The Michael Shermer Show

Can a Skeptic Believe in God?

February 15, 2026

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  • Christopher Beha argues that true skepticism, rooted in radical doubt about human knowledge, is consistent with metaphysical belief, contrasting this with the certainty displayed by figures like Richard Dawkins. 
  • Beha posits that many debates between believers and non-believers fail because participants argue about specific doctrines ("branches") without agreeing on the underlying metaphysical assumptions ("foundations"). 
  • The conversation identifies two primary atheist worldviews—scientific materialism and romantic idealism—and suggests that theistic belief offers a more complete framework that accounts for both objective reality and subjective experience (like consciousness). 
  • The Jewish and Christian tradition views material reality as God's creation, suggesting that accepting spirit does not require negating matter, leading to a form of dualism, though complicated by modern philosophical frameworks. 
  • Christopher Beha posits that the meaning of life, within his Christian belief structure, is love: being created by God's love to love God, love fellow creatures, and love the created world, though this answer requires constant living out rather than providing a simple algorithm. 
  • The conversation concludes by acknowledging that ultimate questions, such as the origin of existence ("why there's something rather than nothing"), may remain unanswered, and accepting this uncertainty is permissible for the skeptical believer. 

Segments

Guest Background and Book Introduction
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(00:00:23)
  • Key Takeaway: Christopher Beha’s journey involved leaving devout Catholicism during the New Atheist era and subsequently returning to the faith after a long philosophical search.
  • Summary: Christopher Beha grew up Catholic in Manhattan, abandoned his faith after college, influenced by Bertrand Russell, and spent years seeking a sturdy secular worldview. This search involved reading extensive Western philosophy, ultimately leading him back to belief and the Catholic Church. His new book, Why I Am Not an Atheist: Confessions of a Skeptical Believer, details this intellectual and personal journey.
Skepticism vs. Radical Doubt
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(00:01:23)
  • Key Takeaway: Richard Dawkins is characterized as the antithesis of a true skeptic because he possesses immense confidence in reason’s ability to answer all worthwhile questions.
  • Summary: True skepticism involves an absolute doubt about human knowledge, potentially leading to paralysis if taken to the extreme of doubting sensory input about the outside world. Dawkins represents a radical certainty in reason, which is fundamentally different from the cautious doubt inherent in skepticism. This distinction sets the stage for Beha’s argument that skepticism and belief are not necessarily enemies.
The Three Big Life Questions
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(00:01:59)
  • Key Takeaway: Beha identifies the three fundamental questions driving his philosophical journey as: How am I to live? What do I owe others/myself? And what is the meaning of life?
  • Summary: The conversation briefly touches upon the core existential questions Beha sought answers for in his book. He claims to have a ‘pretty good answer’ to the meaning of life, though this answer generates further questions. Michael Shermer notes the depth of Beha’s work, referencing its significant length.
The Nature of Beha’s Book
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(00:10:42)
  • Key Takeaway: The book Why I’m Not an Atheist functions as both a memoir of Beha’s experience and an intellectual history detailing why he found various atheist worldviews untenable.
  • Summary: The title alludes to Bertrand Russell’s Why I’m Not a Christian, but Beha clarifies his work is not Christian apologetics. Instead, it argues that a materialist view of reality fails to adequately answer fundamental human questions, necessitating a broader metaphysical approach.
Belief, Philosophy, and Metaphysics
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(00:13:22)
  • Key Takeaway: Belief in specific doctrines, like transubstantiation, requires a shared metaphysical foundation regarding substance and essence, which materialists typically lack.
  • Summary: Beha distinguishes between philosophical conversion (like Aquinas’s rational approach) and experiential reconversion (like his own existentialist path). He emphasizes that arguing about specific religious claims without addressing differing metaphysical foundations is unproductive, using the Montaigne metaphor of arguing about branches instead of roots.
Skepticism, Fideism, and Montaigne
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(00:21:42)
  • Key Takeaway: The subtitle ‘Confessions of a Skeptical Believer’ asserts that the mode of skepticism is consistent with metaphysical belief, drawing parallels to historical figures like Montaigne.
  • Summary: Beha argues that skepticism is not inherently opposed to belief in a transcendent God; they are not inconsistent, though one does not entail the other. He references Martin Gardner, a skeptical movement founder who was a fideist, deriving his belief from William James’s pragmatism. Montaigne, the first modern skeptic, was also a believer, holding that serious doubt about reason necessitates allowing for faith.
Challenges to Reason: Hume and Induction
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(00:29:58)
  • Key Takeaway: Hume presented profound challenges to empirical reason by arguing that reason is the slave of passion and by formulating the problem of induction, which undermines the justification for generalizing from observed data points.
  • Summary: Hume argued that reason can only serve practical purposes dictated by underlying desires (passions) but cannot determine those desires themselves. The problem of induction questions how many data points justify moving to a general rule, a meta-rule that experience itself cannot provide. This intellectual crisis led thinkers like Kant to seek grounding for science within the structure of the human mind.
Russell’s Compartmentalization of Knowledge
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(00:38:46)
  • Key Takeaway: Bertrand Russell, despite his philosophical acumen, believed his rigorous mathematical work was entirely separate from his views on ethics or God, holding no special authority on the latter.
  • Summary: Russell rejected empiricism because he felt it led to paralyzing radical skepticism, leading him to focus on mathematics and logic where certainty seemed possible. He explicitly separated his philosophical expertise from his opinions on public issues like God or disarmament. Russell essentially framed the ‘God question’ in a way he did not recognize as a solvable philosophical problem.
Ethics, Quantification, and Kierkegaard
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(00:45:44)
  • Key Takeaway: Engaging in ethics through abstract thought experiments (like the trolley problem) promotes a dangerous superstition about the power of numbers and quantification to deliver certain moral truths.
  • Summary: Beha critiques the modern secular tendency to treat life decisions as math problems solvable by algorithms or expert data. He cites Kierkegaard, noting that life must be lived forward but understood backward, rejecting the desire for a pre-determined formula for every decision.
Atheism as Subtraction vs. Worldview
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(00:56:55)
  • Key Takeaway: Atheism, defined merely as the absence of belief in God, is insufficient as a worldview; positive assertions about ethics and reality (like secular humanism) are separate beliefs.
  • Summary: Beha categorizes modern atheist worldviews into scientific materialism (metaphysically material, epistemologically empirical) and romantic idealism (subjectivity-focused, authenticity-driven ethics). He argues that both reverse images of each other ultimately fail by omitting either the mental (materialism) or the objective physical world (idealism).
Theistic Solution to Consciousness and Meaning
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(01:14:18)
  • Key Takeaway: Theistic dualism resolves the hard problem of consciousness by asserting that the mind is not reducible to the brain, as both material and spiritual realities are created by a transcendent God.
  • Summary: The Christian tradition views material reality as God’s creation, meaning it is not negated or denigrated, unlike some Platonic idealism. This framework accepts both matter and spirit, thus accommodating subjective experience without reducing it entirely to physical processes. Beha concludes that the meaning of life, within this framework, is love, stemming from the created order.
Material Reality and Dualism
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(01:15:45)
  • Key Takeaway: The Judeo-Christian view affirms both matter and spirit, contrasting with Platonic ideas that degrade material reality.
  • Summary: Material reality is treated as the creation of God in Jewish and Christian tradition, meaning matter is not negated. This perspective affirms the existence of both matter and spirit, aligning with a form of dualism. However, defining this as modern Cartesian dualism is avoided by framing it against materialist limitations, as suggested by thinkers like Dennett.
Three Core Life Questions
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(01:16:52)
  • Key Takeaway: Christopher Beha’s book addresses three fundamental questions: how to live, obligations to self/others, and the meaning of life.
  • Summary: The book sets out to answer three major existential questions posed to the author. These questions concern the proper way to live one’s life. They also involve defining one’s duties owed to both other people and to oneself.
Meaning of Life as Love
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(01:17:06)
  • Key Takeaway: The meaning of life is identified as love, specifically being created by God’s love to love God, others, and the created world.
  • Summary: The answer provided for the meaning of life is love, rooted in the Christian belief that creation stems from God’s love. Humans are created to love the God who created them, as well as to love their fellow creatures and the world itself. This answer is not a simple algorithm and requires constant engagement in the process of living out that love, as highlighted by Kierkegaardian points.
The Problem of Evil
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(01:18:27)
  • Key Takeaway: The problem of evil, exemplified by personal tragedies like cancer or childhood leukemia, remains a difficult challenge for the theist’s answer of love.
  • Summary: The difficulty of reconciling the meaning of life as love with horrific events like accidents or cancer is acknowledged. The question of why such horrors exist is recognized as a hard challenge for the believer. The author admits he cannot offer a simple answer to the problem of evil in the moment.
Conclusion and Book Praise
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(01:18:53)
  • Key Takeaway: Personal experiences of love, such as that for family, can be sufficient grounding for belief, even if ultimate cosmic origins remain unknown.
  • Summary: For the speaker, the profound love experienced with his wife and children is personally sufficient, even if ultimate questions about existence remain unanswered. It is acceptable to state, “I don’t know” regarding the origin of existence. The guest’s book, Why I Am Not an Atheist: Confessions of a Skeptical Believer, is highly praised as compelling and one of the best reads the host has encountered recently.