I recently sat with a good friend as she received yet another round of chemo for reoccurring cancer. Our visit was a tender time of connecting and conversing about what really matters. My friend, a longtime spiritual seeker in the Catholic tradition, confessed that she doesn't really know for sure whether there is an afterlife. The notion that her body's molecules will melt into the "great-all" of the universe isn't so very attractive. This idea seems to be an extant theme in contemporary scientific-cosmological explanations about where we've come from and where we are going. From the perspective of pure biology, it seems quite correct.

But it doesn't go far enough for many people, including me.

Enter Dr. Eben Alexander's book Proof of Heaven. The author is a neurosurgeon who in 2008 fell victim to a rare form of bacterial meningitis that landed him in a weeklong coma. After many days of antibiotics failed to yield discernable improvement, Alexander's prospects for making a full recovery with all faculties intact were virtually nil. Yet he inexplicably recovered completely. His book chronicles a near-death experience that, according to prevailing scientific theories, never should have happened.

I have been fascinated by accounts of near-death experiences since graduate school, when my nursing studies focused on Dr. Elizabeth Kubler Ross' then-revolutionary work with death and dying and Dr. Raymond Moody's work Life after Life. Typically, people report being met and accompanied by deceased loved ones, floating above their bodies while medical personnel tried to revive them, and encountering an ineffable being of light who emanates unconditional love. Some report being offered a choice about whether to return to earthly life or not. Upon recovery, people said they experienced a heightened awareness that love is the most important thing in the world and they no longer feared death.

For the last 50 years, medical science has explained near-death experiences as the result of a gradual shutting down of the cells of the outer layers of the brain, the neocortex, that governs higher cognitive functions such as vision, hearing, memory, emotional responses, and abstract thinking. This is what Alexander himself believed when some of his patients shared stories of deceased loved ones who came to comfort them in their final days.

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Since bacterial meningitis attacks the connective tissue (or meninges), lining the neocortex, Alexander believes the severe intractability of his infection meant his neocortex was completely "offline," making any near-death experience theoretically impossible in his case. While some have criticized Alexander's science, no one disputes that he was all but dead, yet came back to tell about it.

His life was completely changed by the experience: "[It] healed my fragmented soul. It had let me know that I had always been loved, and it also showed me that absolutely everyone else in the universe is loved, too." Alexander now works to bridge the gap between materialist understandings of a soulless, somewhat mechanistic universe and new empirical discoveries in quantum mechanics and the domains of consciousness and spirituality.

His most recent book, The Map of Heaven, explores what science, religion and ancient wisdom from luminaries such as Plato, the Dalai Lama and Carl Jung have to offer.

At the heart of the debate is the nature of human consciousness. Scientific materialists believe human consciousness is the product of physical brain functions. When the brain dies, consciousness (and that which makes us quintessentially human) dies along with it. Other, "post-materialist scientists" believe this construct cannot be proven and ignores abundant empirical evidence to the contrary.

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Will science prove there is a heaven?

Sam Harris: 'The Tesla Model S is that rare thing a piece of technology that is both utterly desirable and good for the planet.' Photograph: David Levene

Sam Harris is an American neuroscientist, author and philosopher. His book The End of Faith (2004) appeared on the New York Times bestseller list for 33 weeks. This was followed by The Moral Landscape, published in 2010, Lying in 2011, and Free Will in 2012. Harris is co-founder and the CEO of Project Reason, a nonprofit foundation devoted to spreading scientific knowledge and secular values. He appears frequently on television and radio (including Real Time With Bill Maher, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report) to talk about the conflict between religion and science. His latest book, Waking Up: Searching for Spirituality Without Religion (Bantam Press), is out on 29 January.

I love this podcast. Carlin is not a professional historian, but he could well be the most engaging history professor on Earth. His series on the first world war is simply a masterpiece made all the more impressive by the informal, meandering way he leads the listener from poignancy to horror and back again. We appear to be entering a new golden age of audio, and Carlin is doing some of the best work in this medium.

This electric car is that rare thing a piece of technology that is both utterly desirable and good for the planet. Elon Musk has built the nicest automobile in history and singlehandedly created a new market for electric cars. When you consider the environmental and geopolitical consequences of our remaining dependent on oil from rising sea levels to our funding both sides of the war on terror it is amazing to see a solution arising out of brilliant and sexy engineering.

My midlife crisis has taken the form of training in a variety of martial arts. By far the most addictive and conducive to injury (in my case) has been Brazilian jiujitsu. As I wrote in an article entitled The Pleasures of Drowning: The experience of grappling with an expert is akin to falling into deep water without knowing how to swim. You will make a furious effort to stay afloat and you will fail. Once you learn how to swim, however, it becomes difficult to see what the problem is why cant a drowning man just relax and tread water? The same inscrutable difference between lethal ignorance and lifesaving knowledge can be found on the mat: to train in BJJ is to continually drown or, rather, to be drowned, in sudden and ingenious ways and to be taught, again and again, how to swim.

Ive only recently begun to pay attention to the progress being made in artificial intelligence. The field is advancing faster than most people realise, and we seem to be headed for a precipice of sorts. Reading Bostroms book, you come away feeling that there may be no way to build machines that possess true general intelligence that is, the ability to learn new concepts and apply them in unfamiliar contexts without destroying ourselves in the process. You also get the sense that we will inevitably build such machines, unless we destroy ourselves some other way. So listen to Dan Carlins podcast while you still can!

I have no idea how famous Bill Burr and Jim Gaffigan (left) are outside the United States, but here they are emerging as two of the funniest voices in comedy. Each has one-hour specials available on Netflix. Burrs humour is very dark and edgy, while Gaffigan never says a cross word. Both are absolutely hilarious.

I had never heard of sculptor Adolfo Wildt before I stumbled upon a book of photographs representing his work. He seems to have specialised in creating extremely smooth marble sculptures depicting people in negative states of mind, from smugness to agony. Even his happy faces convey some form of menace. This is how I look when I discover that Ive run out of coffee, beer, or chocolate. It is also the expression I will be wearing when the machines take over.

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On my radar: Sam Harriss cultural highlights

"At the heart of everything is the need of an adequate formation so that, steadfast in ones own identity, we can grow in mutual knowledge." Vatican City, January 26, 2015 (Zenit.org) | 234 hits

Here is the translation of the Holy Father's address to members of the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies at the Vatican on Saturday.

* * *

Dear Cardinals,

Dear Brother Bishops and Priests,

Brothers and sisters,

I receive you with pleasure at the conclusion of the conference organized to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the opening in Rome of the Pontifical Institute of Arabic and Islamic studies. I thank Cardinal Grocholewski for his words addressed in everyone's name, and Cardinal Tauran for his presence.

In the last few years, despite some misunderstandings and difficulties, steps forward in interreligious dialogue have been made, as well as with the faithful of Islam. For this reason the exercise of listening is essential. That is not only a necessary condition in a process of mutual understanding and peaceful coexistence, but also a pedagogical duty in order to acknowledge the values of others, appreciate the concerns underlying their demands and shed light on shared beliefs" (Evangelii gaudium, 253). At the heart of everything is the need of an adequate formation so that, steadfast in ones own identity, we can grow in mutual knowledge.

We must be careful to not fall into a facile syncretism that, in the end, is empty and a harbinger of totalitarianism without values (ibid., 251; 253). A convenient, accommodating approach, that says yes to everything in order to avoid problems (ibid., 251); it would end up becominga way of deceiving others and denying them the good which we have been given to share generously with others. This invites us, in the first place, to return to the foundations.

When we draw near to a person who professes their religion with conviction, their witness and their thought challenge us and brings us to ask ourselves on our own spirituality. Therefore, in the beginning of dialogue there is the encounter. From there the first knowledge of the other is generated. If, in fact, it is assumed that we all belong to human nature, prejudices and falsehoods can be overcome and an understanding of the other according to a new perspective can begin.

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Pope's Audience with Members of the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies

By Barbara Clark

Bruce Epperly peppers his conversation with animated expressions as he talks about his new adventure as pastor of South Congregational Church in Centerville. His volubility seems to be inborn and just flows naturally as he spins stories, lifting an eyebrow or waving an arm in the air, almost impatient to be sitting down. These characteristics might be one reason his pastor, who saw these qualities in Epperly back in the 1970s, helped shift the young mans direction toward one of an outgoing ministry to others.

Epperly grew up in California, no stranger to traditional religious forms his father was a Baptist minister. But young Epperly reached college in the 1970s during the "Age of Aquarius," at a time when love beads and Imagine were assuming relevance over more traditional realms of spirituality. For this young college student, the message of many churches seemed too straitlaced and out of touch for the times; so, looking to feed what he called his own spiritual hunger, Epperly began exploring emerging spiritual disciplines, including Buddhist teachings and Transcendental Meditation.

He then turned back to the traditional Christian church for a time and, mentored by his pastor, began to feel there was something [for him] in the Christian story, now made more inclusive by opening doors to other streams of religious practice. He came to believe that a larger view could enliven the church, and during graduate school began to feel a calling to give back as a pastor and teacher. Epperly went on to complete graduate degrees in philosophy of religion and theology and was ordained as a Protestant minister in 1980, first in the Disciples of Christ denomination, later in the United Church of Christ.

Throughout Epperlys long career as pastor, teacher and speaker, he came to feel that his calling to the pastoral ministry was a practical application of what [he] was learning as he sought to build up an intellectually solid Christian faith. He went on to teach at several theological seminaries and served as a pastor in places like Washington, D.C., Maryland and Pennsylvania.

In 2012 he began looking for a new adventure to stake out over the next decade, and one opportunity that presented itself turned out to be in Centerville. Unlike many folks who gravitate back here after growing up on the Cape or summering here, Epperly had been on Cape Cod only once in his life to meet an incoming ferry. The new opportunity was intriguing, and something about the Cape, he said, made it seem like a place to come to. He and his wife, Kate, also a minister and spiritual life coach, moved to Centerville in 2013, and Epperly has remained enthusiastic about his good fortune and ultimate choice of venue.

His ministry in Centerville has been focusing on the growing number of retired baby boomers moving here, as well as on the many older members of his congregation. The church, he noted, will hold its 218th annual meeting this year, making it a venerable institution in the local community.

Epperly described his church as interested in creative worship. He said the congregation is innovative but appreciative of tradition, perhaps the best of all possible worlds for a man whose roots are in the older evangelical tradition but who has come to embrace the hard questions emerging in the current scientific show me age.

His new book, Finding God in Suffering: A Journey with Job, came out of a Bible study class where Epperly said participants came armed with no holds-barred questions they werent about to pass through the Book of Job with just a cursory look. There was so much meat to the sessions that a book seemed the natural outcome. Epperly said his approach in such classes is to share the best biblical information thats out there and encourage participants to share their own spiritual journeys rather than just accept the least common denominator in any meeting. He aims at accessibility. I want people to read and understand, he said.

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Local ministry feeds mind, spirit