The Michael Shermer Show

Charles Murray: Why I’m Taking Religion Seriously

October 25, 2025

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  • Charles Murray has shifted from lifelong agnosticism to holding a Bayesian belief that the existence of an afterlife is slightly over 50% likely, based on evidence like the fine-tuning of the universe. 
  • The current trend of intellectuals re-examining religion is framed by Murray as a maturation beyond the 20th-century intellectual 'adolescence' of dismissing the supernatural. 
  • Murray's evolving belief system, which he calls 'eccentric Christianity,' struggles with traditional doctrines like the Trinity but finds persuasive arguments in the concept of God as love and the non-material nature of the moral law. 
  • Charles Murray aligns his feeling that certain moral actions are inherently wrong, despite logical self-interest arguments, with the reasoning of C.S. Lewis and Francis Collins regarding an embedded moral law. 
  • Terminal lucidity—the temporary return of cognitive function in terminally ill patients with severe brain disease—is presented by Charles Murray as significant evidence supporting the idea that consciousness exists independently of the brain. 
  • Both speakers agree that dogmatism is inappropriate when discussing complex, anomalous phenomena like terminal lucidity or near-death experiences, advocating instead for continued study and open-mindedness. 

Segments

Introduction and Guest Background
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(00:02:14)
  • Key Takeaway: Charles Murray is known for influential works like The Bell Curve and Coming Apart, and his new book is Taking Religion Seriously.
  • Summary: Michael Shermer introduces Charles Murray, noting his background as a policy analyst educated at Harvard and MIT. Murray’s past influential works include Losing Ground (1984), The Bell Curve (1994), and Coming Apart (2012). The current discussion centers on his latest book, Taking Religion Seriously.
Trend of Intellectuals Finding Faith
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(00:04:10)
  • Key Takeaway: A recent surge of books by former skeptics or atheists exploring religion suggests a shift among intellectuals away from 20th-century scientism.
  • Summary: Shermer notes a slew of recent books by formerly non-religious thinkers engaging with faith, citing examples like Jonathan Rausch and Sebastian Younger. Murray suggests this reflects intellectuals moving past the Enlightenment’s tendency to discard the supernatural entirely, realizing their parents were not as ‘stupid’ as previously assumed.
Defining Belief and Bayesian Probability
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(00:14:52)
  • Key Takeaway: Murray defines his current belief as probabilistic, assigning the afterlife a confidence level ‘just over 50%’ (Bayesian theism).
  • Summary: The conversation clarifies that Murray uses ‘belief’ probabilistically, meaning the evidence tilts significantly toward one side, rather than requiring absolute faith. He explicitly states his confidence in an afterlife is greater than 50%, but not high enough to be certain, allowing empirical arguments to nudge the scale.
Fideism vs. Empirical Arguments
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(00:19:24)
  • Key Takeaway: Martin Gardner’s fideism—a belief against the evidence based on emotional satisfaction—is contrasted with Murray’s preference for evidence-based probabilistic belief.
  • Summary: Murray discusses Martin Gardner’s position as a philosophical theist who admitted atheists had slightly better arguments but made a leap of faith based on emotional need (William James’s The Will to Believe). Murray finds leaps of faith bothersome, preferring to weigh empirical claims, even if they are difficult to master.
The Problem of Evil and Agency
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(00:25:02)
  • Key Takeaway: Murray finds the problem of evil unpersuasive because preventing all evil would eliminate human agency and satisfaction, which he views as contradictory to human life.
  • Summary: Murray states he has never understood why God’s non-prevention of evil causes people to lose faith, as eliminating evil seems to negate agency. He suggests that demanding divine intervention against suffering is treating God like a super-advanced engineer rather than a transcendent being.
Historical Truth of Biblical Narratives
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(00:28:38)
  • Key Takeaway: Murray has shifted from viewing biblical accounts as purely literary truths to taking the historical grounding of Jesus’s life and resurrection seriously.
  • Summary: Murray distinguishes between literary truths (like in Dostoevsky or Tolkien) and historical claims, noting his evolving view requires taking the historicity of the Bible seriously. He cites physicist-turned-priest John Polkinghorn, who argues the only commensurate explanation for the phenomena is that Jesus rose from the dead.
Interpreting Jesus’s Kingdom
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(00:49:42)
  • Key Takeaway: Jesus’s declaration that ’the kingdom of God is within you’ suggests a spiritual principle operative in lives now, rather than a future political event.
  • Summary: Murray references interpretations suggesting Jesus meant the Kingdom of God is an internal state of mind or a new spiritual principle already active in people. This interpretation helps explain the passage where Jesus suggests some disciples would see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom before death.
Love Beyond Evolutionary Requirements
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(01:08:17)
  • Key Takeaway: Murray’s wife catalyzed his shift by articulating that her love for their child exceeded what evolutionary biology required, suggesting a conduit for a larger, divine love.
  • Summary: The concept of agape (divine love) was introduced through Murray’s wife feeling she was a conduit for a love far greater than necessary for reproductive fitness. This experience drew Murray toward accepting a concept of God as love, which he finds difficult to reconcile solely through evolutionary psychology.
Moral Law and Self-Deception
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(01:11:17)
  • Key Takeaway: The feeling of goodness derived from virtuous acts, even when not strategically beneficial (like tipping a stranger), points toward a moral law beyond mere game theory.
  • Summary: Murray applies self-deception theory: believing a lie makes one a more convincing manipulator, but conversely, genuinely believing in virtue makes one feel good when acting morally without calculation. This internal, non-calculating feeling of ‘rightness’ aligns with C.S. Lewis’s argument for a divine moral law instilled in humans.
Moral Law vs. Self-Interest
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(01:13:18)
  • Key Takeaway: The feeling of being a good moral person resists purely self-interested, calculating logic, echoing arguments by C.S. Lewis and Francis Collins.
  • Summary: The feeling of wanting to be a good moral person conflicts with purely self-centered calculations of pleasure and pain, such as choosing not to tip a server. C.S. Lewis and Francis Collins argue that this internal moral imperative suggests a law beyond mere psychological conditioning. Repeatedly pushing back on why actions like rape are wrong eventually leads to the conclusion that it is simply wrong as a human being.
Interchangeable Perspectives in Morality
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(01:16:14)
  • Key Takeaway: Steve Pinker likens moral reasoning to mathematical truth, where understanding foundational concepts forces certain conclusions, irrespective of personal interest.
  • Summary: Pinker’s principle of interchangeable perspectives suggests that moral reasoning, like formal mathematics, forces discovery of objective truths once rudimentary concepts are established. One cannot appeal to others while simultaneously privileging one’s own interests, as this violates the requirement for universal application. This framework suggests that moral obligations arise from the necessity of stating one’s case in a way that would force reciprocal treatment.
Evolutionary Morality and Self-Domestication
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(01:19:47)
  • Key Takeaway: Human morality involves a tension between evolutionary logic supporting aggression and the need for social systems to enforce rules against free-riders.
  • Summary: Christopher Bohm argues that morality evolved as a system to manage the conflict between the desire to exploit others and the knowledge that others might exploit you. Hunter-gatherer groups dealt with disruptive bullies and free-riders, sometimes employing capital punishment. Humans exhibit self-domestication by controlling inner impulses, a trait not seen in other primates like chimpanzees in confined settings.
Personal Experience of Moral Imperative
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(01:21:12)
  • Key Takeaway: Charles Murray recounted a personal experience where an imperious internal voice compelled him to act heroically, feeling like a force outside himself.
  • Summary: Murray described an instance where he felt an imperative voice demanding he stop and help someone in danger, even at personal risk, which he felt was ‘way more than evolution requires.’ He noted that while rationales can be constructed afterward, the feeling at the moment was of an undeniable, powerful external command. This experience was the closest he felt he had come to witnessing a miracle.
Shift in View on Forgiveness and Grace
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(01:23:08)
  • Key Takeaway: Murray’s perspective shifted from believing he deserved to suffer for wrongdoing to accepting that true repentance merits God’s forgiveness as grace.
  • Summary: Over the last 30 years, Murray moved away from feeling he should dictate whether he deserved forgiveness. He now believes the only action is to be truly repentant, and if God forgives, that act is grace, indicating a belief in God’s grace without necessarily affirming the afterlife. Asking forgiveness from the person harmed is necessary if possible, but divine grace is separate.
Hypothetical Afterlife: Moral Clarity
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(01:24:56)
  • Key Takeaway: Murray speculates that the afterlife might involve perfect moral clarity, where the burden of unrepented guilt constitutes a form of hell.
  • Summary: Murray posits that death might bring perfect moral clarity, where environmental causes for bad actions are factored in, but unrepented choices result in painful guilt. This self-inflicted burden of guilt could be the essence of hell, regardless of divine consignment. Even notorious criminals like Jeffrey Dahmer might experience this clarity and profound realization of their actions upon death.
Terminal Lucidity as Evidence
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(01:28:17)
  • Key Takeaway: Terminal lucidity, where severely demented patients briefly regain full personality before death, is presented as strong evidence for consciousness existing independently of the brain.
  • Summary: Terminal lucidity involves patients with clinically diagnosed diseases like dementia suddenly recognizing family and exhibiting old personalities shortly before death, lasting minutes to hours. This phenomenon is physiologically impossible if consciousness is solely dependent on the current state of the brain, leading Murray to view it as significant evidence for dualism. Neuroscientists like Christoph Koch find this puzzling because memories seem to return online despite neuronal damage.
Skepticism and Epistemological Limits
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(01:38:38)
  • Key Takeaway: Skeptics should focus on ‘steel-manning’ the most problematic anomalous cases, such as verified near-death experiences during cardiac arrest, rather than dismissing easy targets.
  • Summary: Michael Shermer is encouraged to have skeptics focus their refutations on the most challenging subsets of anomalous experiences, like NDEs with verifiable external reports during zero brain activity. Furthermore, asking ‘why’ questions about ultimate origins (e.g., what is north of the North Pole, how something comes from nothing) can hit epistemological walls where language itself breaks down.
Current Era’s Unprecedented Change
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(01:44:26)
  • Key Takeaway: The current era, driven by AI, gene editing, and constant effortless entertainment, represents a ‘perfect storm’ of conditions for which human evolved characteristics are ill-equipped.
  • Summary: Charles Murray believes society is entering completely unknown territory due to the convergence of AI, gene editing, and ubiquitous 24/7 entertainment. These modern conditions fundamentally differ from the environment humans evolved in, where life was less secure and self-entertainment required effort. This divergence is expected to exacerbate the societal problems outlined in Murray’s book, Coming Apart.