So I went and I made a meeting with the priest and I said, you know, I'm in college and I'm having these doubts and I decided to stop going to Mass and I decided to stop receiving communion.

And the priest said, oh yeah, I did that about the same time. Hey, it's Andrew Claven with this week's interview with Christopher Baer about his new book,

Why I Am Not an Atheist, The Confessions of a Skeptical Believer.

As you know, I think this is probably the most

important issue. Everything else in our country actually depends on this. We have been

sinking slowly, very slowly, really, since the 1600s into atheism. And I think it has

a kind of effect, a deadly effect, and yet you can't believe in

something if you don't believe in it. And the only reason to really believe in it is because

you think it's real. The book, Why I Am Not an atheist, the Confessions of a skeptical

believer, very beautifully written. Christopher Beah is the former editor of Harper's Magazine,

the author of four previous books, one of which the index of self-destructive acts was nominated for the 2020 National Book Award. Chris, it's good to see you. Thank you for coming on.

Thanks very much for having me. So the interesting title, I was caught by the title right away, the confessions of a skeptical believer.

What does that mean?

How can you be a believer in skeptical at the same time?

Well, my contention is that these things are not in tension with each other, but are actually necessary components of each other.

We use this term skepticism or skeptic nowadays very much to mean or religious skeptic.

But historically, it's just meant someone who doubts the possibility of certain human knowledge.

And on that end, you know, there's some interesting philosophical examples of historical examples of, you know, early Greek skeptics who wouldn't even move out of the way of the cart coming down the road because they refuse to trust their senses. But that person always had a disciple who was moving them away, you know. in practice, we all have to go out into the world and walk around.

And if you are a skeptic and you do distrust reason as a tool of giving you really

comprehensive human knowledge about what's going on in the world,

then on some level you have to act on faith. You have to believe. So it's just a matter of what you're believing in.

So you started out, you were raised Catholic, right, Roman Catholic? I was, yes. And you were pretty much,

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