Belief In The Future Podcast: Can Technology And Religion Co-Exist?

The “battle” between religion and technology is less of a direct war and more of a centuries-long evolution. It encompasses both deep philosophical conflict and remarkable adaptation, shifting from early struggles over the nature of the cosmos to modern debates about human enhancement, artificial intelligence, and digital distractions.

We recall in our history books Galileo’s conflict with the Catholic Church, which centered on his support for heliocentrism — the theory that the Earth revolves around the Sun. In 1633, the Roman Inquisition forced the devout Catholic astronomer to recant his views, banned his books, and sentenced him to house arrest for the rest of his life.

Can AI be conscious? Why are tech leaders increasingly turning to faith leaders for guidance? And what happens when the world’s oldest belief systems collide with its newest technology?

A new season of Belief in the Future has launched to meet the moment as the intersection between religion and technology is becoming less of an oddity and more an essential dialogue.

Nothing exemplifies this more than the premiere episode analyzing the Pope’s 42,000-word encyclical on artificial intelligence, a landmark document developed with leaders from the technology sector, including Anthropic, whose co-founder appeared alongside the Pope at its public debut.

Belief in the Future helps listeners understand this world where religion and technology are now crashing into each other.
So far, this season has already explored what makes humans unique in an age of AI and how major faith traditions like Mormonism are translating ancient beliefs into modern AI policy, featuring conversations with Tomer Persico and Elder Gerrit Gong.

As AI transforms society, faith communities are becoming key voices in debates about consciousness, morality, and what it means to be human. Episodes will examine how AI consciousness and welfare are colliding with age-old ideas about the mind and soul; how tech
companies are increasingly using religious language and seeking guidance from faith leaders and institutions, like the Vatican; and faith-based attempts to regulate AI at the state, federal, and global levels. Faith communities are adopting AI tools for everything from sermon writing to religious education, so, where are they drawing their ethical boundaries?

“One way or another, religion is going to be entwined in the AI conversation,” says host DZ Kalman. “We need to understand that this is not some sideshow and will impact AI’s development trajectory.”

Host DZ Kalman is a researcher, writer, and educator working at the intersection of religion and technology, studying how religious traditions can provide a moral framework for fast-moving
technological developments. He is a Research Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute, where he leads a research group on Judaism and Artificial Intelligence, and serves as Senior Advisor at Sinai and Synapses. His PhD from the University of Pennsylvania was among the first sustained studies of how Jewish history and the history of technology intersect.

In Belief in the Future, Kalman brings together religious leaders, technologists, academics, and policymakers to explore some of the most urgent ethical questions emerging in the age of AI.

The show is affiliated with the Family Faith Technology Network, is a project of Sinai and Synapses, and is funded by the Templeton World Charity Foundation. The second season kicked off on May 29th, 2026.

On the June 11th episode — The Latter-day Saint Way on AI — host DZ Kalman says: “There is more than one type of religious approach to AI. While the Catholic response has received by far the most media attention, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has been developing a response that has a stronger emphasis on practice.” On the show, Kalman spoke with Elder Gerrit Gong, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, about the church’s approach.

As DZ Kalman says, “One way or another, religion is going to be entwined in the AI conversation. We need to understand that this is not some sideshow and will impact AI’s development trajectory.”

Belief in the Future is an important citadel of discussion about religion, technology, specifically AI, and how these forces interact and coalesce.

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“Podcast apps were built around feeds — not around you,” says Alex Kisin, co-developer of the new podcast app, CueSesh.

“Podcast episodes never fit the time you actually have. CueSesh fixes that,” explains CueSesh co-developer Steven Zaslavsky. “Tell it how long you’ve got. It finds episodes that fit. Smart speed optimization ensures the episodes finish on time.”

CueSesh is an innovative iOS podcast app designed to fit your specific schedule rather than forcing you to scroll endlessly through feeds. Instead of dealing with half-finished episodes or overflowing queues, you simply tell the app how much time you have (e.g., a 20-minute commute or a 1-hour workout), and it curates a personalized session of podcasts that ends exactly when you do. cuesesh.com/try runs in any browser. The full app, with playback, is a free download on the App Store.

Key features of CueSesh include building an exact queue of episodes based on the minutes you specify; Pacing and adjusting episode audio to fit your session’s timeframe without ruining your listening comfort; allowing the user to seamlessly curate and consume both audio and video podcasts; and keeping track of your favorite shows and allowing you to add any podcast via RSS or search.

How it Works
Input Your Time: You enter the exact amount of time you have available.
Curated Queue: The app generates a playlist of episodes from your chosen topics that matches your available time to the minute.
Listen Like You Live: The playlist automatically finishes right when your commute or session ends. Audio and video come from the same RSS feed, so you can watch or listen without restarting.

Alex is the co-founder of CueSesh, a podcast discovery app that helps listeners find the right episode for the time they have available. The idea began with a simple frustration shared by Alex and his co-founder: finding interesting podcast episodes they could start and finish during a drive, rather than spending the time searching for something to play or leaving episodes unfinished.

Before co-founding CueSesh, Alex spent 15 years working in enterprise data governance and security, including helping grow a company from Series A through its $2 billion acquisition. Without a traditional engineering background, he built CueSesh while working full-time, using AI-assisted development to turn the idea into a working product. His experience has made him an advocate for non-technical founders who are willing to build, experiment, and bring their ideas to life.

Steven Zaslavsky is the co-founder of CueSesh — the podcast app built around your time. With a background in IT and a career spent working with emerging technologies, he brings a maker’s mindset to app development, approaching software the same way he approaches a workbench: hands-on, curious, and always tinkering. He also serves on the board of a nonprofit makerspace, where he enjoys helping others explore technology through experimentation and community involvement.

So many of us are in a time crunch these days; CueSesh is an ideal solution for podcast fans who want to listen but often don’t have the time to complete a show or episode.

CueSesh is a free, Apple-native podcast app built around one question: how much time do you have? You set your topics and your maximum comfortable speed, and CueSesh curates a session that fits your window — a commute, a run, a dog walk — pacing playback so it lands on time. Shows surface on topic and fit, with no ad spend or promotion in the ranking, so a great show earns its place whether it’s a household name or one still finding its audience. Built on standard RSS and Podcasting 2.0, CueSesh serves audio and video from the same feed, so you can switch between watching and listening without restarting.

You can download it and try it (It’s Free!!) in the Apple Store. An Android version is coming soon, and the app is being certified for use in hundreds of nations around the world.

Try it. You have nothing to lose and time to gain!