John Snider is the host of the American Freethought Podcast and a well-known atheist voice. He is also, I now know from being interviewed by him Friday night, a thoughtful and careful podcaster. He was quite familiar with my book, The Universe Is on Our Side. And I learned a few things about how the book will be received by probably a lot of people. The podcast should be available on Tuesday, November 16.

First, the way I look at things is different from the way most people look at the crisis in American public life. Of course, if it were not, there would have been no reason to write the book. John did not so much disagree that our problems stem from the Death of God, as engage it as something he had not thought about before. It’s a very different way of looking at things and is not necessarily persuasive to people, especially at first. At least, it takes some getting used to.

Second, people want to talk about American public life as it is happening right now with an emphasis on what the two sides are doing. Well, that is certainly natural. But I don’t think it is going to get us anywhere in the long run.

Third, if we are in a mess because of the Death of God, the idea of asking a fundamental question to begin the process of healing—Part II of the book—is just as alien to people as I thought it would be. Ironically, the point of doing this, of asking whether the universe is on our side, was demonstrated as John and I engaged each other on the question. Immediate politics was forgotten. We engaged at a deeper and more serious level.

Finally, for now, the question becomes what asking a question means and how it goes forward. John asked, reasonably enough, what does asking a question like this look like? He loves the idea of Cosmopolis and seemed very receptive to my suggestion that he is indeed a part of it right now.  

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It is now Sunday morning, one day later from when I published the reactions above. And two more thoughts have occurred to me. One is that although I don’t mean to ignite the debate between the no and the yes within secularism in answer the question, Is the universe on our side?, it is inevitable that my book will do that. So, I will have to spend more time on that aspect of the book than I have expected, when I am talking to my fellow secularists, like John Snicer, at least.

But the second thought is that I have to spend some more time on the potential of the no to renew American public life. So, all this talk about how the universe doesn’t care or is indifferent is itself more fallout from God talk. The universe may not care, but it doesn’t “not care” either. Nor is it indifferent. Those are all facets of human personality.

Better to talk about what is. For example, beautiful formulas in science are often true. Thus, the universe is on the side of beauty. Cruel societies usually fail. Therefore the universe is on not on the side of cruelty. The no group tends to stop. The question is, how to build.

The no side also has to participate in the debate over what is a good society for people. This can be done through If-Then thinking, as I try to show in the book.

Anyway, there is a lot of work to do to build American public life in the no. I have to emphasize that.