Charles Murray: Why I'm Taking Religion Seriously
The Michael Shermer Show
Michael Shermer
4.3 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 25 October 2025
⏱️ 104 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Michael Shermer sits down with Charles Murray (author of The Bell Curve, Coming Apart, and now Taking Religion Seriously) for a riveting 100-minute conversation about Murray's late-life turn from Harvard-bred agnosticism ("Smart people don't believe that stuff anymore") to Bayesian theism ("I put the afterlife at just over 50%").
This wide-ranging discussion explores the evidence for the existence of God and the afterlife, the problem of evil, and the historical growth of Christianity. They also delve into topics such as the nature of consciousness, terminal lucidity, and even evolutionary vs. religious perspectives on love.
A thought-provoking exploration for skeptics, seekers, and anyone wondering whether the universe has a purpose.
Charles Murray is a policy analyst educated at Harvard and MIT and currently serves as the Hayek Emeritus Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of several influential books, including the controversial The Bell Curve, Coming Apart, and Facing Reality. His most recent book is Taking Religion Seriously.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening to The Michael Shermer Show. |
| 0:15.4 | All right, everybody, it's Michael Shermer, and it's time for another episode of the Michael |
| 0:18.6 | Shermer show. I got a special guest for you today. It's the great Charles Murray, |
| 0:23.2 | policy analyst educated |
| 0:24.7 | at Harvard and MIT, and is |
| 0:26.6 | presently the Hayek Emeritus |
| 0:28.5 | scholar at the American Enterprise |
| 0:30.4 | Institute. He first came to national |
| 0:32.7 | attention in 1984 with |
| 0:34.6 | the publication of his book, |
| 0:36.2 | Losing Ground, American Social Policy, 1950 to 1980, |
| 0:41.2 | which changed the national conversation about the so-called war on poverty in its aftermath. |
| 0:46.7 | In 1994, his best-selling book, The Bell Curve, co-authored with Richard Hernstein, |
| 0:51.6 | argued that the increasing role of intelligence over the 20th century was |
| 0:55.3 | transforming America's social structure. By the way, Charles, we covered that in skeptic. Here's |
| 1:01.4 | the cover story of 1994 Skeptic magazine. I had a hard time finding anybody to defend it. I mean, |
| 1:09.2 | to make the case for you. I finally got Vince Serich at UC Berkeley because he was pretty fearless about being criticized. |
| 1:16.1 | He was very competent to defend it, too. |
| 1:19.2 | Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. |
| 1:20.2 | But everybody else, oh, boy, they didn't want to touch it except for the critics. |
| 1:24.6 | Anyway, continuing. |
| 1:25.6 | In 2012, Charles wrote, coming apart, documenting the growing divide |
... |
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