If I’m Really Honest

Can people and societies be good without God? Sociologist Phil Zuckerman joins Jamin Coller to discuss secular life, morality, and what research on highly secular societies can tell us about human well-being.We explore Scandinavia, the relationship between modernization and religion, how belief is passed down through families, and the role of the internet in changing religious communities. Phil also acknowledges areas where religion provides valuable support, including charitable giving, comfort, and community. Jamin and Phil discuss what people can lose when they leave faith and whether secularization is inevitable.Books discussed include Beyond Doubt, Society Without God, What It Means to Be Moral, and Faith No More.Watch this conversation: YouTubeRelated conversation: Bryan CaplanIf I'm Really Honest | Become a Superfan#IfImReallyHonest #TeamPossiblyWrong

What changes when you read the Bible closely as literature? Robert Alter joins Jamin Coller to discuss translating the Hebrew Bible, the artistry of its narratives, contradictions within its books, and what English translations can obscure.We explore word choice, biblical poetry, Ecclesiastes, the two creation accounts, and familiar Psalms that sound different in the original Hebrew.Guest resources: Robert Alter at UC Berkeley | The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with CommentaryWatch this conversation: YouTubeRelated conversation: Kipp DavisIf I'm Really Honest | Become a Superfan#IfImReallyHonest #TeamPossiblyWrong

What happens when a minister stops believing, but religion has become his career, community, and identity?Former Pentecostal minister Duane Grady joins Jamin Coller for a conversation about changing beliefs, leaving ministry, and the human cost of being honest about doubt. Duane is president of The Clergy Project, which supports current and former religious professionals who no longer hold supernatural beliefs.Guest resource: The Clergy ProjectRelated conversation: Dan Barker - Trapped as a PastorMore conversations: IfImReallyHonest.comSupport the show: Team Possibly Wrong#IfImReallyHonest #TeamPossiblyWrong

Dan Barker is a former evangelical minister, author, musician, and co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation.
In this conversation, Dan reflects on leaving the ministry, changing deeply held beliefs, building a meaningful life without faith, and defending the separation of church and state.
DAN BARKER:Freedom From Religion Foundation: https://ffrf.org/about/ffrf-board/dan-barker/Books by Dan Barker: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Dan+Barker+Godless&tag=leapialiv-20
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Dr. Kipp Davis is a biblical scholar specializing in the Dead Sea Scrolls, early Jewish literature, and the history and transmission of biblical texts.
In this conversation, we examine what the Dead Sea Scrolls actually tell us, how scholars evaluate ancient manuscripts, and where popular claims about the Bible can outrun the evidence.
KIPP DAVIS:Research: https://independent.academia.edu/KippDavisYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DrKippDavisBooks on the Dead Sea Scrolls: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Kipp+Davis+Dead+Sea+Scrolls&tag=leapialiv-20
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Will Gervais is a cultural and evolutionary psychologist who studies religious belief, disbelief, morality, and how human minds make sense of gods.
In this conversation, we explore why some people believe while others do not, what psychology reveals about atheism and religion, and the assumptions both believers and nonbelievers often get wrong.
WILL GERVAIS:Official website: https://willgervais.com/Research: https://willgervais.com/research-pageDisbelief on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Disbelief+Will+Gervais&tag=leapialiv-20
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Rolf Potts is a travel writer, essayist, and the bestselling author of Vagabonding and The Vagabond’s Way.
In this conversation, we explore what meaningful travel can teach us about attention, freedom, identity, and building a life on purpose.
ROLF POTTS:Official website: https://rolfpotts.com/Books and essays: https://rolfpotts.com/books/Vagabonding on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Vagabonding+Rolf+Potts&tag=leapialiv-20
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Peter Boghossian is a philosopher, educator, former Portland State University professor, pioneer of street epistemology, author of A Manual for Creating Atheists, and coauthor of How to Have Impossible Conversations.
We discuss intellectual honesty, why changing your mind should be considered a virtue, friendship across ideological lines, the difference between virtue-based relationships and tribal loyalty, and why deliberately choosing difficult things can help us become more substantial human beings.
PETER BOGHOSSIAN:Official website: https://peterboghossian.com/Substack: https://boghossian.substack.com/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@drpeterboghossian
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Bryan Caplan is a New York Times bestselling author, Professor of Economics at George Mason University, Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center, and one of the world's most influential libertarian economists. He's the author of The Myth of the Rational Voter, The Case Against Education, Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids, Open Borders, Build, Baby, Build, and several other bestselling books. His next major work, Unbeatable: The Brutally Honest Case for Free Markets, is scheduled for release in 2027.
In this episode, Bryan and I explore one of the questions at the heart of this podcast: how do we know when we're fooling ourselves? We discuss why people often believe things they don't actually act on, whether we're capable of genuine intellectual honesty, why betting can reveal our real beliefs, why comedians sometimes make better truth-tellers than politicians, what caused Bryan to abandon Catholicism and embrace economics, and how social desirability bias shapes everything from religion to politics. We also discuss immigration, education, rationality, self-deception, and what Bryan would change if he could redesign society from scratch.
Bryan CaplanBooks: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B001JSCEV0/allbooksWebsite: https://www.bcaplan.com/X: https://x.com/bryan_caplan
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Phil Halper is a science communicator, astrophotographer, creator of the Before the Big Bang series, co-author of the acclaimed book Before the Big Bang, interviewer of many of the world's leading cosmologists, and co-author of one of the largest surveys ever conducted of physicists' views on cosmology.
In this conversation we discuss what physicists actually mean by "the Big Bang," why many scientists reject the popular idea that the Big Bang represents the beginning of the universe, competing theories of cosmic origins, inflation, string theory, loop quantum gravity, dark matter, dark energy, gravitational waves, the James Webb Space Telescope, LISA, the proposed Big Bang Observer, and why uncertainty is one of science's greatest strengths rather than a weakness.
Book - Battle of the Big Bang: https://a.co/d/0hOljVeYPhil Halper : https://www.philhalper.com/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BeforeTheBigBang
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