Ye Gods! with Scott Carter

One day in 2010, Steve Turner was on his way home from work when he ran into an old high school basketball rival, Lewis Brown. They reminisced about old games and how the LA Times once called Lewis “...the best basketball player in the history of the California Interscholastic Federation.” It was like no time had passed at all, except that Stephen was now a successful lawyer and Lewis was living on the street. The friendship that f...

ENCORE In part two of our interview with actor and Soul Boom author Rainn Wilson, we discuss his new show Rainn Wilson and The Geography of Bliss, now streaming on Peacock. Rainn shares some of his favorite memories from filming around the world, which places he thinks find happiness best, and where he’d like to go in season two. Rainn also talks about how our culture’s aversion to death hurts our ability to appreciate life.

Rainn ...

ENCORE Julia Sweeney is a multi-hyphenate performer known for her hilarious characters on SNL and her comedy specials God Said Ha, Letting Go of God, and most recently Older and Wider. This week on Ye Gods!, Julia joins Scott to discuss her devout atheism as well as her feelings on religion, God, the saints and more! Julia explains cultural Catholicism sans a belief in God and how community is central to who we are as human beings.

ENCORE: Comedian, podcaster and documentarian Hari Kondabolu joins to discuss growing up as a second generation Indian-American and melding the cultural diversity of his hometown Queens, NY with the beautiful Hindu traditions taught to him by his mother while also absorbing through films and the iconic Amar Chitra Katha comic books. Hari and Scott discuss Indian films including the Oscar nominated RRR, and Hari leaves us with a rec...

ENCORE conversation with Michael Render, aka Killer Mike: rapper, activist, and host of the PBS talk show Love & Respect with Killer Mike (Executive Produced by Scott Carter) as well as half of the rap duo Run The Jewels. He joins Scott to talk about the influence of his grandmother on his faith, how blackness informed his experience of church and why the teachings of Jesus Christ made him a radical in his time and today. Mike’...

ENCORE EPISODE Political commentator and founder of The Bulwark, Charlie Sykes joins Scott to discuss judgment, the hereafter, and the state of American democracy. Charlie talks about converting to catholicism in his teens, the influence of his father on his life, and his hopes for his legacy. Charlie recommends The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.

In My Homily Opinion: 

Viktor Frankl was a Jewish-Austrian holocaust survivor and psy...

ENCORE EPISODE Known for his iconic roles on “The Office” and “Six Feet Under,” actor and author Rainn Wilson joins Scott to discuss his new book Soul Boom: Why We Need a Spiritual Revolution. In part one of this two-part interview, Rainn explores his upbringing in the Baha’i faith, his frustration with modern spirituality, and why he believes we need spiritual community now more than ever. Join us next week to hear about Rainn’s n...

Byron Katie, in her first book, Loving What Is, introduced to the world what she calls The Work, which, she claims, can bring an end to suffering. Katie's work uses four questions to examine what vexes us. Is it true? Can you really know that it's true? What happens when you believe that thought and who would you be without it? Then come turnarounds in which you consider your answers from alternate points of view. Then come turnaro...

ENCORE EPISODE. What Scott loves most about conversations with Paul F. Tompkins is that they can discuss the most serious of topics without either of them ever pulling a long face. And so this quote from playwright and screenwriter Ben Hecht seems apropos:

“People who sweat when they think, and to whom an idea comes with all the impact of a toothache, refuse to believe that gaiety and not pain may be the mark of intellect.”

Amen, B...

Scott met Nayyera Haq when he produced HBO's Real Time, and she was always a smart and insightful guest on a range of social and political topics. She is a highly accomplished professional (see below), a doting mother, a devoted wife and a proud Muslim American. Her parents – a physician and a public school teacher – immigrated from Pakistan to Staten Island, New York and instilled in her a commitment to public service. From an ear...

ENCORE EPISODE Author and Senior Rabbi of Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Los Angeles, Steve Leder joins Scott to discuss his book For You When I Am Gone; Twelve Essential Questions to Tell a Life Story. Scott asks Rabbi Leder about his path to becoming a Rabbi, his personal struggles with mental health, and how he points people to the light when they are in the valley of shadows.

Listener advisory: this episode touches on topics that...

Today a conversation of biblical proportions with actress, comedian, author, and producer, Yvonne Orji. Her book, Bamboozled by Jesus: How God tricked me into the life of my dreams is now out in paperback. Scott is someone who's read a lot of celebrity memoirs, some written by friends. This book is different. Yvonne doesn't just recount the peaks and valleys in the upward trajectory of her career. She compares her challenges with t...

ENCORE EPISODE: Journalist, co-author with Bob Woodward of “Peril”, and Chief Election & Campaign Correspondent for CBS News Robert Costa joins Scott to discuss his Catholic upbringing and how faith brings him a respite from dark times. He muses on his reluctance to talk about himself in his reporting and his dedication to facts and objectivity in every story. Scott and Robert also get into his reporting on the religious right ...

On each episode of YE GODS, Scott Carter starts with the same question: If life is a mystery, whodunit?  No one knows what happens when we die, neither the devout believer nor the fervent atheist. 

This special episode presents excerpts from past interviews in which guests have described experiences of forces connecting them to unexplainable energy – some say the work of God, some say maybe something else. But each has an unshakabl...

ENCORE - Actress and comic Susie Essman from HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm joins Scott to discuss praying to the humor gods, the connections between comedy and Judaism, why Larry David the creator of Curb Your Enthusiasm and co-creator of Seinfeld is a sort of Rabbi, plus remembrances of their mutual friend, the late comic genius Gilbert Gottfried.  

Guest: Susie Essman has played the sassy Susie Greene for all eleven seasons of the c...

ENCORE with Comedian-writer-producer Larry Wilmore who has one of the most impressive resumes in TV from In Living Color, to The Bernie Mac Show, The Daily Show to Blackish and HBO’s Insecure. He now hosts the Larry Wilmore: Black on Air Podcast with The Ringer. He stops by to talk about his epiphany as a door-to-door salesman, his Catholic upbringing and his comedic love of The Marx Brothers and their 1930 classic vaudeville film ...

ENCORE EPISODE: Is there a there-there? A place within the mind separate from our thoughts? This week Scott talks to neuroscientist and founder of the Waking Up meditation app, Sam Harris. They discuss how meditation helps us to be happy in the most ordinary of moments and make the most of each moment, vs. the need to extract the greatest pleasure from our greatest moments. 

And that there are things to discover about the nature of...

Author and poet Stephen Mitchell has spent a career pursuing life's meaning as taught by history's great spiritual practices. His is a hero's journey, which ends with the presenting of an elixir, a blessing to the world. His gift to the world are his works, which distill his long sought and gained wisdom.

Guest: Stephen Mitchell was born in Brooklyn in 1943, educated at Amherst, the Sorbonne, and Yale, and de-educated through inten...

Today's encore conversation touches on topics that may be sensitive to some including attempted suicide. Life can be hard, but suicide is preventable and free and confidential support is available by dialing 988 or go to 988lifeline.org

Guest: Ana Marie Cox is a political columnist and culture critic whose writing has appeared in The New Republic, Sports Illustrated, the New York Times, and NBC.com. Through 2022, she wrote a “Sober...