The new conversation at Uncommon Knowledge with Robinson, Richards, Keating, and Barnes is both fascinating and fun. I enjoyed the way cosmologist Brian Keating played the part of the skeptic throughout, on cosmic fine-tuning and more. Philosopher Jay Richards, co-author of the new edition of The Privileged Planet (out on August 27), had some fine remarks about when it was a good time to be an atheist materialist — oh, about 150 years ago (at 56:01).

Jay Richards: The fact that we now talk about the universe as having an age is a significant update from a century and a half ago. It leads to new questions. Is it unique? Was there one beginning? Can we talk about the beginning? But that’s a different sort of situation. And so, I think if you’re thinking in terms of worldviews, I would much rather be a materialist where everyone assumed the universe was eternal than be at a moment in which virtually everyone, whether skeptic or believer, says, “Well, the universe has an age, so it’s got a finite past.”

Peter Robinson: You’d rather be a materialist in the 1890s…

Jay Richards: Exactly. 

Peter Robinson: Than today? 

Jay Richards: Yes, and I think it’s much easier to be a theist when standard cosmology says “Well, the universe hasn’t always been here.” It’s no longer a good candidate for an ultimate explanation if it had a beginning.

Peter Robinson [to Brian Keating]: I like that answer so much, I’m not even gonna let you address it. 

Yes, as Professor Keating comments, ideas of a multiverse are taken “extremely seriously.” And those are obviously intended to counter the theistic implications of the familiar cosmology. But the weight of science has shifted away from materialism, away from atheism, toward what Stephen Meyer calls the God hypothesis.