Tyler Cowen: preference

Transcript context

…Sorry, which inconsistency? Everyone has a weird inconsistency. Well, everyone is influenced by the views of their parents on all kinds of things. The soap I use actually is still the same soap my grandmother used when I was a kid. That’s probably related, right? It’s arguably irrational. No doubt, it’s true. But saying that happens everywhere — I don’t see how it gets you to religious faith. I just think at best, it gets you to some kind of probabilistic deism. Well, I guess the argument in the book is that you can get beyond probabilistic deism into what I would characterize as maybe probabilistic supernaturalism. I don’t know exactly the right term. I use the term religion, as you said at the outset, as obviously a contested term. People argue about what constitutes a religion, but I think you can get somewhat probabilistically to the view that not just that deism is true but that there is a fundamental order to the cosmos in which human beings have an important or significant role to play. There are divine or supernatural impingements on our reality that seem significant in various ways. You probably have a soul that is related to your body but distinct in some way. There’s probably life after death. I would say — and people can read the book and agree or disagree — but I think that there’s a preponderance of evidence in favor of most of those claims. Now, I agree that even going that far, quite a bit past deism, doesn’t get you to a particular religious decision. There, I have some explanations at the end of the book about why I’m a Christian and why I think the choice to believe in, let’s just say, the significance of Jesus’s life and death and resurrection seems like a rational sequel to those initially rational ideas. But I think there’s absolutely a reason why religious believers talk in terms of relationship. On the one hand, you’re seeking not just a theory of God but a relationship with him, or them if you prefer, but also in terms of divine grace. The relationship runs both ways. To some degree, it has to be up to the higher order of existence what your relationship to that order might be. But what I’m trying to suggest is, I think there’s a broader and thicker foundation for seeking that relationship than many intelligent people right now seem to think.…

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