"I'm sitting in my armchair," Abraham tells me on the phone. He is a Satmar Hasid from New York, calling me in Montreal where I sit in my McGill philosophy department office. I don't laugh right away, so he adds, "Don't you do philosophy in an armchair? I'm ready to give it a try!"

And then a cascade of big questions and answers pours over me: Does God exist? He doubts there's a proof. Are space and time finite? He thinks they are infinite and wonders if the creation story is a myth...