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Has anyone else felt uncomfortable at the fact that TV news reporters – flown in from the four corners of the globe, equipped with hi-tech cameras, tripods and all-weather gear – are able to reach distant, stricken parts of Japan more quickly than the country’s own rescue services? And to what end: to provide footage… Continue reading The tsunami show

I was hearing about the famous painting, The Great Wave of Kanagawa, by Hokusai. It captures something of the horror of what’s fallen northern Japan, with its image of the fishermen dwarfed by the majestic, indifferent tower of water. It’s a religious image, representing the very different approach that Shintoism has towards nature, compared with… Continue reading The great waves of Japan

In Doubt We Trust – part 2, today, BBC Radio 4, 1.30pm.

I’ve had a couple of enquiries about what’s new in How To Be An Agnostic, compared with the older edition, After Atheism. (i) Introduction, has some new sections, and frames the question differently. Chapter 1 is revised slightly. (ii) Chapter 2, on cosmic religion, as Einstein put it, is almost entirely new. It takes readers… Continue reading How To Be An Agnostic – what's new?

Episode 2, this Sunday – BBC Radio 4, 1.30pm. “We take things very personally at the moment. People get very disturbed and angry when their certainties about themselves and their world are questioned.” So says the philosopher Angie Hobbs. But why? In this programme the writer Mark Vernon, who himself had a crisis of faith,… Continue reading In Doubt We Trust

Myself, Oliver Burkeman and Robert Rowland Smith talk it through… Enduring Questions: Self-help from Plato to Freud from The School of Life on Vimeo.

The twitter megarow over the new book by megachurch pastor, Rob Bell, is a peculiarly American affair. Called Love Wins, it’s attractively presented/cleverly marketed by the publishers, provoking a top ten twitter trend a week or so back. The nature of the row? Universalism. Is everyone saved by Jesus or not? Very American. (Sorry: Bell… Continue reading So what does Rob Bell actually say?

We had the third Uncertain Minds conversation, between John Gray and Giles Fraser. I’ve written about it for Cif Belief here. A taster: There’s one last thing that death does for us. If it reminds us that everlasting life would be everlasting punishment, it might instead prompt us to think on eternity. The eternal is… Continue reading On Ash Wednesday, consider the gift of death

Listening to the first programme on doubt with a bunch of friends, it was interesting how they picked up on different things. One noted the link, made by Angie Hobbs, between resisting doubt and seeking control. Angie said: ‘Is this really a debate about control and a delusion that we can control the world and… Continue reading Doing doubt