Ross Douthat on Why Religion Makes More Sense Than You Think
Conversations with Tyler
Conversations with Tyler
4.8 • 2.4K Ratings
🗓️ 5 February 2025
⏱️ 74 minutes
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Summary
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For Ross Douthat, phenomena like UFO sightings and the simulation hypothesis don't challenge religious belief—they demonstrate how difficult it is to escape religious questions entirely. His new book, Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious makes the case for religious faith in an age of apparent disenchantment.
In his third appearance on Conversations with Tyler, Ross joined Tyler to discuss what getting routed by Christopher Hitchens taught him about religious debate, why the simulation hypothesis resembles ancient Gnostic religion, what Mexican folk Catholicism reveals about spiritual intermediaries, his evolving views on papal authority in the Francis era, what UFO sightings might tell us about supernatural reality, why he's less apocalyptic than Peter Thiel about the Antichrist, and why he's publishing a fantasy novel on Substack before AI potentially transforms creative writing.
Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video.
Recorded January 16th, 2025.
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Photo Credit: Abigail Douthat ©
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey listeners, this is Dallas, one of the producers of conversations with Tyler. |
| 0:07.8 | We'll be hosting our next listener meetup in Boston, Massachusetts on Sunday, February 9th. |
| 0:12.5 | We can't think of a better way to pregame on Super Bowl Sunday. |
| 0:15.5 | Please click the link in the show notes to learn more and register for the event. |
| 0:18.8 | We're looking forward to seeing you there. |
| 0:20.4 | Now, on to the event. We're looking forward to seeing you there. Now, |
| 0:21.6 | on to the show. |
| 0:31.4 | Conversations with Tyler is produced by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, |
| 0:36.9 | bridging the gap between academic ideas and real world problems. Learn more at Mercadis.org. For a full transcript of every |
| 0:40.2 | conversation enhanced with helpful links, visit Conversationswithtyler.com. |
| 0:48.0 | Hello everyone and welcome back to Conversations with Tyler. Today I am here live and in-person |
| 0:53.8 | with Ross Douthit. Ross is arguably the |
| 0:57.3 | best columnist in the world. He has many excellent books, and he has a new book, which I'm a big |
| 1:02.1 | fan of, called Believe Why Everyone Should Be religious. So perhaps today my soul is on the line. |
| 1:09.1 | I know. It's very high stakes. This is the highest stakes conversation we've ever had. |
| 1:13.7 | And if I fail, my punishment. |
| 1:15.7 | My punishment will be great. |
| 1:17.4 | No, my, yeah, there's eternal stakes. |
| 1:20.6 | I once, when I was a much younger man, was dragooned into debating Christopher Hitchens |
| 1:26.2 | on a beach in Nantucket. I was substituting for Andrew |
| 1:30.9 | Sullivan. Who won? Hitchens. It was an absolute route. That's too strong. It was a route. |
| 1:37.6 | And he, I mean, he was at the peak of his powers. And maybe I had not yet come into my full powers. |
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