E134: Atheism’s Decline, Consciousness, and The New Right w/ Ross Douthat

Today on Upstream, Ross Douthat joins Erik Torenberg to discuss his new book 'Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious,' exploring the decline of new atheism, the intellectual defense of institutional religion, and the intersection between traditional Christianity, Silicon Valley, and modern materialism.

This episode originally aired on Moment of Zen (April 12, 2025).

—

📰Be notified early when Turpentine's drops new publication: https://www.turpentine.co/exclusiveaccess 

—

RECOMMENDED PODCASTS: 

🎙️Moment of Zen

Every week, Erik Torenberg, Dan Romero, Antonio Garcia Martinez and frequent special guests discuss what's happening in technology, business, politics, and beyond.

Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/15KYOzvDzAQvqX0z0SpHEJ 

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/moment-of-zen/id1661672738

—

SPONSORS:

☁️ Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) is a single platform for your infrastructure, database, application development, and AI needs. OCI has four to eight times the bandwidth of other clouds and offers one consistent price. Oracle is offering to cut your cloud bill in half. See if your company qualifies at https://oracle.com/turpentine 

🎯 Say goodbye to the headaches of out-of-home advertising. AdQuick combines technology, OOH expertise, and data to enable efficient, seamless ad buying across the globe. Visit https://adquick.com/ to start reaching your customers in the real world.

🕵️‍♂️ Take your personal data back with Incogni! Use code UPSTREAM at the link below and get 60% off an annual plan: https://incogni.com/upstream

💥 Head to Squad to access global engineering without the headache and at a fraction of the cost: head to https://choosesquad.com/  and mention “Turpentine” to skip the waitlist.

—

LINKS:

Ross Douthat: https://www.nytimes.com/column/ross-douthat 

Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious: https://www.zondervan.com/p/believe/

—

X / TWITTER:

@DouthatNYT

@eriktorenberg

@turpentinemedia

—

HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE EPISODE:

• Ross explains we're at a cultural inflection point where secularization has plateaued and there's evidence of religious revival.
• New atheism has declined as the world hasn't become more reasonable despite becoming less religious.
• Ross argues religion is intellectually defensible based on fine-tuning of the universe and the hard problem of consciousness.
• He contends that merely appreciating religion's social benefits isn't enough—genuine belief is necessary.
• The AI discussion explores whether consciousness might exist beyond materialist explanations.
• They examine tensions in the "New Right" between tech-optimists and religious traditionalists.