In 1958, legendary interviewer Mike Wallace asked America's most influential theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr: "What is your personal attitude toward atheists?" His answer is both surprising and thought-provoking, whatever your belief.

If you enjoyed great thinkers like Niebuhr, please follow @bfcarlson for more. You might also like my Substack, where I go deeper on media, influence, and persuasion. Hope to see you there.

I feel like the discussions on TV used to be a bit more high minded than they are today!

I haven't watched a lot of TV lately, but I'd be surprised to hear an interviewer sincerely ask whether it's contemptible for a man to fall on his knees before God.

"It's as difficult to get piety out of charity as it is to get reasonableness out of rationality." I think that needs to be someone's bio 😃

@TheIndependentU Great quote

Indeed thought provoking. In my 75 years of life I have found charity, selflessness and love in many atheist. You really know what a person is not by what they say they are, but by what the DO everyday of their lives. Thank you Benjamin for a wonderful thing to listen to.

Agreed. It’s an impressively humble and humanistic attitude to hold.

Could have saved myself a few years from the New Atheist v Christian debates watching this lol.

The irony of those debates was they had all already occurred (and in more robust form) decades and centuries before.

Atheists substitute traditional religion with secular religion.