Cowen Interviews Douthat

Good Interviewers interviewing other Good Interviewers is becoming my favorite type of podcast. This one is Tyler Cowen interviewing Ross Douthat on Why Religion Makes More Sense Than You Think. 

For Ross Douthat, phenomena like UFO sightings and the simulation hypothesis don’t challenge religious belief—they demonstrate how difficult it is to escape religious questions entirely. His new book, Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious makes the case for religious faith in an age of apparent disenchantment.

I would add the religious-appearing psychedelic experiences, the similarities and differences of meditation and near-death experiences across various cultures, and how kinds of polytheism and demiurgic beliefs might be compatible with monotheism, all of which are covered here. Cowen is not a believer and is relentless in his questioning - and in particular, returning to the question. But Douthat is also very comfortable casting his net wide and then gathering back in and even does it to Tyler a couple of times when he has gone down a side trail. 

I kept sensing a strong familiarity with CS Lewis behind some of Ross's arguments, and the Tolkien and L'Engle references reinforced that. He gets more specific about that deeper in.  A very satisfying listen on the way out to a Tolkien discussion in Western MA last night. 

The Tolkien discussion focused on The Two Towers, BTW, and last night was Aragorn and leadership. Most of it was introductory, I thought, but tow things stood out. Aragorn has a priestly role that shows up quite vividly in places, such as his last words to Boromir, but he can change to other leadership aspects in a flash: deliberative, commanding, exhorting, ceremonial. When you see how quickly Tolkien switches from one to another you see what fine writing it is. I am especially looking forward to the discussion of Frodo and suffering.

There was also the rather obligatory repetition of how the book is so much better than the movie, which I agree with but am tired of - yet this was different.  The speaker pointed out how all the nuanced and spiritually deeper sections he was quoting for this lesson were left out of the movie. Even Peter Jackson can't put everything in, but noticing how often, even how reliably, the deeper meanings were excluded did cause me to wonder whether Jackson did not in fact even particularly notice them in his desire to get other things right - the atmospheres, for example.