The Cosmic Skeptic Podcast

David Pakman is an American progressive political commentator and host of  @thedavidpakmanshow . Buy David's book, The Echo Machine here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Marcus du Sautoy is a British mathematician, Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford, Fellow of New College, Oxford and author of popular mathematics and popular science books. Buy Blueprints: How Mathematics Shapes Creativity here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dale Allison is an American historian and Christian theologian. His areas of expertise include the historical Jesus, the Gospel of Matthew, Second Temple Jewish literature, and the history of the interpretation and reception of the Bible. Allison is the Richard J. Dearborn Professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary (2013- ). (Wikipedia) By Dale Allison's book, The Resurrection of Jesus, here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Diarmaid MacCulloch is an English academic and historian, specialising in ecclesiastical history and the history of Christianity. Since 1995, he has been a fellow of St Cross College, Oxford; he was formerly the senior tutor. Buy Lower than the Angels: A History of Sex and Christianity here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

John Lennox is a Northern Irish mathematician, bioethicist, and Christian apologist originally from Northern Ireland. He has written many books on religion, ethics, the relationship between science and God, and has had public debates with atheists including Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Annaka Harris is an American writer. Her work touches on neuroscience, meditation, philosophy of mind and consciousness. She is the author of the New York Times bestseller Conscious: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind. Get Annaka Harris' documentary Lights On here.

Rhett McLaughlin is a comedian best known for creating the internet's most-watched daily talk show, Good Mythical Morning along side Link Neal; their award-winning weekly podcast The pair also host a weekly podcast, Ear Biscuits; and the instant #1 New York Times bestseller Rhett & Link's Book of Mythicality.

David Deutsch is a British physicist at the University of Oxford, often described as the "father of quantum computing". 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)

Brian Greene is a professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia University, director of its centre for theoretical physics, and the chairman of the World Science Festival. He is best known for his work on string theory, especially in his book “The Elegant Universe”, which turns 25 this year.

For episode 100 of Within Reason, I'm joined by Joe Folley, from the YouTube Channel "Unsolicited Advice", to tackle a completely arbitrary and ridiculous tournament of thinkers, each of whom are to some degree relevant to the show. Joe graduated from Cambridge University with an MPhil in Philosophy, specialising in logic, in 2023.

Penn Badgley is an actor best known for his roles in Netflix's You and the popular drama series Gossip Girl. He is less known as a podcaster and member of the Baháʼí Faith, a religion which teaches that there is a historical unity between major world religions and their prophets, having itself developed out of a branch of Twelver Shia Islam in the 19th century.

Jacob Hansen is a Mormon YouTuber at the channel Thoughtful Faith.

Kipp Davis (‪@DrKippDavis‬) is a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Agder in Kristiansand, Norway, where he specialises in the assignment and reconstruction of fragments from the Dead Sea Scrolls and their interpretation. (Google Books) The Dead Sea Scrolls are a set of ancient Jewish manuscripts from the Second Temple period. They were discovered over a period of 10 years, between 1946 and 1956, at the Qumran Caves near Ein Feshkha in the West Bank, on the northern shore of the Dead Sea. Dating from the 3rd century BCE to the 1st century CE, the Dead Sea Scrolls include the oldest surviving manuscripts of entire books later included in the biblical canons, including deuterocanonical manuscripts from late Second Temple Judaism and extrabiblical books. At the same time, they cast new light on the emergence of Christianity and of Rabbinic Judaism. (Wikipedia)

A Q&A to celebrate hitting 1.25 million subscribers on YouTube.

James Frank McGrath is the Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University. He is the author of two books on John the Baptist: "John of History, Baptist of Faith: The Quest for the Historical Baptiser", and "Christmaker: A Life of John the Baptist".

Dan McClellan is an American public scholar of the Bible and religion. His forthcoming book, "The Bible Says So", is available here.

Adam Aleksic is a linguist known online as "The Etymology Nerd". His educational videos are watched regularly by millions. His forthcoming book "Algospeak" is currently available for preorder.

Bart Ehrman is a New Testament scholar focusing on textual criticism of the New Testament, the historical Jesus, and the origins and development of early Christianity. Get Bart Ehrman's new course, The Dark Side of Christmas (affiliate link).

Filip Holm is the creator and host of "Lets Talk Religion", a YouTube channel which aims to educate on the subject of religion from an academic perspective. He joins the show to discuss Sufism, which can broadly be defined as the mystical tradition within Islam.

Rainn Wilson is the actor and comedian best known for his role as Dwight Schrute on the The Office (US), for which he received three consecutive Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series. He is also the host of ‪‪Soul Boom‬, a podcast discussing spirituality, and authored a book of the same name exploring how we can use spiritual tools to help solve some of life's problems.

Sheehan Quirke is the Cultural Tutor, a writer with 1.7 million followers on X. His work on art, history, and architecture is some of the most widely-enjoyed in the world. He writes a newsletter called the Areopagus.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a Somali-born Dutch-American writer, activist and former politician. Once an advocate for the new atheist movement, she last year announced her conversion to Christianity.

Cliffe and Stuart Knechtle run the extremely popular online Christian ministry ‪'Give Me an Answer'‬. In this episode they discuss troubling passages in the Old Testament, New Testament sexism, Job, doubting Thomas, the unforgivable sin (blaspheming the Holy Spirit), and more.

Steven Bonnell II, known online as Destiny, is an American live streamer and political commentator. He joins me to talk about Trump, Kamala, Biden, Elon Musk, Tucker Carlson, Mark Zuckerberg, Voter ID, immigration, demographic change, and who to vote for in the upcoming election.

Magnify is a YouTube channel of mostly short-form content, covering interesting details across history, linguistics, and religion.

David Nutt is an English neuropsychopharmacologist specialising in the research of drugs that affect the brain and conditions such as addiction, anxiety, and sleep. He was the UK Government's chief advisor on drug policy. He was fired in 2009 after criticising the Government's approach to drug harms.

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".

oe Folley runs the YouTube channel Unsolicited Advice. he graduated from Cambridge University with an MPhil in Philosophy, specialising in logic, in 2023.

Nick Bostrom is a philosopher known for his work on existential risk, the anthropic principle, human enhancement ethics, whole brain emulation, and superintelligence risks. His recent book, Deep Utopia, explores what might happen if we get AI development right.

Thank you for 850,000 subscribers!

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. Buy "The Origin of Satan" by Elaine Pagels here.

Rory Sutherland is a British advertising executive, and vice chairman of the Ogilvy & Mather group of companies. His book, Alchemy, is available here.

Bart Ehrman is a New Testament scholar focusing on textual criticism of the New Testament, the historical Jesus, and the origins and development of early Christianity. He was one of the first people in the world to see the rediscovered manuscript of the Gospel of Judas, when he was asked by National Geographic to join a small team of experts who verified its authenticity. Study Bart Ehrman's courses and support the show at https://www.bartehrman.com/alex

Jonathan Pageau is a French-Canadian icon carver, YouTuber and public speaker on symbolism, religion and the Orthodox faith.

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.