With the world’s major religions now playing a key role in international and political affairs, it is time to examine how many and various are the beliefs people have. Within leading religions we now see the development of dissent and extremism leading to dangers for us all. Against this background we are all forced to examine what we each believe and how that fits with the emerging world picture.
Each individual — religious or not — has an outlook on matters such as why we are here, what life is for, whether there is a creative force behind it all, and what should guide our personal morality. They may be writers, such as A.S. Byatt and Philip Pullman, scholars, such as Karen Armstrong, or film-makers, such as David Puttnam, but they each have a thoughtful and highly intelligent contribution to make to the growing debate about belief. These conversations, selected from Joan Bakewell’s BBC Radio 3 series of the same name, constitute a broad and surprising insight into what thinking people think.
