Faith and Reason – PBS – Bill Moyers

A quick, hearty recommendation for this series on PBS, third episode running tonight (Friday). Hour or half-hour length interviews with believers, atheists, and at some point I’d imagine, those in between. So far they’ve run interviews with Salman Rushdie, Mary Gordon and philosopher Colin McGinn. Coming up is Martin Amis, Margaret Atwood and the very in-the-news Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Moyers is damn good at this. And while his previous show, Now, tended to be a more depressing version of 60 Minutes, and a terrible way to spend a Friday night, this is surprisingly uplifting thoughtful material.

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Mark Mauer likes movies cuz the pictures move, and the screen talks like it's people. He once watched Tales from the Gilmli Hostpial three times in a single night, and is amazed DeNiro made good movies throughout the 80s, only to screw it all up in the 90s and beyond. He has met both Udo Kier and Werner Herzog, and he knows an Irishman who can quote at length from the autobiography of Klaus Kinksi.

3 thoughts on “Faith and Reason – PBS – Bill Moyers”

  1. has anyone else noticed how programs of faith are blossoming on the MSM? every sunday morning on our local npr station we get one from the bbc world and immediately afterwards speaking of faith, hosted by krista tippet, which i like A LOT. i think mainstream america is trying to retrieve faith from the hands of the wingnuts, a highly commendable things.

  2. Barack Obama’s speech on faith struck me as exactly what you name, Gio–attempting to wrest the discourse of religion out of the Right’s control, restore it to a central position in Democratic politics.

    I’m of a couple minds about this. I would prefer that candidates like Obama win, so… go for it.

    But, as a non-proselytizing atheist, I rarely see religion NOT central to our discussions, our politics, our media. It’s always there, like the white background, even when it’s not directly typed into the script. I really wanted to like Daniel Dennett’s challenge to religion’s centrality, but it was dull and not entirely convincing in a way that many atheistic screeds can be. Sam Harris’ book on _The End of Faith_ struck me better, but… it’s still a jeremiad.

    So I guess Moyers and his more thoughtful examination will have to do. I saw a little of the segment with Will Power, and it was all right–but I will try to check out the Amis and Atwood stuff.

  3. I loved Sam Harris’ book, and thought the last couple of chapters – that spoke positively about spirituality and mysticism and meditation kept it from being completely bleak in its outlook.

    Apparently those chapters upset quite a few atheists who were on board with him until then.

    This week’s episode with Jeanette Winterson I didn’t particularly enjoy and didn’t finish, so I felt a little silly having talked it up here the day before.

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