On Being with Krista Tippett

She's recently published a book about the history of the Quran and its place in Muslim life.

her new book is the story of the caron its history and place in muslim life

She's recently published a book about the history of the Quran and its place in Muslim life.

her new book is the story of the caron its history and place in muslim life

and The Christ of the Latter Day Saints

Individuals, he said, may strive to be moral, but collectively human beings are compromised and prone to immorality, even evil.

The irony of American history as Niebuhr explained it is that our virtues and our vices are inextricably joined.

Our virtues and our vices are inextricably joined. It's a religious insight that's being applied in a political situation.

politics is the art of finding approximate solutions to basically insoluble problems working for a certain amount of justice, a certain amount of order, but it will never be utopian.

the New Testament does not envisage a simple triumph of good over evil in history. It sees human history involved in the contradictions of sin to the end.

man has always been his own most vexing problem

our virtues and our vices are inextricably joined

the irony of American history as Niebuhr explained it is that our virtues and our vices are inextricably joined

the very idealism that has animated so many good things in the history of this country also lead us to be arrogant, lead us to be insensitive to the cultures of other peoples, lead us to overestimate the ability to get things to go our way.

civilization depends upon the vigorous pursuit of the highest values by people who are intelligent enough to know that their values are qualified by their interests and corrupted by their prejudices

In one of my books called In Search of Belief

I was in second grade...that day somehow or other in in religion class sister taught that Protestants don't go to heaven.

I can remember when I retell that story the terrible shock that went through my system. I mean I was seven and a half or eight years old and I knew we were in trouble.

today I learned that Protestants don't go to heaven.

I I think that's wrong

because sister doesn't know daddy

his most recent book is the Sun, the genome and the internet. And I asked him what he thought Einstein would think of the internet when I think you also just gave me an approach to that question.

his most recent book is the Sun, the genome and the internet. And I asked him what he thought Einstein would think of the internet

What would Jesus say about church's complicity or even just complacence about turning the holiday that is Jesus' birthday that we're moving towards turning that into this consumer fest?

Jacob Needleman really, I think, focuses a lot on this issue in his book Money and the Meaning of Life is whole notion about what is money about, what's it for, what is the role that it plays in our life?

What would Jesus say about church's complicity or even just complacence about turning the holiday that is Jesus birthday that we're moving towards turning that into this consumer fest?

Jacob Needleman really, I think, focuses a lot on this issue in his book Money and the Meaning of Life is whole notion about what is money about, what's it for, what is the role that it plays in our life?

Nathan Duncan is president and founder of ShareSave Spend and author of Prodegal Sons and Material Girls, How Not to Be Your Child's ATM.

In a 1994 book, God and Maman in America, Princeton Sociologist Robert Withno described his major national study of the ambiguous relationship between Americans professed spiritual commitments and the lives of work and money that we lead.

In his 2002 book, Urban and Justice, how ghettos happen, David Hilfiger traces the history of urban poverty in America and how it is carried forward across generations.

In his 2002 book, Urban and Justice, how ghettos happen, David Hilfiger traces the history of urban poverty in America and how it is carried forward across generations.

You also talk about there was a loss of jobs that paid a living wage.

You do describe in your books, especially your book, Not All of Us Are Saints which is a lot about your experiences in those years as a doctor living in that neighborhood living together with homeless men.

Here's a passage from one of your books you out my daily experience of a dreadfully fallen world makes it important to demystify this love of neighbor business.

I don't think I had anybody spit in my face but yeah there's a story that I wrote about in the book actually of a young guy was actually a white man we very few were white homeless men in Washington but he was a young white man who was severely addicted to methamphetamine we think and he was exceedingly manipulative and got to know my son actually and took my son to there was wonderful with my son I mean he we trusted him completely with my son took him down to the pet shop and go off for walks in that kind of thing but when it came to working with social workers or me as his physician he was exceedingly manipulative and over time he'd just sort of betrayed us in so many ways at least we felt betrayed and so in the end what I came to is that I didn't need to like him I didn't I don't like him I didn't like him but I wanted the best for him and it seems so obvious to me now I'm having a difficult time explaining why would we not want the best for for anyone even if they have heard us in some way and not that I was deeply hurt by poor people but but it just seems sort of obvious to me that what we should want is the best for everyone else

you also talk about there was a loss of jobs that paid a living wage.

you do describe in your books, especially your book, Not All of Us Are Saints which is a lot about your experiences in those years as a doctor living in that neighborhood living together with homeless men.

Here's a passage from one of your books you out my daily experience of a dreadfully fallen world makes it important to demystify this love of neighbor business.

I don't think I had anybody spit in my face but yeah there's a story that I wrote about in the book actually of a young guy was actually a white man we very few were white homeless men in Washington but he was a young white man who was severely addicted to methamphetamine we think and he was exceeding the manipulative and got to know my son actually and took my son to there was wonderful with my son I mean he we trusted him completely with my son took him down to the pet shop and go off for walks in that kind of thing but when it came to working with social workers or me as his physician he was exceeding the manipulative and over time he'd just sort of betrayed us in so many ways at least we felt betrayed and so in the end what I came to is that I didn't need to like him I didn't I don't like him I didn't like him but I wanted the best for him and it seems so obvious to me now I'm having a difficult time explaining why would we not want the best for for anyone even if they have heard us in some way and not that I was deeply hurt by poor people but but it just seems sort of obvious to me that what we should want is the best for everyone else

I've been reading Henry Nowan and I thought when I read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, I will become as wise as Henry Nowan. And then I read the book and I was like, I'm bored. Partly because I don't understand motorcycles. So I suppose that was the beginning. I should have paid attention to that.

Mothers like me once had no recourse. No power to hold off the lash, to hold on indefinitely, to fight back when they crushed your heart and life.

there is still a future as harrowing as it might be to face of this every bit of sweetness to indulge and to spoil to delight.

I've been in a conversation of friendship and shared curiosity with Dacher Keltner for years, and I'm so happy to bring this conversation to you as he has now translated his studies into a book, Awe, the New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life.

You know, I have the feeling when I read what you write about it, that actually that you learn things that you hadn't known before, that it took you that much deeper in some way.

And I have to say to you that I had a bit of an epiphany here, which is number eight. Number eight. Eighth wonder of life.

There is almost nothing better to do for the state of your mind and body than go get some Awe.

And I feel like also I've watched some of your talks with your students at Berkeley and it's just clear to me that even bringing, like we crave this, right? As you've been telling along, we crave this as creatures and we know we want mystery and we know it's real and we know our imaginations are longing to engage. I feel like you really embody this effervescence as much as you teach about it.

This is my first book.

It was a long journey for me to get to understand what's in the book, because I can't say that it's things that I know. It's things that I notice.

And the things that we notice are fleeting. So it'll come up and I'll make notes on the things that I'm noticing and they'll work their way into the book.

And that's, I'll say, that's similar to what happens in the recording studios. We tend to record everything because often it happens when you don't know what's happening.

Yes, that's how it happened for me. And I was shocked. It remains shocking, but I'm excited that it's there and now I can use it as a reference tool.

So I just, I finished recently this three book series by a Chinese science fiction writer named Liu Cixin. It begins with a book called The Three-Body Problem.

I tried to read those books and I couldn't get into them. Did you love them? You know what I'm talking about. Oh my God. I totally fell into it. I mean, the characters- I love the title, The Three-Body Problem. I was really drawn to that. Right.

The characters are unbelievably cardboard. Like, you know, they have no depth whatsoever. But part of what was, it has this extraordinary scale of time, partly because, you know, yes, The Three-Body Problem is this other planetary system which has three suns and this planet is captured by the gravity of each of those suns. And so every day you're never sure when the sun is going to come up, what the temperature is going to be, whether it's going to be, you know, 300 degrees or minus 300 degrees, and how long the day will last, all those things. And will it be a habitable climate or not? And the creatures will dehydrate, you know, when it becomes terrible. And then when water appears again, they rehydrate and then continue civilization.

But the span of this book, because it's all about the idea that a message passes from this three-body planetary system to Earth and what the consequences of that are. But, you know, even our earthling lives in that book, they unfold over thousands of years. And he describes what happens over those thousands of years.

And it pushes the questions because what he's imagining is the extinction of human beings, but the continuance of other forms of life and how wide our imaginations go towards bringing those in and making them feel that they are part of our chain of being. Can you have a chain of being that feels connected to people, not even people, these sentient creatures that can communicate with you who are in the fourth dimension or look nothing like us? And, you know, can we have a chain of being that goes on 15 billion years that go beyond, you know, Earth is extinguished and humanity is extinguished, but we still feel there's spirit in some way. I don't know. It made me think of that.

I love this book, The Origins of You, that's all about these wounds.

Right? Like we have these wounds and how we process those wounds and move forward through them is who we are.