Post by angli_fan on Nov 5, 2006 22:25:20 GMT -5
John Humphrys at BBC 4 is conducting a series of interviews w/religious leaders in which he invites them to attempt to convert him to a belief in God. First up, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams:
John Humphrys: Radio 4 interviewers don't have to observe many rules, but we are required to be impartial, not to express our own convictions. Well I'm breaking that rule for these interviews with leaders of the Christian, Jewish and Islamic faiths. Indeed that's the point of them, I personally am involved. I'm inviting them one at a time to convert me, to persuade me if you like that God does in fact exist. I believed that once, but for nearly fifty years I've been a journalist and I've seen perhaps too much suffering, too many children dying, too much wanton savagery to continue to believe it. A God of mercy, any God, seems out of the question. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams is my first interviewee. If anyone should be able to convince me, surely it should be he. First though I want to know if he believes there is a God or knows there is a God.
Rowan Williams: I don't know that there is God or a God in the simple sense that I can tick that off as an item I'm familiar with. Believing is a matter of being committed to the reality of God. The knowledge that comes, that grows if you like through a relationship. I believe I commit myself, I accept what God gives me, I try to accept what God gives me. Grow in that relationship and you grow in a kind of certainty or anchorage in the belief. Knowledge well yes of a certain kind yes, but not acquaintance with a particular fact or a particular state of affairs, it's the knowledge that comes from relation and takes time.
A transcript of the broadcast portion of their conversation appears here:
www.bbc.co.uk/religion/programmes/misc/scripts/humphryswilliams.html
The entire, longer interview (54 min)can be heard here: [Real Audio]
www.bbc.co.uk/religion/realmedia/misc/humphrys_williams.ram
John Humphrys: Radio 4 interviewers don't have to observe many rules, but we are required to be impartial, not to express our own convictions. Well I'm breaking that rule for these interviews with leaders of the Christian, Jewish and Islamic faiths. Indeed that's the point of them, I personally am involved. I'm inviting them one at a time to convert me, to persuade me if you like that God does in fact exist. I believed that once, but for nearly fifty years I've been a journalist and I've seen perhaps too much suffering, too many children dying, too much wanton savagery to continue to believe it. A God of mercy, any God, seems out of the question. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams is my first interviewee. If anyone should be able to convince me, surely it should be he. First though I want to know if he believes there is a God or knows there is a God.
Rowan Williams: I don't know that there is God or a God in the simple sense that I can tick that off as an item I'm familiar with. Believing is a matter of being committed to the reality of God. The knowledge that comes, that grows if you like through a relationship. I believe I commit myself, I accept what God gives me, I try to accept what God gives me. Grow in that relationship and you grow in a kind of certainty or anchorage in the belief. Knowledge well yes of a certain kind yes, but not acquaintance with a particular fact or a particular state of affairs, it's the knowledge that comes from relation and takes time.
A transcript of the broadcast portion of their conversation appears here:
www.bbc.co.uk/religion/programmes/misc/scripts/humphryswilliams.html
The entire, longer interview (54 min)can be heard here: [Real Audio]
www.bbc.co.uk/religion/realmedia/misc/humphrys_williams.ram