223. Karen Armstrong (theologian) – the art of getting outside of yourself

223. Karen Armstrong (theologian) – the art of getting outside of yourself

Author: Big Think / Panoply December 7, 2019 Duration: 51:37
I’ve spent more of my life than most people I know immersed by choice in what my guest today would call “scripture”. I was never much of a Roman Catholic, in spite of being dragged weekly to church until I was about 13 and could no longer be dragged, and, in my boredom, sometimes believing I saw the statue of Jesus moving on the cross. But in late adulthood, the need for spiritual meaning gripped me tight and wouldn’t let go. It led first into Judaism and Jerusalem, and then, for the past couple decades, mostly to Buddhist study and practice. But I’m as troubled as all the Enlightenment thinkers I know by scripture-thumping orthodoxy and intolerance of any kind. Troubled watching my wife Demet’s country, Turkey, split between retrograde, homophobic and misogynistic Islamism on the one hand and intractable secular nationalism on the other. Moses and I don’t have much in common, but like him, I get tongue-tied talking about these things. Religious, or spiritual, or scriptural ideas and practices can be so essential and become so problematic at the same time.  My guest today is Karen Armstrong. On these subjects, she doesn’t get tongue-tied. She’s one of the clearest and most nuanced thinkers I know of on god, religion, and scripture. Author of THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE and THE CASE FOR GOD, recipient of the TED Prize, and a co-creator of the interfaith Charter for Compassion. Her new book is called THE LOST ART OF SCRIPTURE and I’m so happy it brings her to Think Again.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Imagine having just a few minutes with a brilliant thinker, but instead of asking them about their usual expertise, you steer the conversation somewhere entirely unexpected. That’s the core experience of Think Again-a Big Think Podcast. Host Jason Gots sits down with an extraordinary roster of guests-from Neil Gaiman and Margaret Atwood to Richard Dawkins and Bill Nye-and presents them with ideas and questions they aren’t prepared to discuss. The result is a series of spontaneous, revealing conversations that go far beyond typical interviews. You’ll hear authors, scientists, artists, and cultural icons like Alan Alda, Salman Rushdie, and George Takei thinking out loud, grappling with new concepts, and often surprising themselves. This podcast lives in the unscripted moments where curiosity meets expertise, covering a wide terrain of arts, culture, and societal questions. It’s about the joy of a mental detour, the kind that happens if you had ten minutes with Einstein and decided to talk about something other than physics. Each episode is an invitation to step off the well-worn path and discover what happens when great minds are asked to, well, think again.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 50

Think Again - a Big Think Podcast
Podcast Episodes
194. Jared Diamond (Historian) – Look inward, Nation [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 47:50
Imagine yourself a German citizen the day after the end of World War II. Much of your city is bombed to ruins. A good part of the population is dead. The Nazi ideology that has dominated your nation for the past decade h…
190. Terry Gilliam (filmmaker) - The impossible dream [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 51:18
Faith in anything is its own special form of madness. It’s a challenge to entropy, and entropy takes no challenge lightly. If there’s any better metaphor for this struggle than trying to make a big budget movie with even…
188. Frans de Waal (primatologist) – You're such a social animal [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 51:03
When I was a kid, there used to be a TV commercial for this series of animal videos you could order that were basically nothing but killing and sex. The tagline was “Find out why we call them . . . ANIMALS”! “Wait a minu…
187. Aml Ameen (actor) - how the world teaches you who you are [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 55:35
They say Confucius said “Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.” I did the research. Confucius probably didn’t say that. But whoever said it was right—revenge bites back. Victor Headley’s 1992 book YA…