Mathematician Eric Weinstein launches a new podcast, The Portal

The Portal promises to be a deep dive into the possible.

Photo credit: FilmMagic / FilmMagic
  • Mathematician Eric Weinstein wants to put the mystery back into the world with his new podcast, The Portal.
  • The managing director of Thiel Capital announced his new project last week on the Joe Rogan Experience.
  • Weinstein says the recurring narrative is important during childhood, yet we often lose touch with it in adulthood.
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Personal Growth

White evangelicals are least likely to say U.S. should accept refugees

Is that what Jesus would have responded to the poll from Pew Research Center?


Harvey Meston / Staff
  • A Pew Research Center survey found that only 25% of white evangelicals say the U.S. has a responsibility to accept refugees.
  • Meanwhile, people with no religious affiliation were most likely to say the U.S. does have that responsibility.
  • The results show the divide between the principles and practices of right-wing Christians in the U.S.
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Culture & Religion

There are 2 types of god. Only one is within the boundary of science.

Does God exist? The answer rests outside the "normal" boundaries of science.

  • Science is about natural law, while religion is about ethics. As long as you keep these two separate, Kaku says, there's no problem at all. Problems arise, however, when the natural sciences begin to "pontificate upon ethics" and when religious people begin to pontificate about natural law.
  • Albert Einstein believed in the "god of Spinoza" — not a personal god, but one who has set order and harmony in the fabric of the universe. "You can put the laws of physics as we know them on a simple sheet of paper — amazing! It didn't have to be that way," says Kaku.
  • The existence of God is not testable because such a review is not reproducible or falsifiable, as most scientific investigations are. In this sense, Kaku says the question and answer whether God exists rests outside the "normal" boundaries of science.
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Videos

God is not a man with a beard on a throne in the clouds

Symbols are often used to help people get an idea of higher, often ineffable, truths.

  • A good story has the ability to transform its readers — it speaks to our psyche, and, in doing so, has the ability to change how we perceive the world.
  • When trying to understand the adherents of the world's major religions, Joseph Campbell advises to try to look at mystical experiences through the lens of the founders. In doing so, we can better understand the context of their messaging.
  • When we talk about God as an old man on a throne in the clouds, when seen as a metaphor, the imagery helps us understand the divine — the beard expresses great age, the throne symbolizes its supremacy, and the clouds signify that it presides over all of us.
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Videos

The origins of Satanism: A humanist history?

From religious wars to French poison conspiracies to the counterculture, we look at the origins of Satanism.

Still from D.W. Griffith's 1926 film "The Sorrows of Satan."
  • Pop culture has painted our perceptions of Satanism more than historical facts.
  • For most of its history, the term "Satanism: was an epithet used against religious enemies, not a movement bound by a shared set of beliefs.
  • Today, the Satanists philosophy has more in common with empiricism or atheism than faith-based religions.
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Culture & Religion