I am honored to have New York Times columnist Ross Douthat on the podcast to talk about his new book Believe: Why Everyone Should be Religious.

I’ve always seen atheism as my first intellectual position. Upon learning that many Christian doctrines declare that non-believers go to hell and are tortured for all eternity, I decided I needed to look into whether their claims were true and came to the conclusion that they most certainly weren’t.

Yet I don’t completely dismiss the idea that something beyond the natural world might be out there. Bentham’s Bulldog writes pieces on theism and makes arguments that I’m unsure how to think about but don’t strike me as obvious nonsense. A 2020 survey showed that 19% of philosophers leaned towards theism, so it’s not like the position is akin to anti-vaxx or young earth creationism, where none of the trained experts take the claims involved seriously. The fact that people just as smart as me have thought longer and harder about the subject and arrived at the position that God exists is enough to give me perhaps a bit of doubt about my atheism.

Debates around theism strike me as similar to those about AI doom. I can develop strong opinions on topics when there is empirical data we can bring to a question. So I have confident views on the best economic system, the role of heredity in determining cognitive and personality outcomes, what causes some voters to support Donald Trump, and whether humans have seen a major increase in living standards over the course of history. When it comes to speculation, trying to follow chains of reasoning, and arguments derived from analogies and thought experiments – which I think is most of what we have in debates over theism and AI doom – I don’t trust myself or other people to be able to do any of this well.

Douthat is someone whose political and cultural writings I’ve always found interesting, so I decided to give his new book a try. Believe focuses mostly on attempting to convince the reader that there is something out there beyond material reality, with only the last chapter making the case for Christianity. I found myself dividing the arguments into a few baskets. The best arguments for theism I think rest on fine-tuning and the mystery of consciousness. I found the supposed evidence for the existence of the supernatural – miracles, demons, the power of prayer, near-death experiences, etc. – less compelling. This was much of the focus of his conversation with Tyler, who also sounded very skeptical.

I ask Ross to assign probabilities on the supernatural being real, Christianity being true, and Catholicism being true. I then explain my main moral problem with traditional Christian dogma, which is that some portion of humanity will be sentenced to everlasting torture. We tend to think that any punishment should fit the crime one is guilty of. Few would say that an individual who has committed a dastardly act should be held down and tortured for decades, which leads to the question of why an all-knowing, all-loving God would do something similar on a much longer timescale.

We talk a good bit about the role of providence in human affairs, which I found quite fun. The conversation swerves into how Ross thinks about someone like Trump playing a preordained role in history. On the surface, this might seem like a somewhat silly part of our discussion, but it actually raises intriguing questions regarding how the mechanics of God intervening in human affairs would actually work.

Near the end, we get to the part of Ross’s book I’m most skeptical of, which is the alleged evidence for supernatural experience. If prayer is real, why not conduct a double-blind randomized study? I also bring up the Randi Prize challenge, which offered $1 million to anyone who could demonstrate supernatural abilities but never had to pay out. I have to confess however that I do find the story told by professional skeptic Michael Shermer about how his wife’s old radio started working on their wedding day to be very weird.

I do sort of love the idea that God is like a writer for a prestige TV drama, and history has all these A and B list characters that He shuffles around in order to move the plot along. The Roman Empire is maybe its own season. World War II was the finale of the one that began as the Industrial Revolution was taking off. Now we’re in the middle of Season 8, and AI, which started out as a minor character in the background, is about to become the main protagonist. The series finale is of course Judgment Day.

People like Trump and Putin are the main characters, the Starks and the Lannisters, while we lesser mortals are akin to the slaughtered hordes left on the numerous battlefields of the War of the Five Kings. The Hanania subplot is a pretty cool one. Five years ago I was nobody, now I at least have a (very bad) Wikipedia page, and can reach hundreds of thousands or millions of people on a daily basis, leading my fans closer to God or everlasting damnation. I start out as a rightoid, move towards rightist-tinged rationalism, become an influential figure among Elite Human Capital as I disparage the existence of the supernatural. Razib uses the tools of modern science to show I am related to Jesus and his neighbors in ancient Palestine, as the Lord starts speaking to me about how God is actually real, hoping to use (knowing he will use?) my biography and background to bring others into His flock. Ross Douthat convinces me to believe in God, I return to the faith of my ancestors, actually my childhood, and they run a big feature in the New York Times about what happened. All thinking people read it and become convinced God is real, helping us shake free of our cultural decadence and existential anxiety as humanity moves towards a new Golden Age. All thanks to me and this podcast. Oh and you get to live in a state of bliss for all eternity.

Very seductive! I can see the appeal of this. But as I tell Ross, short of the Lord or one of his angels appearing directly next to me, I have no way of understanding how one would distinguish Him sending me a sign from my own wishful thinking and intoxication with a very cool narrative that gives me an important role to play in a great cosmic story.

I did not become a Christian while talking to Ross, but I enjoyed his book, and perhaps some other souls will be saved among the listeners of this conversation. I think I will take him up on his suggestion to read They Flew and hope to also look into the question of the historical Jesus before long.

Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal features long-form, technically detailed interviews with leading researchers in physics, mathematics, consciousness, and philosophy, exploring topics at the level of active research. For academics, graduate students, and anyone seeking depth beyond popular science.

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I made this video as a fellow of the Cosmos Institute, a 501c3 academy for philosopher-builders.

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You can read the full transcript here: https://www.johnathanbi.com/p/transcript-for-interview-with-tyler-cowen-on-ai

Mortgage Reporter Bill Conroy about the latest happenings in the secondary market. From home-equity investment pioneer Unison jumping into the secondary market to mortgage servicing rights being in high demand right now, Conroy breaks down the current market appetite for these topics and what this means for the housing industry. 

This week, Thomas Sponholtz, the CEO and chairman at Union Home Ownership Investors, discusses his industry origin story, as well as his determination to bring housing innovation to the United States. 

Additionally, Sponholtz touches base on new QM lending rules and the housing sector's emergence of alternative homeownership models, which he says will be needed to better service homebuyers. 

In this 164th episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host interviews Thomas Sponholtz, CEO of Unison, a company that enables equity financing of residential real estate and gives institutional investors access to the world’s largest asset class!

Episode Highlights:

• 0:33 – Thomas Sponholtz introduces Unison.
• 3:16 – What was the impedance for the creation of Unison?
• 6:06 – Thomas explains the consumer experience when working with Unison.
• 7:37 – To what degree is Unison participating in the change in the value of the house?
• 8:44 – What happens if the homeowner sells the property at a loss?
• 9:36 – How long do these deals take to get closed?
• 11:10 – Thomas discusses the return expectations by investors.
• 13:24 – How much attention is paid to regional diversification?
• 16:00 – Jason and Thomas discuss the potential risk for residential homeowners.
• 19:28 – Thomas discusses Unison’s goal of giving people the experience of having a home without the financial commitment of owning.
• 20:25 – What kind of feedback has Unison gotten back from its clients?
• 23:28 – If Thomas could change something about his company and his industry, what would he change?
• 26:09 – What has been the biggest challenge in getting Unison to where it is today?
• 27:24 – Thomas shares the motivations that get him up every morning.

3 Key Points

1. Unison introduced equity financing to residential homeowners while also enabling institutional investors to get access to the world’s largest asset class.
2. By bearing a high percentage of risk than the homeowner, Unison bears a disproportionate percentage of both gains and losses.
3. Investing in a single home brings as much volatility as investing in the stock market while diversifying your portfolio with thousands of properties across the country can lower volatility from 15% to 5%.

Tweetable Quotes:

• “When you retire, your biggest expense is most likely to be housing but you could not invest in housing as an asset class as an institution.” – Thomas Sponholtz
• “Theoretically, this could be closed in a week, in practice because of that coordination between the homeowner and appraiser, it typically takes about 2 or 3 weeks.” – Thomas Sponholtz
• “To date, the only option for investment in residential real estate has largely been residential REITs, in which case you’re dealing with a renter environment, not an ownership environment.” – Jason Pereira
• “A single home has the same volatility as the stock market.” – Thomas Sponholtz
• “Communicating directly to the consumer is a lot easier sometimes than through an intermediary.” – Thomas Sponholtz

Resources Mentioned:

• Facebook – Jason Pereira’s Facebook
• LinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedIn
• FintechImpact.co – Website for Fintech Impact
• JasonPereira.ca – Sign up for Jason Pereira’s newsletter
• Woodgate.com – Website for Woodgate Financial
• Unison.com – Website for Unison

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode was produced remotely using the ListenDeck standardized audio production system.  If you're looking to upgrade or jumpstart your podcast production please visit www.listendeck.com. 

You can subscribe to my podcast and stay up to date on all the stories here on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, Amazon and iHeartRadio.

In this episode the host John Siracusa chats remotely with Thomas Sponholtz, Co-founder & CEO of Unison. Unison is a provider of home-ownership investments used for long-term financing.

Tune in and Listen.

Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Google , Stitcher, Spotify, Amazon and iHeartRadio to hear next Tuesdays interview with Dan Raju from Tradier.

About the host:

John, is the host of the  'Bank On It' podcast recorded onsite in Wall Street at OpenFin and Million Dollar Startup, a fully remote, high quality pitch competition podcast.   He's also the founder of the remotely recorded, studio quality standardized audio production system ListenDeck.

Follow John on LinkedIn, Twitter, Medium

This episode was produced remotely using the ListenDeck standardized audio & video production system. If you're looking to jumpstart your podcast miniseries or upgrade your podcast or video production please visit www.ListenDeck.com.

You can subscribe to this podcast and stay up to date on all the stories here on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, Amazon and iHeartRadio.

In this episode the host John Siracusa chats remotely with Eddie Lim, co-founder & CEO of Point.  Point provides shared home equity financing, shared equity, HELOC alternative to existing homeowners and new homebuyers.

Tune in and Listen.

Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Google , Stitcher, Spotify, Amazon and iHeartRadio to hear Thursdays episode with  Adam Nash from Daffy.

About the host:

John, is the host of the  'Bank On It' podcast recorded onsite in Wall Street at OpenFin and the founder of the remotely recorded, studio quality standardized podcast production system ListenDeck.

Follow John on LinkedIn, Twitter, Medium

Join Matt Watson and Eoin Matthews, CoFounder, and Chief Business Officer of Point, as they talk about home equity investing. Gain new perspectives by listening to Eoins' entrepreneurial story and hear how he and his CoFounder built a business involving home equity investments.

Find Startup Hustle Everywhere:

https://gigb.co/l/YEh5

This episode is sponsored by Full Scale:

https://fullscale.io

Learn more about Point:

https://point.com

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