A Book with Legs | Charles Murray – Taking Religion Seriously
Podcast Date: December 1, 2025
Host: Cole Smead (A), Bill Smead (C)
Guest: Charles Murray (B), Author and Hayek Emeritus Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute
Episode Overview
In this episode, Cole and Bill Smead welcome renowned social scientist Charles Murray to discuss his new book, Taking Religion Seriously. The conversation explores the neglected spiritual dimension of life among highly educated secular Americans, the intellectual and emotional journey of confronting spiritual questions, and the historical and scientific grounds for considering faith a serious topic of inquiry—both personally and culturally. The episode intertwines philosophical, scientific, and practical perspectives on religion, meaning, moral law, and community, referencing thinkers from Aristotle to C.S. Lewis.
Key Discussion Points and Insights
1. Charles Murray’s Motivation for Writing on Religion
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Origin of the Book: Murray shares that he wrote Taking Religion Seriously after a suggestion by a colleague (Nick Eberstadt) following a personal interview. He realized many educated, successful people like himself have neglected religion, not out of hostility, but indifference.
"There are millions of people like me... and religion simply has not been a significant part of our lives. We aren't militant atheists... We just don't pay any attention to it." — Charles Murray [03:23]
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Personal Approach: The book is much more personal than Murray’s previous works—aimed at those “happy agnostics” for whom material success feels sufficient.
2. On Being a “Happy Agnostic” and Spiritual Tone Deafness
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The “Happy Agnostic”: Murray recounts a period of material happiness and professional success where religion felt unnecessary.
“Life was pretty much complete, and I felt no need for any religious element to make my happiness complete.” — Charles Murray [04:08]
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Spiritual Perception as a Trait: Murray introduces the notion that spiritual perception is akin to musical or artistic sensitivity—some lack it, others have it deeply. Importantly, those “spiritually tone deaf” often dismiss spiritual experiences as delusion, not difference.
“Some of us are tone deaf... we aren't able to perceive realities, not made up stuff, but realities of people with greater spiritual perception can perceive.” — Charles Murray [05:09]
3. Generational Shifts in Religion and Attitude
- Practices vs. Belief: Stories from Murray’s and the Smead family history illustrate that attending church was often about discipline, responsibility, and social expectation more than belief ([07:25]).
- Societal Inversion: Bill Smead notes a generational shift:
"In my dad’s era... the people not going to church were envious of those who were. Today's society, the church people are envious of the ones that aren't going to church." — Bill Smead [09:54]
4. The Anxiety and Power of Prayer
- Why Prayer Feels Scary: Murray describes trying prayer and meditation and discovering a door to something “with way more in it than [he] expected.” It was unsettling because it threatened his sense of autonomy and comfort in materialism.
“Here is this thing that seems to have worked that I always assumed was meaningless... I had opened up a door that had way more in it than I expected it to have. And who knew monsters might lie in there?” — Charles Murray [11:04]
5. Materialism vs. Spiritual Inquiry
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Assumptions of Modern Rationalism:
"From the time I was in college... I learned that smart people don't believe that stuff anymore." — Charles Murray [13:07]
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Challenge from History: Murray reflects that, pre-Enlightenment, “everybody in the world was absolutely certain consciousness did exist independently of the brain.” He later questions his own certainty in strict materialism ([13:28]–[14:23]).
6. The “God-Sized Hole” and Modern Distractions
- On Hidden Yearnings: Modernity allows people to avoid existential questions through distraction and prolonged health, only facing them in times of crisis.
“In that depths of despair, you discover you do have a God sized hole after all... The hole was there all along, but you were never forced to recognize it before.” — Charles Murray [15:44]
7. Philosophical and Scientific Mysteries
- The Question of Origins ("Why is there something rather than nothing?"): The discussion references Heidegger and Charles Krauthammer as points of inspiration and touches on the elegance of mathematical laws as suggestive of a creative intelligence ([17:08]–[19:21]).
- Physics and Faith:
“Mathematics is way too elegant to have been produced by chance.” — Charles Murray [19:21]
- The awe at mathematical simplicity (E = mc², Newton’s laws) hints at deeper mysteries that stretch beyond material explanations.
8. Chronological Snobbery & Loss of Intellectual Heritage
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Forgetting the Greats:
“We have simply forgotten some of the wisest, greatest, most profound works in human history... Discourse today on serious topics is teenage level compared to what it was... 100 years ago.” — Charles Murray [21:00]
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C.S. Lewis and the “Moral Law”: The conversation invokes Lewis’s view that shared ethical sensibilities across cultures point toward a universal nudge toward goodness ([22:34]–[24:32]).
9. Anthropomorphism, Mystery, and the Unknowable God
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Limits of Religious Language:
“Any God worthy of the name is unknowable to us, has to be unknowable in his essence. Because how do you think about a being that exists outside time, for example?” — Charles Murray [25:49]
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Analogy: The relationship between humans and God compared to that between a dog and its owner—far-reaching, essentially incomprehensible difference ([23:29]–[24:32]).
10. Space, Time, and Scientific Limitations
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Big Bang and the Universe’s Origin:
"At the moment of the Big Bang, space did not exist... what drives physicists crazy is they are driven to describe it as that." — Charles Murray [30:04]
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Limits of Scientific Explanation and Multiverse Theory:
“Somehow they've got to say quantum burps or quantum anomalies can generate that kind of energy out of nothing. Come on.” — Charles Murray [32:56]
11. Terminal Lucidity, Near-Death Experience, and Consciousness
- Anomalies Challenging Materialism: Murray details phenomena (terminal lucidity, verified past-life memories in children, near-death experiences) that suggest consciousness may have properties science cannot yet explain.
“You have had an exhibit of this person's capability that requires the brain... and yet we have consciousness existing. And to me, that's serious proof.” — Charles Murray [39:24]
12. The Decline of Art and the Rise of Nihilism
- Beethoven vs. Modern Artists:
“Ode to Joy... is celebrating the true, the beautiful, and the good... you take away an environment in which [these] are no longer defining what artists are supposed to do... it produces really bad art.” — Charles Murray [41:19, 42:11]
13. Evolution and Morality
- Limitations of Evolutionary Explanations:
“Evolutionary theory has a very hard time saying where does this impulse to help people which put me in danger with no evolutionary reward... come from?" — Charles Murray [45:01]
14. The Historicity of the Gospels
- Early Testimony and Sources: Contrary to revisionist skepticism, Murray argues strong early evidence exists for the authenticity of the Gospel accounts, referencing Papias and Clement among others ([46:44]–[49:33]).
15. Secularism and Fertility Decline
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Connection Between Secularism and Falling Birthrates:
"Secularism is intimately connected with falling fertility rates." — Charles Murray [52:52]
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Children as Spiritual Experience:
"The experience of people who do have children, I think more often leads them to God than away from it." — Charles Murray [55:49]
16. The Desire to Belong to the “Smart” Tribe
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Seeking Truth vs. Social Acceptance:
"It’s more about acting and thinking like other smart people… I didn't reflect upon whether that was intellectually the correct position to take. I just wanted to fit in." — Charles Murray [59:05]
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Parallel to Other Taboo Topics:
"If you believe certain things about IQ, you definitely are not cool. And so you don't believe those things, regardless of what the data may say all the time." — Charles Murray [60:16]
Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments
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On personal evolution:
“I have gotten a great deal of reward out of taking religion seriously. And maybe my story is worth telling for them.” — Charles Murray [03:27]
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On intellectual humility:
“Beats the hell out of me. I just don't know the answer.” — Charles Murray [28:08], responding to whether coming to religion later in life is more transformative.
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On the persistence of mystery:
“That doesn’t deny there’s a mystery here. It just means maybe it’s a mystery with a capital M instead of a small m.” — Charles Murray [18:08]
Timestamps for Important Segments
- 00:53 — Introduction to Charles Murray and context for the episode
- 02:09 — Why Murray wrote Taking Religion Seriously
- 04:08 — Definition and experience of “happy agnostic”
- 05:09 — Spiritual perception versus “tone deafness”
- 10:44 — The unsettling experience of sincere prayer
- 13:07 — Materialism as the modern academic norm
- 15:44 — Distractions of modern life masking existential need
- 17:08 — The philosophical mystery of existence
- 21:00 — The erosion of engagement with great thinkers
- 24:32 — C.S. Lewis, the “moral law,” and divine communication
- 25:49 — The limits of anthropomorphic imagery of God
- 30:04 — Science, the Big Bang, and the problem of “nothing”
- 39:24 — Terminal lucidity and challenges to materialist neuroscience
- 41:19 — Beethoven, the arts, and the decline of meaning
- 46:44 — The historical evidence for the Gospels
- 52:52 — Secularism and birthrates
- 55:49 — The spiritual dimension of parenting
- 59:05 — Intellectual conformity among “smart people”
- 61:20 — Charles Murray’s public writing and where to follow him
Tone & Style
The conversation is intellectually rigorous but informal and personal, blending philosophical and scientific inquiry with anecdotes and candor. Murray is reflective, humble, and open about uncertainty; the Smeads are respectful, inquisitive, and occasionally playful. Major moments of humor, warmth, and humility are woven throughout, as are references to personal and family experience.
Where to Find Charles Murray
- AEI Profile: Search "AEI Charles Murray" for a catalog of his writings.
- X (formerly Twitter): Charles Murray is highly active on X.
Summary prepared for those who seek a deep, accessible synthesis of one of the most earnest discussions on faith, intellect, and the persistence of mystery in modern life.