We’ve made it to the end of another amazing year on the podcast — all thanks to you, our listeners! We loved exploring the ideas that shape our lives with you this year!
In this episode, Seth (our podcast host and video producer at The Veritas Forum) shares some stats from the podcast in 2024 and our top three episodes of the year. We feature excerpts from Molly Worthen (UNC), Jonathan Haidt (NYU), Andy Crouch (Praxis), Wendy Suzuki (NUY), and Arthur Brooks (Harvard). Links to the full episodes featured in this wrap-up episode are in the additional resources section below.
Even though I'm a Jewish atheist, I see a spiritual crisis all around us now.
You might consider apprenticing yourself to someone who really lived in an exemplary way. ... For me, that someone — who, interestingly, did not even use the primal technologies available to him — is Jesus of Nazareth.
If you are committed to an anti-supernaturalist understanding of reality, then any possible explanation of the empty tomb and Jesus's appearances to his followers is preferable to the Christian explanation, no matter how baroque and elaborate. And I had to come to grips with my own deep anti-supernaturalist bias.
If you're willing to suspend your disbelief in the supernatural, then you can begin to investigate the historical context of Christians' claims about the empty tomb and the appearances of Christ. You're still faced with a leap of faith, but it's no longer a wild leap in the dark. It's a it's a well-researched, reasonable leap. And then you start to realize that you were always making a bit of a leap, and you just weren't acknowledging it.
What does ancient wisdom say about a flourishing life? Be slower to judge and quicker to forgive. What does a phone-based life tell you? Judge now. Quick. No sympathy. No mercy. No humanity.
Enjoyment, satisfaction, and meaning are the macronutrients of a happy life.
Satisfaction is the joy that we get after struggle, which is the weirdest human thing.
