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Wisdom of the Sages

The Cosmic Authority Problem | A Prominent Atheist Admits His Fear of God

4/1/20261 hr 5 min

Nobody wants a boss — and according to a prominent atheist philosopher, that's exactly the problem. Thomas Nagel, professor of philosophy at New York University and one of the most respected philosophers of the 20th and 21st centuries, made a startling admission: "I want atheism to be true" — not because the evidence demands it, but because the idea of God makes him uneasy. In this episode Raghunath and Kaustubha unpack what Nagel called the "cosmic authority problem" — the deeply human tendency to start with the conclusion we want and work backwards. The Bhagavad Gita and the Srimad Bhagavatam, ancient Sanskrit texts...

Clips

“I want atheism to be true”
Fine-tuning and dodging conclusions
Krishna controlled by love
The boss you actually want
How we weaponized God
What do you really want?

Transcript preview

First 90 seconds

  1. Kaustubha Das· Host0:00

    It was a quote from a book called "The Govinda Lilamrita" by, um- Krishnadasa Kaviraja ... Krishnadasa Kavira-- You know what that book is, Raganath? The, the, "The Govinda Lilamrita"?

  2. Raghunath· Host0:08

    Uh, is it... From what I- It was written for a particular purpose ... I thought, I thought it was all about the, uh, eight pastimes of the day of Krishna and Radha.

  3. Kaustubha Das· Host0:17

    Yes, it is. And do you know who it was written for?

  4. Raghunath· Host0:20

    No, I don't.

  5. Kaustubha Das· Host0:22

    It was written for the priests of the Radha Govindaji Temple.

  6. Raghunath· Host0:27

    Uh-huh.

  7. Kaustubha Das· Host0:29

    So that i-in other word- it's describing the eight times of the day and what Krishna is doing, the loving affairs that he's having at each... It's just a way of following Krishna's day and following, falling in love with Krishna so that at any point of the day, you can be thinking, "Right now Krishna's taking out the cows. Right now Krishna's having secret meetings with the gopis. Right now Krishna's being fed, you know, by his mo- loving mother. Right now Krishna..." You know.

  8. Raghunath· Host0:53

    So for those listening, this is the same author that wrote the "Chaitanya Charitamrita".

  9. Kaustubha Das· Host0:58

    That's right.

  10. Raghunath· Host0:58

    Um, so my question, did-didn't Prabhupada say we shouldn't be reading that book?

  11. Kaustubha Das· Host1:02

    I don't know if Prabhupada said that, but I do believe I remember a quote where I th- if, and I hope I'm getting this right, that Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur, Prabhupada's guru- Yeah ... went to his father, Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur- Yeah ... and said, "I can have the, the, I have a ch- I can have the, um..." Sometimes these texts could be hard to find.

  12. Raghunath· Host1:22

    Yeah.

  13. Kaustubha Das· Host1:23

    And then you find a copy, and then perhaps that's what happened, and he said, um, uh, he said, um,

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