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Movie Plot

In recent years Mr. Spielberg has not enjoyed the kind of phenomenal blockbuster dominance he did throughout the first three decades of his career. I loved ET and Schindler’s List. Filmmaking masterpieces.

His upcoming sci-fi thriller Disclosure Day offers us his vision of what would happen if suddenly humanity learned beyond any doubt that we are not alone.

The movie begins when meteorologist Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt) has a life-changing extraterrestrial encounter. As strange events spread across the globe, cybersecurity expert Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor) uncovers evidence that governments have concealed the truth about ETs for decades. Together, the pair race to reveal this bombshell truth while being chased by people desperate to keep it hidden.

It’s not an original plot - in fact, it’s downright hackneyed - but the movie’s sure to make a fortune. Especially since Mr. Spielberg, who’s currently making the rounds hyping the movie, is shrewdly releasing it this weekend - right when the Trump administration is releasing long-concealed UAP sightings reports, which have ignited the public’s imagination.

In this letter I briefly explore the movie’s three main premises from the perspective of a scientist and Christian. And then I finish by telling you whether I plan to watch this big-budget summer flick.

I. Life Exists On Other Worlds?

In my own movie, The Invisible Everywhere, I explain the shocking discovery modern science has made regarding the possibility of extraterrestrial life: Against all odds, our universe - not just Earth - is tailormade for life. That means it’s absolutely possible - some argue, absolutely certain - there’s life on other worlds out there somewhere.

For more than 30 years, astronomers worldwide have searched for and currently claim to have identified more than 5,900 extraterrestrial planets (exoplanets). Only a few dozen, however, are roughly Earth-sized and have orbits within their star’s habitable zone, where liquid water could exist - making them candidates for ETs.

All things considered - including our observations using NASA's Kepler Space Telescope - astronomers estimate our Milky Way alone might contain billions of potentially habitable planets. While we can’t actually determine if any of them harbors life - a virtually impossible task - this estimate suggests ETs might not be rare, but quite common.

II. We’ve Been Visited by ETs?

Even if ETs are everywhere, what’s the likelihood we can detect them and/or that any of them has actually visited our astronomically tiny orb? This is where fantasy (and wishful thinking) tends to come unglued from reality.

I had the rare privilege of being a grad student at Cornell right when the “Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence” (SETI) movement was launched. Its two principal founders, Frank Drake and Carl Sagan, were among the professors from whom I took classes. Frank was even on my PhD thesis committee.

In one of my exobiology classes, Frank taught us about “Drake’s Equation.” Mathematically, it looks like this:

Where:

N = Number of detectable civilizations currently existing in the Milky Way

R_* = Average rate of star formation in the Milky Way (stars per year)

fₚ = Fraction of those stars that have planets

nₑ = Average number of potentially habitable planets per planetary system

fₗ = Fraction of habitable planets where life actually arises

fᵢ = Fraction of life-bearing planets where intelligent life evolves

f꜀ = Fraction of intelligent civilizations that develop detectable communication (or propulsion) technology

L = Average length of time such civilizations remain detectable (or viable)

In class, Frank estimated that N ≈ 1.

Based on decades of observing and theorizing about the heavens, we can take reasonable stabs at numerical values for these three parameters:

R_* ≈ 1–3 new stars per year

fₚ ≈ 0.8–1.0 (i.e., most stars appear to have planets)

nₑ ≈ 0.1–0.5 (i.e., habitable-zone planets might be common)

Honestly, though, we have no real clue about what numerical values to assign to the other four parameters:

fₗ - How often does life arise?

fᵢ - How often does intelligence evolve?

f꜀ - How often does technology arise?

L - How long do technological civilizations survive?

Consequently, N can have any value from essentially zero to tens of thousands in our galaxy alone - which means many, many, many more than that throughout the universe as a whole.

However … some years ago I wrote a Fox News Op Ed on the Drake Equation, in which I explain that a group of Oxford University researchers make a compelling case for N = 0.0000000000000000000000000000000001 (one hundredth of one trillionth trillionth trillionth) of a detectable civilization within our galaxy.

In plain English, they conclude:

In a universe tailormade for life, therefore, cool-headed scientific analysis leads a person to doubt that we’ve come into actual contact with ETs - either by our detecting their signals or by their visiting us in person.

My brilliant, legendary, pointedly open-minded professors Drake and Sagan agreed:

III. Do ETs Undermine the Bible?

Like everyone else on the planet, Christians wonder what it would mean if ETs actually do exist. Would it in any fundamental way clash with the Bible and the Christian worldview?

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The Invisible Everywhere: Believing Is Seeing presents the modern scientific evidence that shattered my lifelong atheism and opened my eyes to the existence of God.

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Mrs. G and I are not part of a large organization; its just the two of us working hard to serve the God we love. So please consider becoming a Paid or Founding Subscriber. By doing so you’ll not just benefit from these weekly letters, you’ll actually support them and our efforts to speak truth with love to a world sorely in need of both.

Thank you and God bless you.

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A reporter recently asked me:

In this letter I will expand on the brief answer I gave her.

The Galileo Myth

Galileo Galilei’s legendary confrontation with the 16th-century Catholic Church is one of the most famous stories in Western civilization. Repeatedly invoked in op-eds, college lectures, Twitter arguments, and conversations at dinner tables, the conflict is usually portrayed as a straightforward morality play: a brave man of science silenced by ignorant religious authority.

Because of that mischaracterization, the big takeaway for too many Christians is that, “science is the enemy of faith.” And so they must guard themselves against science’s secular inquiries of the natural world.

For too many atheists, the big takeaway is exactly the opposite, yet equally flawed: “religion is the enemy of reason.” They use their misunderstanding of the Galileo affair to bludgeon Christians as backward, dogmatic, and hostile to facts.

Both conclusions are completely misguided.

In fact, the confrontation between Galileo and the Church was not about science versus religion at all. It was about the two competing scientific cosmologies of the day:

It was also about human ego, academic stubbornness, and the danger of blind consensus.

To understand how the drama unfolded you need to understand just four basic facts.

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“The Invisible Everywhere movie: Great supplement to your book! I'm recommending to everyone!”

Tom P.

The Invisible Everywhere: Believing Is Seeing presents the modern scientific evidence that shattered my lifelong atheism and opened my eyes to the existence of God.

👉 Get Your “Ultimate Expedition” Ticket Now & Start Watching!👈

WATCH TEASER

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Mrs. G and I are not part of a large organization; its just the two of us working hard to serve the God we love. So please consider becoming a Paid or Founding Subscriber. By doing so you’ll not just benefit from these weekly letters, you’ll actually support them and our efforts to speak truth with love to a world sorely in need of both.

Thank you and God bless you.

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Time & Religion

When I was a grad student at Cornell I realized science was not going to be able to answer all my questions about the universe and my place in it. That’s when I - a tormented intellectual in search of deep truths - embarked on what I call my Hermann Hesse scientific-spiritual journey.

Along the way I explored the world’s major religions and then some, starting with Hinduism and ending (grudgingly) with Christianity. I recount the journey in my book Believing Is Seeing and partly so in my new movie The Invisible Everywhere.

On that long, winding, adventurous journey, I made many astonishing discoveries, one of them being the role of time in the various belief systems.

Generally speaking, time plays a minor role in most Eastern religions: their narratives tend to be atemporal. But not so the Abrahamic religions - Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - whose narratives are far more emphatically and verifiably historical.

What’s more, among those three religions, I discovered time plays the most prominent and portentous role in Christianity. In fact, the Christian concept of time was so progressive, it predated even science’s current conception of time.

Here are three examples of what I mean.

I. Linear Time

Eastern religions see time as cyclical - for example, what Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism call Samsara. According to these worldviews, each of us is trapped inside a hamster wheel cycling through repeated iterations of birth, life, death, and rebirth - until, after great effort over many lifetimes, we’re finally able to escape and enter some kind of paradise.

Christianity was the first and only religion in human history to have a purely and completely linear timeline, hence its popular description as “The Greatest Story Ever Told.”

Like any good modern-day story, the Christian worldview has a well-defined beginning, middle, and end.

• The beginning is Christ’s birth.

• The middle is Christ’s life, death, and resurrection.

• The end is Christ’s Second Coming.

Christianity’s view of time was so novel and compelling that science eventually adopted and adapted it for itself.

Before then, Aristotle - the grandfather of science - saw time as cyclical, repeating every 12,960 years (Annus Maximus). Today, the modern scientific worldview - like the Christian worldview - is solidly based on linear time, not a wheel of time.

II. Relative Time

According to 18th-century classical physics, time was defined by a single universal clock. Everything, everywhere - galaxies, stars, planets, people - kept time at exactly the same rate: tick … tick … tick … tick …

In 1905, however, Einstein’s special theory of relativity opened our eyes to a truth that is now a pillar of modern science, namely: Our reckoning of time depends on our particular speed and weight. The faster we move and the stronger gravity pulls on us, the slower time appears to flow: tick ………. tick ………. tick ………. tick ……….

For instance, someone living on a mountaintop - farther from Earth’s gravity - ages faster than someone living at sea level. Your head - because it’s farther from Earth’s gravity - ages faster than your feet. And so forth.

This revelation rocked 20th-century science to its core. Yet, once again, Christianity anticipated science because way before Einstein’s 1905 theory was ever published, Scripture spoke about the elasticity of time.

III. Timelessness

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“I just wanted to let you know your work is so inspiring!”

Jessica O.

The Invisible Everywhere: Believing Is Seeing presents the modern scientific evidence that shattered my lifelong atheism and opened my eyes to the existence of God.

👉 Get Your “Ultimate Expedition” Ticket Now & Start Watching!👈

Mrs. G and I are not part of a large organization; its just the two of us working hard to serve the God we love. So please consider becoming a Paid or Founding Subscriber. By doing so you’ll not just benefit from these weekly letters, you’ll actually support them and our efforts to speak truth with love to a world sorely in need of both.

Thank you and God bless you.

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God of the Gaps

Many people paint this war-mongering picture of reality …

When I was a boy I bought into this picture because science was my god. I genuinely believed that given enough time science, like a modern-day Oracle of Delphi, would answer all my questions.

That was saying a lot because I was (and still am) a very curious person. My middle-school math teacher nicknamed me “Michael Jillion” because I constantly interrupted him with my jillion questions.

Science of the Gaps

I now know better. I now realize science can never answer all my questions about the universe and our place in it. Here are just a few of the reasons why:

1. Science uses words in its theories without any real understanding of their meaning. In truth, for example, we have no idea what space, time, matter, and energy really are or where they all came from.

2. Only 5% of the so-called observable universe is actually visible to us. A whopping 95% is invisible and, therefore, inscrutable to us. It’s made of Dark Energy and Dark Matter, which are complete mysteries to us.

3. Beyond the observable universe - beyond the Cosmic Horizon - is a cosmos that’s 100% invisible to us. Its stars are so far away and moving away from us so fast, their light can never reach us.

4. Logic is incapable of deciding the veracity of most truths (Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem: “truth is far bigger than proof”).

5. There’s a hard and fast limit to the level of detail we can discern and, therefore understand, about the basic fabric of our universe (Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principles).

6. Most essential aspects of our lives cannot be weighed, measured, or studied in a test tube.

Further to that last point:

• Science can measure the hormones associated with love, but cannot explain love itself.

• Science can measure biochemical changes during grief, but cannot comprehend the full meaning of grief itself.

• Science can analyze the physical properties of music, but cannot quantify its beauty.

• Science can measure electrical activity in the brain, but cannot explain the mystery of human consciousness.

Over the decades I also learned something else …

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“Just watched your movie - it was phenomenal.

I would love to give [it] to my atheist, intelligent daughter!

(This worked really well for The Chosen series.)” 😊

Linda L.

The Invisible Everywhere: Believing Is Seeing presents the modern scientific evidence that shattered my lifelong atheism and opened my eyes to the existence of God.

👉 Get Your “Ultimate Expedition” Ticket Now & Start Watching!👈

Mrs. G and I are not part of a large organization; its just the two of us working hard to serve the God we love. So please consider becoming a Paid or Founding Subscriber. By doing so you’ll not just benefit from these weekly letters, you’ll actually support them and our efforts to speak truth with love to a world sorely in need of both.

Thank you and God bless you.

Subscribe now

Measuring Intelligence

The modern idea of IQ traces back to the early 1900s, when the French government asked psychologist Alfred Binet to devise a practical way of identifying schoolchildren who needed extra tutoring.

In 1905 Binet and his colleague Théodore Simon created the world’s first modern intelligence test. It’s important to note Binet believed human intelligence was something complex; shaped by environment, education, and personal experiences; and certainly not reducible to a number.

In 1912, however, German psychologist William Stern disagreed with Binet by introducing the concept of Intelligenzquotient, German for “intelligence quotient.” It’s where the now-familiar abbreviation IQ comes from.

According to Stern, a child’s “intellectual endowment” could be quantified by calculating a single, numerical ratio: the child’s “mental age” (as measured by his IQ test score) DIVIDED BY the child’s actual age MULTIPLIED BY 100.

In 1916 Stanford University psychologist Lewis Terman - who believed a person’s intelligence was fixed at birth - transformed Binet’s test into the famous Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale, helping popularize IQ testing throughout schools, the military, and corporate America.

IQ tests typically measure abilities such as logical reasoning, mathematical thinking, memory, vocabulary, pattern recognition, and spatial perception - all of which are important abilities.

But IQ tests have little or nothing to do with a person’s creativity, wisdom, moral judgment, emotional insight, intuition, or what I call Spiritual Intelligence, or SQ.

Multiple Intelligences

While teaching physics at Harvard I befriended many colleagues in the psychology department because I authored a monthly column in Psychology Today magazine. I especially recall with great fondness the department’s legendary chairman, Jerome “Jerry” Kagan - a brilliant, humble, sweet-hearted man.

In 1983 Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner shattered the idea of a single, fixed IQ. His Theory of Multiple Intelligences proposed that we humans have different cognitive strengths and weaknesses ranging from linguistic and logical to musical, interpersonal, and spatial. In other words, being “smart” isn’t just one thing; it’s a collection of many different abilities.

I resonated so strongly with Gardner’s broadminded view of intelligence I promoted it in one of my Psychology Today columns. Privately, however, I wondered why none of his intelligences took into account human spirituality, which is no small thing.

Humans everywhere take their spiritual beliefs very seriously, and that includes atheists. I had discovered that fact by the time I got to Harvard because during my grad studies at Cornell I embarked on a spiritual journey of my own, starting with Hinduism and ending (grudgingly) with Christianity. I explain this in both my book Believing Is Seeing and movie The Invisible Everywhere.

After stewing about Gardner’s oversight I decided to do something to correct it. The result was my book Can A Smart Person Believe In God?, published in 2004 by Thomas Nelson, in which I introduce the concept of Spiritual Intelligence.

It’s since been translated into many different languages all over the world.

SQ: Your Unique Superpower

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WHAT WE KNOW

APPEARANCE

The Shroud of Turin is 14.3 feet long by 3.6 feet wide and made of linen. On it is the image of a man with the following wounds, as ascertained by numerous medical examiners, pathologists, and scientists:

Backside: The man’s back, buttocks, and legs have more than 100 dumbbell-shaped contusions, consistent with the strike pattern of a Roman flagrum, a short whip with many leather thongs, each tipped with two small lead balls or pieces of bone designed to tear through skin and muscle.

Face: The man’s face shows significant swelling on the right side, particularly around the eye and cheekbone. The nose also appears misaligned, indicating torn cartilage or a fracture.

Head: There are dozens of deep puncture wounds covering the entire top and back of the man’s scalp, consistent with a dense cap or helmet of thorns being forced onto the man’s head.

Shoulders & Knees: There are deep, heavy abrasions across both of the man’s shoulder blades overlaying the whip marks, consistent with the friction of carrying a heavy, rough wooden crossbeam (patibulum). Additionally, both knees are severely bruised and contain microscopic traces of dirt and limestone, indicating violent, unprotected falls onto hard ground.

Wrists & Hands: The man’s wrists (specifically, the “Space of Destot”) have puncture wounds. Also, the thumbs are not visible. This is consistent with nails being driven through the wrist, which damages the median nerves, which causes the thumbs to instinctively lock inward across the palm.

Arms: The angle of the blood trailing down the man’s forearms is consistent with the gravitational physics of a crucified body.

Feet: The image indicates the man’s feet were crossed, with the left foot placed over the right and transfixed to an upright post with a single, large nail driven through both arches.

Torso: On the right side of the man’s chest, between the fifth and sixth ribs, there is an elliptical wound consistent with the dimensions of a Roman spear (lancea).

PROVENANCE

If the Shroud is genuine then its journey began circa 33 AD inside a burial cave beyond the walls of ancient Jerusalem.

The first report of its existence, however, dates back to just ca 1353-1357. It was owned by Geoffroi de Charny, a French knight who displayed the cloth in a church he built in Lirey, France.

In 1453 Charny’s granddaughter Marguerite gave the Shroud to Duke Louis I of the powerful House of Savoy, Italy’s future royal family, in exchange for some expensive real estate and a handsome pension.

In 1532, the Shroud barely survived a fire in the Sainte-Chapelle in Chambéry, France, the House of Savoy’s capital city. A drop of molten silver from its protective casket burned completely through the folded cloth, and the water used to extinguish the flames left distinct, symmetrical water stains.

In 1578, the House of Savoy moved the Shroud to their new capital city, Turin, Italy, where it was placed in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. It remains there today in a climate-controlled, bulletproof case.

IMAGE

The image on the Shroud penetrates only the fabric’s top two or three microfibers. It does not soak through.

In 1978, the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP) - a team of physicists, chemists, and engineers from institutions such as Los Alamos and NASA - determined the image was not brushed on nor created with any paints, dyes, or stains.

In 1898 Secondo Pia, an Italian lawyer and photographer, discovered that the Shroud’s image is a photographic negative. The negative of the negative revealed a stunningly detailed, positive image of the Shroud man - more evidence the Shroud image is no mere painting.

Using a VP-8 Image Analyzer - a tool NASA has used to map lunar elevations - scientists discovered that the intensity of the image correlates with the distance the cloth would’ve been from a three-dimensional human body - still more evidence the Shroud image is no mere painting.

No one has been able to use medieval techniques or modern laser technology to reproduce all the Shroud’s unique properties: the image’s superficiality, lack of pigment, photonegative quality, and 3D spatial encoding.

WHAT WE DON’T KNOW FOR CERTAIN

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The Invisible Everywhere: Believing Is Seeing continues receiving glowing reviews. To God alone be the glory! Here are just three of them.

Multiverse Madness

If you’ve been to a movie theater, played a modern video game, or even walked down the toy aisle at your local store recently, you’ve undoubtedly come across one of the most hyped concepts of our modern era: The Multiverse Hypothesis.

From blockbuster superhero epics and Oscar-winning films to animated series and video games, today’s pop culture is in love with the idea that there are an infinite number of parallel universes - and quite possibly infinite versions of you living out every possible scenario. It’s a wildly entertaining concept that makes for great comic books, fantastic action figures … and, of course, enormous profits.

But while the Multiverse Hypothesis is being paraded around the public square as cutting-edge, established science, the truth is far less glamorous. In this week’s letter - at the risk of being branded a killjoy - I’ll pull back the curtain on why this idea was actually created, why it has utterly failed, and why its future is quite bleak.

I. Desperate Beginnings

The idea of multiple universes was conceived out of desperation by different physicists at different times for different reasons. At least two of them were the result of modern science coming face-to-face with the supernatural. (Another notable one, involving String Theory, will be the topic of a future letter.)

Running From Supernatural Weirdness

The first rigorous, mathematical argument for parallel universes appeared in the 1957 doctoral thesis of Hugh Everett III, a grad student at Princeton University. He proposed it as a solution to the vexing paradox in quantum mechanics called the “measurement problem.”

This problem is commonly illustrated by Schrödinger’s Cat, a hypothetical feline kept inside a closed box. According to the translogical laws of quantum mechanics the animal is both dead and alive at the same time - a vexing paradox, indeed.

Everett’s proposed solution - which came to be called the Many-Worlds Interpretation (MWI) of quantum mechanics - is that many different versions of Schrodinger’s Cat exist in many different parallel universes. In one version the cat is alive and well; in another, dead as a doornail. In still other versions, the cat is in various states of well being.

Everett’s brainchild immediately tickled the public imagination. But as often happens in modern science, the MWI only made a weird situation even weirder.

Running from a Supernatural Creator

The most popularized version of the multiverse originated in the 1980s with Russian-American physicist Andrei Linde. He elaborated his idea in two published papers titled, “Chaotic Inflation” (1983) and “Eternal Chaotic Inflation”(1986).

Linde conceived the Multiverse Hypothesis to solve a crisis that to this day still plagues modern cosmology: our universe’s perfect vital signs. Please note, the vital signs aren’t nearly perfect, they’re 100% perfect!

By vital signs I mean all the numerical descriptors of the universe that tell us how it’s wired. They’re akin to your own vital signs, which doctors check to see how well or poorly you’re wired.

The vital signs of our universe - what we scientists call “fundamental constants of nature” (e.g., the strength of gravity, the mass of electrons, the expansion rate of the cosmos, the strong and weak nuclear forces) - have numerical values so utterly perfect it defies human comprehension. If the value of just one of these vital signs was off by a tiny, tiny bit our universe would be desolate: no stars, no planets, no life.

Put plainly, when we “doctors” check the universe’s vital signs, we discover it’s wired in a way that clearly argues against its being an accident. Against all odds our beloved universe appears to be deliberately tailormade for life.

For secularists, this is very bad news because it discredits the canonical atheist-materialist worldview. In order to save face they desperately need a way to explain away the miracle of our existence without invoking God.

Enter Linde’s Multiverse Hypothesis, which goes like this: If there are an infinite number of universes with randomly assigned laws of physics, then by pure, blind luck one of them is guaranteed to have the long string of perfect vital signs - like a long row of cherries on a slot machine. We just happen to live in the cosmos that by chance hit the jackpot.

II. History of Failure

Since the late 1950s scientists have eagerly sought ways to find ways to put meat on the bones of the various multiverse hypotheses, but so far they’ve failed. Here are two examples of their many failures.

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All too often I hear someone demand that I prove God exists. “Prove it!” they exclaim, “Or else, shut up about it!”

Recently, a reporter for a major, widely respected international publication wrote a very positive, well-meaning article about my new movie, The Invisible Everywhere, for which I’m genuinely grateful. It mistakenly claims, however, that I’m actively seeking to prove that God exists.

As I’m about to explain to you, anyone who demands or claims to have proof that God exists doesn’t understand the nature of proof. Alas, it’s a common misunderstanding I know all too well.

Starting in the second grade, when I fell head-over-heels in love with science, I too had a mistaken perception of proof. Naïvely, I saw it as an indisputable, 100-percent, iron-clad way of cementing a truth.

Later in elementary school, when I taught myself geometry, I came to live for those heady moments when I could write “QED,” the three beautiful letters that seal the proof of a theorem - for example, the Pythagorean Theorem. Quod erat demonstratum: Thus, it is proved!

For me, a skinny, nerdy schoolboy, being able to use logic to prove something beyond a shadow of a doubt was positively thrilling. It made me feel powerful, even godlike.

But the feeling didn’t last long. As I grew older and my understanding of logic, truth, and proof matured, I came to realize how very childish I’d been.

Rude Awakening - Part I

Today, math, logic, and science are universally hailed as bastions of unassailable, bulletproof truths. But the reality - the proven reality - is they aren’t.

Let’s start with “mathematical proofs.”

Circa 300 BC, Euclid published his now-famous Elements of Geometry. After the Bible, geometry texts are among the most widely published books of all time.

As a boy, what I didn’t understand - and what most people today still don’t - is that the whole of Euclid’s geometry and all its so-called proofs rely on believing in thirty-three unprovable assertions. They fall into three categories: definitions, postulates, and common notions.

Some of Euclid’s unprovable assertions are easy to believe because they’re so obviously true. Like these:

• Things which are equal to the same thing are also equal to one another.

• If equals are added to equals, the wholes are equal.

• If equals are subtracted from equals, the remainders are equal.

Others, however, are more problematic because they’re illogical, even downright supernatural. Like these:

• A point has no dimension - no length, no width, no depth.

• A line has only one dimension - length.

• A plane has only two dimensions - length and width.

Euclid’s all-important “point” defies logic and the imagination: How can something be said to exist - even hypothetically in our imagination - that has no physical dimension whatsoever?

The same enigma applies to Euclid’s lines and planes. Together with his points, they are unlike the points, lines, and planes we draw or experience in the real world, all of which have three dimensions. They are, quite plainly, not of this world.

Every single so-called geometric “proof,” therefore, is founded on a house of cards as it were. On assumptions that are unrealistic and cannot be proven.

The fact that geometry is nevertheless incredibly useful in the real world is an entirely different subject. A subject that’s deeply mysterious, which I’ll visit in a future Substack letter.

Rude Awakening - Part II

Next, let’s look at “logical proofs.”

As I grew older I learned about the Austrian logician Kurt Gödel. In the early 1930s he used logic to prove - prove! - that logic can’t prove most truths. Logic can’t even prove something so utterly obvious as 2+2 = 4, never mind something so utterly complex and profound as the existence of God.

In one of history’s greatest and most shocking ironies, in other words, Gödel used logic to prove its own terrible weakness. I summarize Gödel’s so-called Incompleteness Theorem this way: Truth is far, far bigger than proof.

In case you’re interested in learning more about Gödel’s bombshell revelation I explain it in greater detail in my book Believing Is Seeing.

Rude Awakening - Part III

Finally, how about “scientific proofs?”

As a naïve scientific geek I lived by the motto, “Prove it!” If something couldn’t be scientifically proven, forget it - I wasn’t willing to believe it.

But I eventually learned something that shook my worldview to its core: My beloved science doesn’t have the clout to prove its own theories, never mind the theory (belief) that God exists. That includes its vaunted tentpole theories of evolution, cosmology, and subatomic particles.

I explain the details of this remarkable impotence in my aforementioned book, but here’s the headline: Science is not just “evidence-based,” as many are wont to boast, it’s also “interpretation-based.” And therein lies the problem.

The scientific method spells out strict rules for collecting evidence. It’s an excellent technique that has proven itself time and again over many centuries.

When it comes to interpreting the collected evidence, however, it’s a free-for-all. Ten different scientists can interpret the same evidence ten different ways - and none of them can ever prove their interpretation is the only right one.

Scientists claim to be guided by a rule of thumb called “Occam's razor,” which argues that the simplest explanation is always the best one, but who says it is? Occam’s Razor is an arbitrary, unprovable rule of thumb.

The reality is that scientists are free to interpret evidence any way they doggone well please. There are no rules; and as I’ve just explained, not even logic can be counted on to guide them to the truth. For as the legendary American mathematician Morris Kline observed: “Logic is the art of going wrong with confidence.”

One more thing about so-called scientific proofs.

Scientists of every era inevitably settle on some kind of consensus interpretation of the available evidence. Think of it as a kind of “group think.”

Time and again, however, history teaches us that science is never settled. Over and over again, the scientific consensus of the day is eventually replaced by a new consensus based on new evidence.

In short, when it comes to scientific theories, there is no such thing as proof. For as Albert Einstein explained: “No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.”

Conclusion

For the reasons I’ve explained here - and so many others I’ve learned during my decades-long, winding journey as a once-atheist scientist - I now understand this: The concept of proof is as mythical as the unicorn. In life as in mathematics, logic, and science there is no such thing as 100% certainty.

Science documents this humbling truth in the form of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.

Likewise, the Bible speaks this truth in 1 Corinthians 13:12 (NLT):

The absence of certainty in life requires every one of us, no exceptions, to rely on faith. In other words, every one of us - every atheist included - is a “person of faith.”

Faith isn’t a weakness. It’s a necessary part of life, because so much of the universe we inhabit and that inhabits us can’t be seen, can’t be proven, and can’t even be imagined. We are bathed through and through in mystery.

Even faith itself requires faith. That is, no one’s faith can be 100% certain, 100% perfect, because we are imperfect creatures in an imperfect, fallen world. It’s well known that even the faith of saints goes through periods of grave uncertainty. In theological circles it’s called The Dark Night of the Soul.

Anyone claiming to have faith in science, God or anything else that’s 100% certain, 100% perfect, is being (to put it politely) overly self-righteous.

I regret that my faith in God is necessarily imperfect, because God deserves perfect faith. Nevertheless, even though my faith in Him is necessarily imperfect, it’s unshakeable because it’s firmly grounded on bedrock: the timeless revelations of the Bible and the modern revelations of my beloved science.

If you aren’t one already, please consider becoming a Paid or even Founding Subscriber. If you do so, you’ll go from just benefiting from to actually supporting my efforts to speak truth with love to a world sorely in need of both.

Thank you and God bless you.

Love,

Subscribe now

This past week we’ve experienced an explosion of new subscribers - new fellow travelers. If you are one of them, welcome! I’m honored and excited that you’ve chosen to join me and fellow travelers from all over the world on this crazy, fascinating, deeply mysterious journey called life.

According to Substack, my fellow travelers live in all 50 states and 55 different nations. The top five nations represented are the U.S., Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, and India.

I take your journey, your intelligence, and your time very seriously. That’s why I spend hours writing and perfecting each one of my weekly letters to you, published every Wednesday.

Before sending out a letter, Mrs. G, my wife of 34 years, critiques it to make certain I’m making my points clearly. In so many ways, I owe her a debt of gratitude I can never repay.

She and I have a son whom we adopted when he was four. I tell the extraordinary story of how that happened in my book, Believing Is Seeing, which as I write these words is an Amazon Bestseller. As I explain in the book, my wife, son, and I are quite literally a family made in heaven.

#1 in Cosmology

#1 in Science and Religion

#5 in Christian Apologetics.

#898 in ALL books sold on Amazon

I was born in East Los Angeles, fell in love with science in the second grade, and dreamt of becoming a scientist. But after many twists and turns, I became that and so much more - a wholly unexpected outcome I credit to God.

From me on this platform you can expect letters that explore the great invisible unknown - far beyond the familiar territories of just science and just religion. I’m singularly focused on the ill-understood and poorly represented terrain where science and religion - especially Christianity - converge.

As my new movie, The Invisible Everywhere, documents, modern science shattered my atheism and opened my eyes and mind to the existence of God. That’s why, today, I’m fully committed to sharing with the world what I’ve learned from my decades of studying the universe and the human animal. Speaking truth with love.

How did the cosmos get started?

How did life on Earth happen?

Are we just another animal?

Where is the human mind located?

Are we alone?

Is there life after death?

Does modern science discredit the Bible and belief in God?

These are just a few of the countless questions I address on this platform.

We don’t discuss politics here. Instead, we discuss matters that are of eternal importance to you, whatever your politics might be. As Jesus said, “Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and give to God what belongs to God.” (Matthew 22:21 NLT)

I invite your comments on and suggestions for my weekly letters. I want this forum to be used for a discussion among fellow travelers, not weekly lectures from me. I have as much to learn from you as you do from me.

Once again, on behalf of Mrs. G and me, thank you for being part of our thriving community of smart, inquisitive, international explorers.

To God alone be the glory!

In Case You Missed It

I wrote an Op Ed concerning quantum physics and God’s omniscience. On Monday Fox News published it on its front page, where it went viral. Here it is.

If you aren’t one already, please consider becoming a Founding or Paid Subscriber. It will help support my efforts to speak truth with love … to a world sorely in need of both.

Subscribe now

Thank you and God bless you.

Love,

Today is the world premiere of The Invisible Everywhere!

After more than a year of sweat, blood, and tears - and, above all, prayers! - the theater doors are now open, globally.

Whoever you are … wherever you are … whatever you believe … whatever you don’t believe … grab your popcorn and drink … then go to TheInvisibleEverywhere.com … get your ticket … and prepare for a stunning journey into the great invisible unknown.

This is not your grandfather’s documentary. This is not your conventional Hollywood movie. It’s a full-length motion picture created by one person (me), using a desktop computer, and consumer-level AI video generators.

We’re told on good authority it’s the first time in human history such a thing has been achieved. Whether it’s true or not …

To God alone be the glory!

Mailbag Ministry

A fellow traveler recently send me this message:

My Reply

Thank you for your understandable question.

AI is causing a great deal of anxiety and disruption, the loss of jobs being one obvious example. I take that matter very seriously and have written extensively about it - most recently in a “30-Minute Science Pocket Guide” I published titled “Artificial Intelligence.” If interested, you can obtain a copy of it here: www.michaelguillen.com

Given that very real, shared concern, I can understand why you would ask: “Why are y’all so proud about using AI to create this [movie], rather than actual human beings?”

There are many reasons I’m proud of The Invisible Everywhere and how it was made. Briefly, here are three of them.

1. This movie would not have been made without AI.

The previous movie I made - LITTLE RED WAGON - was produced in the traditional way. It required $8 million, a crew of hundreds, and five years to produce. It was shown in theaters, then sold as DVDs by Walmart (where it became a bestseller), then shown on Netflix. Currently, it’s on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Fandango, Tubi, and other platforms. It’s distributed by Lionsgate.

If made in this traditional way, The Invisible Everywhere would’ve cost me $10 million (because of all the required special effects), which I didn’t have and would’ve been difficult to raise in the current, depressed Hollywood climate.

AI made it possible for me to make the movie by myself, on my desktop computer, for about $25,000.

2. AI is not all bad.

Like all previous, major, disruptive technologies, AI has the potential both for harm and for good. The discovery of nuclear energy led to the creation of the A- and H-bombs, which have the power to annihilate us. But it also led to the entire field of nuclear medicine, which has saved countless lives. Radiation therapy kept my mother alive for years after she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

Yes, AI is putting many people out of work - for which I grieve - but it’s also employing many other people in entirely new positions. As a species we are constantly forced to adapt to changing environments - the AI revolution is just one example of that.

I’m confident we’ll end up being wiser and stronger because of AI. I published an essay about this on my Substack platform recently. You can read it here: https://www.morethanmeetstheiq.com/p/the-very-good-news-about-ai

3. Opposition is often driven by fear and close-mindedness.

We’ve seen this drama before. In 1609 Galileo built the world’s first telescope, which enabled our species to behold things never before seen: Jupiter’s moons, Venus’s phases, and lunar craters. Yet many fearful and ill-informed people of his day refused to look through, or even go near, the telescope.

Likewise, in 1450, Johannes Gutenberg invented the metal movable-type printing press, making it possible to produce books en masse and thereby increasing the world’s literacy rate. Yet many fearful, ill-informed people hated and railed against the invention because it put scribes out of work.

Conclusion

Love it, hate it, fear it, welcome it, AI is here to stay. My commitment as a scientist, Christian, and conscientious human being is to do everything in my power to make sure AI’s positive potentials are realized.

I believe that AI enabling me to make a beautiful, uplifting movie about the awe and majesty of the universe and human life - without a Hollywood-sized budget or crew - is a reason to celebrate, because it represents the empowerment of the individual over the tyranny of the establishment.

I call it the “Power of One.” Unlike any other technology we’ve invented, AI makes it possible for one person to unleash her or his native creativity.

As someone who was born in East Los Angeles, without a silver spoon in his mouth - without any connections to power - I’m not just proud of what I’ve achieved with this groundbreaking movie, I’m hopeful it will bless generations of people earnestly seeking for truth long after I’m dead and gone.

If you aren’t one already, please consider becoming a Founding or Paid Subscriber. It will help support my efforts to speak truth with love … to a world sorely in need of both.

Subscribe now

Thank you and God bless you.

Love,

My new movie, The Invisible Everywhere, premieres worldwide April 8 on TheInvisibleEverywhere.com. Go there now to see the trailer.

Here on Substack I’ll be keeping you updated on all the exciting developments. So don’t go away - this is the place to be!

To God alone be the glory.

If you aren’t one already, please consider becoming a Founding or Paid Subscriber. It will help support my efforts to speak truth with love to a world sorely in need of both.

Subscribe now

Thank you and God bless you.

Love,

It’s crazy busy here at Rancho Milagro as we prepare for next Wednesday’s world premiere of The Invisible Everywhere! If you haven’t seen the trailer, here it is. Enjoy!

In the meantime, yesterday evening, NASA launched Artemis II, the first time in more than 50 years we’re sending astronauts to rendezvous with the moon.

Tomorrow I’ll be recording a podcast to discuss this historic event with Team Awesome, my amazing posse of young, bright, articulate protégées.

So, be on the look-out for that. Don’t miss it!

This photo was taken two years ago during my visit to NASA HQ in Houston. Those cardboard cutouts are of the astronauts currently on their way to the moon!

If you aren’t one already, please consider becoming a Founding or Paid Subscriber. It will help support my efforts to speak truth with love to a world sorely in need of both.

Subscribe now

Thank you and God bless you.

Love,

I have a confession to make to you today: I am overwhelmed.

With the recent launch of my 30-Minute Science Pocket Guides and frenzied preparations for the April 8 worldwide premiere of my movie, The Invisible Everywhere: Believing Is Seeing, I’ve been operating at ultra-maximum capacity. What with daily media interviews, putting the finishing touches on the movie’s elegant distribution platform, and navigating the relentless day-to-day demands of life, my schedule is out of control.

I’m betting you know exactly how this feels.

Nowadays, in the quiet moments before the morning rush begins - when the iPhone and computer screens are still shut off and the house is quiet - I find myself yearning for simplicity.

The problem is that we live in an era of hyperactivity and complexity. Every day, we’re bombarded by a tsunami of emails, texts, bills, notifications, and bad news. The psychological toll of all this is very real - afflicting us body, mind, and spirit.

Browse through the clinical research and popular articles in expert publications such as Psychology Today - for which I was once a columnist - and you’ll see a recurring, urgent theme: our brains are simply not built to process this never-ending avalanche of manmade stimuli. It’s like trying to run an entire household on a AAA battery.

Psychologists call this phenomenon “cognitive overload”- where the sheer volume of choices and information we face daily make it nearly impossible to focus on anything in depth, elevates our bodies’ levels of stress hormones, and drains our capacity and ambition to be creative.

The bottom line is that we’re biologically and spiritually wired to need white space, or as the creator of the universe puts it: “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10). Even Jesus needed time to rest. Yet we so constantly and thoroughly fill up whatever empty spaces there are in our calendars there’s no room left for us simply to catch our breath.

This modern predicament led me to pick up a book I’ve been diving into recently: Freedom of Simplicity by Richard Foster.

Foster proposes something profoundly countercultural. He suggests that achieving true simplicity doesn’t result from some clever life hack, scheduling technique, or method for decluttering our garage. Instead, Foster says, achieving simplicity happens from the inside out.

He argues that when we are inwardly well oriented - when our inner compass, so to speak, points to true north - the outward turbulence of life is less likely to buffet us. Instead, we’re more likely to strip our lives of its non-essential distractions and frustrations so that its essentials - above all, our relationship with God - can thrive.

As someone who has spent a lifetime studying the universe, I’m able to see a powerful lesson in simplicity that others might not. Here’s what I mean.

Outwardly, the universe is filled with chaotic processes - black holes devouring entire stars, materials undergoing tortuous phase transitions, mountains being worn down by weather, radioactive atoms being split apart by fission. But at the heart of all this Sturm and Drang are simple truths - like Albert Einstein’s concise equation, E = mc^2.

So, as I yearn for simplicity, the question I’m forced to ask is this: What simple, essential truths are at the heart of my life?

On one level, the answer is simple: the truths immortalized in the Bible. But the challenge I face is applying them daily in the midst of radio and TV interviews, my cell phone constantly ringing or sending me texts, constant deadlines - like the weekly deadlines for my Substack essays - and the personal challenges, domestic chores and household repairs that never cease demanding my attention.

I wish I could say that the simple, essential truths I hold sacred are running the show. But, alas, I can’t. Even at my age, I’m still a work in progress.

How about you, my beloved fellow traveler? How good are you at carving out space to breathe? To be still? To achieve a sense of tranquil simplicity?

As we barrel toward the movie’s April 8th worldwide premiere, the journey we’re on is about to get really interesting. But right now the one thing I yearn for most of all is the simplicity of a quiet moment.

My new movie, The Invisible Everywhere, premieres worldwide April 8 on TheInvisibleEverywhere.com. Go there now to see the trailer.

Here on Substack I’ll be keeping you updated on all the exciting developments. So don’t go away - this is the place to be!

To God alone be the glory.

Click here to order my brand new 30-Minute Science Pocket Guides.

If you aren’t one already, please consider becoming a Founding or Paid Subscriber. It will help support my efforts to speak truth with love to a world sorely in need of both.

Subscribe now

Thank you and God bless you.

Love,

My newest movie, The Invisible Everywhere, premieres worldwide April 8 on TheInvisibleEverywhere.com. Go there now to see the trailer and press release.

Here on Substack I’ll be keeping you updated on all the exciting developments. So don’t go away - this is the place to be!

To God alone be the glory.

Does God Speak?

The Bible makes many claims that appear to conflict irreconcilably with science. For example, this one: God can speak to us, and we to him.

Is there any reasonable way we can square that fantastical assertion with science? Yes - and quite easily, actually.

Conventional Communications

When I was a boy madly in love with science, I learned there are just two forms of communication: acoustic (sound) and electromagnetic (light).

Sound consists of forward-and-backward vibrations - what we scientists call “longitudinal waves”- that travel at speeds that depend on the medium through which they’re moving. Sound moves about four times faster in water than in air, for example.

Light is a bit more complicated. Simply described, however, it consists of up-and-down vibrations - what we call “transverse waves” - that travel at speeds that, once again, depend on the medium though which they’re moving. Light moves fastest through a vacuum.

Through most media, light travels much faster than sound - although there are exotic materials called “Bose-Einstein condensates” where that’s not true. In any case, scientists once believed that nothing in the material universe - not even information - can travel faster than light does through a vacuum.

Quantum Entanglement

Starting in the 1970s, however, that shibboleth was thoroughly upended by the shocking results of certain quantum experiments. The development was so revolutionary it earned three scientists - John Clauser, Alain Aspect, and Anton Zeilinger - the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Read more

Today, I am thrilled to announce that the doors are wide open for my brand-new 30-Minute Science Pocket Guides.

As you know, we’re all on this amazing journey called “life” together—and it is a journey filled with mystery. Filled with awe and wonder.

But let’s be honest: today’s rapidly changing science-and-technology world can be complex, confusing, and scary.

That’s exactly why I created these guides. I wanted to give readers absolute clarity on the most pressing issues of our time - from the perspective of a scientist and Christian - in under 30 minutes.

Today, I’m releasing pocket guides for three very important topics:

• TRUTH: How do we know what is real in a world of spin?

• ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: Understanding the machine without the fear.

• SCIENTIFIC DATING METHODS: A clear look at the age of the Earth and the cosmos.

For the best value, and to fully equip yourself for the road ahead, I highly recommend grabbing the 3-Book Bundle so you have all three guides right at your fingertips.

CLICK HERE TO SEE THEM.

Thank you for being on this journey with me. Grab your guides, dive in, and let me know what you think!

Love,

If you aren’t one already, please consider becoming a Founding or Paid Subscriber. It will help support my efforts to speak truth with love to a world sorely in need of both.

Subscribe now

My newest movie, The Invisible Everywhere, premieres worldwide April 8 on TheInvisibleEverywhere.com. Go there now to see the trailer and press release.

Here on Substack I’ll be keeping you updated on all the exciting developments. So don’t go away - this is the place to be!

To God alone be the glory.

Chaos

As the universe expands, it’s steadily tearing everything apart - galaxies, solar systems, eventually even atoms. Because of that, the universe is becoming increasingly disorganized and chaotic.

In science-speak we say it this way: The entropy of the universe - the amount of disorder or chaos in the universe - is steadily increasing. That, in a nutshell, is the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

Stated as an equation, where the letter S stands for entropy, the Second Law looks like this:

Angel of Death

Life is astonishing because it defies entropy. It defies chaos. It defies disorder.

How does it do that? How does life manage to stay organized in the face of a universe relentlessly trying to tear it apart? Work.

For you and me to stay alive, it takes every cell of our bodies working hard 24/7 to stave off the universe’s chaos. Work overcomes entropy and creates order. Order is the opposite of entropy. Order is “negative entropy.” Order is necessary for life to exist and persevere.

That’s one of many reasons why it’s difficult - if not impossible - to believe that life on Earth is an accident. Chaos by itself doesn’t produce life. As the Second Law of Thermodynamics indicates, chaos merely perpetuates and even increases chaos.

In short, therefore, what the Second Law of Thermodynamics teaches us is this: Chaos is the enemy of life. It’s the Angel of Death.

Angel of New Life

When I was a grad student at Cornell I had the privilege of getting to know and learn from physicist Ken Wilson. While I was there he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his profound insights into the behavior of complex physical systems - e.g., living beings - undergoing radical transformations. In physics we call such transformations phase transitions.

Read more

The Invisible Everywhere website is now LIVE! Check it out here: The Invisible Everywhere

This morning press releases went out to thousands of media outlets worldwide. For that huge effort, I wish to express my deepest respect and gratitude to the three extremely talented, experienced, and generous folks who are donating their services to this audacious initiative: Scott Hogenson (President, Hogenson Communications, Dallas, TX), Trish Stevens (President, Ascot Media Group, Houston TX), and Wendy Cornett (Head Writer, Ascot Media Group). Thank you. Thank you! Thank you!!!

Here are three different press releases, specifically written for different media sectors. Feel free to post them, send them to friends and family, and use them in any reasonable way you wish:

• Radio Press Release

• Non-AI Press Release

• AI-Centric Press Release

Finally for now, I remind you once again that this is not just another launch of just another movie – it’s a significant milestone in the history of the cinematic arts.

My prayer is that this AI-generated motion picture will glorify the Lord, transform lives, and cause people of every persuasion – believers, seekers, doubters, and haters - to stop and take stock of their worldviews.

Just as, in its own revolutionary way, Gutenberg’s Bible once did.

If you aren’t one already, please consider becoming a Founding or Paid Subscriber. It will help support my efforts to speak truth with love … to a world sorely in need of both.

Subscribe now

Thank you and God bless you.

Love,

As part of the AI revolution, scientists are creating robots that emote like us humans. Their bet - a very sensible, profitable one - is that we’ll be more likely to purchase such robots as companions and caregivers than ones that are emotionless and mechanical.

This monumental AI undertaking naturally raises the question of how many different emotions the average human is capable of expressing. According to most psychologists, the long answer is twenty-seven, the short answer is seven.

Emotions

We experience emotions automatically - we don’t willingly choose to have them - and express them primarily through facial expressions and body language. Also, emotions disrupt our physiology - heart rate, blood pressure, hormone levels, etc. - but usually for no longer than an hour. Prolonged emotions become moods.

We typically experience emotions in reaction to recalled memories or outside stimuli - for example, smelling rotting meat or finding ourselves in the direct path of a charging rhino.

And finally, according to modern evolutionary biology, emotions evolved to help individuals, families, and close-knit societies survive and procreate. This view is, of course, entirely in line with evolutionary biology’s central, utilitarian dogma, namely: Everything about living organisms, not just humans, evolved in order to help them live, fight, and multiply another day.

The late American psychologist Paul Ekman is credited with the modern version of what’s called the Basic Emotions Theory. According to this theory, humans of every sex, culture, creed, and upbringing are capable of expressing seven core emotions.

Very briefly, here they are, together with the putative reasons they evolved:

1. Anger

This emotion supposedly evolved to help individuals scare away potential threats to themselves, their resources, their families, and their societies.

2. Contempt

This emotion supposedly evolved to help families and societies maintain law and order. Showing contempt helps discipline rebels, loafers, malcontents, incompetents, criminals, and other perceived threats to their lives, resources, cohesion, hierarchies, and standards of behavior.

3. Disgust

This emotion supposedly evolved to protect individuals from ingesting dangerous foods and drinks. Experiencing disgust also helps keep us away from diseased individuals and environments that might do us harm.

4. Enjoyment

This emotion supposedly evolved as a reward for jobs well done, for good behavior, and for any and all other efforts that enhance an individual’s ability to survive and procreate. Feeling joyful, in other words, is a strong form of positive reinforcement that encourages us to succeed in life.

5. Fear

This emotion supposedly evolved to discourage individuals from behaving recklessly and, thus, to maximize their chances of surviving in the face of danger. When we’re faced with a threat, fear instantly heightens our five senses, prepares our muscles for action, and energizes our body chemistry - for example, by triggering an adrenalin rush.

6. Sadness

This emotion supposedly evolved to console individuals and communities who are suffering. When we express sadness it’s like flashing a Bat Signal: it mobilizes those around us to come to our aid and comfort, thereby boosting our chances of making it safely through the crisis.

7. Surprise

This emotion - like fear - supposedly evolved to help us respond quickly and with heightened abilities to sudden, unexpected events. When we’re surprised, our eyes widen and our attention is instantly laser-focused on the cause of the surprise - an invaluable reaction to events that might very well spell the difference between life and death.

More Emotions

Ekman’s Basic Emotions Theory is by no means science’s last word on the subject. Fact is, there are countless competing theories over which biologists and psychologists squabble endlessly. These educated guesses go by names such as Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions and Russell’s Circumplex Model of Affect.

One theory that has gotten a great deal of attention belongs to a pair of psychologists at the University of California, Berkeley: Alan S. Cowen and Dacher Keltner. According to them there are 27 identifiable human emotions:

• Admiration

• Adoration

• Aesthetic appreciation

• Amusement

• Anxiety

• Awe

• Awkwardness

• Boredom

• Calmness

• Confusion

• Craving

• Disgust

• Empathetic pain

• Entrancement

• Envy

• Excitement

• Fear

• Horror

• Interest

• Joy

• Nostalgia

• Romance

• Sadness

• Satisfaction

• Sexual desire

• Sympathy

• Triumph

Awe

The one emotion on the list I find most intriguing and that science has the hardest time explaining is awe. In the words of a Psychology Today article dedicated to this singular emotion: “Awe is still in some ways mysterious, and the study of it is still relatively new.”

Awe is the emotion that overcomes us when we have an experience that’s bigger than life. That transcends the ordinary. That defies description. That beggars the imagination.

An awesome experience takes our breath away and fills us with a profound sense of wonder. I experienced awe when:

Read more

I’m thrilled for you to be the very first ones to see the two movie trailers for “The Invisible Everywhere,” my upcoming movie, based on my bestselling book Believing Is Seeing.

CLICK HERE to watch Trailer #1. (Password: Trailer 1)

CLICK HERE to watch Trailer #2. (Password: Trailer 2)

Furthermore, please take a moment to participate in this simple poll:

If you aren’t one already, please consider becoming a Founding or Paid Subscriber. It will help support my efforts to speak truth with love … to a world sorely in need of both.

Subscribe now

Thank you and God bless you.

Love,

If yo…

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