This week Mary looks at how doubt and skepticism can be essential ingredients to faith.

 

We hear from Rabbi Rami Shapiro - a rabbi who says he isn't religious.

Instead, he describes himself as a curious, holy rascal in search of sacred cows to slaughter.  

He is currently Adjunct Professor of Religious Studies at Middle Tennessee State University

 

 

                 

Also, a conversation with Michael Shermer, the founder of Skeptic Magazine.

He tells Mary how he hammered Deepak Chopra (in his opinion) at a conference on consciousness and quantum physics.

He also explains how, for him, the mind does not exist. The brain is just electric meat.

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All through the ages, the question has been asked by everyone from the toddler to the philosopher:  What is the world made of?  What is the stuff of the universe?  On this week's show, we delve into fire, earth, and water.

Michael Winter starts us off with a story about fire. You get too close to it and it might change who you are. One minute, the Newfoundland author was heaving a pile of garbage into a raging incinerator and the next, well, he was going down the chute.

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David Webster argues that modern spirituality is not only unhelpful, it can make you stupid, selfish and unhappy.

This week on Tapestry, the author and teacher says that the mind, body, spirit movement is a lot like a cocktail - and not in a good way. You start with a little Buddhism, add a dash of meditation, shake it all up with a bit of chanting, and what do you end up with? A hot mess.

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As a journalist, Kevin Cox covered it all, including tragedies like the Westray mining disaster and the Swissair crash near Peggy's Cove. But he often felt that he was standing on the wrong side of the police tape. Instead of reporting the news, Cox wanted to be with the families, helping them cope with their loss. After 35 years, he left journalism and is now training to be a minister.

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What can the old teach the young about living a good life? This week on Tapestry, we hear wisdom from the elders on everything from marrying the right person, to raising happy children, to staying connected with the people you love.

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Many years ago, the anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann set out to understand how god becomes real for some people.  

Professor Luhrmann was fascinated by religious believers who experience god talking to them, either through visions, or a voice they can hear. 

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"There's your real life, and then there's the story of your life, and they're not exactly the same thing."

Spoken like a man who has written a memoir. This week on Tapestry, Mary Hynes talks to Don Lattin about his new memoir, Distilled Spirits: Getting High, Then Sober, with a Famous Writer, a Forgotten Philosopher, and a Hopeless Drunk.    

Later in the show, Mary meets a Montreal professor who's taking the subject of philosophy out of the classroom and into the streets.

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For Hindus, Buddhists and other eastern faiths, it's the single-syllabled Om.  For Jews, it's the six words of the Shema. This week we look at prayers of few words - the small-but-mighty sayings that inspire and sustain millions.

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Today on Tapestry, the legendary Mavis Staples.  For more than six decades she has used her gift of music to advance civil rights and social justice.  With her father and siblings in the Staple Singers, they performed at rallies and the sermons of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and created what is known as the soundtrack of the civil rights movement.

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Consider the Christmas carol.  Loved by many - loathed by many.

By this time of the year, no matter what your spiritual calling, you're either savouring the carol - or you've had your fill.   This week Tapestry reconsiders the carol in three different ways.

There's the mysterious back-story of a beloved tune; a professional singer on what many consider the show-stopper of midnight mass; and a meditation on one tune fit for the Midwinter blues of life.

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