 Carroll, while raised as an Episcopalian, is an atheist, or as he calls it, a "poetic naturalist".He turned down an invitation to speak at a conference sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation, because he did not want to appear to be supporting a reconciliation between science and religion; however, he later took part in a discussion with Buddhist scholar B. Alan Wallace organized by an institution sponsored by the same foundation.In 2004, he and Shadi Bartsch taught an undergraduate course at the University of Chicago on the history of atheism.