Closer To Truth is the definitive series on Cosmos, Consciousness and God, a global journey in search of the vital ideas of existence. It is the most complete, compelling, and accessible series on Cosmos, Consciousness and God ever produced for television. Closer To Truth explores fundamental issues of universe, brain/mind, religion, meaning and purpose through intimate, candid conversations with leading scientists, philosophers, scholars, theologians and creative thinkers of all kinds. The shows are a rich visual experience, shot entirely on location in high definition with multiple cameras generating film-like production values. The visual lushness of the high definition, on-location productions, combined with the intriguing titles of the shows, builds audiences already interested in such perennial topics. Each 30-minute episode features four to seven of the world's foremost thinkers. The series as a whole features 128 such authorities in what we believe to be the most comprehensive and definitive treatment of these topics ever presented in visual or electronic media.
Episode # 910
Free will seems so obvious. Whatever I want to do, I just do. But could "I" be fooled? Some say that free will is an illusion. Others, that it's a mystery.
Monday, April 01, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 911
Theists and atheists debate whether God exists. But what God are they arguing over? There's enormous variation in the kinds of gods that populate religions.
Tuesday, April 02, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 912
Why does the mystery of consciousness lead some to the existence of God and others to only the brain? I'd like to believe in God. Can consciousness help me?
Wednesday, April 03, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 913
Call all-that-exists "something." Why is there "something" rather than "nothing"? The question haunts me. Why is there anything at all?
Thursday, April 04, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 1001
Does God exist or not exist? How can so many people be so absolutely sure-either way? But maybe that's the point! Maybe "God" and "No God" are both defensible. What would that mean?
Friday, April 05, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 1002
Is consciousness something special in the universe, a carrier of meaning and purpose? Or is consciousness a mere artifact of the brain, a by-product of evolution? I hope consciousness is special, which is why I must be a skeptic.
Monday, April 08, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 1003
How can I assess whether God exists without exploring what kind of God is supposed to exist? So I examine God's essence and nature.
Tuesday, April 09, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 1004
Are there "general principles" that encompass all sciences, that explain even beyond the sciences? What would that mean about our world and about us?
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 1005
If mind and brain are the same thing, then the physical world is likely all that exists. But if mind and brain are not the same thing, then what? Could reality go beyond the physical?
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 1006
I like arguments about God, whether based on science, philosophy or personal experience. I like to push and to be pushed, explore the possible existence of a Creator. I must also consider defeaters of God.
Friday, April 12, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 1007
Science and religion-each pursues Big Truth and offers total solutions. Science works. That's for sure. Religion? Not so sure. Does any reality exist beyond the expanding reach of science?
Monday, April 15, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 1008
Throughout history, dreams have fascinated and mystified. Messages from God? Images of the subconscious? Much about dreams is myth. What's real?
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 1009
If I seek God and avoid "the problem of evil," I fool myself. If there is a God, evil is God's hardest problem. If there is no God, evil is No-God's easiest evidence.
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 1010
We like to think that we are rational, that what we believe is what is true. But we often believe because of our "belief systems"-"how we believe" may be more important than "what we believe."
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 1011
I would like to believe in God, but conflicting religions trouble me. Religions clash and compete-and that's a problem for those who believe or want to believe.
Friday, April 19, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 1012
Our human sense is that our will is fully free. Our scientific sense is that every action is determined by a prior action. Free will versus determinism is a big question, affecting morality, responsibility, even consciousness.
Monday, April 22, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 1013
Who's the boss, me or my brain? Data from the brain, by itself, does not favor free will. But is there more to me than my brain? How to judge among the vast and competing claims about free will?
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 1101
Is time the ultimate stage on which all events play? Some physicists and philosophers say No-time is an Illusion; time is not real. How can that be?
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 1102
To appreciate Time is to touch the texture of reality. Does Time differ from our common perceptions of it? Is Time fixed or flexible?
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 1103
This is personal. Why should I want to believe in God? Is belief a circular path of self-deception? Or the shortest route to bedrock reality?
Friday, April 26, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 1104
Philosophers explore novel ideas of what God may be like. They challenge classical theism-the personal creator of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
Monday, April 29, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 1105
Is our search for God too narrow? Why do some philosophers espouse Pantheism? Pantheism's claim is not shy-God is Everything and Everything is God.
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 1106
Everything we know, everything we think, comes from our brain. Are brains our "window to reality," seeing what truly exists? Or are we bound by brains, mental slaves of the meat in our heads?
Wednesday, May 01, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 1107
Do stars and spaces go on forever? Do the numbers of galaxies, and even of universes, have no end? Here's how "infinity" enriches appreciation of reality.
Thursday, May 02, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 1108
Does God exist in time, experiencing time's flow? Or is God eternal, existing outside of time, creating time? These questions help assess God's existence and discern God's essence.
Friday, May 03, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 1109
Free will seems obvious, simple, common; but it's subtle, profound, maddening, Free will probes the deep nature of human existence. But big questions have big problems.
Monday, May 06, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 1110
Some philosophers and scientists claim that because every event is determined by prior events, including every event in our brains, free will is not real. What are the arguments, the evidence?
Tuesday, May 07, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 1111
Judaism, Christianity and Islam each proclaim a resurrection of the dead-a bodily reconstruction of all people from all time. How would it work? Does it make sense?
Wednesday, May 08, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 1112
What kind of God would create hell? Does the truth of Christianity, Judaism and Islam depend on the reality of Hell? Does the nature of Hell offer Insight into what God would be like?
Thursday, May 09, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 1113
Consciousness is what mental activity feels like inside-the private inner experience of sensation, thought and emotion. Consciousness is like nothing else.
Friday, May 10, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 601
From biblical times to Darwin, natural theology tried to detect God by sensing His presence in the world-without revelation. But after Darwin's theory of evolution, natural theology was rejected, even ridiculed. Why, now, its surprising revival?
Monday, May 13, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 602
Galaxies and clusters of galaxies, untold billions of them, adorn the cosmos. How did such large-scale structure of the universe come about?
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 603
Parapsychologists are sure ESP is real. Skeptics are sure it is not. But if ESP is real, would ESP need to go beyond physical laws, reach into unknown non-physical realms?
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 604
What does it mean for God to be all knowing? Does God being "omniscient" make sense? If so, can deep insights be gleaned about God? If not, could the whole concept of God be flawed?
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 605
To know reality, one must confront the quantum. It is how our world works at the deepest level. What's the quantum? It is bizarre, defying all common sense.
Friday, May 17, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 606
Does metaphysics help us to understand the world? It asks the most profound questions: What kinds of things exist? How does causality work? Sound too abstract? How about: Does God exist? Are you a soul?
Monday, May 20, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 607
Whether God exists may depend on whether God is necessary. Even if God exists, would it have been possible for God not to exist? In other words, even if God does exist, could it have been otherwise?
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 608
Arguments for God, and against God, each count the universe as evidence. Believers invoke the universe's apparent fine-tuning. Non-believers envision a vast number of universes, so that anything can happen by accident, including us.
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 609
Free will seems the simplest of notions. Why then does free will vex philosophers? Here's why: No one knows how free will works! Science, seemingly, permits no "gaps" in which free will can operate.
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 610
Agnostics claim that they do not know whether or not God exists. Theists surmise they're reprobates. Atheists suppose they're cowards. Can agnostics be passionate?
Friday, May 24, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 611
For centuries, science and religion have been battling, with science advancing, religion retreating. We follow the current battles. We propose no truce.
Monday, May 27, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 612
Cosmos and consciousness seem utterly different, the former encompassing the vast universe, the latter emerging from tiny brains. Yet consciousness founds most religions, and some cosmologists speak profoundly about consciousness.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 613
The Judeo-Christian scriptures tell of "a new heaven and a new earth, " when all shall be made new. What could this mean? Could this ever make sense? Believers say, "It's God's mystery." They should say more.
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 702
I look up and I look down and I chill with awe. I look up to the universe and envision hundreds of billions of galaxies. I look down to the atom and imagine minuscule, infinitesimal particles and forces. This is reality.
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 703
How has "inner experience" radically emerged from cosmic dust? Is consciousness only an accident of biology? Or does consciousness have deeper meaning?
Friday, May 31, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 704
I search for God but keep clear of miracles. Believers exhort me to accept that miracles are real, to recognize that miracles demonstrate the existence of a supernatural Being. I resist.
Monday, June 03, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 705
Einstein showed that space and time are essentially the same thing-a single entity, space-time. But space and time seem so radically different. How could space and time be literally the same thing?
Tuesday, June 04, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 706
Everything I know - everything! -- comes from my brain. Consciousness, our private sense of inner awareness, is the one big question to which we might find answers.
Wednesday, June 05, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 707
What does it mean for God to be "perfect"? Perfectly knowledgeable? Perfectly powerful? Perfectly good? Did God create the "perfect world"? That'd be hard to believe.
Thursday, June 06, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 708
How much can science discover? Are there boundaries to science? Are there truths, real truths, beyond science?
Friday, June 07, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 709
Scientists say my consciousness is just my brain. Theologians believe my consciousness reflects the God who created it. Mystics hold my consciousness is a drop in the ocean of cosmic consciousness. Who's right?
Monday, June 10, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 710
If God is infallible and knows the future perfectly, then God knows what I will do at every moment from my birth to my death. So where's my free will?
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 711
Some say that science and God are not related. Others, that science describes a world that evidences "God's handiwork," or a world that works just fine without God.
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 712
Do I disappear at death? My body? Sure, it's gone. But my awareness? Does my consciousness end forever? What could be more frightening! Is there any hope here?
Thursday, June 13, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 713
"Theism" is the belief in God. But atheists claim that theism is not coherent, meaning that God as a concept is riddled with conflicts, Inconsistencies and contradictions. Theists respond.
Friday, June 14, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 801
If I seek God, I cannot avoid evil. Can the enormity of evil ever be compatible with an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good God? Couldn't God have created the world without such evil?
Monday, June 17, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 802
Are there revolutionary discoveries yet to be made? Radical revelations and shocking secrets? Does physical reality go beyond what we know today? Far beyond?
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 803
If ESP is real-that's a big "If"-then our entire worldview would change. Existence would be somehow enlarged. But extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence.
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 804
Some say that consciousness exists independent of brain, apart from the material world, and from this mystery some infer the existence of God.
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 805
We know the age of the universe, how stars were born, how galaxies were formed. But does the cosmos have meaning? Not make-believe, feel-good meaning. But real meaning.
Friday, June 21, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 806
What makes me a self? I see. I hear. I feel. How can separate perceptions bind together into a coherent mental unity? How can all be me? And how does my self persist through time?
Monday, June 24, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 807
I'm obsessed by raw existence, which science can never explain. Does this mean that there is a God? I wish it were that simple. Yet some claim that a "Most Perfect Being" must exist.
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 808
Some say that science and theology together reveal deep reality. Others say that only science makes sense; theology is myth. Which is it? Science alone? Or science and theology combined?
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 809
Do human beings have immortal souls? Science dismisses anything nonphysical, and even some theologians reject immortal souls. But if no immortal souls, what happens to eternal life?
Thursday, June 27, 2013
Length : 26 min
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Episode # 810
What does it mean for God to have a "nature"? Will contradictions emerge that deny God? Or can we know even a little of what such an incredible Being might be like?
Friday, June 28, 2013
Length : 26 min
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