U2 "Window in the Skies"

check this fab vid of U2's new song.
and here are the lyrics, courtesy of @U2.

humphrys in search of god 3 - judaism

john humphrys interviewed dr jonathan sacks, chief rabbi, yesterday in the conclusion of his 3 part series in his search for god.

yet another really good interview that pulled no punches but where 2 men engaged one another with the big issues that so much of humanity grapples with. a big part of the interview was around the question of theodicy (the problem of evil), and, as you would expect with a jewish context, how god has allowed so much suffering with his own chosen people.

i think dr sacks tried to encourage mr humphrys, who seems genuine in his real desire and questioning to find faith, that he's not that far from it. dr sacks said that faith lies in the question - as the refusal of god to give easy answers means humans learning to wrestle with the reality of life, and so become more fully human in the process.

you can listen to it again here.

humphrys in search of god 2 - islam

the second installment of john h's search for god was an excellent interview with prof tariq ramadan, a leading islamic scholar. you can listen to it again here.
i was struck by prof ramadan's reasonableness and how critically aware he is of himself and of islam. of islam, he is willing to take a critical examination of the qur'an by looking at the text from an historical and contextual perspective, and ask what that text is saying in today's 21st century context. of himself, he is aware that he is a muslim living in a western liberal democracy and who wants to engage fully in that democracy as a fully committed muslim.
he seems like the kind of voice we need to hear more of - that the media needs to invest giving prime air time to. one of the great failings of our media, in my opinion, is that it gives too much time to extreme views (of anything really) as extremists create sensation, and sensation sells copy.
i think it would be helpful for our society to hear more debate between people like prof ramadan, who claims to speak for the silent majority of the muslim population of britain, and people like abu izzadeen, who claims to speak for a more extremist view of what islam is about.
see my other posts about this kind of stuff here and here.
perhaps mr humphrys and his colleagues might start to fill their agenda with better quality debate than the current crop of sensationalist trivia that fuels fear, isolationism, and bigotry.
this will not go away by itself.

humphrys in search of god 1 - christianity

from the beeb's website:

John Humphrys as you've never heard him before - talking with religious leaders about his unfulfilled desire to believe in God.

How is faith possible in a world of suffering, much of it arguably caused by religion or religious extremism and to which God seems to turn a blind eye? Is there a place for religion in an age dominated by science?

the first in the series of 3 was john h speaking with the archbishop of canterbury, dr rowan williams. i thought the interview started off well, with the arch looking like he was going to get some of that lovely, 'under-your-skin' questioning of john going; trying to get john to articulate what was going on for him about his search for god. but then it seemed to get fuzzy, and i felt like the arch didn't do as well as he could have. who knows, he may have had a bad day....

you can listen to the half-hour interview again, here.

there are 2 other shows to come on bbc radio4. they are with Professor Tariq Ramadan, Tuesday 7th November, 09:02, repeated Tuesday 7th November, 21:30; and Sir Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi, Tuesday 14th November, 09:02,repeated Tuesday 14th November, 21:30.