beliefs? Or for the worse, undermining faith? How does it compare with philosophy of religion, biblical studies and exegesis, and systematic theology?

COSMOS - Don't let the heated argument or the smooth talk fool you: the struggle between science and religion carries deep significance. Meaning and Purpose hang in the balance as battle rages on many fronts.

COSMOS - The relationship between science and theology has easy conflicts and hard harmonies. Is consonance possible? What is consonance in science and religion that we should quest for it?

COSMOS - To most physicists, mindless laws generated the universe. A few believe that a supreme being is the creator. But don’t the discoveries of cosmology eliminate the need for supernatural causes?

CONSCIOUSNESS - Parapsychologists are sure ESP is real. Skeptics are sure it is not. But if ESP is real, would ESP need to go beyond physical laws, reaching into unknown non-physical realms?