The Next Big Idea Daily After Atheism: One Writer’s Search for Faith
15 snips
Mar 5, 2026 
Christopher Beha, novelist and former Harper’s editor, reflects on leaving Catholicism and becoming a self-described skeptical believer. Simon Critchley, philosopher and mysticism scholar, explores practices that aim for ecstatic, released existence. They discuss limits of evidence, skepticism as a route to humble belief, and mysticism as practical paths—music, prayer, attention—that lift us from meaninglessness.
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Science Cannot Tell You How To Live
- Science can't prescribe how to live because moral and existential choices lack purely empirical answers.
- Christopher Beha notes that despite advances since empiricism, a practical science of how to live remains impossible and unwanted if it removed personal decision-making.
Decisions Follow What You Allow Yourself To Hope
- What we do depends on what we permit ourselves to hope rather than on cold statistical odds.
- Beha uses his career choices as a writer and others' life decisions to show hope drives commitment despite low probabilities.
How A Cancer Diagnosis Opened Existential Questions
- Beha recounts a stage 3 lymphatic cancer diagnosis that intensified existential questioning about meaning and hope.
- He describes surgery, biopsy, and responsive treatment as a sequence of lucky outcomes that made mortality urgent in youth.
