How God Works: The Science Behind Spirituality

‘Tis the season for giving and…forgiving. But while forgiveness is something to which we often aspire, it can be harder than it seems at times. It's human to feel the tension between the urge for revenge and the intent to forgive, especially when the hurt or betrayal is great. That tension shows up in many religions too, though forgiveness usually wins. But it’s not just a religious ideal, it’s also a biological necessity. We’ll talk to evolutionary psychologist Michael McCullough about the evolutionary case for forgiveness and why it’s a show of strength, not weakness. And theologian Miroslav Volf about the Christian foundation for forgiveness, and the tools religion can offer when forgiveness feels impossible. Michael McCullough is a Professor of Psychology at UC San Diego. He is author of the book Beyond Revenge: The Evolution of the Forgiveness Instinct. Find out more about his work on his website. Professor Miroslav Volf is founder and director of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture. Read his book, Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace, and listen to the Center’s podcast For the Life of the World.

Join us for the very first How God Works live event this Wednesday, December 7th at 7:30pm, at The Greene Space in New York.For tickets and more information, click here.If you can’t make it in person, not to worry, we’ll be livestreaming the event here.

Work is becoming a “religion” for many people these days. It’s worship of the efficient, productive, and almighty dollar. But that doesn’t make people very happy. And organizations filled with miserable employees aren’t ideal for making the world a better place either. Can anything be done to fix it? We’ll talk to Sacred Design Lab co-founder Angie Thurston about how to make workplaces more spiritually nourishing, and to theologian and consultant Curtis Chang about what it means to align the values of a business with a spiritual tradition. We’ll also talk to business professor Subi Rangan about how CEOs and managers can balance profit with doing good.  Visit the Sacred Design Lab website to find out more about Angie Thurston’s work, including publications on how secular spaces are fulfilling spiritual functions, and how to design more soulful workplaces. Visit this link for more information on the Harvard Business course The Spiritual Lives of Leaders. Learn more about Curtis Chang’s faith-based consulting work here, and check out the podcast he co-hosts: Good Faith. To find out more about Subi Rangan’s work, visit his website and check out the group he initiated, The Society for Progress.

Can you pray with a robot? Will people worship AI like a god? It's not science fiction. It's starting to happen now. But what does it mean if robots become priests, or AIs start offering ethical advice? And how do we know when to trust them? We’ll talk to MIT social roboticist Cynthia Breazeal about how technology can manipulate our minds and emotions for good or ill, and with religion professor Robert Geraci about how technology is being used in religion, and why AI may need some spiritual training itself. Watch Cynthia Breazeal’s TED talk here, and find out about her work on the MIT Media Lab website. Find out more about Robert Geraci’s work on his website. Meet the robots: Nexi, Mindar, and SanTO.

Have you ever heard a voice, seen an image, or felt a presence around you that you couldn’t explain? If you have, you’re not alone. More people than you might think report having these kinds of experiences. For some, it can be easy to write these off as tricks of the mind. But for others, especially the religious and spiritually-inclined, these events are often transformative and can profoundly alter the way they feel about their faith. So how is it that gods come to feel real to people? What do these experiences do for those who have them? And why, sometimes, does it feel like the supernatural world is connecting with us out of the blue? Episode guests: Tanya Luhrmann is an anthropologist at Stanford University. Find out more about her book, How God Becomes Real: Kindling the Presence of Invisible Others, on her website, where you'll also find links to her other writing and media appearances. Michael Ferguson is a neuroscientist at Harvard University. Find out more about his research and teaching through his website. Reverend Liz Milner is ordained in the Episcopal Church. She works with prison inmates in northern California.

Join us for the very first How God Works live event on Wednesday, December 7 at The Greene Space in New York.For tickets and more information, click here.If you can’t make it in person, not to worry: we’ll be livestreaming the event too.

Every year, thousands of people head to Nevada's Black Rock Desert for a week at Burning Man. And while from the outside, it might seem like a place for partying, drugs, and debauchery, to many, it offers something deeper, even life changing. We’ll ask neuroscientist Molly Crockett and Episcopal minister Alex Leach, both burners themselves: Is Burning Man a new type of spiritual gathering? How and why does it deeply move people? And should more traditional faiths aim to have a bit more Burning Man in them? After all, Jesus went to the desert to find himself. Maybe we should too. For more on Molly’s research, visit her website or read her article in The Guardian. Alex Leach’s camp at Burning Man is Religious AF. Special thanks to Alex for recording interviews and ambient audio for this episode at this year’s Burning Man.

How God Works will be back with Season 3 starting October 16th! This season we’ll continue to explore some of life’s deepest questions through science and spirituality.  But we’ll also have another big question in mind - What comes next?

As a society that fears death, we tend to avoid the subject. But the key to having a positive end-of-life experience might come in doing just the opposite. On this episode, we’ll hear from philosopher Simon Critchley, Boston-area chaplains Ruth Delfiner, Sarah Byrne-Martelli, and Maude Quinn, and Threshold Choir singer Leigh Davis about what makes a good death, and the many rituals, spiritual or secular, that ease our transition out of this world. Simon Critchley is the author of many books about death, including The Book of Dead Philosophers and How to Stop Living and Start Worrying. Find out more about his other work, including his most recent book, Bald, on his website. In addition to her work as a chaplain, Sarah Byrne-Martelli is the author of Memory Eternal: Living with Grief as Orthodox Christians, due out this summer. Find out about Leigh Davis’s art on her website, where you can also see some of her collaborations with the Threshold Choir. Find out more about the Threshold Choir here. Threshold Choir Song Credits: Beyond Weeping Rest in each breath Words and Music by Annie Garretson for Threshold Choir Sung by Dorothy Calvani, Leigh Davis, Winnie Lee & Marcia Picciotto Calming, Resting, Breathing Words and Music by Patricia Hallam for Threshold Choir Sung by Leigh Davis, Mckendree Key & Georgia Elrod Ocean Breath Rest Easy Words and Music by Helen Greenspan for Threshold Choir Sung by Pittsburgh Threshold Choir

Sooner or later, most of us experience grief from losing someone we love. It’s always painful, and sometimes even debilitating. But there is plenty we can do to help ourselves and others be resilient. Join Dave as he talks with Columbia University psychologist George Bonanno and Rabbi Angela Buchdahl about ways to promote a healthy mourning process and find a path back to life. George Bonnano’s book The Other Side of Sadness: What the New Science of Bereavement Tells Us About Life After Loss, is available on his website. Find out more about Rabbi Angela Buchdahl here.