New Interview Just Dropped
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse is a true Renaissance woman. A former economics professor at Yale, today, she speaks all over the world when she’s not scuba diving with her husband in exotic, far-off places. I’ve known Dr. Morse professionally for the past few years through our association with Stream.Org, a fine online news journal. This past spring, I had the good fortune of meeting her in person when she came out to Raleigh to speak at the local Catholic conference, Ignited by Truth. The people over at Ignited asked me to pick her up from the airport and drive her to the conference. I was happy to do it since it gave me the opportunity to finally meet her in person. During the couple of days that she was in town, I had a delightful time talking to her and her very fun and entertaining staff about all kinds of things. Naturally, the subject turned to writing since Dr. Morse and I write about the same issues. The idea came around to doing an interview together, and that is what happened. I just got an email from Dr. Morse this morning that the interview dropped, so I had to go and check it out. Here it is. I think you’ll appreciate the high production value of her show.
A Preview of Coming Attractions
The entire subject of the show was how science is discovering the value of religion. (And quite possibly the truth of it!) It covers exactly the kind of material we will be discussing here at SOUL SCIENCE. So I wanted you to take a look at this brand new interview. And with any luck, maybe Dr. Morse will be a guest on my show. You heard that right. If you didn’t know already, SOUL SCIENCE is going to be producing a weekly podcast show.
Mental Health
One of our conversation topics was mental health. Most people do not realize that a paradigm shift is happening in that field right now. Despite so many advances in medical research and the treatment of physical illness, progress in the treatment of mental illness has been nonexistent. Reports consistently show that mental illness continues to be a major problem for all age groups.
But mental health researchers are beginning to have success with a new approach. And that new approach borrows heavily from religious practice. As Dr. Morse and I discuss in the interview, stress reduction therapies like “Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction” (MBSR) came directly from studying the meditation and prayer practices of religious people. SOUL SCIENCE will be taking a long look at this research and its implications for religion and the nature of the mind.
Books!!!
Another big theme here at SOUL SCIENCE is BOOKS!!! In the interview, Dr. Morse asked me to name a book that people could read to learn more about the research on science, religion, and health. In fact, we discussed several. So I would definitely recommend having a pen handy in case you want to jot down any book titles. In future articles and podcast episodes, expect to find lots of book discussions. And, with any luck, we might even get an interview with the author!
So definitely check out this new interview with Dr. Morse and get a taste for the type of content you will see here at SOUL SCIENCE. ENJOY!
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