Ross Douthat on Trump, Mysticism and Psychedelics | The Ezra Klein Show
What this covers
I have no earthly idea how to describe this conversation. It’s about religion and belief – at this moment in our politics, and in our lives more generally.
My guest and I come from very different perspectives. Ross Douthat is a Catholic conservative, who wrote a book called “Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious.” I’m a … Californian. But I think everyone would enjoy this conversation — believers, skeptics and seekers alike.
Some questions touched on: Is the Trump administration Christian or pagan? How do Christian Trump supporters reconcile the cruelties of this administration with their faith? Can religious experiences be explained by misfiring neurons? Should organized religions embrace psychedelics? Can mystery provide more comfort than certainty?
And if you do enjoy this episode, be sure to check out Douthat’s new New York Times Opinion Audio show “Interesting Times,” available wherever you get your podcasts, and on YouTube.
0:00 Intro 1:11 Trump: man of destiny? 19:55 Political power, cruelty and Godliness 36:25 Religion and spirituality in the modern world 43:18 The mysteries of the universe… 49:31 Aliens! Fairies! (and some Catholic history) 58:25 Contending with uncertainty and evil 1:07:02 Psychedelic experiences 1:23:36 Official knowledge 1:36:02 Book recommendations
Read the full transcript here: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/25/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-ross-douthat.html
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You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html
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Douthat argues that belief in organized religion is necessary to channel the unavoidable human encounter with mystery and the supernatural into frameworks that protect against spiritual danger, rather than leaving seekers vulnerable to fragmented spiritual impulses in a disenchanted age.
- Materialism cannot account for persistent religious and mystical experiences across cultures and throughout human history
- Weak institutional religions combined with materialist elite consensus drives seekers toward fragmentary or dangerous spiritual alternatives rather than traditional religious frameworks
- Organized religions like Catholicism provide tested structures and safeguards for engaging with supernatural reality that unprepared seekers lack
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Christianity provides an ongoing internal critique of power that is historically unique: the Spanish conquest of the Americas involved terrible crimes, but from the very beginning there was sustained theological and legal debate within Catholic Spain critiquing these crimes, leading over centuries to influence on anti-slavery movements and human rights law.
“from the very beginning in Spain itself... there's an ongoing and agonizing... debate that subjects the behavior of the Spanish conquistadors... to this kind of sustained critique... leads to... reform efforts... builds out and influences everything from the anti-slavery movement in the 18th and 19th century... down to contemporary ideas about human rights and international law.”
A Christian interpretation of Trump as a man of destiny need not mean God wants you on his side; God may be working through Trump as an instrument of judgment or necessary disruption, the way God worked through Babylon to chastise Israel, without that instrument being righteous or chosen for reward.
“A mistake that religious people make is to see a kind of force of destiny at work in a particular figure and assume that force of destiny must mean that God... wants you to be on that person's side. But if you read the Old Testament there's all kinds of moments when God is working through figures... to accomplish something in the world... doesn't mean that the instrument that God is working through is in fact the Messiah or the chosen one.”
The psychological pull of 'full-spectrum skepticism'—if official knowledge is wrong about one thing I care about, it's wrong about everything—is very strong, but it's a mistake to conflate correction of one error with rejection of all evidentiary standards.
“not assume that because official knowledge is wrong about one thing, it's wrong about everything. That seems like a big mistake... the pull of that is incredibly strong... just for totally understandable reasons became fullspectrum skeptics about anything the government said.”
Catholicism has 'supernatural capaciousness'—openness to diverse spiritual experiences and phenomena—while maintaining doctrinal core, making it compatible with reports of fairies, hauntings, ghosts, and other supernatural experiences that people actually have.
“if you look at actual the history of Catholic cultures right you know the zone for instance in terms of like the afterlife right zones like purgatory and limbo and so on have some kind of connection to people's arguments about ghosts and hauntings... Catholic cultures have always been pretty hospitable to ideas about fairies.”
Conservative Christian populism frames itself as speaking for the weak and oppressed—the native-born working class burdened by free trade, social disorder, and mass immigration—presenting the beneficiaries of globalization as equivalent to the rich man in Jesus's parables, thus claiming Christian moral authority for restrictive policies.
“conservative populism... basically holds that it is speaking on behalf of the weak and the oppressed... the nativeborn working class... beginning with economic burdens imposed by free trade regimes... the burden of... social disorder... This is basically that the beneficiaries of globalization are the equivalent of the rich person in various of Jesus's parables.”
Medieval Catholicism and feudalism were so intertwined that one might predict Christianity would collapse with feudalism; instead Judaism and Christianity have survived through multiple collapses of their institutional host systems, suggesting divine foundation or at least remarkable adaptability.
“you couldn't get more intertwined than medieval Catholicism and medieval feudalism. This this is like, you know, and and if I think if you were a secular historian looking at that intertwinement, you'd say probably whenever feudalism breaks up, you know, Christianity is going to go away too.”
The Babylonian conquest of Israel in the Old Testament narrative represents God working through an empire to punish the wicked, which doesn't mean the conquered people should revere the conquering power, challenging simple Christian interpretations of Trump as God's instrument.
“If God sends the Babylonians to chastise the wicked kings of Israel, doesn't mean that you're supposed to necessarily say, 'Oh, hail Nebuchadnezzar. You know, you are you are you are the chosen one.'”
The Spanish conquest of the Americas generated an ongoing and agonizing legal, theological debate within Catholic Spain itself that subjected conquistador behavior to sustained critique and eventually influenced anti-slavery movements and modern human rights concepts.
“from the very beginning in Spain itself in the heart of super Catholic like you know counterreformation era Spain there's an ongoing and agonizing and you know sometimes intensely legal and practical sometimes high level philosophical theological debate that subjects the behavior of the Spanish concistadors and others to this kind of sustained critique and leads to at various times sometimes successful mostly unsuccessful reform efforts driven by the Catholic monarchy of Spain and ultimately builds out and influences everything from the anti-slavery movement in the 18th and 19th century that's ultimately successful down to uh contemporary ideas about human rights and international law”
Jesus in the New Testament is not actually a meek figure but one who says harsh things about powerful people and cleanses the temple with force, so Christian critique is not inherently gentle but includes sharp judgment against those who have abused leadership.
“Jesus uses the word meek but Jesus himself is not a meek figure, right? And you can go through the New Testament and find plenty of cases where Jesus says incredibly harsh things about powerful mostly about powerful people about sinners right where Jesus cleanses the temple and drives you know drives the money lenders out and curses the fig tree”
The Old Testament advertises itself as a story of chosen people who failed every test—repeatedly turning to idolatry and paganism—yet remained chosen, which demonstrates that religions expect failure and account for it within their worldview.
“the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible, right, is is a story where the Jews are failing your tests, right?...You're like, 'Well, if this religion was really from God, they probably wouldn't all become idoltors.' And they're like, 'Ezra, here's our holy book. It's all about how we became idoltors. But guess what? Then God did something new and people did something new and the story continued.”
Conservative populism argues it speaks for the weak and oppressed—the native-born working class burdened by free trade that sent jobs overseas and social disorder from mass migration—positioning globalization's beneficiaries as equivalent to the rich in Jesus's parables.
“conservative populism, right-wing populism, whatever you want to call it, that does see itself in clear continuity with Christian ideas and Christian views basically holds that it is speaking on behalf of the weak and the oppressed, people who don't have a voice in society. And those people are the nativeborn working class of the western world who have been asked to bear inappropriate burdens beginning with economic I'm I'm just framing the case right beginning with the economic burdens imposed by free trade regimes that sent their jobs overseas”
Mystical and religious experiences are not disenchantment artifacts or mere modern survival; they persist across secular societies and constitute a feature of human life that requires explanation beyond reductive neuroscience.
“disenchantment is fake fundamentally... the idea that you can enter a secular age where once upon a time people had wild religious experiences but now we inhabit the iron cage of modernity... just doesn't describe reality... people have encounters with God, whatever God may be, some kind of higher reality that enters them and transforms them.”
Disenchantment is not actually real—religious and mystical experiences persist in secular societies because they are a fundamental feature of human consciousness, not a product of pre-modern belief systems that modernity has overcome.
“disenchantment is fake fundamentally right the idea that you can enter a secular age where once upon a time people had wild religious experiences but now we inhabit the iron cage of modernity and all of those are off the table that just doesn't describe reality mystical experience religious experience it's not just the impulse like I think secular liberals are very comfortable saying oh well there's always a religious impulse but it's more than that it's that people have encounters with God, whatever God may be, some kind of higher reality that enters them and transforms them”
Trump is a figure touched by fortune in a way that transcends normal rules of politics, and understanding his appeal requires grasping how his supporters experience him as a man of destiny moving with historical forces beyond the control of analysts or institutions.
“a figure touched by the gods of fortune in a way that transcends the normal rules of politics”
Major world religions despite their vast differences in doctrine and practice show meaningful ethical overlap in their treatment of the poor, the vulnerable, and the limits of material power, suggesting either cultural transmission or genuine access to transcendent moral truth.
“I think the major world religions if you look at them just and sort of analyze you know the ethical perspective of the major world religions you do see a certain kind of overlap.”
Barbara Ehrenreich, a famous left-liberal atheist, wrote an entire book called Living with a Wild God about her own religious and mystical experiences as a secular person, which would be familiar to religious mystics or medieval Catholic spiritual writers.
“someone like you know Barbara Aaron Reich who's famous I had her on for this book right famous left liberal writer wrote a whole book called and a famous atheist yes famous atheist called living with a wild god right and it was just a book about a very secular person who had a lot of religious experiences like experiences that if you went and read William James or read like a medieval Catholic mystic or something would be totally familiar”
Klein worries that religions that have survived and thrived across institutional regimes may have succeeded precisely because they conformed to politics and power rather than because they encode truth, making institutional success an unreliable indicator of theological validity.
“I think that the religions that survive are going to be the ones that are institutionally compatible with many different regimes and often contort themselves into those regimes... this is a way in which I feel you could take that both ways.”
Psychedelics may open people to genuine contact with non-human spiritual entities in ways distinct from other mystical experiences because they function as a shortcut, but this shortcut means people enter these encounters without the preparation and knowledge frameworks that traditional shamanic or religious practices recommend, creating spiritual danger.
“some psychedelics almost certainly open you to contact with nonhuman spiritual entities... in a way that is different from other forms of spiritual experience... it's like a shortcut. But that shortcut means that you're entering these landscapes without the kind of preparation that... the traditional religions... or the shamans who use Iawaska... would say is necessary.”
Klein's argument that religious believers should live up to their own moral commitments without him having to believe in the metaphysical structure that grounds those commitments is weak because liberalism itself depends on inherited Christian ideas about morality and equality, but liberalism has jettisoned the metaphysical framework that makes those ideas coherent.
“to the extent that all of liberalism trades on inherited ideas from Christianity about morality and equality and so on, while you've jettisoned the portrait of the universe, the metaphysical structure that gives them meaning, I think it's really hard from that point of view for you to get anywhere in arguments with people who still believe in that structure.”
Judaism surviving the destruction of the Second Temple and transition from temple-centered religion to rabbi-centered portable Judaism demonstrates religious traditions' capacity to survive the destruction of their institutional basis.
“Judaism, right? Judaism is a, you know, religion of temple prayer, religion that's centered on the temple and the holy of holies and everything else. You look at that as a secular historian, you're like, well, obviously, you know, if some empire, we'll call it the Romans, comes along and destroys that, then, you know, Judaism is going to disappear, too, right? That's not what happens. Instead, you have these periods of intertwinement that are then shattered in some way.”
The brain chemistry explanation of mystical experience cannot account for why evolution would produce intense mystical apprehension at the moment of death when the organism is not surviving, suggesting mystical experience may indicate contact with real non-physical reality.
“it really is a little bit hard to tell an evolutionary just so story about why the brain is wired for some Darwinian reason to generate its most intense experiences at a time when for most people you're just going to die.”
The Catholic Church teaches that Catholics should not seek certain supernatural experiences like séances because while God may work through them, Christians have no guarantee of God's presence through unauthorized spiritual channels and thus should not open themselves to uncontrolled spiritual contact.
“The Catholic the Catholic view basically is that you're not supposed to commu try and commune with spirits speak to the dead in certain ways like you shouldn't go to a seance like there's a certain set of things that Catholics certain set of supernatural experiences that Catholics are not supposed to seek out and there's some biblical warrant for this and there's sort of the the explicit teaching teaching of the church”
Religious doctrine can impede finding out what is true about the world, so there is legitimate fear that accepting religion means abandoning scientific progress and modern epistemic standards; the challenge is correcting official materialism without overcorrecting into rejecting science.
“I don't want to say that that's not a legitimate fear. There clearly are ways in which religious belief and religious doctrine can end up being an impediment to finding out what is true about the world.”
The problem of evil is a real and perhaps unsolvable problem in all religious traditions, not a reason to reject religion but rather a persistent feature of human engagement with divine reality that must be acknowledged and wrestled with rather than solved.
“the problem of evil is a real problem. It's a real issue. Again, I think it's an issue that's sort of there and acknowledged and wrestled with throughout the Old and New Testament. But I don't think you're going to sit down and just reason your way into a solution to that problem.”
Jesus is not a meek figure but a confrontational one who harshly criticizes the powerful; the meekness Jesus teaches applies to those without power, but Jesus himself drives money lenders from the temple and curses the fig tree.
“Jesus uses the word meek but Jesus himself is not a meek figure... Jesus cleanses the temple and drives... the money lenders out and curses the fig tree that doesn't... you're moving to the powerful here... Jesus says incredibly harsh things about powerful... people about sinners.”
The Hebrew Bible itself advertises the failure of the Jewish people to live up to God's commandments and then divine renewal of covenant, suggesting that Christianity and Judaism embed permanent acknowledgment of their own shortcomings and continuous opportunity for moral correction.
“The Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible, right, is is a story where the Jews are failing your tests, right?... we became idoltors. But guess what? Then God did something new and people did something new and the story continued.”
Klein argues one should not assume that because official knowledge is wrong about one important thing, it is wrong about everything, and evidentiary standards should not be abandoned despite institutional failures.
“something that I have very self-consciously tried to do in my own thinking about this...is to not assume that because official knowledge is wrong about one thing, it's wrong about everything. That seems like a big mistake. And two, not to assume that because official knowledge is wrong about one thing...all sort of evidentiary standards should be...thrown out”
Liberalism trades on inherited Christian ideas about morality, equality, and dignity while rejecting the metaphysical structure (God, salvation, purpose) that gives those ideas meaning, creating an unstable position from which to argue with believers.
“to the extent that all of liberalism, the ideology that you subscribe to, trades on inherited ideas from Christianity about morality and equality and so on, while you've jettisoned the portrait of the universe, the metaphysical structure that gives them meaning. I think it's really hard from that point of view for you to get anywhere in arguments with people who still believe in that structure”
Trump should be understood as a figure touched by fortune in a way that transcends normal political rules, a 'man of destiny' whose rise reflects deep historical forces beyond columnist analysis or prediction.
“I stand by that reading of the Trump phenomenon... I have more appreciation for weird forces that are outside certainly outside the control of people who write about politics.”
Democratic institutional monoculture on certain issues (particularly those involving progressive ideology and credentials from elite universities) created vulnerability by eliminating internal friction, opposing viewpoints, and institutional antibodies that would have prevented overcorrection.
“One of the things Democrats didn't have during that period was actually enough skepticism of the institutions of official knowledge. I think you would agree that the people pushing a lot of the ideas that that you see as destructive from them...were doing so wrapped in the garb of official knowledge you know wrapped in credentials coming out of universities etc that it it was in part actually sort of an institutional monoculture on the democratic side that created a loss of some of you know some antibodies”
Douthat had chronic Lyme disease that was not recognized by the CDC but improved with strong antibiotics and alternative treatments; this experience demonstrated that 'official knowledge' can be profoundly wrong about things that really matter, creating epistemic humility about all institutional expertise.
“I had... chronic illness that is not officially recognized by the Centers for Disease Control... I really was sick. I really did get better using a combination of really strong antibiotics and other stranger things that are not recommended by the CDC, but it really did work. And I am morally certain both, you know, that chronic Lyme disease absolutely exists and the CDC's recommendations are absolutely wrong.”
Spiritual experiences show patterns and consistency across cultures and contexts—near-death experiences, miraculous healings, encounters with divine beings—which suggests an underlying structure rather than random brain misfirings.
“there's no there's no sort of predictability to it overall but the kinds of experiences that people have have a certain kind of consistency. You can track different kinds of spiritual experiences across different cultures. You can track them in near-death experiences. you can track them in terms of like, you know, studies of of what appear to be um miraculous healings and so on.”
The conservative movement now faces a strategic challenge of generating stable expertise and institutional knowledge infrastructure within a party that is temperamentally anti-establishment and populist.
“the huge challenge for conservatism right now is to figure out how you generate some kind of stability of actual expertise in a party that is now sort of temperamentally completely uh you know anti-establishment populist and so on”
Religious experience should be understood as fundamentally different from mental illness despite both involving altered brain states, because religious experiences show characteristics of sanity, awareness, and transformation rather than pathology.
“religious experience and spiritual experience are at the very least in a distinct category from mental illness. People who have religious experiences are very often entirely sane and entirely aware of the strangeness of the experience they've had”
Materialism cannot adequately account for the extreme precision and improbability of the universe's physical constants, which suggests either the universe was designed or we must accept radical cosmological coincidence.
“I think part of the case for being a material for not being a materialist is precisely the order of the universe. Right? Like one of the problems that materialism has that you sort of gestured at, right, is accounting for the specific ways in which the universe is ordered, the beauty and precision and symmetry involved and also as far as we can tell the extreme unlikeliness that this particular order would be selected for unless whoever selected it were interested in, you know, listening to lots of podcasts. No, but create, you know, creating um planets, stars and conscious beings, right?”
All the major world religions—Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism—describe a universe with overarching order and mysterious relationship between consciousness and that order, with higher forces attempting to relate to humans.
“most of the big religions offer allowing for all their differences. You know, Buddhism and Christianity have quite, you know, some pretty substantial differences, but they each describe a universe that's generally like that.”
The Renaissance papacy (discussed by Ada Palmer) provides historical counterevidence to the idea that Christianity provides strong institutional critique of power, since Renaissance popes 'did not cover themselves in glory' and pursued worldly power and artistic patronage rather than spiritual reform.
“I've been reading about the Renaissance recently. Um Ada Palmer's great book on inventing the Renaissance. And I wouldn't say the popes of that era like cover themselves in in glory.”
Barbara Ehrenreich (secular atheist) wrote 'Living With a Wild God' documenting her own recurring religious experiences that she could not fully process or integrate because she lacked a conceptual religious framework, proving that mystical experience persists independent of institutional religion.
“Barbara Aaron Reich... famous atheist... called living with a wild god... just a book about a very secular person who had a lot of religious experiences... totally familiar... didn't have sort of a framework a conceptual framework to fully process them.”
Near-death experiences are not fragmentary, dreamlike, or chaotic but are described as extraordinarily real, intensely detailed, emotionally coherent, and causally efficacious in changing people's lives—making the evolutionary just-so story of random brain misfires implausible.
“near-death experiences from the materialist perspective is that they are described not as fragmentary hallucinations, dreamlike experiences, random, chaotic. They are described as more real than real, incredibly intense... They carry back into people's post near-death experience lives... They cause big changes... it really is a little bit hard to tell an evolutionary just so story about why the brain is wired for some Darwinian reason to generate its most intense experiences at a time when for most people you're just going to die.”
The brain-as-reducing-valve theory suggests consciousness and mind are fundamentally broader than our embodied state allows perception of, and extreme conditions (near-death, fasting, psychedelics) temporarily suspend the filtering mechanism, allowing access to broader reality rather than producing hallucinations.
“the brain is a kind of like a reducing valve... consciousness is capable of this much wider apprehension of reality... that aren't really fully compatible with like being an embodied creature in the world... so to be an embodied creature in the world, you need to uh be your mind's capacities and experiences need to be reduced funneled down to the sensory inputs being processed by your eyes and nose and mouth and ears... that's why when you have moments when you shake up the brain through... the brain in extreme circumstances via fasting... the mind's experience doesn't actually seem to contract. It seems to expand.”
Religious experience and mental illness are in distinct categories: religious experiences occur in otherwise mentally healthy people who are aware of the strangeness of their experience and can integrate it rationally, whereas mental illness involves incapacity or incoherence.
“religious experience and spiritual experience are at the very least in a distinct category from mental illness. People who have religious experiences are very often entirely sane and entirely aware of the strangeness of the experience they've had.”
Christianity provides an ongoing internal critique of power through which powerful people must wrestle with moral constraints, distinct from other historical systems where power operates without such internal moral challenge.
“Christianity does not provide some kind of incredibly strong bull work against powerful people doing the kinds of things that powerful people do which means you know self-interested conquest of various kinds and so on right what it does provide is an ongoing internal critique that those powerful people have to wrestle with and address in ways that are fairly unique in the historical relationship of um you know power and piety.”
Psychedelics and mystical drugs are spiritual technologies that can reliably create profound experiences connecting people to their home traditions, and it would make sense for organized religions to develop safe containers and knowledge around them rather than treating them as dangerous.
“One perception of these drugs or medicines or whatever you want to call them uh is that they're pretty profound spiritual technologies if you believe in them from that perspective...one might imagine this is something that in a world that got disenchanted, you would want these big traditions to to try to take on to try to build some containers of safety and knowledge around them. But they seem like a thing that can pretty reliably create an experience that actually connects people in a very profound way to their home tradition.”
There is a reducing valve model of consciousness where the brain acts as a filter narrowing infinite consciousness to operate in embodied reality, so experiences at death, under psychedelics, or fasting may reflect expansion back to wider consciousness rather than hallucination.
“the reducing valve model...the idea that whatever the mind or soul or consciousness is is capable of this much wider apprehension of reality, including divine realities, whatever those may be, that aren't really fully compatible with like being an embodied creature in the world, right? And so to be an embodied creature in the world, you need to uh be your mind's capacities and experiences need to be reduced funneled down to the sensory inputs being processed by your eyes and nose and mouth and ears.”
Trump's first term succeeded partly because staff like Gary Cohn, Steve Mnuchin, and H.R. McMaster did not have a mystical sense of Trump's judgment and actively constrained him; his second term lacks these constraints because his current staff has a more mystical belief in his intuition, which paradoxically unmakes the conditions that made his first term work.
“one of the reasons it worked out okay was precisely that there were a bunch of people in the White House the first time around who didn't have a mystical sense of of Trump's perspective or his goals or anything like that. Right? And that is I think very clearly what is missing this time around.”
The fact that psychedelics like LSD (synthesized only decades ago) can reliably induce mystical experiences actually suggests that all mystical experience is reducible to brain chemistry and therefore without genuine truth value, not that psychedelics are spiritual technologies.
“the very fact that you can reliably induce mystical experience, it just shows that this is just random firings of brain chemicals... the fact that something that you know in the case of LSD a Swedish chemist synthesized you know just mere decades ago can be some sort of reliable portal... It actually implies that none of this was ever mystic at all.”
Religious conservatives face a choice between three potential threats to Christian civilization: progressive woke ideology, Trumpian pagan cruelty, or Silicon Valley transhumanism, and it is unclear which poses the greatest danger.
“as Christianity has weakened in American life, a really hard question has become like you know who who is the most dangerous of your different enemies...Is it you know a woke progressivism...Is it Donald Trump's populism with its heathen cruelties? Is it transhumanism? Like, is the the final boss of this era that religious believers will have to confront actually Silicon Valley?”
Weak institutional religion combined with materialist elite consensus drives seekers toward fragmentary spiritual alternatives—psychedelics, literal paganism, AI—because people cannot reach traditional Creator God through official channels and so look for intermediate spiritual powers.
“I think what happens in conditions when you have weak institutional religions and a sort of secular expert class that is not, you know, militantly atheistic, but sort of says, you know, officially these things don't happen, right? is that people feel like they can't really go all the way up to the creator God, Yahweh, Jehovah, outside of time and space and they start looking for sort of intermediate powers to sort of become a kind of locust for their own spiritual impulses. You know, stuff with psychedelics, stuff with literal paganism, including stuff on the right. And then the the interesting zone in a way is AI which is the place where sort of science fiction ideas or or science scientific ideas meet a kind of you know slightly supernaturalist sense of you know like the machine god as this power that is that into which we are going to commend commend ourselves.”
There is a fundamental tension between the Christian ethical tradition emphasizing care for the powerless and the visible embrace of cruelty toward poor immigrants and refugees in the Trump administration's rhetoric and policy, which reflects pagan rather than Christian sensibilities.
“there is an embrace of mimemetic cruelty not aimed at the powerful but aimed at other forms of the power less where as I sort of understand the radicalism of this ethic. It is that you should, you know, whether whatever your border policy, there should be a profound compassion for, you know, Haitians who came here fleeing some of the most desperate poverty in the world”
The perennialist view holds that all major world religions encode some truth about reality and one cannot go wrong with any of them as long as they're big and old enough, though none contains the fullness of truth.
“the wide the wide array of religious experiences I think you know just the data on its own should would make you a kind of like the term I use in the book is perennialist right this is the theory that all the great religions you know encode some of the truth about reality you kind of can't go wrong with any of them as long as they're big enough and old enough but none of them are like the the fullness the fullness of truth”
RFK Jr. and other skeptics of official knowledge have moved from the Democratic party to the Republican party; Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, and Mitt Romney have moved away from Trump Republicanism; this realignment reflects the parties becoming sorted by their relationship to institutional consensus.
“the parts of the Democratic party that were sort of outside that consensus, you know, led by a figure like RFK Jr. have sort of become parts of the Republican party. The parts of the Republican party, you know, they're more inside that consensus and and want to stay there. Some of them like Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger and Mitt Romney have sort of moved away from at least the Trump Republican party.”
AI represents a new form of unvetted intermediate spiritual power—'the machine god'—into which people may be channeling their spiritual impulses in the absence of organized religion, where scientific ideas meet a 'slightly supernaturalist sense' of technology as quasi-divine.
“the interesting zone in a way is AI which is the place where sort of science fiction ideas or or science scientific ideas meet a kind of you know slightly supernaturalist sense of you know like the machine god as this power that is that into which we are going to commend commend ourselves.”
Trump's first-term staff (Gary Cohn, Steve Mnuchin, HR McMaster) played a constraining role by maintaining skepticism of Trump's judgment, whereas Trump's second-term staff lacks this skeptical function because they view him through a lens of mystical purpose rather than as a political actor whose decisions can be wrong.
“There are people in the White House who could play that role... Scott Patent, Marco Rubio... but no one is actually playing that role as far as anyone can sort of see... the very success of sort of Trump as man of destiny is unmaking the conditions that made his first term a success.”
Once one accepts that the universe shows order, that higher realities exist, and that mystical experiences reflect genuine contact with such realities, one should assume that God (if God exists) is not tricking you about how to find Him—implying that one should join one of the major organized religions rather than remaining a seeker.
“if there is this overall structure and order to the universe and if there seem to be sort of higher powers interested in talking to human beings, then maybe you should assume that like God is not out to trick you, right? The universe is not a trick... there's a certain number of big religions... they've stood the test of time... Why wouldn't you go in for one of them rather than saying... I just have to remain perfectly open?”
Democratic politics has become disproportionately polarized around official knowledge itself rather than around specific policy areas—Democrats too trusting of institutions, Republicans too skeptical—and this creates an imbalanced political field.
“we seem more fundamentally polarized now on official knowledge than on anything else... Democrats may be too trusting. Republicans much much much in my view too skeptical with sort of too little sort of empirical and and and grounding anymore.”
Polarization in American politics has shifted from substantive policy disagreements (taxes, foreign policy, healthcare) to fundamental disagreements about the nature of reality and epistemic authority—which institutions and knowledge-production systems can be trusted.
“When we were young bloggers so many years ago... the political system seemed deeply polarized on taxes on foreign policy on the Affordable Care Act. And I'm not saying those polarizations don't still exist. They do. But we seem more fundamentally polarized now on official knowledge than on anything else.”
There are multiple possible interpretations of Trump as a historical figure: as bringing about a new American golden age, as an agent of necessary change through chaos without being personally good, or as a punishment on everyone, all of which deserve serious consideration.
“You could say he's a man of destiny and therefore he is bringing about in some weird way that we didn't see coming the new American golden age...Or you could say he's a great man of history who's unlocking some sort of change that was necessary but but bringing chaos in order to do it...or it could just be chastisement for everyone right all are punished...I think all of those possibilities have to be taken seriously as readings of the Trump phenomenon”
Catholic culture has demonstrated historical hospitality to ideas about fairies, ghosts, and supernatural trickster beings alongside official doctrine, giving it a kind of supernatural capaciousness that other Christian traditions lack.
“if you look at actual the history of Catholic cultures right you know the zone for instance in terms of like the afterlife right zones like purgatory and limbo and so on have some kind of connection to people's arguments about ghosts and hauntings and that form of the supernatural. Catholic cultures have always been pretty hospitable to ideas about fairies.”
Klein believes that whatever ultimate truth exists will be extremely inconvenient and strange, and a religion truly taking seriously the idea that every moment is a moral test would be incompatible with ruling regimes and would face opposition from them.
“I believe that whatever sort of ultimate truth is out there is going to be extremely inconvenient and strange and um as you said earlier and something I thought was quite stirring the sense that every moment might be a moral test that a religion that took that truly seriously would end up being very incompatible with ruling regimes and would have a lot of trouble from them”
Douthat experienced a profound mystical encounter that was specifically Jewish in nature from a tradition he had not been raised in, which he cannot shake and which has made him more open to his own religious tradition than expected.
“I will say without going into any detail that I had once an incredibly profound and mystical experience that was to my genuine shock completely Jewish in nature and not from a side of Judaism that is a side that I had been brought up in and that I have never been able to shake and that has made me much more open to my own tradition than I would have thought.”
Religions that survive at mass scale across institutional regimes often do so by conforming to politics and institutions, straying from radically spiritual truth, so historical success may indicate institutional compatibility rather than truth value.
“I think at a fundamental level, I expect that anything that has worked at mass scale across many different institutional regimes as an organized religion is likely to have conformed so much to politics and institutions as to have strayed from how profoundly radical whatever kind of spiritual truth might exist is”
Michael Shurmer, a prominent skeptical debunker of supernatural claims, experienced a broken radio from his wife's deceased great uncle play a love song at their wedding reception and then stop working permanently, an experience that challenges strict materialism despite Shurmer's attempts to explain it through multiverse theory.
“Michael Shurmer who is uh a one of the more famous professional skeptical debunk bunkers of religious claims, supernatural things and so on. Um, and he in one of his books, but he's told this story several times to his great credit, he had a uh he was getting married and his wife had I'm going to butcher this slightly, but had a great uncle who had been very close to her and had was the kind of person who would have given her away at the wedding, but was had passed away. Right? So she was feeling sort of lonely and isolated and they had a radio that had come from him and the radio was broken. Didn't work. Had never worked. Shurmer had tried to fix it. It didn't it just didn't work.”
There is order in the universe that is beautiful, precise, symmetric, and extremely unlikely to be selected by chance unless the selector were interested in creating planets, stars, and conscious beings; this order is evidence for a non-materialist worldview.
“the order of the universe. Right? Like one of the problems that materialism has that you sort of gestured at, right, is accounting for the specific ways in which the universe is ordered, the beauty and precision and symmetry involved and also as far as we can tell the extreme unlikeliness that this particular order would be selected for unless whoever selected it were interested in, you know, listening to lots of podcasts. No, but create, you know, creating um planets, stars and conscious beings, right?”
The Trump administration in the first three months shows pure and uncut outsiderism without institutional expertise; RFK Jr. running HHS rather than a less radical position; Peter Navarro making trade policy; the administration assumes experts got something big wrong and therefore the opposite position should govern.
“now you have the other side in in power also without any antibodies. Yes. And I think one of my disappointments about the Trump administration in the first three months is just how um how pure and uncut it's sort of outsiderism seems to be, right?”
Every historical moment is a potential moral test that one might well be failing; history supplies constant tests of what religion is for, with no end until the end; sometimes religions succeed, more often fail, but hopefully generate effects that are good in the long run.
“it is important to see every moment as a potential moral test that you might well be failing. I'm not, you know, I'm not kidding here, right?”
Fortune in Greek mythology is not synonymous with luck but often contains within prophecy of success the seeds of one's downfall, suggesting Trump's fortune may similarly contain embedded doom.
“when you are touched by fortune, when you get a fortune, when you speak to the oracle, it often doesn't work out that well. You you get a clear prophecy that seems like it fortell your success, right? And laced inside of that is your downfall”
The difference between Trump administration and liberal coalitions in the past decade is that both are now internally imbalanced: liberals have become too trusting of institutions, while conservatives have become too skeptical, leaving neither party with adequate antibodies against its own tendencies.
“Democrats may be too trusting. Republicans much much much in my view too skeptical with sort of too little sort of empirical and and and grounding anymore.”
Klein had a profound mystical experience while taking psychedelics that was unexpectedly Jewish in nature, involving contact with a strand of Judaism he had not been raised in, which made him more open to his own religious tradition and was something he found difficult to interpret or fully process.
“I had once an incredibly profound and mystical experience that was to my genuine shock completely Jewish in nature and not from a side of Judaism that is a side that I had been brought up in... I have never been able to shake and has made me much more open to my own tradition.”
It is more probable than not that after death humans will meet God and be asked to account for their life, which is not necessarily comforting but provides more than mere mystery.
“I think it is it is in fact more probable than not that after you die you will you know meet God whatever God is and be asked to account for your life”
The Trump administration contains braided strands of Christian and pagan ethical frameworks—JD Vance representing Christian values about virtue and the weak; Elon Musk representing pagan values of power, dominance, and will; Trump himself containing both—creating an internal moral tension the administration has not resolved.
“There are ways in which those strands seem braided through everything. The sort of drive for power for sort of renewed 19th century masculinity versus the the more Christian dimensions of it. There's in a way like Vance as a emblem of the Christian side of the administration. You know, Musk is an emblem of its pagan side.”
Democratic Party became too trusting of institutions, allowing institutional monoculture to prevent friction and criticism that might have prevented some of its destructive policies, which contributed to Trump's rise.
“One of the things Democrats didn't have during that period was actually enough skepticism of the institutions of official knowledge. I think you would agree that the people pushing a lot of the ideas that that you see as destructive from them and some of them I probably also feel were were ultimately destructive were doing so wrapped in the garb of official knowledge you know wrapped in credentials coming out of universities etc that it it was in part actually sort of an institutional monoculture on the democratic side that created a loss of some of you know some antibodies that might created some friction between that and going way too far.”
Official knowledge, held by the New York Times, Ivy League universities, and Wikipedia, represents the consensus of formal institutions of knowledge creation; Douthat's book aims to shift what official knowledge accepts about religion.
“Official knowledge is the knowledge about the world that is considered normal and respectable in publications like the New York Times, Ivy League universities, most Wikipedia entries.”
Douthat believes it is more probable than not that after death people will meet God and be asked to account for their lives, and he believes Douthat's presence in Klein's life may itself be providential—an instrument of God's design.
“I do think though that you can get a little bit further like just even in the example that you cited. I mean I I don't know what your sort of metaphysical perspectives as as a kid were. But I certainly agree that I would personally find it more comforting to believe that death is a mystery than to be be Richard Dawkins...I just think it's it is in fact more probable than not that after you die you will you know meet God whatever God is and be asked to account for your life”
The Trump administration's approach to immigration (depicting Haitian immigrants through memes of their suffering) represents mimetic cruelty aimed at the powerless rather than the powerful, which is un-Christian regardless of whether one agrees with restrictive immigration policy on other grounds.
“the weaponization of cruelty against the powerless. It is what I'm trying to get at... there is an embrace of mimemetic cruelty not aimed at the powerful but aimed at other forms of the powerless where... there should be a profound compassion for, you know, Haitians who came here fleeing some of the most desperate poverty in the world.”
Trump's return to power was itself enabled by justified skepticism of official knowledge institutions that seemed to fail—the Democratic party had become an institutional monoculture—but the problem is now Trump's outsider skepticism operates without any institutional correctives or antibodies.
“one reason that Donald Trump is president again is precisely that the party of official knowledge seemed to do a lot of really crazy things... I think one of the things Democrats didn't have during that period was actually enough skepticism of the institutions of official knowledge... institutional monoculture on the democratic side... created a loss of some antibodies.”
Klein and Douthat both grew up during a period characterized by a kind of timeout from grand historical dramas—a Fukuyama-esque view of post-Cold War history as predictable and stable—but this was atypical; most of human history is characterized by forces that move through history in unpredictable ways often connected to particular personalities.
“you and I both you know grew up in a period that uh was I think reasonably described as a kind of timeout from grand historical dramas. Um, you know, it was not the end of history in a totalizing sense, but the kind of Francis Fukuyama view of the postcold war era as one that had a certain kind of certain kind of predictability and order and stability under control. History felt under control, right? And the reality is that much of human history is just not under control in that way.”
Douthat's mother had intense spiritual experiences in charismatic healing services within mainline Protestantism, but the denomination lacked institutional continuity with that experience, leading the family to seek Catholicism.
“my mother had these intense experiences in a context of like charismatic healing services. Uh and then we wanted a church to go to, right? And it was hard to find...starting in mainline Protestantism a church where it seemed like the thing that she had encountered was also there in some way”
Belief in a merciful God does not require solving theodicy (the problem of evil) completely; the problem of evil is acknowledged and wrestled with in religious traditions but not definitively resolved, yet this ongoing struggle itself demonstrates the resources religions provide.
“I don't think you're going to sit down and just reason your way into a solution to that problem. I do think though that you can get a little bit further like just even in the example that you cited... I don't think it's just mystery itself.”
A 'man of destiny' can be bad, and one can believe in historical forces working through a figure while also rooting for that figure's opponents, just as one might recognize Napoleon's historical significance while supporting Wellington.
“The reason I laughed at the outset is that it's important to stress that someone can be a man of destiny and be bad, right? Someone can be a great man of history and be worth opposing. You can look back at Napoleon and say, man, he was, you know, he was sort of above and beyond in terms of historical forces and also root for Wellington at Waterlue. That's okay, right?”
Klein requires 'gnosis' or direct experience of the divine to feel connected to religious practice, whereas Douthat argues one can remain in institutional religion without constant mystical experience.
“I need to feel some gnosis from it...Well, I feel I do. I guess but but why...why isn't that enough to say okay the god of my fathers in some way gave me a glimpse”
The university consensus on materialism and official knowledge rejected Lyme disease as a persistent illness despite evidence from patients, showing that institutional expertise can have systematic blind spots, which makes people reasonably skeptical of expert consensus more broadly.
“I had still have to some degree, but I'm much better a chronic illness that is not officially recognized by the Centers for Disease Control. And indeed to say that you have the chronic form of Lyme disease is to identify yourself in some way with you know just the world of everyone from RFK Jr. um to you know holistic wellness practitioners and so on a whole a whole world that is held in severe disrepute disrepute by official knowledge right official medical knowledge.”
Official knowledge is the knowledge considered normal in institutions like the New York Times, Ivy League universities, and Wikipedia, which attempt to impose shared assumptions about reality.
“Official knowledge is the knowledge about the world that is considered normal and respectable in publications like the New York Times, Ivy League universities, most Wikipedia entries. Um, you know, the thing the thing you find very strange things on Wikipedia.”
The lived experience of Trump's followers—from his legal persecution through assassination attempts to his political return—creates a felt sense of riding a historical wave that makes ordinary policy critiques (about tariffs, deportations, etc.) seem incommensurate and powerless to move them.
“if you're on his side through that story... not come away with the feeling that you were sort of moving with the wave of history... it's hard to be swayed by people saying hey guys... your poll numbers are not looking so great... this tariff roll out not that well thought out”
Klein's perfectionist criterion for religion—that a religion worthy of God must be exterminated within 50 years by cruel states if it truly embodied radical divine truth—is an impossible standard that no earthly religion could satisfy, amounting to a 'counsel of despair' that rules out all options.
“What you end up with is a council of despair where you're like, 'Well, the only religion that would be worthy of God is one that would be exterminated within like 50 years of its founding by the cruel state.' Right? Like that's you're ending up saying that a religion good enough to join could not exist on the earth.”
Not all spiritual or supernatural powers have human good in mind; traditional organized religions exist partly to subject such powers to a 'higher ordering' and protection against malevolent entities, which is better than approaching them without such frameworks.
“I and I think that tendency again this is what Christians would say but that tendency is is bad. It's not that secondary spiritual powers don't exist in the universe. There are in fact, you know, angels and demons and things like that, saints and powers that other powers perhaps more mysterious still. But not all those powers have human good in mind. And it's better to approach them through one of the big old traditional religions that tries to subject them to a kind of higher ordering.”
If someone required a religion pure enough to never be corrupted and never compromise with power to believe in it, they would require the religion to be quickly exterminated, making belief impossible.
“Well, I don't think I'm saying a religion good enough to join could not exist in the earth...you're ending up saying that a religion good enough to join could not exist on the earth. Well, I don't think I'm saying a religion good enough to join could not exist in the earth...the only religion that would be worthy of God is one that would be exterminated within like 50 years of its founding”
The religious worldview already takes for granted that the body has connection to apprehension of the divine, so brain-body connection does not reduce spirituality to materialism.
“the religious world picture sort of already takes it for granted that your body the the physicality of your body has some kind of connection to your apprehension of the divine”
Klein values and finds comforting radical uncertainty and mystery—the acceptance that he will never know ultimate truth about death and the cosmos—and prefers this to any specific religious commitment, finding comfort in unknowing itself.
“when I was younger I had a crippling fear of death... Somehow what eased it for me was eventually coming to the view that I just was never going to know. And I don't know why I found that comforting... to me very comforting... mystery and uncertainty is both very much at its heart and to me very comforting.”
The Republican Party is currently a party in search of a stable system of expertise generation beyond whatever Trump decides, and the Silicon Valley faction has not provided such grounding.
“the Republican party is a party in search of a kind of stable system of official knowledge generation besides whatever Donald Trump decides, right? And it doesn't have one at the moment for the foreseeable future.”
The huge challenge for conservatism is generating stable expertise and institutional knowledge generation in a party that is temperamentally anti-establishment populist.
“the huge challenge for conservatism right now is to figure out how you generate some kind of stability of actual expertise in a party that is now sort of temperamentally completely uh you know anti-establishment populist and so on.”
Some Christians hope that renewal of American dynamism could bring religion back, which would be better than pure progressivist pessimism that seems infected with cultural despair; better Elon Musk's optimism about humanity than structural racism pessimism.
“a kind of hope that some kind of renewal of American dynamism can sort of bring religion itself back with it, which I will say is a hope that I have indulged indulged in myself”
Shermer's response to the radio experience was to develop a multiverse theory where in some timeline his wife's great uncle can access their timeline—Shermer treats this as an escape from supernatural explanation but it is itself speculative metaphysics.
“Shurmer in the end works out, you know, he he he wants to have a theory of the multiverse where in some different timeline much like in the movie Interstellar his wife's great uncle is capable of accessing our timeline. And to Shurmer, this is sort of an escape from like supernatural explanations.”
Klein's mother had intense mystical experiences in charismatic healing services within Episcopalianism but the church couldn't provide a home for those experiences; the family searched through many traditions before settling on Catholicism partly because it acknowledges that sacraments work whether or not one is feeling God's presence.
“we had I mean, as a kid, we had experiences like that in my own family where my parents, especially my mother, we were Episcopalian, which is, you know, a very anti-mystical part of Christianity overall. and my mother had these intense experiences in a context of like charismatic healing services.”
Reality is a material world in which humans are embodied creatures; we are supposed to be in this world most of the time, not constantly experiencing spiritual states; the world's materiality has purpose and spiritual experience getting minds out of the material world is exceptional, not the intended state.
“reality itself is kind of like the Silicon Valley guys that say it's a simulation, right? Okay. Well, it's a it's a it's a world that you're supposed to be in, right? You're supposed to be in this world. Whatever whatever God is up to doesn't work if we're not in this world most of the time. And having a spiritual experience is getting our mind a little bit out of this material world. But it's not the way things are supposed to work all the time.”
Embodied existence in the material world is necessary for God's purposes, so most of the time people should experience material reality rather than spiritual transcendence, but spiritual experiences reveal the inadequacy of materialism.
“it's a it's a world that you're supposed to be in, right? You're supposed to be in this world. Whatever whatever God is up to doesn't work if we're not in this world most of the time. And having a spiritual experience is getting our mind a little bit out of this material world. But it's not the way things are supposed to work all the time”
Klein accepts that the universe has underlying structure and order, yet remains uncertain whether to commit to organized religion, finding comfort instead in irreducible mystery and uncertainty about ultimate reality.
“I find the uncertainty radical. And I will say within my own belief system, to the extent it counts as a belief system, which I'm not sure it should, just mystery and uncertainty is both very much at its heart and to me very comforting.”
Klein's mystical experience was terrifying in nature, involving an apparent ripping open of a veil and a sense of the reality of terrifying spiritual forces, rather than comforting or confirmatory.
“It felt for a very punctuated period of time like a veil had been ripped open and you could feel how terrifying these forces really were”
The Republican party is currently in search of a stable system of official knowledge generation beyond Trump's personal will and decisions, and does not have one for the foreseeable future.
“the Republican party is a party in search of a kind of stable system of official knowledge generation besides whatever Donald Trump decides, right? And it doesn't have one at the moment for the foreseeable future.”
The Trump administration in its first three months displays pure and uncut outsiderism without internal institutional checks, exemplified by RFK Jr. running HHS and Peter Navarro making trade policy, showing the problem of having no antibodies against outsider skepticism.
“I think one of my disappointments about the Trump administration in the first three months is just how um how pure and uncut it's sort of outsiderism seems to be, right? And you know, I think it was an open question when Trump was reelected. You know, would RFK Jr. be running HHS or would he be running the president's council on making America healthy again, right? And we got the timeline where he's running HHS and you could you can multiply examples”
There was hope that Silicon Valley figures migrating to the Republican party would provide stable expertise and institutional grounding, but Elon Musk has not played that role to date.
“I think there was a hope that the sort of Silicon Valley faction, right, that migrated into the Republican camp in part in reaction to some of the failures of expertise that you just you just acknowledged would sort of play a version a version of that role. And I think definitely Elon Musk has not played a version of that role to date.”
Michael Shermer, editor of Skeptics magazine, experienced his wife's deceased great-uncle's presence through an inexplicably functional broken radio during their wedding, a phenomenon that did not have an obvious material explanation and affected Shermer despite his professional atheism.
“Michael Shurmer... one of the more famous professional skeptical debunkers... had a... very close to her and would have given her away... passed away... radio that had come from him... broken. Didn't work. Had never worked. Shurmer had tried to fix it... at the end of the wedding... they heard music from the back of the house... there was the radio playing a love song... transitioned to classical music... and then shut off and never worked again.”
Criticism of the Trump administration from within conservative Christianity exists but is not currently the primary voice; Klein expects this internal critique to grow as the moral tests presented by the administration's policies become apparent.
“it's not as though you know you you cannot find Christian critiques of Trump administration cruelty. They just are not at the moment the primary thing. I would expect.”
Thomas Nagel's 'Mind and Cosmos' argues for fundamental limits and problems with a materialist framework on the world; it was controversial when it came out in the philosophical community; it is short and useful for understanding why intelligent people might be inclined toward mysterianism rather than militant atheism or Catholicism.
“a final book that's useful to people who listen to this show and are like, 'What are these two guys smoking talking about consciousness like this is a book uh that you know was very controversial in the philosophical community when it came out.' Um but a book by called Mind and Cosmos by Thomas Nagel who's a famous philosopher not religious but arguing for the fundamental limits and problems with a materialist framework on the world and it is a very short book”
Steven Barr's 'Ancient Physics and Modern Faith' is a book from about 20 years ago that is the best overall survey of arguments in modern physics relating to religion and how reasonable people might think about those arguments.
“the first one is a book called from about 20 years ago by a physicist named Steven Bar called ancient physics and modern faith. Uh that is I think despite being a little bit dated is still really the best overall survey of sort of where arguments in modern physics that relate to religion stand and how a reasonable person might think about it.”
Bruce Grayson's 'After' is a good book about near-death experiences by a practicing physician (psychiatrist or neuroscientist) from the University of Virginia who provides perspective on why intelligent people take these strange stories seriously.
“Since we were talking about near-death experiences, I there's a million books about near-death experiences, many of them bad. I think people who are interested in this subject, interested in the conversation, one one recommendation would be a book called after by Bruce Grayson who's a I think psychiatrist or neur neuroscientist from the University of Virginia who just has a good overview I would say from a perspective of a practicing physician of why people take these strange stories seriously”
Mind and Cosmos by Thomas Nagel argues for fundamental limits and problems with materialist frameworks and is very short, making it useful for understanding why intelligent non-religious people might incline toward mysterianism over materialism.
“a book uh that you know was very controversial in the philosophical community when it came out. Um but a book by called Mind and Cosmos by Thomas Nagel...arguing for the fundamental limits and problems with a materialist framework...very short book which is why I don't hesitate to recommend it”
After by Bruce Grayson is a good overview of near-death experiences from the perspective of a practicing physician that helps understand why people take these stories seriously and why they might unsettle a materialist worldview.
“a book called after by Bruce Grayson who's a I think psychiatrist or neur neuroscientist from the University of Virginia who just has a good overview...of why people take these strange stories seriously and why it might unsettle a materialist worldview”
Ancient Physics and Modern Faith by Stephen Barr is the best survey of arguments in modern physics that relate to religious questions and reasonable ways people might think about these intersections.
“a book called from about 20 years ago by a physicist named Steven Bar called ancient physics and modern faith. Uh that is I think despite being a little bit dated is still really the best overall survey of sort of where arguments in modern physics that relate to religion stand”
Elon Musk has not functioned as the kind of Silicon Valley figure who might provide institutional grounding or skeptical counterweight within the Trump administration.
“I think definitely Elon Musk has not played a version of that role to date.”