Within Reason

Steven Bonnell II is a popular American political streamer known online as Destiny.

David Wolpe is an American rabbi, and Visiting Scholar at Harvard Divinity School. He was named the most influential Rabbi in America by Newsweek in 2012.

Joe Schmid is a PhD student in philosophy at Princeton University. He graduated with a B.A. in philosophy from Purdue University in 2022. He has published articles in metaphysics, philosophy of religion, and philosophy of time, and the author of books including "Existential Inertia and Classical Theistic Proofs". He runs the YouTube channel, "Majesty of Reason".

John Nelson holds a PhD in Biblical Studies from the University of Edinburgh. His thesis is the first book-length study of Jesus' physical appearance in the Gospels. He runs a weekly Substack called "Behind the Gospels" which aims to make Biblical studies accessible to all.

Joe Folley is the creator of the YouTube channel "Unsolicited Advice" which creates short, digestible philosophical videos on a wide range of topics. He joins me today to discuss nihilism: its history, its meaning, and its significance in philosophy.

Steven West is the host of "Philosophize This!" one of the world's most popular philosophy podcasts. Listen to it here.

Iain McGilchrist is a psychiatrist, writer, and former Oxford literary scholar. McGilchrist came to prominence after the publication of his book The Master and His Emissary, subtitled The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World.

Andrew Mark Henry is a scholar of religious studies. His research focus is early Christianity and late Roman religion. He earned his PhD at Boston University. His YouTube channel is "Religion for Breakfast".

Elaine Pagels is an American historian of religion. She is the Harrington Spear Paine Professor of Religion at Princeton University. Pagels has conducted extensive research into early Christianity and Gnosticism.

See me speak at Level Up in Atlanta this June: http://levelupconferences.org/

Coleman Hughes is an American writer and podcast host. He is the author of "The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America".

Justin Sledge is currently a part-time professor of philosophy and religion at several institutions in the Metro-Detroit area and a popular local educator. His YouTube channel is "Esoterica".

Rory Stewart is a former UK Government minister, MP, and deputy governor in Iraq following the western invasion. He walked on foot for two years across Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, India and Nepal in 2002. He was a private tutor to both Prince William and Prince Harry. He now co-hosts The Rest is Politics with Alastair Campbell, one of the UK's most popular shows.

A.C. Grayling is a British philosopher and author. In 2011 he founded and became the first Master of New College of the Humanities, an independent undergraduate college in London. Buy "Who Owns the Moon?" here.

Thank you all for 750,000 subscribers on YouTube!

Sam Harris is a neuroscientist, philosopher, New York Times best-selling author, host of Making Sense, and creator of Waking Up.

Carlo Rovelli, an Italian theoretical physicist, is known mainly for his contributions to research in the field of quantum gravity. He is the author of Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, The Order of Time, and White Holes, amongst other works.

William Lane Craig is a Christian philosopher and public speaker, who today makes his third appearance on Within Reason. We discuss why Richard Dawkins refuses to debate him, and whether Old Testament slaughter can be justified.

Michael Knowles is an American conservative Catholic political commentator and media host. He has worked for the Daily Wire since 2016.

David Deutsch is a British physicist at the University of Oxford. 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.)

Buy David Deutsch's book, The Beginning of Infinity

Susan Neiman is an American moral philosopher, cultural commentator, and essayist. She is the author of "Left is Not Woke", available here.

Robert Sapolsky is an American neuroendocrinology researcher and author. He is a professor of biology, neurology, neurological sciences, and neurosurgery at Stanford University.

He is the author of "Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will", which you can purchase here.

Sheehan Quirke is known online as the Cultural Tutor. With over 1.6 million followers on X, he writes daily threads about art, architecture, and history.

Jason Brennan is an American philosopher and business professo at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University.

Brennan writes about democratic theory, the ethics of voting, competence and power, freedom, and the moral foundations of commercial society. (Wikipedia.) He speaks in this episode about the faults and flaws of democracy, and why people are often not as good as voting as they think they are.

Buy "Against Democracy" (affiliate link): https://amzn.to/3HBA5df

Buy "Democracy: A Guided Tour": https://amzn.to/3udeuF2

Jonathan Pageau is a French Canadian icon carver, public speaker and YouTuber exploring the symbolic patterns that underlie our experience of the world, how these patterns emerge and come together, manifesting in religion, art and in popular culture. He's also the editor of the Orthodox Arts Journal and host of the Symbolic World blog and podcast.

Richard Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist and author of books including The Selfish Gene and The God Delusion.

Ben Thomas, better known online as Sisyphus 55, is a philosophy YouTuber with one million subscribers. His videos cover topics including nihilism, existentialism, love, relationships, and political philosophy.

In this Christmas special of Within Reason, New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman explores the history and narrative of Jesus' birthday, and demonstrates where the accounts seem to contradict.

Get Bart Erhman's courses here.

Edward Feser is an American Catholic philosopher, and Associate Professor of Philosophy at Pasadena City College in California.

He is the author of "Five Proofs of the Existence of God", and in this episode speaks about one of these: the Aristotelean argument from motion.

Josh Rasmussen is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Azusa Pacific University, with an expertise in analytic metaphysics. He is author of several books, including Defending the Correspondence Theory of Truth, Necessary Existence, How Reason Can Lead to God, and Is God the Best Explanation of Things . He is also the founder of the Worldview Design YouTube channel, which helps people use reason to address the big questions of life.

John Vervaeke is an award-winning professor of psychology, cognitive science, and Buddhist psychology at the University of Toronto. He is the creator of a fifty-hour series on YouTube called "Awakening From the Meaning Crisis".

Dr. Vervaeke joins me to discuss why people are struggling to find meaning, how we might solve this problem, and whether death poses a series problem for believing in meaning.

Graham Oppy is Professor of Philosophy and Associate Dean of Research at Monash University, CEO of the Australasian Association of Philosophy, Chief Editor of the Australasian Philosophical Review, Associate Editor of the Australasian Journal of Philosophy, and serves on the editorial boards of Philo, Philosopher's Compass, Religious Studies, and Sophia.

He is one of the best known atheist thinkers in academia. You can buy "Atheism: the Basics" here.

Just Stop Oil are one of the most well-known and thoroughly hated political groups in the UK. You may recognise them as the brand behind stunts such as throwing soup over Van Gogh's Sunflowers, covering the felt of a snooker table at a world championship with orange powder, blocking traffic on busy roads, and, most recently, climbing on stage during a production of Les Misérables in London's West End.

Peter Hitchens is an author, broadcaster, journalist, and commentator. He writes for The Mail on Sunday. He has published numerous books, including The Abolition of Britain, The Rage Against God, The War We Never Fought and The Phoney Victory.

Drew McCoy is the creator and host of the YouTube channel Genetically Modified Skeptic. His videos cover topics including atheism, cults, satanism, and Biblical scholarship. In this episode we talk about his recent trip to SatanCon in Boston, Massachusetts, and about what the modern satanism movement is all about.

Justin Brierley was, for 17 years, the host of "Unbelievable?" on Premier Christian Radio. He is a broadcaster, author, and Christian apologist whose latest book is "The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God: Why new atheism grew old and secular thinkers are considering Christianity again".

Get Justin's book here.

Slavoj Žižek is a Slovenian-born political philosopher and cultural critic. He was described by British literary theorist, Terry Eagleton, as the “most formidably brilliant” recent theorist to have emerged from Continental Europe. (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy) To support Within Reason on Patreon, please visit https://www.patreon.com/cosmicskeptic

Andrew Doyle is a playwright, journalist, and political satirist. He has written for the fictional character Jonathan Pie and created the character Titania McGrath. Doyle joined GB News in 2021, and hosts a weekly show titled Free Speech Nation.

He is the author of The New Puritans: How the Religion of Social Justice Captured the Western World

Carl Robichaud co-leads Longview Philanthropy’s programme on nuclear weapons and existential risk. For over a decade, Carl led grant-making in nuclear security at the Carnegie Corporation of New York, a philanthropic fund which grants over $30 million annually to strengthen international peace and security. Carl previously worked with The Century Foundation and the Global Security Institute, where his extensive research spanned arms control, international security policy, and nonproliferation.

Tanya Marie Luhrmann is an American psychological anthropologist known for her studies of modern-day witches, charismatic Christians, and studies of how culture shapes psychotic, dissociative, and related experiences.

She is the author of How God Becomes Real, which asks what it means to say that a person 'believes' in gods, how and why this kind of belief is so different from mundane beliefs about the normal world, and how these gods become vividly real to some people.

Find Within Reason on YouTube.

Peter Boghossian is an American philosopher, a founding faculty member at the University of Austin, and coined the term "street epistemology" as a method of helping people to change their minds.

Peter Boghossian's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@drpeterboghossian

Get Bart Ehrman's course, "Did Jesus Call Himself God?": https://www.bartehrman.com/godman View all of Bart Ehrman's courses: https://www.bartehrman.com/alex To support me on Patreon (thank you): http://www.patreon.com/cosmicskeptic To donate to my PayPal (thank you): http://www.paypal.me/cosmicskeptic

Bart Ehrman is an American New Testament scholar focusing on textual criticism of the New Testament, the historical Jesus, and the origins and development of early Christianity. He has written and edited 30 books, including three college textbooks. He has also authored six New York Times bestsellers. (Wikipedia)

Anil Seth is a professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex. He is the author of "Being You: A New Science of Consciousness".

Purchase "Being You: A New Science of Consciousness": https://amzn.to/3NgKD53

Anil Seth's website: https://www.anilseth.com/

The Perception Census: https://perceptioncensus.dreamachine.world/

Michael Jones is the founder and director of the Christian YouTube channel "Inspiring Philosophy". He has previously debated Alex twice.

Inspiring Philosophy on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5qDet6sa6rODi7t6wfpg8g

Inspiring Philosophy, "Does God Send People to Hell?": https://youtu.be/tiYf6ITgWbk

Michael's debate with Alex on the problem of evil: https://www.youtube.com/live/hNF9bTESZwE?feature=share

Michael's debate with Alex on the moral argument for God: https://youtu.be/9Ulnmb-4v2M

Steven Kenneth Bonnell II, known online as Destiny, is an American internet personality and political commentator.

Find Destiny on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/DESTINY

Peter Singer is an Australian moral philosopher often credited as the father of the modern animal rights movement.

Purchase Animal Liberation Now: https://amzn.to/450BB3e

Peter Singer's upcoming speaking tour: New York: https://events.humanitix.com/peter-singer-ny Washington DC: https://events.humanitix.com/peter-singer-washington-dc LA: https://www.ticketmaster.com/event/09005E68DC24308C San Fransisco: https://events.humanitix.com/peter-singer-san-francisco London: https://hackneyempire.co.uk/whats-on/peter-singer-animal-liberation-now/ Virtual Event: https://events.humanitix.com/peter-singer-live-stream

Joshua Bowen is an Assyriologist, YouTuber, and author of the book, "Did the Old Testament Endorse Slavery?"

Links: The Atheist Handbook to the Old Testament: Volume 1: https://t.co/SrcMTKcxS6 Volume 2: https://t.co/RuPDimaomv Did the Old Testament Endorse Slavery?: https://tinyurl.com/3m6prd3h Digital Hammurabi: www.youtube.com/digitalhammurabi Misquoting Jesus Podcast (Bart Ehrman and Megan Lewis): https://www.bartehrman.com/podcast/ Digital Hammurabi: Website: www.digitalhammurabi.com YouTube: www.youtube.com/digitalhammurabi Twitter: www.twitter.com/digi_hammurabi Patreon: www.patreon.com/digitalhammurabi

Richard Swinburne is an Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford, and author of a number of books on the philosophy of religion, the soul, and Christianity, amongst other subjects.

To support the podcast, please visit support.withinreasonpodcast.com

Neil deGrasse Tyson is an astrophysicist, director of the Hayden Planetarium, and one of the most recognisable communicators of science in the world.

His most recent book is Starry Messenger: Cosmic Perspectives on Civilisation: https://amzn.to/40Cdkgi (affiliate link)

Philip Goff is an Associate Professor at Durham University whose research focuses on philosophy of mind and consciousness. He is one of the world's most prominent proponents of "panpsychism", the view that consciousness is a fundamental and ubiquitous property of the universe.

Buy Galileo's Error: Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness (affiliate link, which supports my work): https://amzn.to/3MTfKnu

To support the Within Reason Podcast financially, please visit support.withinreasonpodcast.com

David Renton is a barrister and historian. He is the author of "No Free Speech for Fascists", discussing the history of, and the case for, "no-platforming" fascist speakers (and only fascist speakers).

To support the Within Reason Podcast and get early access to episodes, please visit support.withinreasonpodcast.com

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Released on April 1st, this podcast details Alex's conversion to Christianity, a position he defends against the criticisms of Stephen Woodford (Rationality Rules).

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Stephen Woodford is the owner of the YouTube channel 'Rationality Rules'. He is an atheist, moral objectivist and graphic designer, has given public talks on morality, and found considerable success with his regular online videos. He and Alex have had an ongoing disagreement about ethics since 2017, and in this podcast common ground is finally reached, as the two conclude the episode in agreement.

Matt Dillahunty is an American atheist activist, former president of the Atheist Community of Austin, and host of The Atheist Experience. He is a magician, public speaker, and debater, having shared stages with the likes of Richard Dawkins, Jordan Peterson, and Sam Harris. In this episode of the Cosmic Skeptic Podcast, Matt speaks to Alex about his meta-ethical framework, before discussing veganism at length, something he has never done in this format before.

Dr Michael Shermer is an American historian of science, editor-in-chief of Skeptic magazine, and author of nearly 20 books, including Heavens On Earth, The Moral Arc, and Why People Believe Weird Things. He speaks to Alex about how we should respond to the inevitability of death, and why we shouldn't be afraid of it.

Armin Navabi is an Iranian Canadian ex-Muslim and secular activist, author, podcaster, and founder of Atheist Republic. He speaks to Alex about the troubles he faces spreading his secular message and how to find meaning in a world without God.