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In 2012, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat published Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics, a book about how mainstream American religion was devolving into the prosperity gospel, superstitious cults and other forms of heterodox faith. Thirteen years later, the American religious landscape has changed, and Ross wrote a new book tackling a much more basic question: why you should be religious at all. He joins Damir Marusic and Shadi Hamid to discuss that book, which is titled Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious.

This new book, Douthat says, “assumes a highly individualist culture” as its audience. This individualist culture is one where each person thinks of whether to believe in a god as a highly personal choice. The culture as a whole can no longer support any one person’s faith. The biggest individual challenge to Douthat’s thesis in this episode comes from Damir, who says: “I feel most religious people try to get through … happiness and/or meaning. I am not thirsting for those. I am not hungry for them. I feel I’m ok.”

Douthat responds by posing a hypothetical: “Suppose you die and you’re summoned before the judgment throne of God and God says, ‘Seems like were friendly for arguments for being religious, you weren’t one hundred percent convinced, but still: why didn’t you go to church?’” Douthat argues that, while he himself is believing Catholic, there are nevertheless many “commonalities of religious experience. [World religions] are not all saying the same thing, but they are real and suggest something.” This makes common ground with Shadi who, as a Muslim, disagrees with Douthat about the divinity of Christ, but who, as a believer, agrees with Douthat that we should all be religious.

In our bonus section for paid subscribers, Damir, Shadi and Ross talk about the philosophy of mind; whether AI will ever be conscious; what consciousness is for; whether Daniel Dennett is in hell; and why being lukewarm about whether God exists is a bad idea.

Required Reading and Listening:

* Ross Douthat, Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious (Amazon).

* Damir Marusic, “A Lost Sense of Wonder” (WoC).

* Nathan Beacom, “The Art of Hiking” (WoC).

* John Lennon, “Imagine” (YouTube).

* Daniel Dennett, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon (Amazon).

* Revelation 3:16: “So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth” (King James Version).

This post is part of our collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Governance and Markets.

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