It’s a brisk March day in 2025, and somewhere between a Talmudic scroll and a malfunctioning AI toaster, Russ Roberts and Ross Douthat are earnestly holding hands and skipping through the metaphysical meadows of belief on EconTalk. You may know Russ Roberts as that rare intellectual who talks about economics and faith in the same breath without causing Twitter to spontaneously combust. And Ross Douthat? Think New York Times columnist meets medieval mystic, armed with a thesaurus, a bad case of Harvard nostalgia, and a low-key obsession with hellfire.
Their conversation, centered around Douthat’s latest book, “Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious,” is what happens when two deeply thoughtful, intelligent men try to have a grown-up conversation about God while half their audience clutches pearls and the other half is frantically Googling “atheist vaccine.”
Let’s dive in, shall we?
The Smart Person’s Dilemma: Can Brains and Belief Coexist?
We start with Russ doing his usual homespun intro, except this time it’s layered with an existential twist: “Yes, I’m religious, and yes, I’m still smart. Surprise!” And right out of the gate, he asks the fundamental question: How could anyone intelligent in 2025 possibly believe in God?
Cue Ross, strolling in like a seminarian at a Silicon Valley TED Talk. He opens by admitting the obvious: Yes, yes, science has taken several sacred cows and turned them into hamburger meat. Copernicus humiliated Earth’s ego, Darwin wrecked Genesis like a toddler with a crayon, and neuroscience has been whispering, “It’s all just electricity, baby.”
But Douthat’s counterpunch? Sure, some doctrines took hits—but the core argument for religious belief remains standing, like some smug, miracle-surviving goat on a mountaintop. The universe, Ross argues, still looks suspiciously like a place built for people. It’s orderly. It’s complex. And the fact that humans can make sense of it, using brains that were supposedly sculpted by chaos, is just… weird.
Translation: “Look, maybe God didn’t micromanage the solar system’s blueprint, but doesn’t it seem like someone left a divine sticky note on the cosmic fridge that says ‘Don’t forget the humans’?”
Consciousness: The Soul’s Fancy Rebrand
And then we land squarely in the mind-body trenches. Russ gives us the friendly warning that we’re going to talk about consciousness—and that he’s obsessed with it, even if half the audience would rather chew tinfoil. Bless him.
This is where Douthat goes full philosopher-priest and drops the thesis bomb: maybe mind isn’t just in the universe. Maybe it’s the point.
We’re told that matter is cool and all, but without a conscious observer, it’s basically a meaningless IKEA instruction manual. Ross dusts off Descartes (again) and makes a pitch that what we know best—our own experience of being—might be more fundamental than all those atoms whizzing around.
Also: materialists still can’t explain consciousness, so maybe stop acting like it’s a solved Sudoku puzzle, OK?
According to Ross, materialists keep telling us consciousness is an "illusion," which is hilarious when you think about it. If consciousness is fake, then who exactly is being duped? The illusory us? That’s like claiming your toaster’s hallucinating when it burns your toast. Sure, bro.
AI: The Ghost in the Machine That Doesn’t Believe in Ghosts
Now, just when you thought things were getting too philosophical, Roberts whips out the ChatGPT elephant in the room: artificial intelligence.
Can AI become conscious? Could your Roomba one day sit in therapy and sob about how it never became a self-driving Uber? Douthat, ever the spooky realist, doesn’t dismiss it outright. After all, if we don’t even know how we became conscious, who are we to say the machines won’t?
But then he tosses in a gem: the whole AI thing might be less about engineering and more about summoning. That’s right. In religious terms, building AI might be our modern attempt at Golem-crafting—a dangerous flirtation with channeling spirits into silicon. Suddenly, it’s less “iRobot” and more “Exorcist.exe.”
Fun fact: the AI part is where 50% of the audience quietly paused the episode to check if their smart fridge had developed a soul.
Near-Death Experiences: God’s Cosmic Teaser Trailer
The conversation turns to near-death experiences (NDEs), and Douthat is ready to go full ghost-hunting philosopher here. Ross insists that there’s something oddly consistent about these accounts—bright lights, tunnels, judgment day flashbacks, your dead Aunt Marge waving hello.
His argument? If religion is nonsense, why do these stories line up so well across cultures? Why do so many people describe experiences that feel more real than reality while lying on death’s door? Surely a misfiring brain should spit out chaos, not a celestial Netflix highlight reel?
Russ isn’t totally sold, though. He raises a good point: maybe people expect white lights and tunnels because Hollywood told them to. Maybe they’re just dreaming with better special effects. Maybe it’s all narrative placebo.
Douthat’s comeback: except they weren’t expecting it—at least not until books and movies started dramatizing it. Also, these experiences change people. Profoundly. Sometimes in disturbing ways. Your brain on dreams doesn’t usually make you ditch your job and move to a monastery.
And while we're at it, Ross points out: these aren’t just "oops, I fell asleep during surgery" moments. These are “I had no brain activity and yet somehow tripped balls into the afterlife” situations. Kind of makes you wonder if death is just a rebranding of relocation.
The Church as a Social Investment: Faith-Based Capitalism?
Now we get to the part of the episode where Russ remembers the show is called EconTalk and tries to steer the holy ship back toward policy. Should churches get tax breaks? Should religious communities be subsidized because they might actually be…good for society?
Ross is firmly in the “yes” camp. He argues that religion builds social capital. It’s like a social co-op, but with potlucks and fewer HOA disputes. Churches help the poor, foster community, teach people not to stab each other—what’s not to like?
And to the inevitable libertarian eye-roll: Douthat says, look, even if you want a minimal state, you still need functional communities. Religion does that. It’s your grandma’s version of social cohesion, and you can’t just replace it with TikTok and Reddit.
Oh, and if you’re mad about the tax deduction, just know that religious institutions also take care of your weird uncle with dementia and your cousin who joined a cult and came back—so maybe it’s money well spent.
The Great Existential Plot Twist
What makes this episode special—besides the mystical radios and philosophical AI exorcisms—is the sheer unashamed weirdness of it. Here are two men, sitting in an increasingly algorithmic world, earnestly trying to defend the ancient notion that life might have meaning. That our yearning isn’t just evolutionary static. That perhaps—just maybe—there’s a force out there more profound than Reddit karma or dopamine loops.
Ross Douthat isn’t trying to get you to join his church. He’s not handing out pamphlets or demanding tithe payments. What he is doing is challenging the smugness of secular certainty. The kind that says, “Well, of course religion is dead. Didn’t you see the Dawkins quote I posted on Threads?”
Instead, Douthat whispers—sometimes shouts—that maybe the modern world’s smug materialism is just another cathedral. One with no incense, no stained glass, just cold steel, glowing screens, and a belief that brains are meat and souls are fairy tales.
Final Take: Miracle or Just a Well-Timed Podcast?
In the end, this EconTalk episode is kind of a miracle in itself. Not because it proves God exists (sorry, spoiler), but because it dares to ask the question without apologizing for it. In a world where most public discourse is either pious pandering or Reddit-tier snark, Russ and Ross carve out a third space: respectful inquiry, with a side of intellectual jujitsu.
And hey, maybe your dead uncle didn’t fix that radio from beyond the veil. Maybe it was just bad wiring. But if your Roomba starts humming Amazing Grace tonight, maybe don’t dismiss it so quickly. Maybe—just maybe—it’s the cosmos trying to tell you something.
Or maybe it’s just Ross Douthat’s ghost in the machine, nudging you to believe.
If you liked this post, feel free to tithe 10% of your monthly sarcasm to the local philosophy department. They need it more than your gym.
