Is New Atheism Dying Out? | The Deep

We all want the same thing, happiness. And today, popular thought leaders and influencers are saying that maybe religion holds the key. I do believe that if you follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, you will live a better life. I really do believe that. It's quite the turnaround. Most of us grew up on new atheist history, the story that Christianity only ever brought the Inquisition, the evil Crusades, the repression of women, and Galileo. Christians were naive at best, theocratic church ladies at worst, and the result has been unhappiness.

We were told that the enlightenment, science, and secular tolerance would make us happy, but every study indicates we are becoming less happy the farther we progress down that road. Unhappy people look back at their lives and ask, what went wrong? They miss the benefits that correlate with belief, community, high We trust society's personal happiness, fulfillment, and meaning, and they want them back. The anti-woke atheists and agnostics are taking a second look and thinking, hey, maybe these Christians were actually onto something.

They see the emotional, psychological, and social fruits of religion, but something holds them back from religious belief. So, what has driven this public reconsideration of Christianity after decades of rejection? And is it possible that they might make the leap from cultural Christianity to true faith?

In a 2024 interview, Elon Musk told Jordan Peterson that he doesn't believe the stories of Christianity, meaning the resurrection of Christ, but he considers himself a cultural Christian. He told Peterson that he thinks Christian belief would probably result in the greatest happiness for humanity, considering not just the present, but all future humans. I'm actually a big believer in the principles of Christianity, he said. I think they're very good. Musk's sympathy for Christian principles aligns with his favorite kind of evidence, hard data.

Sociological surveys and reports consistently indicate that religiously observant people are the happiest in the world. Christians are more likely to report that they are very happy than non-religious people, and the gap only widens when we compare younger and older generations.

When Musk says he's only a cultural Christian, he means that he thinks the moral rules of turning the other cheek and forgiveness are more likely to lead to the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people than rules like an eye for an eye or revenge. It's a direct echo of John Stuart Mill's claim that, quote, it is perfectly conceivable that religion may be morally useful without being intellectually sustainable. Musk doesn't explain why Christian principles work. They've helped him in his life, and the data suggests those benefits extend to other people, if not all people.

It's a utilitarian assessment of Christianity, and so it's ultimately not compelling. The trouble is that Musk's utilitarian argument for Christian morals undermines the Christian moral code, making the most people happy. Reduces other people to a means to an end. It promotes consumerism and, dare I say, transhumanism. There is no moral rule that can hold up to the principles of pleasure and utility, and neither will Musk's cultural Christianity. But what if there are more specific behaviors and practices that non-believers can imitate in order to get in on Christian happiness?

Great news! There are. One behavior in particular seems to be driving Christian happiness—church attendance. Self-reported happiness rises the more frequently people attend religious services. According to the General Social Survey data, church attendance is a better indicator of happiness than even wealth. A 2020 study from the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health found that weekly religious service attendance was linked to significantly lower rates of happiness. Deaths of despair, including suicide, overdose, and alcohol-related death, with the protective effect appearing somewhat stronger among women, who showed a 68% lower risk than men at 33%.

So, what exactly makes churchgoers so darn happy? The primary explanation non-believers offer is that Christians, and most religious people, are more intentionally social. In an increasingly lonely and atomized culture, That's a standout feature. Evolutionary psychologist William von Hippel put it this way, money buys a fair bit of happiness, but connection gives you more bang for the buck. Jonathan Haidt takes it a step further, saying the reason religion is such a powerful indicator of happiness is that church communities are, quote, all about collective action for pro-social purposes.

It turns out, getting together in person once a week is like getting together in person once a week. Also known as following the third commandment, is good for us on a natural level. Even better is attending this weekly gathering with our parents, also known as the fourth commandment. Non-Christian observers might scoff at beliefs like heaven, the resurrection, and the mosaic law, but they also talk about Christian communities with an air of longing. In a recent interview, pseudo-stoic influencer Ryan Holiday If you're not going to church, or you're not part of some sort of faith or cultural tradition, you have to do more work.

You have to go more to the philosophical and the traditional and the sort of, even we're talking Aesop's Fables, you have to inculcate these lessons, because where else are they going to hear them? The fact that evidence-based research is pointing the way to religion is a much-needed permission structure. For educated elites and their followers to examine religion, perhaps for the first time in their lives. And they're fascinated. Arthur Brooks, a devout Catholic, offers Harvard Business School students the science of happiness.

His Leadership in Happiness class is a top elective that fills up months in advance. In the 2025-26 academic year, he taught four sections of 90 students each. And there were still over 400 students on the waiting list. It's considered the premier course for Ivy Leaguers on fulfillment, attracting mostly secular students by studying happiness as an empirical question. In the class, Brooks walks his students through a study of his four habits for human flourishing, and they really sum up the secular argument for the thick communities theory of why Christianity works.

Faith, Family, friendship, and work. He couches faith as a path to transcend ourselves, to make ourselves small and the universe large. Family is the fast track to happiness. Married mothers and fathers consistently report the highest levels of happiness of any demographic in the United States. He encourages real friendship based on substantial, not superficial, shared interests, such as your worldview.

The best place to find friends who share the highest values? Church. And finally, he tells the Harvard students to pursue meaningful careers where they can serve others. For Catholics, Brooke's happiness formula really just sounds like a walk through Rerum Novarum or any of the Catholic Church's social encyclicals, just framed without Jesus. The result is a non-Christian roadmap that closely parallels religious moral codes like the Ten Commandments, and will, by its nature, build up thick communities, thus leading to greater natural human happiness.

So far, so good. The problem is, imitation isn't the real thing. You can't actually enjoy religious happiness without religion. A 2015 survey from the London School of Economics found that participating in a religious organization, indicated by at least weekly church attendance, was the only social activity associated with sustained happiness, even more than volunteering for a charity. Taking educational courses or participating in a political or community organization. In Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam argues that religious congregations are unusually powerful because they combine repeated in-person interaction, but also moral rules that govern the whole of life, volunteering, intergenerational ties, and reciprocal obligation.

Study after study finds that while joining non-religious communities significantly improves collective happiness, they are no substitute for deep connection with a faith community. The 20th century can be seen as a great experiment in whether men could organize the world without God. The result was utter catastrophe and misery on an unprecedented scale in human history. And yet, as the 21st century dawned, the New Atheists continued to ridicule Christianity and even blame it for everything wrong with the world. That is, until they started to realize that they had rather liked some of the things Christianity had given the West.

Richard Dawkins, one of the primary architects of the New Atheist movement, even announced that he was a cultural Christian. I do think that we are culturally a Christian country. I call myself a cultural Christian. I'm not a believer, but there's a distinction between being a believing Christian and being a cultural Christian. And so, you know, I love hymns and Christmas carols, and I sort of feel at home in the Christian ethos. I feel that we are a Christian country in that sense.

It's true that statistically the number of people who actually believe in Christmas carols is very, very high. And so, you know, I'm a Christian. I'm a Christianity is going down. And I'm happy with that, but I would not be happy if, for example, we lost all our cathedrals and our beautiful parish churches. In other words, Dawkins and other public intellectuals recognized that the West was at risk of being overrun by Islamofascism and a new pagan nationalism. And perhaps the symbols and principles of Christianity could now stem the tide.

Self-identified cultural Christian Tom Holland has pointed out that concepts like the separation of church and state, liberalism, and human rights are all products of a Christian framework. Our modern revulsion toward the callousness of the ancient world, human sacrifice, infant exposure, ritual rape, endless war, all originates in Judeo-Christian beliefs. About the dignity of the human person. It all traces back to the foundational story of the Christian religion, to one symbol, as Jordan Peterson put it. It's pretty obvious that Christ is a symbol of voluntary self-sacrifice, right?

I don't think it, it doesn't really come as a shock to anyone, but the weird thing is, you know, we put that symbol at the center of our churches. And at the centers of our towns for 2,000 years, not really knowing why. And the reason is that voluntary self-sacrifice is the foundation of the integrated psyche and the stable, productive, and abundant community.

And that's right. The sacrifice of the god-man turned the might-makes-right, eye-for-an-eye values of ancient Rome upside down, a radical ethic that elevated the weak over the strong. The most intellectually honest thinkers get that the political and cultural benefits of belief are an indirect argument that the belief is true, but Peterson in particular here was only ready to highlight a palatable part of that truth. His argument is, Christianity still works, even if you don't believe that a guy rose from the dead, because its central symbol, the cross, inspires self-sacrifice and virtue.

But the truths of religious faith are causally connected to religious happiness, behaviors, political structures, and culture. If you swap the true cross out for a symbolic cross, you're still living in Plato's cave. You've substituted shadows for the real thing. Imitation leather for real cowhide. Margarine for butter. But it's also true that by learning the history of the West, atheists have moved from an appreciation of Christian principle to a full embrace of Christian belief. Journalist and speaker Ayaan Hirsi Ali was born in Somalia.

She escaped radical Islam, forced marriage, and female mutilation. for the freedom of the Dutch Netherlands in 1992. She became a thorough atheist and was admired throughout the world for her courage and intellectual honesty. In a 2023 essay for Unheard, Ayan revealed that she was no longer an atheist, but a Christian. Many readers concluded that her conversion was not doctrinal or dogmatic, but pragmatic and political. And it was an understandable reading. she wrote the judeo-christian legacy consists of an elaborate set of ideas and institutions designed to safeguard human life freedom and dignity from the nation-state and the rule of law to the institutions of science health and learning all sorts of apparently secular freedoms of the market of conscience and of the press find their roots in christianity but as she told another famous atheist alex o'connor alex o'connor wrote the judeo-christian legacy consists of an elaborate set of ideas and institutions designed to safeguard human life freedom and dignity from the nation-state and the rule of law to the institutions of science health and learning While practical reasons inspired her to re-examine faith, in the end, she went all in.

But people will raise this question, Mark. Do you believe that it's true? Does that even matter to you? I believe that it's true, and it matters very much. And that's why I'm not dismissing Joe Rogan, Elon Musk, Jonathan Haidt, or Jordan Peterson for their cultural Christianity. Cultural Christianity, understood as an admiration for Christian values, can be, and often is, a preparatio evangelica, a preparation for the full gospel. This has been the constant teaching of the church. Even those who are not yet believers can participate in the good, the true, and the beautiful, and even prepare a way for the full flowering of faith, if not in themselves, then in others.

The early church fathers held that ancient cultures, especially the Jews and the Greeks, were a preparation for the coming of Christ. Eusebius wrote of how the ancient Mosaic law habituated the Jews to the good life. Even though they did not yet know the Messiah, Clement of Alexandria, who wrote in the third century, demonstrated how Greek philosophers were also a preparation for the gospel. He argued against those who held that Greek philosophy was from the devil, or that the science of Greece was communicated to its masters by celestial beings.

Rather, he said, Greek preparatory culture came down from God to men. Greek philosophy does not comprehend the whole of truth and does not encompass God's commandments, yet it prepares the way for God's teachings, training in some way or other, molding character, and fitting him who believes in providence for the reception of truth. Insert Jordan Peterson for Greek philosophy, and the moral of the story is clear. Christians should not dismiss the appreciation of non-believers.

Intellectually honest agnostics and atheists can recognize, imitate, and even deeply enjoy the fruits of Christianity. Sure, there are going to be grifters and hypocrites online and offline. We should never canonize famous converts, but we also should give everyone the benefit of the doubt. After all, Jesus told us to look to the log in our own eyes before extracting the speck. in our brothers. Everyone starts with the same question, how can I be happy? To put it another way, everyone is looking for God.

The public reconsideration of Christianity is our green light for evangelization. We preach the gospel in the hope that imitation will lead to belief. We're swimming with the current when it comes to pushing the envelope of cultural Christianity. Human beings are driven by nature to become what they were meant to be. We are built for happiness and the infinite. Natural virtues and a cultural Christianity are the necessary first step toward happiness. But if we really want happiness, the summum bonum, we can't stop there.

Humans are different from all other animals. We have supernatural, immaterial desires. We are never at rest, because to be human is always to be becoming. Thomas Aquinas argues that our human capacity for God, the infinite good, means that we are structurally incapable of being satisfied with anything less than the infinite good. Christian belief says that through faith, We can possess God himself. We not only desire, but are created for the infinite good, and all our human natural goods, family, friends, work, health, are also elevated to a supernatural good by the redeeming action of Christ.

This means that Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan, Elon Musk, and all their millions of followers won't be content with cultural Christianity forever. They'll either get bored, or frustrated, or... Push religious behavior to its logical conclusion, religious faith. Happiness is not incidentally religious. Happiness is possible only in true religion, because everything else just passes away. Arthur Brooks says that feelings of happiness are like the smell of dinner, a sign that good food is near, the good food being faith, family, friends, and work.

But like feelings of happiness, these natural goods won't last, a meal that, however tasty, will be consumed. Christians aren't happy because we enjoy these natural goods. We build strong families, we form great nations, and build cathedrals for the love of the infinite good in whom we place all our hope. And He is our greatest happiness. If you liked this episode, be sure to subscribe to The LOOPcast. We bring you a new episode of The Deep every Thursday at 4 p.m. Eastern.